On my first day here, my first post ever (not counting my introduction thread) was in a topic discussing a strange phenomenon where the racial flags in the game are listed as "Crafting" items, implying that they were crafting stations in the same wake as anvils and crafting tables. While merely a silly detail that was noticed, it gave me an idea. You see, I had made myself a player-made village where I plopped down four Hylotl Spawners and two Guard Spawners. The guards, as you may know, are given a species at random. I ended up with a Hylotl and a... Floran. This somewhat hilarious scenario served as the secondary catalyst to my idea. What if racial flags (Hylotl Flag, Floran Flag, Apex Flag, Avian Flag, Glitch Flag, and Human Flag) actually were crafting stations. What would they craft? NPCs; more specifically, their spawners. So, if I created a Hylotl Flag and placed it somewhere, I could then use the flag to craft Hylotl Spawners and Guard Spawners. Not just any Guard Spawners though, specifically Hylotl Guard Spawners. Let's say I'm out on a planet. I find a Glitch Castle and kill everyone inside. On top of the castle is a Glitch Flag. With this system, I'll now be able to take the flag, bring it back to my ship/village, and use it to create Glitch Spawners and Glitch Guard Spawners, allowing me complete control over how many Hylotl and how many Glitch are in my village. Currently, if I wanted some Avians in my village, I'd need to get on my Avian character and have her make some Avian Spawners for me. With this new system, though, I'd be able to have her simply make an Avian Flag, and I could then use it to make new Avian villagers whenever I wanted. But what about the people who like the random nature of the Guard Spawners? Well, why not have a randomized spawner be craftable as well? I'm thinking of a sort of neutral flag, maybe even one that you could customize the appearance of, that can craft generic "Villager Spawner"s and "Guard Spawner"s for a significantly lower resource cost, with the drawback (if you choose to see it as one) being that the species of the villager or guard is random. I've also been throwing around the idea of being able to combine other flags you acquire with the customizable flag, letting you, for example, place a Hylotl Flag in a special slot inside your custom flag's interface, and now you can create Hylotl Spawners and Hylotl Guard Spawners from that flag, and any other custom flag on the planet. Finally, I think it'd be cool to be able to unlock the schematics for the special spawners (ie, Tool Spawner). So, there's a lot of ideas hidden in these paragraphs. To summarize: - Racial Flags are now used to craft race-specific Villagers and Guards - Schematics for other special NCPs unlockable, rather than having to find the spanwers in the wild - Customizable flag with the following traits: - Ability to create cheaper spawners that give you a random species - Ability to hold other flags, allowing you to craft race-specific spawners at any other custom flag on the planet It's a simple idea, but one that I think could go far in allowing players to customize the way that they play the game, especially the post-game. Any comments, or additional ideas and suggestions, are welcome. Thanks for reading! Additional and Alternative Ideas, As Suggested by the Community: 1. As an alternative to a crafting station, flags can act as endless NCP Spawners. The player could, in some way, set a limit to how many will be spawned at once, meaning that if one dies, a new one can take its place immediately. 2. Generic spawners can summon a villager/guard/etc. of a specific species by being placed within a certain radius of a racial flag. 3. Flags dictate where the village itself lies. The player can set a radius from the flag that qualifies as a village, using multiple flags for more complex village designs, both keeping villagers from wandering off and allowing the player to set up districts amongst their village. 4. The only physical part of the flag is the pole. The flag itself is part of the foreground, allowing players to place them in more strategic locations. 5. The player can unlock additional flag mechanics by having a higher reputation with the race of the flag they are crafting. For example, a Hylotl Flag and a Floran Flag overlapping in radius will lead to bickering and displeasure between the two, but if the player is a Hylotl and builds a good reputation with a group of Florans, he can craft a hybrid Hylotl/Floran flag that spawns both races who will, in its radius, get along with each other.
This is a very good idea. I am surprised how much thought you put in after you mistakenly saw it as a crafting station.. Well, anyway . . . What if, instead of using that as a crafting station, you place the flag near NPC's, and in a certain tile-radius, those NPC's will spawn as the Flag dictates. Of course, that would be hard to manage unless you have it be where you use the Wiring Tool from the Wiring Station to hook up the flag to the NPC's (up to 6 or 8 or something??).
While we're at it can we have the flag's "placement" requirement be based only on the pole? As it is the flag is a 2 x 2 or 3 x 3 object and the actual flag itself has to wave over a solid cell, thus I can't have flags on both corners waving the same way without looking misaligned.
Supported, so long as there's a way for players to craft flags for other races or (even better) for distinct combinations of races. I can see some sort of "racial reputation" system being implemented into this: if your human character does enough work for the Florans, you get the crafting recipe for a "Human/Floran" flag that allows you to craft spawners for either race.
What if a flag had an "aura" where all NPC spawners used within X blocks produced NPCs of that race? This would be a nice way to make your own themed villages, rather than having Hylotl and Floran exist side by side without talk of Sushi Bars or Salad Bars...
I thought that's where you were going, but it was right around lunchtime and I was hungry, so I skimmed and didn't really re-read it
Hmm, let me see if I understand the recommended additions to the idea: 1. As an alternative to a crafting station, flags can act as endless NCP Spawners. The player could, in some way, set a limit to how many will be spawned at once, meaning that if one dies, a new one can take its place immediately. 2. Flags dictate where the village itself lies. The player can set a radius from the flag that qualifies as a village, using multiple flags for more complex village designs, both keeping villagers from wandering off and allowing the player to set up districts amongst their village. 3. The only physical part of the flag is the pole. The flag itself is part of the foreground, allowing players to place them in more strategic locations. 4. The player can unlock additional flag mechanics by having a higher reputation with the race of the flag they are crafting. For example, a Hylotl Flag and a Floran Flag overlapping in radius will lead to bickering and displeasure between the two, but if the player is a Hylotl and builds a good reputation with a group of Florans, he can craft a hybrid Hylotl/Floran flag that spawns both races who will, in its radius, get along with each other. This sound about right? Should I copy and paste the above into the OP?
I was meaning that the flag would dictate what race the placed spawners would be, not exactly the flag spawning itself. BUT, at the same time, if the flag was expensive, using a lot of materials, maybe some Titanium for the pole, the flag could get a small menu where you can set parameters. But, yes, everything else on the list seems good. Copy-and-Paste away, Rayze.
Oh, I get it now. Added that to the list, and the list itself has now been added to the OP. Thanks to everyone for all of your suggestions to help make my plan the best it can be!
I think that they should add this to code and not make it craftable. when they do add creative mode then this would help for server customization, but in normal games, it's a bit overpowered.
