Read by Council Hinder design theft

[KillaKrazy]

# Why I am against the specific idea:
"Core". There it is clearly written: You don't even know yourself if it would be the best way to implement the thing via a meta data in the core of via a server database variable for a spawned entitity.

Starmade is first of all a game where you are supposed to play not more than 4 hours a day, 4 times a week. A

But how many hours have actual creative minds who get money for their stuff invested into their work? Exactly:

Because gaming should stay a place where you can do everything, because it only is a part of your life, and not the center of your income like intelectual content is for some creative works out there.

Take me to court and tell them "Jin did not make money with my ships, and I did not make money with my ships, but now I want money from him for using the ships in some private (even playing on a server is nothing of real public interest but playing within a limited group of people, like attending a sport club) game sessions on a starmade server.

This is not true. I know how to argue and lined up my words and arguments in a logical order. If you see emotions in them, then show me in examples please. Cite my emotions. Give me a concrete example and I am pretty sure I can root it back to a very logical reason and not some emotional swing. =) But please do that in a personal message, because I think it will not help this topic.

Also I made it clear, I mean I underlinded it, that I am against it because of the intention and the will to go further than just the server-side flag. And because there is a high chance its not just implemented server side! Did you understand this part? Because if you don't understand this one part of my argument we can't talk further about the matter. This one part needs your understatement, please: I don't believe you, that you only want a server-side setting, if there is a big talk about licensing and copying others peoples work. Even the OP said he wants some licensing stuff if it would not be so complicated for the devs to implement. ("For that reason (licensing complexity) I will not be integrating the licensing topic into this OP, as I would like to see something basic (e.g. the "AllowCopy" flag) implemented sooner than later, and then later expanded upon with more granular licensing features.")

There are just a few of the examples of your rant being nothing more than emotion running wild. Was that suppose to be in a PM? Yea I don't play that way, you want to rant like an idiot and I'll call you out on it. No need for the PM'ing business.

1. Erth stated very clearly how to implement this idea, set a flag/condition on spawning entities; either allow copy or don't allow copy. There is not much room there for interpretation.

So what if Erth is for licensing? This thread isn't for licensing and hasn't advocated for it. He stated quite clearly that it would be a topic of a different thread. This thread is for not allowing BP copy and only that. Nothing more, nothing less.

2. Says who, that you can only or suppose to only play 4 hours a day 4 days a week? There really is no point of this part as it is just a wild rant of not knowing what the suggestion is about. Again, this only impacts entities that are spawning from BP's, all the content on the CC would be unaffected.

3. Why should Schine do any changes to the game? Why add the fleets, why add the new shop/trading functions? Because the game is in alpha and this is the time for them to add new features/functions. Again, as you and many others seem to get this wrong, the original post/thread was never about protecting the creators content or making it so their name would be tagged along into eternity. It was very clearly stated that this suggestion is only for allowing ship selling be a viable game play mechanic. If you haven't notices, Starmade is very lacking in the ways of playing.

 

[JinM]

This one part needs your understatement, please: I don't believe you, that you only want a server-side setting, if there is a big talk about licensing and copying others peoples work. Even the OP said he wants some licensing stuff if it would not be so complicated for the devs to implement. ("For that reason (licensing complexity) I will not be integrating the licensing topic into this OP, as I would like to see something basic (e.g. the "AllowCopy" flag) implemented sooner than later, and then later expanded upon with more granular licensing features.")

And thats why I rant. Don't know whats so hard to understand about my point.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Lets get rid of the terms DRM and Licensing for the duration of this discussion. They are not even relevant to what we are proposing.

JinM, I'd like you to explain to us why you feel so entitled to use other players' work who have clearly shown an active disinterest in making it available to to you. I'm sure everyone here would love to hear your answer.

After all, that is what this is about. You want what you can't create on your own; even at the expense of other players. Tell me, if one of us willingly gives you a design, what exactly can you offer in return?

