Botany Produce Icon Change

[FalseIncarnate]

 

READ THIS WHOLE POST BEFORE VOTING SO YOU VOTE ACCURATELY!

 

As many players are aware, porting over the newer version of botany/xenobotany from Baystation a couple months back brought with it a new method of generating icons for the produce grown on station.

 

Before the port, all plants had pre-made produce sprites which were fully colored and unable to be altered. This was nice because it allowed for multi-colored sprites (like berries), unique/identifiable sprites for different produce, and was generally less intensive on the server to assemble icons and overlays for EVERY harvest each time it was harvested. The downside was that mutating or modifying these fruits would never let you create a purple potato or similarly odd-colored fruits, and a "random fruit" would be visually identical to another type of fruit since they would use the same unchangeable icon.

 

Pre-made Sprites:

Pros:

+ Easier multi-colored sprites

+ More "unique" or identifiable sprites

+ Fewer icon manipulations, meaning fewer server resources used per harvest

 

Cons:

- Cannot modify sprites in-game (mutated/modified will be visually identical to standard version)

- Must reuse sprites or include unique ones for each product

 

 

The port brought with it a modular system wherein the produce's icon was generated from one or more parts with the plant's trait color(s) overlaid onto it's grey-scale base to create what the player sees as the harvested produce sprite. This is nice because it allows you to create wacky colored fruit, and works well for the random plants which are able to modify the icon through the plant's color trait(s). The downside is, this is a bit more taxing on the server, as it must generate an icon and overlays for EACH harvest, and that many of the sprites and colors are either very bland, flat-looking, or oddly shaded (typically too dark). The resource usage might not be too noticeable, but does add up over time.

 

Modular Sprites:

Pros:

+ Can be adjusted in-game, allowing for alternate colored produce of the same base type (purple potatoes)

+ Utilizes the plant's color trait(s) for coloring the produce, leading to more varied randomized produce from strange plants

 

Cons:

- Requires an icon for each differently colored portion of the product (meaning multi-colored produce requires more sprite pieces and overlays)

- More icon manipulations, leading to slightly higher server resource usage per harvest

- Sprites must be in greyscale and have a flat color overlay applied, leading to less detailed sprites and darker/blander colors.

 

 

And so, I have been quietly asking a number of coders and players individually on their opinions regarding the botany produce sprites, and potentially returning to the old pre-made sprites for them, to gauge an initial reaction towards the general idea. Further, I presented each of them with the same three options as listed in the above poll.

 

Option 1: Scrap ALL modular icons from botany produce.

This option would remove all uses of modular icons from botany produce, returning to solely using pre-made icons. This would require random plants to either gain their own special sprites, or to use the same sprites as other plants. This would also render the TRAIT_COLOR_PRODUCT unused, since you would be unable to affect the color of the grown produce.

 

Option 2: Scrap modular icons from normal botany produce, but keep it for Random Seeds (Strange Plants).

This option would remove uses of the modular icons from all pre-defined botany produce, such as carrots, bluespace tomatoes, and wheat. However, Random Seeds (Strange Plants) would still utilize the modular icons to generate their produce icons, including their wacky colorations. TRAIT_COLOR_PRODUCT would still be used, and could be copied from normal plants for use in modifying Random Seeds to customize the product of the Strange Plant. Normal plants would not appear different if their TRAIT_COLOR_PRODUCT is changed.

 

Option 3: Keep modular icons for ALL botany produce.

This is what we currently have on the live server, and would be keeping things as-is.

 

EXTRA NOTE:

Regardless of if the outcome of this vote is in favor of removing the modular icons from botany produce, the actual plant icons that appear in the tray or soil would continue to utilize it's own modular icons. This vote ONLY will determine the use/removal of modular icons for botany products.

 

Okay, now you may vote.

Thanks for reading this!

 

[Fox McCloud]

Scrap as many as possible; they're ugly as hell and have nearly zero details about them.

[Taaketa]

I'd say scrap them. There has been a lot of stuff adding the server lately and it is overlording the cpu. Causing server lag due to processes taking awhile to progress because of a relatively minor feature most of us won't see. Meh.

[Rumiluntti]

 

Scrap 'em.

 

1.They look like butt.

2.If they really affect the server load at all, not worth it.

3.Old ones are pretty

 

[davidchan]

If these things put as much load on the server as I've been lead to believe, scrap them. Pretty much nobody outside of botany sees or uses thems, and botanists are supposed to grow food, not apply mutagen to plants until they create space-time dilatation like they are growing some kind of blackhole.

