Builders Wishlist

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Hummel-o-War, Jun 14, 2018.

  1. Christianholmes

    Christianholmes Captain

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    This is literally all I want. Make Mass actually equal to size and density, Ammo boxes have realistic amounts of ammo storage (give shells physical sizes and limit it that way). Thrusters require TONS of fuel to move mass, especially in gravity, SV wings have rudimentary aerodynamic lift, etc, and then throw it at us.

    20 turrets on a CV? So heavy it will barely get off the ground with light armor, and hardly be able to carry ammo. Maybe as a lumbering space hulk that is confined to space. Works just fine as a space station! Which SHOULD be heavily armed.

    SVs can be small and maneuverable, and lightly armed- or slightly more armed and slower.

    The entire design of everything would be completely shaped by the rules of physics (obviously having quite a bit of consideration for science fiction), but absolutely no artificial restraints.
     
    #101
  2. dichebach

    dichebach Captain

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    Totally agree. It kills the game when you are playing along and run into one of these arbitrary, artificial boundaries that exist for, who knows what reason: maybe to keep PVP players happy, I don't know?

    I started a thread:
    https://empyriononline.com/threads/separate-multi-player-and-single-player-rule-sets.39046/
     
    #102
  3. Pyston

    Pyston Captain

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    To be fair guys, its not just pvp were we need restrictions on ships, PVE needs rules to follow as well.

    There HAS to be a baseline if for any reason at all, the workshop. Everything needs to be built to a standard set of rules, or else you risk losing functionality in one of the games greatest assets, the player made workshop submissions.

    Secondly. Content has to be consumed (content in this example meaning raiding a POI) at a somewhat reasonable rate. If you allow players to make giant ships with nothing but guns coating them, these vehicles can go in and obliterate a POI in no time, consuming content very quickly.

    I personally think we are allowed TOO MANY guns on our ships right now. At least GUN TYPES. I think we should be limited to 2 types on an SV. Rocket (AOE) weapons, and single target (minigun, railgun). This would allow for more specific ship types. There are too many "one size fits all" ships in the game and frankly it makes ships feel homogenized.

    Same with HV's. If it has drills, then no harvesting modules. Same with weapons.

    The more stuff I build, the more I realize that we are making the same things over and over, rehashed builds in different shapes. I think it would be healthy if we had reason to build more task specific vehicles.

    I could see increasing the gun amount on a vehicle (for that given gun type) based on some form of material/weight/class calculation. I do think giant CV's could use more guns, but smaller CV's could use less.

    Maybe they could use the current class size calculation minus polygons and lights to determine the "size" of a ship and what it is able to carry.

    There has to be a cost/benefit/risk/reward factor built in and right now there really isn't on some smaller ships that have all the guns and the speed and some durability.

    In the end I can see all of your arguments to allow players to build more freely, but this leads to soft exploitation of the game. In building games hard rules need to be set or the building will absolutely be abused.
     
    #103
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  4. dichebach

    dichebach Captain

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    Computational Units

    Agree that building ridiculously enormoous 100 gun ships should be "impractical." But that is not the same thing as simply assigning an arbitrary limit.
     
    #104
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  5. Xorg78

    Xorg78 Ensign

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    Honestly, i completely disagree with you.

    If you want this kind of challenges, go play Space engineers. You will have mass, thrust, oxygen, physics, anything you want....

    As it is now, for me, empyrion ship building is fun. If you add all the / some constraints as they are present in space engineers, the fun will go.

    That doesn't mean i don't want more complexity but i would rather have custom information on LCD, automation processes, autopilot than physics....

    Don't forget also that this will take a huge toll on the engine....
     
    #105
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  6. Christianholmes

    Christianholmes Captain

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    No it won't. The reason space engineers is so laggy is because of physical collisions. Not asking for that, just better physics for ship handling.

    It's s survival sandbox game. We don't need conveyor belts.
     
    #106
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  7. Christianholmes

    Christianholmes Captain

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    You're the anti-christ lol

    But if you understand what I'm saying, why the hell would you want less guns? You don't seem to understand that if there were PHYSICS involved, you don't need artificial restraints. You couldn't put 20 guns on a ship, because each gun weighs 3 tons, the ammo weighs 100lbs per shell, the fuel weighs a ton, etc but you can only put enough engines to generate enough thrust to get it in the air. Too many guns, or too much ammo, or armor too heavy and it won't get off the ground. A bigger ship can have more guns, but needs more engines and more fuel, and will be less maneuverable.

