Replace Light/Heavy with a single armor block that has an attribute

I hadn't thought of that specific mechanic, but yes, exactly.

Exactly!

You make it sound like it's not possible to have a default, or that it can't be easily configurable. Default is light armor. Then choose from a material pallet if you want something else.

@IIsa Loving: Or how about we keep it like it is right now and try to fix things that aren't broken, cause I like that one better. I'm not cycling through potentially thousands of armor blocks in a build to specify a type just because you're too lazy to swap action bars and put a second set of blocks on them. Nor am I risking the game pulling an "oppsie" and resetting my armor blocks to the wrong type purely because you want to make it more irritating than it needs to be. Why would I ever want a system this overly complicated and irritating when I can just have my light armor blocks on bar 1, heavy armor blocks on bar 2, and then swap between them as I want/need? And if it's like a skin pallet as you say, why would I or anyone else ever want to risk someone coming along then "painting" my armor into a different type?

I don't agree with Tael on much, but he's hit the nail on the head. It doesn't matter if you're able to mass edit the blocks or you have to edit them 1 by 1, you still have to specify an armor type for every single block of the build. Why would I want to do that when I can just swap action bars and go? Why would I ever want to risk the game resetting my stuff to the "default" or not remembering what I set then screwing my whole build? If I ever want to change armor types I can just as easily pop into the world and remove the blocks myself by hand. Or if I ever want to do a mass edit, I can just as easily pop the BP open in a text editor like Notepad ++ and change the IDs of the blocks used for the bp. To be perfectly blunt here, you've not thought this out nearly as far as you need to and you're trying to propose a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

If you're absolutely bent on being able to change stuff, then you should argue for a blueprint editor that would let us edit bps from inside the game without having to use an external text editor. Otherwise there is no need for this feature you've suggested and it would just slow things down for no good reason.

Neither of you have "hit the nail on the head". You are making up completely ridiculous strawman scenarios because you have a workflow you've become set to and would rather gatekeep then see any genuine improvements in the game.

It's laughable that you accuse me of not thinking it through, when you're entire response is a knee-jerk emotional reaction. Most of your points are "what if there's a game bug?" which is too stupid to touch, but this one made me laugh. Having someone come by and paint your grid a different material? Unless Keen had pointedly said that they will not be implementing security controls in the game, then why would the game allow that? I said "like the pallet" because everyone knows what it is, not because I wanted to copy it's behaviour exactly.

And there absolutely IS a need for this. The whole light/heavy dichotomy is irritating, making it harder to find the blocks I want, and adding to the block overload Keen is concerned about. I would rather have 100 different block shapes than 50 block shapes twice.

@Ilsa Loving I would advise against wasting your time here. More often than not reasonable arguments will get ignored or strawman'd, pointing out basic flaws/issues with logic or style of argument will typically get you something along the lines of a paragraph or three amounting to "I'm not making that mistake, you are!" no matter how illogical that argument is, and occasional false accusations, attempts at preemptive a "no, you are!", or insults will be sprinkled in for good measure.

@Captainbladej52 I've told you before, be polite.

Well, @Captainbladej52 did accomplish one thing. He convinced me to get a refund for SE2. I love SE and wanted to see SE2 be even better, but clearly that isn't possible since this community is so toxic. The irony is that I have literally decades of software development experience, with expertise in UX, and this was just one idea I had to improve how the game functioned.

@Tael: As I've told you elsewhere, you're not my dad and you're not a moderator, so stay in your own lane.

@Ilsa Loving: I've got over 20 years experience creating content for other games myself and if you really have the experience you say you do, I shouldn't have needed to explain to you why what you're suggesting here is a bad idea. Can this suggestion of yours function, sure it can. However simply because it functions doesn't automatically make it good or desirable. You sit here and say everyone is strawmanning your arguments but you've yet to really explain anything other than saying "it would be like skins".

"And there absolutely IS a need for this. The whole light/heavy dichotomy is irritating, making it harder to find the blocks I want, and adding to the block overload Keen is concerned about. I would rather have 100 different block shapes than 50 block shapes twice."

