Drop using the term 'license' and use something like 'Schematic'

i think the stations are only abandoned because npcs arent in yet

Hah, yeah fair point obviously.

😂🤣, bruh, I'm dyin here

ouch, right in my certificates.

Excellent point, but this also opens the question up to 'is this why there are renegades?' Are they resisting the authority? Can I hack my welder to let me build 'restricted' schematics? Could I buy a renegade welder that has no restrictions?

All of this is obviously headcanon questions, but changing terminology simplifies that completely and removes headcanon questions, unless it's actually correct and the CA is some overpowering AI overlord that's restricting your actions.

Better (to me) headcanon is that your space buddy ejected in an escape pod with a basic welder and no schematics. They have all the know-how to build anything but have no schematics to do that, and sadly the CA doesn't know us well enough to give us the schematics for everything and instead is trading them to us bit by bit in exchange for mundane tasks that it needs to be done.

ohhh i get it, so the welders we are carrying around are sort of like licenses in and of themselves, and as we progress with the CA, our welders licence gets updated, stamped with new HR, HL, C. classes for building new blocks.

"ALL HAIL OUR CA AI OVERLORD"

I mean I would argue that opening up interesting lore questions is a good thing, no? In fact, I'm relatively sure that's why they chose the term license for that very reason. Some Satisfactory "you are just another pawn in the FicSit chess board, you are not allowed to do X Y or Z" type thing. Or some Subnautica "you have used resources from the planet which belong to Alterra in order to escape the planet, so you shall now pay a billion dollars as a fine for misused company property". Fun questions = Interesting lore, generally. If they can back it up, at least

All tis is headcanon for all of us until they clarify. I'm only pointing out that by picking that terminology it leans heavily in that direction. it may or may not be intentional, but if it's unintentional and that's not the direction they are going they probably should know.

Frankly even if it was the CA being some AI overlord, then I want to know if I can join the renegades and be able to build what I want when I want. No issues with having to unlock things along the way, but even then I'd enjoy having all these schematics on datapads that could be traded also. "Here let me make a datapad with the schematics for the medium cargo container' sounds more fun than 'sorry I'd teach you how to make a medium cargo container but it would violate my license agreement'

lol become a black market dealer in unlicenced blueprints

I think we just need a different word than "license", license insinuates that permission to obtain and build the items, that it can be revoked, and that there are penalties to doing so outside the scope of the license.

As there is no ability to "manually craft things without a blueprint" (see Green Hell as an example of having to discover blueprints by literately tying rocks to a stick), it's probably more correct groups of items "schematic libraries" and single tools/upgrades "schematics". If SE2 wants to go down the path of letting players discover how to build things in their own, it would still require some kind of crafting "minigame" of putting the required quantities of resources up, and the suit/backpack going "invalid combination" and destroying the materials if the types are incorrect, and returning excess materials if the quantities are wrong.

However I feel that would not be a very interesting game mechanic unless things were discovered in a specific order, can't go putting 6kg of plutonium on the crafting table and make a demon core the second you find uranium.

That said, if we want to stick to lore reasons, then there should be no renegades. Since a license permits making things, then revoking the license should render renegade bases unable to manufacture ammo and fuel. So clearly that's not the word that best fits.

If we want to keep the renegade lore then there needs to be a way to acquire everything without a license (eg black market or piracy) but that also would require some specific kinds of "pirate" production blocks that allow the player to build "everything" ad-hoc, so instead of a 100% resource-to-resource assembly, certain items made on pirate production line, don't produce the same quantities and do not connect to a licensed production machines. Probably the easiest way to make this work is to give "pirate" versions of blocks a different "shape" conveyer tube (eg instead of a "rounded square" that has two doors, it's a "circle-in-a-square" with an dilating aperture. Thus only a difference in texture would be needed. Anything "unlicensed" can't be "built" with licensed tools, so no backpack building pirate production machinery, you have to use a pre-built production machines that self-assembles themselves, bought from renegade/pirate bases.

I'm overthinking it. We don't really know what direction the lore goes. My personal opinion is that schematic/schematic library implies it's data that is loaded into the tools instead of a permission structure.

I just don't like the implications of being restricted not by a lack of space buddy knowledge and discovery, but instead because some AI overlord says I can't. Even if that turns out to be lore, it really changes the underlying feel of what 'Space Engineering' means. My Space Buddy isn't learning anything, isn't discovering new technology through exploration and experimentation, they are only being doled out 'licenses' and my magic backpack and magic welder is really the engineer. I guess that's why this is sticking in my craw a little.

