Everything you said is true. But my basic argument, which I haven't made clearly, is this: Volume limits are not easily modeled, in the way mass is. If something doesn't fit in the box, you don't put it in a box. You don't have to tightly close a box's lid. You can lay stuff around randomly. You can tie things to the side. Sure, you have to manually go get it when you need it, but you can do this. You don't need to actually build a box to store everything in. In Alpha 8, the arbitrary restriction that "stuff has to be in a box" was there. But it didn't matter, because boxes held a lot, only limited by slots. Now, boxes hold far less, and suddenly, the fact that you are being limited by volume, even when the ship clearly has storage space (like a vast hangar), is more of a problem. And we have no other ways to store stuff - we can't lay stuff on the floor, etc. I typically used multiple boxes to store different types of stuff. What I am finding is that this is now somewhere between difficult and impossible. Because the old cargo boxes have little storage space, so you need to use the new ones. But separate sets of cargo controller+extension blocks cannot touch each other, they must be separated by an entire block size. So if you want to do something like I did before, like have a storage for each material type, it becomes impractical. The "new way" is to basically lump all storage together, or at least have very few cargo areas. I do understand that having volume in addition to mass can prevent certain "unrealistic scenarios" like loading an entire salvaged POI into a little HV. But I just think having per-container volume is kind of a mess. It blows up nearly all blueprints, many long-term players don't like it, and I think the user base's strong rejection of it could lead to a bad place. I did have another idea on how to simplify, but not abandon, volume limits, which I'd like to put out there for consideration. First, assume that we have cargo mass/weight. I am not arguing against that, and I don't think that's the big problem. If we have that, what is the problem that is being solved by having volume limits, in addition to mass? Well, I think it is just the idea that a small vehicle should not be able to carry an entire disassembled POI, a small base should not be able to contain enough material to build a base 10X its size, and so on. Isn't that really the problem to be solved? Do we really care about exactly how much fits into each box, or do we just care that a small vehicle or structure should not be able to carry an unrealistic amount of material? I think it is the latter. With that in mind then, here is my proposal to "fix" volume: Keep the volume property for individual items (how much space they take up). Remove the concept of a capacity for an individual cargo box. Remove the concept of a cargo box extension. Every structure will have a maximum amount of stuff it can contain, which is proportional to the size of the structure. It could be just WxHxD, or the number of blocks in the structure, or the number of blocks plus the amount of internal space. The calculation isn't important, the key is just "bigger vehicle/base can hold more", and "tiny HV can't loot entire base". You can store as much stuff as you want inside a structure, up to the maximum limit for that structure. It does not matter what box it is in, the box is basically just a controller - it is used to access contents managed by that controller. What does this solve? Larger vehicles/bases can store more stuff than smaller ones, which is the need for the system. It does not require blowing up all existing blueprints to introduce these volume limits, many of them will still work as is. Some blueprints may need bigger thrusters or more space. It does not worry about whether stuff actually fits in a box, on top of it, next to it, in the hangar, inside the wall or floor, or whatever. It is just "stored somewhere". Why is it a believable solution? The block-based design of Empyrion would suggest that walls and floors contain storage. Empty space can also be used as storage. Something that is just based on structure size takes this into account. No one really cares about where individual items are actually stored: in a box, on the floor, strapped on the roof, or anything else. A cargo controller is just an interface to stored items, where they are is irrelevant. If the logistics system can be used to transfer items between two boxes directly, then why does it matter what the individual storage capacity of each box is? If I put something into a box on floor 1, but there's no space, it should just stick it somewhere on floor 2, remember where it put it, and when I need it, give it to me. The fact it put it on floor 2 is something I shouldn't care about. I gave it to box 1, said "store this", and I come back later and get it. Other related things to address: I don't see a point to volume limits for personal inventory, it should use weight instead. Weight = Mass times acceleration due to gravity. Thus, you can carry more on lower gravity worlds; moreover there's not really a limit in space (although your jetpack would be slower depending on the mass, much like a ships thrust is reduced by mass). Fridges have storage capacity also. I think storage capacity of fridges should be per-fridge, not pooled. I don't think fridges need extension blocks, how much refrigerated goods do you really need? They just need to decrease volume of food and increase capacity of fridges. Possibly add larger fridges (maybe one that is 2 blocks wide), particularly for SV/HV. But for base/CV, I have fridges full of food and the capacity is totally reasonable now. Ammo is like fridges - storage capacity is per box, and is plenty. Ammo isn't that big, small/large ammo boxes are fine as-is. Turrets can pull from any ammo box, so no real need for controller/extension system, just plop down multiple boxes.
