Real minerals

[Byamarro]

What do You think to replace some minerals that are already in game by some real resources that exist in real life? Iron, gold, uranium etc.
Some of currently existing minerals could stay but let's change most minerals into something that we can have assocations with. It's more user friendly and it will make easier to project crafting tree.


Since i have some digital painting skills and was texture artist in few teams I could even make some textures & normalmaps, as I see that currently every ores uses the same textures but in different color variations.

 

[Cybertooth]

They've only very recently changed this, I dont think it'll be changing again anytime soon

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Well, there are new gold bars, and I think there were silver bars, but I think that that just is an alternative to credits.

 

[Mariux]

Maybe they are real life minerals, only named in some sort of alien language?

 

[NeonSturm]

The staff said something like:
If we name it after real ones, peoples will ask: why do we need uranium/iridium for hull ...
But if we choose fantasy names, peoples will accept resource costs more likely as given and that makes balance easier.

(Not exactly this words!)

 

[jayman38]

The way I see it, these fantasy materials represent exotic Alloys and Compounds of the Future (tm). Real names would feel too primitive to me. For example, maybe Hattal contains ceramics, stainless steel, tungsten-aluminum-titanium alloys, and a hundred other things that would be toxic if they weren't in this single product.

To me, common stuff like Copper and Iron ingots would feel like a huge leap backwards to the days of Fred Flintstone.

 

[Lecic]

I like the imaginary ores.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Me too. I don't want the old crafting system. Cubatom is going, +1 to that. There just are a few more things I would like to see (like a factory that can turn partial blocks back into full blocks). I don't know why there are non imiginary ore ingots (I believe it was gold and 1 or more others that weren't imaginary). I think they might be used as loot and/or currency.

 

[Byamarro]

I'm not against imaginary ores. I just think that there is too much imaginary ores... Common whole universe and You can;t find any asteroid filled with iron ores?

 

[NeonSturm]

We have iron.

There are near infinite worlds in near infinite star systems in near infinite galaxies. There has to be at least one alien species which have the same name as one of our ores for iron.

ferrum, iron, Eisen, ... This game does not need to be all English. Maybe English will some day in our future be a dead language, or have evolved.

 

[Byamarro]

We have iron.

There are near infinite worlds in near infinite star systems in near infinite galaxies. There has to be at least one alien species which have the same name as one of our ores for iron.

ferrum, iron, Eisen, ... This game does not need to be all English. Maybe English will some day in our future be a dead language, or have evolved.

1. All current ores looks like crystals
2. Ok so ores are in alien language but weapons, modules etc. in english? Interesting...

 

[FunnyBunny14]

They don't look lime crystals. There is a big difference between the two types. And the ores aren't in a different language, they are just newly discovered ores that the trading guild tried to hide from the rest of us.

 

[Snk]

I'm fine with whatever as long as we keep awesomite.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

I'm fine with whatever as long as we keep awesomite.

If all the 'awesome' stuff was made out of awesomite that would be...well...

For example if a critical key element in making explosives was the element.

 

[jayman38]

... This game does not need to be all English. Maybe English will some day in our future be a dead language, or have evolved.

We could go the "Firefly" route and give things Chinese names. Shen jing bing.

 

[kupu]

1. All current ores looks like crystals
2. Ok so ores are in alien language but weapons, modules etc. in english? Interesting...

1)
These are our raw crystals and ores as they appear in game. The silhouette is radically different, the surface texture slightly different, the colour is almost the same.

Spoiler: Why?

We have 2 types of salvageable materials. They need to be distinctly different shapes to help differentiate between them. We subsequently have 8 versions of each type. We assigned 8 primary + secondary colours to them respectively to further breakdown the types. There are no tertiary colours to avoid mistaking them from a distance. We took legibility and continuity over realism. These are easily indexed in the mind by what shape and colour they are.

We don't have realistic ore textures because real ores are relatively boring. Raw tin / iron / uranium as found in the ground, dirty, unpolished and sat amongst rocks are not the most inspiring materials to look at. It's not instantly recognisable from a distance, nor when flying past an asteroid at 75(units of whatever). Heck, it's extremely hard to tell real ores from it's surrounding rock yet alone which ore is which when sat side by side.

2)
Currently in Starmade, there is no reference to Earth, the milky way, or even acknowledging we are in the same universe. Basing elements of the game around whatever we have lying around on earth or have discovered from it tones down the sci-fi* (note: fictitious) setting. Starmade is fun, a little ridiculous and already breaking most physic laws. I'd personally like to keep it that way.

As for languages? You're reading a user interface.... or would you get mad at Prince of Persia too for not having the menu system and dialogue in an old persian dialect? :p

 

[NeonSturm]

I just think that black on grey and yellow + lime-green are not the best combination of colors.

would be fun if blocks would reflect dynamic scanner-light back (you can only see lights of your currently controlled entity to reduce lag)
Then they would only be visible if you have some sort of scanner.

give black at least something like light which black light blocks have or another way to attract the player-view.

 

[Byamarro]

1)
These are our raw crystals and ores as they appear in game. The silhouette is radically different, the surface texture slightly different, the colour is almost the same.

Spoiler: Why?

We have 2 types of salvageable ores. They need to be distinctly different shapes to help differentiate between them. We subsequently have 8 versions of each type. We assigned 8 primary + secondary colours to them respectively to further breakdown the types. There are no tertiary colours to avoid mistaking them from a distance. We took legibility and continuity over realism. These are easily indexed in the mind by what shape and colour they are.

We don't have realistic ore textures because real ores are relatively boring. Raw tin / iron / uranium as found in the ground, dirty, unpolished and sat amongst rocks are not the most inspiring materials to look at. It's not instantly recognisable from a distance, nor when flying past an asteroid at 75(units of whatever). Heck, it's extremely hard to tell real ores from it's surrounding rock yet alone which ore is which when sat side by side.

2)
Currently in Starmade, there is no reference to Earth, the milky way, or even acknowledging we are in the same universe. Basing elements of the game around whatever we have lying around on earth or have discovered from it tones down the sci-fi* (note: fictitious) setting. Starmade is fun, a little ridiculous and already breaking most physic laws. I'd personally like to keep it that way.

As for languages? You're reading a user interface.... or would you get mad at Prince of Persia too for not having the menu system and dialogue in an old persian dialect? :p

Actually there are 2 textures of ores. The difference is only in colores. To craft things You need a lot of flying and salvaging. It's a little bit boring and similarity between ores makes it even more boring :p


I checked in texturepack. In fact these textures are a little bit different, but something makes them look nearly identicall in make. I think it's because of cracks.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Or it could be, you know, that you're really far away. And the only real you wouldn't be able to tell the difference is if you're in anhuge salvaging ship. And then you don't need to be able to tell the difference.

It isn't hard to tell them apart actually. The ores look a lot less full than crystals.

 

[wolfboyft]

I'd like to see Iron, Steel (alloy, duh) and cobalt. And carbon (coal, diamonds etc) ADDED ON to the current minerals. Bad poll.