SE1 your space buddy learned by making something and unlocking new things as you went along. If I learned it, I didn't need permission to use that knowledge.

Personally, I'd prefer some level of trial-and-error/experimentation, but as we all know gamers will just look up a wiki/gamefaq/walkthru the second they are done experimenting. Hence some underlying chemistry/physics knowledge would be required to know "yes those things go together".

I'll reference green hell again, The way the game does this is very basic to the point of infuriating, because it tries to be "survival hard". Which is fine when you're using a hand-crafted map and fixed unchanging recipes to make everything. Everything you learned the first time, you can reuse that knowledge the second time.

In a game that uses procedural generation and dynamic event generation, leads naturally to the idea that different planets have different environments/materials/gravity/atmosphere and certain materials can not be made or manufactured in specific environments. Maybe you need a "clean room" for certain materials (eg high end electronics), maybe you need a radiation hardened room when dealing with unstable materials like large reactor rooms and radioactive material storage units. Maybe certain things explode if the ship gets bumped around without an ALS(Automatic Landing System.)

Like I'm all for "discover by doing", but I feel that should be an alternate means to discover the material/schematics earlier, and not supplant how it currently works. One way to ensure the materials remain the same so people don't just go to a wiki and discover every everything in an hour, is to require that experimentation step to not fail. Chemical formula balance in a real world thing, so it makes sense to just randomly determine a quantity it wants and the player has to figure out what quantities of the input make that.

Eg to "make water"

Molar mass of the hydrogen atoms =2g/mol

Molar mass of oxygen =16g/mol

So to get the value the system would "want" would have to be either 1kg Hydrogen and 8kg Oxygen = 9kg of liquid water (36g/mol) in a 1.0 atmosphere. Or if you want "ice", look up "phases of ice" if you want to know this is not always the case. For the intent in the game we're just assuming "Ice I"

So whatever goes into the experiment, has to be the same ratio, but the experiment randomly picks a quantity to succeed, you can't just make 1kg at a time until it flips a flag, you have to make "at least X kg in one try"

Same for any other thing you want to learn how to make without getting the "license".

Anyway that's just a way to open the door to "renegade" options. I'm not sure if that's in scope for this game.

You guys still beating this horse? Why do you think the license is revokable. The license could be either enabled in the welder, or a smart card on the characters suit. How would be CA remotely revoke a license from the renegades. Feels like you guys are talking as if the welder communicates with a CA wirelessly across the universe.

License = Politics

Schematic = Trade

Because words mean things.

License means having permission to participate in an activity. We know IRL people will ignore it, hence a renegade. People drive without a license, people drive without their vehicle plates. That all comes with a risk of authorities treating you like a car thief. You can apply that to weapons IRL as well.

If it's a schematic, blueprint, plans, etc, all these indicate that that no permission was needed, rather it was a commercial exchange (even if that exchange was 0$) Nothing else in the game matters or cares. But the terminology implies something true of the game world that the game lore suggests but doesn't let the player participate in.

It won't hurt the game to use a more accurate word, but if they are using "license" then why do renegades exist.

And yes, the CA can/should be able to remotely revoke a license, since clearly it can deny YOU no matter where you are.

And to add to that, the CA does already actively deny your ability to modify/add blocks to remote structures you don't own saying essentially that I do not have permission to modify this base. This means that the CA does communicate to your welder and can shut it off when you do something it doesn't allow.

I'm no psychologist, but reading these replies feels like you folks are in fact more against the lore rather than the term license.

Kisai: "license insinuates that permission to obtain and build the items", "License means having permission to participate in an activity"

Josh: "License = Politics"

Wilhelm: "I just don't like the implications of being restricted not by a lack of space buddy knowledge and discovery, but instead because some AI overlord says I can't"

As I said, from the campaign/story/scenario, whatever you want to call it, we are part of an expedition, we belong to a faction, whether that faction is infact a government/corporation/state, we belong to an organization. That organization gives us jobs to do, and in turn unlocks tech (licenses).

You don't like it? There's this thing called classic survival, you don't belong to anything, you're a random dude in his underwear in a space suit, and there's no progression because there's no central authority.

