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- Nov 20, 2013
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Hey guys, been away from SM for a while, but now I'm back... and full of more ideas... maybe some bad, maybe some good. Anyways, had an idea....
Got a mega-ship with huge, long halls, tons of decks and want to get around faster? Plex lifters are a bit weird and apparently don't work on ships. Gravity blocks can be orientated in differing directions now, allowing for make-shift elevators, but I think I have a much better and simpler idea.
Call it the, "Conveyor Block." One simple block that looks like a moving conveyor belt. Place a line of them on the floor on a long hall, stand on it, click and hold, and be quickly whooshed toward your destination at... let's say two or more times the normal speed of travel.
Allow them to be activated by shift-right-clicking (or whatever key combo would be best) the block to make your astronaut stick to the conveyor. When you want to stop moving, just let go. While clicking and holding use W or S keys to control direction of travel or simply move in the direction your cursor is pointing.
These blocks could be placed vertically and used as an elevator, or rather, like a fireman pole that goes up or down. Walk up to it, click and hold, then hold W to move up and S to move down.
The way I see it, the existing Plex Lifter block could be revamped into this so no new blocks need be added... maybe... keep reading... no, seriously... okay, okay, maybe ONE more block added. :P
Ahem... Back to business... Now, when used as an elevator block, as far as needing a floor beneath you when you let go so you don't just drop down the hole to the bottom of the shaft, perhaps the Plex Lifter deck - that thing that appears, rises up and disappears when it reaches the top, could become a thing that appears - and stays there - between floors when the player lets go. These floors would vanish when the elevator is activated and reappear when you let go, otherwise, they just stay there in place.
So let's say you have an elevator made of these with 4 floors and you are at the top wanting to go down to deck 2... You walk into the elevator - a column of blocks with space around them like so:
XXX
XEX
XXX
(X being open space - no blocks, E being the column of elevator blocks)
Now if you just stand there there is a floor covering the open spaces so you don't fall but once you activate (click and hold the conveyor block) all the false floors disappear and you are free to move up and down. Once you have reached your desired floor, you let go and the deck reappears beneath your feet.... in the diagram, the X blocks would be covered with the elevator floor, which does not move - it just stays there if the conveyor is inactive.
The only tricky thing needed to make this work is some sort of way for the block to detect where the floor is in order to activate the elevator floor where it touches the deck blocks. I suppose the way to do that is to make the elevator floor appear against any blocks that are one-block gap from the conveyor column. So the layout would look like this...
WWWWWWW
WDDDDDW
WDXXXDW
WDXEXDW
WDXXXDW
DDDDDDD
W= Wall, X=Open space, E=Elevator (conveyor) column, D=Ships Deck floor
So any walls surrounding your elevator shaft would need to be at least two blocks away from the conveyor column so it doesn't put an elevator floor there.... if you get what I mean.
Elevator floors, of course, would not appear on horizontally lain conveyor blocks - only on vertical placement.
Otherwise, maybe an additional block, the "Elevator Floor Block," could be added where needed. This would allow for smaller 3x3 shafts, rather than needing an extra block distance to the walls, otherwise, shafts would need to be 5x5. I suppose it might also work if the conveyor blocks could be configurable, so you could set only those blocks at floor level to generate an elevator floor.
Anyway, it's basically a Plex Lifter without a moving deck, you simply grab on and it moves you in whichever direction you desire until you let go. And, like I say, make them at least 2x speed to you can travel faster. This would hopefully eliminate the need to hop into a core to travel around in huge ships.
Oh... and like the Gravity Block, the effect acts on each individual player so you can have one person going up, while another going down, simultaneously... and even a third standing on the elevator floor between decks that only effects him... the others can pass through his deck if they are currently traveling on the conveyor.
I hope this make some sense. Since this would be a reuse of existing in-game assets - just recoding the elevator block behavior... not being a programmer, I assume it would be fairly simple... but I could be wrong. And, since the new gravity block behavior causes... let's say, some interesting results as far as alignment, this might be a better, simpler solution for navigating inside large structures.
