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Ship Design Atelier (Holo Deck)


vertex

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First I want to gather distance from what has been raised already: creative mode and the like. I have searched and found the "Creative Mode" thread and while it kinda addresses the same issue, I consider it another "game mode" that would be separate from the "real" universe (ehem... just let me use the term "real" without quotes from now on - don't slap me).

 

Atelier? Holo Deck? Holo Dock? Holo Shipyard?

I guess I don't need to describe the atelier (holo deck) in detail - you all know the Star Trek Holo Deck, where people can create a holographic illusion that they can even interact with, or take damage from if security protocols have been disabled - it looks and feels real, but really is just an illusion/projection within a limited area.

 

What makes this different from Creative Mode?

Applied to Dual Universe and the role of ship designer it would mean that the designer could start by building a first atelier (static construct) which may be rather small, but lets him create concepts of dynamic constructs that fit into the room. I think the Star Trek Holo Deck is infinitely large when switched on, but this would create a "seperate world/instance" within the real world of DU and I think that would imply many issues and players hiding in a tiny spot that inside might be huge. Don't know.

 

Second reason why I think the atelier should be just as big as the inside of the construct: designers would start small and work their way up. As this is a game and you probably aim for some kind of progression, it would be sensible to not have the one week old player design a Star Destroyer (executor- or eclipse-class, hehe) in his tiny 3x3m atelier.

 

Third reason: it's a building in the real world, visible by other players. It adds prestige, too. It's where your company works and where other players (friends, clients) may be granted access and look at your progress.

 

But how on Alioth would one fit an executor class star destroyer into a building that has to fit into a TCU tile!?

Good thing you ask! Because you don't and because you shouldn't. Two reasons:

  1. You don't really want to have ships of this size equipped with atmospheric thrusters to launch from a planet.
  2. Once the designer progresses to a point where he could build something like this, he'd have his own space dock - he'd have his own "holo atelier shipyard", where giant rails run along starboard/backboard, topside/keel, bow/stern, which mount projector equipment to get the planning phase done.

 

Resources/Maintenance?

You'd have to feed the atelier with power to run the projectors - but those projections don't need material as you can't take them away anyways. You might want to secure your endeavours tho as you leave the safe zone to create bigger stuff.

 

More benefits?

  • you could configure the projector to disable clipping and or reduce opacity
  • you could switch to wireframe, which would be bliss (if you ever created a 3d model using design software, you know it can be hard to track down hidden surfaces that don't serve any purpose, but just bloat your model)
  • you could switch voxels on/off as well as components on/off (easier to link fully enclosed components if no voxels are in the way)
  • you could move, raise or lower the construct without having to worry about gravity
  • you could switch to simulation mode in order to enter a projected cockpit and move some meters around within your atelier - speed off and your character will smash into the wall, while your construct swooshes through it and is gone (so you need to reset relative projection position)
  • you could have guides (lines/planes) projected to your workspace - lines to align stuff and planes to view cross sections or set a mirror plane, without having to calculate double/triple/quad resource cost (as there are no resource costs)
  • everything this device can do for you would neither break the consistent universe, nor have people vanishing into thin air, because they suddenly are in "a different game mode"
  • of course you could still just start building - trial and error, get that thing in the air and all that - but you'd be lacking some tools and it would have the full cost in resources
  • Freedom of Choice! This would be an option to excel at something you love - at the same time it would not be mandatory. Your choice, mate!
  • immersion, immersion, immersion.. ;)

 

Modularity of design and construction

All holographic constructs would be just that - hollow projections. They would not take up real space. This means you would place your projector/-s, start designing your construct and at the same time you could in fact place the core unit where you just planned it and start building the real thing as if you did a colour by numbers ("Malen nach Zahlen" in German). Your company/organization could take in someone specialized on construction/building, who helps on this process.

