Shipyard Revamp: Use Test Sector?

[Edymnion]

Shipyards are great, we really needed them for efficient ship design.

Thing is, shipyards can't really handle docked entities well, and proper turret design and placement is a big part of any good ship design.

I routinely wish I could get out and basically treat the shipyard like I would any normal space on single player creative. Jump out, pop a new core down, keep working. Can't do that with shipyards though because leaving the main build kicks you out of creative mode entirely.

So, what if we kept the hologram stuff and instead of building the holo-ship in normal space, it loaded us into the test sector and gave us free build reign there? Full on creative mode but able to get out and fly different pieces around, and then mirror whatever is going on in normal space as the existing hologram.

Build dimension limitations would still apply in the test sector to mirror the holo-ship in the shipyard, maybe go so far as to create a hologram of the shipyard in the test sector so you can see exactly where the walls are.

But yeah, use the test sector as a creative mode enabled build sector that we teleport to whenever we enter the design edit command, and then port back when we exit the test sector like we do now. Then we wouldn't even need a separate test sector computer command, we could actually test all the systems out as we build them.

 

[Winterhome]

This.

This is perfect.

It gives us a reason to use the test sector and gives us reasonable build limits, and fixes some of the biggest problems with shipyard creative. Please give, schema. <3

 

[Sachys]

the buggy test sector?!

 

[Ithirahad]

the buggy test sector?!

Yes... And not only buggy, but very liable to bugs. Stuff using virtual sectors in this game seems to have a history of acting weird in certain cases.

 

[Lukwan]

Well fix it dear Henry...

(Obscure folk music reference; There's a hole in the bucket)

A great idea. I seem to recall reading that the test sector was going to get a re-vamp anyway. This would be a good time to chime in on what needs to be done with it....beyond fixing gremlins.

 

[Malacodor]

I have a big shipyard in single player and don't use it. Need to modify a turret dock? Bam, turret gone.

Well fix it dear Henry...

(Obscure folk music reference; There's a hole in the bucket)

I know that!

 

[Sachys]

beyond my prior post... surely having a (current) shipyard is better than all players being invunerable to attack when in shipyard build mode on servers (which I believe the test sector idea would cause), so why not just IMPROVE SHIPYARDS?! O____o?!/

 

[Edymnion]

the buggy test sector?!

Like shipyards are bug free as is?

 

[spaceEngineer]

Yea shipyards are probably one of the most buggy things in SM, so first fix the bugs.

Personally I think the teleporting to test sector to edit would seem strange ya know the whole different dimension thing to edit. Instead what if when the player is in the limits of the shipyard in real space they are in creative mode and ship cores could be placed and moved into position. Allowing multiple separate entities in the shipyard, at the edges of the shipyard would be an invisible wall. None of the ships could move out of so the player will have to leave the ship and walk out of the area before placing a physical core.

This would allow ships with oddly placed cores to be worked on with out having to move the anchor. (or making the shipyard twice the size needed). ships flown into the shipyard would have to be disassembled into design before editing is possible.

Now obviouselly this would create a ton of overhead and be a pain to implement, and likely cause more bugs. So maybe that would be a bit excessive. lol im arguing against my own suggestion.

Really I am for any suggestion that makes shipyards workable, and moving editing to the test sector would fix the problems. Even if it seems like a strange mechanic.

Sorry for suggesting on your suggestion diddn't want to lose my train of thought

Thing is, shipyards can't really handle docked entities well, and proper turret design and placement is a big part of any good ship design.

 

[Winterhome]

Personally I think the teleporting to test sector to edit would seem strange ya know the whole different dimension thing to edit. Instead what if when the player is in the limits of the shipyard in real space they are in creative mode and ship cores could be placed and moved into position. Allowing multiple separate entities in the shipyard, at the edges of the shipyard would be an invisible wall. None of the ships could move out of so the player will have to leave the ship and walk out of the area before placing a physical core.

You're forgetting that many, many ships require prefab entities to be docked in specific ways, such as point defense turrets, internally docked entities, and the like. Simply using the Create Docked Entity functionality or creating cores and such isn't sufficient.

 

[spaceEngineer]

Simply using the Create Docked Entity functionality or creating cores and such isn't sufficient.

I should clarify, someone could place a core inside the shipyard bounds and it would automatically be a separate design. However this could not leave the shipyard bounds. an astronaught would have to leave the bounds of the shipyard to place a real core.

Otherwise I really dont know what you mean "prefab entities" you mean a blueprint of a turret, elevator, etc... that isnt yet part of the design?
you will have to educate me here just not familiar with the terminology.

 

[Edymnion]

Otherwise I really dont know what you mean "prefab entities" you mean a blueprint of a turret, elevator, etc... that isnt yet part of the design?
you will have to educate me here just not familiar with the terminology.

I think he missunderstood what you said.

You said to have the boundaries within the real space shipyard be creative mode and you can fly around in there and spawn in as many things as you like as long as you're inside the confines.

He appears to be talking about the current shipyard system where you can use Create Docked to attach a turret, but then you have to build the turret from scratch because you can't just spawn the whole thing in.