Let me know what you guys think.
Got a mega-ship with huge, long halls, tons of decks and want to get around faster? Plex lifters are a bit weird and apparently don't work on ships. Gravity blocks can be orientated in differing directions now, allowing for make-shift elevators, but I think I have a much better and simpler idea.
Call it the, "Conveyor Block." One simple block that looks like a moving conveyor belt. Place a line of them on the floor on a long hall, stand on it, click and hold, and be quickly whooshed toward your destination at... let's say two or more times the normal speed of travel.
Allow them to be activated by shift-right-clicking (or whatever key combo would be best) the block to make your astronaut stick to the conveyor. When you want to stop moving, just let go. While clicking and holding use W or S keys to control direction of travel or simply move in the direction your cursor is pointing.
These blocks could be placed vertically and used as an elevator, or rather, like a fireman pole that goes up or down. Walk up to it, click and hold, then hold W to move up and S to move down.
The way I see it, the existing Plex Lifter block could be revamped into this so no new blocks need be added... maybe... keep reading... no, seriously... okay, okay, maybe ONE more block added. :P
Ahem... Back to business... Now, when used as an elevator block, as far as needing a floor beneath you when you let go so you don't just drop down the hole to the bottom of the shaft, perhaps the Plex Lifter deck - that thing that appears, rises up and disappears when it reaches the top, could become a thing that appears - and stays there - between floors when the player lets go. These floors would vanish when the elevator is activated and reappear when you let go, otherwise, they just stay there in place.
So let's say you have an elevator made of these with 4 floors and you are at the top wanting to go down to deck 2... You walk into the elevator - a column of blocks with space around them like so:
XXX
XEX
XXX
(X being open space - no blocks, E being the column of elevator blocks)
Now if you just stand there there is a floor covering the open spaces so you don't fall but once you activate (click and hold the conveyor block) all the false floors disappear and you are free to move up and down. Once you have reached your desired floor, you let go and the deck reappears beneath your feet.... in the diagram, the X blocks would be covered with the elevator floor, which does not move - it just stays there if the conveyor is inactive.
The only tricky thing needed to make this work is some sort of way for the block to detect where the floor is in order to activate the elevator floor where it touches the deck blocks. I suppose the way to do that is to make the elevator floor appear against any blocks that are one-block gap from the conveyor column. So the layout would look like this...
WWWWWWW
WDDDDDW
WDXXXDW
WDXEXDW
WDXXXDW
DDDDDDD
W= Wall, X=Open space, E=Elevator (conveyor) column, D=Ships Deck floor
So any walls surrounding your elevator shaft would need to be at least two blocks away from the conveyor column so it doesn't put an elevator floor there.... if you get what I mean.
Elevator floors, of course, would not appear on horizontally lain conveyor blocks - only on vertical placement.
Otherwise, maybe an additional block, the "Elevator Floor Block," could be added where needed. This would allow for smaller 3x3 shafts, rather than needing an extra block distance to the walls, otherwise, shafts would need to be 5x5. I suppose it might also work if the conveyor blocks could be configurable, so you could set only those blocks at floor level to generate an elevator floor.
Anyway, it's basically a Plex Lifter without a moving deck, you simply grab on and it moves you in whichever direction you desire until you let go. And, like I say, make them at least 2x speed to you can travel faster. This would hopefully eliminate the need to hop into a core to travel around in huge ships.
Oh... and like the Gravity Block, the effect acts on each individual player so you can have one person going up, while another going down, simultaneously... and even a third standing on the elevator floor between decks that only effects him... the others can pass through his deck if they are currently traveling on the conveyor.
I hope this make some sense. Since this would be a reuse of existing in-game assets - just recoding the elevator block behavior... not being a programmer, I assume it would be fairly simple... but I could be wrong. And, since the new gravity block behavior causes... let's say, some interesting results as far as alignment, this might be a better, simpler solution for navigating inside large structures.
Let me know what you guys think.
