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Mechanics rework: Get your ideas in now
#16
Hmm. I'll just shove out a bunch of ideas disregarding my own feelings on them. Some might be shit, obviously.

An FPU: I was gonna see if I could push numbers into DWAINE to perform operations on them, but it sounds like a hassle. Arithmetic is necessary for some of the more fun machines.

Relational Operators: Logic gates could be used, but it'd be nice if these were just a straight up component (or collection of them).

More interaction with the network: I don't know if it exists, but I'd like the ability to create and send files through components or packets in general. I know you can pretend to be a terminal through components, but I forget to what effect. I'm pretty sure those effects are fairly limited, however. I know this is a broad request, and one that somewhat falls into Angry's territory, but the nerdiness of each goes hand in hand.

List component: I don't know if the selection component can do this, but I'd like a component that held a list of key-value pairs. When passed a key, the value would be sent. Might be possible now, but I forget.

Selectable vend items: I'd like to choose what I vend by passing the item's name to the machine.

Personalized venders: I like this topic. I pure vendor might be too much. Maybe just an item that holds objects and allows for the vending of items by passing a certain input for a certain item. That way we still have to do the engineering to get paid properly.

Card Swiper: For credit transfers.

Grav Conveyors: Like conveyor belts, but in the mechanics style. Say, something that pushes objects in a selected direction for a limited (and selectable) amount of tiles and at a limited (and possibly selectable) rate. These could be hooked up back to back to make custom conveyor belt system to fun effect.

Trip lasers: Yup.

Medical Sensor: Like the medical pads in medbay. They read a PC's health and pass it on as output in some fashion. Maybe just a straight up read out which we have to filter down through other components.

Cross-z Teleportation: I'd like teleporters to work across z levels. Mainly just between the station and the derelict z's. I could see why having them work elsewhere would be a problem.

Gun Components: I'd like the gun component to take flamethrowers if it doesn't already. I'd also like the the egun component to have the option to charge and fire at the same time. Right now it's just no being utilized all that much.

Damage Sensor: Outputs the type and severity of damage received from an attack as if it were taken by a player. Capable of being deployed on a space tile. Practically invincible.

Barrier Component: Pops up a 1-tile barrier when activated. Probably some sort of force field. Can be turned off and removed with a wrench from any direction. That, or it has a limited duration and a recharge period.

An actual sound synth: Lots of sounds like honks, farts, and burps. All of which you could change the timing and pitch of with script. This sounds fucking hard. I'm sorry for bringing it up.

Lots of these have been suggested before. For those that have, I'm just showing support.

The idea above about connections being maintained is real nice.

A hard idea would be a component interface. Lets say whacking a component with a multitool qued a popup. Within the popup you could do things like alter outputs, change options, and name the rename the component. It would be really neat if we could keep multiple popups active, or if the popup referenced all components on a tile. This would be another way to make denser machines easier to build.

Well, that's enough from my currently poo brain. Regardless, the chain to inputs and outputs sounds exciting. Thanks for the mechanics work. It's one of my favorite things to mess with.
#17
Really just allow multiple components to do conceptual things really, and see what mechanics come up with. Also please make potato launchers a thing
#18
What if you could change the settings of a component on the vending machine, before you vend it? So you can get a bunch of components with identical settings easily, so you wouldn't have to change every teleport component's ID individually for instance.
#19
Add some sort of mathematical component (input 2 numbers and select an operation, result is output), as well as a comparison component (compare 2 inputs, output only if the result is true). Allow inputs to be set to constants, so I can increment a counter every time a door opens or something.

Add a memory component that remembers a single input value, and outputs it when a signal comes in.

If feasible, tie in more of the engine parts to components. Allow us to create insane systems to automatically set the vent pipes to 5 if pressure gets too high, for example.

Some sort of way to export/import contraptions would be nice. Right now I have to write down each component + connection + setting, and set it all up again every round. Being able to quickly set up something, even if it's only small groups of components, would help for creating more complex things.
#20
Importing/exporting should be part and parcel of making smaller portable things: PCBing! The floor is your breadboard for planning things out, then export the result as some kind of text string that you can put into a PCB printer, don't forget the step where you dip the printed PCB into a baisin of acid of course, then, uh put the components on it in the same way as old Mechanics? Get them all out of the MechComp dispenser, click-drag onto PCB, they all get stuck on it, soldering iron to finish it off.
#21
Dabir Wrote:Importing/exporting should be part and parcel of making smaller portable things: PCBing! The floor is your breadboard for planning things out, then export the result as some kind of text string that you can put into a PCB printer, don't forget the step where you dip the printed PCB into a baisin of acid of course, then, uh put the components on it in the same way as old Mechanics? Get them all out of the MechComp dispenser, click-drag onto PCB, they all get stuck on it, soldering iron to finish it off.

You had me up until the part where the old mechanics order was involved.
#22
That's why it's ideas. Suggest an alternative to that bit?
#23
The hell is this doing in the unban appeals board?
#24
Cirrial Wrote:The hell is this doing in the unban appeals board?
It's a global announcement. It shows up in every board.
#25
Dabir Wrote:Importing/exporting should be part and parcel of making smaller portable things: PCBing! The floor is your breadboard for planning things out, then export the result as some kind of text string that you can put into a PCB printer, don't forget the step where you dip the printed PCB into a baisin of acid of course, then, uh put the components on it in the same way as old Mechanics? Get them all out of the MechComp dispenser, click-drag onto PCB, they all get stuck on it, soldering iron to finish it off.

Have them be built in the mechanics fabricator we have now, and confirming/using a soldered board lets you give it a name, after which it can be scanned and replicated for a cost.
#26
It's been said a bit already, but I really have to emphasize how much there needs to be a way to 'harden' your mechanics structures.

Becoming a mechanical bandit with a pay-teleporter at the airbridge, and a lot of traitor-mechanic gimmicks, are wastes of time if any random schmoe is going to instantly ruin it with a wrench or multitool. A lot of people will break your stuff just because they can, and it's instant, if they see you making anything more complicated than a teleporter+button.

For example, this is just off the top of my head, using soldering irons to turn deployed components into ~integrated~ components. A ~30 second action you have to hold still for tediously working its mechanisms with the surface it's attached to. IE: You turn your pressure sensor into an 'integrated pressure sensor' and making it a fixed object until someone goes to the trouble of soldering it back apart slowly. The general idea is that on top of making it wrench-proof, it's current multitool settings and links will be also fixed, so it's can't be unlinked nor have new things linked to it.
#27
is this the materials system thread
#28
I'd love to know how feasible PCBs/ICs/compact mechanics stuff is.
#29
Some kind of trip laser/proximity thing that works with pods.

I really want mechanics pod race courses to happen.
#30
Someone once suggested the ablity to combine mutliple components together into one mega one that did what you wanted, I would love that


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