Improved elevators

[Valiant70]

Plex lifters are okay as far as they go, but they lack some features.

First, they cannot be placed on ships. Running around and jumping on a moving ship seems to work just fine now, so why shouldn't elevators work?

Secondly, it makes very little sense for a platform to appear, get lifted up, then just disappear. For one thing, you can't really get down in a realistic manner, or at all if fall damage were implemented into the game.

I think plex lifters should be completely redone. They should have the platform placed BESIDE the block, not around it. I don't like having a post in the middle of my elevator shaft. Make the platform permanent, not some metaphysical thing that spawns and despawns. It should only spawn when the plex lifter is placed and despawn when the last block of it is removed.

Now mix in the logic system. Add a Plex Lifter Call Block, which calls an adjacent plex lifter's platform to that level when activated. They could be activated by logic blocks, allowing for multiple floors. There should also be a built-in queue in the new plex lifter so that someone in the elevator isn't suddenly pulled the wrong way mid-trip.

In other words...
1. I press the caller on my floor, which happens to be deck 2.
2. Platform comes to deck 2.
3. I get on and press one of several activators on the wall. This one is connected to the caller on deck 5, so the elevator takes me to deck 5.
4. Meanwhile, Mr. Whoever presses the caller on deck 1, so after arriving on deck 5, the elevator pauses for a moment, long enough for me to hop off, and then immediately goes to deck 1 to pick up Mr. Whoever.
5. Mr. Whoever then presses the activator corresponding to deck 4 and is taken there by the elevator.
6. The elevator receives no farther orders so it remains at deck 4 until called to another floor.

 

[Lecic]

Meh. Grav lifts are superior in every way.

 

[CyberTao]

If you were building on a planet, I think you can set up a elevator system using Plexdoors and Using Activators to undock the elevator o -o But needs the Perm Gravity planets have.

Build "Elevator" Ship, and a Tightly fitting Shaft on the building.
Dock the Elevator to a docking module marked at each floor.
Use Plexdoors underneath where the Ship would dock, and Set up a Logic system that would Auto Undock the elevator deploy the Plex door for the floor you wanted, making the elevator fall and stop at the desired Floor.
And Might be able to use the Buggy Plex Lifters to raise the elevator to the top and let it fall - 3-

For Ships, Grav-lifts/shafts are all you need imho

 

[Valiant70]

Show me a good 3+ floor grav lift design, and I'll show you a really brilliant Starmade player.

 

[Planr]

Long ago I remember schema saying he planned to eventually remove plexlifters in favor of people using "gravity elevators"
if you ask me however using gravity-shifting tubeshafts is not much of an elevator system because you simply fall so fast it's hard to control your fall effectively, especially if your station/ship's design necessitates a complex internal turbolift structure.

That said, I also remember schema once said that implementing a form of rideable turbocar (with its own gravity) much like whatever plexlifters now are made out of (static shapes, I believe?) was possible and doable. That itself would pretty much be a perfect turbolift system.

Show me a good 3+ floor grav lift design, and I'll show you a really brilliant Starmade player.

Not sure if you would consider this "good", but on my own capital ship I am tight on interior space myself, so I designed and installed a series of "gravity tubes" where the gravity shifts so you walk on the wall rather than falling all over the place, that way you can traverse easily between decks while staying in control, with small alcoves at each stop where you realign with the ship's normal gravity and walk through a door and bam, you're in the normal corridor/rooms on that deck.

Granted, it's not extremely fast like a falling-gravity-tube, but at the same time going between decks really takes absolutely no time at all and it's actually really convenient that way.
The only significant drawback is that since you walk on one wall, one established gravity tube network only functions along a two-dimensional plane inside the ship. This means that one gravity tube network going from bow to stern can function well if transporting the person from the front to the back of the ship and vice-versa, but would have serious problems effectively moving them from the port-side to the starboard-side. This issue is somewhat-solve-able using wedges as "sideways stairs" inside the gravity tube, but I did not do that in my own ship as I felt it seemed too unconventional and inappropriate.

EDIT: Here is an example from my WIP battleship. You walk along the wall, as you see here:

 

[ToyotaSupra]

Meh. Grav lifts are superior in every way.

Except they aren't. They are ugly, and it feels more like an alien device rather than a device you'd actually see.

Seriously, if we can't have them on ships, then why bother with them at all? I don't see why gravity lifts get so much support, I've used them and they are clumsy and they feel wrong. If players on a ship stay just fine at high speed then there is literally no reason why there shouldn't be added. In fact, it seems like it might be added soon as the description changed to 'place on station or ship'.

 

[CyberTao]

Except they aren't. They are ugly, and it feels more like an alien device rather than a device you'd actually see.

Seriously, if we can't have them on ships, then why bother with them at all? I don't see why gravity lifts get so much support, I've used them and they are clumsy and they feel wrong. If players on a ship stay just fine at high speed then there is literally no reason why there shouldn't be added. In fact, it seems like it might be added soon as the description changed to 'place on station or ship'.

