Customizable logic blocks, dynamic thrusters, thrusters computers, among other things

[Snk]

This is an idea I had while working on my ship. I know a lot of you hate the current core system - it sucks pretty bad that once the core goes offline, you die instantly. I thought, wouldn't it be great if there was a way to control the ship from outside the core? So that's where I got this idea.
The customizable logic block would essentially start out as a blank screen. You could place any symbol you want on it - an arrow, square, cube, circle, etc. You could link each of these symbols to anything you want.
That's the first part of the suggestion. Dynamic thrusters are pretty simple - the thrusters generate thrust in whatever direction they're pointing in. Penta thrusters would also be nice, so you could generate thrust diagonally.
And, making it so you can connect thrusters to logic blocks - then you could link it to arrows on your customizable logic screen, and boom, you have helm control. Thruster computers would be nice, so you could link a logic block to just one computer instead of a bunch of thrusters.
For turning, you could link it to the core or something. Connecting it to thrusters would only make it so you can strafe, and your turning would be very limited.
What do you guys think?

 

[jayman38]

I actually quite like this idea for multi-player crews controlling a ship, especially in a RP environment.

I disagree with penta thrusters, if only because you can get a customizable direction by combining thrusters that are pointing in different directions. Yeah, it costs you more blocks to get that angled thrust, but then you won't need to use up another block ID to get that new block type. Same thing for wedge-shaped thrusters. Just use two regular thrusters pointing in two directions to get that angle.

For turning, I can imagine putting two different thrusters in two different directions, and then linking them in the same way that effect weapon systems are slaved to master weapon systems, and popping up a prompt that asks which direction the thrusters will turn the ship. In essence, it would create a small amount of "twisting thrust". There will be six direction options: clockwise and counter-clockwise each for the X,Y, and Z axes. By creating a bunch of these thruster pairs, you could customize how fast the ship turns, so if you were to dedicate significant space to thruster pairs in a titan class ship, it could actually be relatively maneuverable... at the cost of huge mass and block count. And since you would only get to choose one direction, it would be both predictable and balanced. For instance, one set of thruster pairs would roll you left, and another would roll you right. A third set would pitch you down and a fourth would pitch you up. Finally, a fifth set of pairs would spin you left, and the sixth set would spin you right. I can't imagine how you could pair them up en mass, so the time it would take to match up pairs and select a direction for each pair would painfully balance the use of turning-thrusters in large ships. The time needed to do so many would keep any but the most dedicated players from turning their ship into a fast-turning engineering marvel. On the other hand, when someone does pull it off, it would be a truly spectacular event, if only because of the sheer amount of effort involved.

It would be neat to be able to put turning thruster pairs into a station to get it turning slowly, like as in 2001: A Space Odyssey. And now that I think of that, it would be neat to put turning into a docked ship, so you could have an artificial gravity ring deck that turns around the main part of the ship. Not really needed as a replacement for the gravity block, but it would be a design option.

Your idea about a customizable logic block has me thinking about computers. If we could have a customized logic block, then we should be able to do the same for computers. Specifically, I'm thinking about the possibility of recovering used Block IDs by using a single dynamic computer block type to replace all the different types of computers. You could roll up weapons, personal, decorative, gravity, etc. blocks all into a single computer block type.

And if we could replace all the different block IDs by using different "skins" on a particular block ID, then we could recover even more Block IDs, not only from computers, but also from hull types. It would be like all hull types, including plex glass, would have the Grey Hull Block ID, but have different skins (white, black, grey, brown, yellow, green, etc.) You might still want to have Plex glass in its own block ID, so that the weird stuff that people want to do with glass, such as cracking, wouldn't apply to non-transparent hull types. On the other hand, since they are supposed to be similar materials, you should apply the same cracking to colored hulls as are applied to plex glass.

With that novel written, it might be a good, long time before these changes are even considered.

 

[NeonSturm]

I like penta-thrusters - don't forget wedge-thrusters :D -, if only that the game knows where to do visual effects.

But an array of those would look rather silly.
And adding additional movement keys would clutter up your key-board-assignment.​

If one thruster-wedge could allow 2 downward and 2 backward thrusters work like 4 down+backward thrusters (instead of 2.8 as in squrt(2^2+2^2)), I would like it.

Usually, you need most thrust to compensate for linear dampening => most blocks facing backward.

To maneuver a ship realistically, you need a centre of mass.
http://starmadedock.net/threads/cal...entre-of-mass-a-very-efficient-solution.2199/


For turning, please no thrusters.
You can turn an object in space clockwise by creating a counter-clockwise rotation inside the ship.
(the overall-rotation of mass*speed^2 sums up to 0)

Afaik objects which rotate very fast have a higher weight. Why should advanced space ships not use this strategy to spare energy blown into space for only 50% of that energy as thrust to the ship?

