Tiy: Hull Blocks (Spaceship Construction)

6th July Progress​

According to Tiy the mismatch between predrawn + block built ships really doesn't look good. SO Tiy suggested Hull Blocks as an option. Do you think Hull blocks should be added to the game to allow you to add on to your ship? Custom space ships sound fantastic! I myself love the spaceships interior and exterior design and the idea of being able to re-create that with your own imagination is awesome!

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it can look good its a matter of making specific block placement imo. Likeeeeee i suppose the closest reference i can think of right now is mine craft when you place certain things together (chests) they morph into one so like a stair way of blocks turns into a wall when placed that way a example from the game is platform/stairs i think they could work with that and its still pretty simple to make for the player.

 

When I think of that the example I think of are walls in terraria that sort of morph together into a bigger picture.

 

Yes, hull blocks, yes!

I always found the current ship design, well, a bit feeble. At least for interstellar space travel it seems to be more like a small dinghy or ferry than a motherhship. But of course the player starts with something small to clarify his novice status.
If you got a planetkiller ultra-battleship why bother picking dirt on remote planets - it has to be that way.

But, the thing that bothers me even with the hull blocks is the ship itself. My idea of a motherhip is clearly different, so the design is a problem because you can only build up or downward from the inner fuselage.
At least if you can't remove most of what is currently the ship, keeping say.. only the floor. Basically building the ship from scratch instead of adding stuff.

So i would like to have:

• hull blocks, stacking to infinite thickness
• very reduced indestructable core, floor with teleporter should do
• infinite or very large screen boundary for big ship designs

Why do you need that?
Well i am actually already designing my ship, turns out it does not fit on the screen if you can't zoom out - a lot. Also if i integrate the baseship here, it would fit nicely into one of the smaller hangars.
Zoom factor is -2400%

If i ever complete this (starbound pixel style 10000x100000), it will get posted in the fan art section.

The design is, as you can see, spherical, with the bridge in the innermost ring section. If would look stupid if i had to build this around the current baseship.

And, yes i know - its unlikely something like this can be build as DIY ship, its just another crazy fan art project. But look how nice my full scale fusion reactor will fit in the outer hull.
So, hull blocks, fusion reactors, 200 Gigawatt Impulsecannons - is all really i wan't for christmas this year! :whistle:

 

I would love to see tiy add this but i really think if he does go through with it he should wait till the full release to add it

 

i agree def no push back for it just put in tier system or something until it can be implemented after release(or at least beta )

 

I love the idea of manual construction for the ship, but I dont know if it'll be too complicated for programming stuff.
Predetermined modules system could be nice too: with enough sizes we can be very pleased.
And concerning to the size of the ship, or how many add-ons we can build in ship, I've heard a lot from people but nothing from developers, so: Can we really build a huge ship??? (it could be soooooo amazing)

 

I would love to be able to build my own ship, and it seems kinda strange to not build it myself, as I am already mining and building bases and living in a world made of blocks, each and every one of which I can interact with unless something very special is going on. Then to enter my ship, MY ship, something that I own, and probably one of the most important things that I own, but i'm not able to touch it, make it mine, as I am with the rest of the universe seems pretty backwards.
If Tiy's worried about people making ridiculous ships, there could easily be some limitations, such as the need to have a completely sealed interior so that you have air to breathe and your insides remain your insides, a ship computer so that you can, well, tell it where you want it to go, life support could also be important. And you'd also want engines, and it'd be easy enough to say "this type of engine can only push X number of blocks" and if you have more than X, then you can't get off the ground, perhaps your ship computer will tell you how heavy your ship is, and how many more blocks you can put on it before you have to upgrade or add another engine.

 

I totally agree with all you guys, especially the things Pseudoboss said. I also think you should be able to place things like labs and objects you can create on planets, so your ship can actually be usable for crafting things. Currently, I think the inside of the ships are a bit... Empty...

 

I'm quite sure I've read that we're supposed to decorate the ships with our own stuff and that's why they're empty.

