I don't care about the new ships, anyone else?

It was actually acknowledged by omni that servers on Linux consumed way more cpu than intended and a possible fix would appear in the next stable update.

 

I actually like the new ships. It seems way more logical than just a single cabin... in this new one you really have your own bedroom etc.

 

Yes, which is exactly why it's important to control the test environment as much as possible. Have you ever taken a science class and had to conduct an experiment? A beta test is called a test for a reason...

I never said the availability of mods force a player to use them. Some players won't use mods for whatever their reasoning, I haven't installed a single mod, but I bet you that I am in the minority. If I am likely to be the minority that also means that the amount of players out there with a vanilla test environment is the minority and thereby beta testing is occurring on non-vanilla environments which will skew / disrupt testing.

Yes, mods give more options and yes they even give the developers ideas about future features; however they affect the vanilla game tremendously in a variety of ways:

1. The more choices someone has, the less attention they generally give each individual option; therefore, mods effectively reduce a players ability to beta test in favor of fulfilling their desire to see x feature implemented from y mod.

2. Mods can change vanilla behavior almost infinitely and therefore any mod can introduce any variety of defect to the vanilla environment thereby tainting the beta testing.

I'm well aware of the status of Chucklefish compared to a giant game studio or other software company. It still doesn't change the fact that a beta test serves a specific function: finding defects in the vanilla environment. Adding mods disrupts that... no matter how old school you think I am or new school you think you are.

I have nothing against mods. I am glad they want to support mods, but supporting mods right now simply works against beta testing in many ways...

A great idea, but look how disruptive it has been to Chucklefish. They haven't even implemented fundamental game features like selling items, but they are spending time including things like a pixel compression machine or skyrails. That is a problem and a prime example on how mods distract even the developers...

I didn't say it was a bad thing. My point was that a mod changed the vanilla environment and allowed players to do things that originally wouldn't be possible. Good or bad result, it's a deviation from the vanilla experience and therefore skews / disrupts beta testing. Yes, in one particular instance it allowed players to save their inventory from a nasty vanilla defect, but on the other hand it has the potential to cause its own defects or worse, mask / hide vanilla defects.

I will admit that Chucklefish may be the only ones that truly know their reasons for doing anything; however, just because Chucklefish decide to do something does not mean they have thought it through and are doing what is 'best' for development. It just means they chose to do it that way... for good or bad.

Everyone is begging for the ship upgrades ASAP... have you not seen the many threads?

I think the only reason ship upgrades are even on the agenda at this point is because the mod drew attention to the fact that ships could be customized. Again not a bad thing, per se, but when the focus is suppose to be on beta testing which exposes that there are serious memory leaks / CPU usage going on, ship upgrades should be much further down the list.

 

The new ships are cool, I don't have a real opinion, but I wouldn't be that negative about them.

 

This was actually the case for a while, anybody remembers when magma planets and such would crash you?

Then again, the important "fixes" usually get pretty popular in the modding section and get noticed quickly if the devs take a look at it from time to time.

 

i just cant wait until we can buy other race's ships so i can have my super huge apex ship as my glitch and future novakid

 

At present the 'upgrade ship size by tier' looks okay but hopefully it will not be the finished intent for ships. If the dev's mean to add ship combat at a later date, I don't think it will be easy to implement from this rather basic ship progression.

Upgrading of systems separately such as sensors (long- and short-range, passive and active), engine (sublight and warpdrive speed, energy consumption), powercore (fuel effeciency, energy output), shields (strength, energy consumption), hull plating and so on, maybe in a similar fashion to FTL, increasing ship size in a modular fashion, would in my opinion be a better way to go, though game balance is always a tricky thing to manage especially on the multiplayer side of things.

 

old ships were cool, new ships are better.

I just wish we could choose between the old and new design, that magickarp upgrade for the hylotl ship was epic.

 

Someone should really start a poll to see how players play the game. It'd have these choices:
* Single Player, No Mods
* Single Player, With Mods
* Multiplayer, No Mods
* Multiplayer, With Mods

I'm certainly not the most active member of this community. And, for all I know, you could be right. But what I've seen and read suggests to me that a majority players (something over half) do not use mods or, at the most, use a ship mod or something cosmetic, like the dye bucket mod. What I've read also suggests that large numbers are playing in multiplayer mod, too.

