Starmade and 3d decorations.

[kiddan]

What assets would you like to see?
It would be cool if plants, paint cans, rod-lights, etc could get models. It would also be nice if we had some huge plants with leaves that rustle/shake when walked through.



What function could they serve?
Rod-lights, plants, etc currently get really weird lighting, causing them to look rather ugly in some cases. Having models for them could help with this.

Plants that are big (and small ones too) that rustle/shake would be pretty cool when Fauna gets added! Imagine if you were on a lush jungle-like planet and you couldn't see agressive mobs until they jumped out of the bushes! The only way to know if a mob was in hiding would be to see the plants rustling.



How 'fitting' is it for Starmade?
I think having rod-lights and stuff with models would actually make them fit in better, as we already have all those cool hull shapes. Having two planes stuck into eachother looks kinda lame compared to all the hull shapes we have.

And 3D plants would fit rather well with Starmade when compared to all the creatures having smooth, cool, models.

 

[Ithirahad]

The actual vote should read "Does the community find decorative furniture to be more important than Fauna".

IDK about the community, but I know I do, and I also know that I'm not the only one. Unless, of course, you guys also have a plan to make planets way better performance-, aesthetics-, and function/gameplay-wise in the same update, which I can guess pretty reliably that you decidedly do not. In which case, all that hard work would be (and is, if it's already in progress) really not doing the game any good whatsoever until that happens. Either the fauna are just kind of there and nobody interacts with them because they're not enough to warrant dealing with the issues with planets, or they're useful and they screw over everyone's server because all of the sudden people are trying to use planets for things, and then people are frustrated because they can't use the shiny new feature that Schine just put out, and, for that matter, they'll then realize to a fuller extent the existing issues with planets and whine even more.

(For the record, to anyone who doesn't know, most people avoid planets due to performance issues, and the few that actually want to and can use them sometimes end up, er, strongly discouraged by server administrators because it will screw the server over. That's how bad they are at the moment functionally, never even mind the aesthetic and gameplay issues. What's the use in adding to a broken system until it's fixed?)

We don't need tons of decorations yet, and I know that. However, things like chairs and beds would add new, small but important functionality to ships, and buttons (Which don't need to be fancy at all by the way, they can just look like this thing I threw together in Blender in a bit under a minute, except obviously with a press/release animation) would help a lot with logic/interior integration and making the game in general feel a lot less clunky. Certainly, until planets are brought to a decent state it would probably be a much better idea for the modelers to work on player gear or interior stuff...

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Personally I would LOVE to see all sprites in the game be replaced with actual 3d models, in addition to chairs, beds and other quality of life items we need to make our interiors feel more real.

 

[therimmer96]

At this stage of development we are focusing heavily on core game features, for example the fauna system, which is currently being worked on.

Okay... wat? how is fauna going to be a core feature? Little aliens running around planets are hardly going to impact gameplay that much. I would have thought improving ships, THE core element, and getting the changes to the engine required to add 3d model blocks was higher on the list, meaning you can get a head start on fixing the bugs.

 

[aceface]

factions pls not unecessary chairs :P

 

[Lecic]

factions pls not unecessary chairs :p

factions as in...?

 

[aceface]

factions as in...?

economy, reasons to conquer systems and balancing weapons - stuff that has a lot to do with the current faction gameplay.

 

[CaptainTaz]

economy, reasons to conquer systems and balancing weapons - stuff that has a lot to do with the current faction gameplay.

Wouldn't adding ALL the gameplay mechanics first, THEN balancing them all out make more sense? Less rebalances, less complaints about said rebalances when something gets removed or changes, etc.

 

[Ithirahad]

factions pls not unecessary chairs :p

...Why not both? I really, really want different resource distribution, more tactically-valuable points in space, and more things to do with faction points, but since the devs seem to be focusing on ships right now, why not get all of those mechanics hammered out first? Then move to the economy and faction system. Or, if they can find a way, planets...

 

[rariisan]

...Why not both? I really, really want different resource distribution, more tactically-valuable points in space, and more things to do with faction points, but since the devs seem to be focusing on ships right now, why not get all of those mechanics hammered out first? Then move to the economy and faction system. Or, if they can find a way, planets...

I agree except one thing that REALLY needs to be done about factions and that is member control. We need to be able to recruit strangers and limit their access/potential of griefing in a more effective way than we currently have available. This seriously hinders that factions survive since you have to make a leap of faith to recruit new people and you eventually die off due to lack of members.

