Squadron 303 new ship brainstorm

[torpid canyon]

#1041996532859289640 message here

[vestal idol]

Yes, like that. Having to place that by hand is awkward, but not impossible.

My understanding is that very large ships have other technical challenges at the moment, though.

[torpid canyon]

performance wise?

[vestal idol]

Not sure, but I get the feeling is just infrastructure that isn't built yet.

Like, the BBW works, technically, I can fly it, so there are probably issues connected to menus and equipment and multiple reactors not talking to HUDs, or other things that players so far have just never needed.

But that's a discussion for another channel.

[thin furnace]

@brave knoll done and uploaded :)

Gotta go for a bit, visiting grandparents 😅 back in the evening!

[brave knoll]

tx! checking it out now.

@thin furnace I don't see the composed files through, you uploaded them?

ah, found them on the space 🙂

[brave knoll]

dry mass of 180, thrusters placed

the opening of the bay will probably work like a big, one-sided RW; bay will be simulated by physics

Hardpoint placement suggestions:

1. inner low stress (no cradles)
2. drone/cradle bays
3. high stress (facing right)

1's would probably go further into front

added checklist to https://git.kodera.pl/games/delta-v/-/issues/4486 so y'all can track progress of this

[vestal idol]

I'm not a fan of giving her forward hardpoints; I feel like the hardpoint count is a lot, but keeping them broadside mitigates that a bit with awkwardness.

[vestal idol]

I imagined something like this:

Makes something of some sense, as you can use other mounted tools in construction on parts held by the ARMs.

Or, here, use mining tools in the direction you're collecting in.

I also just think that gantry's a natural mount location.

Ah, sorry about the dual ping.

Hum. But you make a point about the cradle location.

Guess it's a little late to consider widening the high-stress . . . mounting plates? Out to the other side of the bay so the mounts can also be added there.

[thin furnace]

I do like Koder's proposition - mining could be more involved that way; you shoot forward, then you need to do some clever maneuvering to gather up the chunks

[languid cliff]

this will definitely be interesting to play

[thin furnace]

With all the hardpoints facing the same way, this would essentially make it a regular old ship, just with the main drive on the right instead of the back

Having some face forward and some face rightward would be [IN MY OPINION] more interesting gameplay-wise

[languid cliff]

controlling this will probably involve a lot of hotkey pressing

[thin furnace]

Also technically possible with not much work, but I'm away from home so that'd have to wait a few hours until I get back (at least a few hours)

[vestal idol]

My main concern is that it would diversify her a little bit as kitted for combat and mining, and didn't really have a lore purpose. You could just use it normally and let drones do everything.

Suppose you still could, but I was hoping no forward mounting would distinguish her bit.

Alternately, if you forgo ARMs for other mountings, you're going to be leaning on hotkeys really heavily to manage weapon use.

Well, for controllers they'll be leaning on the OMS menu heavily.

[dull warren]

Koder's layout is more interesting not only in terms of in-dive gameplay, but build variety as well (imo). If you don't want to deal with constant hardpoint toggling, then you can choose to only equip weapons facing the same direction and 'utilities' elsewhere

[dawn crag]

The hardpoint placements could also be variants of the same ship

[brave knoll]

that would mean no cradles

[vestal idol]

I noticed that shortly after, which is why I mentioned extending the mounting plate to the other side of the gantry.,

But I think it's too late for model updates.

Putting mountings on a cargo bay that's supposed to be spinnable feels really weird.

[thin furnace]

That part won't spin I think

Unless u mean like In Lore

[vestal idol]

Well, not for the player. In lore, the whole bay should be able to spin up, and you should be able to build habs in the bay for crews.

That way you can bring a work or station crew one a months-long trip without needing significant thrust for G the whole way.

Beyond the ship crew in the hab, I mean.

[torpid canyon]

here are some dock points that seems viable too

[thin furnace]

Reasonable

I like that

[vestal idol]

If those aren't triple-mounted RCS, that would work.

Like, K37 vs four Model E RCS sets.

Though . . . I do think I prefer both cradles on the left.

Like . . . . so?

[warm zinc]

the left side of the ship is opposite to the "service" side, where all the ore manipulation happens. seems logical to put the dangling parts away and clear from the moving arcs of the ARMs

[vestal idol]

Well, same reasoning here, but I'm thinking of the in-universe reasoning, which is that the construction would be happening on that side, rather than mining.

[brave knoll]

That would work only if the pylons don't have interior thrust

uh... okay, this sounded better in my head

these

[torpid canyon]

Aren't the thrusters layout like on the colton?

[brave knoll]

No

[brave knoll]

seems bit... much

[royal parcel]

You could add a support structure in the center

Roughly like this

Or this, for more ways to get ore stuck

[torpid canyon]

the cargo hold is made to transport big construction material, pillars would prevent this

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace take a peek at this:

looks like we have some kind of texture-normal-map mismatch?

[brave knoll]

the whole point of this vehicle is the capacity to transport big things.

[thin furnace]

looks fine to me, this part juts out

But if it looks too weird, can be adjusted

[brave knoll]

aah, I see

perhaps we should rotate them 45?

[thin furnace]

Sure thing!

[royal parcel]

Then it would logical to have a big cargo bay. Or explain the structures with necessary reinforcements for the conversion into a mining ship, if you want to shrink the bay.

[brave knoll]

My point is - we talked about "we should not just make bigger and bigger ships" and in next step we make a ship with twice the cargo capacity of the previous biggest one 😅

[royal parcel]

Hmm, true...

[thin furnace]

the MPU could take up like a big pizza slice of that >:)

Or Something

[royal parcel]

Throwing a few random ideas at the wall, maybe one sticks:

• Scale down the whole ship
• Obstacles in the bay from the mining conversion
• Restrict the ships capacity for processed cargo
• Reduce the number of RCS, make it sluggish
• Limited equipment, due to the unusual hardpoints

[thin furnace]

@brave knoll sprites with rotated engine uploaded (folder name with a space not a dash)

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace was this the look you were going for with the excavator?

[thin furnace]

Perfection 👌

And pretty much yeah :)

[brave knoll]

I have structural concerns

[brave knoll]

The moving part moves outside the cargo bay. Is this how you imagined it? Just making sure that I don't have a implementation issue here

[thin furnace]

Well, I figured that if the moving part was the inside, then in regular operation anything you'd have bolted down the outside part (which would remain stationary) would get swept off by the door - so if the door is outside, no fear of getting slammed by it if you're a worker on the "floor"

but if you invert that I won't protest too too much 😄

as for it working as an excavator, my reasoning was: it's a transport module, it's not meant to chomp rocks

so it has secure clamps, but not "teeth" so to speak

[torpid canyon]

having the grey stripe of the moving cargo bay part outside and visible helps the player to understand how the ship works

here are more CC spots that seems to be clear from thrusters

[brave knoll]

I just made a piston engine from the operating machine 😅

now a fun part. Where do I put the piston that operates this?

[thin furnace]

oop, I thought it would be a servo type deal

hmmmm

how about right under the heavy mount?

[brave knoll]

there are no servos in the engine

we are putting in a spring with changing "rest lenght"

[thin furnace]

I see I see

[brave knoll]

and this placements works quite well

[thin furnace]

if "0" is within the acceptable range, this is where I'd put it - right at the edge of where the opening is

[thin furnace]

Perfect :)

[brave knoll]

now to just make it work

[brave knoll]

summoning @vestal idol for gameplay balance concerns (when you'll find time)
that's twice as much bare cargo as any other ship

the excavator has a problem that it tries to spin around your ship when you turn 😅

this opening direction is actually counter-productive

motion of the bay tries to rotate the ship in the opposite way we want

[thin furnace]

Hmm

Sprite mirroring time?

[brave knoll]

of course

btw, found a weird shadow here:

[thin furnace]

🧐 odd, will investigate

[brave knoll]

you see it?

[thin furnace]

I think it's the other half of the bay throwing a shadow

like in the blender file

I'll just make it Not Have Shadows and problem solved

at least seems like it would line up that way and I don't think I put a separator between them

[brave knoll]

that would be ambient occlusion baked in, right?

[thin furnace]

Sort of I think? if you count the normal occluding that happens with world lights in blender

It's not baked anywhere into the material though

yeah there we have the culprit

That's my bad, should've been a separating thing between them

Or maybe I'll just turn off their ray visibility 🤔 that should do the trick as well

in any case I'll upload fixed sprites in a bit :)

Composite color sprite fixed up, I'm assuming that's the only place where this issue would manifest

[brave knoll]

fsck, this is going to be PITA to get it to work with 1337

[vestal idol]

Another layout that could work. Um. No access to paint for shitty diagrams.

