I hate the 3D Printer

My printer only had 3 recipies in it and everything I tried to scan into it would not scan... so I never really used the 3d printer. I still don't understand it to this day.

 

If you don't like it, don't use it. It's just one option among many, why do you feel like you have to use it at all. In the 120+ hours of playing this game, I think I've used it maybe five times total. I don't do a lot of combat, so pixels are better spent on crafting, not printing, for me. But then, that's where there are options.

 

I find the refinery is a better way to make first ores still useful. How many ran around collecting copper or iron in Terraria the millisecond you outgrow that tier. Converting them into pixels to make 3d printer items just simplifies the whole roundabout way of adding more life to old ores by adding a thousand more schematics of vanity items for the sake of using them.
Then I don't need to make a giant stockpile of every ore in the universe for just in case this metal feather wall decoration needs it.

 

THIS. So much this.

Right now I'm in the X sector and almost all of the tech blocks must be printed with pixels, except for the steel and iron block. It really turns down the potential of crafting of this game. I have tons of materials, ores, rock, sand, dirt... why not just use those for crafting blocks and furniture? For example the concrete blocks could be crafted with sand, gravel and other stuff.

Having to destroy villages and other buildings for the blocks is...kinda sad I'd much rather craft them.

 

This and "It's in beta" are probably the least constructive replies possible. Well, aside for insults and all that stuff, but anyway.

Deserok is doing the right thing. He doesn't like how something works. He brings it to the forum to share his opinion about how it could be improved. Other players agree or disagree. The outcome can give an idea of the general thought of an item. Changes may or may not be made.

It's in beta. People need to voice their opinion. Telling everyone "It's in beta" or "Just don't use it" when they are bringing something up can just prevent any changes from being made.

For example. Weapon X is very bad. But no one talk about it because "it's in beta" and they can "just not use it". In the end, the weapon stays bad because no one brought it up.
Item Y is kind of useless, so not many people use it. But no one talks about it because "beta, don't use". In the end, the item remains unused because no one brought it up.

This is a stage of changes. People need to bring stuff up, or else, nothing will ever change.

 

I personally like the way the printer works currently. It's really nice to have a universal resource that you can use to create previously discovered decorational items, allowing for a system with hundreds of specific aesthetic objects to flow smoothly without clogging up storage or being a pain to collect.

If you got a recipe then there'd be a lot of frustrating traveling back and forth between sectors just to get an item, which doesn't really seem to be what's intended when you just want to make a small light to finish off your ship design. I don't see why building in a certain theme needs to be finicky and annoying.

With refining metals you should have less excess useless bars, as you can turn old bars into pixels and put it to use. If recipes only took particular bars then overall you'd have more odd bars left over along with having to travel between sectors collecting ore.

 

All I want is items I add to the printer to NOT cost so many pixels. I don't really care what they cost coming back out.

 

Good for you

 

Two things I would like to see with the 3d printer:

1) portable scanner, perhaps use the existing portable 3d printer unit, enabling you to scan items into your 3D print database on the go!

2) constructable 3D printer: maybe it's just me, but I'm working with a partner right now to build a lava-deep underground bunker type place, and having to climb up, port to ship, just to 3d print some stuff - kinda tedious. Would like to have the option to craft a placeable 3D printer that could be incorporated into our structures and the like.

 

I've always thought the 3d printer was a big mistake. Takes all the fun out of dungeon plundering and making things. If it was just used to get blueprints or make blocks used to build your buildings, that'd be a different matter.

I remember some time ago, they were going to add "ore furniture" as I think it was called. Furniture and decorations you could make with all the excess ore and stuff that you find. I wonder if they got lazy and did the 3d printer as a shortcut.

 

See, I'm not sure if alot of you have minecraft tekkit experience, there was a mod called Equivalent Exchange. It was an item that allowed you to melt down unwanted items into a stored energy, which could then be used to craft any item in game. This completely made server economys obsolete, anyone could make anything. Alot of servers banned it's use and eventually the mod itself was dropped from the mod pack.

