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CometShine

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nimbatus.thumb.png.0f507c5dc64d201180c1989651412b91.pngImplement a feature to add outside hull shapes similar to how the nimbatus ship looks as well as the ability to color parts and lights. Can make it a separate layer from the functional pieces and would be purely for aesthetic. I've drawn my drone with a single layer of shapes on top and customized the colors of various objects as an example (also it was a lot of fun to draw)

EDIT: added some images of different solutions of playing the game while with cosmetics. You could have an option to toggle opacity if you would like to see what is underneath your drone while playing by pressing a key (such as an fn key) and the opacity will lower unless you press it again to bring it back up to 100%. I've tested 50% and 30% opacity here. Another solution is to add indicators to the outside layer as shown on the far right which would show the overall drone's power, fuel, factory, and resource levels. 

ship.thumb.png.fd9994de262de092f7e59089e75ed336.png

 

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I would be all for a cosmetic layer.  Maybe even shift the 'armor' mechanic to this layer, letting the player use light cosmetic pieces that break away easily, or heavier armored pieces that protect the parts under them from damage until broken.

EDIT: Some parts would have to peek through.  Weapons, shield modules, engines, LED's, for a start.

My main problem with this would be that it would hide all your indicators - fuel, energy, logic.  We might need a new 'indicator' part that's part of this layer, and tallies up fuel or energy totals to display here.

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1 hour ago, Lurkily said:

I would be all for a cosmetic layer.  Maybe even shift the 'armor' mechanic to this layer, letting the player use light cosmetic pieces that break away easily, or heavier armored pieces that protect the parts under them from damage until broken.

EDIT: Some parts would have to peek through.  Weapons, shield modules, engines, LED's, for a start.

My main problem with this would be that it would hide all your indicators - fuel, energy, logic.  We might need a new 'indicator' part that's part of this layer, and tallies up fuel or energy totals to display here.

Another idea with needing to see indicators, is maybe having a button to toggle between needing to see underneath the cosmetics while you play (like a lowered opacity), or like you said add a special indicator specifically on the cosmetic layer which is a neat idea

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Fuel and energy at least need to have an exterior indicator.  Shields and weapons would have to show through.  Some directional sensors would be nice to see, but that might be up to the player to design the cosmetic layer so it doesn't block it.  Exterior indicators even makes sense with the lore, since there isn't an on-board pilot who would just know.  Toggling the layer would be enough to troubleshoot logic.

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Hm, I feel like some things are not necessarily needed to be seen though. Like weapons don't really need to be seen because they don't indicate anything. While building the drone, you already know they are there and will work. Even if you did want to see everything for some reason, I feel the best option is to add an option to toggle opacity. I've went ahead and tested out how this will work by drawing it up on the drone itself and changing opacity of the outside layer. First testing 50%, then 30%. I feel fine with the 50% but tested a lower one. The toggle will work so that if you press a key (such as an fn key), the opacity will go down like pictured and you can leave it on while you're playing, or turn it off by pressing the key again to keep it at 100%. The one on the far right is where I played with indicators, but having an indicator for literally everything besides a few will be too much I feel. But I agree that it would also be up to the player if they want to add cosmetics, and where. 

ship.png

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Weapons should be seen because you need to be able to see the source to judge the trajectory a shot's going to take, whether it's obstructed or needs to take gravity more into account because of the angle it fires at.  Shields should be seen so you have an indicator of when they are partly or fully depleted.  Collectors because you need to know the point that has to get close to a resource.  LED's because they're pointless if you can't see them.  I can't think of anything else at the moment that needs to be on top. 

All that is stuff that comes up in the course of normal gameplay, and I would really prefer not to be required to toggle visibility on and off on a regular basis just to play the game normally, especially not while in combat. 

Fuel, energy, and all three ores would probably be better off with an indicator part made specifically for the cosmetic layer that shows your reserves as a percent of the total on connected energy, fuel, or ore container parts.  Showing all of those would compromise the point behind a cosmetic layer.

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eh, I guess I see your point with weapons. This may also play into the player's own choices of needing to see them and designing cosmetics around them and their needs. You don't have to cover up the weapons if you don't want to. It may even look cool to have weapons show through, like a line of lasers with hull bordering them would look pretty cool.

