Vehicle Additions Pack (Updated December 8)

Game Talk The Lab
461

Blaze, you forgot to make walkways not require tools. At the moment they still require standard wrench/welder tools.
Edit: The various roofs are also missing the “TOOL_NONE” tag.

Feedback-wise, I find that multiplying the blobs require a lot of tedious actions. I basically had to end up streamlining the process to get this done with any sort of expediency.

(b)utcher/disassemble blob
(g)rab 400 feed
(g)rab 2 growing gray mass
(w)ield one growing blob(actually gets auto-wielded due to volume issues)
®eload the blob
(a)ctivate the blob
(d)rop the blob
(w)ield the next growing gray mass
®eload the blob
(a)ctivate the blob
(d)rop the blob
…
repeat dozens/hundreds of times

Vehicles require a lot of pieces and while multiplying the blobs costs very little ingame time and resources, I think they shouldn’t need quite so many key presses to get them, control inconvenience isn’t an elegant balance solution. Maybe add recipes that use blob feed and growing blobs to create grown blobs? This way people can make batches without needing hundreds of key presses. I’ve also noticed that some of the blob growth stages can be reloaded with more feed than they need, leading to a lot of wastage if you don’t micro-manage the amount you put in your inventory, this is probably something to fix.

Maybe something like this?

{ "type" : "recipe", "result": "gray", "category": "CC_OTHER", "subcategory": "CSC_OTHER_MATERIALS", "skill_used": "cooking", "difficulty": 6, "time": 1000, "reversible": false, "autolearn": true, "components": [ [ [ "graygrow", 1 ] ], [ [ "bfeed", 200 ] ] ] },

Although I don’t know how to ensure this process doesn’t randomly fail, wasting all the growing blobs. Maybe make it require 0 skill, there’s already the lv6+ requirements for getting things started and I think you’re planning on putting the recipes in a book so they wouldn’t show up in crafts until you have the book either way at that point.

Thematically, the whole reloading and activating the blob to feed it is cool, but in practice it gets really unfun really quickly. Great job with the mod though, thanks for bringing this to us, my blobmobile is slowly growing :slight_smile:

462

Okay, let’s see what I can do here.

Blaze, you forgot to make walkways not require tools. At the moment they still require standard wrench/welder tools. Edit: The various roofs are also missing the "TOOL_NONE" tag.
Fixed.
I've also noticed that some of the blob growth stages can be reloaded with more feed than they need, leading to a lot of wastage if you don't micro-manage the amount you put in your inventory.
Looks like numbers in charges-per-use are limited to single byte values (0-255). I'll make a separate item for blob growth and blob ammo I suppose.
Vehicles require a lot of pieces and while multiplying the blobs costs very little ingame time and resources, I think they shouldn't need quite so many key presses to get them, control inconvenience isn't an elegant balance solution.

Made a new system, gel/ooze/gray use recipes to evolve now. Add blob growth mix to them and then use them to get them to multiply. I made “Blob growth mix”, which is essentially 25 blob feed, as the recipe shows. Regrowing damaged blobs still uses blob feed. And you can deconstruct growth mix to get blob feed back. You can still split and regrow blobs for smaller numbers.

You’ll have to deal with another kind of control inconvenience I suppose.

Replaced the old constructions with simple “Harvest blob feed” from corpse pits and slime fields.

Uploaded. Tell me what you think.

463

Is there a special system to repair damaged blob vehicle parts? When I tried the usual it ended up using duct tape from my toolbox. Should I be taking the piece apart and rebuilding it?

464

Repairing vehicles is coded in the source, beyond my meager capabilities unfortunately.

465

Oh my glob! I fed the thing the blob growth mix. I wasn’t sure why feeding it would now require !1500! blob feed but then I activated it… You’re awesome and I totally approve of this!

Edit:
I caught some oddity. I made a blob Feed Cocoon and put some blob feed into it to see if it was available for crafting, it wasn’t. The blob feed also could not be siphoned back out of the cocoon. When I took the cocoon apart I got “gray mass with blob feed(131)” trying to (U)nload it results in the following message “Your gray mass with blob feed isn’t charged”. I couldn’t use it to build anymore, but fortunately it was still (D)ismantle-able and I got 2 growing gray masses and the 131 blob feed.

Also, I’m not sure if these numbers were on purpose, but the old system costed 200 feed to grow a new gray mass and an extra 200 to regrow the initial one, so basically 400 for 2 blobs. Now it costs 1500 to spawn 11 and you keep you initial blob grown so 1500 for 12 blobs, which means 125 feed per blob. Now being the efficient guy that I am I created a two-square room to multiply my blobs in and grab them as they popped up and only 6 spawned, leaving me at 7 gray masses for 1500 feed, which is about 214 per blob, which is close to the old number. You basically have two choices, more resource-efficient and risky fun times, or no-nonsense straight-forward easy time without the bonus cost-effectiveness. I like these numbers.

Edit2: Maybe if you used a crafted intermediary item which is already a container it could get rid of blob feed cocoon oddity(I have no idea how safe/stable the current system is or what would happen if you dismantled the cocoon with a large volume inside a non-container). I’m not sure if the game can handle this though, containers can hold and unload liquids, but blob feed is a solid item. Maybe if the feed was liquid, or powder. Powder can be put in liquid containers and unloaded(although there’s no good way to get them back in bottles normally but there shouldn’t be any issues filling a built tank). Liquid would make starting the production harder since you’d need to get your hands on some large tank to be able to hold the amounts required to start making blob, this could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the balance you have in mind. I’m not sure about powders or solids, but I know liquids in tanks can be siphoned back out and at least for water a tap lets you get it back out conveniently for crafting.

