Implemented New Personal equipment: Flashlight

[Gamel]

or a flashlight helmet

----------------3/3/15 12:32 GMT+8 Edited----------------
Below is two interesting and POSSIBLE ideas
from page 2 both by PreparationsA-G
can we have both???????​

What about the Shield-Effect?

What about the light that emanates from shields when you shoot a ship's interior with your laser pistol?

That produces light.

I don't know if it actually "emits" light, or if its just simply a "visual side-effect" of the shield graphic on the blocks it renders over top of, but when you're in a dark ship and you shoot the walls, the shield-graphic thing lights up the area around your shots, and you can see enough to know what's around you.

Couldn't this effect/property/principle/mechanic be utilized to make some kind of crude flashlight? I feel like it could.

How I was Thinking This Could Be Done: (sorry its kinda long)

Spoiler: You don't have to read this part if you don't want to.

Couldn't you just add in a new "action" (like "firing" some (new) specific item/tool (in this case a "flashlight" item/tool) at any physical block) that would produce that same shield-graphic? Except alter the "shield-graphic" that would render for this new action slightly, so that instead of having the white, rippling, chicken-wire graphic of the current shield-effect, it would be more of a solid shade of some transparent-ish white (such that it would just illuminate the blocks behind the effect) (and look like a flashlight beam).

Perhaps also the radius of this effect should be changed from that of the original so that it would more resemble the size of a flashlight beam. Or maybe it could even have the radius of the "altered-shield-effect" graphic be dependent on the distance of the player or entity "firing" the new (flashlight) item/tool from the object being hit by it. That way the flashlight beam radius could get bigger as you got farther away from the object being lit up.

Could something like this work?
(I ask, because I only vaguely understand game code and such)

Maybe instead of a flashlight, we could instead have "night-vision goggles" or a
"Night-Vision Mode"
available when wearing your space helmet.​

It could kind of function in 3 layers:
(1 2 3)

1. It could function kind of like lighten-mode by lighting up all the blocks in your field of vision (and just to the player using it, so it would be client-side (which is easier, right?)).
2. But then, on top of that (the lighten-mode), it could have some kind of shader (like the shield-effect shader), that would tint all of the blocks a greenish (or perhaps a color of the user's preference), and make it look more night-vision-y.
3. Then there could maybe be a final layer (that would perhaps be toggle-able), that would identify the type of block the player was looking at in sort of a Heads-Up-Display(HUD)-type fashion (perhaps up to a certain distance), like is done in build mode, similar to what NeonSturm suggested (but much cooler looking than build mode, and more HUD-y). Maybe the HUD-identifier could also identify the types &/or names of mobs & astronauts that the player looked at, as well as names of ships.

I'm not sure it would really be as "cool" as a flashlight, but it might be much more do-able alternative.

And it kind of fits the genre/setting of the game a bit better too if you think about it.

...Just an idea.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

been requested to death but Indeed we need them

though i believe we have the same problem minecraft has. our lighting system only supports dynamic lighting from the sun and nothing else

 

[Dalmont]

been requested to death but Indeed we need them

though i believe we have the same problem minecraft has. our lighting system only supports dynamic lighting from the sun and nothing else

That is mostly correct. Its the same reason that lighting doesn't carry over from ship to ship when docked or in close proximity.

 

[izzy1488]

Projected Dynamic light. Or just a one way radius light. Minecraft modders have done it for flashlights and such for a long time... so you can carry torches around or whatever.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Projected Dynamic light. Or just a one way radius light. Minecraft modders have done it for flashlights and such for a long time... so you can carry torches around or whatever.

thats the keyword here

im not saying that its impossible, its all a matter if Schema can do it himself/is willing to turn a mod into an official feature.

 

[kiddan]

been requested to death but Indeed we need them

though i believe we have the same problem minecraft has. our lighting system only supports dynamic lighting from the sun and nothing else

Though we have one less problem as our lighting system is smoother than MC.

 

[PreparationsA-G]

2 Things:

1.) Yes, to flashlights.
2.) Crimson-Artist , I dont see how "modders" is the keyword there. As far as I know (and im really pretty sure,) there are no flashlight mods in Starmade right now, so it would have nothing to do with Schema "turn[ing] a mod into an official feature," in any way.

If the problem was generally the same in both games, and the modders overcame it in minecraft, then I'm sure schema could overcome it in his own game.

Also 3.) We should totally have "headlights" in Starmade too (for ships). So you can see dark things if you're trying to mine (from your ship) if its dark (like on the dark side of an asteroid or something) (or if ur in the inky-black abyss between stars where everything is shrouded in darkness (which should totally also be a thing)).

 

[Planr]

yes we need flashlights for astronauts. tired of trying to see things in dark places or in caves.