Not sure if this is the right post, but it is closely related. If I look to the new container system, where (eventually) the ammount of stuff you can store there is determined by the volume, I find that one other thing should be taken into concideration if it is not already. Let's say I want to store a bunch of ammo for my faction. It does not matter how many extenders I put behind the controler, it only gives me 64 spots/stacks to put things. My thinking is that if volume is the limitation factor, the stack size should become irrelevant and thus made as large as possible. You probably would need to install a system where you could take a certain amount from a stack. But that would make life a lot easier from a storage perspective. then you would really get scalable space that is determined by volume....
And this is exactly what my proposal allows for: effectively dropping of items virtually anywhere on a structure (including "strapped" to the outside of the hull). Yeah, it's an unfortunate side-effect of the way the devs decided to do modular storage. In particular, it doesn't make sense that CCs can't be placed next to each other if they aren't going to share CEs. One problem with this approach is that it means that cargo is essentially not attackable. Well, depending on one's point of view, perhaps some might consider this a good thing (I don't, personally). The other problem is that if every block stores cargo, then there's no reason to build dedicated cargo areas, and a ship with layers of armor is effectively a cargo ship without almost any effort. This also moves away from the idea that the way a ship is built determines what it's good for and how it performs. Also, this system would make it possible to effectively double the storage volume of a particular part of a structure by docking a ship inside it, and filling both the structure and the ship with material (an issue which would only get worse if docking mechanics were actually redone, and one could have a chain of docked ships sitting inside each other). However, I agree that it would be nice to be able to access the combined storage volume of a structure without having to explicitly worry about the underlying storage arrays (if you don't actually care where items are going to/coming from). Combined with the ability to filter and sort items, this would allow you to store only certain items in certain storage arrays, but access any item in any storage array seamlessly, all without having to fiddle in the logistics interface. As always, the showstopper for this is concurrent inventory access.
I have to say, In my experience back packing and packing a bug out bag. Is that I seem more likely with most things If I smartly pack I am more likely to run out of space in my knapsack then I am to get close to my conferrable weight limit, let alone my Practical weight limit. Same with the truck of my car, or the bed of any pickup truck I own
Well, I think that cargo can be said to "belong" to whatever box it was assigned to and blowing up that box makes the cargo go away, or get kicked out of the box into a drop container. The current system of controllers & extension blocks doesn't really seem better in that respect, they don't really model which items are in which block.
This game is clearly never thing to be finished. The failure to keep things simple has created a technical nightmare that they will never be able to work around. There's ways of making fun games that focus on what's important. The devs definitely don't understand that concept. Want to make specialized ships? Have cores only hold a specific value of items, and assign ship components a value. Want players to only hold a certain amount of stuff? Use stack limits. Want ships to handle differently according to their weight? Make armored blocks heavier and impact ship speeds and turning compared to light blocks. If this all sounds familiar, it's the solutions to design problems found in many other games that value good gameplay and performance, over any attempt at b.s. realism that can never ever ever ever be achieved.
