What do you guys think about the blueprint system?

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    I, for one, would hate having to go around looking at every shop within tens of sectors just to be able to build a large-ish ship. We need SOME sort of credit-to-ship thing since not every ship is feasible to buy blocks for, and before you say it balances things, it doesn't. I would just have to spend 15 minutes clearing out about 10 shops for my ship instead of just throwing credits at my machine. It will just be an inconvenience. As I said, the types of building in my suggestion could be turned on and off, allowing you to disable credit construction if you deem it so terrible.
     

    lupoCani

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    Factories, fellow player, factories. And before you say they're too inefficient, then it's the factory system that needs fixing, not the blueprints.
     
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    The factories still need stuff for input, and you'll either need a fairly large salvage array or have to purchase the components from shops to use them, and the stuff isn't renewable. And even if they were more efficient, there is still the fact that inputs are needed, and they probably won't be renewable. Credits can be used for EVERYTHING at the moment, blueprints should be no different, as credits should remain universal, just not all-powerful.
     

    lupoCani

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    Well of course you need a salvage array- that's supply infrastructure, a core component in any manufacturing. Renewability isn't much of issue, though it could possibly be mitigated further by redesigning some aspects of how resources are harvested.
    Credits can be used for EVERYTHING at the moment, blueprints should be no different
    Yes, they should. In fact, everything should.

    Credits should indeed be universal. Universal currency, that is. Currency's only function is to represent value among the parties of an economy, and should have no value in itself, and certainly no direct utility.

    The presence of a universal tool, even if inefficient, is a significant issue in any virtual economy. In the end, economies revolve around the redistribution of resources on a one-man's-trash-one-man's-treasure basis, and having one particular kind of fairly common trash that can transform into any treasure of your choosing is about as destructive for such a system as it gets.
     
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    If credits could only buy blocks, they would become worthless, as everyone would want blocks but not credits, resulting in hyperdeflation in player to player trade due to everyone spending all of their credits to get rid of them, and then nobody could afford anything until they started salvaging again. Nobody would start salvaging to sell because all the shops will be out of blocks and/or money (Rapidly inflating the player market) and players would want tons of materials for their meager number of credits remaining. Thus only factories could help, but many people don't use factories as far as I've seen. Credits would not be universal if they were only used in shops, and currency in a video game that has almost no use (Since all the shops are empty or broke, or both) causes massive problems. If factories gained enough of a boost to counter this, then they would be overpowered. As I said, credits should remain universal. Configs are a great possibility in controversial topics like this.
     

    Keptick

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    I completely disagree with the OP.

    A blueprint is that, a blueprint. It is merely a plan used to replicate things, in this case, ships. You still need the materials or credits to spawn it in. I understand your concern but I believe that it could easily be fixed with a better economy and actual shipyards instead of instantly popping them out of nothing.

    Blueprints are a very unique feature in this game and I'd hate to see it taken away. Honestly, if you don't like it just deactivate them, but don't force everyone with your personal preferences.
     
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    I did not say that blueprints should be taken away I said that they be changed.

    So ok... with the current system - the only reason to actually build a ship would be if you need to build a ship over the credit cap. Otherwise, what reason would you at all build a "nonblueprinted" ship on a server with blocks you have obtained?

    I am not forcing my preferences on anyone I am sharing them with people to maybe see if some people agree with me.
     
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    That's pretty much what I would want as well, especially the part about shops having small-built in shipyards, allowing the current blueprint system to continue existing in a much more balanced way. I have personally imagined that particular part not as shops having actual shipyards, but rather projecting construction beams of sorts from their rings. These would not have a size limit for the ship they build, but be way slow to build anything big in a reasonable amount of time. They would draw materials from the shop's stock, and require payment equal to, say, 110% of the total block price. For further awesomeness, I'd like to see such beams do other things as well, such as tear apart pirates or repair trading guild ships in the vicinity.

    Also, why should shipyards use ores? Just let them draw materials from linked storage blocks and the inventory problem is solved.
    This is the result of several things...

    If players could steal ships while they're being built it would cause large amounts of frustration on multi-player; therefore you shouldn't be able to undock a ship from a shipyard while it's being built.

