Hello players,
this update is something very special. While we are still working on a lot of new features, we took the time to take an indepth look at several systems. Mainly the graphics and the network code.
A lot of this game’s choices in terms of style and design have been made to make the game as big and as scalable as possible. This is the whole reason we stayed with the block only system as opposed to detailed polygon graphics, as blocks present a unique set of optimizations and designs that would be lost in a conventional LoD (level of detail) polygon system.
To tell the results upfront, we managed to increase the performance of both graphics and network immensely.
In numbers, this means an almost doubled framerate (depending on hardware), and a decrease of average network traffic to about 10% of what it was previously (profiled by stress tests on the server).
These kind of improvements are some of the most technical ones to be made for any program. A vast amount of hours went into analyzing and profiling, while in other areas like the network that even required to write additional modules to make analyzation even possible.
A big thanks to servers who gave us profiling information as well as the tester team and players creating stress tests to verify and improve the changes.
For any one interested, there is a more technical explanation of methods used and designs on the end of this post.
http://i.imgur.com/tH41b5L.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/iBhDlqw.jpg
But while we have a lot of more features in queue to come very soon, there are also some additional little features added to this version:
Custom Starter Gear
Servers are now able to define their own starter gear for new players. This includes credits, blocks, meta items, and blueprints (filled or not).
To edit the starter items, after the first start in this version a GameConfig.xml will appear in the starmade base directory, which should be fairly self-explanatory to edit.
Forcefield doors
This new door types added by kupu adds wonderful looking new doors.
http://i.imgur.com/y4RvVBu.png
http://i.imgur.com/Yel5Iwd.png
http://i.imgur.com/0dmeJN0.png
Faction permission changes
A lot more options for customization has been added to faction roles. There are now permissions to control relationship changes (declare war, personal enemies, etc), faction news posting, taking/abandoning a homebase, and territory claiming/clearing. If you are a faction leader be sure to check and adapt your roles accordingly.
Balance changes
Calbiri, Lancake, as well as the tester team modified and gave feedback to a whole bunch of balance changes.
Hull blocks have been buffed in order to improve the survivability of ships:
- Normal hull has 75 HP now.
- Standard armor now has 60 armor and 100 HP, bringing it to 250 EHP.
- Advanced armor now has 75 armor and 250 HP, bringing it to 1000 EHP.
Power supply beams have been buffed to bring it back to near pre-rework levels.
They are slightly less effective compared to what they used to be but they still offer around 5 to 6 times more power regen than their onboard equivalent in pure power regen blocks.
- Power supply/tick: 40 -> 240
- Power consumption/tick: 50 -> 270
The piercing defensive effect cap has been decreased but the amount of blocks you need to achieve max percentage has been decreased. This will bring the max achievable EHP to 2500!
- Shield capacitors have now 2 times more shield HP, this is to make fights last longer and increase the chance of surviving high alpha damage.
- Regen rate has remained unchanged.
- Shield Capacity Total Mul: 55 -> 110
- Warheads (dis-integrators) have doubled block damage.
Missile + Pulse
- Radius has been nerfed to 48, with explosive you can get 58
- Slightly faster, nerf: 4 -> 3
- Does more damage, buff: 1 -> 2
Missile + Beam
- Slower so anti missile turrets have less chance of missing buff: 2 -> 1
Other changes
- Ingots and crystals are 2 times cheaper to make it easier to craft advanced and crystal armor.
- Shield cap and rechargers are 2 times cheaper.
- HP of the more expensive systems, mainly weapons and support tools, has been increased by a factor of 2-3 in most cases.
Gameplay changes
The punch through damage system now has an effective penetration depth of around 7 blocks.
It used to make the other hull damage effects more or less obsolete and is in large groups gamebreaking. It is now equal to the piercing and explosive system in terms of block destruction per hit.
The piercing effect blocks are now switched over to the punch through damage system, with its double damage for blocks it would be ideal to use this system to destroy heavily armored ships.
This is also great for low damage weapons but with the drawback of doing no to low shield damage, depending on effect ratio.
The punch through effect blocks use the piercing damage system, making it capable of damaging blocks below armor without really destroying the armor itself first. It did lose its armor efficiency bonus though so if you want to destroy armor, piercing is the way to go. It doesn’t have a shield debuff though.
Explosive has not changed. It doesn’t exactly penetrate but it can damage a wide surface area with a minimum of weapon groups.
To clear things up, these are the current 3 hull damage types (not blocks):
- Piercing damage system: Damage applied on a block gets halved and goes to the next block. This will automatically lead to a softcap at around 7 blocks deep. This also makes it able to destroy/damage blocks below armor plates without destroying that first.
- Punchthrough damage system: Damage applied on a block gets deducted with that block’s EHP, then it is halved and passes to the next block. This also has a softcap at around 7 blocks.
- Explosive damage system: ⅙ of damage gets applied to all touching blocks.
Unfortunately these changes do require an overhaul in ship design. Because of the stronger shields, and more durable hull, it would be highly recommended to put more armor and weapon blocks on your ships and sacrifice some shields.
Any constructive feedback is appreciated.
[1]Bugfixes
Bug 1769: Nocx Charged Circuit Wedge (typo bug)
Bug 1538: Brown paint can be bought in the shop; it can't be crafted
Bug 1285: Active circuit wedge have no animated texture
Bug 834: Ice Crystal Wedges missing from shops
Bug 565: Pentas are actually Heptas
All fixed prices have been adjusted so that they are around 1.5-3 times higher than their dynamic price.
There also have been some bug fixes to combat the slowdown of sound played, as well as more rare problems like driver crashes from the new GUI, and a lot of smaller bugfixes that caused crashes and glitches.
That's it for now, thanks for playing StarMade,
Schema & the Schine Team