Blocks or building elements that offer a lot of interactivity are, in my eyes, an important addition to every game in which construction plays a central role. By "interactive", I mean anything that offers a range of actions and/or reactions to player inputs or other blocks. A great example for this is Spelunky, an indie sidescrolling platformer; you can, for example, use your shotgun to shoot an enemy. The knockback may send him flying down, triggering an arrow trap. The arrow would shoot the enemy, catapulting it onto a jump-pad which would redirect it into an enemy UFO, which would then crash, explode and kill another few enemies. With only a few basic interactive blocks, players can already construct - or be confronted with - complex situations. You could use such elements for base defense, faciliating travel (automated doors, elevators, just to name a few examples) and lots of other purposes. The most basic ingredient would be some kind of wiring or wireless linking, paired with input and output devices. Inputs could be pressure plates, photo-electric relays (light sensors), switches, automatic pulse generators and many others. Inbetween in- and output, there could be several parts to faciliate wiring, such as "wiring crossroads", gates (AND,OR,XOR), delays and others. There's literally infinite possibilities for outputs, be it wall-mounted flamethrowers, laser signal senders (which could be used to transport signals or even entire messages across long horizontal or vertical distances), doors which could be locked or opened, pistons, three-state chain winches (move up/down, stay), dispensers and others. I know that most of these devices are borrowed from either Terraria, Minecraft or LittleBigPlanet. It's not my intention to just copypaste anything, but it's a mere fact that many interesting and basic features have already been used in the abovementioned games - which should by no means be a reason to not include them in any other game. Of course, once the basic elements are in place, there's room for a much wider variety of devices that take full use of the jump'n'shoot engine. An example would be an "electro-ball generator" which would, when activated, generate a ball of energy that travels along the surface it was generated on, travelling across edges, along walls and ceilings, until it hits any NPC or reaches its maximum distance. Feel free to discuss and post your own ideas, any feedback is appreciated.
That sound like a good idea. I gott the though you meant that things reakt in different ways depending on what you do to like it changes if you pour watern on or maby exploded or something when you hitted it with a certain item or so
I like the idea of doors that open only for people on a "white list". Like, "if solac3 within 2 blocks open" "If else locked".
This is a really interesting idea, and I hope that it gets in game. I love the complex things that could be created from this, and it would definitely make for some fun adventure maps.
That sounds really good! I always hated, that the only effective trap in Terraria, was the Dart Trap!
This does sound like a lot of fun. I don't know if anyone ever played Dungeon Keeper or Evil Genius, but researching different types of traps was integral to the game, so not only would this greatly expand the number of research options available to players, but it would add a new level to base design.
The Deception series of Sony can also be a good source of ideas. In it, you have to defend yourself of a variety of enemies, but your only way to do it so is using the environment and the traps you prepare using some time. One of the mechanics were the Trap Combos, as the one mentioned above of Spelunky.
may i extend this further by adding maybe about the wires if its incorperating science they can add pipes and m achines like in tekkit in a way
It's beena long time since I've posted this (almost 1.5 years ago, can you imagine?). Since then, wiring has already been confirmed and demonstrated. On that note, I must say I really think the "freeform" wiring of Starbound fits the 2d environment better than block-based real-space wiring. So, since the requested feature (block interactions with in- and output-devices) has already been confirmed, I don't see much sense in this thread anymore (since suggestions for specific in/output devices deserve their own threads). Thanks everyone for the feedback and ideas in the postings!
I do wonder how one could even manage to dig those up. Takes a lot of dedication I imagine. Still, as said - the main point of my thread is already confirmed to be in the game (wiring and in/output blocks), so I'd best report my thread to be closed now.
