Jump to content
Stray Fawn Community

Several Suggestions


buckX

Recommended Posts

Really been enjoying the game, but a few things stick out, particularly when playing around with larger ships.

 

Zoom Level: I would rather be zoomed out slightly further even when using a small drone. With a big drone, I can end up unable to see the surface of the planet at all if I have a distance sensor keeping me hovering at constant altitude.

 

Distance sensor: I'd love to see the maximum distance increased on this thing. Many weapons outrange it, which limits their utility when using the sensor to fire automatically. Additionally, changing this from a square to a round part would be handy, since having an angled sensor surrounded by other parts can get the weird jitters from overlapping parts, while using the sensor at right angles is fine.

 

Structural Rigidity: It's fairly difficult to make a large vessel not be a bit of a floppy mess, since each time you're attaching a part to something other than the drone brain, you introduce what is essentially a stiff point of articulation to the ship. I'd imagine that working around this limitation is an intended part of the game, but there aren't good options currently. One thought I had was making direct block to block or block to brain joints fixed. Then blocks can serve a purpose as superstructure, rather than their current role of being a heavy source of minor durability.

 

Edit: Another thing I forgot. Very large drones can spawn superimposed over part of the Nimbatus, which generates some odd behavior. I've sometimes appeared to be weightless on even high gravity planets when that occurs. Not sure if it's connected.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have several ideas related to the zoom level, one is a special drone part that can be activated and the camera will automatically focus this part. Using multiple strategically placed parts the camera will adjust  the zoom level and show all of them on screen.  This would also allow to switch the camera between multiple sub-drones that would be too far away to control otherwise. Or even auto focus if a sensor detects an enemy, and so on ;)

 

I agree on the distance sensor and also on the too narrow spawn place under the nimbatus. I'll make the behaviour dynamic so the Nimbatus hovers higher above the ground when using a large drone, so it will always fit between the ship and the planet.

 

The structural rigidity is another discussion. There are also multiple ways to solve this. I think we will start experimenting with this during the alpha phase :)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Ooo! I'm excited to heard about the camera options. Just had this idea and thought to search the forum before posting about it. This feature will open up a bunch of possibilities. I'm excited.

Does this mean we could have drones with "tower" weapons controlled by mouse when we change camera over there maybe?

 

Some additional ideas might be either a "screen-in-screen" option for seeing other drones' cameras (work main drone while monitoring another) or if there is ever a mini-map - maybe it can detect things like enemies, resources, goals, hazards, etc and mark them on said map.

 

----------

Good luck on the rigidity issue! I'm honestly a fan of some wobble to encourage strong design, but understand larger structures benefit greatly from improvements on it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The solution for rigidity that I Iike (Yeah, I'll keep pushing it) is 'chassis' blocks that don't have physics interaction, and exist in a separate layer. 

 

Keep the chassis extremely rigid, but expensive in terms of mass and maneuverability.  Have some big and awkward pieces that are more mass-efficient to provide some build challenges related to the size or awkward shape of the chassis. 

 

Only allow entire chassis pieces to be placed or removed as a unit, but when connecting parts to them or when being destroyed, treat them as a group of 1x1 blocks - allow attachments to any part of it, not just the center, and allow any part of it to be destroyed.  This introduces the possibility of breaking a ship's spine.  Being high-mass, a broken spine may do additional damage during maneuvers. 

 

Additionally, you might have damage done to the chassis also propagate to connected blocks, including connected chassis blocks.  (Not divide itself among them, but propagate to them, so more total damage is done.)  This would make exposed chassis a severe weakness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that a good solution to the stuctural rigidity issue would be to allow multiple pieces to be interconnected. There should also be a way other than using a decoupler to make separate sub drones or the similar. I have been trying to make a tank using the pivot points as treat, the issue I am having is that you can't make a loop of pivot points only, the two ends can't connect to each other. I have been able to address the needing to be connected to the main drone issue both with springs and decouplers. I think there could maybe be an item created that must connect to two separate pieces and can't stand alone...

my 2 cents. :)

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interconnections sound nice, but unless you're flying a brick, I feel link it would still wiggle like a bowl of jello.  Long narrow ships (Like a giant upright walker I'm trying to build)  will still bend, with all connections on a linear plane.  We already have a few self-reinforcing physics issues (many structs connected to a hinge, for example) and I worry that multiple interconnections risk exacerbating that.

 

I also just don't like circular interactions being in place.  I'd like to see lots of new features and awesome stuff, and while circular physics isn't totally avoidable or necessarily a time sink, there's the potential that it might become a sticky issue, diverting time from other things.  I'd like to see other things considered first, though I realize I have zero sway in the dev's planning process.

 

As for a tread, rotation of free hinges seems to 'propagate' from hinge to hinge.  One turns, and the whole chain bends.  I haven't had success using them as a chain.  Regardless, the connections between them will not collide.  Spikes of terrain will pass through it.  I've had some success with 'wheels' (There's a gif on the forum of a wheeled, wall-climbing rover) but they have their issues, too.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...