Currently, while I play the game, I do have fun, and it is enjoyable. However quite frequently I find myself irritated by the shop's GUI and the effects the number of blocks/parts/systems has on inventory management and the involved learning curve and design time in the game.
I have a couple simple solutions/suggestions:
In a previous update paints were used to color hulls, and are now relegated to a factory material. By returning them to their former glory and usable in build mode it would be glorious. The pros are simple: The shop would now only carry 9 hull items, the 3 varients of glass, hull, and hardened hull. And instead of the massive number of hulls there are now, it would be simplified to those 9 hulls, and the already implemented paints. Thus simplifying a good deal of the inventory and also making it easier for new players to build (I found having to sort through all the blocks at the begining, seeing how many of each is available ect, was quite tiring and restricting).
The problem with this is that for more experienced players it would make design/build time take significantly longer, even with the saved time in inventory management. This can be largely reduced by adding a couple of tools to build mode for painting, alongside allowing symmetry to work with painting:
-Paint all: which would naturally paint the entire structure, allowing the option to choose between inside and outside would also be helpful.
-Paint volume: using the same sort of system as the current advanced build mode build, except for having 6 selectors, the first three and second three would move a point separately, relative from the core allowing any possible volume on the ship to be painted (similar to the selection tool in MCedit).
-Brush: this tool would paint an area on the ship using brushes of various shapes and scalable size.
Now comes the other issue with this idea: data usage.
In one way the data is reduced, by having less inventory data for the server to manage, on the other hand painting could take up a good deal of server RAM, and yet again on another hand, (yes I have 3 hands) changing all the blocks would either require more data per block, or alternatively, involve a fairly laggy change of every block.
My idea to circumvent this, again in the spirit of reducing building time and adding more intricacy to the game would be to add a system like blueprints but for paintjobs.
Essentially, under each ship in the catalog, you could also save paint jobs, so when you buy it, you select a paint job, and when purchased it would be automatically applied.
Piggybacking on this system would be a client side painting system, essentially as you painted it would all be client side, and up until the moment you hit an "apply" button, and exited paint mode, it would remain client side. This would very much ease the load on servers, however it would be less social than the current system, as I do find myself using other player's opinions while building fairly often.
While using all these tools would again, steepen the learning curve, they are similar enough in application to the advanced building mode tools, that it would effectively have a good deal of synergy.
As a side note, having damage to your ship, shielded or otherwise, remove paint. Would add a great deal of immersiveness to the game, having players repaint their ship and ships having battlescars would be a nice addition. It also opens the option of having higher quality of paints ect. however I digress as that would return to cluttering the shop again.
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Another problem I find myself facing is the true usefulness of advanced building mode, the symmetry and volume tools are useful and do massively reduce build time, however there is a small number of features I believe would be useful in advanced building mode:
-Point to point building: Essentiall a player could pick two points on the build, and a preview of a line would be generated between the two points. Before the line is actually built, the player would have the option of curving the line via sliders, in any direction. This tool would make curved hulls and skeletons/scaffolding extremely rapid to be made.
-Hollow frame: Simple put, remove all below surface blocks, only possible if your ship is completely enclosed, again, this would reduce build time significantly, and also make the current volume build option much more useful.
Again there is the issue with lag on the server, but having these processed client side, then applied server side, would reduce that lag. Giving servers an option for the rate at which these would be performed would be an extremely applicable addittion along side these options.
______________________________________________________________________________
As for decluttering the shop further alongside the inventory. Using the suggestions about paint earlier alongside the following suggestions, I believe, would greatly aid new and experienced players alike:
-Search options: simply put lets you find an item quickly in the shop by name or data value.
-Shop Display: displaying what they actually have in stock: by removing items that the shop does not have in stock would make the extraordinary items tree much simpler to navigate, and would also make servers with custom blocks have less clunky shop inventories as well.
-Reducing inventory space and simplifying items: While I have suggestions when it comes to hulls and general simplification of items, I do not have experience with factory items, or much with terrain. But assuming that simplifications were made, inventory space could also be reduced alongside, which in turn would make both trading between shops, and plexstorage much more viable options.
-Automatic item sorting: by pressing a button in the GUI all your items would automatically stack and be sorted by either name, number of items, or data value. This could all be done client side, as servers really only need to know the number of each item a player possesses.
-Better defined catagories in the shop: Right now much of the shop sorting makes sense, but there are some parts that don't, for example the ship catagory has a rather large assortment of different blocks, but could benifit very much from being divided further into sub catagories, if you were to look at how the EVE online market is divided, it is extremely effective at making a truely massive number of items easily navigatable. This addittion would also be helpful each time more blocks are added to the game.
