No more being sucked into ship cores; cockpits!
Warning: a lot of this post is just me splitting hairs and getting really specific and not compressing my text at all. The main paragraph is the first big one (begins with `The player would`.)
I believe the fact that we are sucked into a ship core makes kinda... well, no sense, and is also an immersion-breaker.
So I propose cockpits.
Basically, the player would build their fancy chair and all that, but then they would place, preferably somewhere accessible from the sitting position, a cockpit computer.
The player would activate/interact with the computer, and a UI would appear. This would have two (currently) options—flight and build mode. Click one, press space to exit to the UI again. Simple. But here's the point of it: you never leave your seat! Players can see and kill you. Also, during flight mode, if you have no cameras, you cannot switch between them/the core and are confined to your player's vision, which is cool and realistic. In fact, you can never switch to cameras—you need to hook them up to display modules (preferably ones that are on rails so they can get out of your way when needed—) but that's for another suggestion.
Also, all activate-able computers (including the cockpit computer) no longer block all your vision when placed in front of your face at a comfortable height/would not really let you access them realistically from one block lower; they now must be placed one block lower and actually display holographic images above. You interact with it normally, it's just that it makes more sense that the interface (which still is not actually practical) doesn't completely block your vision behind. This is most important on the cockpit computer for obvious reasons—you'll be the pilot and you need a view-point if you have no camera! Also, which way the hologram believes is up and which side it comes off are based off the computer's orientation. Rotation defines the direction that is up (you might want an upside-down hologram for an upside-down gravity ship) and the face is obviously which face the hologram projects itself from. This means you can have them coming out of the walls' sides!
This begs the question: what about NPCs? Of course, they get to sit in cockpits too! When an NPC ship spawns, they'll find the* cockpit computer, and have their creature entity be standing (or sitting if there is a wedge) in front of the computer. They would, if there is no space to go there, simply stand where spawn stuck protection would put them if they were players.
*Only one per structure. Beware.
Warning: a lot of this post is just me splitting hairs and getting really specific and not compressing my text at all. The main paragraph is the first big one (begins with `The player would`.)
I believe the fact that we are sucked into a ship core makes kinda... well, no sense, and is also an immersion-breaker.
So I propose cockpits.
Basically, the player would build their fancy chair and all that, but then they would place, preferably somewhere accessible from the sitting position, a cockpit computer.
The player would activate/interact with the computer, and a UI would appear. This would have two (currently) options—flight and build mode. Click one, press space to exit to the UI again. Simple. But here's the point of it: you never leave your seat! Players can see and kill you. Also, during flight mode, if you have no cameras, you cannot switch between them/the core and are confined to your player's vision, which is cool and realistic. In fact, you can never switch to cameras—you need to hook them up to display modules (preferably ones that are on rails so they can get out of your way when needed—) but that's for another suggestion.
Also, all activate-able computers (including the cockpit computer) no longer block all your vision when placed in front of your face at a comfortable height/would not really let you access them realistically from one block lower; they now must be placed one block lower and actually display holographic images above. You interact with it normally, it's just that it makes more sense that the interface (which still is not actually practical) doesn't completely block your vision behind. This is most important on the cockpit computer for obvious reasons—you'll be the pilot and you need a view-point if you have no camera! Also, which way the hologram believes is up and which side it comes off are based off the computer's orientation. Rotation defines the direction that is up (you might want an upside-down hologram for an upside-down gravity ship) and the face is obviously which face the hologram projects itself from. This means you can have them coming out of the walls' sides!
This begs the question: what about NPCs? Of course, they get to sit in cockpits too! When an NPC ship spawns, they'll find the* cockpit computer, and have their creature entity be standing (or sitting if there is a wedge) in front of the computer. They would, if there is no space to go there, simply stand where spawn stuck protection would put them if they were players.
*Only one per structure. Beware.