glass for small ships

I think they skipped putting window blocks on small grids because light has to be calculated for each block that it bounces around on, on, or through -- so, the more transparent block surfaces you have in a scene, the less FPS you get -- and small grid ships are likely to have more blocks than large ships and each pane of glass cutting everyone within eyeshot of you down on FPS for each glass frame.

I remember when they removed the transparency on the conveyers and my FPS jumped like 20 FPS overnight. Maybe I just remember it bigger than it was, but I remember when it happened and it was obvious that *something* had changed.

Anyways, its a great idea from a design perspective -- and maybe NVidia will build too many 1180s and the price will go down so low that we can all grab one. We can always dream.

there's a mod for this if you want it now

We know there are mods- most of the features people are asking for exist as mods; the mods are so good and often so simple that they should be vanilla features- that's the point of these suggestions... ;)

If the refexions are a problem then disable it? Like dull glass. Maybe so dark and dull that you can't look through from one side but from the other.

I've got a better idea- get rid of reflections completely, get rid of the tinted glass effect, and add a simple motif ( thin parallel lines, or a hex pattern for example ) along the top and bottom so that you can see the glass and aren't left guessing whether there is a hole or a window, and it will solve the issue of there being missing window options / inverted options with certain window blocks that results in having to have a few tinted windows in amongst clear ones when creating certain shapes of curved cockpits and such.

Boom, just fixed a massive issue with the game and found a way to improve performance- and it won't even break anyone's creations since it doesn't alter how the blocks mount or their collision volume. Thank me later, Marek...

I thought that's also what the PCU was for. If you make small ship glass more PCU expensive, it should work fine.

This decision sucks. And glasses are already in the game, I can't see how'd it add to complexity but it'd open up lots of possibilities. Form dev perspective, yes, more blocks, but again, glasses are already in the game...

0/10 decision and even worse rationale. If anything, we don't have enough vanilla armor block shapes, let alone simply enabling glass to be used for small ships. If we can have options to disable pressurization, why not simply make it a server or advanced settings option to allow/disable "advanced" small ship blocks (doors, glass, hangar doors, etc.)?

I disagree with you on that. A game like space engeneers lives of new features and blocks. You can see it in similar games like Minecraft. They always build in new things so that old players can come back to it to experiment with the new stuff and keep being invested in the game.

The given reason is a bad one.

I would respectfully disagree with the statement that the game has too many blocks. Additional block types would make the game better from a building standpoint. I can understand the fact that it adds complexity and potentially slows the game down, but overall I think this is a terrible excuse not to add something.

I have the impression that Keen is going to finalize the SE. Then the decision not to add much more functionality is rational, although I think that the game will be left in half-baked state.

just give us a slanted 1x1x glass a 1x1x glass and a corner glass and well be happy HELL even just 1 new 1x1x1 small ship flat glass block could change a lot, i know you guys are busy working on *more important features but i feel like saying an engineering game is too complex.... is just .... odd pleas reconsider :)

I don't see much point in cosmetic blocks but I really disagree with the rationale. Does this mean the upcoming big gameplay patch won't be adding anything new because it will be too complex for players to handle?

We believe Space Engineers has too many blocks already, and it would increase the game's complexity too much.

This is a null argument. You would not even add blocks to the game, just scale them to small grid size. These blocks already exist in SE, just not for small grid!

Please reconsider this request, as large parts of the community disagree harsh with you on this topic

Low block count is attributable to a lot of issues in the game. The Keen problems with more blocks are really, (short-sighted) design flaws in the game. For example, take armor shapes. SE has 2 kinds of armor (Light/Heavy), but they are implemented with around 50 total blocks. Empyrion's solution (with about 5 types) was to have the base armor type be the only block, then a sub menu that lets you choose the shape of the block. The block itself takes up 1 toolbar slot and opens a shape selection menu on right click.

moved my comment to the end.. did reply by mistake, sorry

How would it add too much complexity? Just put as a variant of the normal glass like how you have thrusters and their small grid variant on the same block.

But you want to add more blocks with the DLC packs ??? How does that not add complexity if small ship glass does.

I agree

Our computers (CPUs, RAM, and GPUs) have limits, so it is logically that any game will need to have them too. The question is what do you trade off during the designing and polishing the game.

As far as "use the mods" goes though -- why wouldn't you use the mods to achieve small ship glass? Would that decision impact your game...? Perhaps. But you choosing to use a mod doesn't hurt the game for others.

I think you hit on something else that might be a nifty (future) feature though -- the ability for the game to automatically download a mod when needed (for a blueprint / projection or when a player comes within X distance of a grid using a block) instead of that being a server side config. I'll post that as a new idea (if it isn't already out there). Maybe that will solve for people's ability to use mods on a server while still keeping the initial connection quick (e.g. not having to download mods to use a ship).

Mark, I see your point to an extent. Using mods is a problem to the extent that it's a slippery slope. Not happy with the way the thrusters or working or their colors? Mod them. Want small ship glass, it's just one mod, right? Want to add a few more shapes to the pittance of options we have now, well, one more can't hurt? Man, these weapon options are either dakka or whoosh-boom, maybe a balanced railgun mod would even that out. Before you know it, your world takes 5+ minutes on a solid state drive to load. Put simply, the way mods are handled is a mess and there are many players who prefer to play pure vanilla for this reason.

For your second idea of having blueprints come with a mod if it is needed, this helps to a degree, especially if a world can be loaded and then downloads the mod in the background for use after refreshing your blueprint, or something.

@Raelsmar For the dynamic mod loading, I'd love to hear your thoughts over on this idea please:

• https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general/topic/dynamic-mod-loading

This would solve for both mod loading dynamically (as you get close to a grid with a mod, when you paste in a grid with a mod, or when a projector needs a mod) and it would also resolve the long initial load time for mod assets when you first connect.

With this, you could play with all the mods your rig can handle and only impact others on a server if/when they get close to your modded ships.

It is not that much about performance as about complexity and ease of finding bugs.

@ mark there are limits but theres also mods that have worked completely fine with small grid glass

This is the exact development philosophy this game needs. Isn't this why we have the PCU system in the first place? Don't want small ships gone wild on your server? Limit your PCU limits to discourage it. I only ever play single player. If I want to play a gorgeous edition of Microsoft PowerPoint, let me.

Also there are 2 kinds of performance we are talking here.CPU-heavy and GPU heavy. Windows belong to the 'GPU' group, not to the 'CPU'.

This would satisfy me somewhat. The reason I want small ship glass in the first place is mostly because of this problem.