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I made this thread not to disrespect Schine, nor to imply that this has never been suggested before. In this thread, I've crafted an outline on an alternative system for how our inventory and item storage works, that would be more similar to Space Engineers's system as opposed to the stack-based system similar to Minecraft.
ONLY to serve as an example to be referred to, here is an image of the inventory UI in Space Engineers. http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net...ventory.png/revision/latest?cb=20140426030822
How The Inventory Is Set Up
Under this system, any inventory, even the player's would have potentially limitless 'squares' that could be occupied by an itemtype. Above the squares of inventory space, you would see your capacity (let's call it m^3 volume, and not weight), and the value of the collection of things in your inventory, and their accumulated volume.
If you look at the example image from Space Engineers, you can see that the amount of squares expands as needed, and each separate object has its own individual square. The amount in the 'stack' is irrelevant- what matters is the fact that the container can only hold a specific value of combined volume.
Individual Values
Each type of item would only need a value to assign how much volume it takes up, perhaps defined as cubic meters (m^3). That way, larger items could FEEL larger simply because you can clearly see their effect on your inventory's capacity. Carrying a bunch of loose refined materials would be easier than carrying raw bulky ore that cannot compress together very well, being so coarse. Another example would be small items and ship components as opposed to large ones.
Perhaps regardless of the size of the BLOCK, a computer would be worth less volume than an actual module of the same system. That at least adds a bit more depth to the concept that while we live in a world of blocks, they are not all simply the same blocks.
In the example of Space Engineers, to save space these values (both volume and mass) are not actually displayed, not even on mouse-over. It's generally inferred that a unit of ore would be heavier than other things, but otherwise you'd need the wiki to know. Perhaps StarMade's UI might be better for at least including the volume of an item in its tool-tip for the purpose of letting a player calculate space requirements better.
Also, I'd like to point out that this system could allow for much larger values of the same item, as stacks would no longer be any kind of factor. It might be more fun for various reasons to mine a planet and get hundreds of units of the ore, rather than the standard "one item per block you break."
Accommodating Multiple Inventories
As you can see from the example of Space Engineers, the player has access to one singular Inventory panel, which aggregates all inventories they have access to at the terminal they are looking at. While we don't need to copy their system for this, I would at least like to point out how multiple inventories are handled.
In terms of StarMade, let's say you access a terminal that represents the cargo-room of a ship (as detailed by a recent development blog by Bench). When you view this terminal, you could see, like a normal 'chest', your own inventory, and then the inventory of the object you've opened.
It might be useful in StarMade, if we had the means to 'see' all the other inventories that would be reasonably connected with what we were accessing as well.
Thanks for reading, and please do contribute your thoughts to this system! Let me know if there's something you don't like about it, or would change, and why.
ONLY to serve as an example to be referred to, here is an image of the inventory UI in Space Engineers. http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net...ventory.png/revision/latest?cb=20140426030822
How The Inventory Is Set Up
Under this system, any inventory, even the player's would have potentially limitless 'squares' that could be occupied by an itemtype. Above the squares of inventory space, you would see your capacity (let's call it m^3 volume, and not weight), and the value of the collection of things in your inventory, and their accumulated volume.
If you look at the example image from Space Engineers, you can see that the amount of squares expands as needed, and each separate object has its own individual square. The amount in the 'stack' is irrelevant- what matters is the fact that the container can only hold a specific value of combined volume.
Individual Values
Each type of item would only need a value to assign how much volume it takes up, perhaps defined as cubic meters (m^3). That way, larger items could FEEL larger simply because you can clearly see their effect on your inventory's capacity. Carrying a bunch of loose refined materials would be easier than carrying raw bulky ore that cannot compress together very well, being so coarse. Another example would be small items and ship components as opposed to large ones.
Perhaps regardless of the size of the BLOCK, a computer would be worth less volume than an actual module of the same system. That at least adds a bit more depth to the concept that while we live in a world of blocks, they are not all simply the same blocks.
In the example of Space Engineers, to save space these values (both volume and mass) are not actually displayed, not even on mouse-over. It's generally inferred that a unit of ore would be heavier than other things, but otherwise you'd need the wiki to know. Perhaps StarMade's UI might be better for at least including the volume of an item in its tool-tip for the purpose of letting a player calculate space requirements better.
Also, I'd like to point out that this system could allow for much larger values of the same item, as stacks would no longer be any kind of factor. It might be more fun for various reasons to mine a planet and get hundreds of units of the ore, rather than the standard "one item per block you break."
Accommodating Multiple Inventories
As you can see from the example of Space Engineers, the player has access to one singular Inventory panel, which aggregates all inventories they have access to at the terminal they are looking at. While we don't need to copy their system for this, I would at least like to point out how multiple inventories are handled.
In terms of StarMade, let's say you access a terminal that represents the cargo-room of a ship (as detailed by a recent development blog by Bench). When you view this terminal, you could see, like a normal 'chest', your own inventory, and then the inventory of the object you've opened.
It might be useful in StarMade, if we had the means to 'see' all the other inventories that would be reasonably connected with what we were accessing as well.
Thanks for reading, and please do contribute your thoughts to this system! Let me know if there's something you don't like about it, or would change, and why.
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