Goonhub
08-11-2016, 03:05 AM
Hello, resident brainstormer here. 
Ore processing and the like has been on my radar for quite some time. Problem is there are so many opinions on what needs to be done and ALOT needs to be done with it. So best place to start is to iron out all the problems with it and then move onto actually concreting a solid plan to fix it.
Problem 1: Objects do not benefit from the properties of materials and there are near zero objects to build. Built objects are normally worse than their nonmaterial counterpart.
Want to build armor? It’s gonna take time and will normally end up less useful than standard sec armor. Ditto for pod armor. You have material that has insulative properties, but you have no option to make gloves. In-fact there’s a clear lack of items to make.
Problem 2: Many unique properties/properties of materials are boring as heck.
In comparison to chemistry, there’s very little that’s interesting about the properties. Oh great it’s radioactive, guess I can’t use it as an armor. Oh great it has high scattering, who the fuck cares. There’s literally so much sci-fi stuff that can be done to bring it line with chemistry. Antigravity properties, propulsion properties, materials that drain stamina/regenerate health. Imagine making barbed gloves with apply the sharpness of the object to it. Now you have knifes for hands. Or boots with low gravity, now you can move in space which speed scales with negative mass. Blob armor which has insane reflectivity and hardness that passes a threshold that reflects lasers and punches back at the person. Go fucking nuts.
Problem 3: The recombobulator is a bad idea.
The reasoning behind this is that I feel like material analysis should be hands on and not locked behind any computer. It’s already lengthy to gather materials, but also the averaging out and perfecting of a composite via the smelter and then attempting to apply it to an object in a meaningful way is already fairly deep as is.
Problem 4: The loom does not work/is counterintuitive.
Making cloth/metal composites should be simple as putting a smelted bar + material into the loom.
Problem 5: The workbench GUI is unwieldy as heck. The “parts” system is needlessly time consuming.
There’s already a GUI that works perfectly, has a search function AND can mass produce items: fabricators. I’m not saying the fabricators should replace workbenches, as the latter can use composites, while the former cannot. This just makes things so much easier. The parts system is irritating to work with too. Like take pod armor: it requires Armor Plate + Rods+ Crystal + Gears, when in it should require just x amount material (for the armor) + x amount material (for the coat)
Now you can make a strong pod with ruby gilded armor. Nothing convoluted with gears and rods.
Ore processing and the like has been on my radar for quite some time. Problem is there are so many opinions on what needs to be done and ALOT needs to be done with it. So best place to start is to iron out all the problems with it and then move onto actually concreting a solid plan to fix it.Problem 1: Objects do not benefit from the properties of materials and there are near zero objects to build. Built objects are normally worse than their nonmaterial counterpart.
Want to build armor? It’s gonna take time and will normally end up less useful than standard sec armor. Ditto for pod armor. You have material that has insulative properties, but you have no option to make gloves. In-fact there’s a clear lack of items to make.
Problem 2: Many unique properties/properties of materials are boring as heck.
In comparison to chemistry, there’s very little that’s interesting about the properties. Oh great it’s radioactive, guess I can’t use it as an armor. Oh great it has high scattering, who the fuck cares. There’s literally so much sci-fi stuff that can be done to bring it line with chemistry. Antigravity properties, propulsion properties, materials that drain stamina/regenerate health. Imagine making barbed gloves with apply the sharpness of the object to it. Now you have knifes for hands. Or boots with low gravity, now you can move in space which speed scales with negative mass. Blob armor which has insane reflectivity and hardness that passes a threshold that reflects lasers and punches back at the person. Go fucking nuts.
Problem 3: The recombobulator is a bad idea.
The reasoning behind this is that I feel like material analysis should be hands on and not locked behind any computer. It’s already lengthy to gather materials, but also the averaging out and perfecting of a composite via the smelter and then attempting to apply it to an object in a meaningful way is already fairly deep as is.
Problem 4: The loom does not work/is counterintuitive.
Making cloth/metal composites should be simple as putting a smelted bar + material into the loom.
Problem 5: The workbench GUI is unwieldy as heck. The “parts” system is needlessly time consuming.
There’s already a GUI that works perfectly, has a search function AND can mass produce items: fabricators. I’m not saying the fabricators should replace workbenches, as the latter can use composites, while the former cannot. This just makes things so much easier. The parts system is irritating to work with too. Like take pod armor: it requires Armor Plate + Rods+ Crystal + Gears, when in it should require just x amount material (for the armor) + x amount material (for the coat)
Now you can make a strong pod with ruby gilded armor. Nothing convoluted with gears and rods.