Useful mechanics

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    After playing Starmade for about a month (actually only building in sandbox mode), some ideas popped up in my mind. This game lags of many useful mechanics and aesthetic blocks imho. I've scrolled through the latest suggestions and found some relating on that, but all old and scattered.

    Some of the really needed things i would love to have in Starmade:

    • smart wedge blocks that autoconnect around corners using same mechanics like stairblocks in minecraft
    • additional slopes/wedges *1
    • stairblocks (sometimes they would fit better than wedges)
    • fence! some nice modern looking fence. One block tall and one block long plane on the edge of the block that can be rotated in advanced buildmode.
    • elevators on ships. It annoys me that those existing cant be used for ships. why?
    • Transporting system (beam me up, scotty!) Something veeery useful if you build huge ships/stations with lots of interior and dont want your visitors or yourself get lost in its guts. *2
    • smaller docking border boxes for small ship/dock/turret design. We still have enhancers to increase the size, right? *3 ;)
    • PlexLight Wedges. They would make neat ramp designs!
    • PlexLights give off more light, not brighter, but light bigger space. right now i need stupidly many lights to see a thing in my hangar and i still got black spots. Good thing this game has no creepers (yet) :D
    • Pickblock function! For those who play Minecraft (probably everyone i guess), it's a very common and handy feature. When in creative mode and you look at a block and press the middle mouse button, the exact same type of block appears in your hand. *4



    *1: This suggestion shows just what i mean: http://star-made.org/content/new-block-ideas-3d-models-included I dont know if the autoconnect mechanics (once hopefully implimented) is capable of detecting 45° placements. It could be done by placing wedges in a ziczac formation i think.

    *2: teleportation device? Maybe a placeable block? Once placed in build mode, a window pops up where you have to enter a name (e.g. if you place it at the core, it should be named "core" If on the bridge, then "bridge", and so on). If you use one of those with [R] a GUI shows up with all of the tp-devices on the ship/station listed, you simply click on a name and, pop, you are there! To not end up in the hull or colliding with something, the block is rotateable and a texture (or better: green box!) indicates where the player will be teleported at.

    *3: I came up with the idea to place repair turrets inside a hangar, but the border boxes are just too big compared to the turrets they should hold and thus are really hard to place somewhere without colliding with the interior or other boxes. A smaller docking border box would help alot. I could live with the trouble of needing to place more docking enhancers to increase the box.

    *4: In Starmade it could be done this way: In buildmode, same key (middle mouse button). Aslong as you have the block you're picking in your inventory, it switches into your hand, if not, nothing happens. Wedges will also have the same rotation as the picked wedge.

    I hope you like my suggestions so far. I think i will add more if i find something that's "missing" in the game. Right now thats all of what i can think of and wanted to share with you. I'll leave nerfing and balancing suggestions to those who have clue of that. I'm more of a builder than hardcore survival gamer :P

    I hope Schema will impliment some of the suggestions one day :)
     
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    Why would you want smaller turrets then 5x5x5 or whatever it is!

    Any smaller, and then they are weak!

    (Oh, btw if the boxes collide it doesnt do anything to the docked ships, its only if the docked things touch eachover, then there is a problem, not the boxes.)
     
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    For probes, escape pods, indoor turrets? There are situations where smaller boxes would be better :)

    Oh and the boxes are 7x7x7. Which is pretty big. i wish it would be 5x5x5. :)

    As said: You always can increase the size by placing more enhancer blocks around it, but a smaller initial box increases the possibilities for more compact designs.
     
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    I think that even just changing the GUI for block orientation would help. Instead of two arrows that cycle through all the orientations, if we had four arrows that would rotate 90 degrees in that direction, it would make block placement more intuitive.

    Smaller initial docking unit boxes would be nice. I have several designs that currently carry small shuttles externally, and it would be nice to be able to have them in an internal launch bay, protected by the shields.

    Internal, Anti-personal turrets become a possibility with smaller docking boxes as well.
     
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    Added a few points:

    • PlexLight Wedges. They would make neat ramp designs!
    • PlexLights give off more light, not brighter, but light bigger space. right now i need stupidly many lights to see a thing in my hangar and i still got black spots. Good thing this game has no creepers (yet) :D

    About Creepers, i\'ve seen in the latest change log that Schema will add creatures to the game soon. I hope he won\'t add Mynocks, too...

    Another idea i thought of: How about wedges that can be placed into eachother alsong as they have different rotations. That would fill a few wedge holes and open up a new varity of design. This wall design could be made in just one block width: http://www.dallasdoan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/conceptArt1-e1357243520431.jpg , but right now it\'s not possible to make a sloped frame of different color around a window or structural framework (like on the picture) without either leaving ugly gaps or stepped colors on the wall, only way is to add an extra layer for the blue frame on the wall, which takes so much space and doesnt look as clean anymore. i just wonder if it\'s technically possible or if that would hit the limits of the java engine? : /
     
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    I got another idea:

    Pickblock function! For those who play Minecraft (probably everyone i guess), it\'s a very common and handy feature. When in creative mode and you look at a block and press the middle mouse button, the exact same type of block appears in your hand.

    In Starmade it could be done this way: In buildmode, same key (middle mouse button). Aslong as you have the block you\'re picking in your inventory, it switches into your hand, if not, nothing happens. Wedges will also have the same rotation as the picked wedge.

    This would extremely speed up building!