Dev Blog Starbound at EGX Rezzed

Discussion in 'Dev Blog' started by Katzeus, Apr 20, 2018.

  1. noobsqoou

    noobsqoou Big Damn Hero

    PLEASE allow me to be clear.

    I didn't bring up mechs in order to complain specifically about mechs (even though I obviously have some complaints). I brought them up as an example as to why the "feels tacked-on" argument seems shallow and/or hypocritical to me. Many parts of this game have some degree of tacked-on-ness to them (and many of them are just fine). Mechs just feel the most tacked-on, and I don't think there's any way that bounty hunting could feel just as tacked-on.

    I also asked for dev input as to why they felt the bounty hunter feature felt tacked-on. I'd really like to be able to have a starting point for discussing ways to make it better.
     
    laz2727, Kawa and xan713 like this.
  2. xan713

    xan713 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Yep, I saw what you meant. It’s got lots of potential to be fixed. My tl;dr post before yours explains a way how. Many ways possible.

    Community ideas and involvement with a CM more directly at times can go a long way.
     
  3. Corraidhín

    Corraidhín Supernova

    I do have to voice my opinion on this matter. In a game about space travel, how is Bounty Hunting out of context? if anything, it's space travel that should give the developers absolute creative freedom, it is the range of choices that bring attention, and reason, to space travelling. While I simply enjoy going from planet to planet, I am sure there is a large number of players in this comunity who would like to have something else to do with the resources they accrued in their travels, and bounty hunting seemed to hit that niche.

    If you limit what you can do based on wanting to "enhance" what there already is to do in Starbound, there will be less variation and freedom when it comes to playing a game that is meant to be a Sandbox. Even if it's a daunting, and difficult task to develop, this BH system sounded like just the thing to add life and colour to the universe, specially to mech-deploying.
     
  4. HachiYakumo

    HachiYakumo Phantasmal Quasar

    I don't even know what to say...I'm sad now

    [​IMG]
     
    Ickura likes this.
  5. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    If we take your concept of the game as a framework, then the game still needs polishing, even if only to show a few developments to mechanics. For instance, the other vehicles (Hoverbikes and boats) could use more complex mechanics to both make them more useful in the vanilla game, and make them more interesting to mod.
    If fact, I'd say that Mechs don't have that many issues. The REAL tacked on mechanics are the other vehicles, as they aren't usually useful and their mechanics leave too little to work for modders.
     
    Faser likes this.
  6. MithranArkanere

    MithranArkanere Space Kumquat

    The ideal way for me would work like this:

    • On the ship, the map is accessed in the navigation screen, as an extra zoom you can do on planets you have visited. The map there would be simple, a pixel per tile, with a black 'fog of war' covering the areas of the map we haven't visited yet. On multiplayer, the areas visited by allies and party members are partially uncovered as a grayed area telling you what they have visited but you haven't, this grayed area would update less often than your visited areas, and will not be saved on your side, so if you leave the game and come back single player, only your uncovered areas would be kept, but going back to the same server would show the shared areas again.
    • On a planet, the map is an upgrade to the Scanning Mode of the matter manipulator. The matter manipulator would gain new upgrade slots. Using Manipulator Modules to unlock those new slots would add a series of module slots in the matter manipulator window where you can insert tools that can be used separately, but once inserted in those slots they upgrade the Scanning Mode of the matter manipulator to have new abilities.
      • Cave detector. After you craft this, you can use it separately on its own, or insert it in the matter manipulator to release a detection wave when right clicking in the scanning mode.
      • Ore detector. Like the cave detector, it can inserted in the matter manipulator to detect ores when right clicking in scanner mode.
      • X-Ray. Another item usable separately, it consumes energy to ignore lighting and pathing and see through walls. When inserted in the manipulator, it increases the potency of the Scanning Mode light after half a second holding down left mouse button, but consumes a bit of energy while active.
      • Blueprint scanner. Usually the scanner mode only learns Pixel Printer blueprints. The Blueprint scanner learns the blueprint of any placed block, furniture and decoration item that can be learned by picking the item, without having to break it, this allows learning those placed in protected locations.
      • Positioning system. This item is a portable exploration map that shows a minimap on the corner. When inserted in a matter manipulator , a new icon appears on the vertical toolbar to turn the minimap on and off. The minimap would be resizable and draggable over the screen, and it would have a vertical band of tools that appear when hovering the mouse over it, with buttons to change its opacity, make it fullscreen to inspect it better, and shrink it into a corner.
     
