Read by Schine Suggestion: Practical Alternative To Player-Races

[TartarusMkII]

So, firstly, I am referring to this: http://starmadedock.net/threads/global-skins.20865/ , a thread in which it is confirmed that we will, at some point, have the ability to carry skins to servers that we join.

It is my view that while the suggestions of players are obviously extremely important, at the point of development Schine at right now, where lots of stuff is planned, and now the work needs to be done, I feel like there is not tons of room to actually squeeze in new ideas until more core work is actually completed.

So to that end, I wanted to offer a practical idea to expand how we deal with the idea of player-races, that would not require an entire system built around it.

So, what the hell is a player race? Very simply, I notice a lot of suggestions regarding special races or body-types that they'd want their character to be other than human. Personally, this sounds like a fine idea, but I imagine it'd need to wait until much later to be achieved.

On the other hand, I was thinking that with the talk about NPCs owned by the player, and their importance, and the confirmation of skins; what if a slot the player had on the servers was devoted to what their NPCs would look like?

Imagine all of your NPCs wearing YOUR skin, as if it were a uniform, but perhaps with a helmet to obscure their faces, so they would not look like clones of you (but of eachother, I guess.)

Let me know what you guys think of that, please. Would this be an acceptable compromise to you?

 

[Ithirahad]

No. Skins should remain as they are now (maybe with a few other random ones for NPCs so not every single one you recruit is identical) until support for custom assignable crew skins is added. As for custom player races, I don't see how this fixes anything; we already have the ability to upload custom skins, and the logical upgrade from that is custom models, i.e. entirely custom alien races. These changes don't really solve that at all.

 

[TartarusMkII]

The thing is, I think expecting custom alien races isn't a realistic request, at least not for a long while. So that's why this suggestion is meant as like, a stop-gap.

 

[Ithirahad]

I fail to see the point in stopgap measures for what is essentially an aesthetic-only feature in an alpha game. As I said though, we should be able to upload 10 or so crew skins to servers so we can assign them to our ships' (Human(oid)) crew.

 

[TartarusMkII]

"We are initially planning on limiting the number of skins you can have to 3. Each skin will need to be sent to our CDN provider, which will store a copy in over 30 different geographical locations. This is to ensure that no matter what server is downloading your skin, it will come from a server that is close to them, and fast. Because of this, we can't offer unlimited skin storage. " - Wedtm

I guess you could upload them to the server you're playing on, though.

 

[Ithirahad]

That's what I mean, per-server... Storing that many skins on some registry-linked server for every single player everywhere sounds impractical, but I see no reason why StarMade game servers themselves can't hold the data.

 

[Valiant70]

Being able to upload custom skins or uniforms for your NPCs would be quite good. I think there should be an option for a faction-wide NPC uniform as well. The faction skin would overwrite the default, and players could still overwrite them if desired.

 

[Criss]

As I said though, we should be able to upload 10 or so crew skins to servers so we can assign them to our ships' (Human(oid)) crew.

I hope you see the potential problems of letting players upload a number of skins directly to a players server.

With regards to TartarusMkII, we are talking about the possibilities. It is a good idea. It would be a matter of implementation and security mainly.

 

[Ithirahad]

I hope you see the potential problems of letting players upload a number of skins directly to a players server.

I think I do, but I can't think of any other solutions. The skins will have to come from somewhere, and we can't have all crew look the same or not be customizable. Ew.

 

[Criss]

I think I do, but I can't think of any other solutions. The skins will have to come from somewhere, and we can't have all crew look the same or not be customizable. Ew.

The safest and easiest alternative is that the customization options are already a part of the game, and the player can choose. Not exactly optimal.

 

[Bogdan]

Imagine all of your NPCs wearing YOUR skin, as if it were a uniform, but perhaps with a helmet to obscure their faces, so they would not look like clones of you (but of eachother, I guess.)