No it's irritating to YOU is what you mean. It never bothered me that there was 2 different types of armor in the vanilla game. The only thing that bothered me is how they were often like tissue paper. You say you hate the whole light/heavy dichotomy, yet your suggestion doesn't fix it at all. You're still going to have light and heavy armors, the only thing you've changed is how you tell the game which one to use, with this new method being unnecessarily tedious. You ever hear the old saying "if it aint broke don't fix it"? That comes to mind big time here. Tell me, what's the difference between having a light armor cube on one bar, and the heavy armor cube on another and swapping between the two vs having one block on your bars and then swapping "skins"? You're acting like this is some revolutionary new change and it's not. You're still dealing with the light/heavy dichotomy, you're just changing where you go in the UI to swap block types. So it's literally the same thing, just different UI. So again why fix what isn't broke? Why would I want to have to constantly remember to swap skins back and forth when I can just keep things the way it is now and swap between 2 actions bars seamlessly?

Also you can have 100 different shapes in light AND heavy armor both. All you have to do is get the basic model shapes done and then render one out using the light armor texture and another using the heavy armor texture. Then just have a second SBC file where you differentiate the components between light and heavy armors. You're still going to need different SBC entries for the components costs of the heavy armor variant vs the light armor variant anyways, so again you're not changing anything.

"Most of your points are "what if there's a game bug?" which is too stupid to touch, but this one made me laugh. Having someone come by and paint your grid a different material? Unless Keen had pointedly said that they will not be implementing security controls in the game, then why would the game allow that?"

I mentioned a potential bug restoring various settings to their default values because there have been bugs like that which have occurred a few times over the years. If the default is set to light armor, but I've been telling the game to use heavy armor and that bug triggers, I now have to go back and reset potentially thousands of armor blocks as a result which is moronic. Where as you leave a heavy armor block as a heavy armor block to start with and you never have to worry about that happening.

As for the panting the grid bit, show me where I said they weren't going to include security of some type. Please quote the exact line where I ever made that claim, because I didn't. It's funny you accuse me of having a knee jerk emotional reaction yet here you are trying to project statements onto me that I never made. So pot meet kettle.

I mentioned it because here's a scenario that's guaranteed to happen at some point. Johnny 2x4 is helping his friend little Timmy with a ship. Johnny forgets he's in light armor mode because he's been working on something else in world. Johnny goes to "paint" the ship with the "skin" and now half the heavy armor ship has to be redone and reset because of a screw up. Or some griefer comes in and "paints" someone's ship to be all heavy armor vs light making it too heavy to take off, or someone shows up and paints someone's ship into light armor from heavy in combat as a form of griefing. Making a block look like it's a giant disco ball with one skin, a giant brick with another, or shiny metal with a third is one thing, but what you're proposing would literally have to change components on the fly as a skin. That's a far cry from a simple skin change.

"You are making up completely ridiculous strawman scenarios because you have a workflow you've become set to and would rather gatekeep then see any genuine improvements in the game."

Now who's doing the knee jerk reaction. I'm all for making improvements to the game when and where possible, but what you've suggested here isn't an improvement, not with how you have it structured. Second, criticizing something you've suggested is not "gatekeeping" in the slightest. You posted something on a publicly accessible website for folks to discuss. If you don't want to risk responses you might not like, don't post on publicly available websites like this. Third, as I said I'm all for making improvements and so on. If I see an idea I believe to be good then I will cast my vote for it to be added and say that I believe it's a good idea. Simultaneously if I think something is a bad idea I'm going to say that I think it's a bad idea. If my disagreeing with you and saying I think it's a bad idea offends you then oh well, that's a you problem.

You keep saying that we're missing something and are strawmanning, so break it down for us step by step like you're talking to a bunch of monkeys that just learned English. You say there's a need for this, okay why do you think there is a need. And how would this be better than what we have now? Because I still stand by what I said prior, this comes off as a lazy solution to a problem that doesn't exist. If you don't want to worry about light armor vs heavy armor, no one is going to force you to put both on your bars. If all you use is light armor, then you don't need the heavy armor on your bars, and if all you need is heavy then you don't need light armor on your bars. Seriously this isn't rocket science. So if we've missed it as you say and you're not wanting to "copy the pallet exactly" then what exactly are you proposing? You keep saying we're missing it, so explain to us what we're missing.

