Brief Wishlist: Factory Block Options, Collection Module Issue, Directional Sensor Options, etc.

[sniggyfigbat]

Dear Devs,

To start with, I'd just like to state how much I'm enjoying Nimbatus. It's fucking great; the systems are deep and complex, and both Sumo and mission-based modes provide a range of challenges that forces me to exploit those systems in interesting and thought-requiring ways. I'm only slightly resentful that you suckered me in with a neat-looking game about spaceships, and without realising it I've now spent 13 hours on complex binary logic gates and autonomous robotics. 😉

The following are features I would really appreciate, several of which have directly limited my designs in a non-interesting/unenjoyable way. I'm sure several of them have come up before and others are no doubt already on the development roadmap, but I thought it easier to just put everything in one list for you to ignore at your leisure than to search through every post ever made in this forum.

So, order of realistic to fanciful:

• Factory Part start-unspawned option: Factory Parts are awesome, arguably the coolest feature in the game (and that's stiff competition!). However, they suffer from a rather annoying limitation, and that is that they always spawn pre-triggered. This means that multiple Factory Parts cannot use the same launch position, which gets annoying very quickly. The mining subdrone pictured here, for example, would be far more elegant and effective if I could spawn the cargo-return pods as needed in the same central slot, however because the outputs of Factory Parts come pre-spawned they cannot overlap, and I therefore have to have three separate pods. Similarly, a mothership hanger with multiple attack-drone types would be awesome, but the same hangar cannot currently be used by multiple outputs. This would be very easy to fix (just adding a check-box would be fine), but would greatly increase my options for complex recursive systems.
• Collected resources flow into factory parts: This one may be a bug, I'm not sure. At the moment, collected crystals flow into tanks owned by connected, pre-spawned, Factory Part assemblies, but not connected, subsequently-spawned assemblies. This inconsistency of behaviour is clearly a bug, but I'd ask it be fixed so that all still-connected factory part assemblies can receive resources, rather than none.
  • A means of pumping resources between tanks would be a nice addition, too. Hell, just more resource handling generally would add interesting design considerations; energy/fuel-intensive refining and so on.
• Closest Enemy sensor option: It'd be really nice if the Directional Sensor could detect the closest enemy, perhaps within a limited radius or something. I realise this is a pretty powerful ability, and might require some added constraints to balance it (power draw, perhaps? A separate detection-area module?), but the lack of something like this realistically limits automated combat options; Distance Sensors just aren't viable for it.
  • I'd also really like the ability to track resource deposits with this, and a similar detection option for Distance Sensors.
  • A means of detecting meteors/projectiles would be helpful, although maybe OP. At the moment I have to rely on Factory Parts building disposable Whipple Shields, and it renders Energy Shields something of a sideline.
• Better tag handling: Tags are essentially the only way to build anything complex, and the interface is a bit rough. Some really helpful QoL features would be:
  • Copy-pasting tags: Need I say more? Bad programmers type. Good programmers reuse.
  • Find/replace tag in selected blocks: At least three or four of my thirteen in-game hours have been spent creating multiple copies of the same logic blocks with very slightly different tags. Please let me find and replace tags within the selected hierarchy. Please. Pretty please. With a cherry on top.
• Numeric values: Honestly, this is a game design decision and I can absolutely see why you've taken the route you have, but having the ability to pass variables beyond booleans would be really nice. It is a massive can of worms, though.
• More logistic limitations: Purely a directional request, this, but I'd like more limitations on my fuel/energy use for complex systems. Some kind of extraction/refining/consumption loop for bigger, more complex constructions would be an interesting challenge.

Anyway, if any of the devs have actually bothered to read this far (and as a dev myself I know exactly how annoying user feature requests are), thank you so much! I've really enjoyed my time with Nimbatus, and no doubt will continue to do so as it develops!

[Philo]

Welcome to the forums @sniggyfigbat and thanks for your kind word and suggestions
We use a voting system to see what features / improvements players would like most.
To make it easier for people to vote on your ideas, I'd recommend splitting them into separate suggestions if possible.

[Lurkily]

I've been able to load ore into factory-built parts.  One of my recent projects was an ore courier that would build with ore canisters, detach, then carry it back to the hopper.  I can send that courier on multiple runs in a single mission, so I know it's not connected to whether it's the pre-built courier, or one of later manufacture.

Absolutely 100% agree on directional sensors.  I want 'nearest enemy,' 'nearest ore,' 'hopper,' and I want to be able to name a part, and have it point to that part.  I also want a proximity sensor to measure distance to these things.

I've considered math blocks that can read the value of some blocks (distance to detection from a directional sensor, current altitude from an altitude sensor, speed, etc) and perform a simple operation on it.  Give them the ability to perform a simple operation and read other math blocks as well, and you'd have your number handling; in the end, a 'result' block could output a tag or keypress based on a test of equal, not equal, less than, greater than, etc.