Forward right with thrust at -45, 45, and 135 degrees, forward left at 45 , -45, and -135 degrees, etc.

[vestal idol]

The bay has two parts. Can they BOTH rotate?

Point the seam outwards and counter-rotate them.

Bonus points, since each part only rotates 90 degrees, the EIAA can use one part as reference for what "forward" is, as you suggested earlier for making autonomous collection work.

[vestal idol]

I think trying to install Tesla self-driving software on a bucket excavator is allowed to have problems. 🙂

[vestal idol]

Lastly, balance issues... you mentioned there might be a need to scale it. Scaling the ship would adjust cargo.

I think sheer awkward-as-fuck-ed-ness can be something of a countermeasure, part of why I favored no forward mounts.

[rotund pasture]

I mean. It kinda only barely works when Installed in Most Ships as it is. Having it Freak the Fuck out if installed in this one would be 100% On Point and extremely Funny. It does not have to work with every ship, given it comes "As Is"

[vestal idol]

It would be nice to have it workable to some degree. But I don't think it needs the same functionality as human AP handling.

We can always add manual notes that commercial civilian autopilots are not programmed with an understanding of their unique layout.

[thin furnace]

The one thing that irks me a little is that, in my opinion, having all hardpoints and the bay facing the same direction makes it much less awkward - just turning off the main drive would make it like any other ship, just with offset controls. Having them face different directions though would make it so you need to actively think about the ship's rotation, which would make mining a more involved process

[vestal idol]

I don't like placing awkwardness in the control scheme. Fighting the ship, fine. Fighting the controller because you have to constantly open OMS and manually enable/disable individual weapons? Not so much fun.

That's my own opinion, at least.

[thin furnace]

I mean that'd only be the case if you mount weapons on the ARM mounts, and if someone mounts a NANI broadside then I doubt they're looking for a convenient mining experience 😄

I'd make a case for a forward hardpoint so you point your ship at a roid, extract whatever goodies are inside, then do some maneuvering to scoop em all up

I just don't really see a case for mounting mining equipment on both the forward and broadside mounts, I think from a player's perspective it would be a choice between one or the other unless you specifically want to mine at both angles at once

[vestal idol]

The other angle is a lore angle. Why would she have forward mounts? In lore, she'll never have work in that direction.

The third part is that I'm just personally really attached to smacking the notion that a ship in space needs a "front" out of some player heads. The idea of a ship with no forward facing function has been bouncing around my head for a while.

In other words, I just really want it for no clearly articulable reason.

[thin furnace]

Fair enough honestly

Keep in mind though, I got on board specifically to make adding new ships easier :) so we'll have plenty of chances to design more ones that don't necessarily have a "front"

Especially once January ends since that's the uni exam session here [which in turn means I won't be tutoring, so I'll have more time to model and stuff]

[vestal idol]

I think the concept here is especially ideal for it; it doesn't have a reason to need or want forward firepower, storywise. Anything suited to mining or combat will, and gameplay is mining and combat.

But I'm arguing from emotion at the moment, it's an entirely dismissable point, and I'm aware of it.

[thin furnace]

Naw genuinely no worries, like I informed most of this thing's shape by looking at microscope pictures of rotifers of various kinds 😄 nothing wrong about a little emotion and inspiration

I'm largely indifferent to the config, I just feel like something facing forward as well would make for some engaging gameplay

But the only part of this ship that is like uhh "my baby" is the visuals

Compromise proposition:

Maybe it could have just mounts to the right by default, and have a variant with hastily welded forward hardpoints that replace 2 of the light right-facing ones and maybe one cradle mount

[vestal idol]

I don't mind a variant having forward mounts, and that agrees with lore a little more, since variants are by definition built for different purposes. It would just be really cool for the default experience to force players to adjust their entire frame of reference.

I think I really like the idea of AP users having to manipulate the AP more, without being able to use targeting for their mining at all.

It looked like you guys might still be making model adjustments; is that the case?

If these mount plates extended here, that could give us the left-hand mount for cradles.

Just FYI, I love how this ugly Frankenstein's Spaceship turned out, she's so fricking weird.

I love that it can be this weird and still have, I think, a realistic reasoning behind being so weird.

[urban aspen]

Is the brainstorm still going on for other stuff, or new ship ideas get their own thread? I'm not usually one to do these suggestions but I happened to scribble something.

[royal parcel]

I think for a completely different ship a new thread would be best

[urban aspen]

very well

[brave knoll]

Actually, this is far more likely to be baked into the -m map of ambient occlusion

[brave knoll]

actually, you can already autopilot-mine with this thing.

[heady eagle]

i think that restricting converters/processed cargo storage are good ideas

there's already the 225 which heavily encourages cargo processing with all of its docking bays so a ship that encourages bare bay mining would be nice

[brave knoll]

Doesn't it take a lot out of Cothon series?

Not dismissing the idea, I like it, but I'm trying to anticipate consequences

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace there are two dirs with images and I constantly get confused; could you take one of them outside assets? You can use the cloud for backup, let it just be placed in tmp/ or something so I don't get confused and download files that I don't need and be confused that nothing changes 😅

Also, I'm not sure how I feel about the smooth surface of the bay. It's the most prominent feature of the ship and it just looks pretty plain

[thin furnace]

Sure thing! Honestly I should've done that a while ago considering one of them was uploaded on accident 😅

[thin furnace]

I could add some sort of rail perhaps? I don't have many ideas on how to add detail on something that's supposed to spin

Or some sort of paneling

[brave knoll]

My ideas would be either visible panelling or some kind of rails/gear insets

(on the right scale, of course, this would be just a series of insets into the bay)

(also, material of the bay could be separated and tweaked a bit so the damage takes circual shapes?)

just throwing some ideas

we could also paint it with company colours and logos. That would work too.

[thin furnace]

I like the gearing idea, I'll see if I can do that without messing up the topology too too much

And I think I like the painting idea a lot too, from that perspective it looks plain for now but we can look at it as a nice big chunk of canvas for us and anyone that wants custom paintjobs

On second thought I like the paint idea a lot more tbqh

This could be like THE graffiti ship for modders

Default paint job could have an Obonto habitat silhouette painted on top of the bay

And then some branding on the cargo/remass storage

[brave knoll]

also, I know I'm throwing stuff out of order again, but consider if the damage model for the bay would be similar to the eagle bay instead of just scapped paint.

[thin furnace]

Considerable! In that case do I just add a wireframe inside the bay and add the alpha channel to the damage model?

[brave knoll]

yeah, that's what I did for the prospector. triangulate, wireframe

[brave knoll]

okay, so good news are: twin arms technically work

bad news: they are awkward to use AF

in the "this will be reported as a bug" way

the off-COM mount point means that whenever they catch anything, they twist the entire ship

which in turn makes them constantly miss the cargo bay

so like "fun concept, but this is not practical"

[brave knoll]

Okay, not sure what was the initial concept what the twin arms will be good for @vestal idol but this is a really weird ship to fly

Considering balancing option: no cradles and 15k processed storage.

[royal parcel]

I'd like a ship specifically for bare bay mining, but wasn't one of the design goals to have the MPU on the moving part, so it scoops up stuff when it rotates? Would be much less useful if the processed storage is severely limited.
But on the other hand, with a big bay, lots of storage AND a good MPU placement this will probs be OP.

[brave knoll]

in other news, new shader:

[thin furnace]

I love it already

A histogram LIDAR could also maybe be a feature of this one's HUD

[brave knoll]

I was thinking about making circual theme for this HUD

@thin furnace please ping me when updated sprites upload, I need to trigger that download manually on mobile

[thin furnace]

Sure thing! will probably be in a few hours once I'm done with tutoring

My laptop's battery and the RTX don't like each other much

[brave knoll]

right

[torpid canyon]

Having only one ARM could work

[thin furnace]

Eh, integrated graphics be chuggin but Good Enough

Gotta adjust the spacing of the damage but going well so far

Now it goes concentrically, and the outer bay gets beaten up a bit faster than the inner

hmmmmm

is it just me or does this look like shit hitting the fan (in a literal sense)

[thin furnace]

Not sure if it looks right

Gonna leave them as they were for now

[brave knoll]

Looks pretty good. Did you use that Eagle paint shader? there seems to be missing normal map downwards on the edge of the tears

also, see if when you pull the wireframe bit outwards they look good

(as if - poking through the paint when pristine)

[thin furnace]

Just quickly modified the regular one to respect alpha for a mockup 😅 will replace with the Eagle one soon :)

[thin furnace]

Not so Sure honestly, but that might be for lack of adjustment

Also, do we want to leave the checkerboard paneling from the eagle? I could try to do some UVs so it's concentric

[brave knoll]

I like the panels without wires

can you do hex pattern?