 

[Erth Paradine]

This one part needs your understatement, please: I don't believe you, that you only want a server-side setting, if there is a big talk about licensing and copying others peoples work. Even the OP said he wants some licensing stuff if it would not be so complicated for the devs to implement. ("For that reason (licensing complexity) I will not be integrating the licensing topic into this OP, as I would like to see something basic (e.g. the "AllowCopy" flag) implemented sooner than later, and then later expanded upon with more granular licensing features.")

And thats why I rant. Don't know whats so hard to understand about my point.

As I've stated in this thread, I think licensing is a neat idea, and if it encourages more players to share their works, then I fail to see the disadvantage. You do after-all have no right to someone else's creative work, unless that person chooses to share it with you. If something like licensing, or "repair permits" are necessary to fulfill that objective, then I would support it. With that said, the OP remains focused on in-game effects of an "AllowCopy" flag only...as for nitpicking on where the setting is stored, "core" was suggested simply because its the one thing that exists on a ship, until the entire ship is gone...and therefore its the most reasonable place to tether such a setting. At no time did the OP ever suggest nor assert that "AllowCopy" is something stored in a blueprint, as I found such an option unnecessary: players can already control who sees their blueprints in-game.

 

[Spoolooni]

This one part needs your understatement, please: I don't believe you, that you only want a server-side setting, if there is a big talk about licensing and copying others peoples work. Even the OP said he wants some licensing stuff if it would not be so complicated for the devs to implement. ("For that reason (licensing complexity) I will not be integrating the licensing topic into this OP, as I would like to see something basic (e.g. the "AllowCopy" flag) implemented sooner than later, and then later expanded upon with more granular licensing features.")

And thats why I rant. Don't know whats so hard to understand about my point.

Also I feel like I haven't left you with constructive feedback on how to improve your Starmade experience. Based on previous arguments, especially when you mentioned creativity, you seem to claim that the OP's suggestion would insidiously limit creativity. I happen to be in a huge disagreement with those claims as I find myself learning from the community more than downloading ships from the dock and to be quite honest, if creativity is your argumentative point, what's stopping you from taking screenshots of someone's ship?

Starmade servers are there for a reason, people build on them as if they are sharing a studio space. Starmade although is a game, is definitely a creative platform in which its community relies on the friendly competitive energy that resonates from each and every builder. For example, I liked a particular design of someone's cruiser, I ask them nicely and respectfully, if I could have a closer look. I am immediately provided with decent quality IMGUR links that allowed me to adapt their greebles techniques into my ship building practice.

Now back to the argument.

Not allowing people to copy would essentially slow down the creative process- but that is if you're lazy, unwilling to put a particular important societal strategy into practice: a conversation. If you bothered to spend some time on the chat, you would see countless amounts of screenshots that you can "steal" ideas from, hell- if you asked them nicely, some would even tell you they're on the NFD servers. Starmade has been strong as a game because its community is filled with people that want to learn from each other, people go into streams, watch Raiben or Saber's videos, engage in ship reviews, think about the Mushroom Fleet days as well.

So no, I don't think it limits creativity, I think that's just an excuse, and if anything the suggestion would drive people to follow threads more, read what people put on the forums, join streams, participate in the chat or even head into sandbox servers to interact with other players as opposed to "copying" someone's ship.

 

[Tydeth]

Question: How would this interact with rails?

More specifically, the possibility of a ship having a mix of protected and unprotected parts, with regards to someone other than the original creator (such as a faction mate) in the core of the main or a sub-part of a ship? For example, copy-protected reactor base for unprotected turret on an unprotected main ship. Will the blueprint:

1. Fail altogether, meaning a single protected docked entity protects the entire thing from having a blueprint?
2. Make a print containing all the unprotected entities and not the protected ones, which could lead to (un)docking-related issues when spawning (e.g. turrets floating off because they were unprotected and thus saved, but were docked to a protected docked entity on the unprotected main ship, and the protected part was not saved and is thus missing)?
Or 3. See that the entity whose core the player is in is unprotected, and thus make a complete blueprint of that entity and all sub-entities, regardless of individual protection status?

