Hey guys.
The points mentioned here are all valid. There is however a large portion of the player base that has quit because of other reasons. Most have left their feedback on steam, but I greatly respect the Frozenbyte developers and believe that Starbase has the tech and the potential to be great, so here it goes.
Many people here try to divide the player base into PvP vs PvE, veteran vs new, etc. I'd argue that most PvE players simply don't play Starbase and most new players aren't new a week later. The major divide is between solo players and groups. The solo players are many. And they have left the building.
Why, though? It's all been said many times, and I believe that Frozenbyte is setting the right priorities here.
Most solo players came here because of three things: building, exploring and shooting things.
1. Building. Yes, they could have simply learned the space ship creator. They didn't bother though, because of time. The time investment is just too big on so many levels, starting with the initial learning curve, the ship build itself, then the repair, then the refinement and reiteration, and so on. People expected something like crossout, or worlds adrift, not all these cables, pipes and bolts. That's why the easy build mode and the repair system are coming, they’re just not there yet. However, one thing: as long as the ships created via easy build mode are inferior to the SSC-ships, regarding functionality as well as looks, people won't stay.
2. Exploring. Two space stations and a city with well-known coordinates are simply not enough, by far. All there is to find, to my knowledge, are asteroids and derelict ships, already stripped from anything of value. Please Frozenbyte, take the SSC. Transform it to a large space station creator, make it a standalone tool and give it to your player base. Much like the island creator of worlds adrift. Let your most talented builders create. Puzzles, mazes, automated defense systems, enigma-like cypher protected doors, you name it. Put some loot in there, on a very large respawn timer and player-specific, so everybody gets something and can't farm it. Then throw the creations that pass your quality gate somewhere far into the belt. PvP hot spots will emerge with time, after some of these stations get found, but players have to have the hope to find something not being camped by armed crews.
3. Shooting things. Most who came here want to PvP and they want to learn. It is impossible as of now, because of two things: the non-existing fighting chance against crews and the cost of death. The simple fact that autocannons are mouse-controlled and ships are a lot clunkier, is a game-killer from a solo pilot point of view. And I don’t believe that the improved mouse controls for ships on the roadmap will alleviate this, if you don’t introduce significant lag to the autocannon aiming.
As a matter of fact, there should be some mechanics that put groups to a significant disadvantage proportional to their size, just like albion is trying to reduce the power of zergs and to support small scale and solo play. Everybody seems to want to find PvP targets easier, but this is a very sharp double edged laser sword capable of killing the rest of the population. I find this post about non-consensual PvP from an albion dev worth reading:
https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/72770-Balancing-Non-Consensual-PvP/.
Speaking of which, what we have here is the black zone. Most solo players enjoy the red zone though. Factions are essential. Less because of the social aspects but primary because of the emergence of allies without the need to join groups. Solo players will not follow the usual advice to join a group, they would rather quit before they do it, or will do it much, much later. See worlds adrift, last oasis, dual universe and all the other “sandbox open world pvp” games for reference, regardless of genre. Player driven alliances generally only work temporary, in settings like rust – but not on persistent worlds. Because of this:
https://www.raphkoster.com/2017/09/22/31098/. I personally find this analysis of the last oasis creators spot-on:
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/903950/view/2927865187897634697. Another enlightening read as to why forced grouping doesn’t work is this theory about the trust spectrum:
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-trust-spectrum.
Regarding cost of death: how is one supposed to learn to shoot things, if every encounter of one minute shooting requires hours of grind for a new ship and travel time? I don’t know the solution to this, maybe an insurance system like eve and elite dangerous, maybe not.
There is much more one can say about this topic, but it’s all been said and written, many times.
TL;DR: goto 1.
Peace. Out.
Oh well.