Station Blocks For a Real Sense of Scale

[Jonj57]

TL;DR: You can select block scale when building a station (and only on a station) in order to increase the possible size of a station while using significantly less blocks. This allows for 2 things:
A.) An actual sense of scale, ships shouldn't be bigger then massive stations designed to house entire markets and societies.
B.) Less blocks for the same space - I.E. better performance AND easier time building large stations

I'm sure this COULD be done but how it would be implemented I do not know. I'll leave that up to the smarter minds of the forums to balance/decide game cohesion or tell me if I'm completely wrong with this idea.

P.S.
-Will reformat this post once I have a better handle on the idea.

 

[ltmauve]

The problem is you want small blocks for good detail as well.

 

[jayman38]

If I weren't in the middle of a ship project half-a-dozen ship projects, I'd build a giant station with massive "blocks" made from a hollow shell of regular blocks of the same type and color. That will look cool. Added to my list of future projects.....

 

[Criss]

Ew. That reeks of Space engineers and I would rather distinguish this game from that. We have advanced build tools. No reason why we can't use them to build larger. It should also be noted that there could hardly be a difference in performance if we build just as large a structure with larger blocks. It still has to render that shape out.

 

[Viridis00]

It should also be noted that there could hardly be a difference in performance if we build just as large a structure with larger blocks. It still has to render that shape out.

That might or might not be true depending on how the game renders. Let's say OP's station blocks were 2m^3 for one block instead of the standard 1m^3, the game would have to keep track of significantly less information in the same space. I think it actually could make a noticeable difference if the block objects are scaled the right way.

I can feel you about the game not turning into Space Engineers, but some concepts are just good regardless of what game they come from. Block scaling could help out aesthetics and possibly performance for Starmade, so I think it's a good idea.

 

[Criss]

I have yet to see a reason why anyone would need a larger block for aesthetics. Its a feature that I could accomplish with current blocks.

 

[Viridis00]

I have yet to see a reason why anyone would need a larger block for aesthetics. Its a feature that I could accomplish with current blocks.

My fault, I should have worded that a little better. I meant something along the lines of cost of size vs aesthetics. That is, currently the largest of stations will induce significant drop in framrate. By improving performance, the same station with larger blocks will have less of a performance footprint. Which would allow players more freedom to make aesthetically larger stations. Or more likely, super-massive stations that drop framerate the same as their smaller counterparts.

That's mostly performance related, but the option to build even bigger was what I was getting at with aesthetics. Sorry for any confusion.

 

[молоток]

what we COULD use are TINY blocks to build our own weapons and tools!

 

[Megacrafter127]

By improving performance, the same station with larger blocks will have less of a performance footprint. Which would allow players more freedom to make aesthetically larger stations. Or more likely, super-massive stations that drop framerate the same as their smaller counterparts.

How will a station that is 50 blocks wide and deep and 100 blocks tall be less resource intensive with bigger blocks?(When talking about performance, normally the block count is measured, so the size of the single block does not matter)

 

[Criss]

I gotta agree with Megacrafter. We arent looking at a massive change in the amount of information that needs to be loaded. I think what slows everyone down is the actual rendering of an object. An object which has physics and lighting applied to it no less.

 

[ltmauve]

Yeah, this wouldn't really work. Since many of us also build stations for practical purpose (i.e. they need systems in them) this actually makes things worse, as you need to take up more of a sector to do that. More collisions, less ability to make details in the interior, and it'll look weird when a ship docks. Nope.

 

[Jonj57]

As it stands now past a certain point you can't really dock a large ship next to a station (or in one) due to the massive lag it creates detecting collision (and I'm not talking about the small ass stations they just added to the game either). (Lag seems to vary from station to station but in my experience it was never really pleasant trying to dock a large ship inside of an even larger station)

@Performance
To my understanding a lot of the performance is coming from information per block/number of blocks. It doesnt take much more resources to render a cube at 1m3 then it does to render the SAME cube @ 2m3 (or higher) this I know for a fact as it's the same # of verts, polys, etc and the texture size but with just a tad bit more screen space.

