Modular Cyclops
Wodenifferous
Join Date: 2017-03-01 Member: 228458Members
Join Date: 2017-03-01 Member: 228458Members
I recently built my first Cyclops, and I'm continuously amazed by how awesome it is. In fact, I might even say it's too awesome. At least, it's too awesome for the price. Once you have a Cyclops, who needs a base? A moon pool for upgrades, sure. And I assume the Cyclops power cell exploit will be fixed, which means a base stocked with chargers would be a good idea, but beyond that, a base is only aesthetic, not functional.
At first I thought of adding a new, even larger vehicle to be an effective resource sink, but the Cyclops is already big enough to be a problem in many biomes. So instead, I'm wondering if the Cyclops should be modular. That is, you would construct it piece by piece, with each piece incurring its own cost. For example, the initial Cyclops component might be the frame, engines, and cockpit. That's a vehicle - you can get into it for oxygen and drive it around, but it's not good for much else.
Using the hab builder (and perhaps later, using whatever dedicated Cyclops dock we wind up with), you would then add to that basic frame piece by piece. The docking bay would be one piece, the storage section would be another. That would increase the total cost of the Cyclops without locking off the core functionality of "big ol' boat that goes real deep" behind extra cost.
An interesting implication of this idea is that it would allow the devs to add new Cyclops modules to allow for large-scale customization. Especially if the "slices" that currently house the storage section and the docking bay were divided into an upper and lower part. The docking bay would occupy both the upper and lower parts of that slice, whereas the existing storage section would only take up the lower part of its slice.
A greenhouse section with built in plant pots or growbeds? An aquarium section for the dedicated carnivores? A scanner room? Even more storage? A power plant to self-charge the power cells? A superdock that takes up all the room but allows you to carry both smaller vehicles simultaneously? The sky's seafloor's the limit!
At first I thought of adding a new, even larger vehicle to be an effective resource sink, but the Cyclops is already big enough to be a problem in many biomes. So instead, I'm wondering if the Cyclops should be modular. That is, you would construct it piece by piece, with each piece incurring its own cost. For example, the initial Cyclops component might be the frame, engines, and cockpit. That's a vehicle - you can get into it for oxygen and drive it around, but it's not good for much else.
Using the hab builder (and perhaps later, using whatever dedicated Cyclops dock we wind up with), you would then add to that basic frame piece by piece. The docking bay would be one piece, the storage section would be another. That would increase the total cost of the Cyclops without locking off the core functionality of "big ol' boat that goes real deep" behind extra cost.
An interesting implication of this idea is that it would allow the devs to add new Cyclops modules to allow for large-scale customization. Especially if the "slices" that currently house the storage section and the docking bay were divided into an upper and lower part. The docking bay would occupy both the upper and lower parts of that slice, whereas the existing storage section would only take up the lower part of its slice.
A greenhouse section with built in plant pots or growbeds? An aquarium section for the dedicated carnivores? A scanner room? Even more storage? A power plant to self-charge the power cells? A superdock that takes up all the room but allows you to carry both smaller vehicles simultaneously? The sky's seafloor's the limit!
Comments
That said, if it were in the game, I'd have a ball with it.