Shipyards able to Sync with the Community Content

[Napther]

...So this came up in the random ramblings of chat, likely hard if not impossible, but, what if accessing the shipyard gave you the option of taking ships straight off the CC to display in the shipyard as a design?

I'm aware of the Sment format things are in on the CC, and the fact that the game will need to download, and turn the ship into a functioning blueprint/design before sending it to the shipyard and then making it into a design, But it would be funny for some way for newer people to the game to easily access ships and check them out in-game...

But otherwise, just a silly little idea.

 

[StormWing0]

What about people that play single player without internet? Currently being able to tap into the in game catalog is fine but needs to be upgraded so we can place BPs directly from it as docked entities on the main ship.

That said this is a fun idea for servers with people on them and could be rather interesting.

 

[NeonSturm]

I would like syncing preview-pictures of ships in SY or auto-generating data like mass and used block counts in CC

But it could be messy. In a Warhammer-server I do not want Star-Trek ships and vice versa.

 

[jayman38]

I think there still needs to be an admin "filter" for the CC, to keep cruft/older builds from filling the shipyard with useless designs, but it would be nice if CC were integrated more with the game, so that Admins could review blueprints within the game, and immediately integrate any eligible designs. The In-game interface would need to be able to sort by posting date and filetype, rejecting odd filetypes like RAR, 7Z, and GZ, displaying only sment designs. (If you want something that's posted in a ZIP file, you'll need to trudge over to the CC like now and manually process it.)

I think the game needs to be able to open the blueprint prior to an admin authorizing it for availability and process it and ask the admin for authorization, with full disclosure on design specs and build version.
For example: If a design looks good to the admin, and he takes a closer look, but finds that it is just too massive, too long in one dimension, or was built in a version of Starmade that's just too old, he can opt against integrating the design into his server. These are details that you don't always get from the CC posting, so that's why I think the game will need to delve into the blueprint to pull out the details, including the "stat card" (That's the piece of information you see on the left side of your screen in build mode, by default, giving mass, dimensions, thrust, shields, etc.)

 

[Napther]

I think there still needs to be an admin "filter" for the CC, to keep cruft/older builds from filling the shipyard with useless designs, but it would be nice if CC were integrated more with the game, so that Admins could review blueprints within the game, and immediately integrate any eligible designs. The In-game interface would need to be able to sort by posting date and filetype, rejecting odd filetypes like RAR, 7Z, and GZ, displaying only sment designs. (If you want something that's posted in a ZIP file, you'll need to trudge over to the CC like now and manually process it.)

I think the game needs to be able to open the blueprint prior to an admin authorizing it for availability and process it and ask the admin for authorization, with full disclosure on design specs and build version.
For example: If a design looks good to the admin, and he takes a closer look, but finds that it is just too massive, too long in one dimension, or was built in a version of Starmade that's just too old, he can opt against integrating the design into his server. These are details that you don't always get from the CC posting, so that's why I think the game will need to delve into the blueprint to pull out the details, including the "stat card" (That's the piece of information you see on the left side of your screen in build mode, by default, giving mass, dimensions, thrust, shields, etc.)

You have definitely done some more comprehensive thought on this than I have, thats for sure.

But first, lets make it OPTIONAL, A server owner can disable this functionality on their server if they dont like it/worried too much, etc.

But otherwise, we should not put too much strain on starmade server admins to verify the thousands of ships on the CC. So, As suggested, the server could filter out ships based on their stat cards for being too long in X dimension, or being far too heavy. Sadly I doubt there is a way to stop people using older, pre-rail builds off the Shipyard's all-seeing eye (And no way to stop a Noob with their mind set on this one ship), there should be an option to look at the thing's build resources. Got a turret docking unit on the ship? Then that's removed entry from shipyard database. Ship is made up of 600 ship cores? Set the ship core limit max to 150 to reduce the chance massive laggy rail systems are given to Newbies. Dont like people using shields? Just disable all ships that use them (Which is literally all of them anyway, and might benefit from outright turning off the shipyard option)

I would like syncing preview-pictures of ships in SY or auto-generating data like mass and used block counts in CC

But it could be messy. In a Warhammer-server I do not want Star-Trek ships and vice versa.

That's what tag/basic search functions are for. We have them on the CC anyway; its only logical to have them on the shipyard.

What about people that play single player without internet? Currently being able to tap into the in game catalog is fine but needs to be upgraded so we can place BPs directly from it as docked entities on the main ship.

That said this is a fun idea for servers with people on them and could be rather interesting.

If either on start-up, or during play, the game will send a ping to the SMD or other valid server to verify it is online. If no ping is recieved, "Shipyard "Community Content" universe will be disabled until by opening it (shipyard computer tab) with a valid internet connection.

And I agree, it should be able to access Local files, and server-side files that are avialable for others to use, so that we dont need to buy a Blueprint each time, what since the Blueprint system was to be phased out AFAIK...

But yes, this was just a silly idea, but it seems as though people are interested in some way shape or form.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

This is a great idea! It would simplify the whole process of downloading and importing.
I'm not sure it needs to be a shipyard component, but certainly a component of the game itself.
Then have the shipyard interact with the global catalog to then provide the necessary blueprints.

Perhaps the publisher could control whether their content is approved for direct pull down into the game.
Also, the CC admins could also have the last say and perhaps have a deprecation rule for older designs and some kind of mechanism for vetting the internal version of the blueprint for version compatibility.

 

[NeonSturm]

That's what tag/basic search functions are for. We have them on the CC anyway; its only logical to have them on the shipyard.

But one might label it "StarTrek" another one "Star-Trek", "starTrek-deepspacenine" or "ST;DS9"

Perhaps we should encourage some tagging standards.
You could need:

1. "WIP" or "Versioned" or "Final", not more than 1 option.
   
2. "Rebuild" or "FreeBuild"
3. if "Rebuild:
   1. StarTrek
   2. Warhammer
   3. …
4. if "StarTrek"
   1. DS9
   2. TNG
   3. …
5. if "Warhammer":
   1. Imperium
   2. Eldar
      
   3. …

If you want to use your own tags which do not obey Java's ClassNaming.Rules
then you have to do it in an extra field and live with the consequence of it not being used because not being found by the server you want to play at.

 

[Napther]

But one might label it "StarTrek" another one "Star-Trek", "starTrek-deepspacenine" or "ST;DS9"

Perhaps we should encourage some tagging standards.
You could need:

1. "WIP" or "Versioned" or "Final", not more than 1 option.
   
2. "Rebuild" or "FreeBuild"
3. if "Rebuild:
   1. StarTrek
   2. Warhammer
   3. …
4. if "StarTrek"
   1. DS9
   2. TNG
   3. …
5. if "Warhammer":
   1. Imperium
   2. Eldar
      
   3. …

If you want to use your own tags which do not obey Java's ClassNaming.Rules
then you have to do it in an extra field and live with the consequence of it not being used because not being found by the server you want to play at.

If people cant tag their shit, its not my problem. Starmade searches for title name, so any ship that contains "StarTrak" you can find in seperate seraches. Because Any one serious about the series WILL have spelt it correctly. Besides, there are NOT HUNDREDS of entries for Warhammer, Startrek, and Star Wars ships on the community content. It is rather easy to get what you want.

If you cant find it, Build your own replica.