Why is the colorset limited to 64 colors?

[Rally]

How much do we know about the colorset? Why is it limited? Is it possible we could raise it through an add-on, or replace the colorset entirely with a new method of coloring bricks? What are the potential cons to increasing the size of the colorset, and do they outweigh the pros?

I know that each color themselves take up a certain amount of datablocks, and that this could add up quickly. But if I recall correctly, the datablock limit was raised a while back and left to the discretion of the host. Shouldn't this extend to the colorset? The current 64 limit feels frustratingly small. It feels like I'm always forced to sacrifice useful colors in exchange for other useful colors.

[Ad Bot]

[Khaz]

ive always advocated for a colorset of 100. or some type of colorwheel that just loads the datablock when you select a color. im not sure how torque works so idk if thats even possible

[Kyuande]

You can go a lot more but the client can only receive 64 colors.

If I remember each color in the colorset creates like ~7 datablocks (correct me if I am wrong). If you edited the colorset system you wouldn't need to have that many of datablocks per color. As I do agree that there should be more than 64 colors, the client-side would have to be heavily modified and it's probably not worth doing that

[Trogtor]

i feel like the water fx should be added to the brick fx column which means we'd get four new default colors

[Blockzillahead]

Because Blockland was made to run on the Nintendo 64.

[Swollow]

You can go a lot more but the client can only receive 64 colors.

If I remember each color in the colorset creates like ~7 datablocks (correct me if I am wrong). If you edited the colorset system you wouldn't need to have that many of datablocks per color. As I do agree that there should be more than 64 colors, the client-side would have to be heavily modified and it's probably not worth doing that

particle datablock for spray
emitter datablock for spray
particle datablock for spray explosion
emitter datablock for spray explosion
explosion datablock
projectile datablock
spray can image

[Shift Kitty]

If only we could just recolor images and have emitters able to change color based on the image and then we could just have 7 datablocks for the entire colorset.
But, even then, that's not why the limit of 64 exists. If say, the limit were to be increased to 128, it would take at least 12.5% longer just to send the color data, which... would be barely noticeable compared to everything else.

At least, that's what makes sense to me. I'm sure someone else would know better.

[Zeblote]

There isn't much to know about it. Many years ago badspot chose an arbitrary size that he though would be "enough" (6 bits) so that's what it is now. The limit could be increased without any noticeable effect on ghosting speed, especially with fast packets.

[crazies alt]

yeah fast packets should let us do this
someone make an addon so badspot doesn't shut down blockland from coding frustration

[portify]

yeah fast packets should let us do this
someone make an addon so badspot doesn't shut down blockland from coding frustration

such an add-on would both have to patch things that are not accessible to TorqueScript as well as making clients do the same, neither of which are or should be possible

raising the color set limit is perfectly possible with a DLL but requires all clients to also use it lest they not be able to play at all

datablocks are not an issue seeing as you could simply use the same 7 datablocks for the entire colorset, regardless of how many million colors there might be - having the spray take on the color is a nice effect but is really not needed when the alternative is using many more colors while using barely any datablocks

of course, you can change the colorset on a server as you switch between different builds or even modify the colors of a colorset while building just fine, partially solving the problem, but no matter what you try you can't add more colors just from an add-on that will just work for everyone

you can have unlimited colors in single player however by changing the colorset as you recolor bricks, since that won't affect existing bricks

[Ravencroft·]

because Badspot has an OCD hardon for multiples of 4 for whatever reason.

[Notorious B.I.G.]

Because Blockland was made to run on the Nintendo 64.

[otto-san]

because Badspot has an OCD hardon for multiples of 4 for whatever reason.

it's just that you can only represent 64 distinct values with six bits

[K3k0m@n]

i'm thankful that it's always been 64 colors, that's a feature that I've always liked about this game as you have to work with restrictions which allows you to be more creative in your builds

[Ravencroft·]

i'm thankful that it's always been 64 colors, that's a feature that I've always liked about this game as you have to work with restrictions which allows you to be more creative in your builds

Sorry but this is kind of ridiculous. I remember there being plenty of times I wanted to be creative with my build, but couldn't because I didn't have a certain color available to me.