Blueprints Shouldn't Require Every Block

[ResonKinetic]

It's wildly inconvenient to be unable to build a ship because you're missing some components.

There should be an option to build a ship without all of the required materials.

Has anyone suggested this yet? It seems like a large oversight in the implementation of blueprints requiring blocks.

i'm not talking about using credits to finish the ship

i'm talking about the ship being made without the parts you don't have so you can still make the majority of your ship

 

[Criss]

Yes its been suggested. Schema shot it down.

 

[Planr]

Yes its been suggested. Schema shot it down.

sauce? (source pls)

 

[ResonKinetic]

Yes its been suggested. Schema shot it down.

wat
where
why

 

[Criss]

This is what he said -

The last update sparked a lot of discussion. I understand both sides, but since both arguments are very play-style specific (casual, hardcore, fighter, etc) it's not easy to make everyone equally happy. I'm trying to add more and more options for servers to find a setting their players can enjoy.

But as a game mechanic, buying blueprints from credits destroys any effort to make an economy. In game economies there are always "in"s and "out"s. You want to minimize the "in", else something like "demand" cannot be generated. Something that basically generates blocks from nothing is an infinite "in" which is ok for creative, but not ok in any other setting, since the "in" should be the blocks themselves (which are practically infinite already, but they take work to process)



Here is the source. http://star-made.org/news/starmade-0-1851-hotfixes-and-more-mining

I will admit you never specifically asked for spawning blocks on the blueprint with credits, its just the easiest solution and the first thing that comes to mind.

 

[ResonKinetic]

i'm not talking about using credits to finish the ship

i'm talking about the ship being made without the parts you don't have so you can still make the majority of your ship

 

[jzimmerman4]

I agree with this, so if you dont have a display module then your ship will build without it. I think only decorative blocks, terrain, and logic should be able to be missing though.

 

[MossyStone48]

My solution is progressive BPs. Stage 1-4. As I find the parts to finish out stage 2 (while flying the stage 1 version) I slowly round out what I need for the other stages too. Worst case I'll have to salvage the ship, drop it into stage 2, spawn it, recycle it and then drop its parts into w/e stage I'm closest to finishing. Usually I can spawn in stage 2 right away (minimal shielding and no hull). Taking an existing BP and 'rolling it back' to create the various stages is as easy as a mirrored mass remove filter. Go offline, Admin load the BP (stage 4) and pull off decorations and logic. Save as stage 3. Go back and remove effects and some weaponry, maybe some hull. Remove unneeded thrust and jump modules (since the ship has lass mass at this point). Save as stage 2. Then remove ALL the hull and some of the shielding modules. Take off anything else I don't think I'll need in stage 1. Save as stage 1. Upload all four to the server. Viola. I can even forgo stage 4 if I have no need for the logic and decorations making the final ship that much cheaper and easier to bring in.

Tho taking a complete BP and being able to select a pre-stage version of it to spawn in without needing all the extra uploading and sorting would be pretty cool. Especially if the BP persisted so you could add parts that are still missing.

 

[IG-1000]

Solution
locate and open your Starmade folder then look for a file called Server open it, now scroll to the bottom of the document and look for this "
BUY_BLUEPRINTS_WITH_CREDITS = false //buy blueprints directly with credits" Change the False to true and save it now you dont have to worry about Blocks

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

When we have shipyards I would love to see the ability to build a ship regardless of missing parts. Shipyards should be able to repair to a blueprint anyway so once you've acquired the missing bits you can dock in your shipyard again and "repair" the ship, adding the missing blocks.

 

[MossyStone48]

Solution
locate and open your Starmade folder then look for a file called Server open it, now scroll to the bottom of the document and look for this "
BUY_BLUEPRINTS_WITH_CREDITS = false //buy blueprints directly with credits" Change the False to true and save it now you dont have to worry about Blocks

NOTE: The above instructions only help you if you are a server admin or use only single player mode. Changing your config locally will have no effect on how the server uses blueprints.

 

[Ithirahad]

Yeah, as much as I love the new GUI, and I appreciate all the work that Schine's been doing, leaving us hanging with an incomplete blueprint system, which sucks, and moving on seems like a bit of an eff-you to the playerbase. Believe me, I perfectly understand that that's not what it is, but it just... feels wrong. At least give us an option to have a hybrid credits/blocks system with a server-configurable cost multiplier. That should be easy enough.

(And no, leaving the old system as it was, which was even worse, in as an option doesn't really fix anything. And I certainly don't want to hear "nobody's forcing you to play that way" - it should be pretty obvious that most people don't want to just sit around in singleplayer; there's nothing to really do there yet aside from build stuff.)

 

[MossyStone48]

The GUI is just something schema wanted to show you guys some progress on. By no means does it mean he's decided to drop everyone's concerns about blueprints. The great grey one hears your pleas.

 

[CyberTao]

Spoiler: Slightly Off-topic

I remember hearing Calbiri I think it was in chat talk about BPs and their place and their relation to shipyards. They were meant to be stuck into shipyards, which then pull blocks from Plex storage or factories which were set to produce a minimum of a block. Or that's what they plan to happen.

But yeah, getting a simplified version of the ship BP and finishing it when you have the blocks seems to be the way about doing it for now.

 

[ResonKinetic]

I agree with this, so if you dont have a display module then your ship will build without it. I think only decorative blocks, terrain, and logic should be able to be missing though.

If I have everything I need for a ship besides beams for example, I want to be able to build the majority of the ship so I can fill in the missing parts with substitutes if need be. Limiting this option to decorative blocks and the others you mentioned exclusively wouldn't tap into the full practicality of this suggestion.

Solution
locate and open your Starmade folder then look for a file called Server open it, now scroll to the bottom of the document and look for this "
BUY_BLUEPRINTS_WITH_CREDITS = false //buy blueprints directly with credits" Change the False to true and save it now you dont have to worry about Blocks

This isn't a solution and is a poor work-around for the issue at hand. Ew.

Either way, I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one that recognizes the "all or nothing" building system at the moment isn't the best.

 

[jayman38]

So... What's the suggested breakpoint? 96% minimum block fill? That would mean for every 100 blocks in the blueprint, up to 4 could go missing. That sounds like a lot to me, but I'm hoping to stir up a discussion.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

So... What's the suggested breakpoint? 96% minimum block fill? That would mean for every 100 blocks in the blueprint, up to 4 could go missing. That sounds like a lot to me, but I'm hoping to stir up a discussion.

Why does there need to be a "breaking point"? A "ship" only needs a core. It's much more detrimental to a player to spawn in a half finished, broken, potentially unusable ship than it has any impact on game balance.

 

[jayman38]

OK, I hadn't thought of buying a full blueprint and building up a minimal ship. No breaking point, no problem.

 

[ResonKinetic]

Why does there need to be a "breaking point"? A "ship" only needs a core. It's much more detrimental to a player to spawn in a half finished, broken, potentially unusable ship than it has any impact on game balance.

I don't even take "core" mechanics into account when I suggest things because it's a stupid system outside of determining where the ship rotates.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I don't even take "core" mechanics into account when I suggest things because it's a stupid system outside of determining where the ship rotates.

Until we have another way to enter and pilot a ship you kind of have to take the core into account. I know some people believe that the HP update will remove the core but I doubt this is the case, it will just remove the ability to one shot a ship by shooting the core. So even after the update the core of a ship will still be the core and should be taken into account.

So, as long as you have a core added to the blueprint, we should be able to spawn the ship. If you spawn a ship that can't even function then that's the fault of the end user. With the addition of shipyards we should be able to automatically complete a ship once the materials are found or you can patchwork it together yourself.