God made Dirt and Dirt don't Hurt

lol I understand have been there before.

 

Serenity, the greatest genius on Earth, mentioned that a color picker paint tool would be perfect for taking the exact color of dirt on another planet and painting it to match. Just right click the color picker on the dirt you want to copy and it save that exact hue, saturation, and brightness. Then you could left click to paint any other block to match it.

Text of this color was added in by request.

 

As a Minecraft player, who still builds mega-structures in Survival, having a roommate who got half-way through making Midgard to a 1-1 scale until he found out he couldn't build high enough-in survival. I'd like to say you're a bit wrong here, we enjoy having to get the materials ourselves, we enjoy having to find and make the variety. (Especially if you get into some of the mods that add 30+ biomes etc.) A friend of mine who is an aspiring artist does the same thing with us, finds all his materials the hard way and enjoys it, but he's also a gamer. I realize some people dislike the idea of having 100 different stacks of dirt, I don't. I enjoy that. The idea Juxtor came up with? Labeling it by planet? I fucking love that idea, you have 100 stacks of dirt in your inventory? Why....? If we're still allowed to pain it, just keep your fullest stack and dump the rest? That's an easy solution it's like when you go strip-mining in Minecraft, do you keep all the cobblestone you find? You probably start tossing it when your inventory is full and there's iron infront of you.

Maybe I want to make a museum on my home world, of every planet I visited to this point? Maybe if I am stupid enough to try to settle on a TL100 planet, I want to make that Newbie Museum, of every planet I stayed on for any length of time between Tier 1 and Tier (Insert highest here at the time I achieve that.) This way when friends come to my world and see it they are like "Dude...I remember that planet! Holy crap!" because with Juxtor's idea it's not just dirt, it'll be rocks etc as well. You can re-create a mini-biome of that world. If we're allowed to transport animals and monsters? You can go all out in doing this. I love the idea personally.

In the end, my vote is on diversity, as it often is on these forums. Or, player-choice. Make it an option server-side (Or on the client if single-player.) That all dirt stacks and doesn't keep it's original properties, my only worry is that's a monumental amount of work on the coders part, so I'd understand if they didn't go for the idea that Juxtor proposed.

 

Changed my mind after thinking about it.

I originally posted that I wanted dirt to go into a generic dirt color stack in my inventory. Reasons were for inventory clutter and all that.

But, what if I place that generic dirt down somewhere? Should it automatically change to match the color of the natural dirt on the planet? It would look ugly if it didn't. On the other side of the coin, it wouldn't make much sense if it did.

Since we have a whole inventory bag dedicated to minerals and dirt and such... well, maybe dirt should keep it's native color, even in inventory. Yes, different stacks of dirt depending on it's color. After all, you're usually going to stay on each planet for a while. It's not like you will wind up with different stacks of dirt from just one planet. If you go from planet to planet in a short amount of time, then you're kind of wasting fuel. So it's unlikely that you'll do so.

Plus, we can STILL paint dirt different colors if we want to.

So, I'm with keeping dirt it's natural color in inventory, even if it means different stacks. It seems to balance out in the end.

 

I'm with you, I don't mind lots of different dirt colors. I don't see the problem with it, ultimately. You can store it later, anyway, it's not like you'll run out of personal inventory space filled to the brim with colored dirt.

 

I doubt he enjoys having to use money to purchase paint or other materials IRL.

I'm the person who uses a map editor in Terraria to build practically anything creative, ditto with Minecraft for creative mode. When I have the option between two image editing programs I will always choose the one that is easier to use, as long as it can still do what I need it to do. Of course, if it can't do what I need it to then that is a new problem entirely. It just seems to me like using the paint tool is the easiest solution for customizing color in your creations.

Well, if it all formed into one stack then you wouldn't have to toss away as much dirt.

You could also do that by using a color picker tool and painting the dirt to exactly match the original world.

It could also be solved by having three paint tools; one each for hue, saturation, and brightness.

My vote is usually against player-choice because of balance issues. However, since this is an issue of aesthetics and the user interface, I think having it be optional for each player makes a great deal of sense. The only downside is that it means the developers have to code in both methods AND a way to swap between them without breaking anything.

This is basically my issue. If I can't take and use dirt from any other planet without it looking out-of-place, then that would annoy me. Whether it makes sense or not doesn't bother me because this is a video game with space pirate penguins, cats riding mechs, blocky terrain, and character jumping unbelievably high.

