Coloured Blocks

Number 3 will probably suffice for beta release, but it's not something I'd want to see permanently implemented

But thats only if what julius says is true, and the color variations are actually that broad and mostly the same. I don't really care about dirt for this, as Im sure us number 1s dont, it's all about the wood and stone that makes option 1 so alluring

 

I believe the variation of color would only become unique once you move from one planet to another. Like on one planet it could be color #FF0000 and when you go to another planet you could find color#FF0001 in which when gathering this color of the same type of block would create a new stack for almost the same color, except that color was gathered from another planet so it would still make sense even though the difference in color would be very tiny.

So I would still stick with option 1, although option 3 would be fine as long as color variation won't be removed from the game, by color variation I mean being able to place one colored block type onto another planet which consists of another color of the same block type.

 

Actually now that you mention it and I think about itna bit more, yeah. Number 1 for sure,no questions. Theres no reason for people to be going to 300 different planets collecting dirt, and what are the odds of encountering several of the near same shade over and over

 

Probably higher than finding the exact same shade twice? I guess it really depends if planets actually use the full variety of colors, or whether it's already limited like the paint tool anyways.

As far as option #4s go, I just want the ability to manually merge stacks. No forced color changes, full variety, manageable clutter, no unnecessary UI options, intuitive.

 

Yeah my point exactly, it would take a long time to find a color which looks completely identical to the one you just gathered from a previous planet. Unless you are extremely unlucky and find only planets with identical colors of blocks lol

 

If you need the same shade, you can go to the planet you got it from in the first place

 

How many planets are you planning to go to?

The game is built on 100 different levels of planets with 10 levels per tier. Even if you went to only 1 of each level planet, that is still 100 planets with 100 possible different shades of dirt, not to mention wood, stone, sand, mud... and whatever else you encounter while exploring. Even if you only ever mine on half of those planets, that's 50 different inventory slots for dirt alone.

I don't know how small the shading increments that Tiy is talking about are, but he said that they are very small. It's created a problem with there not being a visible difference between similar shades of blocks.

This discovery is with only a few of the tiers in place and a very small number of players actually experiencing the game. If they've already seen this as an issue with just their small group playing, what happens when the 80,000+ people that pre-ordered the game start playing?

 

Everyones arguing for option 3 is under the assumption that everyone is just batshit crazy for useless materials and are completely incapable of just throwing things away that they dont need. I don't understand it x) It excites me that I'd be able to walk around going "ooooh I like this shade of wood, I'd love to make a cabin out of it back on my home world~ And maybe I can take this shade of stone, and that shade of stone, and make a cool checker board floor"

 

Well just feed the identical blocks to the spaceship to get extra fuel when you go to that planet, shouldn't be too hard, and you would get extra fuel for the lost effort, so it wouldn't really be a lost effort that way. You would enter the spaceship to travel to another planet anyway. I don't see it as a big problem, it would become a problem if you happen to stumble across the same identical colors all the time, but then obviously it needs to be improved for the better.

 

Yeah, but I mean if you do find another planet of a similar color, it's pretty much guaranteed not to be the same color (and thus won't stack.)

 

But at that point I just won't bother collecting that planets dirt, cause I won't need it, as with most dirt

 

I'm not arguing for option 3. I voted for option 1. My post mentions what Tiy stated and his explanation of it followed up by what I want (#1) but that my understanding of what that actually means has been tempered by what Tiy shared.

I think all the options are flawed and that what Tiy suggested in his stream is a better option. That is, instead of having 20+ nigh identical shades of bright red, there should be ranges that get grouped together and treated as 1 set color. Those 10 reds in my post would all be considered the same red.

Dirt isn't a type of fuel for your ship that I'm aware of. There's a lot of low tech options for fueling it, sure, but I don't know that it's as simple as burning dirt...

Unfortunately, what we personally do and what the community at large does isn't always the same. While some people might simply be able to toss the different variations of dirt into the trashcan, not everyone will.

How many people do you know who are serial collectors in games?

Out of my modest gaming circle, about 30% (give or take) are bent that way. If I think about the guilds I've played with in WoW, TF2, Rift, SWTOR, GW2, and more... That % goes up significantly. Say that my friends are unusual and there aren't as many collectors in most circles... If even 10% of the gaming community are collectors, that is 8000 players from the pre-order alone.

I think the number will be much higher. If you look at mobile gaming trends and the casual player bases of any of the major MMOs, one of the huge time sinks and major draws in the games are "collecting all the things" (think pokemon). Give that same type of person a sandbox game with hundreds (possibly much more) of color variations in one block type and see what happens...

When I played Terriaria (I am nowhere close to being a collector) I had dozens of chests filled with crap I wasn't sure I would ever use but wanted to hold on to until I beat the game. I figured I would eventually build a huge castle or something with it. With that mentality of "I want to save what I gather in case I decide to use it in the future" I could very easily fill up a large number of storage containers with different shades of stone, wood, dirt, ect. I know I would want to store it until I found my perfect planet, claimed it as my own, and built my base there.