 

[Madman198237]

My opinion is that this would exist for each entity separately. You cannot blueprint the original ship, and it will tell you so, and not try to make a blueprint of only the unprotected chunks. You can copy the turrets...if you can get in them (Seriously though, they should be protected well if the ship is not supposed to be copied).

Perhaps for a final mechanic----Should this protection be kept when your enemy defeats your ship in battle? I think it should, otherwise people will just go through the short step of blowing it all to pieces before blueprinting it, though I can see why it might be more attractive to tie this protection to, say, the faction mod (Which really should be protected well anyway) and then allow the protection to fade when that block is destroyed, or perhaps when the ship is overheated.

 

[JinM]

Lets get rid of the terms DRM and Licensing for the duration of this discussion. They are not even relevant to what we are proposing.

JinM, I'd like you to explain to us why you feel so entitled to use other players' work who have clearly shown an active disinterest in making it available to to you. I'm sure everyone here would love to hear your answer.

After all, that is what this is about. You want what you can't create on your own; even at the expense of other players. Tell me, if one of us willingly gives you a design, what exactly can you offer in return?

First of all, I dont want to spam this thread, and I am happy that not more guys rant about my disagreement with the OP. I hope its ok if I remain on my opinion even after all this talk. I mean everyone should be allowed to express his opinion as long as he does not spam. Disagreeing with me is totally okay, but I can't react to everyones opinion and so I pick the one I have it easiest to argue with and talk to.


"JinM, I'd like you to explain to us why you feel so entitled to use other players' work who have clearly shown an active disinterest in making it available to to you. I'm sure everyone here would love to hear your answer."
I am not sure what you want to express with this in particular.

First of: I don't use your work guys. Everything I created is in some form documented in screenshots in this community, not much is hidden from the public eye. I am a guy who is happy to share his work, even though I think its not that special to upload it to the CC. You can look at it. I build my own stuff, and like to figure out everything by myself. That is what is the fun of a survival experienc for me. So its not like I even care if some dude in particular wants to make his stuff aviable to me. Thats the reason I ignored this argument.

Now I think when I wrote "I am happy to copy", you thought I copy CC stuff or any desgin I see. I wanted to say: "I am happy if I (or everyone else) can copy". Sorry if I have trouble expressing myself, in the end I am not a native speaker and I don't find the perfect words for some ideas I want to formulate.

But it is totally okay for me that it can be understood this way. Because I wanted to make a point, and tried to express myself that it might help many guys not having any limitations of copying others stuff. As example I would say some little 12 year old boy (and 90% of those little dudes can't build at all) who wants to copy some cool design from the CC or on a server, but is prevented from it, because you guys wanted this so called "feature".

You want what you can't create on your own; even at the expense of other players. Tell me, if one of us willingly gives you a design, what exactly can you offer in return?
This 12 year old boy cant offer you anything in return. =) And he might not even be old enough to request the design from the admin, because his english is so bad. Thats one reason (I wrote plenty examples in this topic now) I want the CC as uncomplicated as possible. And I fear thateven taking one step into this direction with the server-side flag, can have some side-effects I allready tried to mention and you don't see at the moment. Also, if the requested design copy - limitation is implemented differently than requested from the OP, or is implemented as meta data into the ship core instead as only server side. And too many people here just say they want the former server-side only, but if they could they would totally prefer the persistent "don't copy" catalogue-item flag.

This is a sandbox game. Is the reason you guys want some stuff not to be copied really worth the limitations that can appear with it? Did any other sandbox game community needed such a feature to have creative content? Isn't it enough if you write your name on a display-module when you share some of your stuff? After all its just a game, why take some stuff you created so incredibly serious and be angry if someone uses it without asking before? (Ofcourse its not okay not to mention or not to ask but its also not that big of a deal for taking actions into this direction.) I mean if you want your name to be remembered, you allways can upload a screenshot of the stuff you created, and when someone else claims some work you did as his own you can say: hey look, I posted this creation half a year ago, stop saying its your own stuff.

After all I think even if some unpolite dude would copy your stuff without mentioning you, he would not be able to make something better out of it. I mean people who act like that and are copycats are not that talented in the first place.

