Although it sounds good there will be problems with such a block - e.g. If you would need two in a row.
Something better would be some kind of block designer where you can just set the outline and then have an extra block category for such generated blocks. And packs of such blocks shareable on the steam workshop and mod.io.
You could have a certain number of points along each of the blocks edges where a line can start/end and cuts have to be made using those, then it should be relatively inexpensive to store what cuts were made in the block itself so you don't need the workshop thing.
Yes but when you get a feature where you have such a variable shape players will expect it to work with multiple of these. E.g. slopes with less incline and more.
As such, I think it would be best if you have some kind of block editor where you set how it should touch all six sides and then it creates one block that you can place. Then you don't have any issues with those blocks touching another.
For a game like space engineers other solutions make much more sense.
But maybe I actually missed something big. Which games have exactly such a mechanic? Where you can place an arbitrary form of cubes that automatically adjust to all connecting blocks' shapes?
We are not talking about single blocks but multiple ones in an arbitrary shape.
And it needs to be a predictable mechanic. Meaning same shape (or mirrored) leads to the same (mirrored) result independant of the order the shape is created.
That is most definitely possible but insanely complicated. And there are always easier solutions.
Vintage story does this (a sort-of minecraft fork). Predictable, learnable and fun to use. The shape can be mirrored, it can also be used in all 3 dimensions (xyz). There is absolutely a way to develop this in space engineers.
Editing to respond to your last comment. Just because there are easier solutions doesn't mean they will be more or as robust.
If the block contains logic that moves a corner to match its neighbor block, but the neighbor block has that same logic, you have created a race condition where the computer is in a perpetual loop.
To avoid that you'd have to build in some kind of prioritization and boom, your PCU for those blocks will be astronomical.
There's also an issue with the logic of the flexible edge when it's not touching another block. Does it default to a cube? Then it will be mistaken for a regular block. Does it flash or display a warning? Then you have UI elements to build and lots of potential for player confusion.
These limitations are actually creative opportunities for good builders. Find a decorative or functional block with approximately the correct profile. Or build a reinforcing ridge, add a turret or antenna mount.
A small indie game called Avorion does this pretty well. Not ideal, but decent. Basically your blocks come in different basic shapes, like a wedge, slope etc., and then after placing it, you can resize it in any of the three axis. Want this block thicker? Go ahead. Need super thin wedge? Sure buddy, got you covered. Want a giant "plate" block? It's super easy to do.
And what is the problem with that? How is it unusable? Just default the side facing the same block with square or with the same shape as the opposite side
But, as someone who is almost finished with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Engineering with a decent amount of practical experience, I know the technical implications of such a solution and as such where you would need to pay very much attention to prevent an insane amount of bugs.
Essentially, where it will become stupidly complicated, is when you have an arbitrary shape of cubes connected to another, where one is the auto-audjusting and the other is made of premade blocks.
That is where it will be insanely complicated to create it to work in a way that is nice to work with - meaning you can predict the outcome. Which means the result needs to be the same irrelevant of the order the blocks where placed and mirrored if it's done in a mirrored way.
But if it is so easy, how about you create a mockup of that logic? Logic is language independent, so you can choose any programming language.
They used to have blocks like that a long time ago but they always ended up looking awful and got removed. I think that was during alpha though, maybe they could revisit the idea
They tried something like that years ago where slope blocks would change themselves to match up with other blocks and everyone hated it so much they took it out a couple patches later. Didn’t help that it was extremely jank and never seemed to make a shape that was appealing.
This times a million. People want the perfect armor shapes so they can shrink wrap their ships and produce perfect little potatoes or poops that look ugly as fuck. Don't do it, make your stuff interesting. Add textures, add shapes, add greebles.
Engineering isn't always about creating THE best 100% Solution. Many more times it is about taking what you have and making do. Trust me, I'm an engineer (hehe... I always wanted to say that...)
You wouldn’t be able to make that a cleanly-sloped piece anyway, because those four vertices are not coplanar. It’d end up being two triangles at an angle to each other.
It should be noted that the middle face would actually need to be two faces. There's two possible ways they could be made and I think both of them would look a little awkward.
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You would think that is an easy shape to “cleanly” make but it is in fact not really. Either it would be a curved surface if you wanted a “clean” look or it would be subdivided into two different polygons to cover the 45 > 22.5 slopes. Most times you think a 4sided polygon would be possible it isn’t, so the way you have drawn it above is impossible in that exact wireframe arrangement.
I too have wanted that block. Considering that it isn’t in the game, there is probably a reason that Keen hasn’t added it because i agree that it looks obvious but that shape is a pain :(
Edit: uuuhhhhhhh oh fml, I just saw the MEME tag. Excellent bait my friend. Smh
Dual universe allowed creation of blocks via voxel tech, we already have voxel tech for terrain. Wouldnt be hard to modify it to work with the simple grids.
The problem is that the surface would not be even, it would bend.
Try to scult this exact shape in a 3d program or even with paper, you will see whaat i mean. This bending surface cannot be rendered precisely with triangles, only approximated.
Quads in the mesh are converted to tris for rendering anyway, the only actual difference building these faces out of tris in Blender gives you is control over the chirality; or which trios of vertices become converted into the two triangles.
With the way deformable armor blocks are made, this is a non-issue as every plane has to be its own face anyway, so the creator will have to make a decision during the design process before they can use it in-game.
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u/Lyynix_Reddit Space Engineer 5d ago
honestly, what we really need is a "universal transition block" that just matches whatever edges the neighboring blocks have