=-= Storage & Inventory Reworking=-=

[sunnycat10]

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Before you start reading this post, please check this notes:

* English is not my first language, so if there any spell/grammar mistakes, i am sorry .
* I would love to get criticism about my idea, so if you don`t like the idea, i would love to hear why.
* Remember it is just an idea, nothing official.
* I am sorry if someone already wrote down this suggestion, but i searched for a bit and did not found anything too similar to this. (I found 1 post with pretty similar general idea of how inventory stacks will work).

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Opening "story"

Well, i will start that i am really into minecraft and played it over 3 years, {vanilla & modded as well}.
And i noticed that the inventory, and the size of the stacks is really a key point of the game. {sure its not the main one, but it have massive impact on how the game plays}
So if you still did not guess it, My general idea would be Storage & re-balance the Inventory.

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Inventory re-balancing

It seems, at least for me, that currently the inventory is really unbalanced, you can have as much blocks of the same type as you almost want (the stacks are really have high capacity currently)
So the most basic thing to do is just to nerf it to make the max stack size really small. (for example 64 {like in Minecraft} or 100) , for this post i will use max stack of 100 as default.
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Better Storage

Now you probably asking yourself, with so small stack size, how we will raid massive ships, or salvage some planet?
Well, the answer for this is remaking of how storage working.

Early Game:
Plex Storage
The Plex Storage will be cheap alternative for more advanced storage ways, and it is great for early-game period.
It will work mostly as normal, but should have less slots, and the max stack size would be as default (100)
notes:
*Plex storage can come with tiers, (for example tier I would have 10 slots, Tier II 20 , and Tier III 40.)
*You can connect your salvage cannon with the plex storage units, so stuff that you mine will go straight to your storage units.

Mid to late Game:
Electronic Storage
Now we got basic storage that can keep your inventory empty while you salvaging your staff, but you may notice that this can be not so efficient with bigger ships, so there will be more expensive & advance storage way, the Electronic Storage,
This type of storage is made for mid and end game period.

There are 2 Types of basic blocks:

Electronic Storage controller is heart of your storage machine, it will work similar as weapon/salvage computers. and it will be the main connect point of Electronic Storage units.
notes:
*Electronic Storage controller will be your main access point to the items, by clicking it you will get massive interface of all your blocks that are in the system.
*You can maybe add the option to customize the lock of the interface, and add priority options, (which block you will accept and which not in your storage system , and in which priority order they will go.) and also search option for more easy navigation. and more advanced way to show how much staff you got (for example if you got 256 ice crystals it will write you it like this: 2 x 100 + 56 { the 2 x 100 is the amount of full stacks you have and the +56 is the not full stack}).

Electronic Storage units are the blocks that you will need the most in this system, they will work as anti-matter cannons & salvage beam, in the way that they will need to be connected to the Electronic Electronic Storage controller to work.
They will have some limit of slots per block. (for example each block will give you 30 slots, so if you will connect 10 Electronic Storage units to Electronic Storage controller it will have 300 slots)
Notes:
*You will get some bonus slots, by placing the units near each other, in a way energy tanks work.
*You could add config in the server console of the of how much energy the system will eat, however i think keeping it on 0 would be best for normal servers, (not for hardcore ones).


Now you might think, wait how we will transfer all the storage we have from 1 ship to another 1, would we need to do this by hand? so the answer is yes, and no:
for the basic Plex storage you would need to use your "hand" to move the storage,
but with the more advanced : electronic storage you would have transport beam!

Transport Beam system will have 3 blocks:

Transport Beam computer will work similar as weapon/salvage computers. and it will be the main connect point of the Transport Beam cannons.
notes:
*can be connected to Plex storage & electronic storage system.

Transport Beam cannon, there is cannon in his name, but it is not really will do damage, it will slowly take blocks from Transport Beam access point to the storage that on your ship.
notes:
*will get speed bonus, with the right connection (similar to how salvage beam working), the speed count is how much items it can pull per sec, 10, or per min.
*There should be in the server console config to make limit for how much items can be pulled per second, so there would be minimal lag.

Transport Beam access point will work as docking module, it will be the block that you will need to target to pull the block from 1 ship to the other 1.
Transport Beam access point need to be connected to Electronic Storage controller to interact with the electronic system.

small note: transport beam cannon will have 2 mods you can switch:
*pulling inventory from your ship to other one.
*pulling inventory from other ship to your one.

*also you can pull items from a ship that is:
-in your faction.
-not in any faction.
-ship with overheating core.


Lately, for all our builders, transport beam can target build-blocks, and the build blocks will have pretty big inventory that can be open, with the key you normally open your inventory.
{Need a bit More thinking} for anti-abuse for using the build-block as "cheap" massive storage unit, the build-block inventory can be used to just build staff like normally but you cant place or take blocks by "hand" from the system, you will need for that the transport beam, also the transport beam will take the blocks out in-random order, so if you have big variety of blocks, it would take longer and In this way build-blocks could not be used for "cheap" version of a storage.

And also Electronic Storage controller can be set to which blocks you allow other & yourself to pull out or in it.
And Transport Beam computer will have same option.

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pros:
*More interesting game.
*Inventory management.
*New ships designs.
*Another Factor to think when you building a ship.
*Richer gameplay with other peoples.
*More uses to salvage! as you will can`t just come and steal somebody 20,000,000 blocks ship with advanced build mode. now you will need to use salvage ship for this task.
*More blocks. Yay!
*New base/station designs, because now you will need to have storage on it.
*New ship classes
*The option to bring massive salvage ship after a big raid, to your base, take small ship, and take all the inventory from the salvage ship to the small transport ship and finally to the base itself.
*small ships could be useful now, as transports .
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Finally , Thanks a lot for reading this post, I hope that you will love this suggestion.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

I believe an inventory update is in the worx already

 

[ltmauve]

The transport beam system is an excellent idea. However for actually storing stuff there was the idea of a stacking area.

