NPCs are going to be more important in the future, with the quest system as shown in the tutorial. And already, NPC can be used as decoration in player's bases and ships. (I personally love decorating my builds with NPCs, be it in a voxel game or when I build LEGO)
But they feel boring right now, as they always have the same skin. Starmade's universe is populated by NPC males, all wearing the same uniform (and they turn all female if you change their default skin this way
)
There is already a variety of great skins created by the community.
But they could bring much more variety to the game if you could mix'n'match body parts, like you can do with LEGO minifigures.
This way, you could have a crew of rebel pilots with different heads, even female ones. Or you could have a base with civilians, wearing diverse outfits, having different heads.
This idea shouldn't change much the way artists draw their skins : they already draw body parts separately (head, neck, body, arms etc.) and put all these parts into a single png file. If my suggestion is kept, they wouldn't change their drawings, but create a few files instead of a single one.
In-game, you would be able to change the look of an NPC as easily as you change his name : by issuing an order as many times as you want.
I also suggest some of these non-default skins make their way to the vanilla version. The station contest gave great results : why not a skins contest?
But they feel boring right now, as they always have the same skin. Starmade's universe is populated by NPC males, all wearing the same uniform (and they turn all female if you change their default skin this way
)There is already a variety of great skins created by the community.
But they could bring much more variety to the game if you could mix'n'match body parts, like you can do with LEGO minifigures.
This way, you could have a crew of rebel pilots with different heads, even female ones. Or you could have a base with civilians, wearing diverse outfits, having different heads.
This idea shouldn't change much the way artists draw their skins : they already draw body parts separately (head, neck, body, arms etc.) and put all these parts into a single png file. If my suggestion is kept, they wouldn't change their drawings, but create a few files instead of a single one.
In-game, you would be able to change the look of an NPC as easily as you change his name : by issuing an order as many times as you want.
I also suggest some of these non-default skins make their way to the vanilla version. The station contest gave great results : why not a skins contest?
