To start off, this is truly one of my all-time favorite games. I have played it for thousands of hours (approaching 10K) and have seen almost every phase of development. I love the aspects of an open-world survival game with a sci-fi setting. This game checks all of the boxes for me: FPS survival Crafting Building This game stood out as it was very harsh in the survival aspect, but very forgiving in the building aspect. Like all survival games there is a point where the game shifts from surviving to thriving, but Empyrion still kept that end-game portion satisfying with the ability to spread out and conquer the galaxy. With all of that said, I feel as though the game is losing it’s niche. Everything that has made this game stand out is being watered down and it is fading into the crowd now. There are already games that attempt to apply realistic physics to sci-fi structure crafting. There are also games that attempt to limit functionality of vessels to size/class/etc. The latest versions of this game seem to be following that same path now. This is deviating from what has drawn much of the audience to this game. The creativity of builders is now being limited. This is truly a shame as there are great new blocks being introduced, but at the same time there is a very significant deterrent to using them. If the end goal is to force builders into making specialized ships I think that is fine. There is a much easier way to do that though. There can simply be a cap on max tools and weapons. Unlike the category system now, ( artillery, rockets, multitools, etc) all of these components can simply be put into the same category. For example, a ship can have shields, a warp drive and 6 drills, but will only have slots left for maybe 1 or 2 weapon turrets after that. Again, this idea would only apply if the end goal is truly to force vessels to be more specialized. If not for that reason, I can’t see why the new CPU limit was introduced. Speaking to the CPU limit and Weight/Volume – Again, I think this is a deviation from the path this game was headed down. Players want fleet battles in space with their creations being pitted against Zirax ships or other players’ creations. Other players want to mine and loot the resources on planets. The latest additions to the game only serve to lessen these experiences. I am a content creator on a public server. My main goal is to get players to interact with each other. The missions I have created involve civil/trade interactions and warlike/aggressive interactions. The latest version of the game has made normal interactions harder and any PVP interactions impossible. Again, this seems to be due to the constant recalculation of CPU and possibly Thrust and Weight/Volume. This is made even more frustrating since, even when disabled, those calculations are still being made. I just don’t think things like realistic thruster placement or realistic weight and volume matter to the Empyrion player base. Again, this game has found a great niche. I would suggest capitalizing on what makes Empyrion stand out, rather than trying to add features that already exist in other games. To that end, I would like to offer some suggestions to this post: Remove the CPU requirement. As I suggest above. There can be a max “Component” allowance. This should be a slider as well on the game settings. Just to re-iterate – a max component setting would solve the problem of having too many components on a vessel without having to have a constant recalculation of CPU usage and such. Remove the Weight and volume calculations. This can be handled more eloquently with stack sizes. If the goal is to stop the player to be able to carry around massive amounts of material or have millions of ingots rolling around in a single cargo container then just put a hard cap on inventory slots for each type of cargo container. Then with unique stack sizes for each item it will still force players to adapt to a more realistic sense of weight and volume. If the server or single player wants to change this they can do so within the config file so no one will be able to complain either. Remove the mass/thrust calculations. This simply hampers the builders’ ability to create ships with interesting designs. Most everyone that plays this game realizes ships like the Star Destroyers or the Enterprise from Star Trek are completely unfeasible to use in real life since there is no way to ever balance the thrust on a vessel like that in space, and certainly no way to overcome any gravity on a planet. However, that’s not why we play this game. We want to make those ships, or ships like those that look really cool! So if that means we have to sacrifice realism to get there I can’t see ANYONE complaining about it. This game has an AMAZING system for building structures and vessels and the constant creativity from the community should be encouraged as much as possible. Concentrate on what this game does best! This game provides an amazing platform for builders and content creators. Even with that, it has a great built in story that allows players to simply play the game right out of the box and still have a rich experience. With that in mind I would like to make a few more suggestions that I feel move the game forward in the direction it already is headed, but with a more focused approach. Add an adjustment for NPC, or Admin cored structures to go above and beyond the normal game limits. Meaning – adding the ability to have massive cities without breaking the game. There is no need for constant checks because the core would negate any calculations for Structural Integrity or power usage or anything else like that. If it was possible to replace LOD with a fog or a blur that would help with this as well. Add greater control over the player character. This game already has fantastic character animations compared to other survival games. The ability to crouch, go prone, or peek would add to the personal experience attaching the player to their character. I would personally also like to see emotes and a bit of interaction with the devices. Showers or bathroom visits could get a bit dicey! Really what I mean is the player would have to actually sit for 30 seconds to recover stamina. The player would have to enter the armor locker to attach the armor. That kind of interaction would go a long way toward immersion. Along with the above, a greater degree of character customization could be a step up. Clothing style and armor customization would drive immersion as well. I would also see it as a game mechanic. For example – you can’t enter certain civil areas wearing full combat armor unless you wish to be treated harshly. Even wearing the wrong color could get you killed by certain aliens (or players). These last few suggestions are just part of my own personal vision of what would make this great game better. I’m sure there are others that think this would be a waste of time and they might be right. The point is – I want this game to keep focusing on the elements that make it great! A truly fun Space survival experience! If concept art or Blender models or sound effects or anything else would help just let me know. I can’t make all of these suggestions and not be willing to help bring them to fruition. To all of you (players and Devs) thank you all for reading this long-winded post and for your work on this game.
