Stacking?
YellowFly
Inside my room Join Date: 2015-05-06 Member: 204213Members
Inside my room Join Date: 2015-05-06 Member: 204213Members
Just wondering if there is any plans of making items stack-able in the future? I adore the game, but it is a bit annoying when my inventory is full of the same thing. Just a question! I'm sure plenty people have wondered/asked the same thing, so sorry if this has already spammed the discussion board 
Comments
I think for more immerssive ways of gameplay it should be a better approach for us to decide when to be collecting materials and when are we just exploring.
And I know what you mean I have a base with 130 hull and like still have 3 lockers FULL with titanium xD
That's too overpowered and this should stay as far away from feeling like minecraft as possible.
Why should the devs go out of their way to make it as different from minecraft as possible? Some aspects of minecraft are good, like its extensive modability. They should decide on how the game will be based on what will be fun and what wont, not what other games are doing.
Also, as far as making the game more minecraft like, I disagree. Minecraft is more open ended in depending on what you want to do. I'm not saying that it isn't possible the game can become something of the sort, though currently in its early access state, that type of resource collection would make the game too easy. There is a certain challenge, risk, and thrill of having to make multiple trips collecting resources in order to continue to survive. Adding more inventory space would make the game lose that sense, which I find very engaging. Just my thoughts.
This game as a pinch of realism and at the same time not, I didn't mean that stacking was a bad idea but at least a more reasonable quantity per stack would be less game breaking.
The limit should be based on the weight of a material so that not everything stacks.
A single piece of titanium is big so it shouldn't stack yet a piece of salt is small and lightweight so maybe a stack of 4 is ideal.
My comment isn't a solid one just that for a really long while this game is called "Minecraft underwater" which kinda annoys me but you are right since then we could say the next call of duty is just "battlefield with different guns".
I do agree that the extensive modability of minecraft IS something subnautica could try to achieve but I believe that goes as far as the community wants it to go.
Someone did the math somewhere that in minecraft you can carry your whole inventory with stacks of 64 gold blocks and still walk, run and swim. The approximate weight of that many blocks of gold is equal to the weight of the eiffel tower in your pockets.
Not a minecraft-only thing but we need better regulations and limitations.
I can go out 4 or 5 times collecting titanium and I already have all I need for equipment and a mid-sized base.
That would be awesome!
Maybe an upgrade with a vacuum or mechanical hands to grab stuff and load it in its "trunk"?
To design a good inventory system, we should focus on the purpose of the inventory. The exploration in this game is based on resources management. You have a certain amount of oxygen, health, inventory, speed, etc, and gains in one represent losses in another... a good example is the tanks. They are actually implemented really well... if you grab 4-6 of them, you can have a very relaxing explore with them, and the seamoth, but your ability to pick up stuff you find is seriously gimped...
The ultimate goal is to provide a balance between those resources, and the capacity to explore. If too many players are finding that the inventory management is interfering with satisfying exploration, then the inventory should be tweaked, but doing things like allowing stacking to 99 is would completely break the balance of that system. Exploration becomes less demanding, and therefore less rewarding, and the world losses it's appeal.
Couple that with it being in tune with the use of those resources... i mean suppose you could actually capture several stacks of 99 titanium? What would you do with it?
My personal preference is that the materials are easier to find in the world, but storing them is more challenging, necessitating collection strategies that don't revolve around spending hours trying to find that one thing that you want. Therefore, I stand on the side of a more restrictive inventory.
It may be that all we need is just a few more squares... say an extra row on the inventory, to get that balance just right. Or perhaps there might be other ways of creating some sort of compression in the field, but at a cost in those same resources to balance it out.
PS: I love FatFrogs idea of an underwater 'sled' for carrying. That can add a good layer of extra strategy if implemented right, and is still demanding of the player to manage the resource.
I like to add something along the same lines... an inflatable attached to a basket to dump your inventory and take it to the surface, backed up by a surface craft to move it back to your base before snipping the balloon and letting it sink to the bottom for retrieval at the base.
