Chairs n' Viewscreens... And stuff?

[Ithirahad]

-Rename current "Cockpits" to "Cameras," as per their texture and use.

-Implement seats that, if linked by C and V to a core, (Limit of two at a time) can be used to enter a ship, so that cores don't have to be exposed/accessible for the ship to be usable, and so that players don't get "sucked" into cores, which doesn't really make much sense, or look very good. There would be a non-pilot version of this as well, one that doesn't control ships. You could link things such as weapons computers to these "normal seats" so people can control weapons through them. "Normal seats" could also be oriented in different directions, and it's possible to link them to faction permission modules (Generally by placing the seat on top of said module, putting it out of sight, though it's obviously possible to put it behind the chair or whatever.).

EDIT: Someone on the old forums suggested that

If a ship's core is destroyed, this would allow players to escape the ship before it explodes, since they won't die - which makes sense. It would also allow other players to kill the captain and capture the ship, without having to mine a hole in the ship with AMCs - which also makes sense. Furthermore, it increases immersion - who wouldn't want to take a gravlift to deck 1, enter their bridge, sit down in the captain's chair, and fly off to the far reaches of the StarMade galaxy, where nobody has gone before, and explore strange, dodecahedronal new worlds - then sit down in front of a table in the mess hall and have some food when you're done. (Or while you're flying, of course, assuming that someone else is piloting or you have autopilot.)

-Possibly implement a viewscreen block-construct, that would link to a camera (current cockpit) block and display that viewpoint on a screen of variable size (Up to a maximum of maybe 6 by 6). Though I don't know the coding and performance feasibility of this, it would just be nice for bridges and monitoring rooms and whatnot (even on stations or planets - I could see some kind of top-secret monitoring facility or bunker with hidden cameras all over a planet, hooked up to various 1-block viewscreens), and would also allow for things like windows without having to actually put yourself and your AI crew & guests right next to the outer hull, which could result in something like what happened in that one DS9 episode where Quark and one other guy (Was he a Denobulan? Or... something?) barely avoided getting blown up by a faulty torpedo that got stuck in the ship's outer hull - which was also the wall of the mess hall.

-Implement an autopilot system. You would be able to plot a course (Basically just an array of sectors) and the ship would auto-fly through those coordinates until it gets to the last one. It would, however, make no attempt to avoid or eliminate hazards such as stars or pirate/enemy bases, so you would have to plot a detour around sectors containing them unless you had the hull/firepower (respectively) to sustain a flight through their sectors/nearby sectors. A ship would only continue to fly via autopilot if at least one player was on board (via gravity or a chair), but this would be Admin-overridable for RP or whatever... An admin could send an AI dreadnaught to any given coordinates to simulate an alien attack or the arrival of allied reinforcements. It's possible that this framework COULD be used for drones as well, but it could easily be OP if a powerful faction happened to know where someone's outpost is and chose to take it out with a massive AI ship's turrets, so playerless autopilot would need some kind of balance.

 

[RoyalWolfe]

let me be the first to say I totally support you idea in a way schema has with the new planets.

first off, lets look at the pros and cons of the concept. starting with the pro's.

1. This will allow us to protect our cores much better. you wont have to go to the core to fly the ship, this frees us up to do things with the core. we can dedicate an entire room or area for it, and creatively do something with it that we otherwise had stop to think about access to ship control.

2. Makes the core more important. cores are already important, they blow up your ship dies, but because they are where you absolutely have to get to take control of the ship. this concept, makes them limited on what you can do creatively, (build wise) with them. Right now you have to give players access to the core and that is an anchor creatively. By removing that you let it control the logistics of the ship by linking it to the structure panel itself. this lets the cockpit be just as important without forcing the player to absolutely in some cases have it in a ship.

3. lets us be more creatively open minded. why does the core control flight of the vessel anyway? It takes the unnecessary over site of anchoring the cockpit out of the core block all together. the cockpit should have done this already, because a lot of early ship designs are just unplayable if you don't immediately go to cockpit control anyway. This wasn't a problem when the game didn't have cockpits, because that's what the core did, and that was only what the core did. now it needs to concede this to the cockpit or other block ( in this case, your seat block) entirely.

4. lets us link block systems through each other. you may not have realized this, but by changing in the idea that you would link the seat to the cockpit or core block. You have inadvertently created a redundant sub system that could apply to other blocks as well. what if you linked this seat to just the core? And then by doing so, sitting in it or right clicking it, opened up the Structure panel UI. OK then, what about maybe linking it to a weapons computer? say if you did that, it linked it to the weapons panel UI. And maybe this would allow you to also control turrets possibly remotely linked at a core location, or directly by being directly on the turret itself. and lastly if linked to the cockpit, it lets you enjoy camera view control you otherwise don't have with cockpits.

And we move on now to the cons.

1. It may be a drain on ship latency. this may not be all that major of a problem, I don't fully understand how ships render in the games engine. But theoretically it may make them load slower because the game needs to calculate new control points.

