Stairs and more shape blocks

[Atas-Pelangi]

stairs and more shape blocks, as an alternative to Ramps and slopes.
more wedge types

 

[therimmer96]

Stairs.

Yes.

 

[Jake_Lancia]

Just give us stairs damnit

 

[jayman38]

With the new modeling update, now would probably be a good time to introduce the two 22.5 degree wedge shapes (the "short" shallow wedge, and the "deep" shallow wedge), plus all 14 or so different sub-wedge shapes for slabs. I estimate about 8000 Block IDs would be needed for these 16 more-subtle shapes alone. It sounds like a heavy price to pay for shapes that are not really "needed", but ship design would look less blocky.

 

[Proxima_Centauri]

plz no

At least merge all hull shapes into a single block with configurable shape before doing more hull block shapes.

 

[terra mining corp.]

(jayman38. "It sounds like a heavy price to pay for shapes that are not really "needed", but ship design would look less blocky" ) ummm it's legos in space,please don't make the game more complicated.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I think stairs are relegated to the maybe pile, due to the animation etc work that would need to go into them.

 

[therimmer96]

With the new modeling update, now would probably be a good time to introduce the two 22.5 degree wedge shapes (the "short" shallow wedge, and the "deep" shallow wedge), plus all 14 or so different sub-wedge shapes for slabs. I estimate about 8000 Block IDs would be needed for these 16 more-subtle shapes alone. It sounds like a heavy price to pay for shapes that are not really "needed", but ship design would look less blocky.

You appear to be under the influence that each orientation of a block needs a seperate block ID. This isn't the case.

 

[jayman38]

(jayman38. "It sounds like a heavy price to pay for shapes that are not really "needed", but ship design would look less blocky" ) ummm it's legos in space,please don't make the game more complicated.

More complicated is more system rules. This is just added decoration. If one were to take your request to the logical extreme, you would either come to the conclusion that more shapes are exactly following the Lego legacy (at one point, the Lego inventory had 11k different shapes), or else all angled shapes would need to be removed. If you don't want to bother with the difficulty of selecting additional shapes, you don't have to, but more advanced shapes to make ships look even smoother would become the new standard in ship hull finishing.

You appear to be under the influence that each orientation of a block needs a seperate block ID. This isn't the case.

Not at all! If you take into account 10 different colors, times 16 different new shapes, times 4 different hull types, that is 640 block IDs for the armors alone, including plain hull and crystal. 8000 IDs is an exaggeration, but I figured one would want to add in the new shapes for all the many decorative blocks as well.

 

[PLIX]

its in development the latest update added 2 morwe shapes

 

[Edymnion]

Not at all! If you take into account 10 different colors, times 16 different new shapes, times 4 different hull types, that is 640 block IDs for the armors alone, including plain hull and crystal. 8000 IDs is an exaggeration, but I figured one would want to add in the new shapes for all the many decorative blocks as well.

Why would there be 16 different shapes?

Its basic stairs, its one shape. Each block ID already has facing built into it. Its 10 colors for 3 types (basic, standard, hardened). Its 30 new block IDs, not 640.

And they've already said that they've redone the block config so that limited IDs is no longer a concern.

The only reason not to have this is because you think decorative items are bad, at which point I'd say we have freaking PINK and TEAL armor colors. I'd happily toss those out in favor of some stuff someone would actually use.

 

[jayman38]

Why would there be 16 different shapes?

Its basic stairs, its one shape. Each block ID already has facing built into it. Its 10 colors for 3 types (basic, standard, hardened). Its 30 new block IDs, not 640....

Oh, I went way beyond the idea of stairs...

With the new modeling update, now would probably be a good time to introduce the two 22.5 degree wedge shapes (the "short" shallow wedge, and the "deep" shallow wedge), plus all 14 or so different sub-wedge shapes for slabs. I estimate about 8000 Block IDs would be needed for these 16 more-subtle shapes alone. It sounds like a heavy price to pay for shapes that are not really "needed", but ship design would look less blocky.

 

[Megacrafter127]

And they've already said that they've redone the block config so that limited IDs is no longer a concern.

Quote please? The blockconfig never was the limiting factor regarding blockIDs anyways, it is the smd2 file format, which allocates 11 bits to blockID, resulting in only 2048 distinct IDs. ID 0 is reserved for the absence of a block, so that leaves 2047 possible different blocks in total.
So long as the smd2 file format does not change in that regard(which it did not), the limit will always be in place.

 

[Edymnion]

Quote please? The blockconfig never was the limiting factor regarding blockIDs anyways, it is the smd2 file format, which allocates 11 bits to blockID, resulting in only 2048 distinct IDs. ID 0 is reserved for the absence of a block, so that leaves 2047 possible different blocks in total.
So long as the smd2 file format does not change in that regard(which it did not), the limit will always be in place.

Whoops, you're right. I said the wrong thing.

I don't have the quote handy, I didn't bookmark it or anything, but I definitely saw them saying that the limited block IDs were no longer an issue. Anyone else have that handy?

 

[KillaKrazy]

Look at the notes from update V0.19498 Slabs & New Blocks. Pretty sure that is the one where they stated they could increase the amount of block IDs.

"If necessary the internal size of blocks can be expanded from 3 to 4 bytes, effectively doubling block ids a few times, so don’t worry about block ids running out."

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Look at the notes from update V0.19498 Slabs & New Blocks. Pretty sure that is the one where they stated they could increase the amount of block IDs.

"If necessary the internal size of blocks can be expanded from 3 to 4 bytes, effectively doubling block ids a few times, so don’t worry about block ids running out."

This is a last resort measure. Doing so would mean everything on the hard drive would be 25% larger than they were before.

 

[Megacrafter127]

This is a last resort measure. Doing so would mean everything on the hard drive would be 25% larger than they were before.

actually, 33% larger

 

[Malacodor]

This is a last resort measure. Doing so would mean everything on the hard drive would be 25% larger than they were before.

RAM is the bigger problem.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

actually, 33% larger

I wrote 33% originally but I thought "somebody will say this is wrong, I'll put 25% instead."

RAM is the bigger problem.

Yes this is also true. It will be harder to build large ships as they will take up more ram than before.

 

[Madman198237]

Yeah, 33% larger (Because 4/3 is 1.333, so it's 33.3% MORE than 100%).