The devs somehow neglected the fact that appropriate values for armor mass and thruster force would give the balance that they want without even touching the CPU system.
Actually had a lot of fun last night - found an Alien POI to raid, so I took my most spacious HV (about 4000 units cargo), went over, cleared out the drones around it, went in, loaded myself and my HV to 99.8% capacity, and headed back to my base at a whopping 8.2 m/s. Along the way, I got to notice how nice the scenery was, got to watch dinosaurs doing dinosaur things, struggled badly over the water, but noticed how the sun reflected off of it while it was rising, watched a drone attack on my base be stopped by defensive turrets while I was still a few hundred meters behind them... in short, it was exactly what I would have expected to happen with a fully loaded HV. CPU is at Tier 2 on this particular HV, with 2 medium rear thrusters, 4 large hover pads, 2 RCS, no weapons, no shield. I don't think the real problem here is the game. I think the real problem is, too many people have been playing for too long and only know how to build city-sized vehicles, with 18 layers of armor and 8 of every device - and that just doesn't work any more with CPU enabled, and they just don't want to learn a new way. But this is an Alpha. Things are going to change. Old ways won't work, old mechanics won't work. If you can't accept that, you've no business alpha testing - or even beta testing when things get that far. To me, that's part of the fun of Early Release - that things are going to change, sometimes radically, as long as the end result is something well balanced and functional. As to the matter of balance - I've said it quite a few times, but I'll reiterate it again: CPU is not yet balanced. It's functional from a coding standpoint. Inert blocks should not have CPU value. "Do Nothing" blocks, like consoles, should have only the most minimal of CPU impact. Thrust-to-Weight ration probably need a little more evaluating, but they're not terrible. The new flight mechanics are actually good - you don't need to build vessels half out of RCS to be able to turn and roll them any longer, and being able to build and operate a vessel akin to a modern jet aircraft, that is rear-engine based is a nice touch. This is a design I had previously experimented with, but found the lack of lateral control without RCS to be too limiting. To me, this is just another growing pain of the game, one we will adapt to and come to embrace as it develops further.
I really wish you'd drop this strawman. I and other folk, build small tight designs. I never got as far as a T2 HV as I didn't collect the necessary rare materials to build the extender. Your HV sounds about as large as mine ever get. I do not want "8 of every device" -- one would be nice to have though. I do not want "18 layers of combat steel", but maybe a single layer of hardened would be useful.
T2 doesn't require any rare materials. No optronix at all. That's T3 and T4. I also did not state "Everyone", so your attempt at calling this a strawman is a total failure. Less playing internet logician and more reading comprehension. Sorry if you felt included in a group you weren't included in, because you just want to argue. Let's see one of these "small and tight" designs, and maybe I can spot the problem - if there is one. Maybe your works just fine and you're just complaining to complain?
It requires neodymium and maybe a second ore not found on the start world. What are you talking about?
I'd link one, but I removed all my designs from the workshop. I have no doubt many players would have no problem with my vehicles; I'm just a crap player so I need more defence to compensate. The HV wasn't anything special; it was a cargo hauler/scavenger with a pair of turrets. It came in at ~5,500 CPU with a single layer of normal steel and about 1200 volume, wifi, a spotlight, and enough lift and thrust to carry a few full blocks. Its speed was good unloaded though it turned like a truck. Yeah, go ahead a cower behind your 'many' qualifier if you like. The real problem is not "too many people have been playing for too long and only know how to build city-sized vehicles, with 18 layers of armor and 8 of every device". The real problem is low-end CPU applies too much constraint whilst simultaneously not applying almost any with respect to its stated goal. It almost entirely restricts thrusters and armour while doing almost nothing to actually affect generalisation. Thruster and armor restrictions do not promote specialization: they promote fragility. This condition is not reparable whilst remaining inside the current design paradigm. Blocks costing CPU based on hit point total destroys any chance of balance in the low end.
You've got plenty of good points in your argument, but this is not one of them. One glance at the workshop should show you that there are plenty of relatively small, compact, or otherwise efficient / "specialized" blueprints out there, and it is possible to build something functional and even stylish within the existing constraints. The problem isn't "some folks can't adapt to the new restrictions," the problem is the restrictions themselves are stupid. And by stupid I mean badly implemented. We've been told time and again that the CPU system is meant for "specialization" of ships & bases, to curb the jack-of-all-trades One BP To Rule Them All stuff - but in practice, that's not happening. Instead, we've been force-fed a system that drastically stifles creative builds at a T1 level, still allows Jack ships at T2 and above, and for some unfathomable reason gates T3 and T4 progression with rare POI drops / hyper-expensive trade components. Furthermore, you keep seeing the argument come up that CPU is "secretly" trying to eliminate big builds (definition of 'big' varies), but if that was the intent then why do we still have "Size Class" as a metric? It's only purpose is to measure expected performance impact - tying any kind of "performance" limitation to a CPU system is redundant and unnecessary. So what you have in the end is a bad, messy, poorly-balanced game mechanic that either doesn't know what it's trying to accomplish, or trying to do far too much at once, and leaving the playerbase wondering what the heck the devs were thinking when they coded it. Bottom line, the (majority) objections here aren't "waah, I can't adapt," it's just the calling out of piss-poor mechanics.
