Q+A Madness - September 2018

Tecton

Hey everyone!

I realised that it has been a few months since I've done a Q+A/ama thread, so I'm going to open this up for fast n' furious question time until 23:59 Sunday night! Ask away!

Qitorien

Other games have suffered from characters becoming too self-reliant; it usually hurts the economy and game interactions. I think I remember reading that trade skills are limited in that a character can only have a certain number of them. Is that correct? Are there any other ways of preventing too much self-reliance? Is it feasible for someone to manage all or most of the major aspects of the game, such as autofactories, shops, and resource gathering/mining?

Tecton

Qitorien said:

Other games have suffered from characters becoming too self-reliant; it usually hurts the economy and game interactions. I think I remember reading that trade skills are limited in that a character can only have a certain number of them. Is that correct? Are there any other ways of preventing too much self-reliance? Is it feasible for someone to manage all or most of the major aspects of the game, such as autofactories, shops, and resource gathering/mining?

That's definitely an issue we're trying to avoid in SM, yeah. At launch, you'll only have access to one tradeskill per player, so you will still be dealing a lot with other players and their wares. As for the other elements, it's possible to try an have a finger in every pie, but we've designed things in a way that it's basically impossible to have a monopoly on any element of it.

Korvyr

These quite possibly have been answered elsewhere:

What programming language is Starmourn written in?

Will large player-defined organizations be more fluid and able to affect the world of Starmourn more readily? e.g. A large band of players decide to split off from a city because of x, y, and z reasons; and are able to form a legitimate and functional home elsewhere, complete with NPCs.

How customizable will not only a ship's appearance be, but also its internal layout, and its functionality? Will mods simply affect stats, or will they be capable of much more?

(I'm sure I'll think of more, but I'll stop here for now.)

Tecton

Korvyr said:

These quite possibly have been answered elsewhere:

What programming language is Starmourn written in?

Will large player-defined organizations be more fluid and able to affect the world of Starmourn more readily? e.g. A large band of players decide to split off from a city because of x, y, and z reasons; and are able to form a legitimate and functional home elsewhere, complete with NPCs.

How customizable will not only a ship's appearance be, but also its internal layout, and its functionality? Will mods simply affect stats, or will they be capable of much more?

(I'm sure I'll think of more, but I'll stop here for now.)

1) It's written in a custom c-like language for our proprietary engine, Rapture.
2) Potentially! We're always receptive to assisting with player driven roleplay as much as we can, assuming it fits within our vision and plans, and would be something that actually helps the game. If, say, our faction numbers are ridiculously high, and the game could support another one, we would definitely look at player-led threads in existence and weave those into the overall narrative as much as we can. On the other hand, we'd not likely add a faction and further spread out the population out if they already felt underpopulated - that'd just exacerbate the problem.
3) Ship layouts are customisable, with the ship owners being able to add more rooms to their ship via the "refit" system. The amount of rooms you can build is tied to the size of your ship's superstructure though, so you can't have a TARDIS-like mansion inside a small interceptor class ship. 
4) Ship Mods vary dramatically, they range from weapon modules (cannons/missiles/mines etc), through to extra cargo space or refit rooms, to stat boosts, general utility additions, as well as linked modules that you combine with other modules or ship components for additional effect.

Animist

I was just wondering will people who use screen reader users   be able to play this game?  Will we be able to navigate around the world without maps? Will things be easily findable? I ask is because I've been wanting to play this game ever since I heard about it. But I am also just curious about these questions. Thanks and Kudo is in advance. 

Animist

 thanks for answering my questions by the way. I'm new to the frorums. 

bairloch

I wanted my character to be a Song Dominion Decheeran that spent his life researching how to bring back the planet. If RP'd well, could a player expect to see a change (possibly just a "basin of life", thank you Lusternia) from their efforts after years of work by the community? Are you guys open to that kind of player commitment/impact?
Of course, now I'm re-thinking Song at all because of the slavery thing, but that's beside the point.

Tecton

Animist said:

I was just wondering will people who use screen reader users   be able to play this game?  Will we be able to navigate around the world without maps? Will things be easily findable? I ask is because I've been wanting to play this game ever since I heard about it. But I am also just curious about these questions. Thanks and Kudo is in advance. 

Welcome to the forums! We're making every effort to make things easy for players using screenreaders, everything from turning off visual "frills", through to adding things like easy navigation to handy points in the various areas. Space flight, with it's somewhat visual nature, will always be a bit more of a challenge, but we're doing our best, and will continue to make accessibility enhancements as much as we can to ensure our VI players can participate.

Tecton

bairloch said:

I wanted my character to be a Song Dominion Decheeran that spent his life researching how to bring back the planet. If RP'd well, could a player expect to see a change (possibly just a "basin of life", thank you Lusternia) from their efforts after years of work by the community? Are you guys open to that kind of player commitment/impact?
Of course, now I'm re-thinking Song at all because of the slavery thing, but that's beside the point.