 

[CyberTao]

IDK about the community, but I know I do, and I also know that I'm not the only one. Unless, of course, you guys also have a plan to make planets way better performance-, aesthetics-, and function/gameplay-wise in the same update, which I can guess pretty reliably that you decidedly do not. In which case, all that hard work would be (and is, if it's already in progress) really not doing the game any good whatsoever until that happens. Either the fauna are just kind of there and nobody interacts with them because they're not enough to warrant dealing with the issues with planets, or they're useful and they screw over everyone's server because all of the sudden people are trying to use planets for things, and then people are frustrated because they can't use the shiny new feature that Schine just put out, and, for that matter, they'll then realize to a fuller extent the existing issues with planets and whine even more.

(For the record, to anyone who doesn't know, most people avoid planets due to performance issues, and the few that actually want to and can use them sometimes end up, er, strongly discouraged by server administrators because it will screw the server over. That's how bad they are at the moment functionally, never even mind the aesthetic and gameplay issues. What's the use in adding to a broken system until it's fixed?)

We don't need tons of decorations yet, and I know that. However, things like chairs and beds would add new, small but important functionality to ships, and buttons (Which don't need to be fancy at all by the way, they can just look like this thing I threw together in Blender in a bit under a minute, except obviously with a press/release animation) would help a lot with logic/interior integration and making the game in general feel a lot less clunky. Certainly, until planets are brought to a decent state it would probably be a much better idea for the modelers to work on player gear or interior stuff...

Yes. Because critters would only ever exist on planets. Stations will forever be empty and pirates will always be human NPCs. I mean, everyone knows that the space whale is just a story told to young astronauts.

Exploration is a key part of the game, and having things to actually find is part of that. I could honestly care less if there was a stool in the barroom if I never actually go there (I'll make an exception for guard rails, because those can be used outside and I'll actually see them more). Just an opinion, feel free to ignore it.

 

[Ithirahad]

Yes. Because critters would only ever exist on planets. Stations will forever be empty and pirates will always be human NPCs. I mean, everyone knows that the space whale is just a story told to young astronauts.

Exploration is a key part of the game, and having things to actually find is part of that. I could honestly care less if there was a stool in the barroom if I never actually go there (I'll make an exception for guard rails, because those can be used outside and I'll actually see them more). Just an opinion, feel free to ignore it.

Well, sure, pirate ships, other NPC ships, stations and planets... But for that to be relevant on ships and stations stations we would need meaningful boarding mechanics rather than just "nuke it from 10 klicks" anyway. As for space whales and other cosmozoans, the occasional space whale floating by sounds like fun, but at this point in the game's development I'd much rather have working chairs and beds than derpy floating sea life that will probably just bump into my station and annoy me anyway. I'm not saying that the fauna system isn't a good idea, or doesn't have potential, or anything. I'm just saying that there are a lot of other mechanics that need to be worked on first for it to be meaningful and viable as a game mechanic rather than a gimmicky waste of time, and I don't think that they're all going to be put in prior to the fauna system being added.

On a more general note, I understand that Schine has pretty neat plans for every single feature I can name, probably, but developing takes time. A lot of time, and all the while we're left with whatever's currently done. So I'd much rather see features that actually build on and fill out existing systems (The new HP and armour system, shipyards, and rails, are excellent examples of this - filling out general ship mechanics, economy and space station building, and logic/creative design respectively) than things that are out of the blue, which we end up sitting with half-finished for months or years. This may be alpha, but... it's not a hobby any more.

 

[CyberTao]

we would need meaningful boarding mechanics rather than just

Meaningful boarding? Considering the last missing part of that is a way to switch factions on things, I'd have to say they are close. Unless you meant a needless complicated and unnecessary system needs to be thrown on top of it.

I'd much rather have the foundation for future features than a useless and awkwardly shaped block to shove in my ship corners. Comparing a derpy whale to a bed, both have the same amount of worth to the game.

 

[Ithirahad]

I'd much rather have the foundation for future features than a useless and awkwardly shaped block to shove in my ship corners. Comparing a derpy whale to a bed, both have the same amount of worth to the game.

Derpy whale just derps and is vaguely atmospheric, bed adds a legitimate reason to have a crew quarters room and, more importantly, is a way to save your position inside a ship while offline while preventing nooby kiddies from hitching a ride to your base by sitting on the outside of your ship and logging off.