I have not noticed all the threads, no. But, in my defense, I haven't been able to follow stuff here closely for a while. (Lost a computer to a virus, and then another to a hard drive crash.)

What I've seen from this thread, however, suggests a mostly lukewarm reception to news of this ship upgrade system.

I disagree. Some might argue that people tend to fix whatever wheel squeaks the loudest first. Though, my impression is that Chucklefish developers have their own plan and their own reasons and generally stick to it.

If anything, having a mod that fixes an issue or shortcoming in the game should keep complaints about that issue to a minimum. If I read it correctly, that seems to be the logic you used in your reply. (You seemed to argue that the devs might tend to neglect them as a consequence.) That being the case, the availability of ship mods may have lessened the pressure for the devs to put out this ship upgrade system in a timely manner. Though, again, I doubt fan pressure had anything to do with it.

As for making stuff like memory leask and CPU usage a priority over minor, "cosmetic" things like ship upgrades: I think it's easy to say that without having an in-depth understanding of how they are coding Starbound or, indeed, a professional background in game programming or game design.

Starbound is far from the optimization phase. There's probably a lot of changes to code that will be made that, for all we know, might make fixing memory leaks or other things be redundant (such as if that code gets replaced anyway).

And the only people in a position to determine what should be a priority and what needs testing first are the game developers. I'm not a professional game developer, are you? And even if we were, we haven't had a chance to look at their code or game dev plans. We should be patient and have confidence in their skill and ability.

And, again, that Lua items - mixed feelings thread is a good discussion on mod support in a beta phase.

 

Sure. It CAN.

On the other hand, though, play VtM: Bloodlines. The story starts falling apart near the last third, especially with Heather. Why? Rushed development. Or try KotOR 2. Again, story starts fraying near the end where you can tell they wanted to do more and instead things get rushed. Or the last disk of Xenogears. . . Or half the side quests in Chrono Cross. . . Or the original release build of any MMO that's come out since WoW.

Rushing development causes disastrous results far more often than good ones.

 

I like all of them except the hylotl one.

 

Pretty much this.

I've really wanted to have a full ship as my base since I started playing the game and seeing this update made it one step closer for me. I prefer not to mod majority of my games, and this one will probably end up being no exception.

 

Ever hear of Mass Effect? Well, Mass Effect was so deeply based on decisions, going so far as to transfer decisions between games. Now, Mass Effect 3 had a huge, massive blowout the end ending planned. Then the developers were told that they had much less time than they though, and they had to scrap the entire ending and...

They were forced to implement a really, really terrible ending in which all of the choices you made over the span of three games was brought together into three choices, all of which ultimitely led to the same exact ending.

 

Starbound doesn't seem like the type of game to have incredible story choices. And sometimes all the time in the world makes for a very lazy man.

 

I don't think the story itself was what he was getting at. Moreso that the end of the game turned out like crap because of strict deadlines.

Having goal dates is good imo, but they should never trump the game actually working right. Starbound is a way larger scale game than your previous example Super Meat Boy and I really don't think you can hold them to the same rules, same with ME3.

 

Well I think that because they are not constrained by deadlines and already have our money, that we as consumers are pretty much the only balance.

 

I can agree with that, but you need to define how exactly we balance the development. The thing is, a lot of us have different priorities when it comes to this game. I personally, love customization, lots of items, and aesthetic stuff. Other players apparently don't. I think its going to be hard balance for them to appease everyone if people aren't willing to realize that and take every update as important to someone.

 

It'd probably would have been better if they just did some form of "kickstarter" instead of having Early Access...

 

I've played several mod-friendly games both with and without mods. And mods can really change the experience, usually for the better.

But, the modding community for Starbound seems a bit different. I'm still amazed how many wonderful mods have been developed in such a short time and how often they are updated.

It's not my place to tell you or anyone how to play. But I think people miss out when they don't even give stuff a chance. Have you taken a look, lately, at the mod section? If nothing else, perhaps you'd consider giving a few mods a try after Starbound leaves beta and approaches a "complete" status?

One thing that puts off a lot of players from mods is how frustrating they can be to install and issues, like compatibility. Though, the Starbound Mod Manager makes it easier. And the devs said Server-Client Mod Syncing is on their to-do list. Hopefully, that would have the game automatically install the mods a server uses.