Physical Blocks for Meta Items and Resources

[Lone_Puppy]

Hi Schine,

Could we please have physical block versions of our meta items and resources?
This would allow for additional decoration and game play.
Logically these blocks would be better as LoD blocks.

Decoration Ideas

• Storage and Factories could have a physical representation instead of a display block. I have this setup for an automated factory of mine, but for resources I have to use display modules.
• Factory animation illusions with simulated conveyor belts with resources moving along. Logically this is an illusion created with hidden rails and dockers underneath the conveyor assembly.
• Piles of ore and crystals laying round in cargo, on planets or asteroids.
• Actual physical weapons and tools in custom built lockers.
• Weapons and any other meta could be dropped and picked up at any later date.

Game Play Ideas

• Physical weapons and tools on walls and in armories on our NPC and faction ships. Or in derelicts, station and ship.
• When you have these placed around ships/stations etc, you can send attack teams in and use these items to capture a ship or just steal them.
• They can also be used as bait, to ambush would be theives or attackers.
• Shipments could be physical instead of storage based. Would be more space consuming, but if you have no storage it should still be possible so you don't blow out in internal inventory.
• Perhaps a new mechanic for the resource type of block. Have them act similar to a storage block based on contents, but visually act like a cargo block where you see 1 crystal versus several piled up or stacked nicely. Ore would be the same, where you see a single rock, then a pile as you start to fill the resource block with whatever.

I'm sure the player base could supply way more ideas for a physical version of our meta items. Either to the lists above or perhaps completely different purposes.

 

[NeonSturm]

Hi Schine,

Could we please have physical block versions of our meta items and resources?
This would allow for additional decoration and game play.
Logically these blocks would be better as LoD blocks.

Decoration Ideas

1. Storage and Factories could have a physical representation instead of a display block. I have this setup for an automated factory of mine, but for resources I have to use display modules.
2. Factory animation illusions with simulated conveyor belts with resources moving along. Logically this is an illusion created with hidden rails and dockers underneath the conveyor assembly.
3. Piles of ore and crystals laying round in cargo, on planets or asteroids.
4. Actual physical weapons and tools in custom built lockers.
5. Weapons and any other meta could be dropped and picked up at any later date.

Game Play Ideas

1. Physical weapons and tools on walls and in armories on our NPC and faction ships. Or in derelicts, station and ship.
2. When you have these placed around ships/stations etc, you can send attack teams in and use these items to capture a ship or just steal them.
3. They can also be used as bait, to ambush would be theives or attackers.
4. Shipments could be physical instead of storage based. Would be more space consuming, but if you have no storage it should still be possible so you don't blow out in internal inventory.
5. Perhaps a new mechanic for the resource type of block. Have them act similar to a storage block based on contents, but visually act like a cargo block where you see 1 crystal versus several piled up or stacked nicely. Ore would be the same, where you see a single rock, then a pile as you start to fill the resource block with whatever.

I'm sure the player base could supply way more ideas for a physical version of our meta items. Either to the lists above or perhaps completely different purposes.

I have edited the quote:

Green = Like
Grey = Irrelevant (personal opinion alert!)
White = Maybe
​

Bump/Height-mapped display modules which show 16-colours (hexadecimal) would really mock-up the game. They could be floating screens if they have a display-offset in depth (a second hexadecimal to the pair).

Factory animation: collision mechanics are simple (just stop the whole animation if you enter a xyz-box), but it would make the game more lively.

Physical weapons would be nice, but I don't think they would be that useful in the current state of the game.

Physical shipments are very ineffective. Maybe scavengers could use them.

Resource-Blocks: We could show HP as content. But you would need to somehow work around requiring many texture images.
If it were a graphic-shader, it would be different from the rest of the game, but perhaps a configurable one could be edited just as easily (config-options: crystal size, colour-map, texture-shader, etc)