    If players could ask the shipyard to start building a ship before the shipyard has all the blocks needed, then players could easily jam the shipyard making it impossible for any other players to use the shipyard - e.g. a partially built ship that can't be undocked until it's finished, that is never finished because the shipyard is waiting for the other blocks. Therefore, the shipyard shouldn't start building until all blocks are provided by the player or the shop (so that completion can be guaranteed and "permanently blocked shipyard" can't happen).

    Now...

    The problem with using blocks is that there are too many different types of blocks. For example, just looking at hulls alone, there's normal and hardened, 8 colours and 5 shapes. That adds up to 2*8*5 = 80 types of blocks. In total, currently there's over 400 different block types in the game (and it's likely that the number of block types will increase in future).

    Not every ship/blueprint uses every type of block. However, especially for ships that look awesome (e.g. detailed interiors, etc) it's easy for a ship/blueprint to use more different types of blocks than a player's inventory can hold. If you actually have all the different blocks you need, you couldn't carry them to the shipyard in one go. That means you need to make multiple trips and/or link the shipyard to your own storage and/or a factory; which creates major problems for public shipyards (e.g. the trading guild's shipyards) where linking would be scary and multiple trips mean you need something to prevent other players from stealing our resources while you're trying to move them to the shipyard.

    It also means massive hassle. Just trying to figure out how many of which blocks you need to collect before you go to the shipyard would be a major headache; and if you've got 9999 of the blocks you need except that you're missing one blue hull wedge (and the shop is out of stock) and only have 99 spare blue hulls that aren't wedges then it'd suck.

    To fix all of this; instead of using blocks you can use the ingredients that make blocks. A player's inventory holds a max. of 45 different types of blocks. If there were no more than 45 raw ingredients that can be used to make all blocks, then you could collect all the ingredients, then head to the shipyard, select the blueprint you want, unload everything and press "go".

    Note that I'm mostly worried about new players who are struggling to gather resources - e.g. the typical player that's just joined a server for the first time; is trying their best not to get wiped out by pirates; has no station, no factory, no home base, and only has 1 ship core, 1 weapon computer, 14 thrusters, etc to work with. Most of the problems don't effect (e.g.) large established factions that have a massive stockpile of resources, their own factories and several of their own huge shipyards.
     
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    This is the result of several things...

    If players could steal ships while they're being built it would cause large amounts of frustration on multi-player; therefore you shouldn't be able to undock a ship from a shipyard while it's being built.

    If players could ask the shipyard to start building a ship before the shipyard has all the blocks needed, then players could easily jam the shipyard making it impossible for any other players to use the shipyard - e.g. a partially built ship that can't be undocked until it's finished, that is never finished because the shipyard is waiting for the other blocks. Therefore, the shipyard shouldn't start building until all blocks are provided by the player or the shop (so that completion can be guaranteed and "permanently blocked shipyard" can't happen).
    There is another solution to this problem:
    So long as the shipyard is not finished, AND has the ability to place more blocks, whatever is build can't be undocked. However the moment the shipyard doesn't have any blocks it should place.(either completely empty inv or all blocks the inv contains are already placed everywhere, where they belong)
     
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    To fix all of this; instead of using blocks you can use the ingredients that make blocks. A player's inventory holds a max. of 45 different types of blocks. If there were no more than 45 raw ingredients that can be used to make all blocks, then you could collect all the ingredients, then head to the shipyard, select the blueprint you want, unload everything and press "go".
    Completely agree but, ¿why not a mix? You can place ingredients or blocks. The shipyard will use first the blocks, then the ingredients, allowing to use those you already have. You can either come later and add more blocks, the shipyard will let you take the ingredients or blocks not used.
     
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    I like where the block part of the discussion is going, but as I have said, credits should be able to be used directly. A different way of doing this is to place enough credits to cover the upped cost into the shipyard, and then Trade Guild ships could come by and start dropping off blocks. If they were destroyed, the player would have to cover the ship's cost and a configurable percent of the resource cost. This opens up the possibility of true player pirates, rather than them just being bullies, and gives Trade Guild ships actual economical use.
     
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    I'm agree with you, money shall be used, buying the blocks at the current shop prices, but limited to the stock. If the shop runs out of a block type, you'll have to wait until it's re-stocked (or someone comes and sells this kind of block).
     
