#"volume" based max ship sizes

185 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

torn zenith
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The problem
A big problem that current Cosmoteer (especially career) has is that at a certain size, ships hit the edges of the building grid and they are slowly, inadvertently turned into cubes as they have nowhere to grow but the confines of the box.

This results in a lot of end game ships looking like ugly boxes. Yuck. Almost all of the posts I see from players talking about how they beat the campaign for the first time show off their combat ship, and it's a box!

The solution
The idea I had was to, rather than have the box be a forced confine for the ship, allow the ship building grid to be pulled and pushed and stretched (attached image). They key thing is that the box would have roughly the same volume no matter how it's stretched, so this isn't just enabling the "huge ships" mod.

As for ship parts that might end up outside of the grid when it's resized, it can just use the same approach the game has when you try to load oversized ships - it'll just highlight those parts in red.

Benefits
Making the grid stretchable while retaining its volume will lead to:
-greater ship diversity for players and official ships
-sharp reduction in square endgame ships
-potentially really cool and creative ways of using the ship parts

That's all for my ted talk. What do you think?

image.png
frank trail
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The vanilla grid doesn't exactly need this, at most this just means walls can technically be more wide before becoming illegal,

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There's a lot of diversity when it comes to ships already, when it comes to career and becoming boxes, is because Career is just that easy, you have practically no hard limit ok budget and so, to maximise that budget you end up with a box

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This volume grid just means the boxes come in slightly different shapes

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Boxes are also one of the most combat effective shapes, seen on ion rammers, deck bricks, some morbiters and other archetypes

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Also, could you imagine a 1x wide ship grid, and have the entire grid as just Structure tiles, it will be very long and likely will not spawn right

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Mightn't even save

undone spruce
lapis moon
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dom is going to turn into stick spam to artificially increase spawn circle size

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but also, how will the grid look when not fully stretched?

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as in, how will stretchiness and max confines be communicated to the player

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and also diagonals exist, how will the grid accommodate skinny diagonals?

dusky karma
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I'd much rather have a limit for how many tiles a ship can have instead of stretching the border weirdly

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and for pvp, I think there should be a rule to only allow the box ships

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that way everyone is satisfied

lapis moon
dusky karma
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you seem to have an issue with this change affecting pvp, by adding an option to only allow the box ships it would be solved

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if you want to you can use the weird shape ships, if not, then you're just gonna use box ships

lapis moon
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if it allows super long sticks: domination breaks
if it does not allow super long sticks: new players get confused why their legal ships are randomly illegal

dusky karma
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hmm that is an issue, it would need to be communicated well to the player

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tho career is way more important than multiplayer (at least for now) and this change would allow players to have giant ships that aren't just boxes and would also make certain built-in stations legal

lapis moon
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??? the illegal big stations are boxes

dusky karma
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by using a tile limit instead of the box grid they would no longer be illegal

lapis moon
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why have a grid if it's just tile based though

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can remove "recenter blueprints" button as wel if that happens

dusky karma
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There wouldn't be a grid if the change that I'm proposing happened?

frank trail
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I don't think many players would enjoy a tile based system

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You might, but a grid is far more easy to use

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Also if you are concerned over only having a grid change for Singleplayer career, may I introduce you to this pretty popular thing, I don't think many have heard of it, the huge ships mod, I don't use it myself but I know others do

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( also with tile change instead of a grid it makes exclusion zones like those for thrusters far less of an impact on gameplay, you just build around it)

dusky karma
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While the grid based system is easier to learn, in the endgame it only causes problems. I'm also suggesting this for multiplayer, but if it would really cause problems there could be an option to limit it. As for the huge ships mod, while it is a temporary solution to illegal built-ins, it's still a mod that's not on by default. I don't think exclusion zones would be easier to build around and would make less of an impact, they could just be less annoying in some rare situations

frank trail
dusky karma
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in the endgame the grid turns every player-made ship into a box, which is pretty bad imo

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not turning every giant ship into a box would be the main benefit, but making some built-ins no longer illegal would be another benefit

lapis moon
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the player doesn't need to be a box to win though

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the player turns into a box befause they want more gun thsn is necessary

frank trail
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The player turns into a box because There's no limit to budget

