I think the name hurts it in two ways. The first way is that it really distracts players from its fundamental purposes of creating interesting gameplay. Personally, I am excited to see new features that provide ways of establishing the framework in which the players must operate. These kinds of things are what creates gameplay. Otherwise, especially with voxels, we just have toy blocks with pretty graphics. Limits that have in-game, lore-friendly explanation also help establish a feel for the world in which the gameplay occurs and helps with immersion. (This is why I really like CPU). The other way this name causes frustration is because it does not help the player understand the direction the designers want to go with it; all we get to see is that it limits something. It is absolutely confusing to see it called CPU because we assume it means something like units of computer processing ability but that it mysteriously applies to blocks that could not possibly require computations. Worse still is that since we cannot tie the name to an in-game reason, we associate it to the only other thing that makes sense: real world game servers. So it now feels like another but unnecessarily complicated block limit for the sake of game performance but why? As an example, let’s say its name was Logistics Points. Logistics implies the detailed coordination of complex operations. This name sets a clear intent with a lot of room for explanation both in and out of game. And since it’s Alpha, it could be left to the players imagination to think up sci-fi ways the management of a ship or structure would be needed and limited. I think some designer-provided lore would go a long way at this point. Such as: structural integrity of block technology requires a generated field, device blocks are powered by some wireless technology provided by the Core or RCS, and that the capacity or efficiency of the various future tech systems can be improved by adding tiers of artificial intelligence or by tiers of NPCs manning crew consoles. So in closing, I would like to see the name changed because the name CPU has distracted from what it gives us in terms of gameplay. Also providing a bit of in-game lore for it might help us understand the potential. -Drew
I like it. You just have to considerate them and make a plan. Is the limitated flight system who work bad with it. The rest is ok.
Maybe go with something derived from 'Adaptive Control': 'Adaptive Control Processor' 'Adaptive System Controller' 'Adaptive Control Unit' (...although you might end up in a brawl with the boys from Satisfactory with that one)
ROB - Restrictions on Building system Rob you of a good night sleep when try to fiddle creations together dealing with the ROB requirements.
I thought CPU was fine - 'Creativity Prevention Units' Failing that, how about YAL - 'Yet Another Limit' on top of turret limits, repair bay limits, drill limits, SV cant have turrets limit, things cant dock to something that already has something docked limit.... etc.
It is a good idea, especially for new players who would not know what it is. I propose "Smart Control"
Well in SE at least they call it what it was intended to be - PCU for Performance Cost Unit - ie how much it will eventually slaughter your server. In this I am not really sure what they are trying to achieve by it and maybe that is the problem - they have overloaded it with so many side effects that it has perhaps just become an annoyance to everyone to some degree or other for one reason or another. One the one hand, it seems to serve the SE equivalent of PCU, and yet I know of no per-player CPU limit (I don't play multiplayer, so I may have missed that) - ie the equivalent that Space Engineers has to limit how much computing resources a single player can consume on a server. It seems to serve to arbitrarily and additionally limit what we can build as an another limit on top of whatever resources we have found or we have unlocked by level, and yet on top of that there are more limits on things like size class, turrets and other stuff. I guess it can about as a knee jerk to try to address PvP balancing and multiplayer resource consumption. It also seems to be a kind of progression tier that bands tiers of build together and limits them somewhat by acquisition of rare resources. There is also mention of it trying to promote specialization. These are all IMHO different problems that should probably have different solutions. The fact that none of these limit systems seems to be working well enough on their own suggests they are all flawed and need to be re-thought and scoped properly. Maybe a bit of 'single responsibility principle' needs to be applied. So, jests aside, I cant suggest a name for this, because at this point, I cant even imagine that the developers can clearly define what this is and what its responsibilities are, never mind expect us to.
Hyper Anti-Conductive Limits, HAL When the player tries to exceed the limit, a voice says, “I am afraid I can't do that Dave”
How about an actual suggestion: DCP Device Control Points Since that's really what it's about - controlling a number of devices. Sure, for some weird reason, we've lumped blocks in there as well, but I've never built a design where one more or less block has made a difference.
I had a design where it was down to number of steel blocks - I had cpu left after functional stuff for a total of 6 blocks
