As of right now, in TA Beta 3-, we have rotating parts. Since I made my original post about it, there have been some people asking for more features. I decided to make a master list here. I'll be checking up on this post to add any new suggestions I may find.
That original post can be found here:
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1. Jewelery Only:
There are two kinds of things you can add to your ships, jewelery and ship modules. The jewelery makes your ship look impressive, and have no effect on the ship's effectiveness in anyway, and the ship modules adds function to your ship such as weapons or speed.
Since the distinction has been made between the two, could we get the option of adding the stats of the modules instead of trying to find homes for them in such a way that it doesn't conflict with the ship's style. While you're are at it, could we get weapon jewelery pieces, ones that actually shoots beams and stuff while in combat? You know, have lasers in the colours green, yellow, or purple and other stuff.
2. Displace parts:
As you know, all parts added to a ship must be mounted at a red hard point. However, this restriction limits the designs we are capable of making.
What I mean is, could we get the option of placing a part with the coodinates of +20 x, +50 y, and -25 z?
3. Part Animation:
Although rotating parts are nice and all, some of use would like to have animations that does a series of actions. For instance, instead of rotating, some parts could be moving back and forth, like pistons on an engine or like tenticales on an organic ship.
4. Combat Animation:
Some animations are appropiate only in combat. Weapons bays opening, wings changing positions (X-Wing fighters), generators start spinning when powering up, etc.
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(Added at 13:53:40)5. Manipulate multiple pieces of jewelery:
At this time, we can't move or delete jewelery that presently have other jewelery attached to them. In fact there are several things we would like to be able to do with multiple pieces of jewelery at once.
-move them
-copy them
-delete them
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(Added at December 14, 2007 15:47:14)6. Paint jobs
Could we get paint jobs so the ships we build will have different colours? Some parts already have different colours than is added due to race (You know, Torians are green, Yor are purple, etc).
Might be more trouble than its worth though.
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(Added at December 14, 2007 15:47:14)7. Blinking lights and flashing animations
Some parts would be blinking lights that may, or may not flash through a bunch of different colours. In addition, some ships could have TVs or computer monitors installed on the hull, up front or on the side. Some truely vain races could even have their leader's face displayed, looking down at those who are being conquored.
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(Added at December 14, 2007 15:47:14)8. Numbers instead of abstract sliders
For some of use, the slider system is annoying. Trying to get 2 parts to be the same size, or tilt identical parts on the symetrically same angle can be difficult when not working with numbers.
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(Added at December 14, 2007 19:31:56)9. Appearance changes due to enviroment
Not quite a feature for the ship editor, but related.
One would expect that each ship, depending on what it does or gets involved in would provide the ship with a story to tell. Ships might get scorced paint, cracked hulls, or even get insignias for being part of a fleet. Naturally, some of this might change over time, changing fleets might change insignias, repairing ships might repair cracked hulls and replace scorched paint, etc.
Fleet insignias, and battle damage might require special jewelery. Like race logos, fleet insignias might need to be mounted so its placed properly. To prevent ships from looking weird after recieving damage, a player might choose which parts might become battle damaged. Having a large chunk of a wing blown off might look cool, but having certain core pieces with chunks missing might look more like a graphics glitch, especially if some jewelery were supposed to be mounted on that blown off piece.
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If anyone has any other ideas, feel free to post them. I'll look at them and maybe update this list.
I've read up to reply #9