An illustration for an idea I had

    jayman38

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    There was a discussion about crew role-play interactivity, and I had some ideas, including one for having the various computers do something fun when interacted with by crewmembers. The link to that post is here:

    http://starmadedock.net/threads/ideas-for-crews-discussion.2592/#post-37679

    The short story: let a player "activate" a computer and have it display some small animation and then return to normal display, without changing any other functionality, such as the pilot's direct usage of the computer at the time it is "activated" for the animation. (It would be a tragedy for a player to make a computer inactive right when the pilot needs it.)

    Below is an image illustrating such a possible animation. The image shows five different computers. (I think Punch-Through, Piercing, EMP, Explosive, and Pull)
    1. The first (left-most) of five images for each computer shows the backside of the computer. (No change; maybe an additional frame could be made to brighten all the lights during the animation?).
    2. The second of five images for each computer shows the normal, default image of the computer screen (No change; as now, this will be what the computer normally looks like when it is not "activated".)
    3. The remaining images for each computer illustrate a simple animation, after which the computer screen would return to its default state (image 2).
    A. Image 3: Initial frame: all indicator bars are brought to the same level, console lights brighten, and the DIAG frame appears in place of the functionality image
    B. Image 4: Middle frame: An additional sub-image is drawn, illustrating a test of connection
    C. Image 5: The indicator bars return to normal, the sub-image disappears, and the word "PASS" appears)



    I think it would simply be a fun way to make the computers slightly more interactive for players and give people more of a reason to explore internal ship features. I was hoping this might inspire the artist and dev to implement such a mechanic in the game.

    Additional notes:
    I started this, using the realistic spritesheet before finding out that the realistic texture set is deprecated and no longer supported.
    The game artist is welcome to use anything from this image, but I think he would prefer to use his own tools and creativity.
    In addition to the main screen changes, the first two frames of animation bring the indicator bars to the same lowest level and the main console lights all brighten until the animation is over.
    The animation images all have the phrase "DIAG" in them, short for "diagnostic test".
    Then the last image shows the additional word "PASS" underneath to illustrate that the diagnostic test works. Maybe if the block has more than 50% damage, there could be a version of the final image that reads "FAIL"? That would be an interesting variation on the theme.
    The downside: in addition to the programming effort to implement it, this change would increase the size of the existing spritesheets, making for a large download at the next update.

    A larger version of the image:
    http://i.imgur.com/q4QlioV.png
     

    Reilly Reese

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    Looks like something that could just be pasted right into the game
     

    jayman38

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    Looks like something that could just be pasted right into the game
    In a way, it could! I overwrote the block-side images to keep things lined up. If you were to implement this directly, the different images would appear on different faces of the block at the same time with no animation.