Implemented Remove Hull/Armor Manufacturing Cube Middleman Step

[Edymnion]

If you want to make a hull/armor wedge, tetra, hepta, or corner, you first have to manufacture the standard cube, then turn the cube into the shaped piece you want.

Which means for every non-cube hull/armor block you want, you have to manufacture it twice, first as a cube then as the block you actually wanted.

This is incredibly annoying when you're having to make large numbers of them in various combinations. Please, just let us make the shaped piece directly, upgrade shaped pieces directly, and leave the cubes out (unless of course cubes were the block you wanted).

Want a Grey Standard Armor Tetra? Make a Grey Hull Tetra, then use Standard Hardener on it. Done. No making a cube, then hardening the cube, then making the tetra.

Bonus, it means the non-cube hull/armor blocks aren't entirely worthless when made at lower quality since they could then be upgraded, as opposed to now where if you have a Grey Hull Tetra, its entirely worthless for anything but a grey hull tetra because you can only upgrade cubes.

 

[Madman198237]

I agree.

We should skip ALL the middleman steps---from now on you make a grey hull tetra, then make a grey standard tetra, before making a grey advanced tetra, and then coloring the tetra.

Also, allow coloring at any stage, and make it carry through the refinement process.


That or allow us to straight-up create advanced armor in an advanced factory, out of the raw materials, bypassing the need to make armor in tiers.

This would really accelerate the production of all armor blocks.

 

[Edymnion]

That or allow us to straight-up create advanced armor in an advanced factory, out of the raw materials, bypassing the need to make armor in tiers.

This would really accelerate the production of all armor blocks.

I could see having both, if they could get flexible requirements in place.

Create standard/advanced armor directly in the advanced factory for all of the mats it would take to produce the hardeners and hull, or reduced mats if you have one of the intermediary steps handy. So it would be cheaper to upgrade standard into advanced than to create advanced from scratch.

Or simply have a factory be able to order a slaved factory to produce requirements. So that if I had hardener already stockpiled, I could tell the Standard factory to make Standard Armor, and it could have a slaved Basic Factory churn out the hull it needs.

Pretty sure something along those lines is already in the works though, as the "Make the shipyard be able to order factories to build parts" crowd has been around for a while now, and that would pretty much have to be a prerequisite for having the shipyard computer be able to automatically place orders for what it needs.

 

[Crashmaster]

I would rather have all shaped blocks not be manufactured at all but selected like slabs as a sub-set of full blocks during building.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

This should be the same for painted blocks. I don't understand why we need to make grey, then make the painted version. Just add the base materials to the cost of the recipe and cut out the middleman.

I would rather have all shaped blocks not be manufactured at all but selected like slabs as a sub-set of full blocks during building.

yes that would be the ultimate goal, but if the current system must stay I think being able to craft the shapes directly would be the best option.

 

[Lecic]

I would rather have all shaped blocks not be manufactured at all but selected like slabs as a sub-set of full blocks during building.

I came here to say this. I agree.

 

[Madman198237]

Yeah, the subset thing is a great idea! It removes data in the form of useless recipes that everyone hates, and really, if we can split a block into a slab during the build process, we can split it into other shapes as well.

 

[StarWars1981]

I would rather have all shaped blocks not be manufactured at all but selected like slabs as a sub-set of full blocks during building.

Unfortunately, that may be the point - the time required is part of the manufacturing cost. I don't know what Schema's thinking with it, but it may be that the time is part of your cost.
However, being able to set up automatic factories makes a lot of sense. I've got half the system already - factories produce things, cargo modules pull the SPECIFIC materials from the previous factory - and then I need a factory call command to take what IT needs from the storage module to create things.

 

[Frigidman]

... and why is it, when you want to make a wedge, from a cube, you dont get two wedges when you do it? Its half a cube after all

I personally dislike the whole 'make a cube first before making any of the actual shapes'. Its a darn right pain, needless tedium for no benefit in game quality or even realism for that matter.

If I want to manufacture a wedge, let me do it from raw materials (half the raw materials) as a cube... and be on with it.

But I also agree with the "lets just make a pile of cubes, and when we go to build, we can select any shape of the cube while constructing" crowd... as that is already being done in Empyrion and its awwwwesome.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

... and why is it, when you want to make a wedge, from a cube, you dont get two wedges when you do it? Its half a cube after all

I've seen this argument a lot. The problem is if you got two wedges from every block you would have to also halve the HP or else you could cover your ship with the cheaper material keeping the flat portion exposed. This would also increase the amount of hidden space that has to be rendered causing more performance load. If the stats balanced out to make it fair that you get twice the material at half the stats this would punish you anytime you build a 45 slope as this part of the ship will have less hp then the 90 degree flat portions. I would much rather have all sections of hull offer the same protection than get extra wedges. I don't think of hull as being a solid block you cut in half, they could easily have a complex internal structure that is just compressed when you make the block smaller but the actual outer layer stays the same thickness and that's why the armor values are consistent.

