REPOST: Mobile Platforms (elevators)

This a repost of something I wrote almost a year ago, I think it would still be a great idea now that I've had a chance to play the game a bit.

I know elevator ideas have been posted before, but I thought I'd put my own spin on the concept.

The backbone of my idea is a universal railtrack system. Place a section of track on a valid background and drag it in a straight line toward any of the 8 points of the compass. Once you are done, you now have options to customize the mode of conveyance based on how you laid your track:

1. Stops
   1. attach a stop anywhere on the track, and the platform will slow and stop there automatically as it approaches, pausing for a few seconds before moving on to the next stop or returning to the beginning if it reaches the end of the track (unless programmed to wait until called). Each stop includes a panel (that requires a solid horizontal surface adjacent to the stop) that you can use to call the platform.
2. Platform Types
   1. Depending on how the railtrack is laid, different options will available. All platforms have an 'Express Button' to bypass a stop without slowing. Here are few I have thought of based on direction:
      1. 1. Capsule (Vertical only)
            1. a single person elevator designed to rapidly travel between two points. Best used for reaching the deepest parts of a world in a big hurry.
         2. Mining elevators and passenger elevators (vertical only)
            1. aesthetically different but functionally the same, a mining elevator is an uncaged platform, whereas a passenger elevator is fully enclosed.
         3. Industrial elevator (omni directional)
            1. simply an automated conveyor belt that can be used to haul materials from one place to another, such as buckets for water, lava, and other building materials. This is the only elevator that can be run in any direction aside from the gondola.
            2. attached to the industrial railtrack, the Bucket Excavator is a vehicle that is used to not only lay track underground, but to dig large tunnels as it goes, transporting the materials along the track behind it. (see pic on 2nd page).
         4. Train (Horizontal only)
            1. Straightforward horizontal people mover, can have different aesthetics such as simple platform, lightrail, bullet train, etc.
         5. Industrial platform aka Funicular or inclined lift (Diagonal only)
            1. a mainstay of scifi, the huge industrial platform that moves slowly diagonal down or up.
         6. Gondola (omni directional)
            1. useful for traversing large caverns without destroying the environment with platforms and bridges
         7. Space Elevator (vertical only, duh!)
         1. 1. Useful for transferring unique resources from a planet to your ship for transport to another planet.

This is an image of a capsule elevator running on a track, credit to The Enlightened Grue for drawing it:

 

How about literal moving platforms? I mean platform blocks.

You could wire them to do all sorts of crazy and neat stuff, like Portal-style ascending stairs!

 

I like the idea of this it could prove very helpful and aesthetically pleasing. +1 for you sir

 

I'm pretty sure the devs have tried this, but not put it in because of technical difficulties.

I wouldn't mind a point to point elevator though.

 

That would be quite hard to implement.
But it can be done, something in the lines of a UI that gives you 10x10 (maybe more) blocks-wide space to design the moving platform, then you determine it's trajectory and all blocks where it pass through are marked as 'forbidden to build here' to make sure they don't go through stuff. Alternatively, if it ever hits something, it stops/break

 

I was thinking that this could be done in a similar way to the hidden glitch door which pops in and out of the background except it'd be invisible in the background unless the tool for building it is being held and sequentially appearing and disappearing along the line giving the illusion of movement. But I too am no game designer so I have no idea if this would make it easier to develop, also it'd have to pull the player along unless you were to walk with it which may ruin the illusion

 

maybe an alternative is to go the SG: Atlantis route, where in the show they got around various parts of the city through 'elevators' which teleported them to others throughout the city. Perhaps one could make a network of teleporter pads that had limited range or number of connections. For example, Short Range pads could have half a dozen connections, Medium Range 4, Long Range 2. So, you could have a building that had elevators that went to lobbies, which would lead into various compartments, or one elevator on the ground floor that went into deep mines.