[thin furnace]

Hmm

I could try ! Not sure how I'll achieve it but surely there's a math thing I could do

[vestal idol]

Mostly meant to shoot. I'm aware of the intent to turn 'forward' to the side when open, though I thought that was for the EI AP.

[vestal idol]

If that bay doesn't move, my earlier recommendation was using it for paint. It's a great canvas, and it does need some branding.

[thin furnace]

Yeah, I think that'd be a great use for it honestly

[thin furnace]

I wish math was simpler

[vestal idol]

I think they'd look better when equipment is mounted to them.

[thin furnace]

I think I'll just use a texture instead IF we're going with hexes

[brave knoll]

let me give it a try

[thin furnace]

May be ! In any case an easy thing to fix up

[brave knoll]

I think I have a shader with hex pattern in game already

[thin furnace]

ooh neato

I'll upload the .blend in a sec then

[brave knoll]

working on separate file tho

you can merge the node if I manage to pull it off 🙂

[vestal idol]

Could also alter the ridges for the different mount type.

If being off-center is problematic, maybe slide those mount plates further in, closer to center? Won't solve it, but mitigates it. Using it for ore, you outweigh the ore by so much you should be okay, so is this mostly a salvage issue?

I suspect most players won't be using them dual like that, but it's still very cool to watch, and I'll definitely try it at least once.

[thin furnace]

.blend is up in the same folder as the sprites if you wanna edit it :) Be aware most of the materials are stuffed in a single node group so you might need to tab inside it to add the textures

Lunch time, back in half an hour

or half an hour plus however long it will take to teach how to model a snowflake

[vestal idol]

Hope you're not talking to me. I know just enough about using blender to wreck anything I touch. 🙂

[brave knoll]

Blenders are supposed bo wreck things tho

It's in the device description

[thin furnace]

That was in case Koder wants to try the shader before I come back 😄 but honestly feel free to download it and have a bit of fun as well if you'd like :)

[thin furnace]

I love setting the object color to random

[brave knoll]

wires on this one too?

[thin furnace]

yup, just not as visible since it's a little thicker

[brave knoll]

So... baffles?

How do we add baffles for this one?

[thin furnace]

After minutes of deliberation here's an idea (not sure if it's a good one)

Could either have a baffle on each segment to scoop ore into the bay when it closes, or have them like the EIME, just doubled for the extra width

Actually maybe flip one on the first drawing so they clap when they close instead of when they open

Like so

This way when it's open it has 2 baffles, and when it closes whatever is stuck between them gets launched deeper into the bay

one issue: this config would make it hella hard to push anything inside the bay when it's not in the process of closing

[young spoke]

The baffles could be vertical

[brave knoll]

could you draw a mockup?

[young spoke]

Once i get home

Hour max

@brave knoll do you have a pic with bay open?

nvm is this it?

[brave knoll]

here you go:

Ship is testable now on #beta-feedback channel. Be sure to grab a role that gives you spoiler access on #rules

[young spoke]

oh it opens fully?

well then just imagine its longer 😄

[brave knoll]

I don't think this is modellable in-engine

[young spoke]

you could limit the opening if you have baffles installed... that way it wont limit the cargo space but will limit the size of object that can enter

or you could have those solid parts as baffles like liqvo proposed

any opinion on twin mpu?

the bay is big enough

nmv you said probs no cradles right?

[vestal idol]

I like the idea of scoop-in loading, if baffles are used.

I worry that ore will roll "down" the baffle and out of the bay as it closes, though.

[young spoke]

you would have to make sure the ore is inside

or have a hook at the end that pushes the ore in

heres a quick grid of bays for ms painting ideas 😄

[humble cipher]

how about something like this

they would be visible when the excavator is open

[young spoke]

you could propably get them stuck in back if you take bunch of stuff in

[humble cipher]

you can do that with most baffles though right

[young spoke]

sure but they are usualy short and dont reach halfway into the bay

[humble cipher]

are curved baffles out of the question

well actually I should be asking "are baffles that point forward out of the question"

[analog blade]

Everything becomes a crab eventually

[humble cipher]

variants

[young spoke]

those would propably hit each other

[humble cipher]

I think the curved ones could avoid that

blank image for others' convenience

[young spoke]

thanks

[young spoke]

once ore gets past the first segment of the folding baffle the second one would fold while the first segment would spring back in place

made in pivot and i didnt noticed i can move the points but something like this

[thin furnace]

am home but still yet to figure out hexagonal paneling oughhhh

Everything else is done though :)

[brave knoll]

do square ones then

I know doing hexes on blender materials is pita

[thin furnace]

👌

Then in a few minutes there will be a fresh set of sprites

oh yeah one last thing, do we want the mounts symmetrical like this?

Or as they were earlier?

[brave knoll]

I think I preferred asymmetry, but they are obscured anyway

[thin furnace]

Fair fair

[thin furnace]

@brave knoll uploaded :)

[next hawk]

hexagons are bestagons though

[thin furnace]

True but they're a pain to make procedurally in blender

[next hawk]

understandeable

[thin furnace]

and honestly I kinda warmed up to this

looks quite nice

[urban aspen]

I came with a thought after reflecting a bit on my suggestion in https://discord.com/channels/426287934870781952/1067251732704403497 in regards of the new ship.
Is this cargo hold design also going to be considered for a smaller vessel, which opens forward a la "Pacman"? It could be the signature of whatever company will have the name on this, not just a single ship.

[young spoke]

Pretty sure this is the same manufacturer as starter boi

[thin furnace]

This is Obonto, the guys who make Obonto Habitats

[young spoke]

nvm then

i got old intel

[vestal idol]

It may BE inside, then go outside, because you add spin g before it's fully closed.

[young spoke]

then add succ

hard to do in space tho

[thin furnace]

Yeah it's not exactly easy to vacuum something when you're surrounded by vacuum already 😄

[young spoke]

simple stuff really

just make a small sun in the cargohold

[thin furnace]

Ah, the gravity scoop

[young spoke]

and ore proccesor at the same time

[vestal idol]

The symmetrical config was suggested to provide a cradle mount further from RCS. But I think we're going cradle-less here.

[young spoke]

gl with the ship 😄

[vestal idol]

It WOULD be fun to have some quirky physics tools to interact with the environment. Little grav generators and accumulate ice/ore clots and such.

You know, toys to play with.

Wrong game, though.

[thin furnace]

Yeah 😔

we could get away with some magnets at least though 😄

Or make a free DLC that adds some unrealistic things, for the people who want them

that's post 1.0 though I think, if at all

[young spoke]

harpoon granade that pulls stuff together

destructively

or simulated gravity well using drones

[vestal idol]

Hah. Delta Wars: Enceladus Strikes Back.

Anyway, wrong thread.

[thin furnace]

Early variant proposal: "Lefty". Literally the same ship, just mirrored

[urban aspen]

I believe magnetic strength/whatever you call it is exponential to the distance between objects? so you'd have to be really close to whatever ferromagnetic ore before it starts visibly moving towards the magnet, just to then gradually accelerate faster and crash.

[thin furnace]

True very true

but also that's how ARMs grab ore when it's just out of their reach

could work for keeping ore in a cargo bay

Baffles 2: Magnetic Boogaloo

[urban aspen]

But then you have no excuse not to put a magnet at the bottom of the cargo bay to make ore get in the damn processor

[thin furnace]

Magnets and delicate electronics don't like each other very much

[vestal idol]

Well, in lore. In reality we need to tube their targeting range sand their math, but that can't happen in 1.0. Koder made a promise to himself.

[thin furnace]

True very true

[urban aspen]

and I'm not sure how ferromagnetic vanadium, palladium, whatever form tungsten is in as ore and beryllium, which I believe isn't even a metal?

is platinum ferromagnetic? should be, free electrons and stuff, Obonto uses it for CABLING

[vestal idol]

There was also a suggestion that the ARM uses microtethers or something. I don't think either is canon.

[thin furnace]

He knows too much . [Echoing gunshots]

[vestal idol]

All the ice will have trace elements of a little of everything.

