MMORPG.com : General : Starbase - Announcement Trailer - A Voxel/Vertex-Based Space MMO

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MMORPG.com : General : Starbase - Announcement Trailer - A Voxel/Vertex-Based Space MMO

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mklinic

Sounds a lot like Space Engineers..

Space Engineers:

Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and uses, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive.

Starbase:

Starbase is a hybrid voxel/vertex-based space MMO with a fully destructible and infinitely expanding universe, with a focus on building and designing spaceships and stations, exploration, resource gathering, crafting, trading, and combat.

I suppose the main difference is Starbase is selling itself as an MMO, but we'll see what that actually means the way that tag is thrown about. Also, didn't notice any sort of planetary interaction in Starbase (in available screenshots and trailer) so that might be a distinction as well. Either way, neat to have another "space, building" game to check out.

Maggon

MMO as in everyone plays in the same world, no extra instances or shards at all. Atleast according to the devs on their discord. A collection of answered questions from the community can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jW4ic1piFnRB0jJcoXeRNYvpREaCKMSCEmLvCqB-7mw/edit#

SpottyGekko

Starbase has apparently been in development for 5 years already, it didn't "just suddenly happen", lol

FrostByte is an established studio, so they must have been funding themselves with profits from their single-player games.

I'll be following this one closely...

mklinic

Maggon said:

MMO as in everyone plays in the same world, no extra instances or shards at all. Atleast according to the devs on their discord. A collection of answered questions from the community can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jW4ic1piFnRB0jJcoXeRNYvpREaCKMSCEmLvCqB-7mw/edit#

Thanks. That also have some info about planetary interaction:

Do the devs have any ideas or plans for planetary bases?

JoelFB (5/28/19): Once planet landings are possible (more likely moon landings in the early stage as they are easier with no atmosphere etc), then there's nothing stopping players from creating such outposts.

CuomaFB (5/28/19): About planets you asked earlier. I have started prototyping landable planets but cannot make any promises whether and when we would have them.

Regarding the MMO bits:

Is this a seamless MMO? All the players on one server? Or are there server lines?

AkseliFB (5/28/19): Yes, seamless MMO, all the players are in the universe at the same time.

Is there instancing in the MMO part?

XCompWizFB (5/28/19): Not normally, no. Some spaces may be instanced to give players a controlled environment.

XCompWizFB (5/28/19): I think large space battles should have minimal to no instancing. We'll see how it goes.

LauriFB (5/28/19): It's not instancing in traditional sense in combat, rather than just showing the nearest 100 players (at the moment). It can be arranged in any ways and there are coming some neat improvements to increase the limit

There's a lot more good info at the link, but those were the specifics to the initial questions I had at least

Thomas2006

Sounds still really early on in development if there are still not sure on instancing and how many players will be shown and stuff like that.

blamo2000

"It will also include a sandbox mode so it can be experienced solo or in small groups."

This sentence doesn't make sense to me. Did the definition of sandbox change again?

Eldrach

blamo2000 said:

"It will also include a sandbox mode so it can be experienced solo or in small groups."



This sentence doesn't make sense to me. Did the definition of sandbox change again?

I'm thinking that's akin to creative mode or just "offline mode"

BobVa

Maggon said:

MMO as in everyone plays in the same world, no extra instances or shards at all.

Atleast according to the devs on their discord.

A collection of answered questions from the community can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jW4ic1piFnRB0jJcoXeRNYvpREaCKMSCEmLvCqB-7mw/edit#

Lootboxes?
LauriFB (5/29/19): Hell no with loot boxes, that stuff is poisonous and straight out criminal

..and, I'm sold!

evolgrinz

This sounds a lot like 'Empyrion' to me.

Phry

Its pre-alpha so while i like the look of the 'concepts' they are aiming for, the game looks to be huge, if they can actually make it i will be suitably impressed. This is a 'wait and see' type of game, i hope they can actually make it, but i have my doubts.

ElonMusk

"Starbase has been in secret development for five years without restraints and the development will continue until the bold vision of the game is achieved." This is all they've achieved in 5 years? Devs have to be European, heh.