[Lars]

 

botanists are supposed to grow food

 

... and be atmos backup, and produce biomedicines, and recycle waste, and research... it's a space station, not Ol' MacDonald's

 

[davidchan]

 

botanists are supposed to grow food

 

... and be atmos backup, and produce biomedicines, and recycle waste, and research... it's a space station, not Ol' MacDonald's

 

Botany has lots of things they can do, many of them multipurpose.

 

What we usually get stuck with is some idiot making as much ambrosia as he can, or some chucklefuck playing with the mutagen till he gets knock-off kudzu in mushroom form or the like.

 

[Taaketa]

 

botanists are supposed to grow food

 

... and be atmos backup, and produce biomedicines, and recycle waste, and research... it's a space station, not Ol' MacDonald's

 

Wait, how is Botany atmos backup?

 

[FalseIncarnate]

 

Botany can procure plants that consume / produce gases from the random seeds. This means they can produce oxygen while removing plasma, for instance.

 

But that part is off topic from the point of the thread.

 

Now that we've gotten a decent number of votes, I'll state my opinion (didn't want to influence anyone's vote so I didn't vote initially or state my choice) on the matter.

 

I think that the modular icons, while rather ugly, are great for the random plants. They really can make for some funky looking fruits, which are typically quite obviously not normal and thus should be treated with caution when you consider eating one. However, for the vast majority of plants, the modular sprites rather suck, as pumpkins don't actually look like pumpkins, carrots are almost brown, and berries are a single color (as opposed to the pile of multi-colored berries we used to have).

 

I would personally prefer to remove the modular sprites from all the pre-defined plants, and retain them for the random seeds. This will help you identify the non-standard products, as well as retain their colorful and wacky styles. Meanwhile, the standard plants using their old sprites will generally be more identifiable and detailed, which is one of the main advantages of the static icons. Processing resource usage costs being lower is not something I can say "it will be X% better!" due to the number of factors involved. However, even a small improvement in reducing the number of icon manipulations is still considered an improvement.

 

We still have the sprites for nearly every standard product, so it would be rather simple to reintroduce them without a need for a large number of new sprites, but removing the entire modular icon system seems like somewhat of a step backwards for botany. The modular icons and color traits are definitely fun systems for the aspiring mad botanist to experiment with, though I feel they should be more limited to the xenobotany portion of it, rather than forcing it upon even the standard farmer botanist who is just trying to make a living growing corn in space.

 

[KasparoVv]

 

botanists are supposed to grow food

 

... and be atmos backup, and produce biomedicines, and recycle waste, and research... it's a space station, not Ol' MacDonald's

 

Botany has lots of things they can do, many of them multipurpose.

 

What we usually get stuck with is some idiot making as much ambrosia as he can, or some chucklefuck playing with the mutagen till he gets knock-off kudzu in mushroom form or the like.

 

Can confirm as someone who used to play Botanist loads that the guys I ended up working with may as well've been named Chuck LeFuck

 

Buddy dips from botany at the beginning of the round

 

comes back half an hour later with a locker FULL TO THE BRIM with shit to make more trays

fill the back room maintenance and most of the hallway with trays

 

PROGRESSIVELY FILLS THEM ALL WITH AMBROSIA PLANTS

 

 

atleast 25 trays man atleast 25

 

[davidchan]

 

botanists are supposed to grow food

 

... and be atmos backup, and produce biomedicines, and recycle waste, and research... it's a space station, not Ol' MacDonald's

 

Wait, how is Botany atmos backup?

 

 

Misleading at best. Once upon a time botany plants would purge co2 from the air, so you wouldn't suffocate if you had to weld all the vents in your area.

 

In some codebases they could pull plasma and n2o out as well, but I don't thinl paradise ever had this anyways. It was also very slow, even minor plasma leaks would take over an hour to fix.

 

Actual atmos functionality, like stabalizing pressure of filling a room after its been syphoned is way beyond what botany can do.

 

[FalseIncarnate]

 

This poll has been active for roughly a week and a half, with few to no votes within the past few days.

 

Therefore, I feel it's safe to say that opinionated parties have had a chance to cast their votes and the poll can be fairly judged as conclusive.

 

At the time of this post, the results are 7 / 11 / 3, with the clear opinion being that at least some of the modular icons for botany are removed.

 

To this end, I will remove the modular sprites from all the pre-defined plants such as apples and bluespace tomatoes. Random seeds will retain their modular sprites, which may be changed in the future (though is not promised at this time).

 

Thank you to everyone who has voted and shared their opinions!

 

[FalseIncarnate]

 

This has been successfully implemented into the server code.

 

Locking this thread due to completion.