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[forsaken1111]

Er... You need to be told how to look in the server.cfg?

Maybe he didn't know it was in there!

I did not know. Will look now.

I think I set it.

[Eric Blank]

I'm soo ready to join you guys on the server. Also I would like to see if there's a way to show who's on before logging onto the server.

Even though this is alpha and there will be more content, I would like to have more than two options for weapons, and I've really seen only AMC's at the moment. I would like to see a few more in ranges of something like a Plasma Lance. It would look the same as a salvage beam, but instead of having it fire forever with enough power regen, make it a VERY power hungry system. Have a few options like longer the block line longer or more powerful the beam will be. Maybe if you line it side by side with another line have it last longer per click.

It'll totally happen!

First, though, gotta fix that bug that makes the cannons refuse to allow you to rearrange their stats sometimes. And the ghost ship thingy... I spawned a ship over my planet, and it never actually showed up. Charged to my wallet, spawned physical impressions of the turrets and ships in the hangar, but never actually spawned the ship and the turrets and fighters are ghosts.

[Mech#4]

I'm soo ready to join you guys on the server. Also I would like to see if there's a way to show who's on before logging onto the server.

Even though this is alpha and there will be more content, I would like to have more than two options for weapons, and I've really seen only AMC's at the moment. I would like to see a few more in ranges of something like a Plasma Lance. It would look the same as a salvage beam, but instead of having it fire forever with enough power regen, make it a VERY power hungry system. Have a few options like longer the block line longer or more powerful the beam will be. Maybe if you line it side by side with another line have it last longer per click.

It'll totally happen!

First, though, gotta fix that bug that makes the cannons refuse to allow you to rearrange their stats sometimes. And the ghost ship thingy... I spawned a ship over my planet, and it never actually showed up. Charged to my wallet, spawned physical impressions of the turrets and ships in the hangar, but never actually spawned the ship and the turrets and fighters are ghosts.

I'd like to see something like; the more powerful a laser is, the bigger and brighter the resulting shot is. It looks odd when a large ship fires these little dinky white laser lines.

Or have different ranks of laser blocks. More powerful ones require much more power to run efficiently.

[Eric Blank]

More advanced weapons design sounds good overall. I don't think the AMCs are supposed to be lasers, though; they're called an anti-matter cannon, so supposedly they launch a projectile composed of antimatter or something. It'd be 100% effective against ship hulls for sure, since matter and anti-matter are supposed to annihilate each-other and release copious amounts of energy on contact.

I hope for some supplementary weapons systems, like targeting computers which tell you where you need to be aiming to hit a target as it moves, or give missiles the same information so they can better intercept moving craft, then a sensor grid that assists in locating the targets for the computer and reducing lock-on time for missiles, both increasing in effectiveness/accuracy with blocks dedicated to them or something. Maybe also allowing KB missiles to choose appropriate targets based on relationship to your faction.
Maybe if we get ballistics weapons in the future we'll also start to see weapons block components that are designed to directly interface with the normal weapons blocks, like ammo caches that increase the number of projectiles stored for ballistics weapons and missiles and reduce time it takes to refresh that stock (so you could have a relatively small ballistic/missile weapons system that has a high refire rate/ammo capacity even though it doesn't have much damage/range/velocity per projectile.) or a heat sink system for antimatter cannons/lasers if we ever have to worry about overheating our own vessel by firing weapons.

[Greiger]

Personal ideas for game improvements through blocks, mostly missiles:

Spoiler: This got to be a much bigger idea dump than I originally thought (click to show/hide)

Radar system blocks. 
Directional sensitive blocks, when placed they must have an unobstructed view to the ship bounds in the direction they are facing.  Work better when adjacent to other radar blocks facing the same way, but best in planes (not cubes other radar blocks in front obstruct the one's behind).
When activated they consume a small amount of power (easily overcome by regen on large ships) to increase the radar range of the host ship in the direction the radar blocks are facing.  Jammers or stealth cannot be active at the same time as a radar system.

Radar Tactical controller
A single block that doubles the power consumption of the radar system but in exchange allows any allied ships that can see the host ship on their radar see what the host ship's radar can see.  Only ships in the direction of the host ship's active radar blocks are shared.  Any targets seen by the host ship naturally that are not in a direction covered by the host ship's radar are not shared.  Jammers or Stealth cannot be active on either the host ship or benefiting ships.

