Pistons? Or something similar...

[Imperial_Gold]

What a thought! This idea will most certainly add a new layer to Starmade like no other! I have a few suggestions though:

• The ability to be connected to buttons or some sort of AOE to activate. When a button is connected to it, you press the button to activate it. On the other hand, you could set up an area of blocks that when a player is in, it activates. This would be AMAZING for automatic doors.
• The ability to rename the block. When you scroll over items in the hot-bar it displays the name for a few seconds, so just apply that to the \"plex piston\" through the setup menu when you press \"t\" in your ship. You will have an option to rename it and when piloting, you can see what you activate (landing gear, hangar bay doors, wings, etc). For capital ships, I can see how quickly the flight mode hot-bar would fill up with automatic doors, so you also have the option to not have it in your flight mode hot-bar.

Hope you like those, please tell me if you have questions. Schema look at this ingenuity!

 

[jzimmerman4]

You guys should look up the mod Ugocraft for minecraft (Yogscast did a mod review). Something like that would be super cool in SM since it adds sliding parts and not just extendable. This would mostly just be for looks and would allow for cooler docking bay doors and stuff like that. TBH the possibilities are endless

 

[Imperial_Gold]

That too.

 

[GALXOR]

I use Ugo craft often. creating bases, moving doors towers missile silos etc. Imagine all that, yet you can use it. The missiles fire, the tower has a turret on it, the doors open and ships leave a hangar.

However, I\'m trying to keep things simple, (i understand a fair bit of what is easy to code, although i can\'t do so myself.) a simple extend/retract/rotate system would make for easy(?) programming/less time/higher likelihood of implementation.

This is a complex ask remember, rotation is easy enough, turrets do so, but its at a fixed point. We\'re asking for a separate docked component to move and/or rotate while staying in synchronized with the ship it is attached to. I forsee a bazzilion performance issues and bugs the larger and more outrageous our creations become. Remember as well, some parts might require more than one module/mechanism, and chain docking isn\'t even supported yet.

I really want this idea to be part of starmade, lets make this idea simpler and more feasible.

Thanks for the support guys

 

[DrOblivian]

i would LOVE something simmilar to the Ugo craft mod for minecraft. it would make building ships SO much more interesting!

however my idea for this is a tad different than static piston blocks, (i think this is the simpler and more feasible way to do it you where hoping for!) but this would achieve the same effect while being easier to use and understand

first of all everything attached to the ship in ths manner should be usable FROM the cockpit itself unlike turrets where you have to enter them individually to alter their AI

Say you where building a hanger door that swings open like a garrage door. when building the door you would place the docking block and attach it in basically the same manner as the way turrets work right now except once atached it would find the grid of the ship and lock itself in place esentually becoming part of the ship. now you would build your door as you want it. build it in the closed position first and then set that as Pos1, then open the door manually to where you would want it in its final open position and then set that as Pos2. now you could either click on the door itself like the current hanger doors to activete it or from within the ship\'s cockpit. if you wanted TWO moving doors seperetae from one another on the same ship, the second door would use pos3 and pos4 to open and close as using the SAME commands would activate them at the same time. so both doors set to pos1 and pos2 would open and close them at the same time. (positions are relative to the dock they are attached to)

you could do ALL of these things, hinge, slide, piston, spin, lift, with only TWO blocks, the dock itself and the piece that attaches to it. Any kind of movement you could possibly want could be achieved with only making one new set of docking blocks. (would probably be easier with multiple dock blocks for each kind of movement, hinge slide spin lift push ect...)

also once dual docking is supported this could end up making some REALLY crazy things.

hope i got my point across, this could actually be very easy to accomplish in the game as it is now and posibly very easy to use!

(edit: now that i think about it, this actually isnt all to different that what you have already stated, but ill leave this as it is just because)

 

[Trollerbobman]

I support this +1

retractable wings and turrets... now my giant death sphere will be invincable!

 

[Sage23]

I support this all the way, I can imagine many things people could do with this including obviously landing gear but also many other things like platforms for raising or lowering ships to a docking bay in motherships to be launched from them or extending a main gun to fire on stuff there are so many opportunities.

 

[DrOblivian]

ok now this REALLY needs to happen because i REALLY want to build a transformer the size of a planet!!! spacestation that transforms into a ship that then turns into a giant murder death robot.

 

[GALXOR]

@DrOblivion Giant death robots indeed.

 

[DrOblivian]

ALL OF THEM!

@Galxor

 

[Zovc]

if it works like docks on faction home then im in! dock my self controlled healing turret and then move out, but the controls would work like this:

you highlight the thing on the hotbar, press the up or down arrow keys, up to extend, down the pull back in. you edit the module like faction module, with speed, max distance (max of the maxs 100). or on the docked ship hit the same keys to same effect, but with no hotbar needed

 

[DrOblivian]

yes we imagine it would bacically be another docking system.

 

[jzimmerman4]

To specify how far you want your \"piston\" to extend maybe you can enter it like an AI unit and enter the distance. Another idea would be to make it more like UGO craft and add more blocks into the game but that would be more difficult, confusing, and time consuming for programing and players.

You should also be able to activate the so called pistons while flying by putting it in your hot bar. So basically each piston would act as its own computer. Plex doors should also be linked to pistons so that a door can open and a turret can come out all without having to move around your ship.

Another idea is to be able to link pistons so that you can sequence the order they move in. This would allow for your turrets to compact and then go into your ship and extend after they come out.

edit: along the lines of making the piston simular to a computer, the blocks that you want to be affected by the \"piston\" would be linked to it just like how weapons are now. Mabe we should move away from the piston idea all together and so you can place the slider/piston computer anywhere and it would remotely move or rotate the selected blocks. This would alllow for room to be conserved, it fits with the idea of space technology, and makes it possible to link multiple turrets to a single hot bar key.

 

[EpicFailLord123]

MAID WITH A VACUUM CLEANER!

No really someone already made spaceball one, hint hint.

 

[DrOblivian]

bump

 

[elwainio]

Like some of the ideas above, it could be great for say an aircraft carrier type lift to bring AI or Fighters into the open from a storage area to launch them, or if you\'ve landed the door becomes a platform / bridge to depart from.

 

[darkhog]

Instead of Ugocraft, why not use frames/frame motors from Minecraft mod Redpower2. Something like that would IMO work better than pistons/ugo thing especially in context of SM (space age technology instead of steam technology).

 

[DrOblivian]

eww no... just no. that shit is confusing and bulkey. given the nature pf this game, the best way would just be a super simplified version of ugo craft.

actually all we would need to acomplish all the things we would want would be a few new sets of docks, naimly a turntable and a slider. because the game allows us to place thing in many different orientations, i honestly believe that ALL we need are turntables and sliders as two new sets of docks to accomplish the things we want to achieve!

Actually the more i think about it the more im leaning twords this as the simple way to get this implimented into the game in a quick and easy fasion. a turntable dock and a slider dock or a single dock that could accomplish either or both at the same time. these two movemnts in conjunction would create ALL the movements we have been talking about. hinges, pistons, lift, drop, slide, turn, ect... all of it. In one new set of docks, or as just an added functionallity to the CURRENT docks!

 

[tomassus]

Great idea - I support this too

 

[Glatonn]

I want movable wings and extendable ship and station sections and the hidden turrets would be awsome.