That and I want color customization to be easy and intuitive, which is what the paint tool does.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and there will be no shortage of things to collect in Starbound. Dirt doesn't have to be one of them.

 

Actually he and his wife are kind of crazy like that =/ they enjoy working, enjoy making and then spending the money they make. I'll grant you though, that's not the norm.

You're right here of course, honestly? It might just be I'm a sucker for inventory managment, I don't enjoy never having to struggle to make stuff fit, making that choice int he bottom of am ine between those two chunks of iron, or that one chunk of gold etc. It also makes me feel as if storage containers feel less, and less usefull if that makes sense.

True, to me though, while it would look the same, it wouldn't feel the same. I realize that might make absolutely no sense at all, but it's a matter of pride and principle. I didn't just paint something to look like something else, I went there and conquered it, and look I have the proof to show for it, don't believe me? Go ahead and dig a chunk of dirt up, yeah that's right. It's from Alpha Centauri III, I was there. I dunno just my opinion.

I agree with this statment completely, my vote is for player-choice meaning, they have the option to toggle it. (Or the server owner does and the player is forced to co-operate with that choice.) It (In my opinion) makes for a more enjoyable game for most everyone involved, however it is a monstrous headache to code such things, which is why I pretty much said, I would understand if they went the route of easy for the sake of their coder's minds.

 

I think the best solution is, when picked up it reverts to the standard "earth" dirt colour, brown. When placed on a planet, it will slowly change colour to the dirt around it. You can explain it by saying the stuff gets "sterilized" or "reconstituted" when in your inventory (how else can you carry a whole warehouse full of stuff around in your pockets?). And if people want a certain colour of dirt they saw on another planet, they can just use the paint tool.

Alternatively you'd have to build a system that keeps "samples" of the soil like a palette and let people choose which colour of dirt they want to place, but it probably involves a lot of code work.

 

^^ This.
I think once you move planet to planet the chemical make up of the world your on would modify the minerals in the dirt. Especially if you place it down. Kinda like if you pour food coloring into some water. It still is water, but the water isn't just H2o anymore it has the coloring in it. If you wanted green or blue dirt just color it. It's easy, and I don't to run into having my whole inventory full of dirt again.

 

Ok. There is another angle that we're missing here.

This discussion is about whether or not dirt from one planet should become "generic" dirt once mined, it's original color forgotten and once placed on another world, simply auto-matches the native dirt.

There are many people citing inventory management issues as a reason why dirt should do this. Dirt is dirt. Why does the color matter especially since we know there will be a paint gun.

As I said earlier, however, this goes beyond just dirt. It would apply to ALL materials mined from a particular planet. Dirt, stone, clay, sand, etc. All of these materials would have the same implications as dirt regarding how they react to being placed on a different world with different native materials of a given type.

The factor that I think is being overlooked is that this is assuming that color is the only defining factor of a material found in a given place. Yes it is all dirt. It is all stone. Whatever the case may be. But if this is true, then that would mean that materials found in various places are ONLY differentiated from the same materials found elsewhere by their COLOR. Therefore, there could not be a system in which other variables were associated with materials (durability, for example). So you find some rock on a planet. It's green. Cool. But what if you found rock on another world that was 10 times as durable as the green rock you found earlier? Blocks placed with this stone would be much more resistant to damage. Items created with it would endure more abuse. If a system were to be used that allowed such traits to be part of a material's makeup, it would add to the gameplay insomuch as to challenge players to find better quality materials with which to craft. And THIS would require all materials (dirt included) to be considered different from others of the same general type.

However, given what has been revealed thus far, I personally don't think this level of depth is going to be present. Much to my dismay. I would enjoy finding rare (procedurally generated) materials with very high stats to craft things out of resulting in better quality items.

I don't have a hard time managing inventory, it's almost fun to sort things logically for future use.

But if COLOR is the only factor that makes dirt found HERE different than dirt found THERE, then it really doesn't matter and lets go ahead and just make it all turn to generic dirt once picked up.

But a large potential game play element would be unable to exist. I want to see materials having procedurally generated characteristics as well as color.

Thanks for enduring my long-winded opinion on the matter.

 

I imagine part of it has to do with the Star's color. they've been making use of that lately.

 

Having blocks not match is another argument for layered rocks and dirt because then with other colors around it wont look so mismatched to place different colors of blocks nearby.