 

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I see potential!!!!​

 

Those aren't blocks.
But, Terraria's (And presumably Starbound's) block interaction is much better than Minecraft's so you could have "flat surface" blocks that join together as you place them to get that wall, slope blocks for the sloped bits, the engine block would be just 1 placed item.
The only thing I have a problem with in that picture is the cockpit, while I'd want it in the game for the variety and the people who want to pilot their ship from the single worst possible place to pilot a ship from. I would be sad if that was the only way to pilot your ship, because I don't want to be a pilot, I wanna be Captain Kirk on my command chair, in a giant bridge surrounded by mooks that all do my bidding. If you simply had a ship computer, that you could interact with directly, or wire up to any number of command-y items, (chairs, thrones, cockpits, monitors, things one could imagine piloting their ship from) That would be pretty awesome.

 

I suggest adding some different variations of ship layout instead of making it buildable block by block. Like, you know, no messy placing, just picking layout.

 

So, I return to this thread, looked at that hull block picture again, and wondered "Is Tiy making fun of us?" That image, particularly the block texture must be the worst texture to pick to blend with the rest of the ship, they must have some better textures than that, even the screenshots just below that awfulness shows textures capable of blending, the grass texture is quite even and the grid is nowhere to be found. we can see from the rock textures, that the blocks blend just like Terraria's do, couldn't this be more pronounced and become sloped? Or at the very least chamfered? Couldn't these techniques be applied to your first announcement of a feature that I really, really want to have happen? So that my friends don't think that i'm advocating Starbound spaceships to be built from legos.
Then there's the hole in the side of the ship, which should be sucking air out of the thing quite dramatically unless the thing is completely depressurized already yet here's a Human standing out there with no visible protective gear on. (I'm all for explaining away visible spacesuits with forcefields, nanotechnology or some other device, but none of that's been announced or implied in any way.)

 

That was just a basic test, man, you know, would it be more or less fun to build OUTSIDE the ship. No blending implemented or anything, also he just used generic walls, same as in build demo.

 

As many others have said since the update was posted, I really like the idea of being able to custom-build your ship. However, the blocks do look a bit... lacking, compared to the specially drawn ship. I really do like the drawn ship as opposed to a ship made of blocks because it makes the ship feel like a special, self-contained entity compared to, say, a building I've built or some such. While limitless customization is nice in theory, I've actually always been a fan of SOME limits.

So that said, I'd much prefer it if we had pre-drawn special ship parts to use to customize the ship's shape and size. That would not only keep the consistency and allow us to customize our ship, but it would also make our ships even MORE special since they'd basically have their own special 'blocks' or 'upgrades'. They could either be crafted pieces with materials, or perhaps you could purchase new ship pieces with pixels. It could add a very interesting trade dynamic to the game where we would look for ship merchants and such across the universe - or potentially even find ancient ship pieces in dungeons!

Some people have suggested that they do away with the ship designs altogether and just let us build the whole thing out of blocks, and while I can see the potential in this I can also see some problems... for one thing, as far as we know right now there's no way to physically land our ship on a planet (though that would be really cool if we could). With that in mind, what's to stop us from simply ripping apart the blocks of our ship? What would happen? Would there still have to be some kind of base block that can't be moved that we could attach ourselves to? Certain other items would HAVE to be placed a certain way, such as the engine and computer console for deciding destinations and storage and crafting...

Not to mention, all that pretty ship art would be going to waste :<

So yes! Ship parts, or even entire ship ROOMs would be nice with which to customize. Even if they weren't much more than squares and rectangles. My vote's yes for the customization, but no for the block style.

 

I like this

 

Tiy said he would implement this if he decided he liked how it looked. I personally don't think it looks bad (the mix of premade/block structures) and would LOVE to see this implemented. A lack of ship customization was one of the removals that really disappointed me, so I hope they go with this idea!

 

Douple Post, sorry, the edit button isn't working for me for some reason :/

Anyway, those that don't like how it looks don't have to do it!