The 3D Printer isn't that extreme, as it stands it's pretty limited, but if more things get added to it down the line, it'll remove depth from the game. As far as I can tell, this is a Sandbox game with RPG elements. Sandbox games will dry up quickly if there is no challenge getting your preferred materials. I'm glad you can't scan building blocks currently, because that would break it further. All you would need to do now is sit on a lvl 10 planet and mine surface ores, refine them, and get thousands of blocks.

If the 3D printer must stay, then it should at the very least just work like a crafting table itself, you need to bring x amount of materials+ pixels. Simple things like the Glitch large black bricks (my personal favorite) should be craftable with cobblestone that has been pulverized and baked in a furnace into bricks, and then colored black.

Also, to reply to the post for the thousands of recipies and who would make them. Put me in coach, I'll gladly sit there and make an exhaustive list of materials needed and reasons why. It wouldn't be that daunting, Gold and silver for electrical components, Copper for crude wiring for more industrial machines. Iron for the machine's chassis. Having more uses for lower level ores beyond refining them will give people a reason to actually want them.

Honestly, Even making ammunition craftable for ballistics weaponry would help. Energy weapons should use energy, they never need to be reloaded, but their drawback is they use energy. Ballistics Weapons need crafted ammunition (made at a loading bench), have a limited clip size that needs to be reloaded, but the advantage is they don't draw off your energy.

Simple things like that will add depth. I can see clans making huge ammunition factories to supply their little soldiers and turrets. Other players specializing in mass producing blast resistant bricks for meteorite bunkers, Base fortifications. Someone might just want to be a chef, making the best foods with their automated farming. Even medical supplies. It would be a non-enforced tier system that will allow you to specialize in something, or try to do everything, limited only by your ambitions and resources.

 

No, the original post was a whine because he thinks using the 3D printer is the only way to play the game but it doesn't work exactly the way he wants it to. If this were merely a suggestion on how to improve the 3D printer, it should have been posted in the Suggestions forum, not this one.

I merely pointed out that the 3D printer is only one of several ways to obtain items/materials, so if it doesn't fit your play style, try one of the others.

 

Ore furniture is already in the game, I thought? I assume they mean stuff like impervium beds, steel door, etc.

EE was banned most of the time for the fact it was imbalanced, not the actual concept or idea behind the mod. It tried to get attention by being the easy way to do things and offering cheap items to those who learnt it. For decorational items I don't think that any of that applies.

The 3D printer opens up the possibility for almost infinitely many decorative items to be added for small details, without having users return back to their ship with cluttered inventories after taking two steps on the planet. At a cost, you can scan the items you want to replicate. This really helps facilitate more complicated building and depth after getting to the last tier.

 

It's a whine because I stated my opinions and then listed the possible solutions to the issues presented? I even listed the implications it would have to multiplayer servers, which is a valid argument considering the developers have stated they're also making this game with large communities in mind. I'm not saying I'm right, and that everyone is wrong, I just find the 3D Printer to be a broken element. If the argument is "I don't use it much" then that in my opinion isn't a very good counter, because stuff is already actively being added to it. When more items get added to it, it'll get used more. My argument isn't about it's balance now, it's about how it will affect things later on down the road if it's current mechanic stays the same.

I wouldn't waste my time on this if the complaint was simply prices and etc. My complaint is that it's core function is a flawed design, which I then backed up with an argument. It solves nothing if my post was just "I don't like the 3D Printer, game to E-Z"

The printer makes the game boil down to pixels. The one good thing I'll say about it is as it stands, it makes beta testing easier because I can replicate things to test for bugs.

 

I've always looked at the Suggestions part of any forum as a box you drop suggestions into for the devs and they get around to reading it when they have the time. Discussions are for when you have an idea and you want to talk about it with the community.