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And who's to say that players won't make boxes anyways with a tile based system

dusky karma
frank trail
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That limit is called a grid

dusky karma
frank trail
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A grid is probably less limiting than a certain number of tiles

dusky karma
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The certain number of tiles would match the amount of tiles the grid has

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Therefore it would be less limiting

frank trail
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With the grid, you can still build outside it and make it an illegal design, and then use it anyway you want after

dusky karma
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You shouldn't be forced to make illegal ships if you want a certain shape that's longer/wider than the grid

frank trail
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Also, ships larger than the vanilla grid starts to really mess with the spawning in PvP, especially elimination

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For example, a pretty large ship in PvP starts dramatically changing the distances the ships all players have are spawned,

dusky karma
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That's why there would be an option to limit the ship length/width if it's that big of an issue

frank trail
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A grid, something universal all gamemodes can use

dusky karma
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But an optional one and for pvp only

frank trail
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Not just career,

frank trail
dusky karma
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That's true, but I think having a box grid limits the sandbox part of the game too much

frank trail
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You can't call it a sandbox without the box

dusky karma
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The sandbox part is way more important than the competitive one imo

dusky karma
frank trail
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There needs to be certain limitations, and while tiles and a grid function similarly as limits, a grid is far more manageable and less exploitable

dusky karma
frank trail
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Career isn't the entire game

dusky karma
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But it's the biggest part

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Out of the gamemodes that is

frank trail
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Because it was the only thing being worked on for the last few years

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But you see, multiplayer PvP just got a new gamemode

dusky karma
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That's good, but the main focus of the game is still career

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I see no multiplayer 2.0 on the roadmap

frank trail
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Multiplayer doesn't need a ².0

dusky karma
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Because it's relatively simple and doesn't need to be worked on too much

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It just isn't the main focus of the game

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Features shouldn't be limited just because they change something in the pvp meta

frank trail
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The reason career needs so much work unlike PvP, is because of that, and I'm not talking about any meta here, so there isn't a need to bring that up,

Career is really new, only coming out with modern, multiplayer itself predates it,
And career being new requires. A lot of stuff, and I'm not calling it bad or that multiplayer should be favoured over it, just that a grid is better than tiles

dusky karma
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I think the grid is just easier than a tile limit

frank trail
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Ship designs are primarily limited to just, 3 thing, The budget, a number that you have, command points, a number that you have, and the grid, deciding the maximum size

dusky karma
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But I think changing it to the tile limit would be worth it

frank trail
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If it is instead a limit from grid to tile count, it becomes limited to number 1, number 2, and number 3

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The grid just works,

dusky karma
dusky karma
frank trail
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Budget in career = basically limitless, command points = more cr,

dusky karma
frank trail
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Because there is no hard limit on budget

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In PvP you see all kinds of ships that aren't boxes

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Especially domination

dusky karma
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frank trail
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Give a player unlimited money in career and they will maximise everything rather than making an aesthetic ship

dusky karma
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That turn into a box when they get too big

frank trail
dusky karma
frank trail
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You might favour it, but have you seen storage ships?

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Entirely storage and a single cr

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There is so much budget available to players in career that they need to dedicate so many boxes just to holding it all

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It's a major excess

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Turning a grid to tiles doesn't change career storage boxes

dusky karma
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And they just turn into boxes instead of a long shape for example

frank trail
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A box is far easier to manage than a stick with storage, faster travel + easier to defend

dusky karma
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And I'm not talking about career balance, that's an issue that should be fixed

frank trail
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You are talking about a distain for boxes in career

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Boxes because the balance is 0

dusky karma
frank trail
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Give them enough time in career, which is until the point where they are getting lazy with holding shortage stuff and their ships evolve into boxes to hold stuff

dusky karma
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They evolve into boxes because the grid is a box

frank trail
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But it isn't the grid that is first allowing the box to be made at all

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The grid just limits how big that box can be

dusky karma
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Why do you keep using unbalanced career as an argument, ofc that should be fixed

frank trail
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Because that is the current state of career and is very likely to not actually be changed

dusky karma
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plus a tile limit would limit the size of the ship the same way

frank trail
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Budget in career is probably the least flexible for change

frank trail
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Then there's no downsides or lingering consequences

dusky karma
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A lot of people complain about it and career 2.0 is currently in development, there's a huge chance there will be attempts to fix the balance

frank trail
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What is going to be changed? Maximum 1 storage per ship?

dusky karma
frank trail
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Kill a ship get loot, sell or reuse that loot,

frank trail
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Have you not seen the Stod ships made in vanilla?