    So ship designs would be based on requirements. No artificial classes. Fighter? Small, nimble, lightly armored. Transport? no weapons, cargo space, big engines, not manueverable. Gunship- armor, a few weapons, big engines, no cargo, powerful engines, eats fuel so short range.

    And then you'd have all kinds of types of HV, CV, and bases built by requirements.

    Right now, it's just roleplaying. Anything can do anything. It's just corny. A heavily armed SV can carrying unlimited cargo, and you can put gobs of weapons and heavy armor on the front to protect it- will NO ill handling affects.
     
    #107
  8. SoCalExile

    SoCalExile Captain

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    With turrets, they could add "internals" under the actual turret that add to the size of the module, and have a risk of critical explosion or damage. Also, ammo boxes could have a requirement of being X boxes away from the turrets they are servicing, or be integrated into the turret internals.


    Then add fire control, aka Cpu usage that adds additional weight and replaces what could've been armor.

    Then make armor very costly in weight and mass.

    Then add an internal structure block that effectively creates the framework in order to maintain SI.

    Then have the mass of all docked ships effect the weight and balance of the carrier ship - while removing the docking limits between classes of ships. It should be up to us what class and role the ships we want to build can fill.
     
    #108
  9. Pyston

    Pyston Captain

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    If you read my post again you will see that we are on the same page.
     
    #109
  10. Pyston

    Pyston Captain

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    Re-read my post, I am not suggesting we impost a a fixed limit, but rather a limit based on some form of ship calculation (CU). What I am against is taking the current game and removing limits.

    If we base turret amount on CU and this happens in the same update, I am all for it. I just don't want to see restrictions removed without any other form of balance introduced.
     
    #110
  11. Pyston

    Pyston Captain

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    I was thinking about tools and what would be nice to have.
    A GUI element for replaceblocks in creative. My issue is needing to downgrade blocks sometimes. I usually start building with the highest block durability (combat or hardened) and then change blocks out in the interior in less critical areas when I am close to completion to reduce cost/weight. The issue now is having to remove the block and then retexture it. It would be nice if we had a way to select the block, or a number of them with the selection tool and downgrade the block.
     
    #111
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  12. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    Odd isn't it, how much scifi has become reality. ;)
     
    #112
  13. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    Or upgrade as the case may be. Sometimes I mess up and use the wrong block or two or a dozen and then have to go remove all the incorrect blocks one by one and replace, one by one. Not that I mind not mirroring (I do prefer placing each block) but when you have a whole mess of blocks you have to replace it gets tedious. :mad:

    Tedious is never enjoyable. Kind of like trying to build a flyer in PN that goes faster than 12 mph. That is only 2 mph faster than the speed limit in my mobile home park! Yes, I like slow so I can observe what's going on on the planet's surface as I'm mapping so I don't land in a nest of overpowered armored gorillas but that is ridiculously slow for just going to a mapped area to continue mapping on the other side. :rolleyes:

    Whoever came up with the idea of cross breeding gorillas and armadillos should be turned into speed bumps. :p
     
    #113
  14. Xorg78

    Xorg78 Ensign

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    Okay, so i'm not sure which game you are referring to as there are no conveyor belts in SE... There are conveyors all right but no belts...

    The reason the game is so laggy is that the engine was not built for that...probably as empyrion engine is not....

    I'm sorry i misunderstood what you wrote but when i saw "The entire design of everything would be completely shaped by the rules of physics" well, i guess that's error inducing...
     
    #114
  15. zztong

    zztong Rear Admiral

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    I think it would be nice to be able to associate a sound with any block. This could be used by POI designers to create more ambiance. Obviously there would have to be some limitations. Sounds files would have to come with the game. A limited number of sounds should be able to play at a time. Common configuration settings might be the volume, range, perhaps signal triggers, repeat or not, wait time if repeat, and probably more.
     
    #115
  16. Siege Inc.

    Siege Inc. Rear Admiral

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    Updating my wishlist:

    Symmetry: Some blocks/textures/items/paint still aren't working correctly with the symmetry tool. Some were broken in new and interesting ways in the last couple updates.

