Block: Rubber or Rounded to Remedy Rotational Restrictions!

[GaeasSon]

At the Right now I'm trying to set up a simple hinged door with rotator blocks. It's one of those hatches that rotates down to become a ramp, or up to become a wall. But my ramp can't rotate because its rotation is bound
by the deck blocks adjacent to the axis of rotation.

I CAN work around this, either by leaving a large and unsightly hole in the deck or by designing a secondary railed structure to slide up and out of the way, allowing my ramp to rotate, then sliding back down to fill the gap...

But I see two more elegant solutions:
1: Rounded blocks. A new cylindrical block shape with no corners to snag...
-OR-
2: Rubber blocks. A block type that is opaque and solid to astronauts but clips (does not register collisions) with other blocks, allowing incidental overlap.

The rubber block solution seems like it could be easier to implement. It could be done as a type of hull, borrowing texture and shape from the cube block of that hull type, or it could be modeled on the doors (and force fields?) whose textures already imply flexibility.

Thoughts?

 

[NeonSturm]

Do Doors clip when they are open?

Have you also tried it on the railed entity rather than the parent?​

I think that should fix the problem or it should be made to fix it.

But rubber blocks for walking on a planet surface are nice too

X X X X X X X X X X
. . . X
. . . X . /
. . . > o
X X X X v X X X X X
Have you tried this? Grey=Hull, Orange=Rails + Rail-rotator.

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

These are both good ideas, but IMHO the rubber or "clippable" block is the easiest solution to implement by far. All you have to do is code a block so that it triggers collision detection for astronauts but not for other blocks. Now I'm not a dev so I'm unfamiliar with the exact functions used for collision detection but to me it seems that implementation merely requires the commenting-out of a few lines of code. As opposed to the rounded blocks which would involve modifying and possibly completely re-writing the collision detection algorithm so that it doesn't crap itself at the sight of pi.

 

[GaeasSon]

...

X X X X X X X X X X
. . . X
. . . X . /
. . . > o
X X X X v X X X X X
Have you tried this? Grey=Hull, Orange=Rails + Rail-rotator.

No, and that's brilliant! Giving it a try now.

I do still believe rubber blocks would solve many small annoyances, smoothing the seams between structures.

 

[Viridis00]

I was actually thinking about a rounded or a cylinder type block myself lately with the dev builds. It would be functional and aesthetic too. Additionally half-slabs would probably provide enough clearance as well in certain situations.

 

[jayman38]

I'm definitely more in favor of "rubber" blocks. Once you start down the slippery slope of rounded blocks, everybody is going to want their pet block(s) in a rounded form, eating up all available BlockIDs.

 

[Viridis00]

I'm definitely more in favor of "rubber" blocks. Once you start down the slippery slope of rounded blocks, everybody is going to want their pet block(s) in a rounded form, eating up all available BlockIDs.

Even to add them for all the hulls wouldn't be too much for a block that has value for aesthetics and functionality.

 

[GaeasSon]

I'm definitely more in favor of "rubber" blocks. Once you start down the slippery slope of rounded blocks, everybody is going to want their pet block(s) in a rounded form, eating up all available BlockIDs.

Yes! Next suggestion.... Pet Blocks! They have a furry or scaly texture and follow you on away missions! Yes, I'm kidding... well, mostly.

 

[jayman38]

Even to add them for all the hulls wouldn't be too much for a block that has value for aesthetics and functionality.

1 barrel shape x 8 colors x 4 hull types = 32 (not a terribly huge amount)

At least one member of the dev team has expressed interest in barrel-shaped blocks before in the forum. But like I said, it won't stop there. People will want round ice crystals, rounded angles of various kinds, round circuits, and on and on it goes. After the "rounds" would be added, there wouldn't even be room for 256 custom BlockIDs left open, like the dev team wants to keep available.
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Yes! Next suggestion.... Pet Blocks! They have a furry or scaly texture and follow you on away missions! Yes, I'm kidding... well, mostly.

Ha!

So how did the test go? Did Neon's suggestion work?

 

[GaeasSon]

So how did the test go? Did Neon's suggestion work?

It did! Would you believe it never occurred to me that rotators were rails too? I was just treating them like pivots.
It did expose an odd bug though (at least it seems like a bug to me at this point) I keep running into a condition where my rotators will switch happily to counter-clockwise, but will refuse to switch back to clockwise. In some experiments it works fine, in others it's CCW-only. I suspect it has to do with the absolute orientation of the blocks relative to the ship, but I haven't experimented enough to nail it down yet.

So at the moment I have a lovely little ship that will extend it's landing gear, and close it's hatch, but will never reopen it again.

 

[NeonSturm]

I always think you should not command the rails but the structure on them.
Like if rails are an input for what's above them. If I finally get the shaders running, my game will have it that way (bad tutorials all over the inet).​

Did you watch the tutorial video on rail rotators?

There are 3-4 out afaik

 

[mrsinister]

I always think you should not command the rails but the structure on them.
Like if rails are an input for what's above them. If I finally get the shaders running, my game will have it that way (bad tutorials all over the inet).​

Did you watch the tutorial video on rail rotators?

There are 3-4 out afaik

Aside from those, bench's imperial shuttle from star wars is pretty damn amazing. That has rotation ramp ,landing gear ,and rotating wings its quite kool.


If you watch the whole thing he shows you how to go from 0º and rotate all the way around to 360º and in between...maybe that part of the vid will help you GaeasSon.

 

[Ithirahad]

These are both good ideas, but IMHO the rubber or "clippable" block is the easiest solution to implement by far. All you have to do is code a block so that it triggers collision detection for astronauts but not for other blocks. Now I'm not a dev so I'm unfamiliar with the exact functions used for collision detection but to me it seems that implementation merely requires the commenting-out of a few lines of code. As opposed to the rounded blocks which would involve modifying and possibly completely re-writing the collision detection algorithm so that it doesn't crap itself at the sight of pi.

I don't think the current collision detection system would crap itself at the sight of pi... It would just stop what it's doing (detecting collisions), run over to the pi, and start eating it... And since the pi is infinite, it would never stop. Resulting in a frozen program.

 

[Auriga_Nexus]

I don't think the current collision detection system would crap itself at the sight of pi... It would just stop what it's doing (detecting collisions), run over to the pi, and start eating it... And since the pi is infinite, it would never stop. Resulting in a frozen program.

Either way, not good for the program or the poor sod who's just trying to play the game.

 

[Keptick]

Don't forget that stuff doesn't have to be physically connected together to stay one entity, so you can have the door in the spot you want with the mechanism under the floor/roof/whatever.