Missile Loader, Launcher, and storage blocks.
Reworks how missiles function.   
* Missile storage blocks determine the amount of ammunition. Storage blocks must be at least as large as the launcher to function, increasing ammunition by 1 for every time the launcher could fit within the storage blocks. Missile storage blocks have a small chance to explode violently when destroyed, possibly chaining into other storage blocks.  Explosive damage has a higher chance of causing a storage block to explode than AMC fire.  Storage blocks can feed multiple missile systems on a first come first served basis.  Any cubes of storage that are not large enough to fit the launcher within themselves act as loaders instead.  You want large blocks to feed large missile systems, not thin little lines snaking everywhere.
* Launchers determine the strength and radius of the missile with width and height of the launcher system, launchers also determine the speed and range of the missile with the length of the launcher(ratio configurable at the controller as it is now), as well as ammo capacity when overall size is compared with the amount of storage.  A launcher without any connected storage can only fire once before needing reload at a properly equipped shop or station.
* Loader blocks must connect the launcher to non-adjacent storage, the number of loaders that must be passed though to reach the launcher from the storage is the primary factor affecting load speed, with a longer trip meaning a slower reload.  Reload can be sped up by increasing the width of the path.  But a 1 block wide route is sufficient to reload any size missile system, they use magictanium technology to disassemble and reassemble the missile allowing transport through small spaces. Storage directly adjacent to a launcher does not require a reloader and reloads very quickly, but has a 1/100 chance of launcher containment failure for every touching block when the launcher is fired, resulting in a likely catastrophic explosion.
* Missile type is determined by the controller block. The whole system is compatible with any type of missile.
* Loader blocks can also connect from storage to a dock or turret block, and they will reload any ships docked at those points with a maximum capacity of loading 8 blocks of storage or launcher every 10 seconds.  Taking from the carrier's missile supply to do so.

Station Resupply Blocks
A dock style block designed to be hit by a ship's core beam, and a manufacturing block.  Size of the ship is irrelevant, no need for extenders.  When a ship hits the control block with their core beam the station begins supplying the ship with missiles, requiring the ship to stay within 200m of the station. The station compares how many storage and launcher blocks the ship has to the station's missile manufacturing capacity, capable of filling the ships storage blocks at a rate of 1 block per manufacturing block every 10 seconds.  Multiple ships can activate the same dock block, and the output is shared evenly between the ships (any uneven amounts go to the first ship to activate the block still in range).  If a ship lacks storage blocks or is at capacity the station fills the launcher instead then disconnects.  Allowing for reloads of ships designed to fire one missile at a time without storage, while forcing them to reconnect to the block manually each reload to fight unlimited ammo exploits.
Manufacturing blocks when in use drain large amounts of power from the station, and they are also volatile just like missile storage blocks.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Installing this as we speak! I also blindly paid $3 for the full game...

[Sean Mirrsen]

Ahhhaahahahahaoh god. This is hilarious.

Okay. A little backstory. As you may know, I am performing horrible experiments in the name of science here. This one experiment called for the creation of as big a block of d1000 unguided missiles as I could reasonably handle.

I became sufficiently bored around the 500K mark. Note, this is on the server - so no admin commands, just pure determination and abuse of the blueprint purchase system.

The weapon was... quite underwhelming.
For one, the sheer amount of weapon blocks broke the tuning mechanic - no matter how I clicked the stat distribution did not change. The explosion radius was something around 60 - enough to take a bite out of a planet, sure, but nowhere near what would be expected of a missile launcher such as this. Oh sure, the ludicrous size of the thing meant that it fired something quite suitable for combat - the missiles were bloody fast and shot out at around 80RPM, not to mention the 900+ damage and ~60 destructive radius, so it was quite good at destroying planets despite not being able to do it in one shot.
But it was also ludicrously slow. I wasn't about to spend even more time amassing enough power and thrusters to make it fly at non-retarded speeds, so I just took whatever was available at the shop and steered it towards the nearest ice planet, which I proceeded to turn into a sort of a Bikini Atoll.

At that point I was quite tired, so I logged off.

Cue today. My attempt to log on is met with horrible slowdown and almost audible grinding of gears inside the servers (I could probably hear them if I weren't a continent and a half away). Apparently, when you materialize next to a half-million-block structure, the game starts encountering problems figuring out where to spawn you. And in the end, it decided to cut losses and spawn me right where the ship's core was.

Taking out a 16x16x16 chunk of the ship out to do so, core included.

