Lurkily

I think the real key is such extensive mod support. Not just textures and models; gameplay scripting, things like lighting and water mods; with the right packages, you can bring Skyrim up to modern visual standards, which is REALLY unusual. The mod library on Nexus is extensive enough to make it anything you want it to be. Enduring longevity so often comes down to having comprehensive mod support right out of the gate - unfortunately, supporting that is often an ongoing commitment from developers, which isn't always feasible, or financially responsible.

How is Skyrim so ridiculously enduring? Mind-boggling.

Honestly, you already seem to have a higher standard for sensitivity than 95% of readers and maybe 70% of editors. I'm not sure I could add much in that respect.

I've used Photoshop's timeline for animating before. It can be a bear.

This isn't an arbitrary imposition; it's an outcome of the physics. The devs have tried altering those constants - arbitrarily imposing changes - and decided that the ease of success was not interesting. All of those things have to occur within certain constraints; the physics and the setting. It sounds like you prefer the applications to be challenging, but the constraints to be forgiving. That's okay, nothing wrong with that, but I think that the intent is for both the engineering and the application of it to both be interesting and challenging.

He's not kidding. He's made some linear behemoths, even one with holes in them to make room for internal spinner turrets. Check the 'post your projects' thread somewhere, there are some videos of them in stable operation.

Merged Vernaron's post into an existing subject.

Is it year of the pig? Good animating, by the by. Was that tablet-drawn? Doesn't look like traditional media, but it varies just enough not to match up with my ideas of digital animation.

For #4 I'd rather have a more universal clipboard for copy/paste with the ability to save the clipboard as a template. You could still copy a logic module and its contents, but there's more than just logic I'd like to copy to other drones, like sub-drones and some mechanical assemblies. (Like the factory assembly that can manufacture and discard ore containers.)

There's a thought. Make us make a dancing drone. Have waypoints you have to reach, and a constricting circle ensuring you reach each checkpoint with the music, arrange them so your drone has to dance to the music, or die.

Woot! I wanna see more dance robots.

I think your issue #1 is actually a feature. The vulnerability of logic to damage is something the devs seem to appreciate; it requires both protection of your logic, and well-designed logic, if it's to be resilient to minor damage. For #4, I like the idea of a clipboard with savable templates. No matter what you implement, you'll need a way to copy and paste it, and that would also let you copy and paste mechanical assemblies and sub-drones, and . . . anything, really. The idea I like most for something like this is a little processor sub-unit that can keep a number of logic blocks in a reduced space. You still have the engineering challenge of logic whacking out if one gets destroyed, as you can't cram your whole logic structure into it, but it would reduce the space that logic occupied, and also reduce part count, would be my hope. The goal here would be to reward smart builds instead of brute-force builds in modes like Sumo. I would have to know more about what your weapon-workshop-eqsue logic setup looked like before I could really decide if it's an alternative I'd like. Currently the game's architecture is designed around providing very simple building blocks that can create very complex behavior, but can also be understood by someone unfamiliar with programming. I like that architecture a lot, and I don't think I'd like any solution that's too programmatic, like a previously-suggested scripting block, that would allow a skilled programmer to dominate any amount of time and effort by someone who couldn't code.

@Micha , (A dev,) stated in one of these threads that full rigidity was quite boring from an engineering standpoint, making it difficult to build incorrectly at all. He has said that they are looking at solutions, but that full rigidity, which they've tried in closed builds, is probably not going to be it. Multiple connections, also tried in closed builds, will also probably not be the solution they go with, based on conversations from when the closed alpha was going on. Rigid struts are one suggestion; another has been a 'chasis' layer, something that is rigid that you can connect other parts to, (but god forbid the parts protecting it take damage, and those parts take damage. Another has been having a number of cores with various configurations of rigidly connected blocks. Those last two were geared toward preserving some challenge to construction in having a requirement to protect some very critical parts. There are some ways to address this in the current build, though. For instance, instead of using linear connections, zig-zag them through the ship so that for the right side to pull away, it exerts force on the leftmost parts of the ship. If you "lace up" a ship this way, flexing has to overcome resistance from almost every connection in that part of the ship, rather than just several chains of linear connections supporting only themselves. It still very much helps rigidity to avoid long ships, though, and to distribute thrust. Good engineering can help limit the problems flexibility presents.

