Automations, Airships and Blueprints

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even if i’m really busy with my b.sc. Thesis at the Moment i wanted to take the time to explain my Vision of Oort Shards, Portals, Titans and Structures.

I was inspired by three things, and even if i know that a lot of my idea is pure speculation, i hope some of my ideas may find favor.

the first Point is, the possibility of “things” moving through Portals. It would by super cool if “everything” can move through them. Structures, Projectiles (Arrows), Pets (tamed).

the second Point is something, that is hidden in the Features list of boundless (Titans)

the third Point is about fun blocks. A while ago - at the time Boundless was Oort (good old times :disappointed_relieved:) - we had that “cool” founding Progress section on the Website with Milestones to be founded next. their was one which told about fun blocks and automating things.

in the new Trailer Video we can see a Titan at the end. this ting Looks extra fabulos … it flies ( and rotates?) … i’m sure we could also build a block that can be “driven” like a car ?

if we Combine this idea it could be possible to build fling, automated structures that are maybe moveable. a first “small” approach could be a “speeder-bike” like in Star Wars.

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this would Combine “automated blocks” and “Titan cores fling things”.

the next advanced Approach is a fling City maybe build by a guild. for this it would be cool if beacons could be placed volumetric (limited in height). So a fling City like “Atlantis” (from Stargate) could be build (with shilds up … beacons at it’s finest)

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last but not least it would be super epic if it would be possible to shift a whole structure (like a fling City or speeder bike) through a Portal. the Speed-bike for exploration of resources in other worlds and the City if a guild moves from one world to another (Tier 2 → Tier 3) [Stargates].

hope you like my idea
(feel free to keep spelling Errors :stuck_out_tongue: )

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Atlantis all the way. I didn’t even think of that^^

But I’m not sure how much they’ll limit the automation and flying. I mean at the moment it could also be possible to build an automatic miner that flies over a world and mines everything it comes across.
That would be cool but a bit OP depending on what you actually need to make it.

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that’s a Thing a thought about too. automated mining and transporting.

in fact i think we need a lot of automation. at the moment i spent a lot of my time clearing areas, building tunnels, planning structures with lamps that will be replaced later on … that are steps that have nothing to do with “gameplay” but are a total waste of time.

i saw a thing (block?) in the game “creativerse” where you can build “cores” that represent complex structures like blueprints (not played it, saw it in the Video).

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Blueprints will most likely be a thing so that makes many things easier.

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The devs already said that thunder will transcend through portals in a “realistic” way so I think (hope :smile:) that they are going to add plenty of features (like projectiles through portals) to the game. Portals are after all one of the main features of the game so it would be a pretty big let down if they wouldn´t make them as awesome as possible.

I think moving vehicles will be an in-between the small speeder and an entire city (although I´d love to see an entire moving city) and will probably/hopefully work similar to the vehicle builder in Robocraft, where a central piece (pilot seat/titan core) has to be connected to all other moving parts and also determines the number of blocks that can be moved.

Moving large structures to another world could be a big problem though (collision etc.).

When I read “automate your claim” in the founding goals I thought about sentry guns and other actuators. I don´t think that we will get tools that automatically mine for us (imo grinding tunnels is a part of Voxel games that I don´t want to miss).

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I really hope we will get automation for crafting, mining, harvesting, about everything^^ But I can see why some people dislike the thought of it^^

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if we could build such stuff (and automated fire traps or such ^^) AND can set them to attack all that are NOT the builders of the beacon I will have a chest in the center of my beacon filled with neat stuff and build a deathtrap dungeon maze around it … Undermountain for the win! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Well… depends on how you do it, however personally i am a big fan of ‘‘Time invested’’ is the main factor in crafting and gathering. example if i gather materials manually for two hours, i should have two hours worth of materials. if you automate it however, to not make it overpowered, i reckon that the same process will take 24 hours. so even if i played two hours, i wouldnt get anything faster. ofc you can argue that you can still manually collect, to where i can counter argue that it would mean machines would not harvest materiels, but instead create them, messing up the resource balance. Only way i can see ‘‘automated harvesting’’.

