Simplifying hull/armour crafting

[DraconisDomini]

Ideas along this line have been mentioned before (including by myself in this thread from a few days ago), but I thought I would flesh it out more fully.

The current hull/armour crafting trees seem unnecessarily complex/are too limited in terms of inter-compatibility, or at least they do to me.

Under the current system the colours and non-cube shapes are all dead-ends that are not inter-compatible. Imagine this scenario - you are constructing a ship and use standard armour. It is mostly black and has quite a lot of slopes and other non-cube shapes, to get these you use the tree grey hull -> black hull -> black standard armor -> black standard non-cubes. After you've been building for a while you decide that actually you would rather use advanced armor. The cubic black standard armor can be re-crafted into advanced armor, but to get the advanced armor non-cubes you have to go advanced armor cube -> advanced armor non-cube. The standard armor non-cubes are now useless. Still later you decide that some parts of the ship would look better in blue. Now even you cubic black advanced armor is useless and you have to go all the way back to grey hull and go through grey hull -> blue hull -> blue standard armor -> blue advanced armor -> blue advanced non-cubes.

Now I appreciate that you could just say that in the above example I have just been really indecisive and it is my own fault, and of course that is true, but the armour crafting scheme could make it so much easier to deal with this scenario. If you could re-craft e.g black standard armor wedges into black advanced armor wedges that would be so much more useful, as would the ability to re-paint armour into a different colour.

Essentially what I am advocating is for the crafting system to allow you to do black hull wedge -> black standard armor wedge -> black advanced armor wedge, and black hull -> blue hull, black standard armor wedge -> blue standard armor, etc, rather than forcing you to go back through the cubes or all the way back to grey hull.

Of course at the moment black standard armor and blue standard armor are produced via
grey hull + black paint(tekt) -> black hull + macet -> black standard armor
grey hull + blue paint(larimar) -> blue hull + hylat -> blue standard armor
so the difference between blue standard armor and black standard armor is more than just blue paint vs black paint, but this could be reflected in the inter-crafting. If converting black standard armor to blue standard armor worked like black standard armor + blue paint + 3 hylat capsule -> blue standard armor you would admittedly spend less hylat making your blue standard armor than normal, but then you've lost the macet used in making the black armour. This could admittedly be used to get around a shortage of hylat, but I don't see that as a particular problem, you've still used more resources overall.

Simply allowing black hull wedge -> black standard armor wedge -> black advanced armor wedge would not circumvent any resource requirements as it should just be the same as black hull -> black standard armor -> black advanced armor.

My preference would also be to allow wedge -> cube as well as cube -> wedge which could either be implemented by allowing the reverse crafting route, or amalgamating the armour multi-slots into single entities rather than 5 separate ones (which seems by far the best solution to everything to me). The result of this would than be that crafting one unit of hull would give you 1 in each of the multi-slot pieces, but using any of the multi-slot pieces would decrease the total of all of them by 1. This would then automatically allow you to re-craft hull or standard armor non-cubes into higher armour rated types.

TL;DR
1) Amalgamate armour multi-slots into single entities, thus allowing wedge -> cube and standard wedge -> advanced wedge
2) Allow 're-painting' of one armour colour into another for half the cost of crafting the new armour colour from scratch (e.g. black standard armor + blue paint + 3 hylat capsule-> blue standard armor)

Hopefully this all made sense and thanks for reading!

 

[Runeseer]

Ideas along this line have been mentioned before (including by myself in this thread from a few days ago), but I thought I would flesh it out more fully.

The current hull/armour crafting trees seem unnecessarily complex/are too limited in terms of inter-compatibility, or at least they do to me.

