Factory Enhancements & Building Suggestions

[ColeDragoth]

These are only suggestions! Not everyone will like every suggestion but if you see something you may want implemented make sure to post your support.

Factory Docking Unit + Enhancers

They will function like current docking units. Factoring Docking Units will be used in conjunction and attached via a link or a new wiring block to the Factory Unit to enable construction of a ship that will be docked in the Factory Docking Unit area.



Ship Creation & Blueprint Usage

! Remove instant ship building and price with this down below!

Once a factory docking unit is setup, the factory will be able to create ships from blueprints in the docking area; however they will require all the resources (Items) that the ship’s blueprint uses to be inside the factory unit to start creating it. This eliminates the ability to buy ships that have been blueprinted to harvest materials. The ship being created must fit inside the factory docking area which is increased by Factory Docking Enhancers and will take time to create. Build time will vary based on the size and mass of the ship. Building will start from the core and move around in square patterns outward.

Ship Building Ideas / Restrictions

Firstly, I would like to mention fighting people’s ships in pvp is fun but somewhat broken. I have had instances of people building huge plastered walls in the mist of combat to prevent damage or improve/fix their ship.

Here are my suggestions on how ship building should be.

• Building in space with just your astronaut should be limited to 1 block placing and have a limited build around the core while building in space.
• You must use to use all build functions and it will extend the building area which is normally limited to the Factory Docking Unit area.
• Add a repair button that prompts users to select a blueprint. The factory will start to add missing blocks to the damaged ship if materials are inside the factory unit.

Pros to the above ^

+ No mid combat building

+ More functionality from factories

+ Bigger ships will require factories

+ Easy ship repair back to original blueprint state

+ No blueprint farming for materials since ships require the materials to create prior to building

+ Promotes faction planets & space stations to host factories for larger ship creations



Cons to the above ^

-Limited ship size at start,

-Bigger ships will require factories

- Advanced building will require factories

- Ship repair will require factories if outside the limited build area in space.



More Details

• Ships can only be constructed from blueprints with a factory unit that is attached to a Factory Docking Unit to create ships. (Larger ships will need Factory Docking Enhancers to increase the factory docking area which is the building area.
• Add a Start Construction Button for below.
• Materials must be placed inside the factory unit to start production and will use everything available needed block until it runs out. It will notify you that more blocks are required and it will halt construction.
• Add a materials required list to blueprints so players know what they need to create the ship.

Unrelated suggestions

• Please lower the loot tables of pirates and turret stations, money is WAY too easily obtainable via loot.
• Disable the player’s ability to remove blocks outside of build mode OR make it take time to grab blocks and restricted certain blocks from being removed. (It’s funny you can mine an asteroid without even a salvaging cannon)

 

[Jim-Dandy]

i agree to the(No mid combat building) but disagree to everything else

 

[DeadMeerkat]

I agree to everything. except the part which sets a limt of how far you can build from the core if you\'re building in space. It shouldn\'t have a limit. I feel as if it would be better and more realistic if the only restriction was that you had no access to advanced build mode.

 

[Benjamintruth]

But, the only thing is this wil limit the functionality of blueprints to large ships. Or people who have been well established on the server. Only people with factories, or large factories, will be able to make use of the catalogue systym. It also doesn\'t really fix the factory systyms, it just forces people to use the current one ( which we can all agree, is kind of broken.)

 

[Florrible]

While this idea has some pros, I think that the cons are too big. As example, it would be very hard to just build ships for fun as you would need to do the whole factory thingy. While I think this would be a good idea for a mod(once it is possible to do those), I would only like to see this included in the game if there is some way to turn it off or limit what it affects.

 

[CorneliousCrowe]

The only restriction should be the advanced build mode feature going away. That being said, I don\'t think ships should have to be docked on it to gain the advantages either. I think it should be more like how when you get close to the shops they allow you to open that menu.

How it would work in my mind:

The player starts out on a planet and gains enough resources to build thier first ship! Hooray!!! They place their ship block off the \"coast\" of a planet and begin placing blocks down. The slopes and other orientable blocks now have some auto-orientation features, but not full. (rotation to place it on its side) Or the orientation option is available in standard build mode, which makes more sense to me. They set out and gather LOTS more resources, and want to build a mega cruiser.

From here, the player has options

1: The player can place thier ship down and start going at it, with no axis-plane mirrors or multi-block placing option. As you can imagine for larger vessels this way is not going to be very practial

2: place a factory block down, which grants them all the powers of advanced build mode (plus some more features that are not implemented yet, like \"Copy-Paste-Area\")

In order to use a factory, it must have enough power to be active, and its range also needs to be be extended through the use of boosters. This makes it so now, space stations serve a purpose other than harvesting, as players will need to protect these new factory blocks. The factories may also have the option to build a blueprint of a ship, as long as the player or a linked storage device has all the resources neccissarry. (I suggest though that things like hull color be ignored as seperate resources, so that a player doesn\'t have to go and hand paint a quadrillion blocks just to allow a factory to build a non-grey ship.)

Thoughts or improvements?