You want what you can't create on your own;
There is a technique in an art-class I once attended: Copying an existing picture. Well not exactly copying, our teacher wanted from us to cut away one half of the picture, and extend the motive with our own objects, but as near to the original as possible. No one in our class asked anyone of the copyright owner from the used fotographs if he is allowed to do so. So thats one example of many where using what I did not create by myself is totally fine.

 

[Madman198237]

JinM, do us all a favor---do not try to tell us what we think or want.

I do not want anything like this in the CC. And, come on now, man, it makes no flipping sense. You can't have unshareable designs on a site made for sharing! It's Community Content, not "I don't wanna share this design so I'll just put it here" Content. There would be no point, it'd turn the CC into a picture repository. And besides, anybody with an iota of brains could figure out how to get around that flag once they downloaded the blueprint.

The point being: Quit assuming that everyone around you wants something like this on CC. Nobody does, because if they do then they clearly do not understand the system as proposed.

 

[Erth Paradine]

...
Everything I created is in some form documented in screenshots in this community, not much is hidden from the public eye. I am a guy who is happy to share his work, even though I think its not that special to upload it to the CC. You can look at it. I build my own stuff, and like to figure out everything by myself. That is what is the fun of a survival experienc for me. So its not like I even care if some dude in particular wants to make his stuff aviable to me. Thats the reason I ignored this argument.

Now I think when I wrote "I am happy to copy", you thought I copy CC stuff or any desgin I see. I wanted to say: "I am happy if I (or everyone else) can copy". Sorry if I have trouble expressing myself, in the end I am not a native speaker and I don't find the perfect words for some ideas I want to formulate.
...

So...couldn't you just pretend that a protected entity is in-effect a 3D "screenshot". Nothing in the proposed OP, or throughout this thread, asserts to deny you a right build your own entity. The goal of the OP seeks to help encourage more artists to share their works, by giving those particular artists an option to feel better about how their works are managed in-game. At no time is any original content creator forced to enable the setting; the OP only seeks to give the original creator an option of doing so, that's it.

...
And I fear thateven taking one step into this direction with the server-side flag, can have some side-effects I allready tried to mention and you don't see at the moment.
...

We see what you're trying to say, but what you're arguing is a slippery slope fallacy, and logical fallacies have no place in a rational discussion. You might as well drop the fallacy, nobody sane is going to address it.

This 12 year old boy cant offer you anything in return.

I disagree. You (or the hypothetical you) has a lot to offer: design and build a ship of your own, trade in-game materials for something, trade credits, maybe be a corp spy and earn a coveted ship as your reward/medal.

Do you see what I did there? You could earn something player-built, and rare, in exchange for your efforts. Without an AllowCopy flag on entities, anything and everything created by players is no longer truly unique, and therefore even "unique" ships are far less likely to be coveted or sought-after by players, once just one person decides to save and distribute a blueprint of it.

...
Also, if the requested design copy - limitation is implemented differently than requested from the OP, or is implemented as meta data into the ship core instead as only server side. And too many people here just say they want the former server-side only, but if they could they would totally prefer the persistent "don't copy" catalogue-item flag.
...

Well, I've lost count how many times this has already been illustrated in this thread, but let's try it one more time:

• The OP proposes a server-side only "AllowCopy" entity flag, to be assigned to an entity, at the time an entity is spawned.
• The OP does NOT propose a persistent "don't copy" catalogue-item (e.g. blueprint) flag.
• The OP does NOT propose that any such AllowCopy flags are stored in server catalogs (e.g. blueprint catalog).
• The OP does NOT propose that any such settings are stored in blueprints downloaded from a server.
• The OP does NOT propose additional restrictions upon blueprints available via CC, or in-game.

Further: there is already a server-side setting relevant to blueprints, and whether or not you are even permitted to see blueprints. A lot of players create blueprints, and some players never enable the setting which permits anyone/everyone to use them. This setting already exists, and is in regular everyday usage on every popular StarMade server in existence.

