StarMade science—Diving into game mechanics

[der_scheme]

Since everyone seems to be focused on weapons only, I decided to test some mechanics out. My current tests focused on locomotion, I'll show my results in this post.

Push Effect Module
Push Effect Modules used defensively seem to require 1 point of energy per block per second. The following table shows their acceleration properties. Speed is obviously in km/h, and the Seconds column shows how many seconds it took to reach that speed.

Mass    Modules Damp    Speed   Seconds
0.4     1       0.09    10      2.5
0.4     1       0.09    20      5.16
0.4     1       0.09    30      9.25
0.4     1       0.09    40      15.41
0.4     1       0.09    50      31.67
5       1       0.09    1       3.41
5       1       0.09    2       6.73
5       1       0.09    3       14.05
5       1       0.09    4       31.82
5       10      0.09    10      3.03
5       10      0.09    20      7.13
5       10      0.09    30      13.4
5       10      0.09    40      32.51

... but how can this compete with thrusters?

Hyperflux Coil Thruster
Short: It can't.
Edit:Removed lies. Thrust still uses box dimensions. It seems that in my tests I just used shapes where this coincidentally applied.
The following table shows how the thrusters compete. If you think these Time values look similar, look at the speeds.

Mass    Blocks  Damp    Speed   Seconds
0.4     1       0.09    100     3.58
0.4     1       0.09    200     8.31
0.4     1       0.09    300     16.73
5       1       0.09    10      4.38
5       1       0.09    20      10.82
5       1       0.09    30      30.78
5       10      0.09    100     3.32
5       10      0.09    200     7.34
5       10      0.09    300     15.68
5       10      0.09    400     53.02

Thrusters vs. Push Modules
I did one further test to determine their qualities. I had a ship with one power generator, 10 thrusters and 140 push modules. The power generator is able to barely sustain one of these systems at a time, their power consumption was approximately the same. I then activated the push module and held the back button. The thrusters were not able to counteract the push system, the ship accelerated.
But is it worth it? No. They may use a bit less power for the same amount of thrust, but they take a lot more space (thus add more to ship's mass), which is totally not worth it. Also, they can only accelerate in one direction, thrusters in all.

Stop Effect Module
I also did some tests on Stop Modules. They take 1000 power per module block. What's the gain? Pretty much nothing. Effect strength equation: Effect = NumModules / (Mass * 10) * 100%
Trying to generate enough power to sustain one additional module will greatly reduce the overall effect. Something is very wrong with how that works.

 

[Zeno9141]

There is one good thing about push modules. The fun part about them, and having enough power to sustain the push effect, is that you can in fact, sustain cruise control. Which would be great for yachts, or long rides somewhere.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

It should be noted the defencive effects have not been balanced yet. I had brought them up in chat and Calbiri responded saying such.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

There is one good thing about push modules. The fun part about them, and having enough power to sustain the push effect, is that you can in fact, sustain cruise control. Which would be great for yachts, or long rides somewhere.

No point in having that, just cancel out slowdown in the server CFG.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

No point in having that, just cancel out slowdown in the server CFG.

or weigh down your w key

 

[Commodore]

or weigh down your w key

With bigger sectors you could go raid the fridge without being so worried about crashing on your long trips.

 

[der_scheme]

It should be noted the defencive effects have not been balanced yet. I had brought them up in chat and Calbiri responded saying such.

True. I didn't know that at that time. Since they were stronger in the dev builds, I assumed this was intended.

 

[Tomino_sama]

True. I didn't know that at that time. Since they were stronger in the dev builds, I assumed this was intended.

my understanding is that many of these effects were only introduced in the final few dev builds so they are using default value for balance, so the effect power and consumption is not yet final