Custom NPC Skins

[Iskandar]

(NPCs are still fairly new, but I thought I would drop an idea in now so that it might be considered as part of a future NPC upgrade.)

Now that we can hire them, I would like to suggest the addition of a player-made custom skin for our NPC crew. The skin could be customized and uploaded the same way that custom player skins are done, via the Launcher.

Having a crew that coordinates with you visually is a nice perk for many players -- especially for roleplay purposes, or for those who use non-human skins themselves. Factions could match their NPC crews to a standard skin/uniform, non-human races could have crews of their own species, or you could customize your crew for themed server events (a zombie crew for Halloween, or Santa suits on Christmas, etc).

Such customization is not an uncommon feature in modern MMOs -- if you're familiar with Star Trek Online, it offers a massive range of customization options for your crew. Likewise, EverQuest 2 has a simple drag-n-drop appearance option for the equipment worn by player-controlled NPC Mercenaries, Star Wars: TOR lets players give their Companions equipment to wear directly, and so on. It's always good to have options for customization! :D

The main downside is that each player who logs onto a server will potentially have two skins for everyone to download. But since they're not particularly large (@25-50 kb each), this hopefully wouldn't be a huge issue.

 

[testkil]

why should npc's have costum skins ?

 

[Iskandar]

why should npc's have costum skins ?

Scroll up -- I posted a number of reasons just a smidge above your post :p

 

[testkil]

Scroll up -- I posted a number of reasons just a smidge above your post :p

if they do costum skins who will host them ? the server already have trouble with the player skins

but it could be possible and good costum skins ^^

 

[Iskandar]

if they do costum skins who will host them ? the server already have trouble with the player skins

but it could be possible and good costum skins ^^

Well, like I said above, a crew skin could be uploaded exactly like a player skin is now. They'd be no different than a player skin, they just be applied to that player's NPC crew instead.

At 25-50kb each, the file size should (hopefully :D) only be a noticeable issue with those servers that have truly massive numbers of players, and only if ALL of those players upload both a custom skin file AND an NPC skin file. The majority of players currently seem to just roll with the default skin, tho I imagine that will eventually change as more skins are posted.

Speaking of which, even without NPC skins, any server that seeks to continue operating long-term should be prepared for a sizeable increase in data storage requirements as their playerbase grows and more people use custom skins for their own avatars.

For players, take a look at how large your current skin folder (starmade / client-skins / YourName / YourServerName) is for whichever server(s) you play on, and double it (mine would go from 4.4 mb in total to 8.8mb, assuming every single player loads an NPC skin -- which I honestly doubt most would do)... and, to be frank, if that's too big for your computer's HD, then you have bigger issues than NPC skins to worry about! hehe!

 

[Elit3]

I also think it would be cool to "Save your current ship state" As in, save your ship, and if you were to take damage, your crew would start repairing it, returning it to its "Saved state"

 

[testkil]

yes that would be cool

 

[Master1398]

Factions could match their NPC crews to a standard skin/uniform, non-human races could have crews of their own species, or you could customize your crew for themed server events (a zombie crew for Halloween, or Santa suits on Christmas, etc).

I already did this

Spoiler: Crewman Dave!

But it would really nice to be able to upload skins for you crew instead of just changing the normal texture

 

[NeonSturm]

I see an issue with uploading these. It uploads my skin every time and I didn't get it to work online (in not localhost games).

• It uploads 1kb per second (maybe a client->server speed limit for files by the game or server-host-admin?)

And with all the changes (not a single png file anymore) I lost overview over the management of those... maybe that is the reason it always start uploads every time, not just once to sync with the server.


I would like a support for indexed colors in pngs. It could decrease the size to 33% (by 67%) easily.

 

[Bannta]

I believe this is a great idea however I believe there should be a limit or a server setting that limits this function.

What I would like to see is the server have pre-loaded npc skins that a player can choose from. I would also like to see additional special selection area for players with higher level status like donor, admin and moderator. That way the hoster of some of the great server where we play and build on can offer additional bonus to their subscribers to help support there service.

Example: Basic member has access to the default skin. Donor has access to the basic and a few more other skins. As well as the admins and moderator as a reward for their service for running the server. So basically the skin itself would have it's own rank.

It would be a great way of saying "thank you" to all the public server host that host this great game we all love.

 

[NeonSturm]

@Bannta, you Thread Necromancer!