...
You want what you can't create on your own;
There is a technique in an art-class I once attended: Copying an existing picture. Well not exactly copying, our teacher wanted from us to cut away one half of the picture, and extend the motive with our own objects, but as near to the original as possible. No one in our class asked anyone of the copyright owner from the used fotographs if he is allowed to do so. So thats one example of many where using what I did not create by myself is totally fine.

That is known as a personal use exception; totally allowed per most modern societal norms and relevant laws.

In nearly all cases, you'd only run into legal trouble if you tried to use such works for personal monetary gain, without original attributions and/or without permission of the artist whom you created a derivative work from.

Concepts such as the personal usage exceptions are exactly why we can build replicas of existing copywritten SciFi objects, such as ships, weapons, buildings, warpgates, planets, etc. For that matter, when was the last time you heard of CBS suing someone because they created a replica of the Enterprise in Minecraft of StarMade? Or Warner Bros suing because there's a B5 White Star in CC, or even CCPGames suing because there's a ton of EVE Online ships in StarMade's CC?

 

[JinM]

So...couldn't you just pretend that a protected entity is in-effect a 3D "screenshot". Nothing in the proposed OP, or throughout this thread, asserts to deny you a right build your own entity. The goal of the OP seeks to help encourage more artists to share their works, by giving those particular artists an option to feel better about how their works are managed in-game. At no time is any original content creator forced to enable the setting; the OP only seeks to give the original creator an option of doing so, that's it.

This is the first step into the licensing territory and it's just logical for me to be against it. Also I argue because everyone is very picky about his very important own created ships and thinks 50% of the players on the server try copy his design. Thats just not right to be so sensitive and serious about creative content inside a sandbox game. I mean the level of sensitivity some guys have reached to the point where they demand a licensing system for blueprints. So yeah: I am in the opposition for this idea, and the server-side-nocopy is one root of this licensing demand.

We see what you're trying to say, but what you're arguing is a slippery slope fallacy, and logical fallacies have no place in a rational discussion. You might as well drop the fallacy, nobody sane is going to address it.
Yes, you can blame me for some illogical arguments. But this is not a science class or a lawsuit, its just 2 people talking. So you need to do one thing too: try to understand me as well. Well ofcourse you don't have to. But I tried my best to make it easy to understand why I am against it. You don't have to agree with me its allright. But don't think everyone welcomes what you propose.

I disagree. You (or the hypothetical you) has a lot to offer: design and build a ship of your own, trade in-game materials for something, trade credits, maybe be a corp spy and earn a coveted ship as your reward/medal.
No, sometimes you just get nothing back, thats the purpose of the thing: sharing and caring without benefit.


Do you see what I did there? You could earn something player-built, and rare, in exchange for your efforts. Without an AllowCopy flag on entities, anything and everything created by players is no longer truly unique, and therefore even "unique" ships are far less likely to be coveted or sought-after by players, once just one person decides to save and distribute a blueprint of it.
This is not a strong argument pro server side flagging: There will not be many cases where some player will hop in a ship on a server and envy its nice design. Its not strong enough to justify the implementation of such a feature imho. Yes it is a pro argument, but not strong enough to take one step into this direction. If the majority of the people would not be so picky about their own special designs it would be something else, but I feel too many people want licensing.

If you guys would be aware of the problems that I tried to explain that come with regulating design copies, and would have requested what you request is now from the start and clearly stated: we dont want blueprint licensing. That would ve been okay for me. It is also totally reasonable for me to have an option so on a server ships are not copyable. (I do understand what you want )But too many people are too picky. Really listen to yourself: "My special ship, my own design. Please add this feature, no best add blueprint licensing too, so I can feel more special and not fear someone else can benefit from it except if I permit him to have fun."

So please forgive me, if I try to make you understand that regulating stuff also needs to have boundaries. And those boundaries seem to be overseen.

I hope devs give those picky "its all my own creation" guys not one inch ground. Maybe they implement this feature - server side only - and I would not be unhappy about it. I think it would help. But you guys really need to think again about what you want, so I hope this feature gets a very low priority and the devs focus on more important things.

Here is the thing: If some mature people want to play RP on a server and use a ship thats there, it would be enough if the rp rule tells "don't copy this ship". So this also works right now and this non-copy-feature is not needed.

