Multiplayer, Ship fueling/range, and starting locations

Discussion in 'Starbound FAQs, Q&A, and General Help' started by greenskye, Aug 7, 2013.

  1. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine

    I'm pretty sure we don't have answers to these questions yet, but just in case I missed something and/or a dev decides to weigh in I'll go ahead and post them.

    I'm pretty sure at some point it was stated that starting locations are essentially a "random low level planet". If that's true, how are servers being handled? Does it put everyone on the same starting planet? In the same general area? Any random planet?

    Given that you can't just warp to any planet unless you have the fuel for it, am I looking at spending the first hour of so of my game hopping worlds and farming enough fuel to meet up with my friends? Or is the range of a ship so vast that I can easily reach them, even from across the galaxy?

    Likewise, if I have a high level character and join a new server (that doesn't force new characters), where does it put me? Does it treat me like a level 1 character? Randomly assign me somewhere? If you get placed next to or near other players, how would it choose which player? On a 32 player server is there anyway to "spawn in" next to the 2 people that are your friends?

    As an aside, I'd also love to know how they convert the coordinates into distances. Given that they're really just seeds and not physical locations, the programmer in me wants to know how that works.

    Like I said, I doubt these answers exist, but maybe someone can enlighten me and/or speculate on possible ways of handling it.
     
  2. Jonesy

    Jonesy Sarif's Attack Kangaroo Forum Moderator

    I believe they're still considering whether or not people start on the same planet. But I would assume there would be ways to meet up early on.

    I also doubt the game scales characters in multiplayer (unless the server requires a new character to be made), as they don't have numeric "levels". Everything is determined by what quality of gear you have.
     
  3. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine


    I guess it depends on how the intro works, but it might seem a little odd for an apex and avian to be on the same starting planet for example. But maybe it makes sense with the story they've got together. And by "high level" I really just meant a character that is on Tier 5 or something. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to assume that a new character (to the server) is really a new character if they're not. Seems better to spawn you on a planet that's your "tier". As I've understood it, you won't have to go back to do Tier 1 quests just because you've joined a new server. But then again I don't really understand how the tiers work either, so perhaps I'm just looking at it all wrong.
     
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  4. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    I didn't think of it before now, but maybe they should derive a character level from the average of the equipment you have equipped and carried on-hand. It could be useful for PvP because you could create tournaments for only characters below a certain level, and even players who have everything could just handicap themselves to enter the tourney.

    I hope that players start on different planets, actually. Makes them all feel more independent. However, experienced players should be able to gather enough fuel to meet up with their newbie pals after just a few minutes, like maybe 10-15, not including the intro sequence and character creation.
     
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  5. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine


    Well it sounds like your ship, your inventory and your character all travel with you from server to server. It would follow then that your fuel is part of your character data. If you'd stockpiled a ton of it on another server, it should still be there on your new server. I'm hoping that fuel starts out as a big concern and then gradually fades away into a trivial afterthought as you gain more and more power/money/etc. It's fun to get that survival feel in the beginning, but after conquering dozens of worlds, I don't really want to have to constantly micro-manage my fuel supplies. Though I still think traveling all the way across the galaxy should be a big undertaking. It's nice for the world to feel big at least.
     
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  6. ShadetheDruid

    ShadetheDruid Pangalactic Porcupine

    I imagine that the same scaling that exists in gear with regard to planet hostility would exist for fuel/distance as well, as in to go further you'll need more (and/or better) fuel. So you'd have the balance of needing fuel in the beginning and only having access to cheap, low-grade fuels, where later on you might have the same requirements - just that the distances are much greater. And the shorter distances that gave you trouble early-game would be lessened a lot just through access to more/better fuels, in the same way that dangerous early-game planets gave you trouble, but now you have awesome power armour (or something) it's not so much of a big deal to go there (but the later-game dangerous planets are still challenging).

    At least, that's how I imagine it working.
     
  7. The Enlightened Grue

    The Enlightened Grue Master Astronaut

    Tired of wasting billions of gallons of that muck you buy from gecko-fart corporation? Good news, friends- we here at Fossil Fuels Federation believe in a better world. One where you only need our quality Antinova(tm) brand fuel to reach the farthest stars*!
    Come down and see us today!




    *note : quantity of fuel needed still dependant on distance traveled
     
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  8. Metalsand

    Metalsand Industrial Terraformer

    Your post is funny, because if you change Antinova to Antonov, it would be a Russian aircraft producer who's first plane was a well known and mass produced biplane from around the WWII era called the An-2.

    So when you say Antinova, I picture a biplane flying/floating through space. :DD
     
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  9. Goldstar

    Goldstar Big Damn Hero

    when he says antinova *I* picture a factory squeezing life energy from Novakids in sick corporate shortcut o_O
     
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  10. Incendiary

    Incendiary Ketchup Robot

    I realize it's a little late, but if the OP is still unanswered, here is what I believe, I believe like was said ship data including location and fuel is saved with the player so saved from server to server, and when you start fresh on a server you start at a random planet just like always, but you can warp from ship to ship. So you start across the universe? You don't move your ship to your friend you warp to their ship and leave your ship behind.
     
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  11. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine


    What happens to your ship then? I wouldn't want to constantly be needing to use my friends ship. Ships are like your personal room where you store all of your important stuff. Using someone elses would be... annoying.
     
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  12. Axe Garian

    Axe Garian Oxygen Tank

    I too have wondered on stuff like this as well, & also whether or not I would wanna have separate Single-Player Characters & Multi-Player Characters, or if it would be practical to use one Character for both...
     
  13. Shippo

    Shippo Existential Complex

    Some servers will require that you create a new character for just that server. But it's up to the server admins to decide.
     
  14. greenskye

    greenskye Pangalactic Porcupine


    True, but my statement was specifically in response to server hopping with high level characters. If you're joining a server that forces new characters, then obviously you aren't going to hop and your ship to help your friend defeat a boss right away. If you're at Tier 8 however having your fuel tied to your character data should allow you to experience the same ease of travel you'd expect on any non-restricted server you visit.
     
  15. Shippo

    Shippo Existential Complex

    Yup, I know, I was just mentioning it.
     

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