I like cpu. Otherwise with cpu off the first ship i make is a small vessel cube with 20 miniguns on the front of it. All challenge of the game is gone at that point. There is no need to go prone in this game. You talk about the game being unique, yet you want to attach those mechanics from MANY MANY other shooter games into this for what?
To make it into a unique SURVIVAL game. I don't want this to be Call of Duty or Star Wars Battlefront. At the same time - even attacking NPCs on foot is a bit rough without the basic controls of crouching. Any addition of more player controls would have to be secondary from the actual game breaking issue of CPU though. As for your first point that would be handled by the suggestions i made in my first post. Ships should have a component allowance. If it were even possible to make a small vessel cube with 20 miniguns on it currently (it isn't) there should never be room for anything else on that vessel. So no warp nor shields. No cargo boxes nor armor lockers. ...and so on. The CPU idea was an interesting way to try to solve that same problem. The unfortunate side effect is that the constant recalculations of that and thrust have destroyed any player interactions in this game. To that end, I have made some other suggestions.
FYI if it were possible to mount more Gatling Guns than allowed on a SV the current CPU system would allow about 40 (including all other components like armor locker, constructor, cargo boxes, etc) to be placed onto a large SV cube style ship. So even without the hard cap on components the CPU system isn't working as intended.
Not actually sure what my total play time is, but it's going to be pretty decent. I've been here since Plastic was a thing and Phoenix Fern Fronds were using to making medicine... I disagree that CPU is limiting creativity. In fact, I feel that it is Challenging creativity. It's forcing people to become creative in how they solve problems, rather than promoting complacency. It's quite easy to survive when you have a ship the size of city, with Constructors in every hall, more weapon turrets than a small fleet, 20 backup generators, 80 refrigerators stuffed with food grown in 4 acre indoor gardens (onboard gardens), four fully outfitted hospitals and parking for a fleet of 20 more ships. That's not surviving or thriving, that's posh excess. Yes, we use to be able to build moon-sized ships that could support thousands comfortably. Now we're being asked/forced to think about what we install, because of a finite resource: CPU. I liken it to something I can relate to directly: I am a yachtman. I own two boats, one a 1966 Western Fairliner. It's a nice enough boat, comfortable enough for two, and great for a weekend away. My space is limited aboard, I don't have a fully featured gourmet galley, and only one head. I also own a 2007 Azimut Atlantis. It's loaded with comforts, has a huge galley with cooktop, full-sized refrigerator, two bars, a 42" flat screen TV in the salon, 2 full state rooms and 3 berths, 3 heads, and enough automation on the bridge that, as a captain, I need do little more than just sit there should a manual course correction be required. On my antique, I have to be creative. To compensate for the lack of a galley, I use an inductive burner, a microwave, an electric steamer and an electric griddle for all my cooking needs. I modified the table with a piston lift so I can drop it, and use the roll-out benches as a berth if I have company aboard. I also use an iPad to run a chart-plotter app, and I do all my navigating manually. Why? Because I have to. I'm forced to be creative. On my Azimut, I just get to "be", and don't have to think about much more than where I want to go and what I want to eat or drink. I'm also planning ahead, and have plans to buy a third boat, something in the range of 60-80 feet, as a live-aboard and give up terrestrial living entirely. This is going to challenge my creativity in other ways, as I won't have the square footage a terrestrial house does, and will come with its own set of new challenges (How does one get high-speed internet onboard a larger ship without paying a small fortune for Marine Internet? I know the answer, because it's one of the challenges I've had to consider already for my other boats). My point is, too many people just want to see CPU as some sort of impenetrable wall, rather than a challenge to overcome. It's really not so bad to get use to using - and here's the real kicker, one that too many of the PvP community just won't think about: If you can no longer build ships with 18 layers of armor and 900 turrets, neither can your opponents. What you thought you needed before you simply no longer need, because you won't have coming at you either.
