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Custom Control Panels/Displays


Wilbobaggins

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Hi!

 

Now for the classic new member idea of dubious worth or point!

 

So here goes:

 

So: Custom Control Panels

 

What do I mean?

A standard control panel/screen that you see in so many sci-fi command centers or star ship bridges but customisable.

 

What is displayed and intractable can be moved around, added and removed ect

How?

  • a tile based drag and drop system
  • Drag in buttons that activate scripts ect
  • Be able to write parts eg "Weapons Systems" at the top or "Activate turrets" next to a button that activates a script that does just that.
  • Be able to adjust values (like you can variables in scripts), I'm thinking throttle or engine power ect
  • Drag in "screens" that can play camera views (if added)

 

 

Why?

Think of all the scripts and other things going on in the ship. How are you going to run/control those parts/scripts?

There is no way fixed/"standard" control panels would cut it in such a deep and editable game that we have been promised.

 

While this method may seem the obvious choice to many I just want to explain why I wanted to mention it:

Space Engineers massive failure in this department

 

So with Space Engineers its great: you can add many parts and every part has settings and variables (rotor speed as an example)

But changing this on the fly?

At first you had to follow these steps:

  1. go to any tiny number pad around the ship or cockpit
  2. enter into the control panel
  3. scroll through hundreds of parts (thousands for larger ships)
  4. Change what you wanted eg rotor direction to open your hanger door or what not.

Then they brought in buttons and toolbars...

now you can select things for each part to do and put them on a toolbar for later use or assign one to a button.

Great? not really, here are some major flaws

  • No name on the buttons (later they added hovering cursor over reveals a name hovering in mid air. I mean really?)
  • Just an ugly toolbar at the bottom of the screen, really not immersive
  • Assigned them to buttons? Well now you have a huge button block with four buttons that takes up a whole block.

Then they added screens. Hurray! you might think but alas:

  • 1 standard black screen (that again takes up and entire block)
  • Need a mod to get it to update in real time
  • Cannot link to cameras that are on your ship
  • Can only really label big things like doors or containers (in a standard size/font/color) as everything else (buttons ect) are too small

Oh and did I mention their cockpit screens do NOTHING!?!?!?!?!

 

So...

I hope you can forgive my anti SE rant but this is a cautionary tale of what was a really poor/lazy system that i am sure this game can improve on!

Don't think this is an important feature however?

Imagine what you can do with it?

  • You a fighter? Set it up so you have a large radar display on your right next to your power level display just where you always wanted it.
  • You a trader? have a live screen displaying current market prices around the systems right there beside your radar to look at as you glide into land.
  • You a ship captain? Have a multiple display screen showing radar, energy levels, weapon conditions
  • You a city owner? have massive custom display showing information about the city for new comers? How about street maps or direction signs?
  • You in control of a huge spaceport and want to show off? How about have live displays giving directions to empty spots where you can land? And once they have landed and disembarked present them with a well presented screen asking them to select what they want done to their ship. Do they want to have it taken into deep storage with that awesome rail system you created? Do they want repair bots sent? Do they want to refuel/rearm? Did they enjoy their service :D ?

Oh and did i mention scrips to control the displays? Click here to bring up the ship stats display, Click here to bring up the trading market....

 

So hey, thanks for getting this far. While some of you may think this is obvious I hope you can see why I thought it worth mentioning!

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Glad to see great new ideas being brought in! I believe this was briefly mentioned at some point, somewhere. Naturally I think this would be a make or break part of immersion, so definitely hope to see *useful* displays in game.

 

And welcome!

 

Edit: Thank you for the link Ripper. Indeed there will be displays then.

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