 

[sunnycat10]

The transport beam system is an excellent idea. However for actually storing stuff there was the idea of a stacking area.

Thanks for the kind words ,and the information, that there was already a similar idea of stack-storage.

 

[Malacodor]

Having strict inventory limitations to force the player to make decisions is a valid gameplay element. But I've played at least 100 games where inventory management is a significant part of. I quit playing Don't Starve because of the ridiculously small inventory and chests. I quit playing Torchlight since I ended up spending a lot of time transferring items between my characters. I recently started to play Starbound and reached a point where I spend more time managing items than fighting enemies or building stuff. I'm totally sick of playing inventory manager games. A stack limit of 100 items is completely insane and would make building anything bigger than a fighter a tedious chore.

I really liked playing the Gothic series which has an unlimited inventory, which is of course a bit unrealistic, but it didn't make the game less challenging. I also see Minecraft as a positive example since I can fully automatize chest management with item sorters, brewing machines or distribution devices.

 

[rece ktore leczo]

If building the ship would be done by first - making a blueprint, and then starting building ship from the blueprint in the shipyard, then players wouldn't have to carry thousands of blocks in their inventory.
While designing the ship, players would have access to every block in game, without any limits. But to actually have the ship, players would need to start its building in the shipyard and provide all the blocks used in the ship's design.


I like more this idea.

 

[ltmauve]

I'm thinking that a) stack limits would be part of server.cfg, and therefore customizable, and b) might be full-inventory limits (so the stacks can be a bit bigger if you don't have 45 different types of blocks

 

[AsherMaximum]

A good option to make ships still easy to build is to have all blocks from all storage systems on a ship be available in one place while in build mode, and to also have available in a separate tab all the blocks available in the storage system of station or ship the ship is docked to. I think this is better than having the build block also be a storage block.

I like the transport beam idea, but you would need to implement a way of controlling what blocks were pulled/pushed, so that you could transfer between allies. Not sure exactly how to do that though.

I also really like the electronic storage system.
I would recommend giving a good way to organize it though. Search is nice, but sometimes you need to browse for an object.
I would follow a similar system to what Runescape implemented awhile ago for banks (not sure if they still use it, haven't played for years).
Allow the adding of tabs to the storage system, with custom names, in addition to an "All" tab. The all tab would show everything, and then items could also show up in one or more of the other tabs. That way you can categorize things like a shop, but in a layout that allows you to see more at once, and also allows you to have things in more than one tab (so things like power generators could be in both a tab you label "Stations", and another tab you label "Ships", but both would actually be the same stack(s) of items).

Also, since with the ability to sort thing into tabs there would be no need for multiple storage systems on a ship, I would remove the need for a storage controller node, and just have the storage units connect to the core.

 

[jayman38]

I have absolutely no problem with this suggestion. I think it fits nicely in the paradigm of the rest of the game, and the way that ship/station systems work. I love it. My only suggestion would be some sort of inventory linking system, so you have access to all nearby inventory slots while building, shopping, or trading, to remove the tedium from block inventory management. A linking system could be a related block system, to add more reward to those who know how to set up the link. Such a system would be fun and would be one of the first things a player wants to learn about.

If the inventory system is currently being modified, I hope the devs will consult this thread for ideas.

 

[NeonSturm]

@sunnycat10 I would like you to think about cargo boxes.

Ships with core at top to make it accessible + the ship centred, a nice hull and:

• 3x3y3z:
  • 1 core at top
  • 4 plex storages - one on each side, 1 reactor, 1 thruster below the core.
    
  • 8+4+8 hull parts (edges)
• 5x5y5z:
  • 1 core + 8 hull face
    
  • 4 sides with 3*3 plex storages on each face = 36
    
  • a 3*3*3 or 3*3*4 = 27-36 blocksroom for power, shield, thrust, computers and bottom hulls
    
  • 8 edges with 44 hull blocks

These 36 storages would store 36 *100 *10..30 = 36'000..96'000 blocks?

And that is just the nice looking model.

 

[OdraNoel]

In reference to stack sizes. keep in mind this game is a totally different beast then MC. a limit of 100 would make the game unplayable. think of how quickly you gather more then a hundred blocks while mining. that plus advanced buildmode where you can easily place more then a hundred blocks at a time.

if there is to be a stack limit it should be much higher. like 1,000 plus. maybe 1,024 to have a nice number divisible by 8. but even then 1,000 seems rather small compared to the resources you will eventually be managing. im playing HC crafting only and already i would be pulling my hair out if i had such a stack limit.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

If I salvage one asteroid I can easily get 15000 of one rock. I think stack size limits should be per block. Really common blocks that aren't worth a lot like dirt, rock, and even hull, should have a stack limit of about 100 000. Hardened hull should have a stack limit of about 5000 - 10 000. Plex storages, plex doors, and all the other decororitive items, logic etc. should have stack limits of about 100 - 1000 (1000 for doors and other blocks that are used a lot). of course there would be a lot of different limits, but you get the idea.

 

[NeonSturm]

Maybe stack limit not the number but total value of blocks? (Once prices based on recipes work as intended)
--> As default <--

 

[FunnyBunny14]

No, that would ruin the minecraft space feel.