Definitely something we'd be open to exploring, as I mentioned above in the comment about additional factions, it would have to fit in with our goals and plans, as well as the good of the game, but if there's a long history of great player-led roleplay, we like to do our best to try and reward that with lasting changes in the game.

Malash

Has there been any change regarding the 'no player-driven land vehicles at launch' statement made previously? With all this economy talk, I have to wonder how we're moving cargo around planetside without something like a hovertruck. Trains?

KevinRoberts

Hello,
I am just wondering, what would the login screen look like? for us screen reader users, the reason I am asking you know in the other games how on the log in screen, how it would have random quotes from ither player quotes and such or references from something or will it just be the normal rapture message and the version number and such you know I always wondered on some of the games where it has alot of ansi chars in their what the picture is sopose to be. Anyways I am still waiting for the release real soon.
Thanks
Kevin Roberts

Lindhrive

A question posed from the Discord! Pollivar, who is at work, asks,

'How sticky do they intend combat to be, the ease of escape? Many factors go into this like "how long to cure back to full," but my main question is whether the game intends to be biased towards "if you spend all effort to leave you'll leave" or "a determined assailant will hunt you down/ stop you from leaving room reliably." Basically, if someone doesn't want to fight, can you kill them?'

Indi

We know a bit about the core mechanic setting furies apart but not much about the others (only conceptual stuff).

Any crumbs you can share?

bairloch

Indi said:

We know a bit about the core mechanic setting furies apart but not much about the others (only conceptual stuff).

Every time, every time, I read "furries" instead of "furies".
Good luck with that, furries.

Tecton

Malash said:

Has there been any change regarding the 'no player-driven land vehicles at launch' statement made previously? With all this economy talk, I have to wonder how we're moving cargo around planetside without something like a hovertruck. Trains?

No change there, they'll come, just not for launch.

Cargo isn't really moved around once you land, it's not like crafting reagents on the other games, you just transfer it from your ship to a warehouse and then you can access it at your autofactories etc.

Tecton

KevinRoberts said:

Hello,
I am just wondering, what would the login screen look like? for us screen reader users, the reason I am asking you know in the other games how on the log in screen, how it would have random quotes from ither player quotes and such or references from something or will it just be the normal rapture message and the version number and such you know I always wondered on some of the games where it has alot of ansi chars in their what the picture is sopose to be. Anyways I am still waiting for the release real soon.
Thanks
Kevin Roberts

It does have a text logo and the normal rapture versions, then our pretty generic login prompt!

Tecton

Lindhrive said:

A question posed from the Discord! Pollivar, who is at work, asks,

'How sticky do they intend combat to be, the ease of escape? Many factors go into this like "how long to cure back to full," but my main question is whether the game intends to be biased towards "if you spend all effort to leave you'll leave" or "a determined assailant will hunt you down/ stop you from leaving room reliably." Basically, if someone doesn't want to fight, can you kill them?'

Combat is quite sticky, you can't just walk out of the room/run while in combat with players or NPCs. If you opponent is able to, they will automatically block your attempts to leave (things like being hindered will stop this).

We do have a crashing skill that will try to get you out of the room, but it has a windup and room cues. 

Lhundrup

How will death be handled in Starmourn? Will our 'consciousness' be relayed to clones waiting for download? Will our character be re-created from what little tissue may remain by advanced medical technology? Are we all actually highly advanced androids that simply need to be re-built and have our 'consciousness' re-downloaded?

What sort of penalties can we expect for dying? Will these penalties apply in the event of PVP death?

Also, how will ship destruction be handled? Will we have the chance to survive in an escape pod that the hostile(s) may or may not destroy? (And possibly avoid whatever death penalties there are) Or will we simply be killed with our ship?

bairloch

@Lhundrup
Not trying to be a jerk, but this might help.

https://wiki.starmourn.com/Death

Malash

Which non-playable civilization is going to build the first Not-A-Death-Star? Or did they already?

Dorc

What is the design scope of Engineers, area control like Lusternia melders or room control like Achaea Grove users, and will they be viable in PVP outside  of those circumstances? Will they need a 10 minute prep to be viable?

Tecton

Lhundrup said:

How will death be handled in Starmourn? Will our 'consciousness' be relayed to clones waiting for download? Will our character be re-created from what little tissue may remain by advanced medical technology? Are we all actually highly advanced androids that simply need to be re-built and have our 'consciousness' re-downloaded?

What sort of penalties can we expect for dying? Will these penalties apply in the event of PVP death?

Also, how will ship destruction be handled? Will we have the chance to survive in an escape pod that the hostile(s) may or may not destroy? (And possibly avoid whatever death penalties there are) Or will we simply be killed with our ship?

The link that @bairloch posted contains a bunch of information on death, yep!

Penalties for dying - you lose some XP, which you can get back from your INR if you can recover it, as well as a mark cost to the cloning facility when you finish the process (free for < level 10), then scaling up per level of experience.