 

[Malacodor]

I would rather have all shaped blocks not be manufactured at all but selected like slabs as a sub-set of full blocks during building.

Exactly. Drag your grey cube into the hotbar and it becomes a multislot item including slabs. Then pick a color in advanced build mode or via hotkey + mouse wheel (paint must be present in inventory of course) and build. Add brush tool to advanced build mode to change color of already placed blocks for more win.

 

[Criss]

I agree. Maybe this has to do with how our crafting system is organized from a technical standpoint. Maybe not. I can't speak to why but I can say that it makes things much simpler.

 

[jstenholt]

Exactly. Drag your grey cube into the hotbar and it becomes a multislot item including slabs. Then pick a color in advanced build mode or via hotkey + mouse wheel (paint must be present in inventory of course) and build. Add brush tool to advanced build mode to change color of already placed blocks for more win.

I've been saying this for a long-ass time. And I'm glad people are finally starting to want this. But I go a step further and say that paint should also be removed entirely in favor of 3 hull blocks and 1 crystal block. EzPz.

 

[pietrko]

I can't agree in 100% - this would simplify things too much - if you're gonna change that - increase the time of production.

One of the game aspects that needs love is economy - currently its too easy to make big ships which also affects how other aspects of game look like (battles).

Constraints (such time & resources) needed to manufacture some stuff in game are needed - because they force player to make meaningful & reasonable choices - to think and act with limited resources - without constraints we would have creative mode or half of a game.

 

[Edymnion]

I can't agree in 100% - this would simplify things too much - if you're gonna change that - increase the time of production.

Production time is equally meaningless.

If they double the amount of time it takes to produce a block, I would simply double the number of enhancers on that factory to bring the crafting time right back to where it was.

 

[pietrko]

Production time is equally meaningless.

If they double the amount of time it takes to produce a block, I would simply double the number of enhancers on that factory to bring the crafting time right back to where it was.

This thinking is still a thinking of a player with unlimited resources at his disposal - which is precisely i think is bad for gameplay.
You see? There is no meaningful decision here.
You shouldn't have enough resources to double enhancers number easily in the first place.

One may ask: if it is soo easy to make enhancers - why they are in game in the first place? Why not just rescale the speed of factories x3 - every player builds enhancers anyway.

You see where I'm going?

There are a few overcomplicated things in game atm.
I would agree with you that middle man in wedges in one of them.
But as I said simplification leads to boring gameplay devoid of challenges. Along with the change of that wedge block I would like to see a set of changes to economy that make planning and optimization important when building factories and starting production - thats all.

 

[Edymnion]

This thinking is still a thinking of a player with unlimited resources at his disposal

Not really. If I need to make 10 blocks, the resources required to make those ten blocks is the same if I make them 1 at a time, 5 at a time, or 10 at a time.

If its 1 second per tick to make them, then 1 block at a time will take me 10 seconds to make 10 blocks.
If its 2 seconds per tick, it would take 20 seconds at 1x to make 10 blocks, but doubling the enhancers means I'm back at 10 seconds again, making 2 blocks at a time.
If its 10 seconds per tick, then with 9 enhancers I'd be back to 10 blocks in 10 seconds again.

The only things it cost me are space and power to run those enhancers. Both of which you basically have unlimited amounts of on a station.

 

[Frigidman]

This thinking is still a thinking of a player with unlimited resources at his disposal - which is precisely i think is bad for gameplay.

I dont play in creative mode. I know what resources needs are like to do anything. Removing a useless middle-man step in making blocks has absolutely nothing to do with resources. Unlimited or not.

This is a fight of theoretical realists vs actual gameplay experience players.

Having needless tedium does nothing for gameplay. Don't forget this is still a game, something to have fun in. Having to do something ridiculous in repetition, reduces ones desire to even play the game, let alone support it in the future.

I'm not saying that having to make a base block, to make partial blocks is game-breaking... I'm just saying its absolutely not needed in any sense where I consider something to be 'fun'. Especially when we have no way to recycle parts because we made too many dang tetras, when we need more heptas. Or even a way to use those kinds of blocks to make other kinds of blocks. Its just kind of *guh* right now.

Removing the middle-man block does not create imbalance. It doesnt make it simpler either. What it does do is affords people to actually end up being creative and fine-tune their designs with contours and shapes without being abused by the system to do such.

 

[Madman198237]

Removing middlemen blocks will decrease micromanagement required, and also improve experience because, as you said, no more "Oh darn, I needed white standard armor tetras, and I made grey standard armor tetras, now I'm done." Or, make a tetra, and then be one normal block short because a tetra cannot become a normal block. It's bothersome.