2. destroying ships will be harder, or easier to capture and steal. this can be a two edged sword as well. if ships require the seat to control certain functions, the attacking force can cripple a ship by destroying them. but if they are linked in such a way that control of them reverts back to their original block then this may be a non issue.

 

[Ithirahad]

What if you linked this seat to just the core? And then by doing so, sitting in it or right clicking it, opened up the Structure panel UI. OK then, what about maybe linking it to a weapons computer? say if you did that, it linked it to the weapons panel UI. And maybe this would allow you to also control turrets possibly remotely linked at a core location, or directly by being directly on the turret itself. and lastly if linked to the cockpit, it lets you enjoy camera view control you otherwise don't have with cockpits.

That's actually pretty much the idea. You can then have one person at the helm, one person controlling weapons, turret targeting/control, shield distribution, and some kind of master (captain) seat... ETC.

2. destroying ships will be harder, or easier to capture and steal. this can be a two edged sword as well. if ships require the seat to control certain functions, the attacking force can cripple a ship by destroying them. but if they are linked in such a way that control of them reverts back to their original block then this may be a non issue.

That's the idea as well. If you defeat someone and capture their ship, that's good... Winning shouldn't always imply completely destroying a ship. Killing the crew, flying aboard in a shuttlecraft or something, and stealing the ship should be a lot easier, and just a better idea in general, unless you want to salvage the entire thing with beams.

 

[ltmauve]

I certainly feel that being able to control the ship from someplace other from the core would be nice, and add to RPing. However, for small shuttles, escape pods, and fighters I think the core should still be a control point. Requiring everything to have seats is also limiting in creativity.

Autopilot: Well thought out. As for balancing playerless ships on autopilot, if starting a ship under autopilot requires an admin, it will be as balanced as the rest of the server.

 

[Ithirahad]

I certainly feel that being able to control the ship from someplace other from the core would be nice, and add to RPing. However, for small shuttles, escape pods, and fighters I think the core should still be a control point. Requiring everything to have seats is also limiting in creativity.

Having a 1 x 1 x 2 enter-able space in your fighter or shuttle isn't that hard... And besides, it allows you to completely armor the core, which is more important in shuttles and fighters than other ships, since there's so little space for hull.

 

[Snapems]

A solution to 'coring' has been announced in the stream FAQ (To use a HP % based on number of blocks destroyed). - But, then this re-creates the problem - by people 'coring' not to the core, but to the captains chair.
I still really want and like the idea of sitting in a chair to pilot, or man weapons. (Especially epic for when AI man turrets, or when you man a turret).
Maybe the same anti-coring could be applied to the captains chair - yet with the caveat of being vulnerable to a pistol?

 

[Ithirahad]

A solution to 'coring' has been announced in the stream FAQ (To use a HP % based on number of blocks destroyed). - But, then this re-creates the problem - by people 'coring' not to the core, but to the captains chair.
I still really want and like the idea of sitting in a chair to pilot, or man weapons. (Especially epic for when AI man turrets, or when you man a turret).
Maybe the same anti-coring could be applied to the captains chair - yet with the caveat of being vulnerable to a pistol?

It doesn't recreate it. If the HP zeroes out, then the captain's chair is vulnerable. Either the ship can be boarded and the captain killed, the chair missiled and the ship's core overheated and salvaged, or the Engineering crew managing to get the ship back online in time to save the ship.


...Besides, there's no silly diamond over captain's chairs. Players should get names floating over their heads eventually, so that's how you would identify them from in the chair (Besides skins.) but from space, unless the bridge is somewhere stupid-obvious, it would be hard to tell where to shoot to find the chair. (Star Trek ships notwithstanding, but hopefully you could somehow distribute a secondary shielding array over the bridge.)

 

[ltmauve]

Having a 1 x 1 x 2 enter-able space in your fighter or shuttle isn't that hard... And besides, it allows you to completely armor the core, which is more important in shuttles and fighters than other ships, since there's so little space for hull.

It doesn't recreate it. If the HP zeroes out, then the captain's chair is vulnerable. Either the ship can be boarded and the captain killed, the chair missiled and the ship's core overheated and salvaged, or the Engineering crew managing to get the ship back online in time to save the ship.

Well, in regards to fighters, the chair just winds up being something that needs to armored as well, and does it really add anything to the design? For smaller ships, having to add the seat adds space and nothing else.

The HP system isn't some sort of armor, it's simply a way of track how much damage has been done to the ship. If you don't have shields, you will lose blocks when hit.

 

[DarthHonky]

I like this, otherwise there's really no point in building a really slick looking bridge if you don't need to enter it to fly the ship

 

[Ithirahad]

I like this, otherwise there's really no point in building a really slick looking bridge if you don't need to enter it to fly the ship

...Exactly. What I'd like to see is a lot of things that need to be in rooms onboard ships, so that RP-style ships aren't put at as much of a disadvantage. A pilot seat is just the start. I'd like to see all of the things needed in Minecraft (Foods and possibly drinks, healing items, crafting stations, etc.) implemented in some form as things that can be put/produced on starships, but that's another topic entirely.

