status question(s)

    slabs[half-blocks], stairs, fences?

    • none, i dont want any of it *holds up holy cross to repel these suggestions*

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    • just Stairs and fences please :)

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    • just fences please :)

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    hello folks,
    long time no see,

    so, having been following the game's progress for a quite while now after i went on a long, long... break (?) (over about a year ago...), therefore i am not entirely up to date thus id like to know a few things before i decide to spend any time on shipbuilding again.


    first of all, where can i find a list of planned features or a roadmap these days? if there is any at all, if there isn't one a thread with generally accepted ideas that will highly likely make it into the game will suffice...

    second, last times i played was from the transition from disc shaped worlds to dodecahedron shaped planets and after the big weapons patch i played a good 2 or 3 sessions, have planets been improved, size, cpu/load, interest, wild/plant-life, etc? and have weapons, power, shields, been refined to a good status quo?

    thirdly, cloaking, can you finally effectively blast those darn cloakers out of it, and is the system itself actually improved as a whole? because it was awesome but implementation kinda sucked (sorry).

    fourth would be the same question but for jamming (and perhaps scanning).

    fifth, is it finally possible, or in the works, to convert a ship to a station, or the other way around (to relocate warpgates/hypergates, or personal stations and structures, etc)?
    i dont think so, but confirmation would be nice.




    sixth and last (and longest);
    what is the status on (the dreaded and age old, what people get tired of question), half blocks, or slabs, or whatever you want to call them (and following those, also stair blocks and fence shaped blocks).

    the lack of half blocks/slabs is probably the main reason i "quit" the game, this since i used to play minecraft (oh the blasphemy, but hey, this game wins by a universe :D ) for a few years and therefore am rusted shut, design wise, in slabs, stairs, fences and iron bars (armor/interior/antennae/radars/wings/etc).

    I really cannot build a smaller ship(s) (and some interiors for bigger vessels) that i actually like without half blocks/slabs... i know its an error/fault on my side, and anything bigger is usually ok (just look at the solar caphorn (sailship) and the nebuchadnezzar (matrix ship) videos mushroomfleet's youtube channel put up ages ago, since i built those).

    however, the longer i played this game the more i craved the minecraft slabs and fences, especially since later on grates could substitude iron bars and slopes are generally a good alternative to stairs, although i would especially like to see stairs ingame (maybe just a wood/stone variant?) to make proper planetside porches and (in-)structure staircases. but slabs (and stairs) kept missing every update which made me a sad pirate...

    i'm on the fence about fences since i really only used those purely as house decoration, ship railings and engine flaps... so i could do without these as starmade features alternatives that work almost as good.
    but back to half blocks, i do not care for block inside block stuff, just those darn half blocks, no 1/4, or 1/8 or even 1/16, really just the standard crude slab in the face half block with the empty space atop to make my fancy stuff, basic grey would suffice, nothing else needed ;).

    i read a few threads and i noticed there is a lot of controversy amongst the community and no real official statements (as far as i know), and i would really like to know, what will it probably be? yes? no? possible without the community slipping into madness (and/or schema)?



    threads i read that peaked my interest but did not satisfy me or give me a good awnser;

    Half-blocks?
    http://starmadedock.net/threads/half-blocks.4665/

    half block
    http://starmadedock.net/threads/half-block.5326/

    unify block shapes
    http://starmadedock.net/threads/unify-block-shapes.4250/

    Crystal wedges, no extra IDs needed
    http://starmadedock.net/threads/crystal-wedges-no-extra-ids-needed.1956/


    thank you for reading this wall of plain text and have a nice day,
    best regards, Pirate Ray.
     
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    I'd like a dev response on half slabs or if any other potential shapes are planned as well. Half slabs would be a humongous addition to building and quite frankly I think taking up the amount of IDs they would is more than justified with all of their applications.
     
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    Nauvran

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    What I can help you with from the top of my head:
    1. Q&A answers some, otherwise they are using a kind of banner for most suggestions (those they have time to read) to show what they think about it. No idea where else you can find a list.
    2. There was quite an update some weeks ago that should have helped a lot with performance, so loading planets and insanely large stuff is a bit easier now.
    3. Cloaking kinda works like it always have, I think so at least.
    4. Jammers also work like they used to, except jammers and cloakers got a new system with numbers for how they work. Jammers apparently dont jam AI's missile locks if they spot you once when you are not jammed. Scanners can deactive cloakers and jammers but so far jammers and cloakers can re-cloak/jam instantly. Scanners also shows if there are hostiles in range, which allies are, and so on
    5. I believe Megacrafter127 made a mod that allows you to turn ships into stations or asteroids, stations into ships, and so forth. It is now also possible to save stations as blueprints, so you dont need those pesky sector exports.
    6. I have absolutely no idea about slabs and I doubt we will get stairs when we have wedges that works as stairs.
    and we have gotten wedges for crystals :) now we just need it for the scaffold block :P
    Hope it helps a bit
     

    Mariux

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    Well, that poll was entertaining to read. Why no option to choose both slabs and stairs, but not fences? Because honestly, I don't find many uses for fences in a mostly zero-G enviroment other than ship and station interiors.
     
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    I'd like a dev response on half slabs or if any other potential shapes are planned as well. Half slabs would be a humongous addition to building and quite frankly I think taking up the amount of IDs they would is more than justified with all of their applications.
    something official on these and similair subjects would be very appreciated indeed.
    also who cares that it takes a few id's, most of the wanted and important blocks are already there or have a reserved "spot", sure we need some more decorational blocks, everyone nags about that(or at least a lot of folks).... but isnt this just one of them? XD.