[royal parcel]

I think there are only 3 ferromagnetic elements: Iron, Cobalt and Nickel.

[thin furnace]

It uses magic bestowed upon the captain by Yog Sothoth, attracting ice with the sheer willpower of the ARM's operator

[clear scarab]

space krill farts.

[urban aspen]

oh, yeah... for having studied electronics I really fumbled there

free electrons do not make a magnet

[brave knoll]

Out of all of them, only is ferromagnetic.

[urban aspen]

As if its name wasn't a hint, really

[brave knoll]

Cobalt
Iron
Magnetite
Dysprosium
Nickel
Gadolinium

...and about 3 alloys

(also TIL chemistry 😅)

[rotund pasture]

It clearly Attracts the Water in the Asteroid via a Giant Sponge.

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace I have this image in my mind for the HUD: circular displays (lidar, cargo, visfeed) with numerical data wrapped around them, and lots of circular gauges.

[thin furnace]

Ooh I like that, I was thinking a rectangle with a swooped edge for the OMS, then circles going along said edge with everything else

But if we're doing circles we're gonna do circles 👍👍

I'll make a mockup when I get home

Hmmm, I gather if we can do a circular fuel gauge and whatnot, maybe it could be cool to put them around the autopilot circle too? For like Quick Glance access

Not sure yet if that makes sense, I'll have to think about it 😅

[terse kernel]

mmm gauges

im surprised we don't have more gauges

they are great

[brave knoll]

EIME already does that. It just has hexagonal circles.

[young spoke]

Can we get car gas gauge?

[brave knoll]

eagle already has that

[young spoke]

Oh... I always switch it 😄

[vestal idol]

Nothing wrong with more gauges, I think, as long as they're in different styles. But I think a digital gauge has a bit too much pretense for construction.

I like the idea of the square displays being rounded off on two opposite corners. Doesn't impede function, subtle nod to their logo without compromising utility.

I feel like analog gauges would be hard, since they do physics things like tremble, have limited traversal speed, and may stick, not displaying very small changes.

But I also suppose I should ask, rather than dismissing them.

Thinking of a digital display (7 segment display) to show the max value, for like, fuel. Then just the needle.

Actually, not sure analog would be cheaper than digital in any way, though.

[terse kernel]

i think analog would be cool

[thin furnace]

skeuomorphic design time?

[brave knoll]

Actually, I think the next thing we need are dealer renders and texts.

[thin furnace]

I think this might be a good time for me to ask: how are dealer renders supposed to look? do I render an animation that will play as a video or do I render some sprites and the animation gets done in-engine?

[brave knoll]

there are in-engine sprites

[vestal idol]

I can work up text, but I'm in transit to work ATM.

[brave knoll]

Not a problem really, there are still things to do

[brave knoll]

Looking at these, they would probably be pretty easy to force outside

[young spoke]

Force outside? Is there not a hard stop on the joint?

[brave knoll]

nope, it's pin joints and springs

I actually figured out how we could use something attached to the moving part of the bay to have a baffle-like functionality

something like this

[thin furnace]

I like that, scoop time

[polar fjord]

how do range limits on things like the excavator normally work? or is this specifically for baffles?

[brave knoll]

they are just shaped in a way so they hit your hull

[polar fjord]

do *all * moving parts collide? or do you just disable it where needed? My original drawing with the big curved doors relied entirely on the assumption that jointed bodies can clip into each other where they need to

[brave knoll]

we can set up stuff to not colide

[royal parcel]

Ooh, i'm all for a steam gauge cockpit.

[thin furnace]

Very tempted to make something like this honestly

the lifepods have some analog screens, so I'd be partial to this having something similar

[polar fjord]

can we get physical toggle switches for equipment listings

skeuomorph all the things

[thin furnace]

It's one of those things I'd LOVE to do (have the OMS be a separate physical control panel that slides over the screen) but not sure how to do it well. Koder's decision in the end but I'm all for it :)

[polar fjord]

Oh I meant just within the HUD instead of the number symbols.

Are there any sounds attached to huds other than alarms (or is that per ship? I can't remember). I think it's a good opportunity to flavour interactions like toggling equipment with the number line or engaging/disengaging autopilot or selecting targets with a set of sounds for each hud. The OCP hud can be entirely physical switch sounds.

[young spoke]

• for clicky switches

[languid cliff]

I'd love a ship with old analogue HUD. Even older than the stuff in the HAL 9000 HUD (I do like it, but it lacks nice gauges or similar visual things that let you figure out important stuff like remaining remass or reactor heat at a glance.

[languid cliff]

Oh highfleet. Beautiful HUD.

[young spoke]

what about this spinny type thingy?

[thin furnace]

@brave knoll dealer sprites up in the cloud :)

Not Quite sure if the angles look right but I tried 😄 let me know if anything needs correcting

[brave knoll]

tx, will check them out first thing in the morning

[royal parcel]

HAL is more like early glass cockpits, although afaik they were never made with monochrome displays. But if a completely analogue "steam gauge" cockpit would be too much, maybe a mix of both, like in this old 737 cockpit, would be something.

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace found a tiny problem here:

you should probably not see that flat plate inside your torch

moving that a bit back in the model should solve it

also, do we want the hab lights to be on?

[brave knoll]

perhaps we should have one of the images with the bay open?

[thin furnace]

Ooh that's a good idea

[brave knoll]

anyway, inserted in-game, so now it's just changing pics

would appreciate if you used same angles, I already set up the promo camera movement

(also, need to remember to update the high-res pack)

[thin furnace]

@brave knoll uploaded :)

[brave knoll]

preety good, except the excavator opening is backwards 😄

[thin furnace]

...oooops

Leaving it to render while I eat lunch, should be done in like 5 minutes :)

[thin furnace]

Fixed and uploaded !

[brave knoll]

How much processed cargo and crew capacity should OCP-209 have?

[dawn crag]

do we have any ships that have processed cargo capacity, but similar to the single-material containers only allows one single element? Could be a trade-off compared to other ships

[shy lichen]

This the new ship?

i love it

I’m already imagining how useful those two arms could be for stopping the rotation on escape pods

grab one end, grab another, boom

[thin furnace]

This one's cargo bay entrance is large enough that I don't think it would have to worry much about pod rotation 😄

[shy lichen]

fair point

imagine if the center rotated

that would look funky AF, cargobay that rotates between sides

[shy lichen]

Nah that flat plate is the uh

Uh

Nanopolymer Protection Grate

Totally

[brave knoll]

With lack of cardle mounts for cargo containers, I feel this would quickly get very annoying to fly with.

[shy lichen]

hmmm cardle mounts

having a random car would be a pretty cool Easter egg, in saturns rings

[young spoke]

I think i proposed it already but how about two ores sharing one container... Like a bender but on smaller scale

[royal parcel]

You might wanna keep your eyes open. Just in case.

[shy lichen]

👀

[urban aspen]

How many hardpoints would the new Obonto ship have? I know about the two broadside high-stress.

[brave knoll]

Stats as of now are:

2 High-Stress Hardpoints
2 Low-Stress Hardpoints
800m^3 storage capacity
50t processed storage capacity (amorphic)
8 crew slots
comfortable habitat (+30% morale)

[shy lichen]

It kinda looks like a Star Trek ship in a way

[thin furnace]

Changed quite a bit since then

Wild to see

[shy lichen]

LIQVO

imagine if a variant of this ship had no main thruster 💀

“Boi where is the torch on this thing”

“About that….”

[thin furnace]

Planned for a different ship :)

[shy lichen]

👀 secret ship?

No sneakpeeks just yet?

[thin furnace]

Well no sneakpeeks yet mostly because it's not worked on currently 😅 but it's in community suggestions somewhere

#1063610824507265055 < one is here

#1056534308652843079 < another is here

[shy lichen]

Ah yes a space submarine

Though a ship that can simulate going under certain asteroids would be fun lmao

I do recall suggesting a ship that had scoops on the side, broadside loading, though this ship makes more sense

[thin furnace]

The final version will probably look way different (like a research sub instead of a military one) IF I make it

But this is the wrong channel I think 😄

[shy lichen]

I’m just saying this doesn’t look like a military sub 👀, looks like one of those massive personal subs

[thin furnace]

HUD brainstorm left for this one still

[shy lichen]

also yes wrong channel indeed

back to the goofy sideloader:

can it SPEEN

How fast the goofy ah ship go speen

[thin furnace]

Fast enough to cause the reactor to jam and explode

[shy lichen]

also idk why, but this ship seems like the perfect candidate for an ore compactor

wouldn’t process the ore, but it does compact the ore into cubes so that you can fit more in

[shy lichen]

it’d be cool if this ship had a physical HUD as opposed to holographic

so you feel like you are actually in the cockpit of the ship

[thin furnace]

That's one of the ideas planned :)

We'll see how it ends up but I def wanna try that

[torpid canyon]

A less intrusive physical HUD than the HAL 9000 HUD i hope

Maybe even an hybrid between opaque and glass

[terse kernel]

woah

[vestal idol]

The variable config is unlikley; apparently putting a thruster on a moving part is problematic for physics as it has to transmit forces across joints.

