Thousand blocks make a 100 mass ship. It's really nothing comparing to many ships in Starmade.
Yes, my point exactly - thousands blocks for a ship is not that much, for a weapon - quite so. That's why I said that those two aren't exactly the same.
And i think You missed this, but these blocks wouldn't be normal (1m x 1m x 1m) sized blocks, but much smaller ones
So the weapons would have sizes of normal guns
Depends how small. In the mock ups in this thread, regular, sizeable machinegun has maybe a few dozen of blocks. By compariosn, thousands-big item would be the size of a house, even with blocks being as little as proposed. You'd have to make them lot smaller and then fit in a lot more for a weapon model which brings us to earlier mentioned worry about whether it wouldn't be pain for connections, the way now many server cannot handle any sizeable number of even thousands-block big ships.
Now, think about dozen of players in a single place on the server, each with such a gun, each in possibly way bigger ship. If multi-block constructions are really as tough on connections as many people commonly claim, that'd be a serious issue (if there's a dev willing to reassure me that multi-voxel guns wouldn't add to those issues though, I'd appreciate that).
Probably even with Your system of premade parts there would be a way to create phallus-shaped guns, there is always a way
Actually, not that much. Premade parts models are, well, premade. Since you cannot stick them wherever you want as they're simply parts final gun's model is crafted from, they wouldn't be that much of a problem. I believe when it comes to looks of different parts alone - which would be nice but isn't necessary for proposed system and completely up to devs - Borderlands series offered something akin to what's suggested in my particular example here. I am yet to see randomly generated penis-shaped gun there that isn't made by modding the game, a thing that wouldn't fly in multiplayer here if the server wouldn't allow such a mod.
No, no, no, number of cubes in different systems would change the stats of the gun. Players could place a lot of single laser blocks (not connected to each other) and make something similar to shotgun with small damage of each projectile, but they could also place laser blocks in 3 rows, creating a machine-gun.
By adding more aiming system blocks, their weapon would have less recoil or even maybe would be self-targeting (to some degree).
That means a lot of space for customization and two different guns could be completely different.
This also brings us to actual problem the system I've suggested somewhat rectifies - if you are able to stick whatever cubes raising whatever weapon stats you want, the likelihood of people messing with the balance or exploiting the feature increases dramatically. When, however, you offer only a range of how much a certain stat can be affected by introducing just a group of modules, there's no such issue that cannot be repaired very easily and while some creativity may be limited, you still get a decent number of options, where each one of them is viable choice.
In addition, actual free block combining would allow greater range of possibilities, initially - but since the size is the limit, in the end, sooner or later actually I suspect most people will run with clear-cut 'maximum efficiency' designs. Current block systems when it comes to ships actually proves it somewhat, what's with the people sharing designs of maximum-power, minimum-space generator block setups and so on.
Voxel system in PE is mostly for the look of the weapon, to add some details, etc. It also determine the stats of the weapon, but i think it has less impact than pre-made parts.
I may be wrong, because i haven't found new videos about creating custom weapons in PE.[/QUOTE]
From what I recall, premade PE gun parts were just regular ingredients in the recipe which couldn't be mixed and matched too much. Was it changed?
Your post isn't that long and it isn't hard to understand Your view, but Your very suggestion is pretty complicated. Not in terms of not being intuitive but more about needing many new systems or blocks.
And here, I find it quite ironic. Actually, the proposed system is made with ease of implementation in mind and probably far easier than putting stuff together and then balancing it when it comes voxels, though it's just an assumption based on the fact that voxel creation of guns and then their use requires new systems, while what's proposed probably could work with slightly modified crafting system as it is, with each stat effect per a module being simply written as a certain inherent value of each module. Seems lot more easier to add (though it's, as stated, a guess, as I don't know how much effort devteam has to put in what) and easier to use than mucking around with arranging blocks if you'll ask me.
So for jetpack and for additional stuff for armor, we would need plenty of pre-made modules. And there are few more systems, so total number of modules would be pretty big.
With voxel system all of the stats would be dependent on number of blocks of different systems used in specific body part/weapon.
Yes, remember though that most of the modules use the same system and as far as code goes can be simply copy-pasted with their values changed. As in, you need code to support jetpack module and it's stats in general and that will support however many copy-pasted-and-modified jetpack modules you'd like to implement. If in voxels stats would be dependant on size, it'd only encourage people to build devices as big as possible, which aside from the aforementioned possible issues with balance, simply means that at certain point there's not as much of differentiation between as-effective but varied weapons and armors.
I would like to see buffing HP of player by adding armor, or faster flying when more concentrated about thrusters in jetpack, but imo better way to do this is voxel based system.
Concentrated about thrusters? Here I confess I may have some issues with understanding what you meant. Clarify?