 

Projectors would be an asset just like doors or cores or engines - they would need players to build them, they would need resources to be built, they could have limited projection capacities in "supported construct dimension and/or volume" - again this means scalability - this means progressing through the game - this means having something to achieve, to work for. The largest stuff doesn't come cheap, but the biggest XXL of projectors coult have clustering capability, so you could connect it with other XXL projectors to create the giant holo shipyard atelier I mentioned above.

 

Final statement

I'm not 100% sure if I thought of everything - but seeing the threads around creative mode, offline mode, single player stuff, creators needs, clients needs, freelancers needs, and the polarization it sometimes causes, I think this is a direction that could serve the needs of all sides. Designers could create blueprints while they wouldn't vanish from the rest of the world, but be an essential part of it.

 

I did the search - maybe this has been here already? I hope I didn't miss it. Yeah, I've seen the note in the "Creative Mode" thread, that something like this "might" come as an addon after release. No problem with that! It's just an idea and open for discussion. Please, add your thoughts - I'm craving for feedback, as I've got a hunch this could be awesome.

 

Merci pour votre considération.

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An excellent post and I maybe have an improvement:

 

I think it is not good to have all possible items available at the beginning or a constructors's career. Therefore different skills should affect the number of items and voxels and available items. Your limit is only the size of the holo deck, that seems for me too easy to achieve. Size does matter ofc but knowledge and training should matter too.

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Thanks to all so far - glad to see the basic idea coming across and being welcomed! ^_^

 

@Oije oh yes, I think stuff like that could scale with the quality/size/level of the projectors used? I'm not very familiar with the different elements yet but there are differently sized cores - maybe have the projector only be able to simulate cores at its own level/size? I was just thinking about "own size +1 or below" but that might not even be necessary as I don't see why one should not just use multiple projectors with different sizes in different sized ateliers.

 

Core size limits construct size I believe? Maybe larger cores will be way more expensive, or not usable from the start through lack of skill? Whatever they might introduce - I've got a hunch that the same quality/size/level principles they introduce for different elements could be carried over to the projectors too. Same goes in case they decide to use a skill system to limit what engineers can build with their current skill - designers could have a similar skill tree. No idea, but so far it feels compatible, modular and scalable :)

 

If anyone knows a resource where I could read about the current concept outline regarding these questions I'd greatly appreciate it - if such a resource even exists yet, hehe.

 

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Size a holo deck uses energy, the restriction is the  size of the holo deck generator/projector, comparable to the core sizes - I agree with that.

 

To handle larger items should not be monetary based mainly, I hope it will be more skill based. The smarter should strike the richer.

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Regarding smart: since they're going to simulate physics of mass, thrust, atmosphere - and it's important where/how you place elements - the "smart" will not just in part come from the designer's "real life" skills. That's just what I like most of all. Please don't stone me to death for this, but personally I'd vote for "no in-game skills or restrictions at all" (apart from resources), tho I fear most people won't agree on that - which probably is a good thing, considering this being an MMO and the havoc people (without the need to think about what they're doing) might cause otherwise :P

 

Alas... I'm not the only player and I guess we'll have to grind through skills anyways (or wait ages for them to be learned like in EVE (mega-yaaaawn)) - so yeah, I agree with you regarding the question of where to apply skills and for what ;)

 

For now I'll just trust them to find a solution we all can live with regarding such game progression mechanics - and I agree that a purely money based system is problematic, especially where people can just buy ISK... *cough* eerrrr.... CR? Heck, what's the currency in DU called? Will there be Alioth Dollars and Theseus Moon Crowns? Or JCB-Coins? :lol:

 

/edit/ps

Thanks Lethys! Danke für die Blumen =)

 

/edit/ps/2

Oh, just found the name of the currency, quote: "Quanta (plural quantum)"? So 1 quanta, 2 quantum? At least it's what it reads here. Singular/plural sound kinda inversed tho. Shouldn't it be 1 quantum and 2 quanta?