If your ship is destroyed, you'll generally escape and be floating in space. There you might get rescued by someone, blown out of the cosmos, or just run out of life support and die alone in the cold expanse of space. As you unlock more skills in captaincy (by doing ship-related activities), you can get the EVA skill, which allows you to move through space and if you make it to a station, you can board it and save yourself.

Tecton

Malash said:

Which non-playable civilization is going to build the first Not-A-Death-Star? Or did they already?

That's what the admin will just be cruising around on.

Tecton

Dorc said:

What is the design scope of Engineers, area control like Lusternia melders or room control like Achaea Grove users, and will they be viable in PVP outside  of those circumstances? Will they need a 10 minute prep to be viable?

They definitely require prep, nothing major though, although if you have the time to set up a ridiculously elaborate network of turrets etc, you have some advantages! For unexpected PV*, you're not going to be screwed assuming you have your bots with you, which you should, since you'll be using them for bashing and a lot of general utility!

TurtleHermitZ9k

With all the talk of commerce, will there be a dynamic economy with prices of resources/good varying based on player-driven supply and demand at various outposts?

Tecton

TurtleHermitZ9k said:

With all the talk of commerce, will there be a dynamic economy with prices of resources/good varying based on player-driven supply and demand at various outposts?

Most elements of the economy work on supply and demand, yes! Cost of most goods sold on stations is static, but they're just a fallback in the event of no player-generated supplies.

bairloch

Tecton said:

TurtleHermitZ9k said:

With all the talk of commerce, will there be a dynamic economy with prices of resources/good varying based on player-driven supply and demand at various outposts?

Most elements of the economy work on supply and demand, yes! Cost of most goods sold on stations is static, but they're just a fallback in the event of no player-generated supplies.

Any chance you'll expand on that? I'd like to know what you mean by fallback.
I loved the economy in an old MMO called Jumpgate where there was a basic NPC economy, but anything more advanced than food and water pretty much had to be provided/created by PCs.
For instance, that station could create high-end engines, but they didn't produce all the needed resources. So PCs would truck them in from other stations/sectors that did. Then the NPC economy started back up and got back to producing.
PCs could eventually have their own stations/factories that produced high end stuff too, if they wanted it in a system that wasn't already producing it, and the other PCs had to keep it supplied if they wanted the results.
You've got a baseline, but better results if the PCs take active part. Gives the PCs something to do that directly impacts PvP (your ship is gonna get blown up, you need the better mods), without being in PvP themselves. IMHO, that's one of the biggest things missing from most games PvP systems, a real, desperate need for non-combat classes.
Of course, those truckers need security when trucking, so the loop closes. It was quite elegant.

Malash

Tecton said:

Penalties for dying - you lose some XP, which you can get back from your INR if you can recover it, as well as a mark cost to the cloning facility when you finish the process (free for < level 10), then scaling up per level of experience.

What happens if we're too broke to pay the cloning fee? Do we get our organs reposessed?

Tecton

Malash said:

Tecton said:

Penalties for dying - you lose some XP, which you can get back from your INR if you can recover it, as well as a mark cost to the cloning facility when you finish the process (free for < level 10), then scaling up per level of experience.

What happens if we're too broke to pay the cloning fee? Do we get our organs reposessed?

You go into the red, so any marks you make go to paying off your debt. Going negative only applies to cloning, since we don't want that being blocked by lack of funds.

Tecton

bairloch said:

Tecton said:

TurtleHermitZ9k said:

With all the talk of commerce, will there be a dynamic economy with prices of resources/good varying based on player-driven supply and demand at various outposts?

Most elements of the economy work on supply and demand, yes! Cost of most goods sold on stations is static, but they're just a fallback in the event of no player-generated supplies.

Any chance you'll expand on that? I'd like to know what you mean by fallback.
I loved the economy in an old MMO called Jumpgate where there was a basic NPC economy, but anything more advanced than food and water pretty much had to be provided/created by PCs.
For instance, that station could create high-end engines, but they didn't produce all the needed resources. So PCs would truck them in from other stations/sectors that did. Then the NPC economy started back up and got back to producing.
PCs could eventually have their own stations/factories that produced high end stuff too, if they wanted it in a system that wasn't already producing it, and the other PCs had to keep it supplied if they wanted the results.
You've got a baseline, but better results if the PCs take active part. Gives the PCs something to do that directly impacts PvP (your ship is gonna get blown up, you need the better mods), without being in PvP themselves. IMHO, that's one of the biggest things missing from most games PvP systems, a real, desperate need for non-combat classes.
Of course, those truckers need security when trucking, so the loop closes. It was quite elegant.

Players can gather resources, refine them in refineries, then use those raw materials in autofactories to make anything from ammo batteries for laser cannons, to missiles, repair bots, and other resources needed for various elements of the game. These can then be traded on the open market which is entirely player controlled. For launch, we're going to have most of the supplies be available on stations in unlimited quantities to ensure that those supplies are available while players are getting familar with the game and progress to a stage where they're generating these themselves. Once we've got a good stable base of players producing that stuff, we'll likely taper back those supplies so that the player economy takes over.