- GAME MODE CONSTRUCTION
How do you see the basics of the game world working? How do I go from an avatar floating about in space (or starting in a space station?), to building my own ship? With minecraft its fairly realistic to be able to craft everything single handedly because of the low level of tech we are dealing with, but what about blockade runner? Will you buy necessary components and combine them yourself into specific blocks on the spot? Will some/many/all? of the components be directly harvestable/craftable yourself via some kind of development chain?
You will not be building ships as you do right now. In-space adjustments or hull patches can be done using special construction equipment, but shipyards are the intended spot to build/modify your ships. This is due to both the improved interface of a shipyard and its “in-world facilities”. If it happens to be more fun to build ships entirely in-transit, well then we'll try and accommodate that. We just want to make sure the ships do not feel “cheap” as if any ol' Star Destroyer could be assembled within minutes by one guy.
Otherwise “crafting” complex materials out in the wild-blue-yonder will be handled by a “Synthesizer”, more or less your “crafting box”. The synthesizer materials can be combined into objects and broken apart again into their basic elements. Constructing synthesized objects on-the-spot is convenient, but in the end inferior to the naturally produced items you can purchase from manufacturers.
- SHIP PHYSICS
I've been thinking a bit about ship physics, and I've been wondering how you might deal with some problems that might arise when representing stress on the ship structure. (I'm basing this on the assumption that the current model is temporary anyway, which you have mentioned somewhere I think. Ideally, it shouldn't be possible for blocks to float in mid air while still aligning with the rest of the object, right?)
What is preventing people making ships with extremely strange shapes which would be physically impossible under something approaching real physics? For example, massive engines being linked by a think thread of blocks to the body of the ship, perhaps even with a u-bend? Will this just have to be accepted, or is there some way of calculating the stress load places on individual squares? If possible I think this would be pretty cool, especially if the load limit changes depending on the square type. So, when designing your ship, especially with large ones, you need to make sure you have lots of strong steel girders running along in a kind of 'spine' to hold everything together.
The physics are temporary. We'll be working with spherical collision and basic rigid-body physics (think billiard balls), eventually introducing a more precise collision system that properly envelopes each entity.
Floating blocks flying in the air will not float there for too great amount of time, we will have a bit of code that should work very well in removing floating bits.
Although it won't be in for a bit, larger engines will require a proper structure to support their generated force. This will likely not be totally real-world accurate, but enough to prevent most unrealistic situations.
- CONTROLS
How do you envisage the basic mechanics of ship control design? Leaving aside unique control blocks like ship flight/weapon systems, I'm guessing you might have a system something like this...
1. Action blocks. Single function with state of ON or OFF. I.E.
- Air pump - Moves air from one side to the other when activated. Three versions (north/south, east/west, up/down).
- Vent - Acts as open block for purpose of air when activated.
- Doors (not really a block perhaps, but anyway)
2. Power/Communication blocks.
- Links to other bocks of same time to create a route for signal/power for action blocks.
3. Command block.
- Activating it sends a signal
Is this about right? I'm guessing you don't want command blocks magically or wirelessly connecting to action blocks, as it makes ship design/damage less interesting. OK, I was thinking though that you wouldn't want to have to make unique circuits for every command to action block set up, as you could end up with an unmanageable number of cables everywhere, esp. in large ships. So, could you make it so that action blocks and command blocks can run through the same communication cable? So long as there is a viable route for the signal to cross, it's OK? Linking specific command blocks to specific action blocks could be done by say, holding an engineer tool of some kind while using the blocks.
I could keep going but that's enough for now! Looking forward to every update.
We already coded each block in the game to handle utilities running through them. Whereas eventually these will branch into specific systems, Blockade Runner will have in the meantime an all-encompassing “utility” line that you can rope through the bulkheads and floorspace to connect your ship's subsystems. So this “omni-utility” line would be both your power-source and your IO connectivity. For now.
How you're able to use that IO connection to interface with the many interactables in the game, now that's something special we're working on. =D
We do also intend to have “Magical” wireless to be an option (and will probably available earlier then utility lines), as it's the easiest to code and easiest for players to work with while building a ship (Do I have power? Good then my computer will work too). However we like gameplay penalties for conveniences, and in this case it would be wireless being prone to external and internal disruption.
I've posted this thread on the
ZanMgt forums as well (for those who can tolerate the clunkiness of the default DNN forum
)