I do like the ability to rick click the dirt color... maybe even allow the matter manipulator to have an option to change the color of dirt/rock/sand with a right click on nearby blocks. That way there is an easy choice to keep the color or change it. Then the paint tool could be used if even more color variety is wanted.

 

I think that the durability of a given material should not change from planet to planet.

If I found water on another planet, could I expect it to be highly corrosive and solid at room temperature? Of course not! If it was that different then it wouldn't really be water anymore. The molecular structure of water gives it very specific attributes. If it was still based on the same water molecule but had been altered in some way, then shouldn't it be considered a totally different material?

If I found some stone on a high tier planet that were ten times as durable as other stone, I'd expect it to be called something other than regular stone. Maybe dynastone or something. It would be a totally new material, used to craft totally new bricks and such.

Still, I really love all the thoughts and ideas coming together in this thread. Even if we don't agree on everything, it feels good to read so many creative solutions and new perspectives on what the problem is, or if there even is a problem.

 

So, does all dirt look the same besides color? I was looking over the biome video and found that the surface materials had lots of different textures. Though I can't say for sure if they were all in fact the same type of material without playing the game.

 

There are a lot of different common blocks that all look pretty much like dirt, but are actually different materials. This includes dirt, gravel, sand, loose sand, mud, clay, ash, etc... I'm sure there are way more than even those, but like you said we won't really know until we play.

 

While I agree that they should be named different things, the idea of variations of standard matrials sounds like it could be pretty interesting if you could use different versions of a material in place of the standard one in crafting recipes to change the stats of the result. i.e. you use 'dynastone' in place of stone to make a slightly upgraded (or an upside/downside, which would probly be better to avoid making a tier of minerals redundant) version of say stone walls or a furnace or armor. Some could be more rare so you'd have to explore more to find the exact type of material you want, perhaps even having to compete with other players to get significant amounts of it.

Anyway, back to the main point of this thread- I've been trying to think of ways that would make the non-stacking idea more feasible to be a feature of the main game because, as much as I like it, I know that it would make inventory management a pain- especially if it were done for all materials(which would be kinda dumb if dirt would keep its color but the rest would magically change) because you'd constantly be having to delete your materials or having to go back to a storage container to deposit them there. So, what if you were able to acquire some sort of tool(or maybe a specific pet or something- I dunno what it is really isn't the point so ) where it would allow you to choose a storage container on that planet(or your ship) that you could have it transport stuff to the container(but not from it) back from anywhere on that planet. You'd still have to go back and pick a new container when the last one got filled so you wouldn't be able to to stay out and just use it to mine forever, but it would counter your inventory filling up faster from the variations while clearing your inventory of materials you won't have any use for currently.

Also yeah, some really cool ideas flying around this topic, I've seen a few things that sound pretty cool that hadn't even crossed my mind before, and I gotta say- that's a pretty great thing to experience, so thanks guys!

 

Juxtor had a good idea by having the ability to search for materials based on various details like the planet it came from, or maybe the type of planet it came from, or the level of the planet, etc... The thing is, these just make it so that to find anything in your inventory/storage you practically have to use a search bar. I'd rather have 100 common materials on an alphabetized list than have 1'000 common materials and a search bar, but that's just me.

Maybe all of the dirt could go into one unified stack labeled "dirt" and that whole stack could use up just one slot in your inventory or hotbar. If you use this unified stack to place dirt blocks, then it will either choose different dirt blocks at random or it will start with the earliest piece you mined or something like that. You could also hover your mouse over the unified dirt stack for a while, and after a second or so it would split up and show each different type of dirt within that stack. You could then take any sub-stack of dirt and put it onto your hotbar separately.

It would be an incredible pain in the ass to code, though.

 

DeadlyLuvdisc, you said something about water that wouldn't be water anymore if it was highly corrosive, etc.
But water, isn't just water. in the ocean, the water is salty, and in every water surface, there are minerals. These minerals can change the water properties, its reaction with the other materials. That's why we use distilled water in chemistry.
The same goes for stone : stone isn't just a material, it's an assembly of many minerals. You can see that in games like Dwarf Fortress : you can't find anything named stone : there is basalt, gabbro, etc. All these rocks have different properties.
I'm not saying this must be in Starbound, it would actually be pretty hard to make, in my opinion. But it would make sense that the stones you find have different properties.

 

Juice Box thinks it's only the grass that's blue.

 

they will, but there will also be default stones that match the planet's color.