I like automatic time sinks for some things, and i believe some things should take time, including crafting, however the word automization can mean a lot of things. so eh. also wrong post for me to start a serious discussion on the topic xD

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i did not mean to give the raw materials for free (without effort). noone mentioned that @zouls :slight_smile:

it would be a possibility to get the players together. let’s say you need for an automated tool that drills a 100m long tunel 2 titan cores … so you need to slay the titan which consumes time and also make it inevitable to team up with others. the output should be the same …

2h titan slaying + 1material preperation = a tool that drills a tunnel [3h of tunnel drilling (+ the raws form this)]
3h mining by hand = 3h of tunnel drilling (+ the raws form this)

the outcome could be balanced to be even … but this way you could focus on the gameplay and you don’t not need to sit in a hole in the ground for 3h … you go out and have fun slaning a titan and the drilling will be done later in an automated way.

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I was talking about kumas. i honestly just skimmed over your ideas.

a thought worth making, remember everything that makes things easier, gives power. also to griefers, if we make automations that can either dig bigass tunells or maybe remove a mountain in a small amount of time, you can more easily clear stuff for building, however you could also much easier clear buildings

While machinery itself is not a bad idea, there is something quite repulsive to me about the idea of just letting everybody else do everything, however i am also a firm believer that if you want to achieve something, you have to work for it.

Now, while i do admit i like that you are willing to suggest a balance, it is flawed. 2 hours of titan slaying, will most like NOT only give a core, but also a ton of other stuff, meaning if you split it up the cores might only be… 20 - 30 mins worth, depending on how much other stuff you get.

Those are just my opinions ofc. and while i agree that not everything should be a major drag, i dont believe that everything should be easy or convenient either. if your argument is ‘‘its boring to do’’ mine will be ‘‘good. that will mean that those who do it actually worked for it’’

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the numbers are only examples … i hope it takes much longer to slay a titan (i voted for days at the survay).

never the less i’m building a lot of stuff, but clearing forests and dig tunnels is the worst thing so far (maybe if we get better tools this will change).

clearing buildings should be impossible in a beacons. if you build away from them you always have a risk :wink:

it would be totally fine if the automated process needs exactly the same amount of time like if you do it by hand. but the advantage is … you don’t need to do it by hand :smile:

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Yeah. and thats kinda the point im making, its lazy. you are not working for it, you can go and do something else while doing it. hence its not the same. Maybe. you shouldn’t tear down an entire forest or an entire mountain, is it boring? yeah, sure it is. But a game where you get everything handfed to you is even more boring.

For me the problem is the line, i think that everything you harvest should be done manually, to keep the value of the materials, that is how economy works, if 20 iron ore takes 60 min to get and 40 herbs take 30 minutes, then 40 herbs is worth 10 iron, in all basic economy ofc, not counting supply and demand, nor who it is that is buying it. if you start to automate everything, you start to deflate the economy, remove the worth of materials.

So let me make my argument more clear, i think if you want to remove something you should work for it, however i can accept something to make it easier, however gathering materials is an entirely different story. that you should have to work for, so a machine that destroys the blocks rather than collect them sounds like a decent idea to me. as long as it is not something you can just use everywhere so we will see huge holes in the worlds. (though the validity of the last argument will highly depend on how fast world regen works)

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I mean if you have to do 10 times the work to automate something instead of just doing it by hand, just for the fun of it, then you should be able to do it. But that might just be me^^

I’ll need some time anyway until we’ll reach a stage of the game were these advanced goals will be considered to be implemented. And maybe we’ll all have other opinions until then^^

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i’ve the feeling you don’t get my point … as far as i understand you correct you think everything that is “automated” is like “free” … that’s totally not what i’m saing. as @KuroKuma said, if it tooks a lot of time too, why not ? there are ppl who like killing things (farming) and others who like building … if you like farming / killing titans and you use your reward too get building done more easy where is the problem ? i would use my titan-cores for some automation tools to get free space or tunels done … wait a time and come back later, pick the drops and use the free space or tunel for what it was planed for. i did something to get the automatition (killed a titan) … i did not “chilled” in a bar and drunk a beer.

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Ahh… the old argument fallacy, ‘‘but you just dont get it, let me change my answer’’ i do get it, i just dont agree with you, in case i didnt make it clear enough for whatever reason, my personal opinion is just that physically having to gather materials instead of having machines do it, will keep the prices somewhat stable and allow for people to work with it, while having machines do stuff for you i just kind of cheating. or should i use the same. ‘‘you just want them because you dont understand what they will do’’

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In @Heurazio s defense: After reading the last 20 posts I also think that you just got him wrong.