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I like that scene. Heeey, which reminds me of voice commands! It'd be cool if we could interface LUA scripts through an external console (separate task in the background) to send/parse basic commands/calls from third party software like VoiceAttack or AutoHotkey. Then just set a name for the element/DPU in game (self.interfaceName('vxProjector')) and assign a function/eventListener (like self.interfaceListener(vxModifyLocation = function (x, y, z) self.setPosition(self.getPosition().x+x, self.getPosition().y+y, self.getPosition().z+z) end) for the DPU to address some element by. From then on, we'd have a pretty straight forward way of controlling stuff through voice commands. Like... "Aphelia, please raise projection by 2 meters" executes action: "send string command du.vxProjector.vxModifyLocation(0, 2, 0)" to du-lua-interface.exe task.

 

Maybe some day :D ...until then we'll have to assign keys and trigger them through VoiceAttack. Same result, but a waste of key assignments (and less pr0n:lol:

 

Btw: please don't slap me for the LUA examples - they're probably wrong - I've just opened the syntax reference for the first time ever... crazy stuff, that.

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Do you mean with "already possible" it's possible right know in the alpha build or with your suggestion?

 

It's about how you move around.

In  a CAD System, you rotate the camera by holding the mouse wheel and move the mouse. Shift+Mouse Wheel is for moving on the XY-plane.

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Ah, now I get it - you mean options like "rotate the camera around a certain point", where with a flying character you'd need to strafe around while looking at the same point. Yeah, but "flying in build mode" comes very close to this :)

 

Nah, not referring to the state of the Alpha - regarding the "no-clip mode" for the projector I was referring to my atelier suggestion. I would not discuss the state of the Alpha in this forum. Reasons 'n stuff ;)

Well, hm, if I want to avoid the freecam - maybe the projector could react to key presses and have the projection move in a way that simulates free cam? Your character would look at a point and on [AssignedKey] you'd rotate and zoom the projection, while [Shift]+[AssignedKey] could move the projection around.

 

I am looking for an alternative to freecam, because I would prefer to stay in character for the building experience. I fear if building becomes too much like an external software, there would be no point of doing it in-game. That's why I try to find blievable, immersion-friendly solutions that would work fine in the game "as if it were real". Having a huge projection of my model? Yeah, I'd like to have that in the future. In fact Microsoft just showcased what they call "mixed virtual reality" and it already comes pretty close to this experience. Creators at Ford walk around their projection overlay nowadays (look it up here or on YouTube) rather than using the CAD software freecam... doesn't need to be exclusive tho.

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Pls no free cam, that wouldn't fit very well with DU.

 

I like the idea so far, but tbh: we probably won't see it in action. And even if, maybe only way way later and not at release.

 

I get why people want it and that's fine but first and foremost this game isn't about building. 

It's about rebuilding society, communication, emergent gameplay and socializing. So while I get why builders want to have this, I have to play devils advocate here: this is no building sim. You will (and should!) Have a hard time building stuff imho, as it's more rewarding. You have to try different shapes, combinations and utilize different tools (which should be in-game) but you shouldn't be able to do smth for free. You shoup need to hire guys for defense, mining, production and yes, a big construct should mean you sink hundreds of thousands or millions of quanta into that project.

 

Not necessarily directed at this idea, just my 2 cents in general

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Yup, I'm with you on the "no freecam" part. Regarding DU not being about "building" but "rebuilding" I get your point - but I was scared at the first and relieved at the second. I think, to a degree, one implies the other. Building is an essential part and should be as convenient as it can be within character and reason. Like everything else the building experience needs to be balanced to be neither tedious nor too fast paced :)

 

The part "having a hard time building" could easily be misunderstood - I guess you refer to the overall building process, including materials and elements? Because when you've got everything you need, the actual planning and/or direct construction, maybe should not be like CAD, but it should not be a pain either. As we all already know however: it isn't! Because (even disregarding my projector idea) the building experience already is awesome! :D

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We don't know how building is, as this is NOT THE RIGHT FORUM TO TALK ABOUT NDA STUFF

 

And no, I meant it: building should be hard. No one should be able to build a perfectly balanced, well rounded ship within minutes. You should learn how to do that through errors and fails. Should everyone be able to build rudimentary jets or spaceships? Sure, why not. But those masterpieces which will be successful should need time, effort, blood and tears to create. 