    2nd hotbar: I'm constantly switching out what components are on my hotbar. Having a second one would help greatly.

    Unlimited blocks in creative mode: Another thing is that I'm constantly having to load up on more blocks.

    Better copy/paste functionality. Ability to save/store selected sections and use those on other builds: If I build something....a ship's bridge, an engine room, a thruster pod and it turns out really cool I might like to use that on another build. Being able to build a library of parts that I can paste into other builds would be very useful.

    ALSO with regards to copy/paste the widget for adjusting your selection needs to stay front and center on the screen so that I can fully see what I'm working on and the widget at the same time. Frequently they're hovering on the edges of my screen so what I'm working on is on the left while the widget is off to the right at some angle that makes clicking on it difficult and it's hard to see both at the same time, especially when the UI is partially obscuring the widget. I'm also constantly having to look for it after adjusting my position.


    Is it possible to make LCD screens survive the copy/paste process? I'd like that. :p:oops:

    Also motion sensors integrated with lights, ramps, and doors.
     
    #116
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2018
  17. Siege Inc.

    Siege Inc. Rear Admiral

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    I'm thinking for weapons and defenses the number you can field should be determined by the amount of power you can throw at it for one.

    Right now it's too easy to get a lot of power. You go from small generators at level 3 with a 2.5 mw output to T1 at level 10 with a 50 mw output to the T2 generators at level 15 with a 500 mw output. They're not that big or expensive so you can stack a bunch of them. Power generation quickly becomes a non-issue.

    I'd add more types of generators with smaller increases in power to make it scale more smoothly and increase the size of the generators as they get more powerful. For 500 mw I'd expect the power plant to be *much* larger in size.

    Have the tech unlock progress something like
    Level 2: small gen 2.5 mw
    Level 7: medium gen 9 mw
    level 12: large gen 20 mw
    level 20: T1 gen 50mw
    level 30: T2 gen 150mw
    level 40:T3 gen 250mw
    level 50:T4 gen 500mw

    Then provide different size weapons, small, medium, large, XL, etc. Bigger size does more damage but draws more power so you're not sticking the larger weapons on a small ship. Add in other components too....shields, etc. Then tightly balance power generation versus consumption(balance thruster output versus fuel consumption better while you're at it too). Make players decide what they want. Do they want a small nimble craft with less powerful weapons or a big, ponderous battleship.

    Right now it's too easy to have it all.
     
    #117
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2018
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  18. Badomen

    Badomen Lieutenant

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    MORE TEXTURES PLEASE! Concrete and steel blocks could use more options. Options from diversity is important. It can change the entire game appearance and to some, appearance is everything. It would be a simple upgrade too because making tiled textures is easy. I know because I make them.
     
    #118
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  19. vxsote

    vxsote Commander

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    I'll second the suggestion for more realistic SI (and have posted about that specifically in the past). There are a number of other suggestions I hit the like button on as well.

    I would like a creative building environment where lighting and shadows didn't get in the way. I used to build CVs in space, but that was a lightning nightmare. Now I build CVs on a planet, but constantly have to reset the time to ~noon.

    Part of the problem is that the lighting in this game borders on the ridiculous (which I've also posted about in the past). But that doesn't necessarily have to be fixed to make building easier. Just give us a debug feature that sets fixed ambient lighting, or something like that.

    On the other hand, if the lighting WAS made better, it could be a much more immersive of an experience (and also viable in MP/survival games) to build a giant shipyard with lots of spotlights, etc.

    Next, I saw a few mentions of alternatives for 3D modeling. I know some folks have hacked at the blueprint files and worked on tools to convert .stl files to blueprints. It would be very cool to have some sort of official tool with that functionality. Specifically, it would be great to be able to create a complicated 3D shape in a proper CAD program, then convert that to voxels each containing the best-matched hull block shape, and export as a blueprint. Much like a slicer for 3D printing, but calculating voxels instead of tool paths and wring blueprints instead of G-code.

    Along with that, it would be nice to have documentation of the blueprint format, or even an API for manipulating it. This obviously wouldn't help your average builder, but could allow interested parties to create useful tools that might.
     
    #119
  20. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    When you build in creative you can stop time from advancing. Just hit Esc, then click the last icon (far right on the bar) and set the slider to 0 (zer0). You can also set the time of day using the top slider.
     
    #120
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