But as long as you are playing the story/scenario, there is a central authority, and it grants you licenses to build things as you "progress". Deal with it, or open a new ticket asking for "politics" and "authority" to be removed from the story line.

I'm also not sure if we're just thinking two different ways, or a lack of creative thinking, but we already have the tech to do this today. The welder gets "licenses" to permit it to build things, and it checks grid ownership before allowing you to weld. None of those things require this mystical "remote access" you guys are on about. The renegades were once good guys, unlock their licenses and then f***ed off. Show me one place in this game currently where something can be "revoked" from you, remotely. Think of it as a smart card linked to your biometrics or something. Besides that, it's not just the welder, the holographic build system is in fact what prevents you from building things, I think you can weld anything that's placed.

Someone said schematic is something you can trade. Yes, it is, and we can't trade them, so why use that term. It's also too close to "blueprint" IMHO so it's not that great either. The licenses allows you to build/print the modules, a blueprint is a large collection of those together forming something. The "license" unlocks the schematic, hence: progression.

FYI reading my own post it sounds a bit harsh with the "You don't like it" and "Deal with it" clauses. It wasn't meant to come out that way, it was way more light hearted in my head as I wrote it ;) Apologies if so, I can't seem to edit it.

A lot to unpack here:

First off, no worries, we're just chatting about a video game that is very much in its first steps and trying to provide feedback to the devs regarding how we see things developing. Enjoy hearing the varying opinions.

To the first question about being against the lore vs. the use of specific language. It's a fine point, but honestly what lore do we actually have beyond a few cutscenes. Bering project - check, almagest system - check, ten thousand years trip - check, brothers who don't get along - check, colonization authority - check. There are some suspicious statements during loading scenes about the mystery of the system (I won't go into detail because spoilers). Then we have the missions themselves. Not a ton of lore, and as a game very much in alpha, that lore could (and probably will) morph a little. It's not official lore until they actually launch. If there is opposition to the lore as it exists right now, eh, maybe some of the comments are trying to steer that developing lore, sure. The use of the terms (the original statement of the feedback) is that specific word choices carry weight one way or another. If their intent is to make the CA an authoritarian entity, then it talking about how human decision making was 'less than ideal' and 'order' and being 'permitted to use' more advanced blocks (taken from the CA intro cutscene), coupled with the terminology 'license' for that 'permission to use' more advanced blocks...is perfectly fine. However, that language choice if unintentional and that's not the direction they plan for the actual lore for the game when it launches, I've been merely pointing out the implications of language use and how their current use of the language choices is creating a very specific 'mood' and if that's not the direction they intend to go, they should consider other word choices.

To the point about we were all sent by some company/government/organization on this ten thousand year journey. Very true. However, the colonization authority was not created by that company/government/organization. It was created by (some of) the people who arrived in the system. As it says, 'Human decision making was sub-optimal', so they created 'neutral stations' (implying that there are factions hostile to each other requiring some sort of neutral entity). This means implicitly that upon arrival, none (or at least some of) of the prior members of the bering project were following their original charter of the mission they were sent on by said company/government/organization. Obviously this is the origin of the 'renegades' as part of this apparent conflict. Now, once the 'neutral stations' were created, the CA says something like, 'after that, I was created'. Who created it? Which faction? It's clearly not neutral since it sends you on active missions against the renegades, implying a non-neutral stance. Then it talks about order. Straight up, the lore is saying that this AI overlord (the CA) is imposing order and deciding what is needed to 'create a functioning (and orderly) civilization in almagest. None of this sounds like it's following any of the charter of whoever sent all us space idiots ten thousand light years away. (maybe we're the engineering equivalent of telephone sanitizers). We're here, we're fending for ourselves and if we want to do any of this, we need to do what the CA wants us to do without any information about who created it, what their goals are apart from the CA's vision of an orderly colonization and who the renegades are. Is it operating on its own now and just deciding what's best?

I've not seen in game any point where my 'license' is revoked so I can no longer build a type of block, fair point. However, very specifically the term 'license' absolutely implies that that license comes with terms of use and absolutely is revocable. I'm not saying 'in game', I'm saying that's what a license is. You have a license to do something, until you don't. If it's non-revocable, then it's something different like maybe a grant or conveyance. or...you're given something physical, like a schematic.

I'm not married to the term 'schematic', you make a valid point that it's similar to 'blueprint', though as an engineer, they're completely different so I'm probably easily separating the two meanings while others might not.

