General design not very readable ?

[Tchey]

Hello,

 

Not sure how to say it in english. The more i play the demo or look at screenshots, the more i feel the stations and ships are not "readable" well enough. I surely can build many different shapes, but my overall feeling is that they all look too similar.

 

When i look at Starmade, with block building ships and stations, i can see much more variety and immediatly identify each ship as "unique".

 

http://www.google.com/search?q=starmade+ships&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH96i5qpPOAhVHCsAKHd-bCIUQ_AUICCgB&biw=1914&bih=923&gws_rd=cr&ei=2n-YV8LoN8nWa5Tgo-AB

 

However i wonder if it's not simply because Avorion's community is not large enough, to produice variety, yet.

 

Any opinion or comment about it ?

[Aki]

If the first part of your message is about generated ships then yes. They all do feel very similar. The ship generator can actually provide us variety of ships but in terms of general style they do all look similar. I believe it's because of the limited amount of basic shapes and generation process (they all have one main hull which is most likely based on square).

 

On the other hand ships in Starmade are all player made so there is no real comparsion to generated ones.

 

Avorion's player made ships are unique. Of course each builder may have their own style but they still we unique. For new ship builders it might be problematic at start that Avorion's ship editor isn't easy to master and is quite powerful.

[koonschi]

Yes that's understandable. It's going to get better in the full version since we improved the generator and for example freighters will have a more distinct style. Also, ships will have more different looks. Additionally we'll be introducing icons for stations so it's going to be easier to find out what's what immediately.

 

Apart from that: This is all because a large part of Avorion's ships are generated. In StarMade, ships are built by players. Since players have unique designs in mind, their ships will also have unique designs.

[Tchey]

The Screenshots Thread, and Ship Building Contest, both show some nice designs, so i actually think more it's because of very few submission from players, and it may improve greatly as soon as the game is in a playable - not demo - state.

 

What about adding player made ships, together with the game generated ships ? Starmade did something similar with pirate ships, and it can easily fit with Avorion universe too.

 

[Volken]

You're gonna see a lot of player ships when Koonschi decides push the big red release button.

[Tchey]

Yes.

 

Something else, i think it's also because of the building tools.

 

Instead of "shape" to place, i'd much prefer to have option to extend the size of my block one by one, in x, y, z, direction.

Instead of selecting one simetry, let me select the ones (with "s") i like.

 

The red part is Starmade, the green part is suggestion from player to improve it. Just found this picture on internet, but it's showing well the tool, i think.

 

 

I know Avorion is not Starmade, and it's more focused on adventure and combat than building, but still, Starmade did a excellent job, even if not perfect, to bring great building tools, and improve it over time.

[koonschi]

Can you give me a step-by-step example of how you want to scale blocks? You can scale blocks with the Q W A S D buttons and moving the mouse.

[Tchey]

Yes and it's nice (for qwerty keyboards. Oh, add something to remove previous binding, if i set "ESDF" to move, i then need to manually remove ESDF from other commands, it would be better to have auto-remove the key i bind, maybe with a message to say it's already bind are you sure you want to change yes/no).

 

I'd like to set the size by hand, to have exactly what i want.

 

Keep the stretching, and add a small menu option in build mod,

 

+ to select the x, y, z size (with a number, not a slider)

+ the volume of the cube, maybe with a %

+ and the mirrors (checkbox x, y, z)

+ and the symetry mod, in the middle of a block, of between two blocks.

+ and let me decide where i want the symetries, maybe i don't want them to be set in the middle part of the ship.

 

So...

 

I enter build mod.

 

I select the symetry Z, and odd symetry (in the middle of a block) for example, and it pops a small grid on my screen, and i can then click a block to set where the sym-grid will stick. The current mirror is too intrusive and makes it hard to see the other side, that's why i say "grid". A hexagonal grid helps to avoid confusion unlike a square grid, as the game is already based on cubic shapes.

 

Or i select the norm-sym then i select a face of a block, and the grid will stick to that face. So i can work with an even (2, 4, 6...) blocks large ship, or a uneven (3, 5, 7...) blocks large ship. For the even blocks large ship, nothing special, i build one side, the mirror builds the other one. For the uneven blocks large ship, i then only need to work on the middle part.

 

I can select an other symetry if i like, X or Y, to do the same. And i can select all of them at the same time.

 

Then i can stretch my selected cube, with mouse+keyboard, and i can also set an exact size from the little menu.

 

With all those tooIs, i can still build crap ugly ships, and i can also enjoy the view of other player's awesome wonderfull well designed ships.

 

 

[koonschi]

Alright, got it. I agree that the symmetry plane visuals are annoying.

 

You can already place the symmetry plane between two blocks, just select more than one block. Then when you move the symmetry plane, it will be placed in the middle of the current selection.

 

[Aki]

auto-remove the key i bind

In before anything: don't. Just highlight them with different colour (if they aren't already), but do not unbind anything automatically.

[Tchey]

I didn't notice the plan placement, good, thanks. Also thanks for following player's feedbacks.

 

auto-remove the key i bind

In before anything: don't. Just highlight them with different colour (if they aren't already), but do not unbind anything automatically.

 

Hey, partial quote is not quote :

 

with a message to say it's already bind are you sure you want to change yes/no.

 

Anyway, yes, highlighting is also nice, as long as it's obvious.

[Aki]

auto-remove the key i bind

In before anything: don't. Just highlight them with different colour (if they aren't already), but do not unbind anything automatically.

Hey, partial quote is not quote :

with a message to say it's already bind are you sure you want to change yes/no.

 

Quote was OK. In the way you have described it, it would not be possible to bind two actions into one key on purpose. It only affected changing, not auto-removal. ;) If you didn't mean that and I simply misunderstood then it is ok (message with information about double binding).

 

Anyway, anything that will give us more ways of ship building is welcome. Additional (switchable?) window with block parameters would be great.