I build a lot in EGS. More than I play. By quite a bit now. lol I pray for the day when I can use symmetry mode and have it actually respond to me removing blocks. When I make a mistake with my block placement or shape choices, it is twice as much effort to fix as it should be. Have to remove blocks on both sides. This is probably my biggest gripe currently. It breaks my workflow and slows me down a lot because I don't want to spend extra time fixing mistakes. If any other Primary builders have small specific issues that they encounter constantly, please feel free to post them. I'm sure the devs would love to know. And if you've found any workarounds also please share! ^^
If you shift right click it will remove blocks and it does work with symmetry. Or at least it should. If that's not working for you then it's not working like it's supposed to. You can also press 'N' on the keyboard to open the debug menu. There are undo / redo buttons there. Now the multitool's remove option yea, that doesn't work with symmetry. If you need to remove a really large selection of blocks instead of clicking them off one by one you can use the copy/paste/delete tools. Press 'N' to bring up debug tools, check the Selection box, click scale selection. Use the tool to highlight the area you want to get rid of. It takes a little bit but it's still faster than clicking. Once that's done press cut(or delete if you're feeling really confident...not sure if undo works with it and at least with cut you can paste it back if you made a mistake). There ya go. No more carpal tunnel deleting a bunch of blocks. Might want to save the blueprint before you get to editing it this way until you're comfortable using the copy/paste tools.
What annoys me sometimes is that after pressing "N", Symetry is (almost) always activated, even though i mostly need a checkmark on selection. Even after using selection 100 times, it sometimes keeps "symetry" checked when pressing "N". Also it would be really helpful to have symetry selection be possible. So you could select an area on one side of the mirror plane it would automaticla create the same selection on the other side (would be very helpful when building symetrical things). Aside fomr that, i'm pretty happy about the tools we have. (Well, there could be more Bulding blocks or the possibility to use SV blocks on a CV, but i guess that's impossible.)
What about a very simple, remove the grid limit in creative and apply an audio warning in creative for builders so they know when they have hit the MP grid limit, so they can choose to build bigger if they like but it just cant be used in MP. The grid limitations in creative need to go. Build freedom needs to be set free, its sandbox afterall ! I have a Babylon 5 that's about 10 grids, its 2.2 klm long in game, it ALL renders at once fine, I can fly around it at 300m/s in godmode with no render issues, SE can only dream of such a scale build, Empyrion is geared well to build at such scales, in SE my Babylon 5 station is 1.1 klm long and lags like a pig in comparison to Empyrions 2.2klm long version. So it would be nice, as a large scale builder, to have these very un-sandbox like restrictions lifted for creative mode.
THAT would be really nice! I hit that limit all the time myself. One more thing. In creative it would be really, really helpful if building block stacks would be infinitive. It's really annoying to draw a plane, only to notice the mirrored side wasn't created, because the 999 stack was too small.
Wait a minute, how do you create something that big in EGS? I'm trying forever to create some decent Starfleet ships, but the grid limit makes it almost impossible (especially the big ships like the Galaxy or future ships like STO has.)
Well its complicated and tricky at best. I went into creative, godmode, so one of the planes auto aligns, horizontal one. Then I made a set of massive rulers for ingame measuring. Then I layed 8 cores in a line as straight as I could get, getting 2.2 klm in length, at this stage each grid is just a single line of blocks for alignment reasons, and on this scale you really need to get the alignment almost perfect or you will notice it. We had no align grid code back then either, I haven't tested it with that. Then I layed the frame of each section, so huge barrel like frame it was, checked alignment and off I went building. The hardest grid to align was the sphere at the front of the station. The sphere uses the entire grid on its own, its that big. Spawning this into a new game is really trick, I have to go place cores at the precise positions and folder swap the files out, no way to really align when just spawning from BP such huge sections, that also chop in half when spawned. The work around for that is to take a second BP of the section in its 2 piece form, then when you go to spawn that 2 piece section it spawns back as one piece again. I tracked that bug down to an issue with the symmetry system and the devs specifically took a heap of logs for it, but it still does it, that was 12 months ago or longer, so it must be a fundamental problem with the grid size and how they have limited it. Babylon 5 the Empyrion version I hope to see in my SP game one day, in testing when I fly up to it, its so massively huge when it renders, which it does easy and fast, its already right in your face, at 3klm render range , so I think the render range for space should be adjustable out o 10 klm let people choose based on there systems performance. There was a picture of this version of B5 in my sig here for months you must have seen it, big blue round barrel thingy ! The best solution really is to remove the grid limits in creative all together, let people build till there PC cries n dies, its what we gamers always want, build freedom.