You are a textbook example of Dunning-Kruger syndrome. I don't know what companies were stupid enough to hire you, but just based on the conversation we've had, I can tell you that you would have been fired from my last company on the spot, assuming you'd ever have been hired in the first place.

Your entire previous "argument" was horseshit. You aren't interested in what I have to say. All you want is to have an argument.

And it's clear from your exchange /w Tael, that this is far from the first time. It's funny how you feel you have the right to attack others, but anyone that responds has to "stay in their own lane".

You are just some asshole who only thinks he knows what he's doing, and I'm not going to waste any time time indulging you further. Keen clearly needs to do a better job of policing this forum because people like you don't deserve to be on it.

Why don't you go back to your MAGA rally or whatever shithole you crawled out of.

@Ilsa Loving: Welp I'll give you one thing, you've definitely bought your own press. First up, I told Tael to stay in his own lane because the dude isn't my dad nor is he a moderator. If he's got a problem with something I've said he can either message me directly or he can report it and let the moderators sort it out. For that matter you're not a moderator either. It's also hilarious to me that you previously accused me of gatekeeping yet here you are saying people like me don't deserve to be here. So thank you for proving that you're projecting. Second, you're posting on a publicly accessible site on the internet and by doing so consented to the risk you may get responses you may not like and may completely disagree with or even hate. If you're not willing to take that risk get off the internet and quit whining. About the only thing I agree with you on is that yeah there is some policing that needs to happen as you're supposed to leave the political junk at the door.

Third, you're the one that went there first with the whole "well I've got decades of experience" bit and pulling the whole argument of authority fallacy out of your back pocket as though I'm supposed to just bow down and kiss the ring and say "yes Mr/Mrs Loving". Now you're throwing a tantrum because someone else who also has experience is disagreeing with you and calling out your bad idea and you're not as special as you thought. Far as my resume goes my work speaks for itself and I let it do the talking. I've had quite a few of my creations be EA recommended downloads for weeks at the time. I also have a healthy amount of subs for my stuff here in SE. I'm far from the most prolific in SE as there are plenty who have more overall subs than I do, however I never claimed to be the king of SE or some kind of saint. You can sit there and hide behind the whole "well you would've been fired from my last company anyways" as much as you want, but to be perfectly blunt if they're hiring arrogant blowhards like you I never would've applied there to start with.

You're also proving that simply because you've been doing something for a long time doesn't automatically mean you've been doing it right the whole time. Because if you have the amount of experience you claim you do, I shouldn't need to explain some of the things to you I'm having to explain. I shouldn't have to explain to you how functionally speaking there's no difference between having 2 sets of blocks on your action bars vs 1 block set and a skin save for the form of UI presentation. In either scenario you're still using either light armor or heavy armor and nothing has changed save for how you tell the game to switch between the two. You're still dealing with the light/heavy armor dichotomy you say you hate only in a different form. You also previously said "I would rather have 100 different block shapes than 50 block shapes twice." which proves to me you don't know as much as you claim to or you wouldn't have made such a ridiculous statement. From the modeling perspective there is only 1 difference between a light armor shape and heavy armor shape, which is the cosmetic texture applied to the faces. Functionally the only difference is their final component costs which tells us how much each block weighs and how durable they are. Keeping the light/heavy dichotomy does NOT force them to do only 50 shapes twice as they can always add more shapes as they wish. In order to get your 100 shapes it's as simple as making your initial shape in something like blender, rendering it once with the heavy armor texture, then rendering again with light armor. From there you make an entry in the SBCs for the light armor variant, and then a second one for the heavy armor variant, that's it. Again I should not have to explain that to you but apparently I do.

