StarMade News

As Schema mentioned a few days ago, we are holding a contest to select the new default NPC stations for the Trading Guild, Pirates, and Abandoned stations.  We have written up some further information for you reguarding the types of stations and how/where to submit your entry.  You can find these details, and post your entry (once you upload it) in comments to this thread.

http://starmadedock.net/threads/contest-default-stations-submission.2029/

Keep up with this thread even if your not submitting, as there will be some amazing entrys, and the community will have the opportunity to vote for their favorites to make it into the vanilla build.

Hello players,

we are working hard on the new crafting system, which will also include a change to world generation to make it a lot more flexible. The new system will give the game the ability to place resources inside any type of rock, soil, or other terrain type blocks. This will make the system of handling those ores much more smooth and logical. Also the graphical limitation not being able to of place for example ore in a red rock will be gone, which will make asteroids and planets look much more uniform. We also plan new and more dynamic types of planets.

This means that the after the L2-L5 ores already changed, the L1 ore will soon turn into pure rock types. Please be sure to sell them if you don't need it.

The build is currently in transition to the new system which takes a little time to get right, so I apologize in front for any instability and glitches.

But now to the new features:

Display blocks

Found in the "decoration" category, this block can be placed anywhere in the game. It will basically display its text content to a screen on the outside. The screen position depends on the orientation of the display blocks. It is made using starmade's streaming capabilities to use private channels and "request only what you see" to minimize impact on performance and network. Press R on a display block to edit its content. The editor is a little wonky still so your text might get cut of in it (but still is considered valid if you write on). Also, kupu already made a way better version of the background screen, which will follow soon.

 

Custom station spawning

In this build, admins will be finally able to customize station spawning. There is a new directory "blueprints-stations" in the main dir of starmade. in there there are 3 subfolders "pirate", "neutral", and "trading-guild" (those folders might not exist when updating, since there are no defaults yet, so you can create them if needed). Depending on the location, blueprint folders from that locations will be taken to replace the default station (which is still used if the folders are empty), and the content is spawned with the according faction.

We will also soon make a contest for stations to put as a default in the vanilla version.

 

Over 20 bugs have also been fixed for this version. Check out the full history in bugs.star-made.org.

Thanks for playing StarMade,

- schema

Hello players,

I apologize for the kind of fragmented updates. I hurried the rollback bugfix, as every day players were losing some work.

This update should finally make the Player Mail System usable. There was a bug with names containing uppercase letters not being saved correctly in the database. Also there was a client crash happening when clicking on "reply".

Also, Importing sectors should now work again (but untested)

Furthermore, the logic block problems should now be fixed. Those problem arose with a rather big feature I forgot to mention in the last update. Active logic will now save its exact state when unloading and reactivate when the sector containing the logic-structure gets reloaded.

 

Sorry again for the inconveniences. Should there be any more follow-up bugs I'll fix them asap.

 

Thanks for playing StarMade,

- schema

Hello players,

another update is done. This update should finally fix the rollback (saving) bug, that was happening on servers for some time. I can't say yet if it's 100% fixed as there is no real method to trigger it on purpose, but I'm fairly confident.

The crafting system is also mostly done in terms of implementation (it's not yet active in game though).

Mailing System

Players (and the system) can now finally send mail to other players even if they are not online. All data is stored in the database and consistent over logouts or server restarts.

You can open the message panel with F4 (until i find a better spot in the GUI). A message will popup if you have new mail.

Also as a first application for system mail, all players of the affected factions will now receive mail if war is declared.

Fixes and Balance

Several fixes have been done. You can look up the exact status at http://bugs.star-made.org.

Thrust and shields have been buffed more.

For people wanting thrust to less effect the max speed on servers with high max speed, please ask your admin to lower the linear damping. A new default value has been set, but it will not apply on existing servers (only when installing new).

As always: Nothing is final and more balancing is still to be done.

 

Thanks for playing StarMade,

- schema

 

Hello Pilots!

I'm excited to share with you all a preview of our upcoming texture overhaul.  

This overhaul will replace the existing "Realistic" option as a new default, while staying true to the majority of designs to avoid any confusion.
The designs, clarity and tiling of the new textures should not only look prettier,  but make more sense visually.  

I'll be displaying more in-depth samples here;   and will try and answer as many questions as possible should you have any.

As always,  thank you for playing Starmade.

-Kupu