I can imagine how tricky this must be to align all parts, so there's no gap anywhere. (I wouldn't have this much patience to do that ) It's a shame the game doesn't allow such huge builds. I have always assumed the games engine itself, was the restrictive factor here. I had no idea it was just an arbitary rule to keep the game playable for MP... Since i have no idea about programming the engine, i have to ask, would it be much work for the devs to unlock that limitation for SP games? EDIT: I just realized, there's no way to make the station airtight, or am i wrong?
Yeah, the grid limits are part of why we don't build much in Empy these days. Our current rebuild of Leviathan is over 400m long, has 10 times the amount of detail, yet still renders faster than it did in Empy. And we can go bigger. Much Bigger. I've seen screenies of star destroyer builds that are the correct size (> 1KM) and the framerate on those is still good. Empy has freedom, it has freedom of choice, unfortunately it doesn't have freedom of scale.
I'd love to see all box (cargo, fridges, harvest boxes etc) and accessible (furnaces, food processors, constructors etc) type items have a built in LCD that shows the name as set in the P menu.
I'd like to see a little more in the way of variety with sensors. Things like invisible sensors as an option since they are ugly as sin. Maybe a ground sensor so you can set ramps and the like to automatically extend when you land. and probably a load more bits and pieces that I haven't thought of. The ability to overide things like shutters so they only obey the sensor. (tis annoying since if you get to close to a shutter that you've increased the range with a motion sensor it'll slam shut and open again, sometimes repeatedly. also on that note i'd like to be able to disable the auto open on individual doors shutters etc with a tick box or something. Also after seeing a ship designed by SirKnumskull the other day called Signal Logic Demonstrator I really want pilot seats and possible some other devices to be able to act as sensors/switchs when occupied. Being able to slave your thrusters and RCS's activation to a pilots chair would be an absolute godsend. Maybe not appropriate to every build but damned handy none the less. lastly for now and probably one of the biggest changes I'd like to see is that certain devices like lights, sensors and decorative devices should be able to be placed more freely. maybe a system where they can snap to a surface but be placed freely in already occupied block spaces. This is so you can place lights and sensors on half or sloped blocks etc and so you can place things like desks or control consoles closer to passenger seats and the things like that.
I'd like some computer consoles with built in passenger seating. Oh and windows with shutters built in that can be opened and closed with sensors.
when building, undo > turn symmetry on > redo. It doesn't work. It only paints the block on one side. If it painted on both sides... joy.
Armoured shutters (and ramps). I can't make weapon bay doors or blast sheilds from the standard shutters and ramps as they have very low HP. Don't have to be airtight, don't need a forcefeild, but I would like to be able to shoot through them with fixed weapons when they are open (like the current ramps, and unlike the current shutters). While we're at it, any chance of some triangular shutters so I can fill the gaps at the edges of ramps with a retractable?
Virtual cameras tied to LCD screens. I really want to fly something without having to stick my face out a window. Or give a view of the rear of the ship to a pilot in front. etc...
3 minor issues but they are annoying. 1st is the fact that the toilet doesn't have a built in door. I constantly have to make extra space in my bathrooms to add a door block and you will suffocate if you try to go in to the toilet because of the force field. 2nd a texture/color match function on the tools. I cant tell you how many times I have made edits to something from the workshop and spent like 10 minutes trying to match a texture. 3rd the ability to deactivate doors O2 force fields. In addition to the mentioned bathroom issue the ability to remove force fields from doors for aesthetic and practical reasons would be nice