Could possibly change the angle a thruster points, but articulating multiple ship parts with thrusters is less likely.

[young spoke]

You could just have two models + animation between them

[shy lichen]

kinda like how Dreadnought does it

[torpid canyon]

just make the thruster apply force on the main body while the secondary body is here for looks

[brave knoll]

thruster plumes are physical. Also, this is out of scope of this particular thread.

[vestal idol]

You can fly it with a file in the beta channel, if you like.

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace we need to wrap up OCP-209 HUD tomorrow. If you have any ideas (or anybody else for that matter), drop drafts here. I should start implementing it first thing in the morning.

[thin furnace]

No problemo, I'll try to do a few concepts today 👌

[shy lichen]

steam gauge hud thing

no reason in particular except it would look super cool

[dawn crag]

Could include a bunch of displays, gauges and digits that have no ingame meaning on other ships. Idk, door open percentage, cargo bay temperature, ..

[languid cliff]

Should be build for good visibility

[shy lichen]

generator dials, that one giant red button that actually has a function but only on this specific ship

[thin furnace]

Here's concept 1, where most information like Delta V, speed, acceleration and stuff would be wrapped around the LIDAR display, while things like ship mass, propellant reserves, ammo, etc would be wrapped around the propellant/reactor/capacitor display

[proper lagoon]

that looks amazing

[thin furnace]

Thank you :)

[torpid canyon]

It takes a lot of place

But it looks good aesthetic wise

[thin furnace]

It will depend on UI scale, I'm assuming a low resolution here - since if it works at a low one, it will definitely work at higher ones

[thin furnace]

A cursed thought entered my head: a variant that is just the habitat with a bunch of RCS strapped to it

Racing OCP

[dawn crag]

Ah yes, the enterprise disconnect the disk protocol

[young spoke]

funky thing... arm considers this inside the cargobay and keeps playing pingpong with ore using rcs pylons as paddles

[rotund pasture]

I approve of this Stupidity. This Needs to be a Variant (Only Findable as Salvage, Cause the person who made it Burned way too Hot and Ran out of Fuel XD)

[young spoke]

should only be capable of holding jerrycan worth of fuel 😄

[rotund pasture]

Nah it needs to be Viable, the guy sprung a leak

[brave knoll]

should I point out the flaw in that idea, or do you want to figure it out yourself?

[thin furnace]

I mean there are more than several, most amounting to "lack of thing" but a man can dream

[brave knoll]

where do you get the heat for converting water into usable thrust?

[urban aspen]

Anyone reviewed the idea of the pac-man ship? Just the big cheddar wheel-cargo bay, front-opening to 90°, with some thrusters strapped to it.

[thin furnace]

The espresso machine of course 😄

Obviously the Space Frisbee™ is not something I'd actually expect to see, but it's a fun mental image

[urban aspen]

I just recently found out the landmines are hijacked round drones with 3 thrusters, sounds like it but bigger

[thin furnace]

I think that would be a bit too OP, generally huge bay openings aren't supposed to be common I think 😅

But if Koder greenlights it I'm all for it

This ship was allowed a big ol mouth because it's in a very inconvenient spot

[urban aspen]

OP? My mental image is telling me the ship wouldn't be able to have space for more than 3 crew, 2 low-stress points and hardly any processed storage. Probably can't even have front RCS because it'll all be just cargo bay in front.

[vestal idol]

What's the lower-right display, and what are the bars around it?

[thin furnace]

Lower-right is supposed to be the screen where you can see your reactor, capacitor and thruster state

the bars around it are a "here's where the measurement bars should be" thing

In this case ammo, processed cargo cap, capacitor charge, etc

[vestal idol]

I like the circle for cargo, and circles seem appropriate for the LIDAR, not sure it helps with the visfeed.
More display would be needed for temperature, DV, etc readouts.

[thin furnace]

color-coded and with text on top

Visfeed is circular mostly to keep with the theme 😄

✨ design ✨

[vestal idol]

Just FEELS like it takes up UI space while showing me less. The LIDAR, at least, you can clip it to LIDAR range.

[thin furnace]

Fair, fair !

I mite revisit that one then

but for now I wanna work on the analog thing concept :>

[vestal idol]

Circular is analog?

Oh, for the other readings? For a lot of things, analog works, but I'd hate to lose exact digital readings on temperature, speed, etc.

Even the stylish prospector has a sizable bank of readouts for ship stats.

[thin furnace]

No worries, My plan is to like uhh

stylize it to be physical screens, with gauges that have a digital counter underneath

3 mins I'll show u what I mean :)

[thin furnace]

ok maybe a bit more than 3 minutes but this is the kind of gauge I had in mind

Very Raw models but you get the gist :>

[urban aspen]

there will never be anything funnier than twinned NANI

[thin furnace]

There's a reason I picked that screenshot as the test bg 😎

@vestal idol begging for the location of your opinion (By Text)

obv if we decide on this one I'll make the models better (and probably make a few sprites for a gauge, a screen, etc)

[languid cliff]

Reflections of light on the LiDAR for example might be annoying

[thin furnace]

hmm fair fair

Not sure if it will be reflective in-engine though

[languid cliff]

I like the rest.

[vestal idol]

It LOOKS great . . . but the physical needle still feels like a bit of a conceit to me. Even the HAL UI, with CRT monitors probably bought from high school surplus in the 90s, uses digital readings.

Also . . . . I liked the rounding of opposing corners on each square interface - seemed like a throwback to the logo.

[thin furnace]

It provides a bit of a failsafe though - even if the ship computer is offline, some readings (like reactor temp) can still be displayed

[vestal idol]

Well, I mean, if you run a coolant line directly to the cockpit to plug a thermometer into.

[thin furnace]

hmm true

[vestal idol]

Just have this image of someone sticking a meat thermometer into a coolant line.

[thin furnace]

orrr stick a thermometer into the reactor with a metallic resistor that measures the temp by checking for resistance of said metal [since that changes depending on temperature], and the electricity would actuate the needle with an electromagnet (in turn showing an approximate temp on the gauge, on a log scale)

with a bit of delay, but still

[vestal idol]

End of the day, it's a combat consideration on a bucket excavator.

[thin furnace]

Hmm fair fair

[vestal idol]

Is the LIDAR smaller than most UIs, or is it just looking that way because you're not getting corners?

[thin furnace]

Still, on this kind of equipment it would make sense to have some redundancies - you are transporting important materials and a bunch of people

hmm let me compare

slightest bit smaller yeah

But that can be easily fixed (by making it larger)

[vestal idol]

The outer edge is only a little bigger than the gauge's outer edge, but it's a decent notch bigger than the gauge's display.

On the one hand, I feel like this would fit the role, but on the other hand, I guess the K37/225 kind of really has that look covered.

[thin furnace]

Yeahh this one is kinda taken by THI

this style I mean

I'm really all about them circles for this one

[vestal idol]

Could probably narrow the bezels quite a bit to save real estate, and pull the gauges in until they almost slightly overlap the equipment display (but not the text)

[thin furnace]

True very true

I'll try that

[vestal idol]

I think rounding two corners might be a good hallmark for this ship's displays, but maybe a steeper curve so it doesn't cut in so much.

[thin furnace]

Fair fair

[vestal idol]

OLED background on the gauges, so something like the red bar on the gauges changes to show where your DV reserve is?

[thin furnace]

Yeah, the idea is I'll make that part of the thing transparent so Koder can stick an actual measurement in there

These are mostly just placeholders to showcase how the thing is supposed to look

Also good idea with the transport reserve, I didn't think of that !

[vestal idol]

It would be REALLY cool if the needle stayed behind, but the gauge's warning markers flickered out when the HUD went down.

Maybe an icon on the center circle to show what each gauge is for. A droplet for fuel, a little flame for heat, thunderbolt for power.

car-dashboard style.