 

[CyberTao]

Derpy whale just derps and is vaguely atmospheric, bed adds a legitimate reason to have a crew quarters room and, more importantly, is a way to save your position inside a ship while offline while preventing nooby kiddies from hitching a ride to your base by sitting on the outside of your ship and logging off.

Oh, so you mean this isn't a thread that is asking for merely 3D model'd blocks and is instead asking for more indepth survival features and mechanics that would take just as long to make viable as Fauna would? Egad I must have missed that part of the intro. /Sarcasm

The only reason I am posting this is to make sure you know how silly you sound. This is just asking for models so far, or at least has never shown anywhere that it wasn't. Decorative blocks. Could you make them functional? Sure! But you could also add fauna and make them functional as well, so your argument just inverted itself.

 

[Ithirahad]

Oh, so you mean this isn't a thread that is asking for merely 3D model'd blocks and is instead asking for more indepth survival features and mechanics that would take just as long to make viable as Fauna would? Egad I must have missed that part of the intro. /Sarcasm

No, I'm pretty sure that a block that both serves as decoration and saves a player's position relative to a ship along with a block that basically reuses existing tech from cores and weapons computers doesn't take as long as writing a full procedural generation, AI, spawning code, etc. for a new fauna system. Not nearly as long, actually, and what we'd get is probably a lot more meaningful and a lot less out-of-the-blue than a fauna system, no matter how awesome, would be at the moment.

The only reason I am posting this is to make sure you know how silly you sound. This is just asking for models so far, or at least has never shown anywhere that it wasn't. Decorative blocks. Could you make them functional? Sure! But you could also add fauna and make them functional as well, so your argument just inverted itself.

Not really. I'm asking for better-looking 'blocks' (or, not-blocks, I guess) that have a function as well, but some purely decorative things or things that just make existing functions look better could probably put in alongside them if the tech is implemented, and SM would look several times better than it does now. Besides, no, my argument didn't really invert itself as adding fauna is a new system on planets and other non-player structures; more stuff for player building and the ship-interaction experience extends current features - Building crew bunks out of white hull as I end up needing to do now looks ridiculous and I would like that fixed, along with the functionality that would come with them. Hell, even if for now things like beds were just things we lay in and would get the saving functionality later, it would still help.

 

[CyberTao]

basically reuses existing tech

If it doesn't currently exist, it's not reusing anything besides a few bits of coding (which normally causes issues later on I find, like defensive effects and lack of logic support).

spawning code,

Don't we already have this? You just look at a block and there is a command that sets that block to be a spawner for mobs. I know Nuclear Doughnut played around with it for a little bit.



Also, question; How well would SM even handle multi-block blocks? I highly doubt anyone wants a 1x1x1 bed, how much would need to be altered and added to support larger block blocks? Would this be harder or easier than doing simple AI pathfinding and adding a creature generation tag to a entity?

 

[godmars]

Okay... wat? how is fauna going to be a core feature? Little aliens running around planets are hardly going to impact gameplay that much.

Because a chair will totally add depth to starmade, right? Not anything that improves exploration, combat, or any other core gameplay mechanics? Nope, just an object that serves no functional purpose. In the end it's all subjective, but i'd much rather have more stuff to do with my ship instead more stuff to add onto it then get bored and stop playing until the next major update

 

[Ithirahad]

If it doesn't currently exist, it's not reusing anything besides a few bits of coding (which normally causes issues later on I find, like defensive effects and lack of logic support).

...Logic support? For computer control from chairs? Eh? :p

Don't we already have this? You just look at a block and there is a command that sets that block to be a spawner for mobs. I know Nuclear Doughnut played around with it for a little bit.

Yes, yes we do, and I also know that it'll not take too much time to integrate that with the terrain system. But there's the whole issue of procedural creature generation, making it look decent, making the walk speed and leg movement synchronize, somehow calculating how hostile mobs' attack animations will look... It would influence AI behaviour quite a bit, too. If a low-to-the-ground, tank-looking armadillo thing with eight short legs was able to hop up five feet into the air and spin around really fast like current quadcrabs and crew members can it would look ridiculous. Adapting the movement parameters would require adjusting properties of pathfinding to compensate, so that would need to be a dynamic (rather than static one-size-fits-all) system.
Then there would be the interdependencies between the spawners themselves and the creatures - Some should spawn on the ground, in caves, in the air, etc. depending on what they are, and larger ones would preferably spawn in smaller numbers, and so on. Etc. It's by no means a simple, if-then-else system like the features I was describing.

