Hello,
I wanted an inventory that could change a lot. If your ship takes a bad shock, your ship might live, but your eggs might get smashed. If your ship gets torched with a flame thrower, explosions might trigger in your cargo bay if you’re hauling flammable things. As the temperature rises, the volume of your cargo changes if it goes to liquid or gas form. If you haul radiated cargo, how many rads. Heck if you want to pawn off stolen goods and call em by something else even to other players… I had to really sit down and figure this out.
Turns out I use actual science. I’m getting the molecular masses of elements. I’m checking out melting points, calculating volume based on mass and density. It’s crazy. I even got to ideal gas laws and such.
Inventory items have a mass(different if particulate matter such as salt vs a full item like a bicycle), temperature in Kelvin, an inscription anyone can add to if they hold the item, the name you’re calling it if you’re pawning it off as stolen goods, durability(wear and tear), quality(craftmanship), rads of radiation. On top of that there is dictionary look ups on items.
This inventory is just complex enough to be kinda fun and different. The core of any sci fi is some science. I could publish in just 2-3 hours the foundation by which we update til quality MMO, but I’m tired. Good Night.