[thin furnace]

Dang what icon could we possibly use for ΔV 🤔

[vestal idol]

Delta.

Or, heck, sneak in the game logo in the guise of labelling it as Delta V.

Not sure I would gauge BOTH fuel and DV, since they're somewhat analogous (though I know, not the same).

Gauge this one for only DV instead of having a prominent fuel gauge? That would kinda set it apart.

We amateurs like flat reaction mass indicators, but this is a working man's tool, and they need to know how much work they can do.

[thin furnace]

Didn't see that last one but here's a proof of concept (?)

Ignore the distortion on displays, it's a UV thing I couldn't be bothered to tend to 😅

[next hawk]

interesting

[vestal idol]

I'm wondering if it should be digital with a flat color, or painted-on?

[next hawk]

I'd probably want - in terms of gameplay - the dials to be bit more transparent/ less of a dashboard

I like the commitment to the best geometric shape

[vestal idol]

I like transparent more, too, but the K37 will probably remain my favorite for the forseeable future.

[next hawk]

I also wonder if there's space in there to sell the story of the construction ship a bit more? Also maybe a front vs side-facing indicator or something

[vestal idol]

What about . . .

Not exactly that, but at least looking less brickish.

[thin furnace]

hmm fair fair

[vestal idol]

Looked up DV icons just in case, but there's not really anything clever and clear that's markedly better than our logo.

[thin furnace]

¯_(ツ)_/¯

I quite like it

Oh jesus it's 1am

I lost my sense of time whoops

[vestal idol]

You go to bed right now, young man.

[thin furnace]

FINE but I'll shower first since hygiene is important

Back on this tomorrow morning!

Or today morning I suppose

[vestal idol]

G'night.

[thin furnace]

Goodnite

[thin furnace]

I can't sleep oughhh I keep thinking about how to make the dials make more sense

Maybe some counters could be "stacked" on them? Like we'd have a fuel gauge that displays the amount of remass in the tank, but also 2 digit counters on it for remass and DV

[shell pebble]

Not what you're looking for, but how about some less car-like/modern gauge dials?

[thin furnace]

Maybe! Also this made me notice I put the digital counter off-center

Death .

[shell pebble]

"Stacking" them makes me think of adding a gauge below the other, with dials like that it could work, probably kinda confusing tho

[thin furnace]

We'll see :) But Tomorrow

[royal parcel]

I know i'm referencing aircraft cockpit a lot, but just to throw the idea into the room if you're looking for "analogue style" gauges but on a display:

Ok i realize Eagle got that kinda covered, but it's a bit of a different style

[brave knoll]

so, you think we should go for Cothon-like style of HUD? A physical one? Can be done, will be tricky.

[brave knoll]

you should check what happens with HAL HUD when you power it off.

Okay, here is a draft of what was going out in my head:

1;5 - since the bay is circual we could stick it into a ship silhouette; I have "text follows the circle shape" shader for the composition readings; stilhouette would allow us to stick in a propellant gauge and reactor temperature gauge in there

4; that circual shader was specifically made to display some information over circles. Additional data here would be following the usual green "autopilot is on" indicator. space for key information .

2;3 - small circular screens can fit into edges of the screen; presented here visfeed and lidar.

this is of course just a draft, and it mostly comes from wanting to showcase some shaders 🙂 not pushing for digital/physical style here

now, for @thin furnace's design:

I feel this would look a bit better if the backplate was moved away a bit

if you really want to go for physical-style display, how about making it actual "text on glass" HUD?

I mean - a physical screen that displays digital data, but transparent

We could even make it a circle, and move a bit as the ship accelerates, and be affected by ligting

but it would not obscure the recon feed

[thin furnace]

Ahhh dang that's right, there go my gauges 😅

[brave knoll]

we need to hide the HUD completely when powered down. If we don't, it will be visible on Enceladus.

[thin furnace]

Treating it as one of the options at least, since a lot of people seemed to want something like that :) not a hill I'd die on though

I do like the glass idea though, could be nice to have a better showcase of G forces

[brave knoll]

something like that, just circle?

we could have a circle glass "primary display" and a second one on the brace for digital texts

[thin furnace]

Yeah, could be nice :)

Combined with the earlier drafts where most information would be wrapped in circles around other parts of the UI, maybe. I feel like that could look really interesting while also still being very useful

I also like the idea of the ship silhouette as a major part of the UI

[brave knoll]

Donesn't have to be explicit silhouette; we could fit three circles there and it would be close enough

for the power-down, if we go with physical. we will probably make the displays fold away

do note through that this style of display is bit more expensive on the cpu/gpu side, as it renders multiple viewports

But I kind of like the idea of "modern physical"

like HALHUD has a very good mood, but as far as conveying information, it's a lot of busy space without much information

[thin furnace]

Yeah I found myself really enjoying the vibes of HAL, not so much its pragmatics 😅 so I'd love to see a modernized version of it :)

[thin furnace]

Also, would the performance hit scale with how many "screens" we want to make? In which case I'm pretty sure we could do away with just one or two

[brave knoll]

it hits low-end GPUs

but we could get away with as much as HAL has

so, a semi-transparent glass, circle, with some imperfections and a bevel?

[thin furnace]

I'm thinking about 2 semicircles extending from the edge of the screen

But that works too I think

[brave knoll]

thin plastic bracing around more than the half of the circumfence with an black OLED screen

[thin furnace]

How thick would we want that to be? I'm assuming that's where most of the digital counters would go

[brave knoll]

that's something I'd need to see

also, we'll need the usual c/n/m for these

[thin furnace]

Fair fair

[brave knoll]

but I assume you 3d model them anyway 🙂

[thin furnace]

That's no problem 👌

Yeah 😄 if I don't have to do a .SVG export i just stick with blender

I'll get on it right as I finish breakfast :)

[brave knoll]

@vestal idol is the ship description good for production as it is?

[vestal idol]

Just awake. Not sure I like 4 on that layout, since it puts information over your field of view. Most people who don't like the EIAA and the ER47 don't like them for that clutter I also feel like the squares with two rounded corners are brand appropriate, resembling the Obonto logo.

I haven't actually looked at the description yet. I'll do into translations once I make sure my loving animal companion doesn't try to eat my face.

[thin furnace]

we could alternatively go with this kind of shape for the glass
[Finished breakfast also . Burnt my garlic bread a bit but the rest was very nice]

orrrr do that for some UI elements

[brave knoll]

Get me some circles first, I want to see how they look in-game

should be about 75% transparent on the glass, but with solid map/normal data

not sure if these shaders I used for k37 renders will handle that, need to test

it would probably also look nice if there were some imperfections in the glass?

[vestal idol]

Definitely should have imperfections, imperfections ground cgi in reality.

[thin furnace]

I'll add some scratches 👍

[thin furnace]

Might also just make a whole new shader for it I think, since it doesn't need stuff like damage levels - I'll just mix a metallic shader (for the -m and -n) and a glass shader (for the alpha and colors)

[brave knoll]

I was talking about the post-processing ones for maps and normals

[vestal idol]

Was about to say; if we add a crack can it spread and conduct light that hits it incidentally so it plays with the display info?

[thin furnace]

ohhh right

[brave knoll]

we should watch out with cracks, since this will add "every OCP-209 has cracked lidar", which might not be what we are going for

[thin furnace]

Some minor scratches should be enough I think

[brave knoll]

actually. if they work okay, we could do procedural, idk, 8? variants, and assign them by pseudo-random ship-transponder

[thin furnace]

Maybe some wear in specific places to imply they're from whatever the screen rests on when folded?

[brave knoll]

but you'll get that effect that you install a brand new HUD and it's broken alrady

[thin furnace]

Hmm

Maybe some sort of grid then?

Ehhh maybe not

[brave knoll]

this is something that needs to be seen in-game

[thin furnace]

Maybe a pristine HUD map and a roughed up one that would become more visible the more damaged the ship is? is that something we could do?

[vestal idol]

Tie their visibility to ship age?

[brave knoll]

I'll try to modify the shaders to add refraction, but the look needs to be verified

[vestal idol]

Getting a little bloated, now.

[brave knoll]

technically. but

[thin furnace]

Fair fair

Alternatively, we could simply explain it away with the "new" HUDs being retrofitted from decomissioned OCPs

OH WELL I'll get to work on the shader for now

[vestal idol]

In that case, just don't sell new ships, make them all old.