Under the current system the colours and non-cube shapes are all dead-ends that are not inter-compatible. Imagine this scenario - you are constructing a ship and use standard armour. It is mostly black and has quite a lot of slopes and other non-cube shapes, to get these you use the tree grey hull -> black hull -> black standard armor -> black standard non-cubes. After you've been building for a while you decide that actually you would rather use advanced armor. The cubic black standard armor can be re-crafted into advanced armor, but to get the advanced armor non-cubes you have to go advanced armor cube -> advanced armor non-cube. The standard armor non-cubes are now useless. Still later you decide that some parts of the ship would look better in blue. Now even you cubic black advanced armor is useless and you have to go all the way back to grey hull and go through grey hull -> blue hull -> blue standard armor -> blue advanced armor -> blue advanced non-cubes.

Now I appreciate that you could just say that in the above example I have just been really indecisive and it is my own fault, and of course that is true, but the armour crafting scheme could make it so much easier to deal with this scenario. If you could re-craft e.g black standard armor wedges into black advanced armor wedges that would be so much more useful, as would the ability to re-paint armour into a different colour.

Essentially what I am advocating is for the crafting system to allow you to do black hull wedge -> black standard armor wedge -> black advanced armor wedge, and black hull -> blue hull, black standard armor wedge -> blue standard armor, etc, rather than forcing you to go back through the cubes or all the way back to grey hull.

Of course at the moment black standard armor and blue standard armor are produced via
grey hull + black paint(tekt) -> black hull + macet -> black standard armor
grey hull + blue paint(larimar) -> blue hull + hylat -> blue standard armor
so the difference between blue standard armor and black standard armor is more than just blue paint vs black paint, but this could be reflected in the inter-crafting. If converting black standard armor to blue standard armor worked like black standard armor + blue paint + 3 hylat capsule -> blue standard armor you would admittedly spend less hylat making your blue standard armor than normal, but then you've lost the macet used in making the black armour. This could admittedly be used to get around a shortage of hylat, but I don't see that as a particular problem, you've still used more resources overall.

Simply allowing black hull wedge -> black standard armor wedge -> black advanced armor wedge would not circumvent any resource requirements as it should just be the same as black hull -> black standard armor -> black advanced armor.

My preference would also be to allow wedge -> cube as well as cube -> wedge which could either be implemented by allowing the reverse crafting route, or amalgamating the armour multi-slots into single entities rather than 5 separate ones (which seems by far the best solution to everything to me). The result of this would than be that crafting one unit of hull would give you 1 in each of the multi-slot pieces, but using any of the multi-slot pieces would decrease the total of all of them by 1. This would then automatically allow you to re-craft hull or standard armor non-cubes into higher armour rated types.

TL;DR
1) Amalgamate armour multi-slots into single entities, thus allowing wedge -> cube and standard wedge -> advanced wedge
2) Allow 're-painting' of one armour colour into another for half the cost of crafting the new armour colour from scratch (e.g. black standard armor + blue paint + 3 hylat capsule-> blue standard armor)

Hopefully this all made sense and thanks for reading!

What you are asking for *seams* as if it is a simplification to the crafting system. It however makes in much more complicated.

You must realize that the current crafting functionality is not just a single factory and recipe equation.

Since you can “link” factories together you must take into account multiple system interactions.

I love to connect my factories to simplify manufacturing. I am going to be presumptuous as say this is “Intended Functionality.”

Here is how I make hull:
Capsule Refinery (raw material storage)
I have a single refinery feeding all of my factories.
Step 1) Basic Factory 1 – Making Grey Hull (pulls raw materials from the Capsule Refinery)
Step 2) Basic Factory 2 – Making Black Paint (pulls raw materials from the Capsule Refinery)
Step 3) Basic Factory 3 – Linked to Factory 1 and 2 making Black Hull (Grey Hull + Black Paint)
Step 4) Basic Factory 4 – Linked to Factory 3 making Black Hull Wedge (Black Hull)

Simple current functionality:
Black Hull recipe = Grey Hull + Black Paint

Your requested “complex” functionality:
Black Hull recipe = Grey Hull + Black Paint
Or
Red Hull + Black Paint
Or
Yellow Hull + Black Paint
Or
White Hull + Black Paint
Etc…

Combine that with linked factory or storage boxes and you have a system nightmare.