Spoiler: The blocky rocks are pieces of planet that couldn't disappear fast enough. (click to show/hide)

So now I have a ~500K hunk of missiles that cannot be controlled - and technically cannot exist. Fortunately it can still be dismantled, which I will probably attempt. So, there. Have fun building superweapons, people, just make them out of small, manageable chunks. ^_^

[Greiger]

New version out, this one introduces logbooks and the background for other such non block inventory items, and completely reworks the factory system.

There is now only 1 factory block (not counting the enhancers which are still there) You buy randomized recipies from the shop by giving the shop 10000 of what you want a recipe for (10000 is base, amount varies by item) and it generates a random recipe for the item.

You then plug the recipe into your factory block, feed the factory what the recipe says you need and the factory will output the result.

[Anvilfolk]

Nice!

I wanted to have a carrier, but am having the hardest time docking. It appears that you always dock from the bototm of the Ship Core, is that right? I wanted to move into a hangar bay and shoot the beam straight ahead. Right now I need to point downwards, and it's just not happening. There's not enough space in my hangar bay...

Any tips?

[BigD145]

Belly of the ship block perpendicular to the arrow that points from the docking module, I think. I forget how it orients from there.

But yes, big ships + enclosed dock is problematic. I've said this before many places. I hope it gets fixed.

[Kadzar]

So I decided to finally try this thing out today. Made myself a starter ship and did some mining, then made a bigger ship with more beams to try to mine faster, found out that mining too much stuff at once puts too much strain on my poor little laptop. Then I got chased by pirates and figured I should get about to what I was planning on in the first place.

Spoiler: Keep in mind this is very much a WIP by guy who just started today and is experimenting as he goes (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: The power generator goes from under the ship core to the mast and up its height entirely (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: I'll probably need help from you guys about ultimately the best usage and placement and such, but I figured something like this is going to need shields (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: You probably noticed it already, but the sails are actually thrusters. I just wish there were actual solar sails in this game (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: I ultimately determined that, if the armament isn't going to be a complete joke, the lineguns will need to be turrets. I was a bit surprised how large their minimum size was. (click to show/hide)

As for thoughts that aren't illustrated by screenshots, I was surprised that the gravity module covered the whole ship, including lower decks. Also, I am slowly buying up all the brown reinforced hull in my galaxy.

Now, as soon as I finish this thing and get it imported, I'll join you all on forsaken's server and start up the faction "Team_Space_Pirate_Ninja_Wizard", assuming it fits, and cut swaths of destruction across the starry seas.

[Dunamisdeos]

If you have credits, build a ship made of brown hull and catalog it. Then buy repeatedly. Or honestly, just buy your current ship a few times.

[Shadowlord]

That green box is actually smaller than the actual size you have to play with. An 11x6x11 turret should dock to a turret docking module with no expanders (where the 6 is the direction away from the docking module). If you add a single expander, it goes up to 15x8x15. After that expanders only expand it along one axis.

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you have credits, build a ship made of brown hull and catalog it. Then buy repeatedly. Or honestly, just buy your current ship a few times.

Yeah, that mechanic completely breaks any and all attempts at a working economy system, including the latest massive change to the crafting system (which made paints completely useless as, y'know, paints). Why craft anything when you can sell everything you don't use, then just buy everything you need via catalogues?

The catalogue system would need to be overhauled next. A good first step would be tying the cost of the blueprint to the shop block prices - for instance, no matter how much money you have to burn, if you were to pay i.e. three times the retail value of all the blocks that make up your ship to import it... I'd say that with that, and some toning-down of the pirate loot drops, there could actually be some use in crafting and scavenging for blocks.

[Eric Blank]

What if instead of generating the blocks out of thin air, you had to go to a shop and use their "manufacturing suite/shipyards" to construct the ship from the shop's inventory, based on the prices of the blocks. They'd construct as much of the ship as they are able (fast, but not instantaneously), then pause for restocking from traders guild ships (or if you bring them resources you've bought/made elsewhere you could insert that into their shipyard's inventory.) Shops might as well have more impressive inventories, though, and receive larger shipments of what a ship-in-progress requires from traders guild ships. I'd additionally expect that you'd be able to set up your own shipyards at a station of your make and order inventory from the traders guild. You're no longer getting ships out of nowhere (or technically you could be if the traders guild brings goods that don't have a proper origin) and you can't spawn a titan instantaneously. You need to build it, or at least have someone else build it for you.