I think that's something they have in mind With CPUs where the core you use will determine the out of equipment that core can support, or maybe using a Modular system like the new cargo boxes... other games limit what you can carry some yes a cell type lets which works for them most of the time if the stack sizes are kept small enough, 7days to die does it this way but that in its self can add complications as you should be able to stack small items more the large items. I can carry more 9mm rounds in the same size space then I can shotgun slugs. I can carry more iron Ingots in the same size space then I can hunks of iron ore. Space engineers uses Volume limits, where as Conan exiles uses a weight/Encumbrance system. of those I find the Volume limits to be a bet more realistic. as I noted before with experience back packing and packing a bug out back if I pack intelligently I run out of space in my nap sack long before I reach my conferrable weight limit. but regardless of the system used there will always be advantages and disadvantages to them. With the cell system it is not as simple as you seem to think it is as each item needs type needs a deferent stack size. a volume system run into issues with small heavy items remember my bullet example? they don't take up much room but get heavy quick. weight based systems run into issues with balky light items. IE stone vs feathers. as for ships built for roles I would like to see more of that, and see a reason to build them other then size limits and cost. like maybe some weapons having a point defense role, pulse laser and mini gun trruts would be ideal for this with maybe a flak gun ore missile turrets to deal with those pesky SV's and then you could build a ship whos whole reason for living is to screen a larger vessel supporting it with Anti-missile as well as keeping the SV's at bay
a few solid hours of playing with the current limits in place. In the beginning the limits didn't matter too much. I found the beginning spot with the starter mines nearby and plopped down my portable constructor to be used as a temporary storage container. I know that the portable constructor will be changed in time, probably like the other constructors and use your own inventory. I then built another one to carry with me. This brings me to my first bit of feedback for the devs: Portable Storage. That tent that we start the game with would actually work pretty well. Stuff things in the tent and add it to the logistics menu that the Portable Constructor is going to be eventually tied to. Make the tent destroyable so people don't start using them as base storage. It would also make them useful in multi-player. Next up I built a bike and started mining the nearby ores. I had to make a couple trips on the bike back to the "storage" constructor but it wasn't bad. Constructor started making materials for some newly modified (to fit the new rules) personal base. This base is made of wood and is fairly low level (lvl 5 iirc). Similar to a prefab but laid out more to my liking. This brings me to my second point for the devs. I'm sure the blueprint factory will get added to the logistics at some point. It needs to be because building stuff for a blueprint is entirely too painful even for low level stuff. I had to transfer stuff to my inventory and then into the factory from there. This required opening the constructor, then the factory, then the constructor, then the factory, etc. Got my crappy wooden base up with it's crappy solar arrays and started working on making ammo for the gun. I knew the drones were going to start coming soon. Sure enough I haven't even finished building ammo and they are on their way. Dealt with them fairly quickly and started looking at what I needed to build a starter HV. realizing that I need promethium I decided to just do some motorcycle exploring to see if I could find some. a good while later I finally found one that wasn't in Polaris territory (I don't want to piss them off just yet). Mined up some promethium and took it back to my base. I decided, partly because I had not been able to find any iron nearby, to melt down the "small wreckage" and "wreckage" that are always near the crash site with my newly minted multi-tool. Now we get to some serious frustration. I can't carry more than a couple large steel blocks and I'm nowhere near my base. Advice to the devs: add a checkbox to tie the multi-tool to the blueprint factory (thus bypassing inventory). Otherwise the multi-tool is fairly useless for collecting material. Large end-game blueprints will be impossible to build without something like this added in. I assume that something like this is in the works as one cannot use the multi-tool "pack down" a large item (like a large constructor) anymore. It doesn't fit in personal inventory. Maybe toggles for logistics (melt down item and put in specific container) or just straight to the blueprint factory. After much frustration I managed to build my starter HV. Carrying fuel was going to be annoying too. The fuel volume was huge. It's