P.O.M - XL Blocks [Slopes Update!]

Pennant Orbital Manufacturing presents: XL Blocks.

M.A.N.T.A division, P.O.M:

This mod adds 26 new large grid building blocks in the form of non-deforming armor-like 5x5x5 sized blocks. This isn't a new grid size, but the next best thing. The "XL" 5x5x5 blocks (+ unique shapes relevant to 5x5x5) come with efficient LODs and two buildstates each, survival-ready and built with Steel Plates and Girders.

Inspired by the artwork of Paul Chadeisson, these blocks are intended to allow engineers to build larger, faster, and hopefully with less lag. -pending rigorous technical tests.- The blocks are tentatively balanced to require roughly half the resources to build relative to the number of armor blocks it would take to fill the space in vanilla. The 5x5x5 size is a natural step up after small to large grid scaling, and offers the largest placement footprint that an engineer in survival may manage within reason.

See Paul Chadeisson's gorgeous work here!

1/2 Shapes Update: This update adds a much-requested suite of 8 half block shapes, a new "Brace" block, tweaks the 5x5x5 Frame block's design, Increases component count/durability, fixes some UV errors, and adds Mod.io support (tentatively). -3/20/2023-

[NEW] Slopes Update: This update adds 3 new blocks: SlopeCorner, SlopeCornerBase, and SlopeCornerTip. These are those wonky half-corner blocks needed to make whole spheres, and were modeled and added by none other than Enenra, who essentially did the whole update. Thank you, En!

-4/25/2024-

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Block List:

• XL 1x
• XL 1x Frame
• XL 1x Mount
• XL 1x Platform
• XL Block
• XL Block Detail
• XL Block Hazard
• XL Block Frame
• XL Block Inv Corner
• XL Block Slope
• XL Block Corner
• XL Half Block
• XL Half Block Corner
• XL Half Corner Base
• XL Half Corner Base Inv
• XL Half Corner Tip
• XL Half Corner Tip Inv
• XL Half Slope Base
• XL Half Slope Tip
• XL Sloped Corner Base - NEW
• XL Sloped Corner Tip - NEW
• XL Sloped Corner - NEW
• XL Hip
• XL Brace
• XL Passage
• XL Passage Corner

XL blocks can be found in the G menu, within the "P.O.M - XL Blocks" Category.

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Q&A:

Q: "Where's/Why not add a [Shape] Block?" A: These blocks are intended to be simple foundations for larger designs, and engineers are encouraged to fill in the gaps and define the silhouette and surface details with standard large grid blocks.

Q: "Will you be adding versions of [Functional Block] in 5x5x5?" A: I don't plan on modding functional blocks any time soon. Form over function from Pennant.

Q: "Why not add a force field visual to / airtight-seal the Passage blocks?" A: I'm no good with custom textures or functional blocks. But the real excuse is that I'd rather the Passage Blocks be Passages, similar to the large grid 1x1x1 Passage blocks.

Q: "Why aren't detail lines appearing on the blocks in my world?" A: You likely have your model quality set to low in graphics settings. These blocks have very simple, blocky LODs at far distances or low quality settings to provide competitive performance. The half block suite of shapes also do not have outer-surface detail lines.

Q: "Can you make alternate block variants without the hazard stripes?" A: I'd like to, yes. Might be a while though.

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Author's note: This is Pennant's first major mod release, and my first upload in quite a few years. I hope folks find good use in these blocks, and I hope even more that they're at least half-decent at helping engineers build larger grids that don't eat server performance via block count. I'm very much not a technical guy, but from my own testing they don't seem to hurt and definitely open the range of possibilities. Eager to read your feedback!

Thanks to Enenra and the SEUT team for their work on the Blender toolkit, hand-holding along the way, and work on the Slope update.

- Shadestuff