    Link is in my signature.
    thank you very much for the link, its a good read.

    as for your awnsers.
    as you said, the Q&A only awnsers some questions (and raises some more imho). to bad there isnt a list, i used to keep track of stuff on the old site, and update the page (on the official site) when i got new info via updates and such, i began where someone started but stopped, i stopped doing this when the new site got introduced and i lost track and interest of and for the job.

    it is also good to hear stabillity and performance are racing for improvement and did/do help.

    so cloaking and jammers still suck XD (imho) ah well at least you can scan em now, instead of blasting AoE hoping to blast away their cloak.... sounds good.

    i see your point but stairs are something different then a wedge/slope.... i understand though, and as stated wouldnt mind much... (unless you start building on icy worlds XD)

    Well, that poll was entertaining to read. Why no option to choose both slabs and stairs, but not fences? Because honestly, I don't find many uses for fences in a mostly zero-G enviroment other than ship and station interiors.
    *facepalm* i knew i forgot something.... option added ;). thanks for the input.


    zero-g.... ships... stations..... hey! dont rule out planets!, what else then fences can keep in my space cattle on a lush world ;) (besides forcefields or 1 meter thick walls and plexdoors) or make me a proper ranch porch other then fences.

    imho this is a space game but since there are planets and ground you can build on, some "regular" house blocks, wouldnt be entirely out of place. (also, space- bio domed habitats....)
     
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    also who cares that it takes a few id's
    As much as I think they are well worth the IDs, just for the hulls (crystal and glass included) it's around 43 IDs. If you include grills, hazards, etc. it's that much more. +10 if you make a discrete stair block type, +43 or so if they're part of the hull family. So it's not just a few IDs, it is a fairly heavy addition.
     
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    I assume then we are operating in the knowledge\guess that we only have a possible 256 ID's? Rather than 4096 or 65536 or similar? If so that's a big chunk, if not then it's ~1% (or 0.07% if we have a full 2 bytes allocated to block ID counting)
     
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    I assume then we are operating in the knowledge\guess that we only have a possible 256 ID's? Rather than 4096 or 65536 or similar? If so that's a big chunk, if not then it's ~1% (or 0.07% if we have a full 2 bytes allocated to block ID counting)
    I forgot how many there are left, but if I recall right the problem isn't really that we don't have a lot left, but that if you just start adding block types that will take up lots of space, you quickly start to run out as you expand later and you are left with that situation. They just don't want to make it so they corner themselves into a situation where a cool idea that needs some IDs is restricted by cosmetic blocks I assume.
     
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    I assume then we are operating in the knowledge\guess that we only have a possible 256 ID's? Rather than 4096 or 65536 or similar? If so that's a big chunk, if not then it's ~1% (or 0.07% if we have a full 2 bytes allocated to block ID counting)
    We only have 2048 ID's in total, 256 of those are reserved for mods IIRC, about 600 are used right now, but some of them are spread into the 900s, indicating some other IDs are also reserved for…stuff.
     

    Winterhome

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    If we had Slabs that could be rotated in 6 orientations, then we could make Fences using Grille/Mesh/Scaffold slabs and the like.
     
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    As much as I think they are well worth the IDs, just for the hulls (crystal and glass included) it's around 43 IDs. If you include grills, hazards, etc. it's that much more. +10 if you make a discrete stair block type, +43 or so if they're part of the hull family. So it's not just a few IDs, it is a fairly heavy addition.
    agreed, a heavy addition but worth it imho.

    I assume then we are operating in the knowledge\guess that we only have a possible 256 ID's? Rather than 4096 or 65536 or similar? If so that's a big chunk, if not then it's ~1% (or 0.07% if we have a full 2 bytes allocated to block ID counting)
    i can only assume schema can change the code and shuffle things up a bit so theres more ID's, theres a whole thread just for this subject, i dont want this thread to turn into one...

    I forgot how many there are left, but if I recall right the problem isn't really that we don't have a lot left, but that if you just start adding block types that will take up lots of space, you quickly start to run out as you expand later and you are left with that situation. They just don't want to make it so they corner themselves into a situation where a cool idea that needs some IDs is restricted by cosmetic blocks I assume.
    i agree on them probably waiting to save id's, but then again, imho theres not to much there has to be done (as far as i understand the other threads) to make more id's by changing bit allocation, and besides that, the majority of blocks is there.... however, i'd like to keep the bits and bytes discussion restricted to the dedicated threads i linked in the OP.

    We only have 2048 ID's in total, 256 of those are reserved for mods IIRC, about 600 are used right now, but some of them are spread into the 900s, indicating some other IDs are also reserved for…stuff.
    i'd like to keep the bits and bytes discussion restricted to the dedicated threads i linked in the OP, and i stated my opinion earlier ;).

    not really helpfull, if you read the thread you would've known this was already tackled, besides that its quite obvious on the main page.
    thanks for the thought though.

    If we had Slabs that could be rotated in 6 orientations, then we could make Fences using Grille/Mesh/Scaffold slabs and the like.
    true... and effective... well that rules out the fence block.
    also make it 9 positions, 6 default positions (front/back/top/bottom/left/right), and 3 for middle (x/y, x/z, y/z axis's) this would make fences better between full blocks imho.
     
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