It's very simple. If players had accepted to go that route, we would not be facing the CPU "solution" now. Everyone agrees that with CPU, as it shows clearer each passing day, that ships will either be slow, or small. Hummel and Rexxus showed obvious interest in that proposal, surely not because it would solve the PvP meta, but mainly because of performances issues, in early 2017. What would players prefer? - to be able to build as big as they want with no penalties or constraints, but have the ships "baked" into a 1-hull solution, or... - to keep the block-by-block damage model with all the constraints that imposes to get the game to perform better in multiplayer ?
... I don't really know how to respond to any of this. I'm not arguing against merged hulls, and I'm not saying multi-block hulls don't have a performance impact. I'm also not arguing in favor of CPU, as I'm sure you've noted. The only thing I'm saying - and I say this as statement of simple fact - is that "CPU" as a game mechanic is not something intended to solve game performance issues. It does have that effect, by effectively capping block counts (and capping them drastically below the potential max size of a BP), but that's a side-effect. Like when Benadryl relieves your allergies, but also knocks you out cold for three hours. Personally, I'm not too fussed if hulls are single-merged-mesh or multi-block (although it does present some issues regarding the salvaging of POIs and such), but as long as I can build nice things that work, I'll be happy - and if you haven't seen my workshop, *points to sig*, I don't tend to build very large. I might be able to slap some bare-bones starter CV together and make it work, but I'm adamantly against the idea that functional devices and basic building blocks share the same resource pool, and that pretty much kills my desire to even try building anything.
You don't have to, and I know where you stand on CPU, no problem. If they included building blocks in the CPU pool, which were not in the original CPU values at first, I tend to believe that it is for a reason, and surely not because Eleon is doing nonsensical things just for the sake of frustrating players. We have been around, on top and under the topic for days, and most players that disagree with CPU can only come up with the "CPU for blocks is stupid" explanation. I don't buy that at all. I think they are trying to get indirectly what they could not get directly, because players did not seem very enthusiastic about the idea at that time. I don't see Hummel and Rexxus jumping in discussions like this for no reasons, and last time I saw that was in the "Repair-to-blueprint" thread, which we finally got in the game. And nobody was objecting to repair-to-blueprint. And it is Rexxus who pinpoints the performance issue with blocks : By changing just the hull to one object, or clustered areas, but leave the rest untouched would already boost the performance dramatically because as you said, calculating the damage block by block is what ruins the performance at the moment the most. To the objections brought forward by the players in that thread, Rexxus answers this : "Creativity is lost" or "just fly in cubes" can be tackled by implementing some known mechanics such as flight dynamics for wings, weight control of cargo + structure and thruster exposure for example. Does that ring a bell ? And now that we have all these elements he lists, the only one missing is the one that addresses performance. So why CPU for blocks ? And if anyone answers "because of poor performance in multiplayer" they will get the pitchfork crowd yelling at them.
Building as big as you want in a game where weapon ranges barely exceed 1km and damage is pathetic is pointless as not only will hull shape block weapon arcs but even if all turrets are on 1 facing not all of them can be in range unless you are at such short combat distances you may as well knife the other ship (as a knife would probably have as much DPS and a similar TTK). Block by block is what people are currently used to in Empyrion but not those who arrive from Avorion etc. Its not really the problem. For PVE CV Class 1 was enough to get by if building efficiently, 2 for some comforts and 3 for a space yacht. PVP would likely have been improved at a Class 5 limit with better TTK and less lag due to smaller ship size and therefore reduced HP to prevent bullet-sponging. You could even have halved the number of turrets but doubled their individual HP and damage per shot to try and help further and make it feel less like 30mm turrets fire rubber bullets. The issue has been caused by server owners allowing size 20, 30 even 40 monsters on their servers and a refusal by the dev to hard code a max class size for at the very least survival games. Given that one of the biggest multipliers in volume was lighting to avoid lag, class 5 could still give some pretty large ships with reasonable hp and mass. Making wholesale changes to this extent when many were building already to the 7500 soft target forcing compromises in capability and size seems ludicrous for the sole lack of applying the soft limits already present. Go back to 10.5, implement the soft caps of 7500 and class 5 properly for Survival gaming and let people fly whatever they want in Freedom mode (even rename it Dedicated PVP Mode if you want). If people want to Hardcore PVP where ship loss is of no consequence that would fill that niche while those who want the pain of fast TTK with slow replacement of lost ships as punishment can play PVP in Survival mode. Watching 2 super-heavyweights punch each other senseless for 10 rounds is some people thing but for others watching Ali or the lighter weight bouts is far more satisfying. Less hassle. less grief and less necessity for builders to cut existing designs to pieces to make them fit than this upcoming mess.
Why would they do that if performance is not a problem ? How come some games can afford 2+ km ships and huge battles without lag, but not Empyrion ?