I don't know that he's making a strawman argument. Some people are finding their classic designs constrained by CPU. Likewise, I think some very modest vehicles are requiring too much CPU. Fixing that would be tweaking. To me there are other issues with CPU. Conceptually, I don't think things that DO NOT consume Power should consume CPU. Turn it off? No CPU cost. Lump of Steel. No CPU.
I dunno about the rest of you, but I found a bottomless pit of Neodymium in the form of a Trader on the starter planet.
I didn't! I'm friendly with the Zirax and that sort-of cost my Polaris faction level. If there is a Zirax trader, I don't know about it.
Interesting. Isn't there a Zirax Trader on one of those floating Zirax POIs? I can't remember. If so, I wonder what they trade. Probably food.
No idea. I don't explore their POI because I have a tendency to click in the wrong spot / too fast and opening a box by accident is just too expensive. I got friendly enough they won't attack me and I stay away from them. It looks like I'll need to kick their favour up a notch though as literally every promethium deposit is inside their territory and I want their permission to mine them, but I'm just puttering around right now trying to build the endurance to work on the faction some more.
Come over to Polaris. I'll make the introduction. They sell me Promethium and Cobalt too. I've not mined any of those.
i would still be opposed to this feature but it really should be accurately named. it is a limitation system. nothing more, nothing less. limiting what a game can do so less goes wrong is not a fix. giving the option to turn it off is not a fix either, if anything it divides the community. why is this still a discussion?
Wasn't the whole point of moving cobalt off the starter world to force incent the player to go to space? Why take with one hand and give the same with another?
Anyway is never a good thing to provoke or underline some part of comunity as bad or good. Of make background and hided insinuation. Wr can keep the discussion under reasonable and civil way? The way you talk was a bit bold. Just take easy.
5500 CPU is certainly not outside the realm of "reasonable". I've seen at least one too many 9.8 million CPU builds. But it's the part quoted above I agree most with - HP should not directly impact CPU cost. This should be a combination of Function and Common Sense. A complex device, like an Advanced Constructor should have a higher CPU cost than a block of Combat Steel. A refrigerator should have a significantly lower cost than even a Basic Constructor. It has one job: Keep Contents Cold. A simple Box, like a Closet needs no CPU. It's a box. It doesn't even require power. Mass is a good enough constraint for physical size. Build a 100x100 block vessel, and yeah, you're going to need several Atlas-sized rockets to lift it off the ground at 1g. Thrusters I'm sort of mixed about - I think they warrant some CPU costs, but I'm not sure the current values are right for them. Which then brings us back to the actual CPU Capacity values - if the costs are adjusted to something more sensible, then the total CPU capacity will need adjusted too. What we want, need, to avoid is tail-chasing - reducing one set of costs, reducing the pool size, rinse and repeat. That won't accomplish anything. I don't like the idea of Hard Limits on devices so much either though. One Core, I get that. One Pentaxid Tank, sure, I get that. One Warp Drive - yep, makes sense too. Beyond that... ehh. I certainly get multiple weapons, especially on what is supposed to be a war ship, flag or capital ship. Wanted, even needed. Likewise, armor makes sense on combat ships, and even on trade vessels - hostilities happen. But assigning CPU costs for anything other than a powered block does not. Mass should be the limiting factor here. Mass and Thrust-to-Weight ratios. Clearly these are less meaningful in space then they are for reaching airspeed velocity and escape velocity on a planet, but mass is not weight, and still applicable in space. X amount of Force moves Y amount of mass, at Z velocity. Where I see the real issue with armor is how it handles damage. The splash-penetration of rocketry mandates a minimum of 3 layers of armor to protect internal systems. I think one layer should be sufficient to prevent incidental damage, assuming we're talking about one full block. Partial blocks (half and "thin" blocks), sure - it makes more sense to have them layered, even though they don't visually layer quite right due to the "absent" region being treated as a full "block" for construction purposes, but that is another story.
A clever player can obtain plenty of Cobalt, Erestrum and Zascosium on their starter planet with only minimal effort. I swear, one of these days I'm going to have to do an "Empryion - the first 4 hours" video. Just need a screen recorder that works well with Empyrion, as Lilo doesn't.
Neodymium, Cobalt, Erestrum and Zascosium can all be had on starter planets, just not found in deposits. Check POI's, Polaris traders, and wreckage sites. You'd be amazed at what you can scavenge.
salvage salvage salvage. that's how u get all the materials u need to get off the starter rock of choice. lots of POIs with CV trusters u can take a miltitool to and gather what u need. but this topic is about the cpu limitation system. there is a whole section for in game help.