Anyway... Without playing the game, none of us really know what to expect. Tiy seems to believe it is a problem as currently implemented into the game and I imagine he plays more than anyone else. That makes me wonder just how many variations there are and how easy it is to have a repeat of a color as you explore.

 

Wouldn't hardcore collectors have fun with the bajillion dirt colors ? Regardless,mthe only REAL solution, the only perfect solution, is to let all colors of something stack together, but upon selecting, open another menu with all the colors that stack holds, with the amount of that color. It's the only viable solution. As long as everyone agrees in that, we're good.

 

Not necessarily the only viable solution. Tiy mentioned on a stream that they might go with option one, but limit the colors of dirt. This would eliminate millions of colors, so that colors that are basically the same will stack. I find this to be my favorite solution, as it could limit the amount of unique colors to something more manageable, perhaps 50-100, instead of 16,581,375, but still retain a reasonable level of free customization.

 

Yeah that'd be totally fine too, I'd be completely satisfied with that

 

No, they just assume that they themselves with not enjoy throwing stuff away. I'm capable of it, I just don't like feeling pressured to do so just to avoid inventory and storage issues that shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

I could say Option #1 supporters are batshit crazy for collecting shades of dirt that are visually indistinguishable, but I don't believe that any of you are batshit crazy. That would be painting a caricature of your real feelings and desires. I understand that you all want lots of custom options, and that some of you have some weird OCD hatred of paint tools, and that you aren't worried at all about having inventories and storage bins that are likely hundreds of times larger and more cumbersome than even the worst in Minecraft or Terraria. I not only understand that, but I sympathize. I also want to do a lot of artwork and building with this game. I just don't feel like I need that many options to do what I want, and I don't lust after unnecessary complexity. I disagree for that reason, and that's okay.

Anyone who's worked in software development (like both of my parents do) knows that the end users tend to make very little use of most features in the program. Take GIMP, for example. It's a very powerful tool for artwork, but most people mainly use it to convert files or use the simplest paintbush tools, or the pencil for pixel art. That's less than 5% of the features it has. In some cases, companies that work for profit (not the open sourced creators of GIMP) will actively tell their employees to remove perfectly functioning features for the sole purpose of simplifying the user interface.

I'm not saying that Starbound should just axe any features. That's the last thing I want. I'm just saying that as long as the game does what we want it to, we don't actually need it to do more. There is a certain point where enough is enough and more is less. As much as I hate to use this term, it's like feature creep. What if the developers decided that 16'581'375 colors of dirt wasn't enough, and that they needed to upgrade to an even deeper color system? Wouldn't that be a waste of the developer's time if nobody took advantage of it? Not even GIMP or Photoshop use more colors than that, but apparently some people think that more is always better.

But guess what? None of that even matters now:

This means the Devs will soon implement an option #4 that makes everyone happy. [/thread]

 

You are being complete ridiculous. There will not be "millions or billions of colours". Like I said in my previous post 50 is more then enough to cover the whole colour spectrum with room for more complex shades for specific areas. With the copy machine you will be able to copy a hat and paint it and never know what it's original colour was. So I feel that is a mute point. Dirt and stone and wood is a little different. It's every where so player who see unique type will get attached to that colour and want to use it every where. Sadly with option 3 this is not possible.

I feel like you do not realize that the paint tool will still be in the game with option 1. You will not have to hop to a planet to get specific colours. You would just place all your dirt down and paint it what ever colour you want. You definitely can't say that is inconvenient because that what option 3 is all about. Another point is you can easily combine 2 stack by just placing one and painting it the colour of the other or placing both and painting them what ever you want and then picking it back up. With a 5x5 placement/extraction tools this would take mere seconds.

You don't seem to be getting my point so I'll say it one more time. Option 3 only takes away from the game and adds a little convenience. Option 1 does not take anything away, it only add a little bit of management that IMO is worth it.

 

Thanks for the compliment.

I get your point, I just still think it's wrong. I could say that you aren't getting my point either, but I'm not sure if that is true. You could very easily understand my points and still disagree. Even if there is a right and wrong answer on this issue, it's very possible for both of us to disagree for good reasons to no end. We just have to agree to disagree. Seriously. Unless you literally want to argue about it forever, I certainly don't think it's that much fun.

Besides:

This means they will eventually go with an Option #4 that makes everyone happy. [/thread]

 

I guess your welcome... But seriously you are probably right, these 3 options are not a solution only a stepping stone towards one. I just hope they don't make it so I can't place different colour dirt on different planets. That all I really care about when it boils down to it.

 

I care about the wood and stone more than the dirt, but I wouldn't like the dirt part either. (Though I could live with it)