a starter HV so it's not a gas-hog but some of the end game HV's really are. much of my available storage, which is a controller and two extensions, was devoted to spare fuel. I realized that building spare fuel tanks may be more advantageous than cargo storage. A point the devs should consider about fuel. Fuel volume should likely be reduced. Fuel is made from promethium pellets that I am assuming is burned by the generator to create electricity. It stands to reason that this would not be so voluminous and weight would be a larger concern. Otherwise vehicles are going to start getting trashed out in the field as fuel reserves run out far too quickly. Now that I'm more mobile I did some exploring and found a couple of "alien structures" to loot. So, first thing I noticed is that these alien containers have volume just like any other containers. The stuff that was in these containers was WAAAAY over the limit. One had a CV warp drive in it and the number at the bottom of the logistics screen looked a bit silly. Since there was no way for me to pull it out of the container (except to throw it on the ground) I left it there. This brings me to my next point. I was able to open the storage container on my HV wirelessly while in inside the Alien Structure. I transferred a couple of things that I couldn't fit but most things I left behind. I realized that I could only fit them if I parked a CV nearby with enough storage capacity. No HV was ever going to be able to haul some of the things in this tiny structure. CV's on planets are fairly expensive fuel-wise and require a lot more resources to build. However, for looting structures they are going to start being the vehicle of choice purely for storage capacity. In fact, I see a few bare-bones CV "haulers" in the future workshop if this isn't remedied. Now, as for a my experience with it I think the devs should consider tiered storage. This is already a sci-fi game so things like portable dimensional storage (thing Whovian "bigger on the inside" tech) would fit nicely. Low level storage containers don't have a lot of volume. T2 (and T3, etc) modular storage could multiply the storage levels. To make it easy to use only the controller needs to be replaced. That way once a certain level was reached simply swap out the controller using the "upgrade" feature of the multi-tool and now storage is "bigger." I strongly suggest adding "capacity" armor mods of some sort. Maybe a high-level inventory tool that allows certain storage containers to be accessed beyond wireless range. Even a "drop-ship" style drone that followed you around and carried stuff for you but that you had to protect from getting shot down by enemies. Perhaps something like a Bethesda style follower NPC hired to follow you and carry stuff. If nothing else, allow for carrying more at the cost of stamina. I really like where this is going. To appease the people crying about it throughout this thread add a switch to turn volume to Easy, Moderate, Hard and Off. This will make for more interesting styles of gameplay as far as logistics and the crybab... er... um... "creative people" that don't want to deal with physics can turn it off. I assume that's what's on the agenda anyway since all of the other limitations that have been added to the game are toggled in the new game start menu.
I deleted my original post because I took a fresh look at the volumes and weight limits and even the CPU limits. Although I still think casual players may not find them entertaining BUT even in their current form it doesn't stop me from building what I would like but it's just a lot of extra steps. It requires more planning and thinking if you're going to be a super fast SV or a huge mega Capital ship. I know the volume limits and weight limits aren't set in stone yet and the CPUs limits are not ready yet but I was surprised that my biggest ship was only over the CPU limit by a 100 points. I deleted one RCS and I was back under the limit. I see where Elon is going where this and it's going to be interesting to where thos goes. So I guess the CPU limit is going to replace the Class system?
No, because "Eleon's class size is a server performance rating, *not* a measure of a ship's combat performance or size or mass, and should never have game mechanics tied to it." The CPU system, on the other hand, is intended to force tradeoffs among the various capabilities of a ship by imposing a soft cap on an abstract control resource (CPU). I say soft cap because (at least in the CU system that I proposed) there should be devices that increase CPU at the cost of consuming volume, mass, and power; in addition, the CPU granted by each additional such device is sublinear with the number of devices, to prevent balance issues with extremely large ships. I feel like a lot of people have been unnecessarily frightened by the apparent fixed amount of CPU available and the current CPU requirements for various devices. Don't be; the system isn't remotely finished yet (it's as incomplete in CA builds as it is in exp builds).