One last harping point, in an indirect way, I can kind of claim that the CA DOES revoke my license to build when I (maybe) an violating the terms of use of said license by trying to build something (new) on an unowned grid. More accurately, my welder seems to know that placing said block would violate the 'terms of use' of said license provided by the CA and it refuses to place the block. Apparently my grinder doesn't have any terms of use, since I can grind them to raw resources with no penalty but heaven forbid I try to claim it or add something (which is dumb as a box of rocks).

By the way, I would absolutely love it if you could (hey I have archived feedback about this) get all your schematics via datapad and find them in the wild (random drops) in addition to getting them via missions. I'd have to maintain one copy in my own library of schematics to be able to keep building said block, but if I found or were rewarded with duplicates, a multiplayer game where I could share/sell/trade extra schematics would be awesome.

Final thought, you could absolutely have both schematics and licenses for the same thing, and the licenses provided by the CA are absolutely bound by terms of use and are revokable and obtained exactly how they are now. If the CA gives you the ability to build 'thing' then you can only build 'thing' the way the CA wants. I could also find schematics for said things, which suddenly come with unrestricted use (did I just become a renegade?) and can be traded. You want to obey your CA overlord and be rewarded with restricted-use 'stuff you can build' cool. As you explore and maybe find the schematics for various blocks on datapads for the same things, maybe you decide to break away from the CA's control and go do more of your own thing. That sounds pretty cool actually.

And just to note a point made above: "Feels like you guys are talking as if the welder communicates with a CA wirelessly across the universe.", it would seem as it does because somehow your welder knows which blocks it can and can't weld blocks to, with the specific message being "Unauthorized Action: You don't have permission to perform this block placement operation on the target grid."

Who authorizes said actions? (CA Overlord)

Who gives permission? (CA Overlord)

It could be that your welder maintains a database of which blocks that you/it has built and only lets you weld on those, but then how does it know it's okay to weld on some blocks and not others (missions, the barn, etc) so unlikely that.

It's very unlikely that your welder has a database of all grids in the sector and knows which ones you're allows to weld on.

The most likely answer is in fact that it does communicate with the CA in real time across Verdure and checks in with the CA 'can this Space Buddy weld on this grid?' To which the CA either allows your welder to turn on or sends you the warning alert that you're Unauthorized.

I wanted to see what happens if I just "raid" a cargo ship. So I chased after it in the bull frog miner, docked to it, and ... the ship stopped dead in it's tracks. However after I went and picked up everything inside the ship including a mysterious datapad, I had not turned the turret off, and I went and drove it back to Palatine station, and the turret started firing at the station (really at the renagade ships I had docked to it.

I was like "hmm, that's interesting"

So I did it again, went and chased after another cargo ship, but this time it fired at me. I think something I picked up on the first cargo ship toggled some kind of attack flag. Or... I just conveniently managed to chase after it on the side without the turret the first time.

So this is where the license question comes back. I can just drive off with these ships. If I partly de-construct the first door to enter it, (grinder says you can take out anything that isn't inside a "safe" area) and then drive it next to the base, it also doesn't respawn, and that's the thing I'm concerned about, is that if I do this multiple times, the ships are not being despawned, but the stuff I built at those outposts for missions HAS despawned. I can deconstruct anything in the ship and reconstruct anything that I don't accidentally destroy completely. But I can't replace or add anything to it. Same with the renegade ships from the earlier missions, I take out the reactor, and can't rebuild it.

So clearly the CA can prevent you from building on someone elses grid, but can also... delete and respawn stuff for missions. But this seems to be an all or nothing, not a per-schematic.

But also there are things that are not blueprints

Ah those orange ones are encrypted mission items, basically free money since the 'mission' is to take that datapad and give it to the CA at any nearby station.

Also, your above is exactly a use case that they need to consider. Uh, 'liberating' seemingly abandoned and sometimes malfunctioning computer controlled grids for your own personal use is one of the many many enjoyable things about SE1. The logic currently with the CA overlord seems to prevent that, which makes me sad (and prone to harping on a post in the forum here)

If it is a licence, it can be revoked, especially considering there is no physical item that unlocks each block. This also implies that once the authorities don't like us any more, all the licences are revoked, and we stop being able to build previously unlocked blocks.

this brings our idea of licencing or schematic/blueprint/tool knowledge being spefically faction based.

if the CA gives us the "Authorized" format of a more sophisticated than armor/structural block perhaps the renegades have THEIR version of it. different conveyor layout, different efficiency, different power requirements, different module availability.....

then the miners guild would have their own highly advanced drills>smelters>refinerys

corporations might have their own batteries>thrusters>cargo logics.

theres a lot of room for emergent gameplay from this decision alone. and not just complexity for complexities sake, but reasons for that method of system use.

factions and their individuality (or lack there of) could make or break a branch of gameplay here.

