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Chucklefish might have plans to make penguins playable.

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by IndieanaJones, Jul 13, 2016.

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  1. IndieanaJones

    IndieanaJones Void-Bound Voyager

    So recently I've done some studying of the game's code, and I believe I must make this fourm topic based on my findings. As of the latest Unstable, Penguins are hire-able as mercs, which then act as crewmembers. I decided to look through the game's code, and found reasonable evidence that Chucklefish was making sure playing as a penguin would work, and they continue to update it.

    - There are 3 coded species in-game which are un-playable, Penguins, Shadows, and the newest, Fenerox. Out of the three, penguins are the only one who is listed in player file, thus making them usable. Chucklefish also made sure penguins are coded in for every other place necessary, while shadow and fenerox races do not recieve similar treatment. While Penguins are the only ones that can be crewmembers of the three, they do not require these in order to work as such.

    - If you manage to create a penguin character through any means, it works fine. Minimal bugs, and the only thing you need to make it function perfectly is add in a teleport and respawn animation via mod. Armor looks weird, however, but is easily fixed by concealing it. You also have no racial crafting.

    - Custom icons, however their ship is the Novakid's.

    So, what do you think? Coincidence or perhaps future plans?
     
    Skelozard1 likes this.
  2. Lazer

    Lazer Existential Complex

    Playable Penguins was an option for one of the kickstarter stretch goals but people chose fossils or novakids or whatever it was up against instead. Perhaps someone worked on it a little bit before the decision was made.
     
  3. IndieanaJones

    IndieanaJones Void-Bound Voyager

    True, but the development which even allowed them to be playable was made very recently.
     
  4. Duex

    Duex Cosmic Narwhal

    I dont think thats right
     
    Pingeh likes this.
  5. Segenam

    Segenam Phantasmal Quasar

    Actually a long long time ago there was an april fool's joke where they added penguins as a playable race (this was long before novakids were even a thing) even as a joke their was some glaring issues (armor didn't fit right and the like) these are not only issues with just making them playable but issues with the core functions of the game its self (this is why race mods with non standard race shapes have quite a few issues).

    So the "development which even allowed them to be playable" has been there since early Koala not to mention Starbound has no plans to make any other playable races.

    As for it being the "only one" that is listed in said file has no weight on weather or not it can be made playable (just check the Playable Fenerox mod, that existing shows that any of them can be playable.)
     
  6. Ainzoal

    Ainzoal Ketchup Robot

    CF have already stated they have NO plans to make any new playable races.
     
    Mackinz likes this.
  7. AmazonValkyrie

    AmazonValkyrie Spaceman Spiff

    I feel like if they were gonna make a race playable, they'd most likely choose one that works with the default body shape/type so that said race will be compatible with any of the vanilla armors. Perhaps if they had it setup where gear looks different from species to species, instead of just one look for all males, one look for all females, they'd do it. As it is there's really not a lot of space for customizable features for a penguin race. The most they could probably do is a beak and skin selection for character creation.

    Anywho, the penguin race could easily be a great mod for the game!
     
  8. Akre

    Akre Pangalactic Porcupine

    With weapons already oversized, penguin players would look ridiculous with guns 3 times bigger than their height.
     
  9. IndieanaJones

    IndieanaJones Void-Bound Voyager

    A few things-

    - They have currently fixed all the old bugs from the April Fool's joke. After the April Fool's joke, someone kept updating the penguins to make sure they worked, plus they now have a proper hitbox and everything.

    - The "development which even allowed them to be playable" did indeed start since early koala, but they updated it so much that it's undeniable somebody was making sure it worked with the latest unstable.

    - The playable Fenerox mod had to do a lot of changes to the race, and I do not believe it would work on vanilla clients. HOWEVER, I have tested it and the Penguin Race does work on vanilla clients, I have made a mod for personal curiosity and everything works fine, and I can go to any server and have no issues. Everyone can see me fine. This is because the penguins have everything needed to function already in-game except for some cinematics, however the Fenerox do not, and the modder needed to do a lot more than I did.


    I can testify to that, it does look rather humorous.

    I might release the mod I currently made once the Stable releases, though it would be more like the old "Enabler" than an actual mod. Just allowing to choose a race that doesn't appear in the character creation.
     
