Client-side texture for ships

[zetacross]

Problem 1 : We have factions, but . . . they all look similar - most ships are well, ship shaped - engine at the back, glass cockpit, buttons and doors, they all look the same throughout the endless universe.

Problem 2 : I've ideas of making melee kraken ships, plant based ships, crystalline space worms, infested zombie ships. . . but I can't, as they'll look the same ( I want my kraken's eyes to be organic, not cameras ). Changing the texture pack changes every ship, so no go there. Cover my plant ships with wood and leaves and I might as well fly a tofu.

Suggestion : Add a text field to ship options to input name of a texture pack. On the client's pc,
- if a texture pack is found with the text field, the ship will use that texture pack.
- if a texture pack is not found, it will use the default texture pack.

Effect : Zombie Ships! Space Krakens! Parasite ships! Plant like ships with giant vines! Horror stations! It will add a much larger variety of possible ships WITHOUT changing ANY functionality - Starmade is a creative voxel game, not just a fancy ship builder.

Use : Servers admins can choose to distribute the packs and players can choose whether to use these custom packs or only the default pack. It's their choice~

Players can enter their ship options 'Y', then just type in the text field of what texture pack to use. Once clicking save, system checks whether pack exists or not and the user is prompt. If blank it will just use the default texture pack.

Balance : Since the effect is only client-side, it will be up to players whether to use server textures or not. PVP servers can just choose whether to enable packs or not in the first place.

Performance :
For the server, an additional 100 varchars (bytes) (which might be empty), so almost no increase in traffic
For client, increased graphic memory usage for the packs they use, no other performance hits.

Programming : Figuring out how to load texture packs fast enough from local

Long-term effects : We would have a much 'larger' universe where we have screenshots of kraken monsters tearing up ships into pieces, or even Youtube let's plays of horror stations where all block are replaced with dirty broken tiles. Or we can have Zerg ships

We could even have multiplayer battles against colossal monsters the size of planets.

Starmade would be actually shine compared to those other voxel space ship building games.

Similar suggestion here : Alternate textures for individual ships (Not texture packs)
Suggestion above suggested to paint each block separately, adding a ton more data to process. My suggestion was only for client side to change textures for each blueprint or ship.

 

[jayman38]

We need exactly this sort of thing for custom player skins anyway, so I say this is a good idea. Most ships won't use it, but for some rare ships, it will really add some nice flavor. Plus, it will inspire players to donate custom texture packs to the community content for sharing.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Great idea!

 

[Star-Boy]

You can get the same results by simply adding more block types to the game. I'm betting the new planets will include.some new blocks you could use for a space plant or kraken. For something like the picture you posted you could use a combination of grey armour and purple rocks, or grey rocks and purple crystal armour.

 

[Lecic]

Problem 1 : We have factions, but . . . they all look similar - most ships are well, ship shaped - engine at the back, glass cockpit, buttons and doors, they all look the same throughout the endless universe.

This is a problem with build styles and not with limitations by the game's textures itself.

Problem 2 : I've ideas of making melee kraken ships, plant based ships, crystalline space worms, infested zombie ships. . . but I can't, as they'll look the same ( I want my kraken's eyes to be organic, not cameras ). Changing the texture pack changes every ship, so no go there. Cover my plant ships with wood and leaves and I might as well fly a tofu.

What's stopping you from putting decoratives over the functional bits? You can put wood and leaves over your hull. You can put an "organic eye" over your cameras. What is stopping you from doing this?

It would definitely be a cool addition, but I'm not sure it's worth developer time when most of these problems seem like things players can already do.

 

[sayerulz]

Clearly you've not spent too much time looking at the shipyard or CC. People make tons of huge variations on ships. Sure, MOST ships might pretty much just be "ship shaped", but with creativity you can make all sorts of weird looking ships. Custom textures are would just be a crutch for builders who can't be creative with their use of materials.

 

[zetacross]

This is a problem with build styles and not with limitations by the game's textures itself.
What's stopping you from putting decoratives over the functional bits? You can put wood and leaves over your hull. You can put an "organic eye" over your cameras. What is stopping you from doing this?

The problem comes where either I have to make physically larger ships by layering things on top of them, or if i'm making an internal room, I'd have to layer more - ie. doors would be thicker to hide all the standard hull. OR i'll have to make a super weak ship for the sake of decoration - I'll be reducing functionally just to look nice. Then when a player shoots 1 layer of wood, they'll just see regular hull plating.

I'd love that one day I could login into a server and see aliens vs humans, not humans vs humans covered in 1 layer alien skins. I understand that I 'could' just layer over everything, but that isn't immersive. For instance, derelict ships/stations are so pristine and clean; I could totally make it dark, dirty and murky by reducing lights, using dark blocks and whatnot, but I want the extra freedom to add say, leaky pipes, broken monitors, cracked hulls, all without changing any major functionality or reducing performace.


[doublepost=1499264371,1499262998][/doublepost]

You can get the same results by simply adding more block types to the game.

I'd suggest against adding more blocks, as it will just make loading longer. Playing modded minecraft, terraria & starbound, when mods add more and more blocks, it just gets increasingly difficult to pick between thousands of different blocks, which all take inventory space.

Rather, I could just pick which themed texture pack for the ship I'm using - Purple kraken? Alien Pack, Egyptian Aliens? Desert Pack, Muddy ground vehicles? Dirt Road Pack, Zombie Infested? Dead Pack.

Since all the blocks have the same names with the same stats, I don't have to 'learn' new blocks or worry about balancing function.

It would also help newer players get up to speed as they can create more varied ships without thinking too hard.

 

[Malacodor]

The game could really use an assortment of organic looking decorative blocks. I tried using plants as antennas, but that just made it look like the pilot were a stoner growing weed on his ship.

I'm against adding themed packs though, as that wouldn't allow combining blocks from different sets. Inventory clutter could better be avoided with proper filters. Want a zombie infested ship? Click the corresponding filter button and everything else won't be displayed anymore. Ideally, the filters would be customizable.

 

[Lecic]

Then when a player shoots 1 layer of wood, they'll just see regular hull plating.

You raise a good point on damage. In the mean time, could I recommend using hulls that color match? Brown/green for wood and leaves, purple for alien, etc.

 

[sayerulz]

You could make a pretty cool damage effect for organic type ships with a purple/alien outer skin, then a space with some white armor ribbing, then red armor. Would also provide a bit of protection against low-yield missiles.

 

[TBB]

It's a nice idea even though I personally wouldn't bother using this.
The biggest problem however (ignoring implementation) is, as with anything that happens client-side, it adds a potential way to use it as a cheat. If texturing and presumably lighting would be "unlocked" you could potentially give all ships a glow-effect.

It would definitely be a cool addition, but I'm not sure it's worth developer time when most of these problems seem like things players can already do.

It's not about how much it takes, but how much the player base would like to sacrifice. I wonder though if it would be hard to implement. It all depends on the implementation of the current system but I'm assuming textures are defined per block (& per ID) so I'm a bit sceptical. However bump maps are in place so that would be a nice addition to something like that already.

As for performance I wouldn't worry too much. I don't know how this game renders things but as long as it has a pretty generic implementation of the rendering-engine the only performance disadvantage would be on the CPU (I'm guessing we're talking 1-50ms, but that's a wild guess.).

All in all we're probably stuck with just the idea...