What to expect in the future in terms of ship immersion?

[Alkatjo]

Hi, my name is Alkatjo. I'm somewhat a ship designer and a huge fan of space simulators. I have many issues and thoughts concerning the future "immersion" of Starmade. I'm going to ask a few questions regarding the immersion of ships.
You see, when I was a kid I had been subjected to many of my dad's games; which were mostly all space RP/combat simulators. The sheer amount of excitement from those games made me want to command my own ship with my own followers. This was my dream, until I came to the cold conclusion that it will never happen during my lifetime, hard reality there. For years I searched of a good space game that both LET you customize your ship in every way and TAKE said ship to battle with other players/AI. It wasn't until I came across a sight regarding voxel based games did I find Starmade back in early 2013. I was hooked in an instant. Without thinking I slammed my cursor on download and watched as the launcher crept up to 100%.
In game I was greeted by a tutorial as well as a shop. It was then when I started to love this game, I browsed other people's ships and got ideas to make my first ship; The Seethe.
I had all the major components for this 300 meter long ship which was incased in turrets, plenty of storage. A decent hanger bay. Even my own command deck. I was then done in by the sheer dullness of the core. That block, ruined it for me. Don't get me wrong this game is pretty damn good, even for its current state. But the core...
All I ask is that sometime in the future, when Schema or whoever runs the development decides to improve the game graphically, that you please reconsider the immersion of your game. My ship just feels like a dull husk floating around without a cockpit. I have friends, they're my crew. They sit in computers and build blocks...
Tables, chairs, cockpits with interior would be a nice addition to this game.
Please reconsider.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

Yep. Chairs are a much requested feature, I'm also a huge supporter of adding furniture/decorative stuff OTHER than 'different colours of computer' into the game. You get a +1 from me.

That being said we're likely to only get this kind of stuff in the full release. I really hope we get some visual stuff in soon, though.

 

[hindos]

What a lovely motivation, I like to see what drives people to enjoy these sort of things in the first place . As for immersion, I do agree some sort of visible crew members including perhaps simple animations to further make it interesting. Custom Multi-block 'cores' would also be a fine addition, no commandment comes down to one little spot after all.

 

[madmann135]

What I want is a block that emits non colliding particle effects.
This can be used to make a shower, engine exhaust effects, fountains or a variety of other things depending on the color.
Unfortunately to many of said blocks can bog down the engine.

 

[Snk]

I'm sure Schema is going to figure out some creative way to replace the core.

 

[karkinosz]

I'm sure Schema is going to figure out some creative way to replace the core.

The core will probably stay. It's an ugly fix to remove something that is the centre of rotation and the 0,0,0 point all other blocks are referenced by in an entity.

What will probably change is that we will have different ways to enter the "ship". Like sitting on the appropriate chair and activating a nearby screen. So one can steal the ships core underneath hull and under lock and key.

Lore wise I like to think of the core more as the ships black box but far more important. All major ship functions are handled in this box and commands from it cannot be intercepted or blocked (so e-war hacking to make the engines blow up will never occur) but things like doors and lights are secondary. And the reason the ship dies is because the core was managing everything, there are no backups because those could be hacked then made to send conflicting messages.

Pretty much the core will be made less visible to help with immersion and other ways to enter the ship like chairs will be added. But starmade is in early alpha (if you've heard how much schema wants to do you know we aren't leaving alpha any time soon) but rest assured Alkatjo the time of the chair will dawn!

 

[Mariux]

The core will probably stay. It's an ugly fix to remove something that is the centre of rotation and the 0,0,0 point all other blocks are referenced by in an entity.

What will probably change is that we will have different ways to enter the "ship". Like sitting on the appropriate chair and activating a nearby screen. So one can steal the ships core underneath hull and under lock and key.

Lore wise I like to think of the core more as the ships black box but far more important. All major ship functions are handled in this box and commands from it cannot be intercepted or blocked (so e-war hacking to make the engines blow up will never occur) but things like doors and lights are secondary. And the reason the ship dies is because the core was managing everything, there are no backups because those could be hacked then made to send conflicting messages.

Pretty much the core will be made less visible to help with immersion and other ways to enter the ship like chairs will be added. But starmade is in early alpha (if you've heard how much schema wants to do you know we aren't leaving alpha any time soon) but rest assured Alkatjo the time of the chair will dawn!

We should make a game all about chairs seeing all the hype from the forums.

 

[Mered4]

I was under the impression that the core would remain the main way to take control of your ship.

The change would be that it could only be overheated after X% of your ship was destroyed - which would give a large advantage to larger ships in straight fights.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

We should make a game all about chairs seeing all the hype from the forums.

Yes! Chair Simulator 2014!

Hey don't laugh, if goats and rocks and qwop-like 'surgery' can get a simulator, we could make the next best thing!

 

[Crimson-Artist]

as karkinosz said. Cores will most likely stay for technical reasons.

However with the new linking system and the fact that theres a block in game thats only visible in build mode (or at least thats how its suppose to be) i was hoping something along the lines of a invisible chair block that can be linked to any computer as well as the core.

this way the game can be more immersive by allowing players to create their own chairs and be able to sit in it to command their ships while not changing the game dramatically from a coding perspective.

the core will mostly be for small ships or even turrets. it would take too much time to remove those systems from the game

 

[Mariux]

Yes! Chair Simulator 2014!

Hey don't laugh, if goats and rocks and qwop-like 'surgery' can get a simulator, we could make the next best thing!

Goat chair surgery simulator 2014