 I get your point on not wanting to turn transparency on and off, and rendering cosmetics pointless in a way. In that case I can see indicators may be better, but depending on how many is needed I feel the indicators shouldn't be too big because it will just look like clutter. fuel, power, resource, and factory indicators can be made. Shields can even be moved to the outside layer so you can see each one and their levels. LEDs can also be  moved to the outside layer as that can actually make sense depending on what they are used for 

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Either the player is forced to engineer a ship so that its parts are outside the cosmetic parts (I would just not use cosmetic parts) or he is forced to have no information about the health of his shields in combat.  I think the only sensible thing for shields, if they have to be either over or under, is for them to go over.  Long connections are unwieldy, and can be unstable, and I'd hesitate to mandate a certain kind of engineering, especially for cosmetics.

The indicators I mentioned, in my imagining, would be a 2x1 part for the cosmetic layer, meaning you could fit 4.5 indicators over the drone brain alone.  Most combat drones would need only two -- fuel and energy -- but mining drones will need a few more, to read their ore contents.  Being a more utilitarian vessel, it might meet the players aesthetic to have exposed containers.  Meeting the player's aesthetic sensibilities is up to the player.  If they don't like the look of the indicators, they don't have to use them.

I would prefer this mechanic be something that never HAS to be turned off.  If a player CAN turn it off, that's great, but I don't want a player to HAVE to turn it on and off to play.

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right, makes sense. I agree that it would be better if you didn't have to turn it off. That was just an idea in regards to the problem of needing to see certain things. But yeah, functional parts shouldn't have to be designed around cosmetics, rather, cosmetics around functional parts. I see the cosmetics being like little pieces you can put together. triangles, squares, rectangles, similar to the pieces already in game, and you can place them wherever and however around objects. Indicators like I said before is a great idea if you want to cover things. but like you said dont necessarily need to be used if a certain aesthetic is desired. 

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If the parts act as a type of armor where they need to be broken before the parts beneath can be damaged as mentioned by Lurkily, then the heat and cold resistant basic blocks would be longer be useless. Right now there isn’t really a use for then other than the lava rays, and that only blocks the heat, not the inconvenience of having your drone shoved around.

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I was thinking of also cutting loose 'armor' blocks in favor of high-mass armored parts in this layer, instead.  Move the whole concept of armor into the cosmetic layer.  To be fair, though, armored cosmetic parts wouldn't prevent you from getting knocked around, either.

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1 hour ago, Lurkily said:

I was thinking of also cutting loose 'armor' blocks in favor of high-mass armored parts in this layer, instead.  Move the whole concept of armor into the cosmetic layer.  To be fair, though, armored cosmetic parts wouldn't prevent you from getting knocked around, either.

But they could save you from the core, which current heater resistant parts can’t do.

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Hmm.  Not sure if they would stop heat; preventing damage is as easy as being larger than the parts underneath, so things impact the cosmetic part first.  I'm not sure heat resistant parts actually act as a barrier separating heated areas from cool areas, though.  Some special-case work would have to be done to make sure that functions as intended.

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1 hour ago, Lurkily said:

I'm not sure heat resistant parts actually act as a barrier separating heated areas from cool areas, though.

They don’t, so therefore they are essentially useless.

though I do see your point. Free heat resistance for your whole drone is too much.

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I like it. I'm also for having armor on a cosmetic layer. Heat resistant armor could continue to have less HP than standard armor, so the trade off wouldn't be free heat resistance, you're losing overall armor for it. I wouldn't mind seeing shields act on this layer as well, as they could act to soak damage rather than destroying projectiles without actually protecting from the effects of a blast. 

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 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.

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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.

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1 hour ago, ManTheMister said:

Garheardt said that shields should be moved to the top layer to allow them to block AOE. He didn’t say that they have AOE now.

Is your day job interpreter? Your day job needs to be interpreter. 

Thanks again!

 

-Edit: to elaborate, though; if there was an armor overlay that soaked damage in place of the internals, a shield that blocked actual damage would likely need to act on or before that overlay in order to apply damage to the shields before the armor. 

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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.

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