Recognized Adjustable Rail Rotation

[Biostrakk110]

Recently I was building a X-wing and had some problems with the moving wings. After consulting the forums, I learned rails can only hold a position that is at a 45 degree interval. I came up with an idea afterwards that will solve my problem and I think others in the future as well. Before I say what it is, please note that I have no coding experience and have no idea how hard this would be to implement into the game.

My idea is to make it so rails have a menu where you can adjust the rotation of that rail. You put a number of degrees into the menu and then the rail only moves that many degrees whenever it rotates. This would allow for proper angles for cosmetic parts of ships. It would allow for angles like this to happen:

It would be a minor improvement to rail mechanics but a very welcome one. Please give feedback and leave opinions below.

EDIT: Another idea I came up with after reading replies is that instead of putting in numbers, there could be a slide that you move, and it would only allow increments of perhaps 22.5 degrees for just a little bit more flexibility, without having to complicate things by making it have to be able to rotate to every single angle.

 

[Jaaskinal]

Schema seems to like block based solutions more than menus (I think it's a phobia...)
TBH though, I think a menu for this would be just fine. People don't seem to use rotators in massive quantities. The only complaint I have against this would be that I do have a need sometimes to change rail rotation amount on the fly, so being able to have different amounts of activators activated is very important.

 

[nightrune]

Schema seems to like block based solutions more than menus (I think it's a phobia...)
TBH though, I think a menu for this would be just fine. People don't seem to use rotators in massive quantities. The only complaint I have against this would be that I do have a need sometimes to change rail rotation amount on the fly, so being able to have different amounts of activators activated is very important.

Blocks in the current form allow you to do things dynamically. Which is awesome, but makes it hard to make things small.

 

[Jaaskinal]

Blocks in the current form allow you to do things dynamically. Which is awesome, but makes it hard to make things small.

A while ago I heard someone suggest that they work like rail speed controllers. IMO that would be pretty good, but for this situation it would still be odd since 16 activators would be required.

 

[nightrune]

A while ago I heard someone suggest that they work like rail speed controllers. IMO that would be pretty good, but for this situation it would still be odd since 16 activators would be required.

Right and you can use the same ones for all of the rotators, but its still 16 usesless blocks on an xwing.

 

[Nickizzy]

Maybe when you activated it a certain way it would start rotating, and you could calibrate it by deactivating it. It would then rotate that way every non special activation. An "R" menu on rail rotators or a rail rotator controller would be supercool. Maybe even the rail speed controler could have a slider or input box for the amount of turn.

 

[rocketman221]

A while ago I heard someone suggest that they work like rail speed controllers. IMO that would be pretty good, but for this situation it would still be odd since 16 activators would be required.

It would be nice if they made the controller use a binary input so you could use just 4 activator blocks to get the 16 different values or 8 blocks to get 256 values..

 

[Criss]

A menu for rails has certainly come up before. The issue is that a menu means you can't change the degrees rotated at the literal press of a button. You would need to access the rail block every time you wanted to make an adjustment. People making mechs would have a problem here among other examples.

 

[Valck]

A menu for rails has certainly come up before. The issue is that a menu means you can't change the degrees rotated at the literal press of a button. You would need to access the rail block every time you wanted to make an adjustment. People making mechs would have a problem here among other examples.

Maybe a combination of both could work - a new menu where you set the increment for that rotator (with default set to 45° as to not mess up existing builds...), and the current method of on/off activation modules to indicate the number of steps?

 

[nightrune]

Or something more akin to the rail speed controller.

Rotator Controller connected to one activation == 90, two == 45, three == 15 or something along those lines.

 

[Biostrakk110]

Something I'm personally getting confused about when reading these is when people say they need to change angles on the fly. Wouldn't you just be able to activate the rotator multiple times?

 

[jayman38]

Ball joints with linear actuators might be better suited to generating precise rotations in the game, as illustrated here:

Plus, I seem to remember a suggestion thread about ball joints that briefly mentioned that the dev team was interested in implementing ball joints.

 

[El_Poulpy]

Or something more akin to the rail speed controller.

Rotator Controller connected to one activation == 90, two == 45, three == 15 or something along those lines.

something i thought about when the rail update came out :

1 = 360
2 = 180
3 = 120
4 = 90
5 = 72
6 = 60
7
8 = 45
9 = 40
10 = 36
11
12 = 30
13
14
15 = 24
16
17
18 = 20
19
20 = 18
21
22
23
24 = 15
25
26
27
28
29
30 = 12
36 = 10

 

[MeRobo]

Although the math would be a bit weird (or non existing) behind this but how about:
1=360
2=180
3=120
4=90
5=72
6=60
7=45
8=40
9=36
10=30
11=24
12=20
13=18
14=15
15=12
16=10

Pro: Getting rid of 20 Activation Modules which didn't do anything in El_Pouply's idea
Con: numbers >6 have weird values asigned to them.

 

[NTIMESc]

Or something more akin to the rail speed controller.

Rotator Controller connected to one activation == 90, two == 45, three == 15 or something along those lines.

I think this is the most promising solution, except how about reversing the values, and starting with no linked AMs?
zero=15°, 1=30°, 2=45°,3=60°, 4=75°, etc.


Another idea:
Instead of a menu, simply pressing 'R' on the Rotator Controller cycles through only 10, 15, 30, and 45 degrees. Then each linked Activation Module doubles the chosen rotation. So, for example, set the Rotator Controller to 10°, then link one AM and you have 20°. Link two AMs and you have 40° (10*2*2). For full rotations you set it to 45° and link 3 AMs (45*2*2*2).

The default would still be 90° without a Rotator Controller and I think this system would go well with StarMade's existing learning curve, where simple things are easy but if you want more complexity/efficiency it takes a bit of study/practice.

 

[Spartan-228]

How about the entity you have on the rotator stop when it hits something instead of going back to its starting position. Or at least have that as an option.

 

[Gamel]

How about the entity you have on the rotator stop when it hits something instead of going back to its starting position. Or at least have that as an option.

this sounds good