 

[Lord Daro]

Your requested “complex” functionality:
Black Hull recipe = Grey Hull + Black Paint
Or
Red Hull + Black Paint
Or
Yellow Hull + Black Paint
Or
White Hull + Black Paint
Etc…

Combine that with linked factory or storage boxes and you have a system nightmare.

This wouldn't render your current setup useless. The system would just give more options, so you can use other source hulls you might have a lot in stock for some reason.
But i have to say the painting doesn't seem like much to be concerned about.

To combine the different shapes into one block however would be one of my biggest wishes at the moment.
It's realy a pain in the ass to have to aquire the same block in severell shapes in order to soften up a ships surface a bit.
This is especially frustrating with blueprints.

 

[Runeseer]

This wouldn't render your current setup useless. The system would just give more options, so you can use other source hulls you might have a lot in stock for some reason.
But i have to say the painting doesn't seem like much to be concerned about.

To combine the different shapes into one block however would be one of my biggest wishes at the moment.
It's realy a pain in the ass to have to aquire the same block in severell shapes in order to soften up a ships surface a bit.
This is especially frustrating with blueprints.

I am not worried about this impacting my current setup and I am not implying that the OPs suggestion does not have merit.

I am saying that this is complex and would require extensive development time to address.

In the overall priority of development, I would consider this a very low level item.

Bottom line…
User Story defining need:
“I need unlimited colored blocks to build with”

Possible functional solutions:
1. Crafting and manufacturing
2. Player driven economy
3. Acquisition as loot from pirates/pvp

Depending on the server, the ramp up time to unlimited blocks is not all that severe.
I play on a hardcore survival server (Shout out to Sinister Society http://starmadedock.net/threads/tra...double-salvage-5mil-starting.5919/#post-86053) In less than 2 weeks I am at the point where I am building a 400m long ship.

The Dev’s have provided multiple functionally solutions.

 

[Criss]

To be completely honest, I suspect that a new crafting system will happen. I would find the entire system much more appealing if it worked with memorable crafting recipes.

Here is how I would prefer it.

Some blocks are simple enough to be built with basic items, be it refined resources or a capsule, etc. Something like a light rod or paint would fit under this description.

Next, blocks would require a 'casing" and an internal "component"
A core would be made of the metal grill and crystal composite (not sure if thats what makes a core currently. I forget). A light would be made of glass and a light rod, just as it is now.

The two processes above are tied to basic factories.

The next level of blocks requires the second tier factory, and includes things like capsules in their recipes. Something like a tertiary component.
I like the process of upgrading hull, although I agree that it should be made to be easily interchangeable to an extant. In this tier, a logic block would take a casing, internal component, and some other tertiary component. I do not remember what is needed for logic blocks.

The third factory would be the most complex and would at the most require 4 individual parts. I think I will be making a mockup of this and present it to the devs. If it is a good enough system I think they would put it in the game. I do not honestly believe that this is the final stage for crafting. What I've come up with keeps all the same blocks, just restructures the recipes and UI's so that these are memorable recipes. Right now too many blocks are made with the same things. It would feature a new menu with places to put individual components, instead of a box to drop all the resources in.


I can't even recall what blocks are made of what components. That is a big issue to me. The factory that I am using is all automated in my faction, I never have to look at the recipe for some of the blocks I make. That functionality can stay. But holy damn if this stuff doesn't get tedious once you take a look at the crafting processes.

 

[medullaman]

I have to disagree here. I think crafting should remain a big part of the game and planning how many of this or that hull you need is important to me. If anything I think the rest of the block library needs to go back to being more complicated to craft. A piece of advanced armor, which is essentially a hunk of metal, requires 4 factories to create (basic for paint, basic for grey hull, standard for standard armor and advanced for advanced armor) but something that propels my ship faster than the speed of light only takes one? This seems to me like a much bigger problem than not being able to repaint blocks.

I think the armor crafting is perfectly fine the way it is and should be used as a model to fix the rest.

