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- Aug 21, 2013
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I personally believe configurable faction ships & customizable low-block-count decoration pictures would be a great addition to StarMade.
First off, what am I talking about? Well, let's do the "configurable faction ships" first.
In the catalogue, factions are allowed to set themselves a colour scheme.
But first, I have to introduce something: blank blocks. These are unpainted blocks that will be automatically painted the colour scheme's colour upon spawning a ship with a set faction (does not change when the faction does. This means you can capture and fly about in enemy ships without looking like one of your own. No idea why you'd want to though!) How does the colour scheme know which blocks to paint? Simple: there are multiple blank block types—3 for each current hull type. 3 because there needs to be advanced, standard and hull armours. Of course, each of those types has its non-cube blocks too.
During build mode sessions, the player can (the following must be saved in the ship's catalogue entry, for the sake of... well, redundancy-avoiding!!) press an advanced build mode button called "add pattern area," which would start a special mode, in which the player's place and remove block functions would be replaced with patterns.
The player would then right click where they wanted their patterns to go. Diagonal support definitely ought to be included. Each adjacent/diagonal pattern-selected block would form a larger pattern. Non-square groups are not allowed for the sake of simplicity and ease-of-coding—and can also be achieved with a non-square pattern image (read on!)
Also, the player can actually have these pattern-selected blocks separated into different groups—in case the faction want patterns marked as group 1 to be... say, a skull, and patterns marked as group 2, to be, say, a brain? I dunno, examples.
Then the player would actually add *.PNG files into a folder in their StarMade directory—patterns!
The faction could next add these decals into the pattern slots in their colour scheme. So say there's a ship with a type-1 decal on it's hull, when this ship is spawned by the faction, that would be replaced by that faction's type-1 decal.
The word decal is interchangeable with pattern in this post.
Any non-blank hull blocks would not change with faction colour schemes, for your information.
Let's hope I didn't forget anything i had in mind for this post!!
Reasons and notes:
Why would we want these decals when we can just paint hull ourselves? Well... what if your hull is too small for that to be done?
Why would we want faction paint-jobs/colour schemes? It personalises your faction and makes it unique.
PIRATES DECALS AND COLOUR SCHEME: 1 = black, 2 = red, remaining = purple.
Decal: a simple one-colour (excluding complete transparency) drawing of an eye-patched skull; the more of a dripping paint look it has at the bottom the better.
TRADING GUILD DECALS AND COLOUR SCHEME: 1 = grey, 2 = blue, remaining = white?
Finally, entire ship models can be restricted to certain NPC factions.
First off, what am I talking about? Well, let's do the "configurable faction ships" first.
In the catalogue, factions are allowed to set themselves a colour scheme.
But first, I have to introduce something: blank blocks. These are unpainted blocks that will be automatically painted the colour scheme's colour upon spawning a ship with a set faction (does not change when the faction does. This means you can capture and fly about in enemy ships without looking like one of your own. No idea why you'd want to though!) How does the colour scheme know which blocks to paint? Simple: there are multiple blank block types—3 for each current hull type. 3 because there needs to be advanced, standard and hull armours. Of course, each of those types has its non-cube blocks too.
During build mode sessions, the player can (the following must be saved in the ship's catalogue entry, for the sake of... well, redundancy-avoiding!!) press an advanced build mode button called "add pattern area," which would start a special mode, in which the player's place and remove block functions would be replaced with patterns.
The player would then right click where they wanted their patterns to go. Diagonal support definitely ought to be included. Each adjacent/diagonal pattern-selected block would form a larger pattern. Non-square groups are not allowed for the sake of simplicity and ease-of-coding—and can also be achieved with a non-square pattern image (read on!)
Also, the player can actually have these pattern-selected blocks separated into different groups—in case the faction want patterns marked as group 1 to be... say, a skull, and patterns marked as group 2, to be, say, a brain? I dunno, examples.
Then the player would actually add *.PNG files into a folder in their StarMade directory—patterns!
The faction could next add these decals into the pattern slots in their colour scheme. So say there's a ship with a type-1 decal on it's hull, when this ship is spawned by the faction, that would be replaced by that faction's type-1 decal.
The word decal is interchangeable with pattern in this post.
Any non-blank hull blocks would not change with faction colour schemes, for your information.
Let's hope I didn't forget anything i had in mind for this post!!
Reasons and notes:
Why would we want these decals when we can just paint hull ourselves? Well... what if your hull is too small for that to be done?
Why would we want faction paint-jobs/colour schemes? It personalises your faction and makes it unique.
PIRATES DECALS AND COLOUR SCHEME: 1 = black, 2 = red, remaining = purple.
Decal: a simple one-colour (excluding complete transparency) drawing of an eye-patched skull; the more of a dripping paint look it has at the bottom the better.
TRADING GUILD DECALS AND COLOUR SCHEME: 1 = grey, 2 = blue, remaining = white?
Finally, entire ship models can be restricted to certain NPC factions.
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