  7. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    I don't disagree with you there, but please remember that other vehicles came before mechs.

    Mechs are basically Vehicles 2.0.

    They took Vehicles and went "hmm, how could we make these actually useful?" and they came up with the coding for the various things having to do with mechs.

    And again, modders have successfully made vehicles that actually work nicely, again, I know I sound like a broken record, but Frackin'Universe did this with a full-on submarine and a flying thing that looks somewhat like the dropship from Aliens. These are both vehicles that kick extreme loads of butt in their usefulness.
     
  8. shampuru

    shampuru Void-Bound Voyager

    Depressing news, can't say it was unexpected though.

    At least it gives me and my friends the green light to start playing again without worrying about a new update breaking things.
    Would have been a lot of neat things modders could have done with this but oh well. Gotta cash in on those consoles while they can.
     
  9. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    That is pretty much the reason: If Mechs have so much complexity, why not the other vehicles? Which shows how those ones feel outmoded, as if they "forgot" about them.
    As for FU, the Reaver, IIRC, is actually rather bland. It's basically a hoverbike that can hover a lot higher and has a gun. Flying it feels more like a bit of a somewhat game-breaking floaty thing. In fact, the fact that the game doesn't make it possible to make properly-acting vehicles (Such as an airplane that acts in a way that at least somewhat resembles an airplane, rather than some floaty thing) is why the game could use more complex vehicle mechanics.
     
  10. ncsfanhugeungolos

    ncsfanhugeungolos Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Considering the game is being ported to Consoles, does this mean the PC version will get controller support? I have a hard time playing things with just a keyboard and mouse and would really appreciate the option to have controller input. And since you're already reworking the controls and UI for the Console port, it wouldn't be too much to ask, would it?
     
    Tamorr likes this.
  11. Xylia

    Xylia Tiy's Beard

    Well, as mechs were recently (well, in terms of updates.....) done, then maybe the other vehicles might be re-done at some point if there's enough demand for it?

    As far as the "floaty thing", well. The Reaver looks like it's modeled after the dropship from Aliens as I mentioned, which was a VTOL vehicle which.... yes, is a "floaty thing" itself, kinda-sorta. It's a futuristic rocket engine powered ship that's VTOL. It's not going to act like an airplane, and just how would you fly something that acts like an airplane on your average Starbound planet anyways?

    Let's not get too far into "realism" where we forget that certain things wouldn't actually work within the confines of the game, namely, the terrain found on most planets. Maybe on an FU Tabula Rasa, but any other planet, that just wouldn't... uh.... fly (lol).

    And it's "just" a hoverbike that can fly and has a gun... you know, the two main things that hoverbikes are lacking and the reason I don't use them? That's like telling an outdoorsman that a pickup truck is "just" a car with a flatbed on the back, or a soccer mom that an SUV is "just" a van that's the size of a car when aforementioned features are the whole reason they like those vehicles in the first place.

    Mechs have updated mechanics, because you know, it's a space and a landwalking vehicle both. It obviously wouldn't work if it acted like a hoverbike while on land (because, you know, it walks?) and it certainly wouldn't feel right if it acted like a hoverbike in space. Now I imagine if you could ever fly a reaver in space, I would imagine that said reaver should have similar controls while it is used in space.

    Anywho...

    I do agree that we could at least have some momentum-based mechanics for planet vehicles, but again, I'm of the opinion that planet vehicles vastly need work, because with how spiky and hilly the terrain of your average planet is, they really don't work very well at all and are cumbersome to work with, and that's including the reaver and the submarine. As awesome as they are, I still don't use them because of how cumbersome they are to work with, so I would at least agree as far as how you summon one, the damage system, etc could use some updating and it would be something I'd like to see in a future update.

