Best Of

There was some other WILDERNESS TRIANGULATE feedback in here so I thought I'd throw in one more thing:

- When you discover raw materials after a triangulate, make it correspond to refineries supported in ECONOMY STATUS. It's a huge pain to haul otherwise.

Thanks for the clarification!

I agree with @RocketCat 's general assessment and a lot of his points. I like the idea of reintroducing the adjacency bonus, but your proposal makes an already complicated function and interaction even more complicated, mathematically. Players should not have to break out the calculator* when deciding whether competing for a CP is a good idea. (*a stupid excel spreadsheet, yeah I see you nerds)

So just to sum up my own take, here's what I like with the current system:

- I think you did a great job of addressing issues/concerns with the old system, regarding rewards, ground combat, accessibility/travel, and so on. I noticed that you put effort into addressing some holes with CP powers, which I think was a neat solution. Overall, I think I had more PK within the first 24 hours of caches than during the rest of the time since Starmourn inception, so kudos on creating an avenue of conflict that's been pretty fun and engaging. 
- Adding a crystal maintenance cost to CPs was a good way to keep us participating in the system. 
- I like the idea of strategy or some tradeoff in decision making, regarding energy production/crystal costs and taking CPs.
- A cap on CPs that a faction should reasonably hold is probably good for the health/morale of the playerbase, to prevent one faction from totally dominating.

So here are my perceived issues: 

- The energy formula should not be so complicated, to the point where it lends to poor/uninformed decision making.

- Low-level CPs are highly unattractive to take, based on the current energy formula punishing against the CPs-owned count. As it stands, I would see factions probably ignoring the majority, and just heavily competing for the 5+. Without changes, I imagine we will just keep leaving a large number of CPs unclaimed. Related: under this system, not being able to eject a CP that is hurting your energy production is a problem.

- There is no strategic value for any particular CP based on location, other than perhaps proximity/accessibility in space. This diminishes the value of CPs to just rank.

- Higher-level CPs are more difficult to wrangle away from factions who already own them. I mean, just to have a chance to compete, you need battleship pilots, multiple high-level hackers, and then possibly a sufficient combat team, all during a small window of vulnerability. The bottom line is that the CP capture mechanic is still imperfect, but within the context of evaluating the energy system, high-level CPs should not be the end-all-be-all for competing.

- The system fabricates too much stress on regular crystal gathering. There's a fine line between encouraging continued participation, and creating a resented chore, especially when it is concentrated within a small playerbase.
- These CP powers are crazy good, which is compelling to compete for, but you run into an issue where the winning team gets access to more tools that perpetuates them winning (the rich get richer).

On to my suggestions, with the objective of addressing the above (obviously numbers can be tweaked):
- Change the energy formula to a very simple 30*Rank, plus 10% per adjacent CP. This gives ~4k total available energy across 132 total ranks,  plus more with adjacency.
- Add a hard cap on the total CP ranks a faction can control - let's say 80 (~60% of total ranks). This nets a maximum 2400 energy, plus any adjacency bonus, and this is comparable to the current maximum.
- COSMPIERCER [CHARGE|UNPOWER] <CP> - toggles the daily crystal maintenance. Unpowered CPs do not generate energy or count for adjacency bonuses, but do count against the faction cap.
- Make CP manipulation a faction-invested power, instead of just a faction leader responsibility.
- Maybe adjust the crystal cost to be something less linear, like (3+Rank) instead of 2*Rank. This would make the high-level CPs more desirable for efficiency, but still leave value to low-level CPs overall, with some energy output and possible adjacency.

For future work, preferably after tweaking the CP capture mechanic:
- After initial capture, CPs are taken back by the Ishvana after a period of time (two, three years?). Unpowered CPs get released at twice the rate (month passed = 2 mo lost).

In this, a dominant faction is reasonably capped, and factions are challenged to continue taking CPs with the forced Ishvana reset. However, I call it "future work" and would probably recommend holding off on the releasing mechanic, until such a time that the population increases or the CP capture mechanic is changed to alleviate the need for battleships. I think a lot of people have ideas on that, but I'll hold off until the energy/crystal discussion is over and/or the devs say that they are open to changing the CP mechanic too.

Also as a quick QoL request, can CP be a shortcut for the COSMPIERCER syntax?

I also like to have my II not be multiple pages long (especially when I'm playing secretly at work and have the client in a tiny window)...and considering how many promo items don't let you put them in bags (anymore), I tend to have a lot of slots that are essentially permanently filled...

How about an arti bag for only promo items, to safely stick in all the stuff that won't go into normal bags? The whalest of whale purchases, to show off how whale you are. (And also you can use the items from the bag? Please?)

Player API:

- Include Hacking/Captaincy level.

