Articulated engines: How to make thruster vectoring and VTOLs possible

[Mariux]

Basically, what I suggest is an articulated engine module which would work like turret mounts, but instead of mounting turrets it would mount engines that would also be built as seperate ships at first. Once the engine is docked it will always face the direction at which the thrust is applied. However, when in planetary gravity the engine will face downwards (and if it's powerful enough it'll make the ship hover, effectively ignoring the planetary gravity.). Also, once strafing and backwards thrust will be nerfed the thrust added from articulated engines will not be nerfed at the directions the articulated engine can face (sorry if that's a little hard to understand). Furthermore, the shields from the ship and the mounted engine are shared meaning that you can put part of your shield capacitors and rechargers in the thrusters and part in the ship. This, however comes with one drawback: the articulated engine mount block would be a weak spot and once it's destroyed, the attached engine will detach.

 

[therimmer96]

thrust vectoring? I like :3

 

[Mariux]

thrust vectoring? I like :3

I like this fancy term. Too bad I can't edit this into the title...

 

[therimmer96]

You can edit thread titles, at the top should be something like "thread tools"

 

[Mariux]

You can edit thread titles, at the top should be something like "thread tools"

Thanks

 

[Equilibrium21]

the articulated engine mount block would be a weak spot and once it's destroyed, the attached engine will detach.

This however, would help in cases that you wanted to disable a Capital Ship or any other cruiser+ ships, board it and capture it's crew and the ship itself.

 

[Izikiel]

....I like this idea. And, it uses an already in-place mechanic to attach it!

 

[Mariux]

I REALLY want to know what the devs' opinion on this would be...

 

[FunnyBunny14]

How would the engine mount be a weak spot?

 

[Mariux]

How would the engine mount be a weak spot?

Because if you knock out the engine mount block on the main ship the whole articulated engine will detach just like a turret.

 

[Equilibrium21]

He said that you will dock the engines, so destroying the connection point would undock the engines and stop the ship from moving.

 

[SkylordLuke]

this is amazing! love the idea!!!

 

[Zeno9141]

I want. For reasons.

Does this system also make directional thrust (like in SE) mandatory? That would be pretty cool

 

[Mariux]

this is amazing! love the idea!!!

Thanks. Imagine all the dropships you can make! I also have a similar idea of a turret AI mode that would make the turrets "follow" your mouse pointer and shoot when the player in the ship is shooting. Would be mostly cosmetic though as we can already focus fire.

 

[Mariux]

I want. For reasons.

Does this system also make directional thrust (like in SE) mandatory? That would be pretty cool

If you mean that it would increase turning rate, I don't see why not. Might be trickier to implement though.

 

[Zeno9141]

If you mean that it would increase turning rate, I don't see why not. Might be trickier to implement though.

I meant, if those thruster pods can only thrust in 1 direction, but can rotate, then stationary thrusters (on shippes) cannot be omnidirectional, or the systems would conflict. This means I need thrusters facing left, right, top, bottom, front, and back to be able to fly as I normally would.

 

[Mariux]

I meant, if those thruster pods can only thrust in 1 direction, but can rotate, then stationary thrusters (on shippes) cannot be omnidirectional, or the systems would conflict. This means I need thrusters facing left, right, top, bottom, front, and back to be able to fly as I normally would.

It would be a little too harsh for small ships. What I suggest, however, is that stationary thrusters would add only, let's say 20 percent of total thrust to strafing and going backwards while thrust added by articulated thrusters would ignore the debuffs, but only on the four directions the thruster would be able to face.

 

[jayman38]

I meant, if those thruster pods can only thrust in 1 direction, but can rotate, then stationary thrusters (on shippes) cannot be omnidirectional, or the systems would conflict. This means I need thrusters facing left, right, top, bottom, front, and back to be able to fly as I normally would.

I imagine this being only a cosmetic change, at first. Maybe functional changes would come later.

 

[the guyver]

It would be a little too harsh for small ships. What I suggest, however, is that stationary thrusters would add only, let's say 20 percent of total thrust to strafing and going backwards while thrust added by articulated thrusters would ignore the debuffs, but only on the four directions the thruster would be able to face.

the way it could be done to not affect existing designs is make the engine docking units debuff the thrust of the ship they are on, so if you have no engine docking units thruster works as they do now, if you have an engine docking unit in any axis the fixed thrusters do virtually nothing in the axis it can apply thrust

eg engine docking unit facing along the x axis would affect y & z thrust as thats the directions a docked engine could apply thrust if docked to it

 

[Mariux]

I

the way it could be done to not affect existing designs is make the engine docking units debuff the thrust of the ship they are on, so if you have no engine docking units thruster works as they do now, if you have an engine docking unit in any axis the fixed thrusters do virtually nothing in the axis it can apply thrust

eg engine docking unit facing along the x axis would affect y & z thrust as thats the directions a docked engine could apply thrust if docked to it

I understand, but the devs are already planning to reduce ships' ability to strafe and go backwards.