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When I was thinking about how I would like to see building process in this game, there were several variant that should prevent abuse and still allow people to design vehicle before actual blocks are placed: 

- Have shadow mode where you can place any of blocks that exist in game. 

- Once you have created your vehicle you can save it to private blueprint storage. You cannot trade or give such blueprint to anyone else. 

- Then two options: 

    -- building drone - some short range drone that has some kind of cargo for blocks and can get them from player or storage defined by player (you should have access rights to that storage). So this drone continues building your creation if you have all needed parts/blocks and until you stay in operating range. 

    -- player has some hand-module that places blocks according to blueprint, if those blocks are available in his inventory.

- After at least one construct for the blueprint is finished - those blueprint is unlocked for trading or exchange.  

 

So with such approach you cannot just spawn smth in a minute, you spend time both for designing and actual building process, you cannot abuse blueprint sale without having your blueprint built. But you save much time as you don't need to make a physical thing first and realize that it's not what you wanted to build.

 

From experience in Empyrion - I don't like building on live servers without blueprints as it takes too much time to navigate around a vehicle, especially if it's not smth tiny, and much more time for replacing badly placed blocks/modules. At the same time I don't like immediate placing by blueprints in that game.

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18 minutes ago, Miamato said:

-- building drone - some short range drone that has some kind of cargo for blocks and can get them from player or storage defined by player (you should have access rights to that storage). So this drone continues building your creation if you have all needed parts/blocks and until you stay in operating range. 

    -- player has some hand-module that places blocks according to blueprint, if those blocks are available in his inventory.

that's exactly what I don't want to see.

DU is a social game and you shouldn't be able to automatically build a whole (big) ship on your own - that's why you have org mates for. It's just a bad idea to implement such an automatic builder as this would just be against everything DU stands for.

For big ships you should be able to automatically build smaller parts/elements in the fabricators - but not an entire ship. That's why you need an org and that's why you need TEAMplay.

 

Solo playstyles should be ingame and should be possible but when it comes to building big ships - you shouldn't do that alone. Or automatically

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@Lethys Please keep calm and don't shout at me. My opinion about the building experience being great and something to look forward to originates from all the DevBlogs/-Diaries and video footage they provided so far. It's the very reason I pledged in the first place and got nothing to do with pre-alpha state. By now I'd think you could know me well enough to trust in the fact that I am very aware of the NDA. Please consider this before you make assumptions and raise your voice like that. Thank you.

 

@Miamato I don't have any idea of production or mass production yet. For me the atelier just refers to the planning phase and I consider it an option about how blueprint creation could be implemented within the higher skilled / professional design branches of gameplay. I think for the construction side of things (and maybe mass producing), we should create a new idea thread :)

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8 minutes ago, Lethys said:

DU is a social game and you shouldn't be able to automatically build a whole (big) ship on your own - that's why you have org mates for. It's just a bad idea to implement such an automatic builder as this would just be against everything DU stands for.

Probably you got it wrong. Even without this mechanics in theory you will be able to build huge ship. What I described won't make much difference, as you still need to spend time and much manual effort to build anythings. But at the same time you won't need to salvage your ship if you decide that some of modules inside it was placed incorrectly or decide that you need another module there. 

The drone idea is just to replace routine work - for example you want to create 3 similar ships, regardless of their size - if you'll need to place everything manually, that is insane and not interesting at all. It's not about communication, it's more about reduce stupid grind where it's not needed. 

Teams will still have advantage and it would be much faster for them to build anything, especially big constructs. 

