Suggestion: Scaffold blocks pack.

[EmberStar]

Something that would be helpful for building interesting looking ships and structures would be actual scaffolding blocks. Placing a block and then "never weld it" has a lot of disadvantages. The main ones being that they break if you sneeze on them, and they don't work at all if you are using projectors and a welding ship or welder array.

The scaffolding blocks could use the current "just placed" models that already exist for nearly everything, so it *probably* wouldn't use a ton of extra memory.


The tradeoffs (Aka, why would anyone want this.)

The blocks would provide additional building options and still allow your ship to look the same if you are printing it off with a welder rig.

They should be lighter than the matching block, allowing you to useful choices about how your creations look and how much they weigh. Want to save weight, especially inside a large ship where damage is less likely? Scaffolding.

They should use less materials, probably something close to how much less they weigh.

They should also have health proportional to their weight. This should be an improvement over the current "never weld" method, but still less than a full strength block.


I was thinking about this after looking at some of the designs you can buy from the NPC Trade Stations. There are several that use unbuilt light armor as scaffolding, and others that use unfinished Heavy Armor to create the appearance of air intakes or heat sinks. I think this is a *really* neat detail, and it's one that would be completely lost if I ever used a projector to build a Survival Mode copy. (And would likely be lost if I made extensive use of a Welder Ships for maintenance.)

I am aware that Keen rarely (if ever) reads these forums. However I don't have an account on their own forums, and I don't want to make one to make a single suggestion. And there's no point in suggesting it at all if no one is interested (or if it's already been made and "there are reasons" why this doesn't exist already.)

[seronis]

Already exists. Never will understand why people dont just use what is already there

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Keen would probbaly say those unwelded blocks are the scaffold blocks. I would probbably agree aswell in this case. They use less materials, weigh less, and have less hp. Only thing is they do work off projectors.

Keen counts each build stage of a block as a sepperate block. This i dont really agree with. They once listed that se had over 200 blocks. I went up and down the list for ages trying to see how they got that number. When i re visited the article i noticed the pic featured all the build stages for each one.

Nice try keen but that dosent count. An unfinished refinery isnt another block :P

[EmberStar]

Originally posted by seronis:

Already exists. Never will understand why people dont just use what is already there

Because it doesn't already exist. Take a blueprint for a ship that's meant to look like it's made largely of scaffolding. Print it using a projector and a welder array. It will now be made of dull looking armor blocks and weigh a massive amount more. If you want it to look like it's supposed to, you'll have to go through and grind off each block one by one, then manually replace it.

Ditto for any of the Keen designed small ships that use Heavy Armor scaffold blocks to look like heat sinks or air intakes. If you use a welder array to repair your small ships, it will weld those up for you. Now instead of interesting details, you have heavy armor blocks that weigh a ton randomly sprinkled all over your ship.

Tying to use the "Scaffold stage" of blocks as decorative details is a huge pain in the ass outside id Creative mode. If you only ever cut and paste blueprints then no, this won't be an issue. If you play in Survival mode and try to do *anything* to automate maintenance on your ships, the lack of actual scaffold BLOCKS is definitely something you'll notice.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

Might be worth keen thinking about a toggle on blocks, or a tag we can apply. Then we half weld something to where we want it, and maybe hit it with a new invisible "paint" that means it wont weld past that stage again.

Would solve the projector issue and give more weight to the claim of 200odd blocks, because as Ember is saying, using that way isnt practical :)

[Troubleshooter]

Originally posted by Karmaterrorᵁᴷ:

Keen would probbaly say those unwelded blocks are the scaffold blocks. I would probbably agree aswell in this case. They use less materials, weigh less, and have less hp. Only thing is they do work off projectors.

Keen counts each build stage of a block as a sepperate block. This i dont really agree with. They once listed that se had over 200 blocks. I went up and down the list for ages trying to see how they got that number. When i re visited the article i noticed the pic featured all the build stages for each one.

Nice try keen but that dosent count. An unfinished refinery isnt another block :P

Its a pretty common way to build things that otherwise don't look right. I use unfinished wheels and O2 tanks to make pillars, for example.

I don't know if that count as a different block or not... but it sure doesn't work for blueprints, so there's something to be said for wanting some method for preserving the aesthetics of a build done in this manner.

