Brainstorm This Small Suggestion: Concrete Blocks

[GRHayes]

You seem to be missing the point of this being a neat use for rocks and maybe other relatively useless blocks. It fits right along side being able to refine mineral blocks into cash items, with this we can refine planet filler blocks into cheap but heavy armor. (Already established process?)

Its a pretty nice buff to stations, and with cheap blocks to help defend them more players would be likely to build multiple stations, giving more to fight over. Far better than rocks sitting in your cargo hold collecting space dust.

I would be interested to hear how you think this would impact the game negatively other than "It hurts my realism".

Actually I didn't miss the point if you read my first reply to the post. I suggested making it something on the order of combine the rock with clay or mud or something which could be another earth type since there is more than 1 type of planet surface and you could make say heat shield which would be good against beam weapons but not so great against projectiles/ cannons.

You could take that further and could create silicates and make a polymer and make what amounts to teflon which would be good at slowing down projectiles which is what is used in a bullet proof vest and even armor system for vehicles. You could even simulate carbon and make a combination of carbon fiber layered with teflon covered with heat shielding to make a simply better armor.

That way you have a use for a lot more materials that we currently see as junk.

simply put take a lesson from reality. It has everything we need to explain away it accurately.

 

[Master_Artificer]

9/11

Dank Memes can't melt Tekt Beams

 

[FatCobra]

I think this is a great idea. Just because the concrete we use now doesn't have the specs you want doesn't mean that some process can't turn rock and other useless crap in the game into something that would be helpful.

We have transporter tech and the ability jump almost instantly across the galaxy. So why can't we use some tech to "condense" the rock. Make the recipe say 27 rock = 1 "concrete" or what ever you want to call it. By some strange almost magical and mystical tech we condense all of the atoms from the original 27 blocks into a single block with 27 x the mass, strength, etc.

 

[Valck]

I too think this is a great idea.

However I'd hope to see tetra/hepta/slab etc. variants of the existing "building" blocks first, namely plain and carved asteroid and planet rocks, crystallised ores, and so on, before yet another block is being introduced.
This would already explode the available building options, and I feel not enough smoothing options hurt my building more than lack of material variety.

 

[Nickizzy]

I too think this is a great idea.

However I'd hope to see tetra/hepta/slab etc. variants of the existing "building" blocks first, namely plain and carved asteroid and planet rocks, crystallised ores, and so on, before yet another block is being introduced.
This would already explode the available building options, and I feel not enough smoothing options hurt my building more than lack of material variety.

I think halfs and tetras and heptas of unrefined asteroids would be a waste of space right now, other things with slabs would be really nice. I really like concrete blocks, I think a temperary solution would be to let grass and trees and rock be turned into capsules(concrete mix asn organic material?), and capsules into a variety of blocks.

 

[Valck]

I too think this is a great idea.

However I'd hope to see tetra/hepta/slab etc. variants of the existing "building" blocks first, namely plain and carved asteroid and planet rocks, crystallised ores, and so on, before yet another block is being introduced.
This would already explode the available building options, and I feel not enough smoothing options hurt my building more than lack of material variety.

I think halfs and tetras and heptas of unrefined asteroids would be a waste of space right now, other things with slabs would be really nice. I really like concrete blocks, I think a temperary solution would be to let grass and trees and rock be turned into capsules(concrete mix asn organic material?), and capsules into a variety of blocks.

On the contrary, I especially like the uncarved rocks for being seamless.

It already helps to break up the blockiness quite a lot, and that would be vastly improved with angled blocks. They could also be integrated into the generation algorithm for asteroids, allowing for very smooth or very jagged ones.

Compared to that I find the added value of concrete nice to have - eventually.

 

[Comradecolonel]

On the contrary, I especially like the uncarved rocks for being seamless.

It already helps to break up the blockiness quite a lot, and that would be vastly improved with angled blocks. They could also be integrated into the generation algorithm for asteroids, allowing for very smooth or very jagged ones.

Compared to that I find the added value of concrete nice to have - eventually.

I think that is a big issue right now, seamless blocks. Right now a lot of my ship use standard armor for one reason alone, it's seamless. I hate how basic hull looks on the outside of ship in making a smooth hull. The seams in many blocks make the game look even blockier.

