Control panel and systems management

    What do you think of my ideas

    • You might be onto something.

      Votes: 3 100.0%
    • Make it so. Just like that!

      Votes: 0 0.0%
    • No. Not a chance.

      Votes: 0 0.0%

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    I got here two block suggestions, intended mostly for RP and simple convenience. But they might also offer intresting opportunities to operate the ship.

    1. The control panel block: (Not an completly new idea, but i thought i coould share my take on this)

    The block itself will have a fixed texture, maybe even with some nice blinking lights. It would be probably best to convert one of the decorative monitors for this.
    If you hit 'R' in front of this block it will open an UI into the players face. (kinda like the AI block or the faction block)
    While in build mode players can edit the UI. They can place switches and buttons, maybe even a view indicators. And of course resizing the window for that specific panel gets saved alongside.
    Each placed element can then be mastered and slaved just like any normal logic block.

    For example could you use the control panel on your 20 flur elevator instead of decorating the wall with activator blocks.
    And it's a nice toy for controlling your ship directly from the bridge.


    2. The management block: (Probably could use a better name)

    This block will open an UI as well. Here you get a dropdown menu that is used to select one system.
    This can be a basic system (like power generation or thrust in specific directions) or a module system (like an passive effect or a weapons system). Also you can choose between decrease and increase.

    If one management block get's an 'ON'-signal from a logic block it will increase/decrease the power usage of the seleced system (ranging from 0 to 100% of it's maximum capabilities) by an fixed amount in the time of 0.5 seconds.
    This means, the more management blocks get triggered the faster they will manipulate a system.

    This block could be used to steer the ship without entering the core, by controlling the trhust usage via logic or to free some power by regulating the main cannons down to 50% damage.
    With some changes in the stealth system it might even become possible to go into silend mode by regulating everything towards the bottom.
     

    Blaza612

    The Dog of Dissapointment
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    • Legacy Citizen 4
    I like the control panel idea a lot, not entirely sure on the management though. Control panel would be my savior when it comes to elevators. :P
     
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    • Purchased!
    It's not the first time customizable 'switchboard' was suggested and yeah, it'd be nice, though there should be certain limitations in how many systems can be slaved, what's the power use and so on.
     
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    The managment thing came to me from star trek games, as many have options to freely divide the energy between the systems as needed. I allways liked that. And of course it would be somewhat fun, being able to drive the ship from a console.

    As for panels/switchboards:
    I agree. Limitations are needed. I suppose between 5 to 10 elements maximum would be appropriate. Also i don't think there should be advanced logic elements included. I would like to really just keep it to activators/buttons and some nice optical customization.

    Power usage? That doesn't seem too appealing to me, considering none logic block got that so far. But i could imagine more mass on panels. After all it would be basically several switches combined into a single block.