[brave knoll]

that's how we'll justify imperfections

but that's something I need to see in-engine to test if it's viable

[vestal idol]

Not sure if it's what's meant, but definitely not a fan of grouping tons of ship data around the AP ring. Visual clutter in the workspace, competing with geo tags, is pretty controversial for UI HUD elements.

[brave knoll]

this is also something to see and test, but if we are going for a physical displays, it would not fit anyway. But I want to check if the physical feel is viable

what we are doing now game-design wise with this is introducing thin-bezel transparent displays, so they don't take as much screen estate as CRTs on HAL

[thin furnace]

is this the right amount of "roughed up" for now?

[won't be as visible in-game unless light strikes right, I think]

[vestal idol]

I do see that, I appreciate the real estate and the transparency.

Speaking to Koder's comments, there. The right seems like enough for me.

[thin furnace]

and with OLEDs on the sides

Transparency should work fine now, it will use a principled BSDF for the color/alpha and a glossy shader for everything else

[brave knoll]

seems okay; do take a look on how the normals render through

I was also considering not doing a plasic rim, but rather to expose the glass bevel. Should look nice

seems like a good opportunity to inject obonto branding?

[thin furnace]

ooh good idea

[brave knoll]

....and I'd think that might look better on just one side?

[thin furnace]

Hmm fair !

[brave knoll]

...but anyway, do upload any sprites you can do now, so I can start writing the shaders and testing them in-engine

[thin furnace]

In the cloud, asset folder yet again 👍

[brave knoll]

512x512 🙂

[thin furnace]

whoops !

one second then I'll just get done with the new OLED

[brave knoll]

probably should not have smooth shading, and probably should be dark

In some orientations it lights up as an xmas tree 😅

the smooth shading is visible here on the edge

[thin furnace]

Noted 👍

this is quite a nice shape I think

[brave knoll]

yeah, pretty nice.
set the colour of the glass to 0.25 and I think we could bump the transparency up to 0.9 transparent (opacity 0.1)

I get some nice refractions and reflections, but on some ship orientations it just gets white with reflected sunlight 😅

I wonder if this brace should cover a bit here; that's one of the things we need to check in-engine

[thin furnace]

making the glass darker seems to introduce some weird artifacting

...maybe the camera is at the focal point? Back in a sec

hmm yeah seems to be just lensing, nevermind

[brave knoll]

lets see in the engine

[thin furnace]

Nevermind still happens, seems to just be the color

but alright !

[brave knoll]

not really sure what you are referring to

[thin furnace]

Not as visible in the rendered image, but there's some (possibly undesirable) color variation depending on the angle - which made the bevel more pronounced

Maybe a good thing

Also uploaded !

[brave knoll]

I get some unexpected lights:

also, the brace is pure black?

[thin furnace]

hmm, should be dark grey unless I messed something up

[brave knoll]

there is something wrong with the normals

[thin furnace]

Getting on it

if we want the screen to go into the glass, is this deep ok?

[brave knoll]

oh

no, my mistake

sticked a wrong texture in there

[thin furnace]

no worries 😄

[brave knoll]

yeah, much better

but you can't see the brace at all, we need to make it lighter or have bigger bevel

actually, it doesn't have any?

[thin furnace]

sure does, but I can make it bigger or steeper if it doesn't show up enough

ohhh nevermind my bad, it was more than 90° to the surface 😅

[brave knoll]

also, make the scratches about 3-4x bigger - not visible at all at this scale

I do like the vibes of this

[thin furnace]

ooh that does look nice

[brave knoll]

and do make that glass white again, that was probably caused by this texture mishap

[thin furnace]

Scratches enlarged slightly, I also made the bevel into metal, for now

[brave knoll]

https://tenor.com/view/guiding-knife-client-designer-gif-17799663

[thin furnace]

done 😄

these remind me of like those uhhhhhh

Gold flakes they put on food for people with too much money to spend

Uploaded 👍

[brave knoll]

most of the time, the brace is just black

Shouldn't the bevel scales be flipped?

[thin furnace]

Looks quite nice if I do say so myself

[brave knoll]

now it looks like we have a really thin brace for a solid slab of glass

[thin furnace]

The OLED's frame will be thicker in the final version, for now it's thin because it's 2 separate objects (so I can easily adjust how deep into the glass it goes)

you can even see the faint line between them 😅

OLED/brace not sure what it's gonna be I suppose 😄

as for the glass, how about this thickness?

[vestal igloo]

I can't tell if this is a newer thing cooler, or if it is a visually cooler thing, because this looks very nice

[thin furnace]

updated the bevels 👍

It feels like there's almost something sensible in this

...almost

[languid cliff]

I like the still kind of fancy design, but good visibility

[thin furnace]

hmmmmmmm

Yeah maybe not

[thin furnace]

And thanks !!

[thin furnace]

It's a thing of beauty

How about this sort of setup for the cargo bay/OMS?

[brave knoll]

updated bevels

the brace is always 100% black through

is that what we want?

also, how about equal distance here:

...and make sure you are having just 1-2px of the margin, because that wastes GPU VRAM for the underlying screens

I'll be going out to grab some food in 20 mins

[thin furnace]

is it ok if the sprite is off-center then? a lot of the margin is courtesy of the brace

Moving it could save a lot of empty space

[brave knoll]

let's finish a design of this first., we can work with the rest once we have that nailed

this area is 100% black now, is this what we are after?

this is most likely due to this material being baked in:

also, I think I liked the glass bevel on the glass more

[thin furnace]

Not sure, I assumed it would be a screen with stuff on it so I made it very dark

[thin furnace]

No issue with making it more metallic if it's just gonna be a sctructural thing though

or just brighter

[brave knoll]

make it a bit thinner (the same space inside as outside) and let's try to make it all metalic first. If we are putting screens there they will probably get their own insets, right?

[thin furnace]

👍

Done !

[brave knoll]

what do you think?

[thin furnace]

Definitely better than the earlier one, I like it

[brave knoll]

could use some detail
but now I really need to go get some food, switching to phone

[thin furnace]

No worries, I'll get a quick snack as well and I'll be right back

As for the details they're kinda contingent on whether we want to put displays there or not - adding knobs or stuff there could clash a bit if there's gonna be a speedometer or something as well

[brave knoll]

How about analogue gauges on the thin part? Should fit 3

[thin furnace]

Circular ones on the side or lines going along the brace?

Oh and maybe more importantly should I make them partially transparent for their function?

Hmm on second thought you can simply put readouts on top instead of below them, nevermind 😅

[shy lichen]

that display reminds me of the cargo collection display from Elite Dangerous

[shy lichen]

Imagine playing this ship to crab rave

[thin furnace]

Something along these lines?

[brave knoll]

Yeah it should work. But let's add them as a separate sprite, so we can vary their number in engine

[thin furnace]

👍

would a 128x96px res work for those?

[brave knoll]

We need to check

I should be at the station in two hours or so

[vestal idol]

That is sweet.

[vestal idol]

I was also going to suggest slimming that brace - this looks nice.

Tell me how this looks: The Orbital Construction Platform is a specialized vessel designed for construction. Her forward consumable bays can adjust their weight balance to maintain a center of mass at the center of a carefully designed cargo bay. Because of this, cargoes can be arranged to rotate within the bay, and offer no resistance to rotation while maneuvering. The massive side-loading cargo bay allows her to transport finished components such as reactors and bulkheads, while her twin heavy mountings allow the use of construction manipulators to assist in the assembly of large installations. With a comfortably large habitat capable of rotational G, as well as a high capacity for raw processed materials, this unusual design is well suited to extended construction or resupply missions.

With more than a couple sentences, it's very easy to have your ideas constrained by what's already there, so I just started from scratch and tried to touch on the same points.

[young spoke]

how about animated logo of obonto corp when powering up? With its own tune and all that razzledazzle

[next hawk]

omg yes I want BIOS screen

[languid cliff]

something that would be really cool in a HUD would be this. little lights that tell you why you are getting a warning sound. sometimes it is really hard to figure out in this game.

[brave knoll]

looks good!

[brave knoll]

yes, but out of scope. all the huds would probably benefit from this. separate #1034749955325317140 entry?

[languid cliff]

good idea. we should have one for HUD inspiration anyway.

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace could you reposition it so it takes the entire image, no margins? Trim the resolution down if required

[thin furnace]

Sure thing, that's what I meant when I asked if it's ok for it to be off-center

[brave knoll]

we could use a strut for this to be connected; probably better as a separate sprite

I have this idea that the screens unfold by rotating

also, this part here looks very flat

how about if we cut a hole here?