Even though this would probably be difficult to implement, it would be amazing. Allows for an army of NPCs that don't all look like flimsy astronauts but like proper soldiers/marines/civilians (whatever works for faction). Even if it was just 1 skin for all NPCs for your faction.

 

[SkylordLuke]

Agreed,you dont want people uploading their own skins. That would be a disaster!
Imagine someone having 10+ crewman..or tons more! each with unique skin,imagine players having to download all that. Right now even one bigger skin causes problems to players sometimes.
The only solution,as Criss said,is to have a decent number of premade in-game skins you can choose

 

[Ithirahad]

Agreed,you dont want people uploading their own skins. That would be a disaster!
Imagine someone having 10+ crewman..or tons more! each with unique skin,imagine players having to download all that. Right now even one bigger skin causes problems to players sometimes.
The only solution,as Criss said,is to have a decent number of premade in-game skins you can choose

I propose capping it at 10 for a reason... Just letting people pile hundreds of skins for every single crewmember aboard their titan would cause obvious issues.

 

[alterintel]

what about mix and match skins. So I could pick from pre-defined colors, wardrobe, facial features, etc....

 

[RabidBat]

That's what I mean, per-server... Storing that many skins on some registry-linked server for every single player everywhere sounds impractical, but I see no reason why StarMade game servers themselves can't hold the data.

Because hey if Schine stores your skins, then they can do things like charge players for extra slots going by what I have read.
I honestly think the only reason a skin server as they're suggesting is being considered is to cash in on it.

As has been stated, skins can be stored locally or on a server. Why would I want 3 skin slots when currently I can have an infinite amount currently on my HDD and that I can swap out at any time in 2 seconds.
Not like those skins are exactly massive files either.
Think my cureent skin comes in around the 58kb mark if even that.

I do wish to see races in the game etc, but not custom ones, I mean penis monsters on peoples ships? yeah no thanks. (Sadly there are those who will try such things.)
And hey, there is the modding option. Maybe some things could or should be left to the modding community to do when the time comes.

Also we have to keep in mind how games work, much easier for a game to load in 100 NPC's with the same model and/or skin, than 100 NPC's with their own unique skin. Matters of performance and all that, and well this game is Java, which is not known for having the best performance even after optimisation. (Honestly no idea why people make games with it let alone apps.)

This is why many games use the same models over and over and just reskin them. Multiple textures/skins is much less for a game to render resource wise than hundreds, thousand or millions of different polygons.

I honestly think this game is going to spaz out enough when/if things like 'space whales' get added to the game without throwing a tonne of custom player content on top.
And while ideas are good, after how long this game has been in development I'd hope Schema and friends would know what they want from this game and that most of their focus will now be on implementing and optimising it along with adding actual gameplay.

I just think at this point adding things like skins, player models etc is just going to distract a seemingly already distracted development.
These kinds of things I think should maybe be considered when they have the core base game more complete and stable.

 

[Ithirahad]

Now I want custom NPCs just so I can make all my boarding parties penis monsters. :P

 

[Valiant70]

I could see someone uploading one skin for him/herself and one "uniform" for crewmen. That wouldn't be too bad. Even having a faction add one more by supplying a faction-specific default uniform wouldn't be a disaster (one more skin for several people).

To make crewmen more unique, portions left blank in the skin file could be procedurally generated (or just one of several variations to make things faster). Thus you could leave the head blank and supply just a uniform, or you could supply a uniform that looks like a guy in a ski mask for some covert ops roleplay or something. If you supply just an armored vest with a faction emblem, the crewmen would wear it over the default space suit.

Total resources stored by Schine:

• 3 skins per player (one or more of these may be a crew uniform)
• 1 uniform per faction (could tie into global faction system)

Total resources loaded onto server at any given time:

• 1 player skin per player
• 1 crew uniform per player
• 1 crew uniform per faction

And don't forget server admins can limit skin resolution!
I think this would be a good balance. Thoughts?