I'm actually working on taking the seams out of basic hull, the only issue is it still needs some sort of texture to it to look good. The first time I did it, it just made everything look shitty.

If they make a concrete block It should definetely be seamlesss and beige-ish/grayish. That I think would make for a great building material. If they add a whole set with bricks and steel beams that'd be really cool too.

 

[Joe Tuber]

If they make a concrete block It should definetely be seamlesss and beige-ish/grayish. That I think would make for a great building material. If they add a whole set with bricks and steel beams that'd be really cool too.

That's pretty much the entire point, in fact I should have put that in the OP. I really want another seamless block to work with that's a little more refined looking than raw stone.

Edit - Can't forget wedges/heptras/tetras so you can build concrete silos and such.

 

[Valck]

I think that is a big issue right now, seamless blocks. Right now a lot of my ship use standard armor for one reason alone, it's seamless. I hate how basic hull looks on the outside of ship in making a smooth hull. The seams in many blocks make the game look even blockier.

Don't get me wrong, I also appreciate the tiled look too; it wouldn't do to replace one for the other.
What I'm saying is we already have an early game option for non-tiled blocks, which I'd prefer to see expanded upon before the introduction of a new block.

 

[Comradecolonel]

I do like tiled blocks but I wish I didn't have to decide between lighter weight and looking better. I wish we had better options all around, but if we got some blocks that work well for buildings it would help greatly.

 

[GRHayes]

Please add a concrete block, similar to rock but with a smoother texture. It would be cheap to mass produce and stronger than most normal building materials, but at the cost of higher mass. Similarly, there could be reinforced concrete blocks, which are highly resistant to damage and cheaper than armor, but extremely high mass.

Maybe I should have clarified better what I meant.
The idea to make use of the rock and so on we gather is great. Calling it concrete and using it for armor is where I had the issue.
The US military made boats at one point called Liberty boats out of concrete. I have friend who converted one into a house boat. Maintenance lots of maintenance.

The way I see it is you have multiple planets with Multiple types of covering representing a number of different earth types and so on.
You could use them in a realistic manner to provide actual real forms of arm increases or types.

If we assume the base material armor is steal.
We could add to it to make it more conductive, we could add to it to make it more heat resilient, Increase its strength and so on.

 

[NeonSturm]

considering we can make a 90,000 megaton nuclear bomb but we just don't I would say if we seen the need we actually could do that as well.

See the problem is most people don't have an actual grasp of what we can really do with current technology.

Think of it this way. We have 3D printers far more capable than most people know. They can do metal or plastic some can even add circuits in. Some can create circuit boards. They are looking at even individual manufacturing of microchips shortly rather than the mass producing we currently do, some can even handle making fabric to clothing. We also have automate lathes, cnc... and a lot more. Our antennas can pick up the signal from a 27 watt transmitter 120 AU from earth. (Voyager).

90'000 megaton bombs are a waste of precious resources - it is a crime against future generations which may require it.

Personally, I am looking forward to the technology (not all usage possibilities tough) that come from 1nm 3D printers.

Imagine molecules with 1-2 metal-atoms in it which are aligned in a 1..10 atom radius on a electro-statically charged plate and can itself create a grid where another layer can align itself onto.
A computer needs AND/OR, NOT, STORE - just a few basic components to make anything out of it.


–– Back to hulls from rock ––
I like the idea of having heavier blocks for stations, planet-structures and everything that does not rely on mobility.

Yes, you CAN put 2m thick armour on a tank, but then it will sink into mud, destroy streets/bridges and take a shitload of fuel.
But if you put 2m thick armour on a 1-level high building, no may not have issues - not everywhere at least.

And in space, stations can have 1km thick armour made of rock. Whenever they take damage, they could just throw a few rocks in the hole to lower the amount of bullets and laser-light that gets through to hit the safety/second-shield on the inside.

It just makes sense, mostly independent of the material.

 

[GRHayes]

90'000 megaton bombs are a waste of precious resources - it is a crime against future generations which may require it.

Personally, I am looking forward to the technology (not all usage possibilities tough) that come from 1nm 3D printers.

Imagine molecules with 1-2 metal-atoms in it which are aligned in a 1..10 atom radius on a electro-statically charged plate and can itself create a grid where another layer can align itself onto.
A computer needs AND/OR, NOT, STORE - just a few basic components to make anything out of it.