    But I figure that's a rather low-priority thing to be honest. But hey if they can fit that in, cool. I'm not going to be like the people whining about the mech update or the bounty hunting system feeling "tacked on".... if I don't like/want to use a feature I'll happily accept it and simply not use it myself knowing that other people would use it and enjoy it.

    Just like Hoverbikes.

    I feel they are entirely useless, but hey. Some people like them. That's fine. I personally don't.
     
    STCW262 likes this.
  12. AvalonArrival

    AvalonArrival Void-Bound Voyager

    Just an idea I would like to throw out there, why not just give us 1.4 as it is? (Assuming it works and all you're waiting on is a solution to the whole lets not make it feel tacked on problem.) My reasoning here is that no one said you can't change it later. It wouldn't be the first time nor the last where games have done this, and in my opinion that would keep everybody happy. Those that don't want it to feel tacked on can get an update to it later and those that want to just play with the update can. See? Everybody is happy this way! Well, except those that complain just to complain and those that want bounty hunting to be really well connected with the rest of the game right now.... But still a great idea in my opinion nonetheless!
     
    Speed Lightning and The Squid like this.
  13. The Squid

    The Squid Oxygen Tank

  14. davoker

    davoker Cosmic Narwhal

    The well-used Hoverbikes, can make you travel the whole planet very fast, if you know how to use it properly, you can climb mountains and buildings, the buoyancy of those vehicles is more versatile than it seems, you just have to know how to use it.

    I particularly do not use them, but I have tried them several times when I get bored, to go crazy for some planet until the vehicle breaks, and I have been able to scale "everything" that has been put to me by the means, even the outgoing ones of mountains that do not seem to be able to climb with a vehicle.

    Question of skill xD
     
  15. BatPetersAKAEnderzilla747

    BatPetersAKAEnderzilla747 Pangalactic Porcupine

    2,3, and 4 sounds like the same as "fly to a new tier of planet, mine up a bit of ore, make new armor, kill newest boss, rinse repeat". The Eldritch dungeon in FU is nice though.
     
  16. xan713

    xan713 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    Ziver7 and The Squid like this.
  17. spiraluna

    spiraluna Big Damn Hero

    CF are creators and artists. They care about the vision and image of the product they release. They're likely not going to release something they're not happy with just because we've been waiting and they've been poor with communicating updates. It seems that they care about the long term integrity of their product which in my mind is a good thing.

    Those of us that are unhappy and demand an update now, CF have already gotten their money. Posting a half-arsed update affects new customers though and potentially their brand. Those people complaining release update now or we walk (as an example), watch how many of them come back to playing the game once they release an update they're happy with or even praise CF once again.

    It's just frustrating and disappointing having to wait so long since the last update and being told we won't get what we're expecting and we have to wait even longer. There are other games. We can be patient, or we can just walk.
     
  18. rdcl170

    rdcl170 Aquatic Astronaut

    Yep, this ends my support for this game and company. Lame. Developers have gone a horrible route.
     
    Jumbum likes this.
  19. CacklePhish

    CacklePhish Void-Bound Voyager

    Why are you bothered by bounty hunting being "tacked on"? Like, most features of your game feel like that.

    Whoa, took you a loooong time to see that.
     
  20. STCW262

    STCW262 Heliosphere

    My complaint with the Reaver is more that it shows how the game doesn't have vehicles with more complex behaviors. In the Reaver's case, you can't make it act like a plane if you want, even through it would allow for more interesting maneuvers. This, obviously, restricts how can a modder make a vehicle. For instance, what if you want it to not hover, but only fly? What if you want it to have several weapons that can be switched around? What if you want a vehicle that can act as several ones at the same time? What if you want to add a vehicle that isn't a Mech, but can also be upgraded and called down? The game could make adding those easier.
     

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