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    I'm agree with you, money shall be used, buying the blocks at the current shop prices, but limited to the stock. If the shop runs out of a block type, you'll have to wait until it's re-stocked (or someone comes and sells this kind of block).
    Assuming you mean me, the trade ships should either not drain the stock or be able to come from any shop, using the closest first.
     

    jayman38

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    I think it would be neat if shipyards had some kind of anonymous donation option (maybe a future option on plex storage containers?) where random players can help out a player trying to build by donating some blocks. In this way, a defending player could defeat the aims of a pirate player, even if the pirate attacks any approaching trade guild ships, by driving off the pirate and dumping spare block stacks into the donation bin, whatever form it may take.

    I have played on servers for other block games where prolific builders had one-way donation blocks that took your donated blocks and immediately transferred them to a protected storage area for later use by the builder.
     
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    lupoCani

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    If credits could only buy blocks, they would become worthless, as everyone would want blocks but not credits,
    Why, exactly? Blocks are situational, credits are a universal expression of value, and would still fill an important role. I'd say it's no more a risk than everyone in a real-world economy suddenly investing everything they have in gold.

    and then nobody could afford anything until they started salvaging again
    Why would they need to afford it, this scenario only happened because they already bought it, right? Also, the shop system was never intended for mass production of items, that's why we have factories.

    Nobody would start salvaging to sell because all the shops will be out of blocks and/or money (Rapidly inflating the player market). [...] Thus only factories could help, but many people don't use factories as far as I've seen.
    Well, that's because they've never needed to. In this scenario, they will.

    Credits would not be universal if they were only used in shops, and currency in a video game that has almost no use (Since all the shops are empty or broke, or both) causes massive problems.
    Like I said, they're a universal expression of value, not a universal tool. The purpose of credits is to have a common denominator, a base unit if you will, that the economy can use as a starting ground for comparing and exchanging resources.

    Again, from where did you get the idea that shops should be the primary source of recourses? They're a mechanic implemented as a practicality for smaller parties with no comprehensive infrastructure, not as the source from which all materials derive. That's what manufacturing is for. If manufacturing it to inefficient for such a purpose, then again it's the factories we need to look at, not the blueprints.

    If factories gained enough of a boost to counter this, then they would be overpowered.
    How? If something receives well-wieghted buff to reduce an imbalance, and does this successfully, how can that make it overpowered. I do fail to see your reasoning here.

    Configs are a great possibility in controversial topics like this.
    Indeed they are. In fact, it's getting increasingly obvious this is just a matter of personal preference, not a flaw in reasoning on either side.

    If players could steal ships while they're being built it would cause large amounts of frustration on multi-player; therefore you shouldn't be able to undock a ship from a shipyard while it's being built.
    Yes, that seems reasonable.

    If players could ask the shipyard to start building a ship before the shipyard has all the blocks needed, then players could easily jam the shipyard making it impossible for any other players to use the shipyard - e.g. a partially built ship that can't be undocked until it's finished, that is never finished because the shipyard is waiting for the other blocks. Therefore, the shipyard shouldn't start building until all blocks are provided by the player or the shop (so that completion can be guaranteed and "permanently blocked shipyard" can't happen).
    It's an issue, but a rather easily fixed one. The "constructor beams" I suggested would mean there's no actual yard to occupy, and the beams could easily just ignore the first ship they were building and work on a second one in the meantime.

    The problem with using blocks is that there are too many different types of blocks. For example, just looking at hulls alone, there's normal and hardened, 8 colours and 5 shapes. That adds up to 2*8*5 = 80 types of blocks. In total, currently there's over 400 different block types in the game (and it's likely that the number of block types will increase in future).
    Not every ship/blueprint uses every type of block. However, especially for ships that look awesome (e.g. detailed interiors, etc) it's easy for a ship/blueprint to use more different types of blocks than a player's inventory can hold. If you actually have all the different blocks you need, you couldn't carry them to the shipyard in one go.
    Ever heard of plexstorages? They all link to the ship's central inventory now, so you could accommodate as many block types as you want. Besides, it's unlikely to be an issue in the first place, as shop-based construction systems are intended for smaller ships.

    It also means massive hassle. Just trying to figure out how many of which blocks you need to collect before you go to the shipyard would be a major headache;
    Not if the game did that counting for you. A rather simple GUI feature, I say.

    and if you've got 9999 of the blocks you need except that you're missing one blue hull wedge (and the shop is out of stock) and only have 99 spare blue hulls that aren't wedges then it'd suck.
    Then you'd have to manually add that one block later, the shop could build the rest of the ship for you.