As I said earlier people were building to the 7500 limit and having to make some compromises in performance and capability but this made Survival aimed gaming more satisfying without ruining creativity or having to specialise on just 1 thing per vehicle. Ships were not ridiculously large nor did they have silly device numbers. Lag was not a huge issue when playing co-op with vehicles of this ability. The soft cap levels were sufficient for a good experience without too many performance issues. You might say the solution was generally in place before there was a problem with perhaps adding an additional RCS count limit and deleting the T2 CV specific one. Sadly however people want to use sledgehammers to kill flys, 40000 CPU SVs, class 30+ Borg CVs and when that is not enough they want to exceed vanilla device counts for solar panels, turrets etc and play on super easy mode. The community doing so has no interest in the "Survival" game players or content creators who are building vehicles and bases to cater for that mode at an adequate Class Size and CPU. That community by ignoring the soft caps has brought about wholesale changes to how the game will be played and the capabilities of the vehicles used. This penalises the rest of the community who were adhering to limits and thereby causing no issues. Rather than just make the soft caps hard caps and let the PVP community go play CPU inactive we have this catastrophe in the offing. Either vehicle creators just wont bother to follow CPU any longer, those that want to use CPU will find flying a broomstick with a cargo box on the back less than satisfying or worse players give up on the game completely while the PVP community ignore the changes and play on custom settings anyway. I will repeat its a result of the dev not being proactive in the past and dealing with the issue by setting hard caps at 7500 CPU and Class 5 which would have prevented any need for this change and not upset as many people.
While I get that a lot of folks who play "survival" games like the adrenaline rush of almost getting killed, there are also a lot who view that as a failure to prepare. I would politely point out that the entire First Person Shooter genre caters to adrenaline moments. Sledgehammers for flys is certainly a bit much, and your furniture won't be thanking you. Yet choosing to deal with flys using chopsticks seems silly to me. I'll take a flyswatter, newspaper, or the salt fed zapper thank you.
If you look as those TESTER losses in the last STEAM Statistic of EGS you can actually see the Huge Number of Players who quit the game because of the recent "Game-Breaking" new stuff. https://steamcharts.com/app/383120#48h
Hello everybody I believe that open communication will bring more than the introduction of system mechanics that the developer himself does not want. If I let the development of Empyrion pass me by, I also see why there is an ever decreasing popularity of players, unfortunately also fewer and fewer people who also find the way back to this game (Youtube, Twitch u.s.w]. The next big cry and a further decline in the number of players comes now with the introduction of the CPU. I am a very stupid player and have no idea! Or should I write so that I am full after 8 liters of alcohol and then slowly drink should.
Those numbers are looking more and more like the ones in Robocraft since they kept making "improvements" to the game that the community hated. Perhaps there is a lesson in there somewhere.
If there is one Developers never learn it. Doing thing the players don't think is good is an old tradition. Devs: Were going to do X Players: That's a REALLY bad idea don't do it. Devs: Implement it Players: I can't believe you did it. (80% leave) Devs: Why is our player base gone??? Sony Online Entertainment learned it the Hard way. The New Game Experience Update to Star Wars Galaxies. Within 72 Hrs after it went live they lost close to 75% of their subs. I personally canceled 3 accounts.
I really don't like how CPU works ATM. It's far too limiting. The hard limits make bigger builds unviable. Heck, even medium-sized builds are unworkable. It's also too centralized. The way CPU works means that spreading CPU units is a bad idea, since if even ONE gets damaged, the entire thing stops working. Hence the meta is to put all of the CPU with the core, in the armored center of the ship. There is no way to build redundancy and this is BAD.
True, I ended up there too. Still play on occasion. Sadly the popularity of WOW was what drove Lucas to force it.
Where is that limit? In, lets say, terms of ship Size? Or somewhere else? Yes, I thought that too! Now I have almost finished a Size 11 CV WITH ALL THE STUFF I LIKE in it! Just finished a long time overdue rework on my Transport SV...now available on a lvl 12! If you won't believe me watch the last Videos of @jrandall , listen carefully to his arguments BUT watch BOTH
This isn't the real issue at all. I play on HWS, one of the largest most powerful servers there is (perhaps THE largest and most powerful), and we restrict most PvP to class size 1. PvE is generally restricted to around class size 5. We have no class 20, 30, or 40 structures allowed by the players. None at all. We experience severe lag and disconnects in as little as a 1v1 SV fight. A 5v5 fight is already a nearly complete lagfest/slideshow. The game optimization and network code just isn't up to the task at all. It is a custom scenario with a custom config. Nearly all of our issues can be and have been recreated on a vanilla server though.
This entire jack-of-all trades thing mega ships can be balanced by simple PRICE - in fuel, in energy, in mass. All the cargo containers and the fabricators themselves - they take up space and MASS. which in turn makes the ship slow an requires more engines to move. Which in return require more power and more fuel. Fuel which itself takes up space and has mass. Does Empyrion even model mass changing with fuel levels? Look up Red Queens Race concept in spaceship designs www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php
Gotta say I liked you plenty before this post, but now? Serious Respect! I mean you have to respect any guy who'll cancel his -girlfriend- for playing SWG...
See this is why it should have been open up for discussion. The Hull blocks using CPU doesn't make any sense and you can still build a smaller cube with extra layers even with this system. Elon should avoid trying to balance everything single last thing one group claims is "over powered" in a game that people view as a survival sandbox building game. I doubt many people think of Empyrion as a PVP game because it's not a PVP game and it's no need for them to try make PVP in this game perfect.