 

[Crazy Mike]

After the game has gone through a few more updates fixing up the major issues right now Instead of having to go to the ships core I'd love to click R to strap into a pilots seat and have a viewscreen camera block instead of a boring cockpit block :D

 

[Ithirahad]

Hm, what if long-range radar, anti-jammer scanning, and other passive upgrades came in the form of console blocks that have to be put near the pilot's chair, linked up to arrays (that eat lots of power)?

 

[ltmauve]

Hm, what if long-range radar, anti-jammer scanning, and other passive upgrades came in the form of console blocks that have to be put near the pilot's chair, linked up to arrays (that eat lots of power)?

Yeahhhhhh......
That's a good idea. You would need to have faction members or NPCs man the consoles. Even if you decided to fly the ship from the core, you would still need to have the bridge crew somewhere.
Of course, what if large ships actually required all those passive buffs to be effective... thereby making a requirement for a crew without making unflexable limits.

 

[Ithirahad]

Yeahhhhhh......
That's a good idea. You would need to have faction members or NPCs man the consoles. Even if you decided to fly the ship from the core, you would still need to have the bridge crew somewhere.
Of course, what if large ships actually required all those passive buffs to be effective... thereby making a requirement for a crew without making unflexable limits.

That is really the primary central change to starship mechanics I'd like to see. (Along with AMC damage dispersing across hull, and warp drive.) I was primarily suggesting smaller components so that I didn't end up with a 300,000-character list of components for my overarching suggestion, which would include everything from subsystem damage and repair (each power, shield, AMC, etc. array or computer having HP and requiring repairs if it drops below 10%), to stronger hull and damage splashing, to an AstroTechnobeam overhaul, some parts of my tech tree concept, docking changes, gravity tweaks, transporters, food, water, hydroponics, navigational (sector map) hologram projector blocks, Helm Consoles (Improve turn rate and maneuverability in large ships a bit if someone's manning it), anti-personnel defense turrets, warp drive, stargates, character skill specialization, and beyond...

 

[ltmauve]

Hey, I just realized you wouldn't need different types of chairs.
With the linking system, if you wanted a captain's chair, you would select the core and then the chair. To get shield management consoles, link the chair to any shield block.

As for the mechanics of requirements, have each system class (cannons, power regen, power tanks, etc.) have an efficiency that starts at 100% for small ships, and at a certain point starts decreasing. You would need to link up the ship's systems to get full efficiency back. Also, having multiple chairs connected to the core directly means that you get small bonuses to all systems. Unless you have no weapons or are barely above the 100% threshold, it would be more efficient to have specialized chairs.

 

[testkil]

you can make chairs with some wedges but it would be cooler if your cockpit is an real chair and the cameras are windows on your chait like and real pilot

like this

 

[igmolicious]

Not sure if it's been suggested before, but it would be pretty nice to have a turret control block that could go inside the main ship, link to a turret dock, and would grant control of the turret (if one exists) that is connected to that dock when used. That way if you had a ship manned by a crew, you wouldn't have to have crew members leave a moving ship to control a turret. To further that idea, maybe have an interface that pops up that allows modification of the AI (if it exists) in the turret with the option to take manual control.

 

[RoyalWolfe]

OK for those that haven't seen this, http://starmadedock.net/threads/physical-representation-of-the-new-logic-gates.319/#post-2629

obviously the function of doing this is something Schema happens to be working on based upon this. so if it is possible to do it with the activator blocks, then logically you could redskin it to do just what this thread is proposing. since the possibility to make custom blocs is also already possible based upon the already present mod of immersive blocks, you should also check that out in the community content section if you haven't already. so maybe if he cant do it himself, we could help him by doing it for him.

OK so what does this mean then, well it means that Schema may be a little busy right now. hes doing a lot of shit all at once here. new weapons system, this new logic gate thing, and bug fixing many broken systems on top of that. hes got allot to do guys.

since we can already create our own visual blocks, the new logic gate system seems to also mean that the custom block editor will be getting some new tweaks as well. it looks as though it will be adding function to its list of customization as well. so that will let us then give function to our custom blocks, one thing I'm personally excited about this is the concept of modding the game in ways we didn't even think to go before. if we can basically add functions to the blocks then we could do just about anything. and that may not even need mods as this logic system mite even let us do it in the game itself. its really epic stuff here.

 

[NeonSturm]

The logic gate stuff is good for RP.
*joking* Now just give lights a 1-power-per-block requirement to encourage turning-off lights :D

I like the delayed door open-close for airlocks (less clicking to open/close all).
I miss proximity sensors, but I think they will come soon too

But things like cameras are not possible with just logic gates and while we can make move-able wings (open/close different doors), they still have a lot of weight.

 

[Ithirahad]

you can make chairs with some wedges but it would be cooler if your cockpit is an real chair and the cameras are windows on your chait like and real pilot

like this

<MassiveImageSnip>

Perhaps not like THAT. I was more picturing something much simpler... 3 boxes.One for the stand, one for the seat, one for the backrest. If captain's chairs get a separate block, then it could have simple armrests as well, but that's not necessary.