    To fix all of this; instead of using blocks you can use the ingredients that make blocks. A player's inventory holds a max. of 45 different types of blocks. If there were no more than 45 raw ingredients that can be used to make all blocks, then you could collect all the ingredients, then head to the shipyard, select the blueprint you want, unload everything and press "go".

    Note that I'm mostly worried about new players who are struggling to gather resources - e.g. the typical player that's just joined a server for the first time; is trying their best not to get wiped out by pirates; has no station, no factory, no home base, and only has 1 ship core, 1 weapon computer, 14 thrusters, etc to work with. Most of the problems don't effect (e.g.) large established factions that have a massive stockpile of resources, their own factories and several of their own huge shipyards.
    Since your mechanic would still require players to have the raw materials, it seems the issue we're really trying to solve (Aside from a few easily-mitigated hassles, as discussed above) is that the factory system isn't open enough to new players. That might very well be true, but as I keep saying, then how about we fix the factory system instead of buffing everything else to compensate?

    How about shops offering fairly efficient and automated crafting at a small credit price? Or maybe allowing a few factories on every ship? There are a lot of possibilities to look into, but I don't think this particular tweak to the shipyard system is one of them.
     
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    Grrr. Why don't nested quotes work on this forum? :(

    (About people "jamming" shipyards with partially completed ships)

    It's an issue, but a rather easily fixed one. The "constructor beams" I suggested would mean there's no actual yard to occupy, and the beams could easily just ignore the first ship they were building and work on a second one in the meantime.
    That doesn't solve the problem - a malicious person or faction that's deliberately trying to permanently prevent other players from using a public shipyard would just start building multiple ships, so that the shipyard becomes permanently jammed because it can't find any space to build a new ship.

    It also creates the need for the game to find space to build a new ship, which isn't as easy as it sounds (e.g. the recent "jump into the middle of a ship/planet/station" FTL bugs) and is the reason for the "less than ideal in many cases" location selected for newly spawned ships in the current blueprint system.

    Lastly, it doesn't give you a plausible excuse for ship size restrictions ("why can't a tiny shipyard make a massive titan?"), which I think is necessary for game balance and to encourage people to build their own shipyards.

    Using a pre-defined area for the shipyard fixes all of that; and would make easier to implement (e.g. re-use the existing code that's used for docking areas to define the area a shipyard uses).

    Ever heard of plexstorages? They all link to the ship's central inventory now, so you could accommodate as many block types as you want. Besides, it's unlikely to be an issue in the first place, as shop-based construction systems are intended for smaller ships.
    So, a new player (struggling to get enough resources) rips apart their existing ship just to be able to afford a new ship; and then links the inventory of the ship that no longer exists to a shipyard owned by a completely different faction (e.g. the trading guild or a friendly faction); and you don't see any potential difficulties with that?

    Since your mechanic would still require players to have the raw materials, it seems the issue we're really trying to solve (Aside from a few easily-mitigated hassles, as discussed above) is that the factory system isn't open enough to new players. That might very well be true, but as I keep saying, then how about we fix the factory system instead of buffing everything else to compensate?
    As far as I'm concerned, how a player obtains the resources (and whether or not they have to salvage half the universe just to make a scooter) is a separate/unrelated issue (but I'm still 100% in favour of "conservation of mass").

    How about shops offering fairly efficient and automated crafting at a small credit price? Or maybe allowing a few factories on every ship? There are a lot of possibilities to look into, but I don't think this particular tweak to the shipyard system is one of them.
    Factories on ships would be awesome (and so would plex lifters, undeathenators, etc); but there is/was some sort of technical problem that prevented Schema from allowing any of these things on ships in the past. If I had to guess, I'd assume the game tracks the locations of these things using "(x, y, z) in the universe" rather than "(x, y, z) relative to the origin of the parent object", making it impossible for these things to move.
     

    lupoCani

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    Grrr. Why don't nested quotes work on this forum? :(
    That doesn't solve the problem - a malicious person or faction that's deliberately trying to permanently prevent other players from using a public shipyard would just start building multiple ships, so that the shipyard becomes permanently jammed because it can't find any space to build a new ship.

    It also creates the need for the game to find space to build a new ship, which isn't as easy as it sounds (e.g. the recent "jump into the middle of a ship/planet/station" FTL bugs) and is the reason for the "less than ideal in many cases" location selected for newly spawned ships in the current blueprint system.