Fly system forcing people to put engine on single way just make the game poor in terms of diversity and limit the creativity and production of interessing design.....dot the rest is fluff.
I can gladly disprove no one is "forced" to "put engine on single way". I've build plenty of vessels, from HV's to CV's with multiple engines, in multiple locations, that work just fine, with M&V and CPU enabled.
I'll agree with you on the fact that the current physics for ships is basically punishing people for not having borg cube-ships. I've given up trying to make anything remotely "nice", and going back to (effectively) rectangles/cubes with maybe some engines on pods to improve turn rate.
It seems like a few people that read my original post are missing my point. I fully support ship specialization. That's how I build all of my ships anyway. I always mine in PVP space with a light ship, and if I get jumped so be it. The problem isn't that they are trying to limit how much crap we can fit on a single structure - the problem is that they have destroyed the playability of the game. CPU and thrust are CONSTANTLY being calculated. Even when they are checked off in the settings they are still being calculated. So every single time a ship has a block removed (or added) the entire structure is recalculated. In a game where optimization was already on the edge this has completely annihilated it. So, for the PVP player, it isn't that there is a barrier on how many items or placement that is the main problem. It's the fact that the game comes to a screeching halt as soon as the first shot is fired. Even basic PVE interaction is riddled with rubberbanding issues and framerate drops. This is a hamfisted way to try to solve a problem that no one asked for. It also doesn't even solve the problem. A PVP CV will easily fit into the current CPU limit. Anything above size class 10 is way too big for PVP and has been for quite some time. So the only ones really complaining about the lack of CPU for gigantic moon ships are the PVE players. Now, having said all that, I do think that there is a problem with the limitation of creativity. There simply isn't any reason for it. Again, I feel this game is losing it's niche. That is the real tragedy here.
PC Specs? I'll go first... i7 4.0 GHz, Quad Core 32 GB RAM GeForce 1080 1 TB SSD Windows 10 Enterprise, fully updated. All game graphics settings at Maximum Number of problems related to PvE or PvP interactions: Zero* Number of rubber bands: Zero *I did have some issues when 11.1 was released with large, crowded areas when it was raining causing a framerate drop. This has since been remedied.
I prefer to play on servers with cpu on and weight/volume on. Sort of boring playing on servers that are basically a museum of monster ships. Relatively new to game so not sure what direction game was headed in before but very happy with its current path. With this said there are always adjustments that can be made. Would love to see penalties to turning speeds on large ships. The larger the ship the slower it turns or at least increase the turning radius of the ship. Also would love to see penalties to turrets that are targeting tiny ships. The smaller the ship the harder it should be to target or at least increase the chance of a miss. Big ships easy to target. The smaller the ship the more chance a turret has to miss.
How would that work? If there was no mass and thrust calculation, a star destroyer sized ship would accelerate from 0 to max speed instantly with just 6 small thrusters (one in each direction). I don't think that would be fun. Now if you're talking about the mass dependant max speed limit, yes I agree that should be removed. But throw out all semblance of any kind of physics system? No way. Anyway I like cpu, weight and volume. They must be manually enabled to affect your game anyway, so please don't remove it as an optional feature for those of us who enjoy it.
i like them too...but flight system restriction are really annoying and bring zero to game fun, just destroyed ship and make our life harder. I`m plenty of specialized ships..but fly system doesn`t help.....figure out how many new player will have problem to understand how this work....personally...i hate it!