 

22 minutes ago, vertex said:

I don't have any idea of production or mass production yet. For me the atelier just refers to the planning phase and I consider it an option about how blueprint creation could be implemented within the higher skilled / professional design branches of gameplay. I think for the construction side of things (and maybe mass producing), we should create a new idea thread

I was not talking about mass production, just a way to make building and design process easier. And I disagree with people that want to build everything by hand and in a team. I'm fine to spend x5 time more than some team and design or build smth on my own, but at the same time I want it to be convenient.  If mass production would exist - I believe it should be smth like automated factory, and creation of such factory means you spent enough time for factory itself to allow you to build smth automatically there according to your factory size. 

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13 hours ago, Lethys said:

[...]And no, I meant it: building should be hard. No one should be able to build a perfectly balanced, well rounded ship within minutes. You should learn how to do that through errors and fails. Should everyone be able to build rudimentary jets or spaceships? Sure, why not. But those masterpieces which will be successful should need time, effort, blood and tears to create. 

Have you played From The Depths?

There building a ship takes a long time, because every part of your ship is modular: Weapons, Engines, etc.

I don't find that very rewarding.

If you can do things faster with one technique than with another, why should the slower aproach more rewarding? The opposite is the result.

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1 hour ago, Miamato said:

Teams will still have advantage and it would be much faster for them to build anything, especially big constructs.

That's exactly my point: big ships should take long time to build. It's an achievement. You can make a blueprint out of it and reproduce it - but you need time for it. Not some automated drone which only breaks immersion

 

1 hour ago, Takao said:

Have you played From The Depths?

There building a ship takes a long time, because every part of your ship is modular: Weapons, Engines, etc.

I don't find that very rewarding.

If you can do things faster with one technique than with another, why should the slower aproach more rewarding? The opposite is the result.

No I haven't.

This game is not like landmark where ppl can show off their building skills - this game is about rebuilding mankind in a (sometimes) hostile environment (other people). You won't be able to "just build" as there will always be people who want you dead. Or destroy your construct. Huge projects will (at least i hope) require huge effort on your part - not only because you have to be smart to get it right but also because you have to have people for all kinds of stuff while you think and build that construct: resources, mining, defense, organization, ...

 

You can't man a 2km long ship on your own - and you shouldn't be able to build it alone

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8 minutes ago, Lethys said:

You can make a blueprint out of it and reproduce it - but you need time for it. Not some automated drone which only breaks immersion

I don't understand your concern about having drone. If you created a blueprint in ghost mode, why do you need to build the same thing but physical again manually? According to your logic there should be totally no automated building, that means people would need to create things manually again and again, that would be fun only for first 2-3 times. Then it becomes just grind. If you read my previous messages - I suggested approach to take time and require player to be within drone operation range. 

13 minutes ago, Lethys said:

You can't man a 2km long ship on your own - and you shouldn't be able to build it alone

Why? You shouldn't be able to build it in few minutes or hours. But if you are rich enough and have all the resources, plenty of time, then why you can't do it? Just because 'team-play rules the world'? It would be harder but not impossible as you want it to be. 

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This topic is only about design, not production, and I agree with most of the points on the 1st post.

 

This game want to be hard for everyone, but it want to be realistic as well. And you can't think that build an entire ship from scratch with real materials is realistic.

Today, engineers are designing full products in 3D on computers before to start building it to ensure that the building phase will cost as little as possible. In the future, you can be 100% sûre this approach will be the same, even more in DU if you have to hire many people to defend your shipyard.

 

Having a kind of "Holo deck" in DU with no material cost and no real matter is a realistic and good solution for designers, and it doesn't remove the difficulty to design, nor to build. And it is also a good way to allow multiple people to work on the same project (equivalent as the actual system).

 

Another good point about this system, since matter is only photons, is that you could anytime unload a project from a "holo deck" to load another one. So multiple team could work in the same "holo deck" at different hours.

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