[Karmaterrorᵁᴷ]

I agree, id prefer some way to "pause" the block at its stage rather than a DLC pack for scaffolding. A pack would probbably be quite light on actual blocks and theres already a tonne of stuff ingame with the various stages.

Maybe they could even let us scroll through the stages of a block and place it in X stage. Then its only ever going to be that model :)

[EmberStar]

Anything would be an improvement. It doesn't need to be (probably shouldn't be) a full DLC on it's own. But since they need money, I don't know how else they would justify spending any time on it at all. The ability to select a building stage and "lock" the block to that (that level of detail, that weight, that amount of health, and that portion of the needed materials) would be good though. Especially since that would solve the scaffolding problem *and* make it suddenly true that there are "over 200 different blocks to build with."

[seronis]

Originally posted by EmberStar:

Originally posted by seronis:

Already exists. Never will understand why people dont just use what is already there

Because it doesn't already exist. .

Fine i'll extrapolate a bit

"already exists for people not insanely incompetent to the point they cant type a single word"

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=244850&searchtext=scaffold

[EmberStar]

You want to use mods, that's fine. I meant as part of the base game. You know, so that I could (for example) upload a ship with scaffolding in it and NOT have it be dependent on mods. Or have it randomly BREAK whenever Keen patches something and the mods go wonky.

In short: I don't *CARE* what mods are out there, because they're not "officially" supported and they can and will break in strange ways for no obvious reason. Or because the creator got bored and quit maintaining them. That's aside from the part where mods are *disabled* by default, so any ship using them is completely unusable in any situation where Experimental Mode isn't turned on. (All official multiplayer servers, and many non-official where the admin just doesn't want to deal with mod maintenance.)

Thanks for going to the effort of being insulting for no reason though.

[seronis]

Keen doesnt officially support their own world settings nor even their own programming block. Keens "official" support is utterly bu||shìt and doesnt count for its weight in feces. The best features of SE were not keen creations but all taken from mods. Build planner, relative dampeners, wave scenario and lost colony scenario, decorative blocks, catwalks, railings, small grid windows, shields, economy, faction reputation, tech trees, cockpit lcds,

You should care about mods because its only after they've existed for well over a year, if not 2 or 3, that keen finally steals it and puts it in the base game.

[EmberStar]

You like mods, then whatever. You do you. I've already had experience with my survival game (one that I'd been slowly progressing in my free time for over a YEAR) becoming corrupted and crashing instantly because something in one of the mods broke, and did so in a way that corrupted the save even after it was removed.

So no, I make every effort to avoid using mods, and I'm *very* selective about which ones I use.

I'm not sure why you seem to feel the need to get pissed at me. I made a suggestion, which Keen is almost certainly never going to see and would likely ignore even if they did. You think my suggestion is a bad idea. Great, whatever, feedback noted. So what do you hope to accomplish by being insulting about it?

[EmberStar]

It doesn't solve the stated problem. The scaffold blocks do not exist in the base game. Mods don't *COUNT.* They aren't relevant to what I'm suggesting. My suggestion was for Keen (not a modder) to make blocks that KEEN (not modders) have already designed and included in the game, and set them in such a way that you can KEEP them looking the way you intended for the ship design.

Mods don't count, they are irrelevant to the discussion. You like mods. Great. Good for you. So what?

[seronis]

There are already mods that use the EXACT blocks you are asking for. The build progress scaffolding, not just custom new scaffolding. It is EXACTLY what you are asking for. Vanilla scaffolding made by keen. Something that cant become incompatible unless keen redesigns the entire game visuals again.

I never said the mods were similar to what you asked for. I said EXACTLY what you asked for. Your ignorance not understanding the difference is your own problem.

[EmberStar]

I'm not asking about mods. I don't CARE about mods, because mods are MODS. The suggestion was for Keen to do it, as an intentional decorative choice and not an accidental byproduct. Your failure to understand the difference (and continuing need to be aggressive) are quite worrying.

I'm fully aware of what the mods do. They are NOT what I'm asking for, because they are MODS. It is NOT exactly what I'm asking for, because any ship using them is dependent on MODS.

You've made your statement, and thrown your insults. Ignoring you now.