- Remove 'age' field, as it's not accessible anywhere properly IC and rejuvenation allows people to conceal their age for RP reasons.

Hello,

I have been an avid player of IRE games for over 10 years now, and when I heard of Starmourn with its new takes on mechanics, I decided to give it a shot. Below is my report and opinions as to the current standing of the game and what could be done to improve it. This is in no way an attempt to step all over the hard work done, but a hope to see Starmourn flourish and not recede.

What I felt was a real let down for Starmourn with Kith. Kith was perhaps the only real source of an aspect of Starmourn Story (see below) that we were given, and it came off as a once sealed off power that is now accessible by all. We get the sense from the new Void and Star Kiths that some organizations support one over and the other, and that it is used in different forms. This likely makes one assume that these would be some form of representation of a theme for orgs in the game or have some form of deeper meaning.

So when Starmourn is launched, we find that Void Kith and Star Kith is only accessible by 2 classes that are specifically made for it. This seems highly contrary to what we were first showed, even with an image of a "Kith Assassin" on the website. Also apparently, rather than a division as to its use, everyone seems okay with it and it is just a 'class' you can take up. There is no game-based depth to the usage of Kith.

So at first it is introduced to us that Void and Star kith are universal forces that can be tapped into, then in game we see that they are restricted to 2 professions.

I understand that other classes can later be added but the same basis stands, Kith isnt universal to the others. While I would imagine some Kith usage in each class to some degree (void bullets or star bullets or the such for example), it isnt the case.

Those of Lusternia would note for example the use of the skill Highmagic and Lowmagic, in which all players could tap into one or the other. Such a concept seems far more reasonable to how Kith should have been managed, but this is merely an opinion.

It goes without saying as to how effective the Lore of a game can be for immersion factor, something I have been studying for my thesis. Whenever I want to start a new game, the first thing I do is look at the story of it, to try and see what would be my pull. Sadly, for the most part, this seems to be strongly lacking or fragmented in Starmourn. When I look to the website I dont see any mythos section, story, timeline or lore section. I can find some information about the races, and strangely enough, the information about the NPCs races being far more in-depth than that of the player races. I see information about the cities but no story into how it came to be nor a real Timeline of the events. 'Mathias and the Angel' was a great start but that was a sub-story of the greater whole.

We find terms in the game of Empyreals (with titles) yet very barely a mention of it. We know of the existence of 3 cities, with 2 that have been in wars, yet no real story to those wars.

I hear terms of places, planets, concepts and races tossed at me and i'm left wondering what they are even talking about.

There are next to no Help scrolls about these topics, and that alone will go a long way.

The Intro is basically what you rely on to hook the player in, and I have to admit it felt very disorienting. I at times would simply logoff during because it felt a bit too much. I would later ask others and they did the same.

From my experience with other gamers, they tend to hate the idea of a 'story' gimmick and prefer just being out and about from the start. The only time I have truly seen story intros work is when they are incredibly immersive and filled with the history/lore that the game is based on. This is not the case.

You start off from a crashed ship, then you're engaging with some NPCs, meet some crew, tossed with them to fight some random creatures that you have no idea what they are even about, then hop onto a spaceship and have to use some commands to help fly it, one thing leads to another and then you're on Omni. Playing it first from Nexus alone was tiring and confusing. I felt as if I was being dragged along on a space adventure that I wasnt looking to take part in. I kept thinking to myself "When will this be over so that I can go explore for myself". When we hit Omni, I was so confused that I honestly logged off 3 times before continuing from there.

Less is more and simplicity is definitely better. If it was simply a newbie area where you can level up, gain some things, and get stronger for bigger things to tackle, then I am positive it would run much smoother.

Starmourn definitely has some pretty intense and well made mechanics. The ship mechanics alone are quite nice, and you can definitely see the detail with terrains, props and abilities.

Sticking to the less is more suggestion, The concept of travel in Starmourn is naturally a bit more intense than is normal, and as a new player trying to figure it out, it can be overwhelming. Perhaps setting up a PORTALs system, akin to those in Achaea and elsewhere, wherein all those below level 10 can simply jump to Portals to access locations, while suggestions are given how to go back and forth? Having to spend marks on Voidgates and the such (especially if you take a wrong turn) as a new player feels a bit daunting.

Cloning/Rezzing is also a bit much with the prices. I'm told they will be reviewed soon and i'm hoping so, as I can attest personally to the many deaths I experience when exploring a new game.

The Shipforge honestly left me bewildered and truly made me not want to try and continue the main storyline quest. The idea of using a ship is fine and all but I was bombarded with a scroll of commands that just left me wondering what this all is. I honestly highly suggest trying to simply the ship forging procedure to something far more accessible. Consider Lusternia' ship building concept that generally is much less...stuffy.

That's all I have for now. Hoping it helps.