Erillion

Seems like they have taken ideas from many different sources (EVE, Elite, Star Citizen, Space Engineers, Dual Universe, Minecraft etc.) and try to create their own unique blend of space opera out of it.

Will keep an eye on it.

Have fun

Arskaaa

looks interesting.

charlespayne

This game is actually more compared to Scrumbleship them space engineers as it uses Voxel building so meaning every item you craft can be broken down into very tiny pieces, Unlike Space engineers where every item is a mesh that when damaged just changes shape instead of breaking into tiny pieces.

Scot

So every player is a robot, those don't look like powered suits? Keen on the idea of more player interaction with the environment so will keep an eye on it.

Maggon

They just released another video:

SpottyGekko

ElonMusk said:

"Starbase has been in secret development for five years without restraints and the development will continue until the bold vision of the game is achieved." This is all they've achieved in 5 years? Devs have to be European, heh.

Correct !

They're Finnish.

And yeah, only a european crew could manage to keep their mouths shut for 5 years while building a playable version of an Early Access game release, lol

Bcuda

Its worth keeping an eye on this one. And yep I agree about them keeping quiet on this game. Unlike Star citizen's video's …." Today on Star citizen we had egg salad on toast for lunch. And my co host is wearing blue sneakers..." STOP posting video's for a game that may never come out .

black9ice

Looks like another sandbox survival/builder game, fully lacking in the mmo department

blamo2000

Eldrach said:

blamo2000 said:

"It will also include a sandbox mode so it can be experienced solo or in small groups."





This sentence doesn't make sense to me. Did the definition of sandbox change again?

I'm thinking that's akin to creative mode or just "offline mode"

Its akin to gibberish. Its like calling offline mode "theme park mode," or "rpg mode," or "Battle Royal mode." A game doesn't become sandbox when you play it on or offline. It is or isn't.

gervaise1

Bcuda said:

Its worth keeping an eye on this one. And yep I agree about them keeping quiet on this game. Unlike Star citizen's video's …." Today on Star citizen we had egg salad on toast for lunch. And my co host is wearing blue sneakers..." STOP posting video's for a game that may never come out .

If you stop posting videos then people will post that nothing is happening - if they actually know about it!

And games that are not promoted result in threads like the recent one for Worlds Adrift thread: this game didn't attract enough people so we are closing.

Marketing is needed
to get the publicity
to get the money
to pay the coders
to buy the Green Eggs and Ham
so they can eat and keep coding
and keep the game running.

Tiller

Those of you who don't want to participate in any PvP, or just plain hate it might want to wait since there are no plans for PvE mode currently.

5Trooper

Looks and sounds like fun. If they can pull it off. I'll probably play.
- Going to follow this one.

linadragon

mklinic said:

Sounds a lot like Space Engineers..



Space Engineers:

Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and uses, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive.

Starbase:

Starbase is a hybrid voxel/vertex-based space MMO with a fully destructible and infinitely expanding universe, with a focus on building and designing spaceships and stations, exploration, resource gathering, crafting, trading, and combat.

I suppose the main difference is Starbase is selling itself as an MMO, but we'll see what that actually means the way that tag is thrown about. Also, didn't notice any sort of planetary interaction in Starbase (in available screenshots and trailer) so that might be a distinction as well. Either way, neat to have another "space, building" game to check out.

Ehh if they can sort out building to be better than space engineers. Space engineers was so just sloppy in a lot of ways.

Quizzical

blamo2000 said:

Eldrach said:

blamo2000 said:

"It will also include a sandbox mode so it can be experienced solo or in small groups."





This sentence doesn't make sense to me. Did the definition of sandbox change again?

I'm thinking that's akin to creative mode or just "offline mode"

Its akin to gibberish. Its like calling offline mode "theme park mode," or "rpg mode," or "Battle Royal mode." A game doesn't become sandbox when you play it on or offline. It is or isn't.

It fits the "run possibly malicious software in a sandbox" definition, as it allows you to do stuff that you don't want to affect your permanent character on the live servers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_(computer_security)