I have to say, the CGI is pretty well handled, except in the rabbits' "walk", and how they handled fights. I owned a rabbit, and I don't recall his faster-than-walking-slower-than-running hops being that . . . lurchy. And when rabbits attack each other, there's never any kind of visible damage. I get that they don't want to be gory in this one, and I can appreciate it, but there is literally zero indication of injury done unless someone's limping. Outside of those, I think it was handled as well as can be expected of mid-budget CGI.

I had actually assumed you had a timer on the logic for each block, to make sure bits had a chance to fall away. In any case, your logic isn't on-board anyway, (If logic gets localized, this'll need some updating,) so more gates isn't really a barrier, just a pain in the butt. Those reprints ALSO do damage to the enemy that's in the way though, yeah? My big worry would be reprints getting lodged in terrain and tangled with any broken drone bits.

I think heat does dilute into nearby parts, but fire is definitely self-sustaining and generates more heat of its' own. I did suspect it would do exactly what it's doing here. Unlike heaters, though, fire only spreads heat via direct contact, so I wasn't worried about your internals much. One solution to this might be to inhibit regen for a time; the only way I can think to do that is, for every logic block, have a switch that can mimic it's signal, to stop regen while it's on. Let the externals burn out, then turn it back on. The logic required for that could be burdensome, but it looks like you are keeping your logic elsewhere. One idea I've toyed with is a ship that can completely rebuild itself as long as the core and a factory aren't destroyed in a stage-by-stage rebuild, with each stage adding more thrusters, fuel, power, and weapons, so that it's never completely helpless unless it's nearly completely destroyed. I believe factories still don't exempt the children of factories say to start unbuilt from adding to their construction time, though, so it's not very useful right now.

I've done a few like this, but not on the same scale; one rammer used a factory-built ramming surface. Nice work there. How do they deal with fire? Is there any issue with the armor re-building and re-igniting?

Merged Vernaron's post into this one. EDIT: If you have notifications set for this forum, the notification may now incorrectly indicate that Tempvirage posted this 5 hours ago, I assume because his name is on the parent post. Vernaron's post is the recent entry.

I won't compare the Netflix Miniseries to the book - that wouldn't be fair at all - but it stands pretty well on its own two feeet. If you are trying to decide between the two, I would of course recommend the book.

I think logically, they would have to be the first step, even before customised parts. When it comes time to assign damage, you would want to apply AoE to shields, then to any armor-layer parts, (skipping anything covered by a shield,) and lastly to parts. (Skipping anything covered by a shield OR armor.) You could also apply damage bottom-up, if you want to avoid damage being able to break a shield AND damage parts beneath on a single shot, but I don't think it's a terribly important distinction. In terms of what we present to a player, or in terms of the UI, I don't think anything needs to be done. Just tell them this particular shield type can block AoE damage, and I think that's the end of the workday. My only shield concern is that the shield part's indicator be visible through customized parts. I'm not sure I like the idea of having to redesign parts and layouts just so you have visibility of your own ship's parts and indicators. I don't think combat-critical indicators should be hidden. Anything not needed for combat, you can wait for a quiet moment, and toggle visibility of that layer.

I don't see how that works though. They're in a separate layer now. If we want them to block AoE damage, then we just have them block AoE damage. I'm not sure they need to be in the cosmetic layer for that. I also feel like if the devs had wanted them to block AoE, they would be doing so already.

So I finished Watership Down on Netflix. For those of you unfamiliar with the books . . . yes, yes, it's talking rabbits. It's also a desperate exodus, it's the last hope of a dying tribe, it's battle, it's spy craft, it's a jailbreak, it's war, it's daring raids and honor and betrayal and glory and death, all wrapped in a strange, but thoroughly believable mythology. But also talking rabbits. Watch it anyway. I will offer the caveat that it might not be appropriate for younger viewers. No blood or sex or anything, but there are ruthless, uncaring rabbits in the world, and this movie doesn't shy away from depicting them. Graphically it's a PG, but emotionally it might be PG-13.

Whoops. I assumed feature requests here worked like the Nimby side of the house. Ah well. I deleted my comment.

Nice. Not a Niche player, but I like the affection you're expressing in simple lines.

Shields don't protect you from a blast, though; AoE goes right through them, which is where the suggestions for 'blast shields' come from - shields that don't stop projectiles, but just invalidate AoE damage in their range. I have a feeling shields already kind of operate in a space of their own. They already have zero interaction with physical parts; they just interdict weapon fire. As for armor and resistance balance, I have a feeling that balance is mostly a placeholder right now. I hesitate to begin suggesting how to better balance armor, because I'm not sure I've actually seen the first serious effort to balance it yet.