Update on upcoming features and some recent discussion topics and events.

[KaiFB]

Hey folks! We have an update on upcoming features and some recent discussion topics and events.

Capital Ships & Moon Mining - Major Feature Patch Delayed

As August comes soon to an end, we still don't have Capital Ships or Moon Bases & Mining on the live server. These were big features scheduled for this month, but unfortunately they won't quite make it. Moon Bases and Mining are in testing on an early level on the PTU right now and Capital Ships are likely coming to PTU soon as well.

However, they are not ready to be moved to the stable live game yet - we don't want to introduce a ton of bugs by rushing them in, just to hit a milestone.
Once they do hit the live server, you'll be the first to hear about it!

We'll post an updated roadmap next week to give a better overview of where we are in terms of development progress.


Exploits and Bugs

We have discovered the issue behind the recent auction house exploit. Actions, including bans, have already been taken. We will further inspect the wealth gained and consider reverting trades for those who clearly got way too much out of this

All players are advised not to try to hide their surprise wealth as that could look suspicious to us; however our current understanding is that no-one who got rich was actually teaming with the cheaters but it was just a coincidence.

There are also other exploits we have been made aware of that we continue to investigate. It is advisable to not exploit any bugs you discover. Please report them instead so we can all enjoy a cheat-free game.

State of PVP

We are hearing your thoughts on PVP - natural hotspots and reasons to fight have been scarce and we'd like there to be more. Next week's patch will include a new station in a lucrative spot for mining, with a Ship Designer, Refuel towers, Auction House with a low tax %, Ship shops, and terminals for selling items. It will have a very short-range (5km) safezone and limited range insurance transfer, hopefully creating action for miners, pirates, salvagers and traders alike.

Balancing Ship Design time, mining and PVP can be difficult from the safety of the Origin stations, as the travel times can be substantial. This new station will provide an opportunity to do a bit of all these with only a few minutes of flight needed. If you're not afraid of taking risks, this is the place to go!

Self-sustainability for player-owned stations, namely the possibility for ship design and proper ship storage is also being working on.

 

[Cavilier210]

First! I beat kenetor!

 

[Coy]

First! I beat kenetor!

lol

 

[Zooguyzg]

Can we get an ETA on when the new/fixed player ships will be added to the player shops now that submissions are back open?

 

[ChaosRifle]

I really hope Capital ships come with an editor for at least blueprint making on release, or its going to take thousands of man hours floating around to place all the blocks when innitially designing a blueprint. Everyone I have met so far wants to go big with their capitals, and having to float around at 5m/s will be very dull.

 

[blazemonger]

Brief but very solid update. I for one appreciate the priorities FB sets in these matter and believe them to be the right ones for the evolution of the game and your plans on how to get to release.

So far FrozenByte by has exceeded my personal expectations for their presence and considerations on the game, sticking with their plans and as it appears being well aware that prerequisites need to be in place for "main" game mechanics to not only come in, but fall in place rather nicely.

Coming from a rather ad-hoc project which is going nowhere very quickly and where communication with the playerbase is literally seen as a low priority, this is a breath of fresh air, take your time and keep talking to us.

Great stuff!

 

[NoRezervationz]

Can we get stations that aren't bugged? How about a less resource intensive tech tree? Can we get a way to sell unused parts and modules from our stations?

Also, I decided to do the tutorial again for a second Laborer about a week ago. I found 1 asteroid where the marker was. Perhaps setting up a small instance bubble with asteroids where the noobs go for the tutorial might be a good alternative to asteroid respawn. Sending them out to a bare piece of space might be a bit frustrating for a new player. Just a thought.

 

[joecuster]

Wow, doubling down on seperating the player base. This won't fix pvp.

 

[blazemonger]

How so @joecuster?

I do not see where you'd get that from on this post.
Also, what would fix PVP in your opinion?

 

[joecuster]

How so @joecuster?

I do not see where you'd get that from on this post.
Also, what would fix PVP in your opinion?

Remove the price floor for ores in the origin stations let everything crash so people will be forced out of the extreme safety net that are the origin stations. If people want 100% safety then they shouldnt be rewarded with so much money. There is no reason to leave the safe zone right now. People will not leave it to go to the deep stations.

I'm in a bad spot since I bought this game for PVP, but it seems the games direction/player base is headed hard towards safety/PVE. I think when they get the capitals/sieges working where you can force a fight the game will get better, until then there really isnt much a PVP player can do to find a fight besides transponder baiting.

 

[Vorg]

You just want to get people out were you can grief them

 

[blazemonger]

@joecuster
A lot of players join the game because they like to design and build. If they would be forced to leave the safe zone or put their playstyle at risk, they would not even be here. A lot of players also just like to acquire wealth and have no interest in much else. As a sandbox MMO game, Starbase should accommodate all those options besides those that prefer PVP. Expecting everyone to be open to PVP is just not realistic in a sandbox MMO game, there is ActionRPG or FPS games for that.

Besides that, at the current stage of development, too many mechanics are not yet implemented to allow for organic PVP to occur and especially options for non-combatant players to mitigate the risk of attack or have a chance to get away without engaging is not yet in game. And since the roadmap quite clearly has none of these options mentioned yet, it will be some time before we'll see any progress on that front, which for me really makes perfect sense as there are still quite a few much lower-level things to be done.

All that said though, I do understand that you may be frustrated by the lack of PVP options currently in game. I can see the argument that during closed alpha there seemed to be more focus on engagements even when I also can understand those were not actually meant to directly progress into higher level PVP implementation, more getting some core stuff sorted (specifically server performance).