 

[Sortin]

How would you get the big ship to begin with, to create a blueprint for it?

 

[ColeDragoth]

You would use the factory dock then you can place in an infinitely large area like now, but you would need the factory docking enhancers to increase the area to improve the size able to build.

 

[ColeDragoth]

I guess people really do like how broken the catalog sysem really is right now. I mean all I have to do is raid a station or two, kill some pirates and BAM max money! Then they can just keep making \"ships\" as blueprints with piles of resources they need, then they just buy it from the catalog. This creates a HUGE issue, it creates resources from money which is near infinite. This to me destroys the element of gathering, progression and other aspects of realism. No need to go store to store looking for blocks you would otherwise desperately need. Gather items to craft in the factory? NOPE, just create resource ships! This destroys any element of trading between shops or perhaps players. It also enables players to just stay within 1 or 2 sectors, no need to travel!

 

[ColeDragoth]

Everyone has their own opinions, but that still doesn\'t change the fact blueprint farming is still broken.

 

[ColeDragoth]

The limit can be pretty decent to start enabling medium sized ships. The limit would be to have progression, a goal in mind to create giant ships. A factory to build a giant ship is really the right way to go and promotes the players to use in game mechanics to build giant ships.

 

[joefish500]

Agreed,the catalog is very over powerd,seeing as you can just avoid actually finding resources and just create a ship of 5000000 mass out of nowhere.

 

[ColeDragoth]

You should learn to read the postes before you disagree with everything. Making the game a little more complicated isn\'t a bad thing and last time I checked blueprint farming and instant ship building is totally broken. So you also think loot balance is good as is? Seriously...

 

[ColeDragoth]

I figured that limited building area would be hard to sell to people, I just wanted it to coinside with my factory changes. It was just a suggestion to further the need to use the factory system and to promote the creation of space stations or bases on planets in order to create VERY LARGE ships. Thanks for the comments.

 

[ColeDragoth]

At least some peope get it. Lol

 

[LordVe]

I must say, I like the Idea of getting rid of Insta-Ships. We all use them in one way or another, but it really makes Multiplayer less fun. Sure you can disable Blueprints, but then people can\'t save their ships, after a few mishaps with 500k+ Block Ships, it isn\'t a Good Idea. But neither is the ability for someone to leave one capital ship and spawn another right away. This would make your ship a lot more valuable to you since you can\'t just spawn another right away.

I would say, Leave the Manual/Advanced Building alone, and require a factory of some kind to auto-build ships. Otherwise you cripple new players who don\'t have access to shipyards to build their ships.

I see this as a system where someone buys a blueprint from the catalog, takes it to their faction shipyards and gets it built. And Have it take time to build. I want to see the ship being constructed. (This would be rather easy if done right. You make a fake player that you can\'t see, and have it place the blocks quickly. )

For repairing a Blueprinted ship, it would be a simple task of docking to a shipyard and placing the blueprint in the factory. It would then compare the two and tell you what you need to repair it. This would also allow you, assuming Uploading is enabled, to modify a blueprint in an SP universe and not have to do so again, since you just place the new Blueprint in and wait.

As for the Mid-Combat Repairs/Edits, If you limit them, you will almost never finish a large ship. As an example, I was building a large Carrier for my Faction, every 10 minutes or so, a large fleet, about 8-15 ships, from an opposing faction would attack. Were it not that I could continue building while being attacked, it would never finish.

 

[DwarfLord Pangolin]

I approve of almost all of this, with the sole exception of this:


Building in space with just your astronaut should be limited to 1 block placing and have a limited build around the core while building in space.


Not sure how I feel about that. My mouse gets enough wear and tear as it is.

Also, could you clarify precisely what you mean by this?


You must use to use all build functions and it will extend the building area which is normally limited to the Factory Docking Unit area.


Not sure what you mean by \"build functions.\"


@LordVe: that\'s a good point about getting attacked mid-construction; maybe give ship factories a type of shield block that protects what\'s being worked on? \'course, that might get done for fighters/turrets anyway, so that might end up being redundant.


Finally, a suggestion of my own (if you already mentioned this and I missed it, I apologize): the speed at which a ship in spacedock (or whatever you want to call it) is built by the shipyard should be dependent on how many power generators you add to it, presumably with diminishing returns past a certain point.

 

[Boggis2]

Even the build limit in space. You can make it so that the starter space station you start with has a shipyard so you can build youre first ship

 

[Riftmaster]

But I think the first one could be remedied by having a small factory at each store (or in seperate locations? So that starting players can build a starter harvester and the like.

Or alternatively, make it so a factory-built ship has fractionally better stats (like 1-2% per X blocks), so that you CAN hand-build a massive ship (and, indeed, must, if you want to create a blueprint for a factory) but that a factory will make a better version of it.

I do agree that the current factory system needs work thuogh - thus this idea is kinda moot until the base systems are better.

 

[Riftmaster]

How do you build a ship without having any blueprints though?

I suppose you could make it possible for a player to enter the factory and create a design inside it, then supply the materials and hit \"build\"...