 

[Mr. V]

I want a black light flash light :D ... unfortunately you didn't include a "Yes - I enjoy the dark side" selection, so now I'm confused on which selection to vote on :/

 

[Crimson-Artist]

2.) Crimson-Artist , I dont see how "modders" is the keyword there. As far as I know (and im really pretty sure,) there are no flashlight mods in Starmade right now, so it would have nothing to do with Schema "turn[ing] a mod into an official feature," in any way.

If the problem was generally the same in both games, and the modders overcame it in minecraft, then I'm sure schema could overcome it in his own game.

Im well aware that theres no Flashlight Mod , yet, and I don't doubt that schema can do it but you missed my point entirely.

just because the Modders can do it does not automatically mean that it will soon become a feature in the vanilla game. Theres a lot of awesome mods here that would make starmade 10 millions times better if they were made official, like the Fiery balls of fire mod, the larger thruster plums, and the Lighter lighten mode. but from what i can tell schema has no plans of doing that

Minecraft has some pretty good mods but only 1 or 2 of them (to my knowledge, i haven't played since 1.6) were once mods and were then turned into official game features.

 

[TKR101010]

I was coming here today to suggest this too. As I was working on the inside of a new ship in the dark I was thinking to myself "Where are those big spotlights on my helmet like the astronauts always have in the movies? That'd make my helmet actually useful."

I want a black light flash light :D ... unfortunately you didn't include a "Yes - I enjoy the dark side" selection, so now I'm confused on which selection to vote on :/

I want a BLACK Light Block too, or I guess more accurately an Anti-Light Block, which is what I thought I was getting when I bought a Black Light Block at a shop. I was thinking how awesome this part of my station plans were gonna be with these creepy dark shadowy places, but no it was a UV Light and didn't achieve the desired results. Maybe one day there'll be a mod for it.

 

[PreparationsA-G]

TKR101010 Perhaps they should introduce that and call it a "Dark Light." Or maybe a "Darkness Generator."

Perhaps they could even have different colors of it too? Like a blue-tinted Darkness (for a blue one). Or maybe instead it could be a blue-remover type thing (so the blue one would remove blue light (but leave other colors)).
Personally, I don't think I would use them much, but that was just a thought I had.

What I would like to see, would be for the (current) black lights to be more UV-like. So, for it to really light up those whites (and be less of a slightly-less-purple light).

But yeah, YES TO FLASHLIGHTS (to stay on-topic).

 

[PizzaPress]

That item lighting mod for minecraft causes some lag, IIRC. Why we don't yet have flashlights, is because it would take a lot of coding and could cost some performance. It's probably not very soon, rather, soon™.
I had an idea for until we get flashlights.
http://starmadedock.net/threads/per...ate-dark-places-while-keeping-them-dark.4889/

 

[kiddan]

Performance isn't a world-wide problem, you just need a good machine. My laptop can run the game at 400 - 460 fps.

 

[Valiant70]

Just put a built-in flashlight in my helmet and activate it with a hotkey. There's no need to take up another inventory space with a handheld device. We already need a multislot for all those pistol-like things, but for some reason no one thought to implement that.

 

[PreparationsA-G]

kiddan

Performance isn't a world-wide problem, you just need a good machine. My laptop can run the game at 400 - 460 fps.

.....so envious

 

[jayman38]

Thoughts on how the game might handle a portable flashlight.
I'm assuming that a single light block can be recalculated quickly and efficiently.

I think that when the player looks at a target structure (E.g. the dark inner parts of their current ship, for example), the intersection of the player ray with the structure (A.K.A. The place where a new block would be placed, so we already know it's being precalculated) would generate a light source as if a light block had been placed in that particular location.

In effect, it would be like placing a light block, except that you don't.

The game should update quickly enough so that the lighting can keep updated even when multiple players are looking around rapidly. Furthermore, further improvements in future game updates should make the lighting update even faster.

 

[DreamingOfRoundPlanetsAndNoBlocks]

Yeah its silly we can build insanely big ships but we arent smart enough to use a flashlight.
Shouldnt it be easy to do it like this:
just a circular whiteish lightmap, it even can move a bit for extra cool effect. Basically what poster above says.

 

[Blakpik]

That is mostly correct. Its the same reason that lighting doesn't carry over from ship to ship when docked or in close proximity.

So it is a no then?
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Performance isn't a world-wide problem, you just need a good machine. My laptop can run the game at 400 - 460 fps.

I too enjoy playing Crysis 2 on ultra graphics while watching 40 YouTube videos at once and hacking the NSA, CIA, FBI, KGB and the Stasi, all while calculating how to build a time machine and a Faster than Light ship.

 

[DreamingOfRoundPlanetsAndNoBlocks]

Has schema comented on flashlight status? is it coming soon?