 

[joecuster]

@blazemonger
Yeah, thats fine and dandy but the safe zone shouldn't be the end all be all of money making. The ore's should be cheap and basic and if someone wants to play risk vs reward then they can do so outside the safe zone. Outside the safe zone is too safe as it is since you can mine within the safe zone of a station and just chain stations together. Proof being kutonium is like 18k right now, if you risk it to get out that far there should be a reward

@Vorg I have infinitely more fun when people shoot back

 

[J.D.]

You just want to get people out were you can grief them

So you think everyone who wants more pvp is a griefer? lol griefing is a manipulative term. Kind of a gaslighting term imo actually. especially using it in a situation where pvp IS allowed. which is outside the safe zone. Even the devs said its a free for all outside the safe zone. Lauri literally said its a garauntee you will lose everything you take outside the safe zone at some point. Pvp is half the game. Griefing is protected in the safe zone, where they literally ban even the slightest actions of grief, example would be bumping people in sz. you can attack people all you want to for their prefered play style, but there is a very very big community wanting to see more pvp, which is exactly why this post by the devs said something about it. Get used to it. and stop being a asshole. its funny how these days the pve community has become the bullies by constantly shit talking pvp. i bet you that once this game has pvp fleshed out, our player base will most likely double, because pvp is popular. look at steam pvp mmos and youll see rust has over 100,000 players a day. lol get used to it. its not going anywhere.

 

[Cavilier210]

You just want to get people out were you can grief them

Demonizing other players and generalizing PvP as griefing is the reason why I've had it up to here with so called care bears. Don't be a jerk to people who have fun differently than you do.

 

[J.D.]

@joecuster
and especially options for non-combatant players to mitigate the risk of attack or have a chance to get away without engaging is not yet in game. And since the roadmap quite clearly has none of these options mentioned yet, it will be some time before we'll see any progress on that front

What did you mean by this? Options to mitigate risk of attack? And how the roadmap doesn’t have these options “yet”, if they aren’t on the roadmap, why do you say “yet?” Because I am interpreting this as a biased implication of expecting the non safe zone to be safer by giving options to people who travel outside. What stumps me is that info is not on the roadmap. And you spoke as if you know something is coming that is not mentioned on the road map.. which is information none of us really can know unless told by a dev.. Just wondering.

 

[blazemonger]

@blazemonger

Yeah, thats fine and dandy but the safe zone shouldn't be the end all be all of money making.

I do not disagree that in principle, sure. I do however think your assumption that once this is the case, more players will venture out is not necessarily true. Some will yes, and they will bring these goods to the markets where the players using it will buy it. Those players will not go out to get it themselves. That's how this works in most MMO sandboxes, a good example is EVE where industrialists will buy from the market what they need from explorers and manufacturers who have their operations in "high risk" areas.

The safe zones have some Exorium around the borders and a few splashes of Aegisium but beyond that, all the higher tier ores are not found there so in reality, your argument is moot in that regard.

What did you mean by this? Options to mitigate risk of attack? And how the roadmap doesn’t have these options “yet”, if they aren’t on the roadmap, why do you say “yet?”

What that means is the equivalent of for instance ECM in EVE. Options/mechanics allowing you to reduce the chance of another player locating and engaging you. These could be the often mentioned radiation tech which will work both ways obviously and possible devices designed as decoys to make a possible attackers look in the wrong places or maybe make weapons lock onto a "fake target". Also, stealth or jamming mechanics could be a consideration. All these would not remove, but certainly mitigate ethe risk of being detected and/or caught and will make the risk of this acceptable for those who do not want to "bring guns" for any number of reasons.

As you will likely know, the current roadmap (which runs up to the end of the year) does not have any such options mentioned, nor does it mention any changes to offensive changes to PVP. Obviously, those changes will come which is where the "not yet" comes from. I personally would expect we will see some of these show up on the Q1/Q2 part of the 2022 roadmap.

I've said this before, from my perspective not currently focussing on PVP is the right choice. To be able to make that work right, several things need to happen and be in place first and until these are at least on the roadmap, there is no direct point in bringing it up for FB beyond the assurance that is it going to happen (it's obviously something that is on their internal long-term plans/roadmap).

I hope that clarifies my earlier comments for you.

 

[joecuster]

I do not disagree that in principle, sure. I do however think your assumption that once this is the case, more players will venture out is not necessarily true. Some will yes, and they will bring these goods to the markets where the players using it will buy it. Those players will not go out to get it themselves. That's how this works in most MMO sandboxes, a good example is EVE where industrialists will buy from the market what they need from explorers and manufacturers who have their operations in "high risk" areas.
.

Yeah I've played EVE regularly for the past 8 years. https://zkillboard.com/character/1674115962/ there is literally 0 risk in null sec between intel bots and regular botting. CCP cant balance risk/reward in high sec either. A few years ago yes it was true most of the material was generated in null and imported to high, but still there were incentives for manufacturing in null and bringing it to high sec.

This game however has all the reward in the safe space

 

[blazemonger]

This game however has all the reward in the safe space

If you can let me know where to mine Arkanium, Karnite or Kutonium in safe space, that would be sweet as it will save me many hours if I would not have to travel >650KM out and back for these materials.


Oh, and I know all about the rewards of Nullsec in EVE, I've been paying my subscriptions for the better part of 10 years now through exploration really only would get caught if I get careless or unlucky.

 

[Vorg]

Demonizing other players and generalizing PvP as griefing is the reason why I've had it up to here with so called care bears. Don't be a jerk to people who have fun differently than you do.

Don't be a jerk to those of us who are tired of being attacked and having everything we build distroyed to the point of quiting. I see this in every game that claims to have pvp. People use that as an excuse to rampage, camp and other wise distroy the game for others. "I'm allowed to pvp".