It is being changed so that it works on Ships. I think the main 2 problems was Keeping in Sync at high speeds, and going the right way when its not vertical (When the new planets first came out, it seems like they keep facing 'Galactic Y+', rather then "Up" relative to what they were attached to).

Would also be Nice to Rotate then. Derpy as it may be, I would be interested in a plexlift that goes down - 3- Necessary or not

 

[Zeno9141]

I use stairs.
You can go up, and down. Just like an elevator does.
All you really have to do is move those stubby legs once in a while.

 

[Ithirahad]

Except they aren't. They are ugly, and it feels more like an alien device rather than a device you'd actually see.

Seriously, if we can't have them on ships, then why bother with them at all? I don't see why gravity lifts get so much support, I've used them and they are clumsy and they feel wrong. If players on a ship stay just fine at high speed then there is literally no reason why there shouldn't be added. In fact, it seems like it might be added soon as the description changed to 'place on station or ship'.

I love automated gravity lifts, but I still agree... They're alien and shouldn't be the default way to create an elevator in Starmade. I'll probably still build them sometimes because I build alien ships, but PlexLifters should be the 'normal' way to create an elevator...

 

[Zeno9141]

Valiant! How dare you disagree with your leader! >:U

*a joke. I know, I'm terribad at them.*

(In all seriousness, stairs or elevators, I don't mind using either. I find gravtubes a bit 'meh' though. Currently, in ships, stairs are my personal favorite.)

 

[Valiant70]

Stairs are harder to work into a lot of designs, which is why I resorted to a grav tube onboard the Lightstone, Zeno. There was no room for anything other than an annoying spiral staircase, which is takes a while to climb and makes me motion sick. Also, a lot of players like the convenience and/or roleplay aspect of a proper elevator.

 

[Zeno9141]

Stairs are harder to work into a lot of designs, which is why I resorted to a grav tube onboard the Lightstone, Zeno. There was no room for anything other than an annoying spiral staircase, which is takes a while to climb and makes me motion sick. Also, a lot of players like the convenience and/or roleplay aspect of a proper elevator.

I can agree.

Though I never really need an elevator on a ship smaller than cruiser size. My stairs are usually pretty big. Personally I'd get more motion sick from an elevator in a 3x3 shaft going up.

But yes. I would like ship elevators. Gives me a way of separating civilian traffic and the Octo-vator.

 

[Planr]

the Octo-vator.

sounds like a terrifying invention you made :P

 

[gfire5103]

I was thinking that you could have an elevator made of any block like hull and it could go up and down or in any direction

 

[Bench]

nice revive gfire5103 but yeah, we've considered elevators and the like. the future rail system will allow for the building of more conventional elevators as Valiant70 puts it. the rail system implementation isn't currently planning on changing or using the plexlifter block in any way though.

 

[Ravenskysong]

I would really like better elevators with the blocks not vanishing and it being a platform of blocks instead of around a core. but better than that, have those.. um.. shoot what are they called? they have them at airports. the ground moves xD conveyor belt? something like that. the computer block would define the direction that the moduals 'push' you when you walk on them, making it so you move /walk faster.

or a teleport system, but you have to have blocks linking the two teleport points?

 

[Valiant70]

I would really like better elevators with the blocks not vanishing and it being a platform of blocks instead of around a core. but better than that, have those.. um.. shoot what are they called? they have them at airports. the ground moves xD conveyor belt? something like that. the computer block would define the direction that the moduals 'push' you when you walk on them, making it so you move /walk faster.

or a teleport system, but you have to have blocks linking the two teleport points?

Currently the only personal teleport system is a small warp gate between two stations/planets. That doesn't help ships much though. I'd really like to see something similar to the Star Trek transporters, only one that requires a node at each end. I'll make a thread about that sometime as it's kind of off topic for this thread.

nice revive gfire5103 but yeah, we've considered elevators and the like. the future rail system will allow for the building of more conventional elevators as Valiant70 puts it. the rail system implementation isn't currently planning on changing or using the plexlifter block in any way though.

I'm glad to hear the rail system will be suitable for this! Please be sure there is an easy way to make multiple stops (not just end to end) as this will drastically increase its usefulness and versatility. That's important!

I'm really looking forward to this and the turret/docking update.

 

[Planr]

I would really like better elevators with the blocks not vanishing and it being a platform of blocks instead of around a core. but better than that, have those.. um.. shoot what are they called? they have them at airports. the ground moves xD conveyor belt? something like that. the computer block would define the direction that the moduals 'push' you when you walk on them, making it so you move /walk faster.

That can work if the entities attached to the rails allow chain docking.

 

[MacThule]

rails will be out soon, and a vertical rail with a platform will probably let you make some cool custom elevators.

 

[Planr]

In honor of the new developments... schema Comr4de kupu