Now I do realize i might be a minority in this regard since the crafting system has already been simplified once. I just feel with the ability to create linked factory chains, more things should require a process to create. And if crafting is too complicated for some, there are other avenues of resource collection.

 

[DraconisDomini]

What you are asking for *seams* as if it is a simplification to the crafting system. It however makes in much more complicated.

You must realize that the current crafting functionality is not just a single factory and recipe equation.

Since you can “link” factories together you must take into account multiple system interactions.

I love to connect my factories to simplify manufacturing. I am going to be presumptuous as say this is “Intended Functionality.”

Here is how I make hull:
Capsule Refinery (raw material storage)
I have a single refinery feeding all of my factories.
Step 1) Basic Factory 1 – Making Grey Hull (pulls raw materials from the Capsule Refinery)
Step 2) Basic Factory 2 – Making Black Paint (pulls raw materials from the Capsule Refinery)
Step 3) Basic Factory 3 – Linked to Factory 1 and 2 making Black Hull (Grey Hull + Black Paint)
Step 4) Basic Factory 4 – Linked to Factory 3 making Black Hull Wedge (Black Hull)

Simple current functionality:
Black Hull recipe = Grey Hull + Black Paint

Your requested “complex” functionality:
Black Hull recipe = Grey Hull + Black Paint
Or
Red Hull + Black Paint
Or
Yellow Hull + Black Paint
Or
White Hull + Black Paint
Etc…

Combine that with linked factory or storage boxes and you have a system nightmare.

I don't think it is presumptuous to say that linking factories is 'intended functionality'. Linking blocks together is an important component of starmade at present, and that doesn't look like something that is intended to change, and nor is it something that this suggestion would negate. I realise that adding multiple paths for making the same thing adds complexity on the development side and the devs would need to think about how to handle the situation where you have a factory linked to a storage that has all of the required pieces to make something via more than one of the possible pathways. Adding some kind of order of preference to the pathways would seem the way to go, so grey hull + black paint gets a higher priority than red hull + black paint, etc.

I am saying that this is complex and would require extensive development time to address.

In the overall priority of development, I would consider this a very low level item.

I'm not going to dispute that, there are probably other things that are more urgently in need of attention, but that doesn't mean that this would not be something to flag for attention somewhere down the line.

Bottom line…
User Story defining need:
“I need unlimited colored blocks to build with”

Possible functional solutions:
1. Crafting and manufacturing
2. Player driven economy
3. Acquisition as loot from pirates/pvp

Depending on the server, the ramp up time to unlimited blocks is not all that severe.

Having unlimited numbers of blocks is of course a possible solution to this problem (though it doesn't address the complex web of linked factories needed to craft them). I am not sure if it is really the desired solution though, as has been pointed out by other people the fact that within a day or two a single player can achieve the ability to produce essentially unlimited numbers of blocks kills any player driven economy and any desire to acquire loot from pirates or PvP. As such when starmade gets further down the line of development the ease of achieving an essentially limitless supply of blocks is something that I see as likely to change, and if/when it does having obsolete/left-over armour blocks would become more of a nuisance.

I have to disagree here. I think crafting should remain a big part of the game and planning how many of this or that hull you need is important to me. If anything I think the rest of the block library needs to go back to being more complicated to craft. A piece of advanced armor, which is essentially a hunk of metal, requires 4 factories to create (basic for paint, basic for grey hull, standard for standard armor and advanced for advanced armor) but something that propels my ship faster than the speed of light only takes one? This seems to me like a much bigger problem than not being able to repaint blocks.

Under the suggestions that I have made you would still need 4 factories to create a piece of advanced armour, that is not changing. You would still need a capsule refinery to make capsules and alloyed metal mesh/crystal composite, a basic factory for hull and paint, a standard factory for standard armor and an advanced factory for advanced armor. It isn't changing the length of the armour crafting trees, just pruning the branches (the non-cubes) and allowing cross-links between the trees (at an increased cost).