And no, you can't make AND use massive things in this game with the current system. You CAN make them, but the degree of usability varies dramatically from "the server hasnt responded in X seconds" to my shots are going about 45 degrees left of where I'm aiming.

@Detailing I can see the argument there, maybe you could still place normal 1m3 blocks on top of the bigger blocks for added detail, or if you're making a medium/small station have the option to opt in for an entire small block set rather than the large. I'm certain that good builders will find ways to make bigger blocks look good for their creations, they always adapt to change in interesting ways.

@Space Engineers Comment 0 F***s given if SE did it first, A LOT of this game has inspiration from other titles if we were to limit ourselves to exclusive originality we'd be left with just about nothing. I'm personally more interested in a better game (my vision for this may vary from yours) rather than trying to reinvent the wheel on minor things like how big a block should be.

PS Written very fast and with little revision, not attempting to insult anybody just didnt have time to cut out the more blunt way of writing things.

 

[Criss]

But still.... why do I need a new block size when I can literally build the same structure with 8 blocks. Or 9. That is just so pointless to me. Lets get actual gameplay features in instead of stuff like this. Mod it in if you have to, it really doesn't add anything to the game that we need.

To be clear about the space engineers stuff, I think it is absolutely stupid to make the two block sizes .5 m3 and 2 m3. While nobody is forced to build a game in any specified way, I was fairly certain Minecraft set a standard for block sizes in voxel games. It worked incredibly well. I never cared for building in SE because of that fact. Unless I needed double or triple thick armor walls, I wouldn't use these blocks. It's limiting in itself.

 

[Viridis00]

I wouldn't use these blocks. It's limiting in itself.

I don't get how more options is limiting anything. In terms of smaller blocks, a good amount of the time any detail under 1m is impossible to do or looks awkward if you use 1m blocks when building. I'd kill for small blocks to add more detail and miniaturize ships even further. Or at the very least slabs that are .5m block and .5m transparency with collision like wedges are.

Big blocks are all about the performance, like Jonj57 said in the last post. Data per block is a matter of performance. When Schema talked about making block color be based on a hex-code in one of the Q&As I think, he dismissed the idea because it would be more data per block and effect performance. One large block should have less impact than a few small blocks of the same dimensions.

Also, Minecraft set no standard for voxel games. I don't see why we should follow minecraft's example but disregard something from SE per say. Another space voxel game called Corneroids used larger block size per block entity for the advanced engine types, so the concept of larger block entities is hardly unique to SE anyway.

 

[ltmauve]

Um, but then you have to give up on whatever detail you create, it would probably look weird with a ship docked to it, and if you need a station with functional capability, you have to make it take up a much larger space. Yes, you could make a much larger station, but would it be as good? No.

 

[Lecic]

I'm not even sure if this is possible to do in the game. Also, this would lead to WORSE detailing, since you're working with JUMBO blocks. Try and build something with normal legos, and then build something with jumbo duplo blocks or whatever they're called. Which one can you make more detailed in the same amount of space?

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

This would probably take a huge amount of rework to how the game functions and offer no real benefit.

The problem isn't stations are to small but ships are too large... Also there is not much reason to build large stations, home bases are invincible regardless of size and bigger ships means more firepower and shields.

 

[Jonj57]

EDIT: People dont seem to understand the idea. Not going to comment further til I see otherwise.

 

[Groovrider]

The lego example is misleading. Lego has many different sized and shaped pieces. It's their inherent self-similarity That allows them all to connect in the same proportion. if i could take 9 hull blocks and group them into a 3x3x1 hull plate that would be awesome.

 

[ltmauve]

The lego example is misleading. Lego has many different sized and shaped pieces. It's their inherent self-similarity That allows them all to connect in the same proportion. if i could take 9 hull blocks and group them into a 3x3x1 hull plate that would be awesome.

No, it's a good example. If you want to build bigger fast use the advanced build mode.