The Custom Armor Block - a solution to finite shapes

QualityPen shared this feedback 2 months ago
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One problem that every SE player has run into is that one shape they really need to finish the perfect build doesn't exist. I thank Keen for working to expand the shapes we have available through adding more shapes in SE 1 and alleviating some of this problem with the 25 cm grid system in SE 2. However, I think there's more that can be done.

I'm proposing a custom block designer embedded in SE 2. The way this would work is the player would navigate into a special block editor view from the main menu, in which they would select the dimensions of the block ranging from 25cm to 300cm for each side. Then, the player would create a 3 dimensional shape by defining points and connections between points to form planes. The editor would then generate vertices for those planes and map a texture to them.

Basically, what I'm asking for is a simplified 3d modeling tool to create SE blocks. The editor would export the block to a mesh and automatically add it to the user's game. It could make transition blocks, it could make 4x1x1 blocks, it could make even more complex blocks.

"Aren't you just asking for the ability to make modded blocks?"

No. There's a couple of very important distinctions.

The first is that real 3d modeling is not accessible or too complex for most users. I don't have the skills to do 3d modeling in Blender or whatever and I don't have the time to learn. I'm far from unique in this regard. What I'm asking for is much more basic and user-accessible and preconfigured to output a SE-ready block directly into the user's game. Children of a Dead Earth, developed by one person, allows users to design custom modules for their spacecraft and adds them to the game instantly.

I recognize that this isn't simple to make - I'd be perfectly on-board with it being offered as a DLC to support the development costs.

The shapes could all be accessible from a Custom Armor Block entity which, when mapping to the hotbar, let's the user search for by name or from a list of their available custom blocks to save on G-menu bloat.

A mod requires that the server and client side both have the mod. A blueprint with modded blocks requires the mods to be installed. The Custom Armor Block could work differently, sort of like scripts for the Programmable Block, in that a Custom Armor Block mesh on a client's device could be transmitted to the server and any Custom Armor Blocks on a blueprint would have their meshes saved alongside other blueprint data. The game could de-deplicate identical Custom Armor Block meshes (ie, two 3x1x1 slope Custom Armor Blocks from different blueprints would be detected as identical and treated as a single Custom Armor Block by the game) at runtime to avoid bloat.

This would allow players to easily play together or share blueprints containing Custom Armor Blocks with shapes outside of those predefined in the G-menu while still maintaining performance.

Replies (6)

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I agree with this statement, in the logo for SE 1, they use very long armour slopes in the symbol yet, they are not available in game (false advertising) it would be fantastic id they implemented a greater variety of slopes and armour shapes toS E 2!

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Do you mean in the intro video where the Keen logo is welded up? That's a pair of 2x1 blocks at 45 degrees to the rest of the grid because it's on a subgrid connected by a rotor we can't see.

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Cosmetically yes, this could work. However in practicality unless something drastic changes with SE2 vs SE1 there's a very big reason I don't see this happening. Collison models. there are only so many shapes the physics engine can support and what you're asking for would be a nightmare for that stuff to calculate and put in. While I would love to see a feature like this, I don't see it happening because of the collision models.

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engine can already do collision for complex voxel shapes so i dont see how complex block shapes would be different

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@Jakub Wolkowksi: The potential issue isn't the ability to do complex shapes as you can generally do them now if you're patient enough. There's a few exceptions but you get the idea. Having a complex collision model for a static block is easy enough. The key in this instance is that you're basically asking the game to calculate a completely brand new collision model on the fly and then apply it to a block. This in and of itself can potentially lead to a hefty amount of lag depending on how complex the shape is, and assuming the shape can actually be applied. See the hangar door blocks in SE1 as an example of what I'm talking about. If you only have a few of them together and they're cycling you might not notice it as much, but if you have a decent amount of them, typically 5 or more, you'll notice some lag if you're close enough. Now part of this is due to using old 2013 Havok physics still. The 2024 (or whatever version they're using from this decade) version of Havok hopefully won't have these issues, but it is something to be aware of. They could very well surprise us and give us something like this and I would happily welcome it. However due to issues around calculating so many custom collision models I don't see it being a thing.

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This is a lovely idea. Avorion has something similar in the ship editor where you can take any basic shape and stretch it along its 3 axes. This would add that little extra to ship design and would produce some visually stunning results.

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Yeah I was fantasizing about this feature from early days of SE1. But I don't think it will be possible to do ingame due to many reasons. Maybe in singleplayer game it would be possible, but not in mp.

But even the separate out of game editor, which we can then export as a mod, would be nice (not nearly as good but better then create it from scratch)

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I can see how that would be difficult to implement in an accessible way, so what about this variation? An omniblock that reshapes itself to match the edges of the blocks around it. Since blocks have a finite number of possible variations, it should be possible to have a block that moulds itself to match.

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