The second point that you made - armour being much more complex to construct than jump drive modules - is a separate issue, which Vanhelzing mentioned as well. Adding construction stages to things like jump drive modules is something that would seem perfectly reasonable to me, we even have the perfect basis for the start of such a system already in the game - the circuits and motherboards.

 

[NeonSturm]

The big advantage of steel in real-life industrial processes is: You can re-use it with no about no quality-degradation.

Perhaps we could "combine hull-plating and content" at the stage of placing the blocks, solving the issue by just having grey stuff and texture-plates in your inventory.

 

[Megacrafter127]

The big advantage of steel in real-life industrial processes is: You can re-use it with no about no quality-degradation.

You should be able to change shapes as much as you like, but sacrifice some paint.

That was possible before the factory-revamp. After which it was ditched, because each block may only produced by a single recipe in a recipeless factory.(capsule refineries, micro-assemblers, and handcrafting are still using the old recipe-system, just without the recipe-metaitems)

 

[NeonSturm]

Perhaps we could have a shaper/upgrader-block using different recipes to transform them back to full blocks.

What about:

Perhaps we could "combine hull-plating and content" at the stage of placing the blocks, solving the issue by just having grey stuff and texture-plates in your inventory.

 

[Sunkin351]

Personally, I would love to be able to use paint on the armor After you place it on the ship... Therefore, you only need to make the armor, and the paint afterward. Or does this not seem like a good idea somehow?

 

[SkaireKrough]

It truly would be nice if painting of the hull/armor could be done at any point in the crafting tree rather than just at the hull stage.

 

[Mike the Reaper 86]

Not sure what I think about color interchangeability.
But this,

...(I suggest) amalgamating the armour multi-slots into single entities rather than 5 separate ones (which seems by far the best solution to everything to me). The result of this would than be that crafting one unit of hull would give you 1 in each of the multi-slot pieces, but using any of the multi-slot pieces would decrease the total of all of them by 1. This would then automatically allow you to re-craft hull or standard armor non-cubes into higher armour rated types.

This...

...is brilliant.

Which is why I'm bumping this thread. It deserves attention. We need this implemented yesterday.
To put it in simple terms, instead of crafting various different hull shapes of a certain color and grade (which all coincidentally have the same exact HP, armor and weight anyway) you would be making universal hull units of a certain color and grade that are just molded into the desired shape on the spot. This simplifies manufacturing by eliminating the last step and handily solves the problem of having tons of "non cubes" that can never be changed or upgraded.

There are no downsides to this. None, zero, zip.
Full support here.

 

[Malacodor]

...you would be making universal hull units of a certain color and grade that are just molded into the desired shape on the spot.

Universal hull units should also be colored on the spot and it should be possible to repaint them later.

 

[Mike the Reaper 86]

Universal hull units should also be colored on the spot and it should be possible to repaint them later.

Well that's a whole other can of worms. All hull past basic grade is made from colored metal so they're not likely going to be so interchangeable. That said, I've always found it strange that all these exotic rainbow ores magically create alloys that have the same exact durability as all other colors. It's quite frankly, kinda' dumb.
Space Engineers got this detail right with all hull being made from steel.

 

[Krougal]

TL:DRT, but I skimmed and I think you're suggesting the same thing I suggested (and others have suggested).

I think breaking this into 2 suggestions is the only way it's going to get serious support and possible action. Especially since a lot of people seem to go apeshit over the impact to the different color recipes for some reason.

So just the crafting blocks. Make them all square. Remove 4 pointless recipes per color. A simple shape selector like in most paint programs added to build-mode. So you select your black advanced armor block in your hotbar, click wedge shape, change orientation as it is now, place blocks. Now you want some hepta, press hepta shape, align, place. Done, done, on to the next.

Consolidating colors into paint seems to merit it's own thread. A good argument would be they could allow the full color spectrum, again just like any number of simple interfaces in any number of popular paint programs. People would line up and fall all over themselves for that too I'm sure (until I got married I was unaware there were more than 16 colors, but my wife assures me it's a real thing).