[thin furnace]

Could look nice, I'll try that

[brave knoll]

or just put some texture over, or buttons? 🤔

up to you really.

[thin furnace]

Also, how large do we want the strut to be, in terms of resolution?

[brave knoll]

perhaps some material texture?

512px long

[thin furnace]

I'm conflicted over whether we want buttons that exist but don't actually do anything 😅

the thing I really like about the HUDs in this game is that everything has a purpose

I don't wanna break that 😔

[brave knoll]

well the initial prompt for the analoguish gauges was for this spot.

you could get intendations there, like these on cars

[thin furnace]

ohh I see yeah that makes more sense

[brave knoll]

that would give us a place to embed a readout if we need one

[brave knoll]

by "analogu-ish" I mean something like this. Actually a digital display, but showing something in a circle

btw, this element is really big right now - takes 1/2 of the vertical screen eastate on the lowest res

does color scheme here work?

semi-transparency of the glass

[thin furnace]

I like it, though maybe the LIDAR distance lines could be a bit brighter? Not a pressing matter though

[languid cliff]

it looks a bit large. still due to the transparency it might not be the biggest problem. you can still see the stuff that would usually be hidden.

[brave knoll]

we can scale it down in-engine. This is the biggest available size

[thin furnace]

how about this sort of gauge spot thingy?

[shy lichen]

Mmmmmm gauges

[thin furnace]

Anyway ! everything else uploaded for testing

[vestal idol]

Shouldn't this metal also have some scratch-and-dent?

A scrape, a scratch, a notch in the edge.

Maybe not those, those are smudges, not scratches, but you know.

[brave knoll]

might need some work 🤔

I can't get a read from this if they are inset or outset.

also, too thick and I can see shading trouble; this one could actually use smooth shading or extra bevel

[thin furnace]

Alrighty 👍

[shy lichen]

They do look like dials

[thin furnace]

and they are a bit of both also, inset with a protrusion in the middle

[brave knoll]

there is still this issue that the 1) glass has a huge bevel, while the brace 2) has a small one

this makes the glass to look much more massive than the brace; should be other way around

[vestal idol]

They look inset around the edge, outset in the center, to me.

[thin furnace]

that would be accurate 👍

[thin furnace]

easy change to make, no worries

[brave knoll]

the 2d image in that orientation should still be a circle

let's try something... how about we tilt it by 5-10 deg?

[thin furnace]

🤔 perhaps !

[vestal idol]

I very much wanted to touch on the adjustable weight balance there, because it's a hole in her design if you don't know the secret, and because you spent a long time figuring out how to make her work at the outset, and that was a big part of it.

[thin furnace]

Also I added a little uhh grippy detail for hands to I don't now what they'd do with it maybe like adjust something 😄

Tactically Placed Fidgeting Utility

[vestal idol]

Just put a fidget spinner on it.

[thin furnace]

Hell yea

[thin furnace]

on both axes?

[brave knoll]

the aim is to still have a circle, so yes

[thin furnace]

ohhh makes sense alrite

uploaded !

[brave knoll]

looks good; id did however break something in the shader 😅

[thin furnace]

oop, I'll double check the filenames just in case

Hmm, those seem ok

The display seems there, just very faint - maybe the alpha is plugged into the LIDAR itself as well?

[vestal idol]

Can I mount a laser pointer on that mounting rail?

[thin furnace]

so long as it's bent like that 😎

[vestal idol]

There's an old saying me and a German friend cooked up when I had to cut a flange off the inside of a PC because it blocked a video card install and was, itself, useless. "If it won't fit, we'll make it fit."

When we turned that PC on it sucked metal shavings into the PSU and blew every fuse in the house, but the phrase endured to future builds. It was that day I learned you're supposed to vacuum WHILE you cut.

[brave knoll]

hm, something is not right here

[vestal idol]

Isn't that color bar supposed to be on the right?

[brave knoll]

oh, the brace is glossy?

[dull warren]

The brace is transparent?

[brave knoll]

no, it has mirror finish

[vestal idol]

I think it's a reflection.

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace try giving it a diffuse shader

leave the knobs mostly metal tho

I was thinking making them like the fake buttons on cars

also, this is a good displacement texture to give the brace

the tilt is probably not a good idea. Makes all kinds of problems with aligning the displays

[thin furnace]

Fair, fair

uhhh so we want it to look like fake leather?

[brave knoll]

just a thought

[thin furnace]

Fair fair, I'll try that

[brave knoll]

I look though reference images and get ideas

feel free to disagree, that's why we picked you up to the dev team 🙂

[thin furnace]

Let's see how it looks first, then we'll decide

But I don't have very high hopes, let's put it that way 😄

althoughh that does give me an idea

hmmmm maybe not

[brave knoll]

I was thinking scale about 4x that

knobs themselves could be smooth

[thin furnace]

This does look like the inside of my mom's car

[brave knoll]

I was actually thining much smaller and thinner gap there; and the "fake button" z aligned with the inset.

just like you have on cars, these are just plastic panels that are put in that space

[thin furnace]

ohhh ok, easily doable

[brave knoll]

but upload whatever you got, we'll give it a go

(also, untilt please)

[thin furnace]

sure thing 👍

[brave knoll]

reference

[thin furnace]

uploaded

Should Look Better I hope

[brave knoll]

20% of that, or even 10% should be fine

scale on that displacement way too big

also, drop the displacement on the caps perhaps?

[thin furnace]

oop, my bad

[brave knoll]

🤔 something else is off

ah, it's just that displacement overshadowing the insets here by a lot:

[thin furnace]

New normal map up 😅 that's on me for not double checking

[brave knoll]

we could use this texture to convey the real-world scale of this display. I imagine it being something like 15-20cm diameter

[thin furnace]

sorry for that btw I'm juggling a bunch of Things currently

looks quite reasonable I think, not sure about the scale

along these lines perhaps

using a fake leather notebook as a scale reference 😄

[brave knoll]

okay, now we are talking

[thin furnace]

Perfect, now this looks like something you'd find in a space Truck

[brave knoll]

Isn't this bevel still too thick?

[thin furnace]

looks alright to me, but no problem with making it thinner

[brave knoll]

with this thickness, in some orientations it catches enough light to trigger the camera adaptation

I would probably prefer this to be 1-1.5px on that scale

@vestal idol , second opinion?

also looking for feedback on the overall size of the display, they might be a bit big?

[vestal idol]

Honestly? As long as that bevel catches SOME light, I would say as thin as it can go.

[thin furnace]

updated

[vestal idol]

As for size, a fullscreen screenshot would be useful, since I don't know if these are fullscreen or at what zoom.

I think the edge of glass would realistically catch light with NO bevel - rendered glass probably needs a bevel to do that, but I don't think there's a design purpose to a bevel.

[thin furnace]

One Pixel Thin

[thin furnace]

resiliency - smoothing out sharp edges by beveling them makes them more resistant to kinetic damage

[brave knoll]

that's because a real glass is never perfectly flat in front of you

[vestal idol]

Exactly.

[brave knoll]

but also, that would be sharp, and that in turn would be bad 🙂

[thin furnace]

Also less chance to cut yourself

oop

[brave knoll]

I still see thick one

did it upload?

[vestal idol]

But, yeah, I don't think you need much bevel for safety. I think a convex edge is supposed to be more resilient then a bevel, but probably harder to make.

[thin furnace]

looks good on my end

[brave knoll]

check on the web

[thin furnace]

discord trying to ruin my day

Nevermind it's not discord, my internet decided to choke suddenly

[brave knoll]

heh 🙂

and I'm the one on mobile via phone

[thin furnace]

reuploaded, try now :)

[brave knoll]

that's on the web interface

[thin furnace]

Hmm

Very weird

I tried reuploading one by one and they simply don't update

I'll add like a -1 to their filename, maybe that helps?

[brave knoll]

sure

or just copy the directory

[thin furnace]

At least those uploaded

[brave knoll]

@thin furnace don't hate me, but I think distances a and b would look better equal

[thin furnace]

I promise not to hate you but also my internet is making it hard to see anything

oop right as I sent it it loaded

and no problemo, I think I measured them to be equal but then cut a bit of the bevel off so they're offset again 😭

[brave knoll]

I'd opt for making it thinner

[thin furnace]

Hmm that one could be a little tricky to make look right but I'll try

Nevermind, surprisingly easy actually

Done and uploaded :)

[brave knoll]

okay

adjusted shader, shader params

how does it look?