466

Is gray reinforcement supposed to only have 8 durability?
(and if so, is there something like a regen mechanic I’m missing which makes that worthwhile?)

467

Fixed.

468

Can the blob turrets be automated with the same system you’ve got for automating other mounted guns?

469

I wonder ho that would work for blobs. Might make sense for a specialized grown variant of turret mounting. >.>

470

Lore-wise(the description for blaze’s blob stuff), the blob is supposed to react to your touch but not other things. The blob does have a symbiotic relationship with living beings, only taking over once they’re dead. But I doubt the mechanics can differentiate between blob turrets and standard turrets at the moment.

Edit: I tried harvesting from slime pits with the construction and noticed that it requires that the blobs have 1 charge in there rather than 0. I like the idea of needing a bit of feed/growth mix, but needing it to be inside the blob is just a pointless inconvenience that once again forces you to micro-manage how much feed/mix you pick to reload your blobs. Can’t we have the feed/growth mix requirement moved out of the blob as a second item required?

Edit2: Seems that the way the construction is coded uses the blobs as a tool rather than a component with the 1 charge requirement. Not sure if this is a typo or if the blobs are meant to be filled with feed/mix and repeatedly used as tools(the blobs don’t end up being consumed).

471

They used to consume a blob and you’d get a whole bunch of blobs afterwards, but that was replaced with the multiplier system. The charge was something I failed to remove.

I changed it so they no longer need charges, uploaded.

472

Seats and reclining seats have a small amount of storage, probably for things like pillows/blankets to sleep on or some minor items like snacks. There are no blob beds, so in a pure blob mobile base you’d end up sleeping on seats but they don’t have any storage space for the pillows/blankets/snacks/drugs/playboy D:

Edit: Just updated to the latest version and loading my game threw a ton of debug messages at me, it’s unusable. The version before that one still had walkways require tools in case the new version doesn’t have that fixed yet. Might want to make the blob cargo like the gray receptacle have the “BOARDABLE” tag like normal cargo spaces have, this not only allows you to move through them better, you cannot see the inside of your vehicle unless you’re standing on a “BOARDABLE” tile which means if you currently stand on a receptacle you see your vehicle’s roof instead of the inside.

473

Whoops, extra set of brackets. I thought I fixed that tool issue, and I did, just in the wrong folder.

As for the seat thing, you can now set a gel pouch, which is like a gel receptacle, but goes on the under slot like a floor trunk. It has half the storage though. Uploaded.

474

Specifically, the normal cargo space has the [“AISLE”, “BOARDABLE”, “CARGO”, “COVERED”] tags. The important one is boardable. A lot of vehicle parts need this tag if you want to be able to see inside the vehicle while standing on them. Anything you can stand on aside from the basic frame should ideally have it. Sorry for giving you so much work :stuck_out_tongue:

475

Hmm, interesting. I’m not sure a blob bed sounds like a smart idea to sleep on/in. o3o

476

In the new version, the blob feed harvest constructions on slime/corpse piles require ALL the blob types instead of only one of them. Since I can’t currently build one I’m going to guess that now that blob feed is liquid there will be no way to harvest it after smashing the building. Making the building and all blob vehicle tanks out of a blob tank item crafted from blob might solve this problem. Not sure if the building can break down into a tank full of liquid when smashed, not sure about deconstruction through the build menu, but I’d imagine you could get a filled tank back one way or another.

For the constructions you want this for the tools line:

Edit: tested it with the above fix and yeah, the liquid blob feed falls to the ground and can’t be picked up. When you craft clean water on a vehicle it asks you if you want to fill a vehicle with it instead of a container, I wonder if the same is possible with blob feed?

477

Fixed and uploaded.

Constructions will make growth mix for now.

478

The slime pits went from making thousands of blob feed to 50-250, was this a balance issue? The corpse pits still seem to give 2000-3750.

479

Perhaps if the resulting construction was like a standing tank or gas pump, and interacting with it let you refill containers or vehicles from it?
Then once it was empty you could dismantle it and repeat on the next tile over.

I really don’t like the idea of making the blob liquid storage parts a separate part from the mass. I’m all for specializations like the blob that can be used for electrical system parts, and the evolution system of the turrets, but too much specificity breaks what’s cool here: using generic wads of living silly putty to make everything from gas tanks to doors, and being able to swap your vehicle’s configuration on the fly.

I personally consider the lack of cargo space type tags on the receptacles a feature, it allows stacking of certain parts that are normally blocked by the tags. That makes them very useful in small vehicles, and fits well with the “double tank” options the capsule-tanks allow. A better way might be if you could stack a walkway on top of a receptacle as a “lid” if you want cargo space style storage?

480

They should making a near equivalent amount of growth mix now, but yes. Corpse pits are only so wide, but you have several levels full of slime in slime pits. I also reduced the time needed to make them from 15 to 5, so while it is a few more key-presses it shouldn’t be too annoying. At least until I can find a way to make harvest-able slime plants or something.

Making them work like gas pumps is possible, but I have to figure out how to put the feed in the pumps first.