  10. Ellary

    Ellary Pangalactic Porcupine

    just sayin.. I would play a pink penguin in no armor if I had the choice \o/
     
  11. Ludovic

    Ludovic Giant Laser Beams

    I could recall wrong.... but didn't the devs once mentioned they were once considering changing the way armor graphics/etc are coded into the game later?
    I do recall them mentioning this specifically as a Quality of Life deal they'd want to make for modders, so that it would be easier to make modded races with "nonstandard anatomy" that could thus wear the same armor types than other races with the armor adapting to their body rather than modders being forced to work the other way around(i.e.: creating races whose bodies would need to be adapted to existing armor sets).

    I half-wonder now if the current "playable" penguins might not be basically kept around as a test bed for such future development work because their diminutive sizes could not be more nonstandard even if they tried to.
    It could be nice if this also led to an updated crew system where we could manually determine the gear to be used by crewmates, and thus see the system expanded to support more of the nonstandard races like Alpacas and Fenerox crews.

    Granted, now I'm falling in the realms of wishful thinking because they already have so many things they likely want to get done after 1.0 ^^;
     
  12. Ellary

    Ellary Pangalactic Porcupine

    hehe, to be honest I think they were listed where they are due to them being hireable. since they can be hired as a merc ^^
     
  13. IndieanaJones

    IndieanaJones Void-Bound Voyager

    Right now, penguin can wear armor, but it definitely looks wrong on them. Also, Alpacas are not a seperate race, just one in a cosmetic get-up. /spawnitem alpacavillagerhead/chest/legs will give you their armor.
    --- Post updated ---
    As of the latest Unstable, Penguins crash upon loading their quest AI. It is called horseboobs. Lady Jauntice is supposed to be the Penguin AI.
     
  14. Sallen

    Sallen Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Fixed that for you.
     
    Another Kevin and pop-yotheweird like this.
  15. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

    No more playable races are going to be added.

    Yep!

    https://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/...out_starbound_the_upcoming_10_release/d42wxno

    Read the entire comment chain.

    Also: https://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/...ma_summary_starboundrelated/d5gmbdv?context=3
     
    Last edited: Jul 18, 2016
  16. Ludovic

    Ludovic Giant Laser Beams

    I
    Interesting!

    Thanks for linking btw.

    Otoh I get the feeling that such an undertaking might be massively major. At this rate it feels like it might leave only two possibilities:

    A: Remove standard "racial" armor(except for maybe NPCs) to make player armors purely out of "generic" sets to save on what time might be lost trying to adapt ALL of the racial sets to non-humanoid potential body types.

    B: Keep racial armors and make a couple of "universal" sets meant to be worn by all body types.... but otherwise all armors can only be worn with compatible body types. I.e.: Humanoid armor can only be worn by humanoid body types. Penguin armor can only be worn by penguin bodytypes, Alpaca only being worn by alpaca, etc...

    This second option might actually the one that would allow devs to keep the most the potential for racial-specific looks, while opening options for non-humanoid bodytypes to have their own(that in their case would truly be exclusive to them.... unless the minority of non-humanoid races means that THEIR armor could be easily edited to be compatible with humanoid bodytypes as well).
     
  17. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

    Or a third, which you would have listed as the only option provided you read the entire comment chain:

    C) All vanilla sprites are untouched and any and all mod authors are given the capability to create new sprites which can be used in the stead of the vanilla ones for species with a different bodyType.

    The crux of the suggestion is to minimize the work Chucklefish has to do to implement it. That means, they aren't going to go through and resprite every armor themselves - modders will have to do so.
     
    Sh4dowWalker96 and Ludovic like this.
  18. Ludovic

    Ludovic Giant Laser Beams

    Admitedly, yeah. Granted I guess I was going from the (unlikely) assumption it might see an use in official content(such as a later update to crew system where a player could pick individual equipment/armor for crews with actual stat changes instead of just being limited to tailors cosmetics.... under the assumption that by then non-humanoid crewmates like Alpacas would also be possible).

    It's interesting though that they may be working on the engine to make it possible in the first place though, even if "only" for the sake of modders.
     
  19. The MechE

    The MechE Existential Complex

    I feel they made everyone too same-y. I was hoping the races would become more diverse. Not more homogeneous.
     
  20. Ainzoal

    Ainzoal Ketchup Robot

    That is impossible if you want every race to be able to use armor sets from every race.
     

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