    Lastly, it doesn't give you a plausible excuse for ship size restrictions ("why can't a tiny shipyard make a massive titan?"), which I think is necessary for game balance and to encourage people to build their own shipyards.
    So, a new player (struggling to get enough resources) rips apart their existing ship just to be able to afford a new ship; and then links the inventory of the ship that no longer exists to a shipyard owned by a completely different faction (e.g. the trading guild or a friendly faction); and you don't see any potential difficulties with that?
    Alright, how about this approach- Shops cannot create ships. They can however modify them, to the extent of turning any ship into any other ship, or building an entire ship around a single core, so it's pretty much the same thing, except you have to spawn the core yourself.

    The building process is initiated from within the ship, and draws recourses from the existing ship's hull primarily, on-board storages secondarily, and from the shops stock tertiarily. Construction ceases when no more recourses are available, the ship moves out of range, or no more modifications can be made without building in blocked space.

    An unlimited amount of ships can be processed by any shop at once with no penalty to the speed of the process, but only one per player and universe. The construction rate is such that smaller ships are built in a reasonable timeframe, but anything longer than about a hundred blocks will simply take too much time. If we want an actual cap, I don't see why the trading guild wouldn't forbid their shops being used to construct disruptively large structures.

    This would put the issue of building space in the hands of the player, let the shop take care of any logistical hassle with the materials, and if you ask me, feels a whole lot cleaner than integrating a physical shipyard into the shop's structure.
     
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    Alright, how about this approach- Shops cannot create ships. They can however modify them, to the extent of turning any ship into any other ship, or building an entire ship around a single core, so it's pretty much the same thing, except you have to spawn the core yourself.

    The building process is initiated from within the ship, and draws recourses from the existing ship's hull primarily, on-board storages secondarily, and from the shops stock tertiarily. Construction ceases when no more recourses are available, the ship moves out of range, or no more modifications can be made without building in blocked space.

    An unlimited amount of ships can be processed by any shop at once with no penalty to the speed of the process, but only one per player and universe. The construction rate is such that smaller ships are built in a reasonable timeframe, but anything longer than about a hundred blocks will simply take too much time. If we want an actual cap, I don't see why the trading guild wouldn't forbid their shops being used to construct disruptively large structures.
    That could work too...

    This would put the issue of building space in the hands of the player, let the shop take care of any logistical hassle with the materials, and if you ask me, feels a whole lot cleaner than integrating a physical shipyard into the shop's structure.
    The thing is, I want physical shipyards.

    I want people to build special areas for shipyards into their stations and/or have special stations designed as shipyards. I want factions to create things like "fighter manufacturing facilities" capable of producing many small ships at the same time (and then have to defend their fighter factory because it's valuable and not disposable). I want massive shipyards (e.g. capable of building > 1 km long ships) to be rare (e.g. it should cost a lot to build a massive shipyard). I want faction politics, where one faction (that doesn't have a good shipyard) makes a deal with another faction to use that other faction's shipyard (e.g. "I'll help you fight your enemy, if you let me use your huge shipyard to produce some capital ships").

    I don't want something where any player can add a single "shipyard computer" block to any station or planet (with no effort and very little resources needed); and instantly have the best shipyard possible, that's capable of producing hundreds of massive ships (e.g. one per faction member) at the same time.
     

    lupoCani

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    That could work too...



    The thing is, I want physical shipyards.

    I want people to build special areas for shipyards into their stations and/or have special stations designed as shipyards. I want factions to create things like "fighter manufacturing facilities" capable of producing many small ships at the same time (and then have to defend their fighter factory because it's valuable and not disposable). I want massive shipyards (e.g. capable of building > 1 km long ships) to be rare (e.g. it should cost a lot to build a massive shipyard). I want faction politics, where one faction (that doesn't have a good shipyard) makes a deal with another faction to use that other faction's shipyard (e.g. "I'll help you fight your enemy, if you let me use your huge shipyard to produce some capital ships").

    I don't want something where any player can add a single "shipyard computer" block to any station or planet (with no effort and very little resources needed); and instantly have the best shipyard possible, that's capable of producing hundreds of massive ships (e.g. one per faction member) at the same time.
    God No. Please don't think I meant to suggest that as the primary form of shipyards, if at all implemented they should be uniquely used by trading guild shops. Anything player-created should naturally be a significantly more extensive construction.