 

[Jojomo]

Your inability to understand our intentions does not make them bad intentions. Read my update to the suggestion; it will be the one with 3 blueprint types. Read the whole thing, understand how it works, then get back to us. I will be more than happy to break it down into simpler terms for you, should you need that.

"we, we, us, we"...how many people do you think you actually speak for? You don't represent what is written in the OP of this thread.

 

[Erth Paradine]

...
Yes, you can blame me for some illogical arguments. But this is not a science class or a lawsuit, its just 2 people talking
...

At this point you've lost me as a participant in your particular contributions on this thread; the problem with your reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, your fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion fallacy by leveraging fear. In effect your arguments are unfairly tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture...and with all due respect, I have no interest in engaging with such insanity.

 

[JinM]

At this point you've lost me as a participant in your particular contributions on this thread; the problem with your reasoning is that it avoids engaging with the issue at hand, and instead shifts attention to extreme hypotheticals. Because no proof is presented to show that such extreme hypotheticals will in fact occur, your fallacy has the form of an appeal to emotion fallacy by leveraging fear. In effect your arguments are unfairly tainted by unsubstantiated conjecture...and with all due respect, I have no interest in engaging with such insanity.

Well if you call me insane: Thanks for prooving your ability to discuss in a appropiate manner.

At least I tried to be friendly and actually did understand what you wanted, also I told you that I understand what you wanted. Whatever.

And one thing: We don't need to discuss it or agree. You could've just said: ok you are against it. But you wanted to convince me, and now that you did not succeed you try it on a personal way. I think thats not usefull for booth of us. ^^ Man, let me have my other opinion. Can't believe it matters so much to you.

Also you could ve credited me that I understand your motives. But my motives...Yeah if you don't want to understand them it's fine. But I think I am not that hard to be understood.

Nah. This is about you wanting me to agree with you, and it's about you not willing to accept another opinion. Or is this again some logical falacy type from my side?

But please don't think I want to hurt your feelings too much. I am just invested as well. I just wanted to answer when you tried to talk with me. It fine, we disagree. Lets carry on ok?

 

[Jojomo]

Words from your own mouth Jo. You say it yourself; touring a ship with a tape-measure and a practiced eye is all you need to glean the desired information. So why do you suppose this is not good enough in SM? You don't need to copy my BP, you can just take some notes and a selfie. :p

As soon as you build a ship the way it's done in real life, instead of placing 1m3 blocks, sure!

I've discussed this specific point previously. Many things in game are abstracted for our convenience, including building. It's perfectly reasonable to expect reverse engineering to be abstracted to some degree too.

In real life, reverse engineering a ship is non-destructive. It should be in SM too.

Anyway, as the OP has made the mind-blowing move of editing an OP after 2 weeks and 20+ likes, I wash my hands of this thread.

A parting thought: although the economy currently has a multitude of problems, when the main ones are fixed it will, like any real economy, be driven by production at one end and consumption at the other end.
Consumption in SM is blocks being put into either station construction, or ship construction. Slowing down arms races will have a massive effect on consumption, and therefore the economy as a whole - it will blow most people's chances of a steady design job in SM.

 

[Spoolooni]

Anyone notice how this kid still hasn't bothered to form a counterargument to any of the points I've made so far? Damn, that's hilarious!

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Damn... You guys toasted him.

I guess now we can add another one to the pile of irrational arguments.

First of: I don't use your work guys. Everything I created is in some form documented in screenshots in this community, not much is hidden from the public eye. I am a guy who is happy to share his work, even though I think its not that special to upload it to the CC. You can look at it. I build my own stuff, and like to figure out everything by myself. That is what is the fun of a survival experienc for me. So its not like I even care if some dude in particular wants to make his stuff aviable to me. Thats the reason I ignored this argument.

I hope you realize that you've invalidated your entire argument with this cluster of statements.

To quote Madman198237 "Do us all a favor---do not try to tell us what we think or want". Especially since your argument isn't even in line with what you want...

If you have no need for our designs, then what the heck are you complaining about? If this idea doesn't even affect you, then mind your own damn business!

