A possible solution for cross ship logic and hotbar logic

[Jaaskinal]

I had some time to think today, and possibly this is just a delusion, but I think that having an "interaction beam" similar to the ship core's beam could be very useful. It could use a computer and a signal beam block, it could be placed on the hotbar or activated by logic, like the ship cores beam, it could interact with logic on any other ship by changing the state of the block it fires at.

 

[Lecic]

This would be fantastic. Definitely.

 

[Mr. V]

Love it! They could probably implement this with some minor changes to the code behind the camera block.

 

[jath]

Isn't the issue being able to activate the logic on your own ship without going into build mode or astronaut mode? Why not be able to put activation modules directly into your hot bar? A logic activation computer could be the solution if you think the other would be too cluttered. Core beams already activate logic on other structures.

 

[Jaaskinal]

Isn't the issue being able to activate the logic on your own ship without going into build mode or astronaut mode? Why not be able to put activation modules directly into your hot bar? A logic activation computer could be the solution if you think the other would be too cluttered. Core beams already activate logic on other structures.

Yes, but you have to awkwardly switch to a camera to look at that other structure, with beams like this you could automate that and make it go much faster and easier. Having it be with a computer and a beam block is really just for consistency, every other beam in the game either originates from a camera or core, and can not be logic activated, or originates from a computer and a beam, and can be logic activated. The focus is more on making it possible to use logic in between ships while still performing other functions, as opposed to being entirely hotbar logic.

Being able to put activation blocks on the hotbar would be lovely though, I'm not trying to put that down, but that, at least to me, only solves a few things with logic when we could be looking at a few more.

 

[jath]

Oh I see, you want to activate logic on another structure using logic on the first structure... right?

 

[Jaaskinal]

Correct, and doing so automatically without derpy cameras :3

 

[Mr. V]

Yes, but you have to awkwardly switch to a camera to look at that other structure, with beams like this you could automate that and make it go much faster and easier. Having it be with a computer and a beam block is really just for consistency, every other beam in the game either originates from a camera or core, and can not be logic activated, or originates from a computer and a beam, and can be logic activated. The focus is more on making it possible to use logic in between ships while still performing other functions, as opposed to being entirely hotbar logic.

Being able to put activation blocks on the hotbar would be lovely though, I'm not trying to put that down, but that, at least to me, only solves a few things with logic when we could be looking at a few more.

It seems like both the ability to trigger logic in general from the hotbar and the ability to trigger logic in docked entities could be solved if you could:
1) Trigger a camera's docking beam by linking it to logic
2) Optionally link a Logic Computer as an activation source for a logic circuit so that you could stick it in the hotbar (as suggested by Jaaskinal)

From there you'd just have to build in a way that planned out where to set the camera so that it'd hit an activation block on the docked entity.

It'd be nice if they automatically removed logic-linked cameras from the toggle list so you didn't wind up cycling through a bunch of really pointless views when cycling through the cameras on your ship as well (like how they made weapon computers that are linked to logic disappear from the hot bar options). It would also be nice if they allowed you to type a short description in to logic computers so that you could figure out which are which from the weapons tab.