This whole collection of ideas is the result of me accidentally destroying one of the bottom most stone blocks of a multi story building and subsequently sobbing at the sight of all blocks that were dependent on this one collapsing in on themselves, essentially turning my castle into a ruin. Online with no way to restore a backup, at least for me.
So I thought to myself, what if we could toggle build modes? Or even simpler, only allow destruction of objects that other objects depend on for stability while having an additional key pressed? For example, if you try to destroy a wall with another wall on top of it, it won't work and instead a message is displayed like "Wall is essential for stability". If you'd want to remove it regardless, you'd hold down shift and middle mouse click. Just like shift toggles snapping on and off, so it would feel intuitive to toggle safe destruction on and off when being held.
Now this was the original idea. It has since evolved into something like this: Different Tier Hammers, each introducing a new functionality and each subsequent tier including all previous tier functionalities.
Wood Hammer - Works as usual, plus maybe the described safe destruction feature.
Bronze Hammer - Enables "zooping", see Satisfactory zoop build mode:
Iron Hammer - Ability to destroy multiple objects in a similar manner to zooping: Hold middle mouse, look at all elements you wish to demolish (maybe limit to 5-10 elements or so), release middle mouse, selected elements break.
Black Metal Hammer - Ability to repair all elements connected to aimed at element at once. Also never breaks at level 2.
Opens up possibilities for some nonsense, too:
Crystal Hammer - Breaks on use, does nothing. Looks nice on an Items stand though.
Finewood and Silver Hammer - Same as Bronze hammer, but is also a weak light source.
Bone Hammer - Same as Wood Hammer, but with a different sound. Spikey bits occasionally hurt the player during use.
So I thought to myself, what if we could toggle build modes? Or even simpler, only allow destruction of objects that other objects depend on for stability while having an additional key pressed? For example, if you try to destroy a wall with another wall on top of it, it won't work and instead a message is displayed like "Wall is essential for stability". If you'd want to remove it regardless, you'd hold down shift and middle mouse click. Just like shift toggles snapping on and off, so it would feel intuitive to toggle safe destruction on and off when being held.
Now this was the original idea. It has since evolved into something like this: Different Tier Hammers, each introducing a new functionality and each subsequent tier including all previous tier functionalities.
Wood Hammer - Works as usual, plus maybe the described safe destruction feature.
Bronze Hammer - Enables "zooping", see Satisfactory zoop build mode:
Black Metal Hammer - Ability to repair all elements connected to aimed at element at once. Also never breaks at level 2.
Opens up possibilities for some nonsense, too:
Crystal Hammer - Breaks on use, does nothing. Looks nice on an Items stand though.
Finewood and Silver Hammer - Same as Bronze hammer, but is also a weak light source.
Bone Hammer - Same as Wood Hammer, but with a different sound. Spikey bits occasionally hurt the player during use.