I would love to see something like this, if the framework is in place then it could even be added to the API so mods could somehow be tied to factions to allow server owners to create custom factions/enemies with their own gear that you could eventually learn how to get by missions, salvage or looting.

Free my welder! Join the renegade alliance!

(excellent points)

Side point, if it's controlled by the CA, then how are there renegades at all? Clearly the CA should revoke their licenses and they'd be stuck with rubbing sticks together to make space fire.

Or they have an alternate way to build things, and how do I tap into that? :)

Yeah, I read the CBD-laden suggestion :)

It's a nice idea, and I don't think the concepts are mutually exclusive. To your question above, if schematics are findable items beyond mission rewards (or creatable via a research option), then perhaps the first one you find is added to a library automatically (could be removed/traded) and the rest go into your normal datapad storage as duplicates that could be sold/traded.

I'm of the mind that "Tech tree"'s work best for this style of game, they don't need to be "unlocked linearly" but they need to be unlocked period before you can build it, but once you've built it once, it's permanently available. You could unlock something on the tree from:

a) Experimenting (green hell style, also to a certain extent, Minecraft), so you just put materials into a crafting table device (eg smelter/assembler/refiner/etc) and click craft. That forces the player to learn things linearly as they need the item, but has the downside of having a higher learning curve. Stuff that builds a thing will show as "Potentially useful combination" and once crafted once, will show the item.

b) Finding/Looting (most FPS's style, duplicates are deleted)

c) Mission Rewards (How it's done now, duplicates are deleted)

d) Reverse engineering (Subnautica), discovering a working part in an abandoned base that you don't have, and select "reverse engineer" from the grinding tool, will take it apart slowly, some more complex/damaged parts require finding it in the wild 2-4 times.

e) Experience based (Ultima Online, Mabinogi, and a lot of MMO/Gacha games), I personally hate this method, as it's something that only makes sense in an RPG, where crafting X many precursor parts eventually unlocks the next tier of that item. This results in most players just "grinding out" items to meet the experience, and then letting the garbage collector of the game delete everything without ever doing anything with it. However it could work for discovering "more efficient" processes for certain base materials. Eg a smelter or assembler on a ship might produce extra items and less waste... if there was a waste mechanic when upgraded from say "Smelter 1.0" to "Smelter 2.0". The machine has to be upgraded from 1.0 to 2.0, and either consumes less energy, or produces more from the same input materials/less waste, but only after it's been used to produce every product it can produce once. Consider this like when people hang on to their old machines because they still work, but they're gotten really efficient at it. Anyway still don't generally like it, but adding it for completeness. As far as the tech tree goes, this might be a way to unlock 2.0/3.0/4.0 versions of the same production machine without finding it any other way.

It doesn't even need to be a "tree" just a group of items that all have X or Y as a requirement to build, so they are just "not available" to be built until that production machine that makes that part has been built once, hence having the required prerequisites already available. No point in being able to make a 7.5m item if you can't make the 0.5m version to begin with.

I will say however, that so far I have not run into any extremely illogical mission reward-before-the-horse situations. It would be nicer if I could build sensors and event controllers earlier however. Likewise, because vehicles are a thing, both engines and wheels should follow the same progression logic, where you get the larger wheel parts from doing missions on the planet/moon, and you get the larger ion thrusters from doing missions in space, larger atmosphere thrusters from doing them on the planet, etc. It would be a bit more fun to just be able to "reverse engineer" enemy ships/bases parts so the game intentionally uses the smallest parts on Verdure so you can't leapfrog too much tech on Verdure.

I wouldn't mind if you learning from the datapad consumes it as you learn it and the duplicates are available for sale, trade or dropping.

Maybe part of this 'tech tree' talk we should consider levels for various blocks, unlocking a level 1 assembler provides standard results, but maybe future research can upgrade that to eventually a level 5, which has better baseline performance (lower power, higher rate, etc) even befor eyou add the future upgrade modules (power module, speed module, etc).