This whole time you've said people are strawmanning you and getting it wrong and all that jazz. Yet so far instead of trying to explain what you believe we've gotten wrong you've stomped your feet and thrown a tantrum like a kid on the playground that's mad someone insulted their favorite superhero. You say my argument is bad, okay what specifically is bad about it? If you were given the reigns to implement this feature, how would you implement it and how would you put it together so that everyone's concerns are addressed or addressed as much as humanly possible? Because just saying "you're strawmanning" and leaving it there doesn't prove anything. If you believe I'm wrong or not understanding you, okay enlighten me on what you believe me to be wrong about. This is a text only chat first off which means we're already missing a ton of cues that you can only get with a face to face chat or something like a video call. And I'm also not a mind reader nor is anyone else here. If you want people get on board with your idea, then you're going to need to know how to answer some questions and explain yourself instead of just telling everyone "well you're just wrong" and never elaborating on anything.

So are you going to actually answer the questions/objections that have been posed to you by me and others, or continue to stomp your feet? The ball is in your court.

You managed to come up with the worst possible way to implement this. That's horrific. You'd have a default of light armor, and you could change the material /w a pallet, like we do with skins.

Something else that's not considered is suppose you have it defaulted to use light armor, but changed to heavy armor for a build. Then the game pulls an oopsie with the update and "restores" your build to the default turning your heavy armor into light armor. Mode switching like this opens the door for that big time.

Clarity is important, and your initial description wasn't clear. So, to clarify, are you trying to change your armor-type after you've placed it with a paint-gun-like tool? Or are you asking to reorganize the engineer-toolbar-configuration menu so you pick things by shape instead of material?

Your two options are not mutually exclusive. Being able to change the material with a paint gun tool would be a natural consequence, but that wasn't my main point. But yes, I am specifically talking about the latter.

I find the whole light vs heavy dichotomy annoying, and it also limits what could be possible in the game. It would really expand the realism if you had actual materials . But it's mostly just having to wade through a huge swath of duplicated blocks, when that space could have been used to provide a wider variety of shapes instead.

I really don't understand how people are having so much difficulty with this concept. It's like trying to argue with an American about universal healthcare. "It's impossible!" says literally the only country that refuses to implement it.

7 Days to Die didn't have any difficulty at all implementing this exact mechanism, for example.

...You seem to have a limited number of Americans to talk to, but this isn't a thread on politics...

As for why it can be hard to explain, it would be like if I started talking about the nuances of electrical grounding or power-quality with you without first ensuring you were an electrician (or that you had enough of the basics to follow along). You and I and everyone else don't think the same way, and it can take a bit to get enough of an understanding to follow along with someone else's train of thought properly.

To the point though...

-If think if you want things to be sorted in the menu differently, you'd be better off asking for options on changing the menu layout, interface, or search-filters, it would be a lot easier to do (and understand) than redesigning part of the game's basic operations just to get what seems like a surface-level change.

-I can't agree with paint-gun shenanigans, between accidents, bugs, and trolls it would cause too many issues. I think if we want a way to swap stuff around that doesn't involve average people trying to learn and search through the legal-textbook that is game-code then then we'd be better off with a purpose-built system for that.

Yeah I really don't want to get into politics either, but you get my point.

Have you ever played 7 Days to Die? That has a really good mechanic for this exact thing. You pick your material, then any basic shape you build from that point on uses that material. It works really well. You could upgrade the block to a tougher material if you wanted (which I don't think would be appropriate for SE) , but apart from that, you have to destroy the block first if you want to replace it with one of a different material.

Then you can paint/skin it if you want, although 7D2D also lets you paint individual faces of blocks. However, the whole paint gun thing is not relevant to my point and I don't care if that part is implemented or not.

We shouldn't have separate blocks for light, heavy, window, etc. IMO it makes the choices messy and confusing. It should be a single block shape, and then the material defines it's properties. You could have an entire starship made of glass, so all the inner workings would be visible like a Tetra fish. Or make wooden schooner, which would be fantastic if Keen implemented water. Maybe some shapes would only support certain materials, for example cloth makes sense for panels but not blocks, and cloth panels would let you make flags, boat sails, or awnings.

That's exactly not how it should work. It would be a pallet of choices, like skins.