–– Back to hulls from rock ––
I like the idea of having heavier blocks for stations, planet-structures and everything that does not rely on mobility.

Yes, you CAN put 2m thick armour on a tank, but then it will sink into mud, destroy streets/bridges and take a shitload of fuel.
But if you put 2m thick armour on a 1-level high building, no may not have issues - not everywhere at least.

And in space, stations can have 1km thick armour made of rock. Whenever they take damage, they could just throw a few rocks in the hole to lower the amount of bullets and laser-light that gets through to hit the safety/second-shield on the inside.

It just makes sense, mostly independent of the material.

90,000 Megaton nuke uses a lot less resources than you think. You would have to understand how they are made in modern weapons to understand it. The proposal for it was for dealing potential asteroids. They determined our biggest issues is detecting one in time that we could fly the rocket out to it to make the hit at a point it would be worth doing.

I worked for Texas Instruments developing processors. What you are describing is basically a doping process. Your problem is the gird isn't created by the deposition but by the substrate the type of wafer.

I don't see to many people wanting to make an ugly block of a station not even in this game. As for real life. It would cause so many bad issues I'm not even going to bother getting into it. About the only place a 1Km armor made of Cement might be used is on a planet for creating a colony. But 1Km not likely considering stronger materials and easier to handle would be far greater advantage to use. They might layer of concrete simply to slow down small impact objects because cement can be patched. Can you imagine trying to pour 1Km worth of concrete and cure it on earth we can do it in space it wouldn't cure the same. On a planet that doesn't have a breathable atmosphere it would be a massive waste of air to try and cure it.

 

[NeonSturm]

Can you imagine trying to pour 1Km worth of concrete and cure it on earth we can do it in space it wouldn't cure the same. On a planet that doesn't have a breathable atmosphere it would be a massive waste of air to try and cure it.

I can imagine 1km of "accumulated diamonds" (have read that in some sci-fi roman where they trapped scientists under 500m earth on a rocky island and stole their inventions).

I don't know if the process would require air or if some other replacement for concrete using minerals from rocks would be used in place of it.

 

[GRHayes]

I can imagine 1km of "accumulated diamonds" (have read that in some sci-fi roman where they trapped scientists under 500m earth on a rocky island and stole their inventions).

I don't know if the process would require air or if some other replacement for concrete using minerals from rocks would be used in place of it.

1Km of diamond. There is one person or company currently that can manufacture diamonds that so far have proven indistinguishable from natural ones. The process involves compressing carbon under extreme pressure and temp. The exact process I couldn't tell you.

Now imagine trying to form diamond 1Km thick. Can you imagine the equipment to even construct something like that in think layers. Seriously that would be impressive. I won't say impossible because if a society had the resources and actual desire to do something like that they could just ungodly amounts of resource energy and time would be used for it. You could reconstruct the entirety of the moon with such resources.

 

[NeonSturm]

If you could send the heat of a blue star through a wormhole, use a black-hole's gravity and have other alien or sci-fi tech …

It's StarMade, not today.

 

[Comradecolonel]

Oooohhhkay material science aside there are building reasons why one would want concrete. Warehouses, bunkers, and other hardened structures would make a lot of sense on planets. Beyond that all structural materials could be made from materials found on planet, like terrain blocks.
Anyway here's my take on it.


You can use soil and water to craft the bricks. The blocks themselves have higher HP than basic hull but no armor. In the first picture we have concrete and "metal" blocks. I tried to make it so you could make steel-like skeletons wrapped in concrete. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[GRHayes]

If you could send the heat of a blue star through a wormhole, use a black-hole's gravity and have other alien or sci-fi tech …

It's StarMade, not today.

Starmade so true. Doesn't quite fit the present or future. Doesn't hold with or without physics. It is certainly a universe to itself.

 

[Blodge]

Maybe I should have clarified better what I meant.
The idea to make use of the rock and so on we gather is great. Calling it concrete and using it for armor is where I had the issue.

In that case, I have the perfect solution for everyone: Call it Plexcrete.

If we assume the base material armor is steal.

A lot of your ideas about hull (such as changing it's resistance properties) although interesting seem to be based on this assumption. I don't see that stated in the Wiki though, and I don't make that assumption myself.
https://starmadepedia.net/wiki/Hull

 

[FatCobra]

I vote for Plexcrete