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Fair, if two people think i misunderstood him, then i will take the fall for it.

however reading it again it says the same as what i thought it said, so since it seems my arguments doesnt go through, i will just quote you since you said it quite well

His arguments jumps from ‘‘i want to make a tunnel’’ to ‘‘i want to make it easier to clearing things’’ to ‘‘it should be easier to collect materials’’ back to ‘‘i just meant the easy clearing of land.’’

If you want to clear an entire forest, i do think that it should take time, however i wouldnt mind tools that made it a bit easier, as long as it also destroys the material, a problem i had while playing trove was the fact that bombs just destroyed quite well and also gave mats, so it was like 20 times faster than just digging and as such i was just always spamming bombs, im afraid it will turn into something like that.

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I think the biggest point of misunderstanding was that you kept refering to free stuff and lazy while @Heurazio made very clear that machinery should consume materials (titan cores in his example) and time (to set up and to operate).

If we are going to get some sort resource harvesting system I think Fortresscraft evolved would be a perfect example for a good system.

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Thats cause i think machines are lazy. another example he did was ‘‘even if it took the same time’’ implying that it was the same, which it wasnt, if you can do something else while doing it then i see it as ‘‘free’’

however if it is something that takes continues material consumption i think it would balance it more out, however if its just something you set up and keep working (which is my worst fear) then it will make it more efficient, but for me i guess too much

imagine if you can make a machine that automatically harvests crops when they are full. you make this machine at at 20x20 field, you now get 400 crops instantly compared to the 30 mins it might have taken you to harvest it, now imagine doing the same for 10 or 15 other fields, it would mean that every full growth you get it 5 or 7½ hours faster.

i want you to know four things which i take into consideration

  1. how would it work on a grand scale, for example people who will use it like that.
  2. how will it affect the value of materials harvested
  3. how will it affect other aspects of the game
  4. how lazy would it be

the arguments from him is thus.

The arguments are literally ‘‘its boring, therefore it should be done for me’’ i dont think the game should handfeed everything to people, assuming we do this, what will the next be? everybody now a days complain about ‘‘its grindy’’ whenever they have to work for anything. he starts with saying ‘‘it should be easier to clear’’, then he goes to ‘‘it should be easier to get materials’’ and it will continue like that.

So let me, once again. make it clear. ‘‘Having things made for you is lazy’’ the difference is between invested time vs other time, forexample if you dig for 3 hours, you have to be in the game for 3 hours, meaning you are playing for 3 hours to get done what you need to get done, on the other hands with machines, or automatics you just start it and then wait a certain amount of time outgame. one of my biggest problems with eso, the trait system, it was outgame time that mattered, ingame time didnt.

a counter argument would be ‘‘but you can still do it ingame’’ which indeed you can, but you can also do it outgame, it makes a choice, which in general isnt a bad thing, however in this example, allowing the use of machines to reduce ingame time just seems… weak to me. Unless ofc anybody can come with a good argument or more specific on machines since atm i have to argue both against harvesting machines and destruction machines since they are to intertwined by his argument. i would personally be more willing to accept some type of destruction of blocks so you can clear land for work, than i am for machines which harvests materials for you.

ps: no insult to any of you ofc, i just disagree :smile:

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No the argument is: This thing is boring, therefore I do this other thing, that takes X amount of materials and maybe 3-4 times the time I would have needed to do the boring thing. So that in the end this second thing can do the first thing for me. Because the second thing is something I’m interested in.

I would compare it to quests/missions in other games, where you have multiple ways to achieve the same result. Some are more efficient, some are less.

A really good example would be me^^ I played a lot with the Feed the Beast modpack for Minecraft (yes, another Minecraft comparison). There I could have used 5 minutes to harvest my wheat. But instead I took a lot of my resources, and maybe 2-5 hours to make a somewhat functional automated system. Not because it would have saved me time but because I really like it.
Ok you can of course argue that it pays of in the long run. But the devs can always balance how long that will be. The more materials it uses the longer it takes to break even. And if they even add some cost to it like fuel/shards/anything, then it most likely will always be a losing bargain.
I’d still do it just for the fun of it^^

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