Interior scenery: Tables, chairs, etc.

[WardenWolf]

What the game is really lacking is interior items. I can produce the most impressive and functional structures imaginable, but when I go inside, they're empty. I don't even care if the tables and chairs are usable in any fashion. I just want to have them for decoration. Anything to make it worthwhile to design an interior.

This would not take much time or effort for developers to implement. They're just blocks, after all. But I just want to have something to make putting rooms and such in my structures worthwhile, not just cavernous open spaces.

I hate to make any sort of Minecraft comparison, but this is where the scale of MC versus SE comes into play: in MC, a player is two blocks high. In SE, one. In MC, because of this, a player is able to reasonably simulate things such as tables and chairs that aren't directly in the game. In SE, the larger sizes of the blocks make that impossible, so the ability to improvise is somewhat curtailed. This is why there's a need for Keen to actually step in and add this, rather than being able to just make do.

[Forge Master]

Crew seats would be a good idea.. So others will stay in your ship while its in motion

[WardenWolf]

The block size to player size issue is going to bite Keen severely down the road. We're already starting to see it. What Keen is going to have to do to fix it is allow small blocks to be attached to larger blocks, and allow you to select which size you're placing. This may require a massive redesign of the game engine. But the longer they wait to do it, the worse it will get. People are going to get bored with the game if they can't do proper interiors.

[The Peterson]

They could still do interior pieces that don't take up the whole space of a block, eg. the pillar, but you would only be able to fit one per block. So in some cases, you'd have to have combi blocks like, "table and chairs" rather than have them be individual items.

[WardenWolf]

Right. And this is why it's going to bite them. I could see them doing a cafeteria-style table with benches easily enough, where you can connect them end to end to add size, but anything more fancy is going to be a major problem. The game's scaling is going to create major problems longterm if Keen doesn't make changes such as allowing small blocks to connect to larger blocks.

[The Peterson]

I see what you're saying, and there have been many times when I think I could use a half-sized block or whatnot, but I don't think that's something they will ever do, as it goes against the fundamental principles of the game.

[WardenWolf]

I suspect they'll allow connecting large blocks and small blocks at some point. It wouldn't be particularly hard, and it wouldn't break any fundamental game principles. All they would need to do is subdivide the grid for the larger blocks to allow the smaller ones to be placed. Both large and small blocks would still be confined to the grid, with the large ones in their usual spacing.

That's the easy solution. Keen can implement this fairly easily and without breaking any fundamental rules of the system.

Say you had 3 large blocks in a row, represented by X|X|X. Once the grid is subdivided, it would look the same, but would be able to function like this:

xxx|xxx|xxx
xxx|xxx|xxx
xxx|xxx|xxx

Each lowercase x represents a spot where a small block can go on one of the larger blocks. Notice, though, that the larger blocks are still confined to their spacing. You gain no ability to misalign them with the previous grid. You simply gain the ability to add small blocks within the grid of the large ones.