[X] My suggestion intends to add or improve something
Version
Development (Unstable)
Topic
A game mechanic (e.g. a part, a feature, etc)
Why are you making your suggestion?
While the materials in Waste of Space are fine, custom materials (Material Variants) allow for tons of variety and open the door for lots of different visual changes and game design elements. Furthermore, a greater variety of materials and freedom of material types would allow greater creativity in designs.
What do you propose? What should change, or what should be added?
Generally, I think Waste of Space should make use of Material Variants more, both to allow more diverse appearances among parts (i.e. slightly visually different materials for Iron and Titanium, or to further distinguish unique materials like Neutronium), and to allow for more visual diversity and creativity.
A related change would be to allow materials to have "Finishes", which could be changed like Shape is, or changed using a tool or part specifically for this purpose. It would essentially allow you to change the material/materialvariant of the part (possibly restricted to part type, i.e. Iron would only get access to metallic finishes and paint finishes). Examples would be Matte, shiny/polished, or diamond plate for metals, matte or glossy paint, different types/textures of fabric for fabric materials, etc.
While there are possible balancing concerns with being able to change the material of parts, I don't think these are necessarily an issue, as if material changes are restricted to similar material types for the given part, it will still allow them to be identifiable. Additionally, you can already simply cover up a material you don't like with a thin layer of another to occlude it from view, so I don't think being able to directly change the material, especially if restricted as mentioned before, is much of an issue.
With this point in mind, I still think that this concept is useful despite the aforementioned ability to simply "plate" a surface in the desired material, as adding a new part for every single new material would be somewhat clunky (for example, having to add a new part for every fabric variation, every paint variation, etc. would be far less efficient than simply adding one of these parts or having their textures available for multiple different existing parts).
This would also (partially) remedy some complaints about 2022/pre-2022 materials, as it would allow (at least in some cases) both to co-exist (though it should be noted that some custom material versions of pre-2022 materials behave improperly)
Guidelines
Version
Development (Unstable)
Topic
A game mechanic (e.g. a part, a feature, etc)
Why are you making your suggestion?
While the materials in Waste of Space are fine, custom materials (Material Variants) allow for tons of variety and open the door for lots of different visual changes and game design elements. Furthermore, a greater variety of materials and freedom of material types would allow greater creativity in designs.
What do you propose? What should change, or what should be added?
Generally, I think Waste of Space should make use of Material Variants more, both to allow more diverse appearances among parts (i.e. slightly visually different materials for Iron and Titanium, or to further distinguish unique materials like Neutronium), and to allow for more visual diversity and creativity.
A related change would be to allow materials to have "Finishes", which could be changed like Shape is, or changed using a tool or part specifically for this purpose. It would essentially allow you to change the material/materialvariant of the part (possibly restricted to part type, i.e. Iron would only get access to metallic finishes and paint finishes). Examples would be Matte, shiny/polished, or diamond plate for metals, matte or glossy paint, different types/textures of fabric for fabric materials, etc.
While there are possible balancing concerns with being able to change the material of parts, I don't think these are necessarily an issue, as if material changes are restricted to similar material types for the given part, it will still allow them to be identifiable. Additionally, you can already simply cover up a material you don't like with a thin layer of another to occlude it from view, so I don't think being able to directly change the material, especially if restricted as mentioned before, is much of an issue.
With this point in mind, I still think that this concept is useful despite the aforementioned ability to simply "plate" a surface in the desired material, as adding a new part for every single new material would be somewhat clunky (for example, having to add a new part for every fabric variation, every paint variation, etc. would be far less efficient than simply adding one of these parts or having their textures available for multiple different existing parts).
This would also (partially) remedy some complaints about 2022/pre-2022 materials, as it would allow (at least in some cases) both to co-exist (though it should be noted that some custom material versions of pre-2022 materials behave improperly)