For example, since each unit of scrap metal takes up 4 spaces, 1 unit will have a size value of 4. Given that there are 4 units of scrap metal in the example, the total size value is 16, taking up 16 spaces. 10 units of Peepers means
(10 units x 1 size = 10 spaces) taken up.
I'm not a big fan of the style myself, but the system would be fine I suppose. If you've got an idea, write it down I guess!
What I find funny is that I thought the cubes were supposed to be the real in-game objects of food, batteries, etc. once put into the PDA (ie. picked up or fabricated).
I thought it was a modern technology that existed where items of a small enough size could be compressed into a cube for storage, kind of like a .zip folder. Then it would be unpacked when needed!
It made sense to me, how the character could fit four large pieces of scrap metal into his personal storage, despite each piece being more than half the size of the player!
.. then I dropped a piece of scrap metal back into the world and realised that he was actually still carrying the full-sized thing the entire time...
There's another image below showing the size comparison between the diver and a single piece of scrap metal. Sorry for the low resolution, but I only have a laptop. Works well though! :P
I removed the HUD using f6 and used the SIZEREF command in the debug console to place a static model of the diver next to the scrap metal for the screenshot. (http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Debug_Console_Commands)
I don't think this is well justified.
Why do you think the game works in 10... Just that one example of the ingot? I think the game works in two, and I'm more right than you because there are many more examples of things needing 2 resources.... This makes no sense, and bears no relation to the purpose of the inventory system as a game mechanic.
What do you think the impact of having stacks of 10 will be to the restrictions on exploration? What is it benefit, and what is its penalty?
Even in the current build I think that stacks of ten essentially makes inventory close to infinite to all intents and purposes. If we're talking about objects like air tanks, you could conceivably carry 50-60 air tanks giving you an hour under the water. At that point what's the purpose of the game world being underwater? It might as well be a low gravity world... And we are just talking about a site-seeing excessive... Well I've got news: site seeing in the real world is more interesting... The game would fall flat.
If we're talking about construction resources... Again, my point... If you can carry basically 200 titanium... Isn't that basically more than you will ever need in one go? That makes the locker and storage cube items irrelevant, and basically disables a whole element of the game... The need for a 'base'.
Don't understand why i wanted 99
To point about the air tanks thing as well. Actual air tanks last for MUCH longer as well as you can still cart around the sea moth for an infinite amount of air at your disposal.
As it currently stands, I have bases and lockers full of titanium, silver, gold, and lithium. I've got far more than 200 titanium just stashed with nothing to use for it. Bases at this point don't actually have a use other than simply being storage. Their power systems are nonexistent, anything you would actually need to build in them can be built in the cyclops, and the cyclops has the benefit of being mobile with at least 3x the power capacity.
Seriously, stack of 10 for anything would be waaaayyy too much. You could carry all the titanium you would ever need in under 2 invs. And you are supposed to do some hard work for your machines. I think that the game is currently even little bit too easy (craftingwise). Most of the time I've had the stasis rifle, Seaglide and 2 tanks on me, and while inv space update like extra bags would be awesome, I never thought that more space or stacking would be necessary. After I got a Cyclops and some lockers, it didn't bother me at all anymore. Currently if you want a slightly challenging experience, you'll go for survival, but if you just want to build a lot Minecraft-style, just go to experimental with NOCOST cheat on. I think free building could even become a new game mode in the future.
Failing that, a two part inventory so that equipment is not part of your normal inventory. I really can't see how a spare air tank need to be in the inventory at all, it's strapped to your back so you don't even have to carry it physically like the rest of the stuff. I can understand the rifle, the knife and the scooter since they need to be carried somewhere when not in use.
Even so, some stacking would be handy. Even if you can turn it on and off from the options for a more hardcore game if you want it.
The first tank you have will go into a 'tank slot'. All the extra ones will be in your normal inv. When the first tank is empty, it is swapped with a full one in the inv. Kinda makes more sense like that.