Solar sails

[JTF2014]

For those who don't like the drain on e/sec caused by thrusters, or those who are interested in alternate forms of propulsion, i would like to suggest solar sails that use the nearest star to move larger explorer craft. Your thoughts on this idea?

 

[Lecic]

Interesting, but not really practical. They'd only work if the sails were pointed the correct direction, really, but it'd still be cool to see them. Maybe a later term thing when most of the core features are added.

 

[Incap]

Why solar sails, when panels are just as good?

 

[rece ktore leczo]

Why solar sails, when panels are just as good?

Panels are even better

 

[Zeveryn]

Incap rece ktore leczo you are so far out in the woods


A solar sail is a propulsion using some kind of Pressure comming from the sun while a solar PANEL generate POWER from the sun wich can in return power Ion engines for example.

 

[rece ktore leczo]

Zeveryn Yeah, yeah i know Solar sails use radiation force from stars as a propellant and it isn't very efficient (5 newtons at Earth's distance from Sol on an 800 by 800 meter solar sail - from Wikipedia) especially when considering that the force is always directed from the star to the outsides of the star system and varies depending on a distance from the star (and the star itself), being useless in deep space.

Solar panels generate power, which then is used to speed up propellant as it is in ion engines, which are very efficient btw.


Even considering implementing this in game with some balancing, the solar sails would need to be very light and to be kinda functional, we should use plenty of them on our ship, because they would provide little thrust as they aren't using any energy. Since we don't have a fuel requirements for energy gen/thrusters using the current system is simply the better choice.


BUT as i can see that solar sails could really look awesome and break current pretty boring state with only 1 type of thrusters i'm not against them. It would be easier for them if the fuel requirements would be implemented (either in vanilla or in mod) because without it they could have some hard time convincing players to use them.

 

[JTF2014]

I just wanted something other than thrusters.

 

[LawrenceMil]

For those who don't like the drain on e/sec caused by thrusters, or those who are interested in alternate forms of propulsion, i would like to suggest solar kits that use the nearest star to move larger explorer craft. Your thoughts on this idea?

I am really not sure your ideas are good or not? Need to ask an expert for this..

 

[WaffulMann]

I think we need a better non sun-reliant source of thrust, because of the easily changable sector sizes. You're not getting anywhere if the sun's 50km away from your starting sector.
Maybe something like project orion.

 

[jayman38]

I had to disagree, because the propulsion from solar sails is extremely slow. Extremely. Did I mention extremely slow? It's a concept based on getting stuff out of the inner system over the course of years. That is not a fun concept for a space game. A space simulator? Maybe, but I don't think StarMade is designed as a space simulator as much as it is a space game.

With that, I need to contribute a replacement idea. I'll pull from real, actual propulsion ideas, like what you will find on space.com.

1. Mini-explosives dropped like mines and immediately set off directly behind the ship to "kick" it forward. This really isn't much different from Starmade thrusters if the sequential explosions are close enough together.
2. Light-pulse propulsion, which is very similar to solar sails, but uses a laser (or maybe a particle beam), and bounces off a 45 degree structure element, to bounce the beam out to opposite sides of the ship, while the combined forces produce thrust.
3. Short-range teleportation as a simulation of short, temporary worm holes.
4. The new space-warp propulsion theory where the space around a ship is warped in such a way that there is a gravity/space wave "pushing" the ship forward, while a space-warp in front "pulls" the ship, essentially causing the ship to "fall" forward. This is also not much different from Starmade thrusters. It could be a great way to add a small number of blocks to ships to greatly increase speed without increasing turning rate.
5. Not so much a thruster mechanic as a slow-down mechanic: Airbrakes touching a planet's atmosphere a la the movie "2010 (The Year We Make Contact)".
6. SCRAM jets. Starmade Thrusters with a thrust bonus in atmosphere.

 

[NeonSturm]

6. SCRAM jets. Starmade Thrusters with a thrust bonus in atmosphere.

How about anti-gravity? We don't really need faster movement horizontally with current planet sizes

 

[jayman38]

How about anti-gravity? We don't really need faster movement horizontally with current planet sizes

I was pulling from real life thrust options. I am not aware of a true antigravity thrust option. (Actually, the space-warp stuff should be able to work against gravity, creating an element of antigravity by simply overriding it. I haven't read that much about it yet.)

On the other hand, an atmospheric bonus would also help when going ballistic - flying straight up vertically. Or flying so fast horizontally, that you fall over the horizon (this is pretty much the definition of orbital flight).

 

[FunnyBunny14]

The stop effect module was supposed to cancel out gravity, but is bugged, so it doesn't work right now. It is in queue, and I'm sure it is going to be fixed before the thrust update.