 

[JinM]

Damn... You guys toasted him.

I guess now we can add another one to the pile of irrational arguments.

I hope you realize that you've invalidated your entire argument with this cluster of statements.

To quote Madman198237 "Do us all a favor---do not try to tell us what we think or want". Especially since your argument isn't even in line with what you want...

If you have no need for our designs, then what the heck are you complaining about? If this idea doesn't even affect you, then mind your own damn business!

This idea does affect me. So I had any right to express my opinion. I dont try to explain that to you again, because you obviously dont want to talk anymore. Thats fine for me. But please stay respectfull, or I will remember how you react if I disagree with you in future conversations.

And on other thing: I don't want to explain why I am against this any more. I said what I wanted to say, and if some1 sees it differently its okay for me. Expect me to ignore the following arguments if I don't like what I read.

 

[Erth Paradine]

Question: How would this interact with rails?

More specifically, the possibility of a ship having a mix of protected and unprotected parts, with regards to someone other than the original creator (such as a faction mate) in the core of the main or a sub-part of a ship? For example, copy-protected reactor base for unprotected turret on an unprotected main ship. Will the blueprint:

1. Fail altogether, meaning a single protected docked entity protects the entire thing from having a blueprint?
2. Make a print containing all the unprotected entities and not the protected ones, which could lead to (un)docking-related issues when spawning (e.g. turrets floating off because they were unprotected and thus saved, but were docked to a protected docked entity on the unprotected main ship, and the protected part was not saved and is thus missing)?
Or 3. See that the entity whose core the player is in is unprotected, and thus make a complete blueprint of that entity and all sub-entities, regardless of individual protection status?

The idea, is that at the time of spawn, you choose which way the setting is toggled. In-effect, you're getting a choice: yes or no. This is not something configured inside a blueprint, but a choice you make at the moment you're spawning an entity from a filled blueprint or via shipyard design.

Currently, when the game spawns an entity, it records some meta-attributes:

• UID (a unique ID for that entity)
• type (ship, station, etc)
• seed (unsure exactly what this is)
• lastModifier (starts as the name of the spawner, but will change to match the name of the last player to modify that entity)
• spawner (yep, that's what or who spawned it)
• realName (the name you'll see in nav, or on your HUD)
• touched (more applicable to NPC objects, such as asteroids...has it been touched/modified yet?)
• faction (faction associated with the entity)
• pos (X/Y/Z coordinates of the entity location within a sector)
• maxPos (sector it's in)
• creatorID (unsure what this is)
• emptyObject (unsure what this is)
• allowCopy (haha, that's not really in-game yet, but this is where I visualize the setting being)

The above attributes are assigned to each and every entity spawned...so for instance if you spawn a ship with multiple turrets, the turrets will have very similar attributes, with slight appropriate modifications to things such as UID and pos, but "spawner" will be the same across all connected entities.

As for how to apply an "AllowCopy" attribute...I'd say it should be whatever the core is assigned with. Since at the time of spawn, the player spawning the entity makes a choice, just apply the choice to all. Since the setting ought to be applied at the time of spawn only, then docking new entities at a later date, or docking to other entities, would not change the "AllowCopy" attribute for either entity.

As for how to approach attempts to blueprint a protected entity, when there's unprotected entities attached. You can't: the protected entity cannot be blueprinted. If you wanted to backup a design of an unprotected ship, turret, etc... that you've attached, then you'd need to enter the unprotected turret/ship, save a blueprint of that entity alone...and now you're done.

Alright...here's another idea the came up just as I was typing this...instead of requiring that players make a choice every time they spawn something. How about only facilitating access to this option when tasking a shipyard to assemble your ship. The shipyard menu systems could easily accommodate this choice, so there's no naggy messages popping up when you're spawning something out in the middle of nowhere. Now wouldn't that be a nifty way to encourage shipyard usage?

 

[Madman198237]

Did he just state that a change to CC, which he claims never to use, affects him? Without providing proof/a thought as to why?

I'm so much done. How about we agree to disagree.
And then agree that I am always right.