Spoiler: BTW: An off-topic question

Is it possible to gain almost 50% energy back by using 2 thrusters with alternating thrust and convert the relative inertia difference between them and the ship into energy? => +1 for an inertia-difference-power-(re)generator as power-efficient thruster

 

[jayman38]

Thanks, Neon. Good points. It'll take me a while to process some of it.

I saw your centre of mass topic and wanted to ponder it a while. I need to think about it before saying anything and proving myself a fool. I think you may have to switch from Integer math to floating point math, for the upcoming change to block mass (different blocks will have different mass, if I read correctly). This may change, and I may have been mistaken, but a block may add only 0.05 mass to the structure, instead of the current 0.1 mass for all blocks. Not the biggest deal ever, but it may make the solution slightly more intensive. Again, I'll think about it.

To clarify my point about thrusting pointing in different directions, I think that if you pilot the ship as normal, it would work like it does now, and the thruster blocks would work normally, regardless of their direction. However, the turning, the angled thrusting, and the lateral thrusting would be unique to logic-driven systems, so that multiple people would have to activate logic blocks or otherwise affect the logic system to active thruster groups. In short, it would be an entirely different movement mode from the default core-piloting mode that we have now. This would be a lot of fun for group role-play. "Ensign Johnson, turn hard left! Ensign McCormack, full reverse! Ensign Chekov, drop us down 200 meters!"

I find the concept of using step-activation blocks for this kind of thing amusing. It would be like a mega-scaled version of Dance Dance Revolution.

Of course, there may be other ways to use a logic-driven thrust system, but I'm excited by the role-play possibilities and can't think of anything else clearly until I get over this excitement. (Not enough brain power to process several projects plus this concept all at once. Must install more brain cores!)

 

[jayman38]

For turning, please no thrusters.
You can turn an object in space clockwise by creating a counter-clockwise rotation inside the ship.
(the overall-rotation of mass*speed^2 sums up to 0)

Afaik objects which rotate very fast have a higher weight. Why should advanced space ships not use this strategy to spare energy blown into space for only 50% of that energy as thrust to the ship?

Real spaceships would probably benefit greatly from giant, massively dense gyroscopic structure as opposed to blowing reaction mass off into space. Even if it's not as massive as the rest of the ship, it's just a matter of rotating the gyroscope as many times as is needed to get the rest of the ship to react in the opposite direction. So for instance if it takes a million newtons to turn the gyroscope once, and a million-million newtons to turn the ship once, you could probably turn the ship with the gyroscope by spinning it a million times. It might take a while, but with constant acceleration, you could probably get to a million turns pretty quickly.

It would be an interesting game mechanic, if when power cores are arranged in a large group that simulated a closed loop, it provided a small turning bonus around that axis, by assuming that the reaction mass/fuel cells/whatever were spinning as a torus inside the loop to support turning the ship. I'm still reeling from your CoM equations, so the math is beyond me at this moment. But it would be a neat bonus, nonetheless.

 

[NeonSturm]

If you have magnetic super-fluids, the mass of this device would not matter.
You could pump infinite energy into it as long as the materials can hold up against the inner pressure on the outer wall.
More than that, you maybe be able to redirect the flow through magnetic fields from a clockwise rotating flow in the upper channel on the inside of the outward hull into a counter-clockwise rotating channel below, preserving inertia.

EDIT Back to topic:

I guess the op is suggesting something similar to a customizable simplified HUD (cockpit) rendered onto a block, which btw would be a good idea bad explained.

A good idea because it is difficult to label logic blocks (here done by a symbol) and have them all accessible.
logic blocks take away a lot of space...

I guess the linking to logic blocks caused the disagree?

 

[Snk]

A customizable HUD block is pretty much what I want. What the whole point of this suggestion is a way to control your ship from outside the core, I just felt logic was a good way to do it. And I mean, you put all the symbols on one logic blocks, not several. You can press c on each individual symbol on the screen.

 

[jayman38]

Sorry, it looks like I was way off base regarding the core point. I'll keep daydreaming. Carry on.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Dampening off + thrusters + overdrive modules + logic + disintegrators = torpedo !

Spoiler: Side note:

No dampening isn't that problematic, if you leave your ship it obviously will be, but then you should be more careful. And if you ever accidentally hit an asteroid, just fly to where the asteroid is headed, turn to the asteroid, it should be heading your way by then, and keep breaking till it doesn't move (it works, I tried and did it).

 

[testkil]

i agree with the dynamic thrusters problem :
would take mutch time to code for the poor schema

but would like to have somthing like this xD