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Outside career the grid doesn't kill creativity

dusky karma
frank trail
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Career isn't the entire game after all

dusky karma
frank trail
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Paint for example, even in classic where only half the decals were available and 3 whole layers, and you can still find really impressive and creative classic designs

dusky karma
frank trail
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Career isn't made to be the entire game, just the campaign,

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Neglect all other aspects of the game just for career and it will be lesser for it

dusky karma
frank trail
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And the reason why career cannot have good balance, is because no budget limit, the same lack of limit that makes boxes

frank trail
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Creative mode is

dusky karma
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but creativity is still the biggest part of a sandbox game

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The grid unnecessarily limits creativity

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Therefore making the sandbox part of the game worse

frank trail
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Clearly not if you've seen the sotd

dusky karma
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And the sandbox part is the biggest part of cosmo

frank trail
lapis moon
frank trail
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Not everyone sees grids as a limit

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Or doesn't enjoy grids

dusky karma
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frank trail
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Not all ships need to be taking up 100% of the grid, you complain about exactly that f
With career because there is so much money you are making use of the whole grid

dusky karma
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Ideally the mod shouldn't exist at all but it needs to because the grid is too limiting

dusky karma
frank trail
dusky karma
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Anyways I have to do something now, don't need to waste my day by replying to the same arguments over and over again

frank trail
dusky karma
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That's also true, but it's also used for ship shapes that would be illegal

frank trail
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Spend 1 hour killing bounties and you end up with a lot of resources

dusky karma
frank trail
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Walt could make things cost more,

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But then all you have to do is just spend a second hour and you end up with that storage box anyways

dusky karma
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Plus the max size of ships wouldn't change, just the shape

frank trail
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You do technically change the maximum size

dusky karma
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Ok then area

frank trail
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Boost thrusters have massive exclusion zones, without a grid those exclusion zones are far easier to bypass

dusky karma
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The max amount of storages wouldn't change

dusky karma
frank trail
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And if the maximum storage amount doesn't change, the outcome when it comes to shapes is still very likely to be, a box

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Or probably actually just a rectangular box

dusky karma
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But it doesn't need to be a box

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That's the main part

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You can make a box but you don't need to make it a box

frank trail
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Doesn't need to, but no one who does not use the discord, or regularly goes out of their way, ends up making a massive ring of storages that surrounds the sun

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Other shapes takes time, and if it achieves no or worse than the box, then why make them

dusky karma
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Also if you gradually expand a ship you usually just change the length or width, but not both

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It's easier to gradually build a long stick

frank trail
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not everyone will play that way, and it is also a less likely change than 'Boxification'

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Expanding a ship isn't exactly more creative than a box either

dusky karma
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Imo it's more likely to build a storage stick than a box when not confined by a box

frank trail
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What is likely is not a stick, but a Storage rectangle

dusky karma
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Yeah said it wrong

frank trail
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A slightly thin box, but barely so to look like a stick

dusky karma
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Like a 2:1 size is the most likely imo

frank trail
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Nah

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Much more likely to be 1:1.3/1:1.4

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Not all players like things to be thin, I would even say it would seem structurally unstable to be thin

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But the outcome in all scenarios is a large collection of storages resembling a rectangular frame

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But a grid is something we already have, has worked for a decade, and doesn't have side effects to be unchanged

dusky karma
frank trail
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And when it comes to storages it's likely the easiest solution, a box

dusky karma
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If players had the option there would be more shapes than just a box, even if it's the most likely shape (I don't think it is tho)

frank trail
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Maybe a small <1% if players might make a not box, but that's about the same amount of players who regularly go and get lots of mods

dusky karma
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Anyways I really have to do something rn... sucks

dusky karma