The way i see freedom mode is like an extended testmode version of creative mode. It could also be a more action oriented gamemode without the long grind of a survival mode, just getting straight to action so to speak. I personally like options. Being able to configure a game to your own personal likings is a huge plus in my opinion. The base should be the middle ground with options to set to make it either more difficult, more realistic but also the other direction easier and more futuristic. That is why i think volume and weight should be two different modes of cargoweight. While mass/weight can be a list with detailed informations about content, the volume based system would be a perfect model for slot based cargo, varying in slot- and stack size. While weight gives people something to calculate, a slot based system is more intuitive for people that like to focus on other things. If you mix both you get what happend in ARK earlier in alpha: the big storage box hat a maximum slot and a weight limit. Which makes no sense, after putting in 200 iron ore the storage box had 24 slots left and was full, with two stacks. That didn't felt right and got changed.... rightfully so. There needs to be different systems our there. The simulation player and the spreadsheet in space eve type of players are only a small minority and do not represent todays average player. And Empyrion has the potential to please more than just one group by giving options.
Right, but it's still not clear to me that we need Freedom Mode if Survival Mode is going to be completely configurable. The benefit of having few configuration options for straight Survival Mode is that everyone will experience the same set of game mechanics, which makes it much easier to test and balance all the game mechanics (difficulty could change settings within each game mechanic, but all mechanics would still be present and active). Freedom Mode should come with a bunch of (possibly community-chosen) presets that will get players into the type of game that they'd like to play faster. The thing that I think we now agree on is that the devs should not assume that everyone wants to play with all mechanics enabled all the time (after all, I spend quite a bit of time in Creative Mode myself). But I do think there is great utility in having a game mode that provides the same experience to all players and showcases all of the mechanics that the devs have implemented.
This is something I created to show what sort of design the current volume system is encouraging: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1601387846 Notice that its still massively overpowered even when full. You can add more containers but it would still be overpowered. This sort of design is begging to be an HV or an SV rather than a CV, but those can't carry other vehicles. Next I'll try making a high capacity combo miner/barge HV with drills to see if it's possible to make a controllable miner that's also very heavy. With the current game mechanics CVs are no longer necessarily capital ships which sort of defeats the original idea of a CV. I wish CVs would go back to being space-only with SVs able to carry at least HVs down to a planet.
I view them more like this: https://developer.arm.com/technologies/big-little Volume is naturally going to push players toward efficient solutions for bulk transfer. A "CV" with scaled-up Hovers (both in height/range and even moreso the power consumption) would be much more of a power hog than a traditional HV, but allow players to combine more into one vessel--with fewer blocks, and thus better game performance.
Volume and weight limits are really fun, now I must plan what to take when I assault poi. What I notice: - Constructor don't accept volume of output-container, there is no limit for it. - There is no volume for Capacitor (Solar) Question : How to incerese only HVEngineForce for HoverThruster in config.ecf file ? 15 kN is not enough How to enable Weight in Creative mode ?
+1 Just give them a long despawn time and they will work) I do agree that it needs to be connected, but have you tried using logistic/virtual toolbar instead of your own inventory? Just for info, tier 0a prefab runs (flies, whatever ) from 30 units of fuel for 2 hours! Add a couple boxes, couple biofuel cans, turn off 'engines' when stationary and you are good to go for mining trip. Alternative for Arid: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1537336634 P.S. A shame we can't add capacitor and charge HV from BA You actually can build an HV with such storage capacity, but CEs are power hogs at the moment( Strongly depends onto CV size, a single S thruster can lift around 400t of cargo, so it is possible to build relatively small CV. Also don't forget to turn thrusters off while landed. Already built one - cheap, planetary (but warp engine actually might fit, haven't tried it) and almost bare-bones, why new designs are a problem? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1593180362 From my point of view it is wrong when workshop is litered with huge CVs that creators say are fit to be a 'starter vessel', even relatively small Polaris (aka tier 2 in library) is considered a starter in A8 yet it can last you 'forever'. From my point of view 'starter CV' supposed to be a cheap CV you use to reach the moon and carry a miner along P.S. Workshop support by itself needs a bit more love - it takes a while to find lighter vessels among all those designs. Try to lift a huge block of foam concrete and move around with it - it is light, but it certainly not possible to run with it due to sheer size. There is no limit to ability to add extensions at bases, but it is not pointless - you either have to put those blocks above ground and risk losing them to drones or you actually have to dig to make storage. Well, planes do pack staff, otherwise rough trip might damage something. So do shipment companies. In Empyrion case boxes are just a bit more fixed. I really hope they will not simply replace power need with CPU need for containers... mass is a good limit on its own Offtopic: Check out Hellion and how it works there) And how multiple controllers are supposed to distinguish which part is their own? That would be really nice.