Also, question; How well would SM even handle multi-block blocks? I highly doubt anyone wants a 1x1x1 bed, how much would need to be altered and added to support larger block blocks? Would this be harder or easier than doing simple AI pathfinding and adding a creature generation tag to a entity?

That's a good question, actually... I have no idea, but I'd guess that it wouldn't be too hard. As far as I can tell, larger-block blocks, like chair control functionality, depend on a new application of things that already exist - the ability to detect what orientation a block is placed in, and the ability to detect when a block is destroyed. Then it would basically be a simple matter of 'pasting' the other block(s) of the multiblock in the right orientation. It wouldn't be hard to store the fact that these blocks are 'linked,' so when any one is destroyed the system just deletes all the others.

I DO know definitively, however, that it's easier than writing a decent procedural creature system, though, for reasons I was talking about above and probably things I wasn't thinking of.

But here's a question for you: What good would these creatures be? I don't know about you, but I hardly ever go on planets or stations that aren't my own, so the bit of extra immersion that it would create probably isn't worth the effort at the moment. I spend most of my time between my own station and/or planet and my own ships; being able to have more options for ship, station and building interiors and exteriors would be vastly preferable to adding some silly bugs to planets that I'll probably end up just killing off with EMP swarm missiles anyway because they're constantly appearing in the middle of my city or derpy whales that get stuck in my transport pod ports.

Because a chair will totally add depth to starmade, right? Not anything that improves exploration, combat, or any other core gameplay mechanics? Nope, just an object that serves no functional purpose. In the end it's all subjective, but i'd much rather have more stuff to do with my ship instead more stuff to add onto it then get bored and stop playing until the next major update

This doesn't seem to be the focus right now anyway... If we could get good exploration and combat mechanics sooner than later, I'd take that stuff over cylindrical rod lights and little buttons any day. But aside from fauna, which kinda came out of the blue (But has been in progress for a long time, so I suppose that's not fair to say), the devs seem to be focusing mostly on ships - so I'm talking about the ship additions that I want the most at this point.

 

[CyberTao]

...Logic support? For computer control from chairs? Eh?

When did the topic change from saving player position on a ship while logged to command chairs? Chairs would be simple enough in comparison.

Harder than adding creature spawners to all the stations' interiors and making them generate in the right places on the terrain of planets, eh, maybe not, but again, I have no idea

Eh, from what I know, creature spawners is just a tag attached to a block, all they would have to do for stations is to set the spawns before saving the blueprint, so that the spawns are there when it is loaded by the game. For planets, you could probably attached the tag to a random planet similar to how they randomly attach ores to rocks. Probably a very boot-legged way to do it, but it would work pretty well I would think.

But here's a question for you: What good would these creatures be? I don't know about you, but I hardly ever go on planets or stations that aren't my own, so the bit of extra immersion that it would create probably isn't worth the effort at the moment. I spend most of my time between my own station and/or planet and my own ships; being able to have more options for ship, station and building interiors and exteriors would be vastly preferable to adding some silly bugs to planets that I'll probably end up just killing off with EMP swarm missiles anyway because they're constantly appearing in the middle of my city or derpy whales that get stuck in my transport pod ports.

What good are they? Well mobs can have drops. When a player dies with drop blocks on death enabled, they create a small loot cloud. Just apply that to creatures and make them spawn with a inventory of a couple plants or some other drop. Hell, give them a drop that when crafted together with 9 others creates a ore shard (or something stupid like that). Probably wont add much to the current game, but offers framework and potential for later additions (modding included).

All I know is that some players are really starting to get tired of the purely ship-based additions. If creatures could be tied together with some planet optimizations and maybe the reintroduction of cities and junk, some people might just get less uppity about that. For the most part, 3D models would just be readding what was already in the game (redoing plants, adding command chairs, etc) and adding additional fluff. We just had rails that catered to the builders, HP will cater to the PvP'ers, why not let the next big thing cater to the PvE and explorers?

I'm all for 3D models and stuff (would require changing of how the blocks are done I think), since that would let us have that last Block shape that we need and I curse God for not having, but sometimes you need to lean a bit in the other direction before your leg gives in.

And stahp with the insulting of the whale, trading guild does the same thing and we still have them ingame.