More curious, I know to get the Full array would be way to many block IDs, but after seeing I believe sky wanderers and it's use of 22.5 degree angles. Iv become a bit entranced with the possibilities, even if it's only like 3 slab types for the wedge we get. Has this been talked about much, is there still enough interest.
Has Wedge slabs been abandoned
- Thread starter kingreol
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The number of different block shapes we have now (full block, 3 different slabs, wedge, corner, tetra, hepta) is a massive pain in the butt for ship building and for inventory control and for manufacturing (especially when you multiply it by the number of colours, then multiply that by number armour strengths). For the current way the game works; adding 22.5 degree angles would make this much much worse - it'd be so bad that it'd be too painful to tolerate.
In my opinion; the best solution is to get rid of "explicit block shapes" entirely, and replace it with a system of full blocks and "conforming blocks". The idea is that a conforming block will auto-configure its shape to match the blocks (of the same material) that surround it; so that players can build a crude "blocky" ship out of full blocks, then add conforming blocks where necessary to get a nice smooth shape (possibly including curves).
Also in my opinion, I'd be nice if there were no colours for ship building, but there were "meta colours" instead - e.g. up to 4 "exterior colours" and up to 4 "interior colours". This would allow you to set the colour after designing a ship (e.g. set "exterior colour #1 = blue" when building a ship in the shipyard), and would allow you to repaint an existing ship after it's been built (e.g. by using/consuming paint), and would also allow the game to use a full range of colours (millions of possible colours to choose from, rather than the ~13 we have), and would reduce the number of blocks (in inventory, etc) a little more.
For rough maths, if both of these things were done, the total number of block types that player's have to put up with (for hulls/armour alone) would go from 416 down to 32. That's a massive reduction in painful clutter (with much smoother ships, with many more colours).
In my opinion; the best solution is to get rid of "explicit block shapes" entirely, and replace it with a system of full blocks and "conforming blocks". The idea is that a conforming block will auto-configure its shape to match the blocks (of the same material) that surround it; so that players can build a crude "blocky" ship out of full blocks, then add conforming blocks where necessary to get a nice smooth shape (possibly including curves).
Also in my opinion, I'd be nice if there were no colours for ship building, but there were "meta colours" instead - e.g. up to 4 "exterior colours" and up to 4 "interior colours". This would allow you to set the colour after designing a ship (e.g. set "exterior colour #1 = blue" when building a ship in the shipyard), and would allow you to repaint an existing ship after it's been built (e.g. by using/consuming paint), and would also allow the game to use a full range of colours (millions of possible colours to choose from, rather than the ~13 we have), and would reduce the number of blocks (in inventory, etc) a little more.
For rough maths, if both of these things were done, the total number of block types that player's have to put up with (for hulls/armour alone) would go from 416 down to 32. That's a massive reduction in painful clutter (with much smoother ships, with many more colours).
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A
Although I enjoy the current building mechanic, I forsee a LOT of potential in this, and it would be really cool to see this type of system implemented.
I assumed we get some of the features you suggested. Slowly (one block for manufacturing instead of converting it to be a wedge, and painting it via factory is a pain. Seems it's all just small gui improvements.. The autowedge. I'd save that for when modding comes in.
TrickyNicky27
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The auto conforming block idea is not a good idea. I respect your opinion on the subject and understand where you are coming from, however there are some serious flaws. For people like me who enjoy using wedges as a decorative element instead of simply as a way to smooth ships. I use all the shapes to make interestingly shaped rooms and details on ships, and a lot of the time they are not used in conjunction with each other.
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What would keep you from selecting each individual block and setting their shape? Or have I fundamentally misunderstood his idea? Lol
jayman38
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Queesdy's suggestion included removing special shapes and just having cubes and "conforming blocks". If you want to keep the ability to set the shape, you need to keep special shapes, in addition to the "conforming blocks".
Edit: Meta colors would not be needed if you used a linked-display block mechanic, where you linked certain blocks to a display which had the color in RGB format, giving the linked blocks that same shade and hue. This way, you can simply use extra display blocks to define the colors, and you are not limited to just four colors, and you are not wasting bits on meta colors that you don't use if you have less than four colors.
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It be more a add-on. The issue with that suggestion is builders who use the whole spectrum for interior, etc. I'd be happy just if we can paint blocks from the editor picking the color there and consuming paint. Instead of manufacturing. And wedging can use a normal block from inventory much how we don't have to manufacture slabs..off topic a bit since this is more on decluttering the interface and factorys... my suggestion was simply something like the 0 to 1/2 Wedge and 1/2 to full wedge, and possibly the 1/4 wing shapee. These 3 would add a lot of building details...
Hi,
Note that for things like chairs and beds; I expect that we'll get real chairs and real beds eventually, so that NPC crew know what they can/should sit on or sleep on. To be more honest; I'm hoping for a system like Gnomoria, where you can (e.g.) place a bed and assign an NPC to that bed ("Dave the Mechanic's Bed") so that the selected NPC always goes there to sleep, then have "total worth of room bed is placed in" effect the NPC's happiness/productivity. I'm also hoping for something similar for chairs and/or workstations, and hospital zones, and dining zones, and showers, and... Mostly; I'm hoping for practical reasons (rather than mere aesthetics), like NPC happiness/productivity, to bother having any kind of interior in the first place.
Essentially; I'm hoping that the only reason that we're (e.g.) trying to pretend hardened hull is nice soft bedding is that the game is missing features; and that (eventually) the game won't be missing these features and we won't have to use hulls for "non-functional/decorative furniture that is never used" like we are now.
You're right (sort of); but there'd be no real reason you couldn't have both - e.g. "conforming blocks" where the player could manually determine shape when placing if they actually want to.
Note that for things like chairs and beds; I expect that we'll get real chairs and real beds eventually, so that NPC crew know what they can/should sit on or sleep on. To be more honest; I'm hoping for a system like Gnomoria, where you can (e.g.) place a bed and assign an NPC to that bed ("Dave the Mechanic's Bed") so that the selected NPC always goes there to sleep, then have "total worth of room bed is placed in" effect the NPC's happiness/productivity. I'm also hoping for something similar for chairs and/or workstations, and hospital zones, and dining zones, and showers, and... Mostly; I'm hoping for practical reasons (rather than mere aesthetics), like NPC happiness/productivity, to bother having any kind of interior in the first place.
Essentially; I'm hoping that the only reason that we're (e.g.) trying to pretend hardened hull is nice soft bedding is that the game is missing features; and that (eventually) the game won't be missing these features and we won't have to use hulls for "non-functional/decorative furniture that is never used" like we are now.
Ithirahad
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Skywanderers is probably not using 3 bytes per block. Remember, not all voxel systems are created equal: there's a sliding scale of feature adaptability vs. performance and every game is on a different mark on that scale.
Anyway, wedge slabs are not abandoned. There is a huge backlog of features that Schema ideally wants to implement at some point, and if I remember correctly wedge slabs are one of them, but there is also a huge backlog of core features that the game needs, so wedge slabs will have to wait until there's some extra time in a development cycle and other small features don't take priority.
Thanks ith. With your build style. I'd love to see it in full wedge slabs. Glad to see it's on the table, felt everyone shot it down because to do the Full 1/4 matrix to cover everything would need to goto 4 bytes, plus new gui to make it less complicated.. I was thinking it got left out over this All or nothing attitude.