One thing that really bothers me now: I need more 'temporary' vessels early/midgame-> I need to scrap them later and scraping is extremely bothersome, so I have couple husks around my base. Can repair station support deconstruction please? Bugs: - Toolbar not always there when blueprint screen is open - Picking up stack of items ex: 25 fusion sells, picks none even with free inventory - Sometimes moving items to inventory doesn work. Inventory was free, tried t move 6 cells, but volume indicator started to flash. P.S. CEs require 10 power each?!! Why?!! Aren't volume and mass limiting enough by themself? This will just result in CV-cargo boxes around base instead of HV ones.
Your design doesn't actually perform very well under full load; the mass displayed in the stats panel is misleading because inventory mass isn't yet active, so the mass of the cargo isn't included. If you actually add the mass of the cargo to the mass of the ship, you'll find that the ship only gets just under 7 m/s^2 acceleration (not enough to get off most planets).
My suggestion was just that cargo boxes basically work as before - you put something into Box A, you come back later and it is in Box A. Before 9.0, it was assumed to be "in the box". But we don't know that it was all actually inside that particular box, or in the wall, or on top of the box, or anything else. So it would work as before, except there is a pooled volume limit for the entire ship, which is based not on how many cargo boxes you have, but on the overall size of the structure. That way you do not need to worry about separating cargo boxes or building extensions. One of the things I really dislike about the new system is that cargo controllers/extensions can't touch each other, but must be separated by an entire block width. I used to have cargo areas that had stacks of boxes, each containing a different type of thing. The new "meta" is basically that you should have one giant cargo area with everything dumped in it in a disorganized jumbled mess. There's no ability to sort things, the constructor can't have multiple inputs or outputs. Building a significant number of separate cargo areas in a CV or base can waste a lot of space, due to the separation requirements. Pooling the volume would fix that, while still keeping the overall volume limit for a structure. Using the number of blocks in a structure for the pooled volume limit would allow old blueprints to still work, while still putting a volume limit that scales with the size of ship. I'm not really worried about updating my blueprints, but I think so many of them will become obsolete that the workshop will become a graveyard of ships and bases that really don't work well with the new system, and because a lot of people don't like the system, and some players are leaving the game, they won't get updated. This could hurt the game experience for new players. I would be hesitant to spend a lot of time updating blueprints considering that the system is likely to change further, at a minimum because the volumes aren't really set right yet.
Ok, it doesn't really need to be that loaded though. I just kept adding container extenders until it was fleshed out. The thing I found myself doing when I first started, before leaving the starter planet but after getting a working HV miner, is riding around mining out like 6 ore deposits before I returned to my "base" HV. So I was trying to figure out how I would still do that with volume and mass limitations in place. Maybe it's still possible to do this with an HV but the HV design is going to get much harder to get right and the handling will be worse. Anyway Iit should hold at least that many of the small/medium deposits on the starter planet. But the bigger problem with reproducing my first mining excursions is the lack of neodymium and sathium at that point. To get the materials needed for even a minimal ore and miner hauling CV will require taking out and salvaging probably 4 POIs (that many mostly to get the neodymium because it's still kind of a rare drop). I haven't yet tried to build a high capacity mining HV that would hold 6 starter planet ore deposits yet, nor have I checked to see if turning the ore into ingots on the fly reduces the volume and mass significantly.