______________________________________________________________________________
More Ideas, assertions, and thoughts, to be added at a later date. Thank you for your attention.
I have a couple simple solutions/suggestions:
In a previous update paints were used to color hulls, and are now relegated to a factory material. By returning them to their former glory and usable in build mode it would be glorious. The pros are simple: The shop would now only carry 9 hull items, the 3 varients of glass, hull, and hardened hull. And instead of the massive number of hulls there are now, it would be simplified to those 9 hulls, and the already implemented paints. Thus simplifying a good deal of the inventory and also making it easier for new players to build (I found having to sort through all the blocks at the begining, seeing how many of each is available ect, was quite tiring and restricting).
The problem with this is that for more experienced players it would make design/build time take significantly longer, even with the saved time in inventory management. This can be largely reduced by adding a couple of tools to build mode for painting, alongside allowing symmetry to work with painting:
-Paint all: which would naturally paint the entire structure, allowing the option to choose between inside and outside would also be helpful.
-Paint volume: using the same sort of system as the current advanced build mode build, except for having 6 selectors, the first three and second three would move a point separately, relative from the core allowing any possible volume on the ship to be painted (similar to the selection tool in MCedit).
-Brush: this tool would paint an area on the ship using brushes of various shapes and scalable size.
Now comes the other issue with this idea: data usage.
In one way the data is reduced, by having less inventory data for the server to manage, on the other hand painting could take up a good deal of server RAM, and yet again on another hand, (yes I have 3 hands) changing all the blocks would either require more data per block, or alternatively, involve a fairly laggy change of every block.
My idea to circumvent this, again in the spirit of reducing building time and adding more intricacy to the game would be to add a system like blueprints but for paintjobs.
Essentially, under each ship in the catalog, you could also save paint jobs, so when you buy it, you select a paint job, and when purchased it would be automatically applied.
Piggybacking on this system would be a client side painting system, essentially as you painted it would all be client side, and up until the moment you hit an "apply" button, and exited paint mode, it would remain client side. This would very much ease the load on servers, however it would be less social than the current system, as I do find myself using other player's opinions while building fairly often.
While using all these tools would again, steepen the learning curve, they are similar enough in application to the advanced building mode tools, that it would effectively have a good deal of synergy.
As a side note, having damage to your ship, shielded or otherwise, remove paint. Would add a great deal of immersiveness to the game, having players repaint their ship and ships having battlescars would be a nice addition. It also opens the option of having higher quality of paints ect. however I digress as that would return to cluttering the shop again.
______________________________________________________________________________
Another problem I find myself facing is the true usefulness of advanced building mode, the symmetry and volume tools are useful and do massively reduce build time, however there is a small number of features I believe would be useful in advanced building mode:
-Point to point building: Essentiall a player could pick two points on the build, and a preview of a line would be generated between the two points. Before the line is actually built, the player would have the option of curving the line via sliders, in any direction. This tool would make curved hulls and skeletons/scaffolding extremely rapid to be made.
-Hollow frame: Simple put, remove all below surface blocks, only possible if your ship is completely enclosed, again, this would reduce build time significantly, and also make the current volume build option much more useful.
Again there is the issue with lag on the server, but having these processed client side, then applied server side, would reduce that lag. Giving servers an option for the rate at which these would be performed would be an extremely applicable addittion along side these options.
______________________________________________________________________________
As for decluttering the shop further alongside the inventory. Using the suggestions about paint earlier alongside the following suggestions, I believe, would greatly aid new and experienced players alike:
-Search options: simply put lets you find an item quickly in the shop by name or data value.
-Shop Display: displaying what they actually have in stock: by removing items that the shop does not have in stock would make the extraordinary items tree much simpler to navigate, and would also make servers with custom blocks have less clunky shop inventories as well.
-Reducing inventory space and simplifying items: While I have suggestions when it comes to hulls and general simplification of items, I do not have experience with factory items, or much with terrain. But assuming that simplifications were made, inventory space could also be reduced alongside, which in turn would make both trading between shops, and plexstorage much more viable options.
-Automatic item sorting: by pressing a button in the GUI all your items would automatically stack and be sorted by either name, number of items, or data value. This could all be done client side, as servers really only need to know the number of each item a player possesses.
-Better defined catagories in the shop: Right now much of the shop sorting makes sense, but there are some parts that don't, for example the ship catagory has a rather large assortment of different blocks, but could benifit very much from being divided further into sub catagories, if you were to look at how the EVE online market is divided, it is extremely effective at making a truely massive number of items easily navigatable. This addittion would also be helpful each time more blocks are added to the game.
______________________________________________________________________________
More Ideas, assertions, and thoughts, to be added at a later date. Thank you for your attention.
