Hovering engine, air and life support systems - SUGGESTION

[Hugoba]

Hey there,

First at all, sorry for my poor english

Althought it was discused before in some older threats I would like to add some complexity of my idea.

There could be hover engine blocks, which:
1) works only in atmosphere/air, no effect in free space
2) adding thrust, depending of a) group size of blocks and b) block distance in the direction of block (or centre of group of block) to the closest surface (other non docked/non own entity block). The amount of thrust is bigger, when the distance is very small (1-2) and scales nonlineary.

The main suggestion is to add some possibility of making ground forces such as tanks and vehicles, which can hover 1-2m above the ground althought they are very heavy. Also add some helicopter or hovercraft, which could be lighter and hover more distance from the surface without needing thrusters to prevent falling. Also could be a nice addition for landing gears, hovering gun platforms, etc.

For preventing falling and stucking cause 1x1m hole in surface, U need more block group, which can eliminate this. For jumping over obstacles you can always add some normal thrust.

Adding air atmosfere is crucial. So we can add atmosfere to planets. The atmosphere could be homogenous with sharp end between atmosphere and space, where hovering doesn't work.

Atmosphere could:
1) Add air for working hover engine block
2) Add significant braking power. So You will slow down passing throught atmosphere and can't reach your normal vacuum top speed. Maximum speed reduction in atmosphere could be really big, for example 1/3 - 1/4 maximum vacuum speed. So you need really strong engine/mass ratio to escape planet with atmosphere.
3) When palnet is destroyed, atmosphere dissapear.
4) Atmosphere/air could be also important for growing plants, taking of helmet, etc.

Life support system block can:
1) add atmosphere/air in free space, for example in cube 9x9x9 around the block itself.
2) no need energy

So with life support system you can use hover engine in free space (moving with hovercrafts and robots in space stations and big ships). Also in future you can use it for growing plants in space.

Adding all of this could affect:
1) Ground forces on planet, which is not dependent on any wheel/track system. Including tanks, mechs, mobile turret platforms, hovercrafts, helicopter
2) Also atmosphere and its slowing effect could add advantage for these hovering entities over standart space ships
3) Force player to make specialized shuttles for transport things and stuff from planet to space
4) Adding more oportunities to add robots, small howercrafts etc. in stations/ships
5) Possible growing plants in atmosphere and taking of helmet without difficult system of presurized air (air cube 9x9x9 or radius palnet atmosphere is pretty simple mechanic for calculations)
6) Air/atmosphere could be used for slowing things in space.

Well, hope I explained the whole idea well. If anybody (especiallity devs) have any question?
Hugoba

 

[Hugoba]

I think that one problem should appear when you wanna fly low Hovers always push the whole entity to same altitude above the ground where the gravity and applied thrust of hover engine are equal. So it needs to be adjustable also

Space stations and ships needs also gravity, or the hover vehicles will pop up to the top of air

Gravity could be a nice reduction of calculations, with gravity the distance and thrust applied could be calculated due to gravity (not engine) direction. It will simply a lot of things.

Gravity and life support units could be used for pathfinding for station setries and robots. If some enemy entity pass the section with gravity and air unit and it is also conected to actual place of sentry, sentry could activate yourself and move on the path of gravity and life support units to the enemy

I found some old threat about amazing idea of planetar shielding. In short, the planetary shield is cheap and hard to destroy, also able turn off power and shields of entities which touch it. You could fire arms from inside out, but not from outside in. So you need some smaller invasion vehicles to pass throught shielding, waiting for turning on the shields and power (the more power and shield, the more time needs to restart), and attack defending forces. Hover engine could be the perfect solution not to crash on planet without power immediately.

Wohoooo, imagine these battles with invading siege hover platforoms, tanks and howercrafts... with real station sentries... and guys, howerboard could be possible with this :D

 

[rocketman221]

It would be nice if we actually had air in our ships. It seems like it would take a lot of CPU power to check if an area is sealed air tight, especially once you start taking damage in combat.
It would be cool to see the NPC crew getting sucked out into space when you blast a big hole in an enemy ship causing an explosive decompression.

 

[Hugoba]

Yes, but imho for now, when the other things have priority we can arrange this simple model with life support block and cube of air and gravity around

I think getting sucked into space isn't so funny when You are NPC crew

 

[Dire Venom]

There are hoverblocks being added in the next update which may be to your liking : )

 

[Nickizzy]

Really to your liking, and mine, and all the people who want ground vehicles. I'm gonna be messing with those when the update comes out.

 

[Hugoba]

Really to your liking, and mine, and all the people who want ground vehicles. I'm gonna be messing with those when the update comes out.

Yes, but how it will work? Any news? It will work as a gravity hovering or air hovering? How it will work in space stations/ships?

Without adequate planet protection, which makes space for those ground units and his role in PvP/faction wars, the whole concept of ground forces could be so some short joy for engineers and could be erased by one titan on orbit after few seconds

The planet protection shield could work also in stations, but not so effective and we can use already existing blocks too. For example every shield capacitator or recharger could add this protection field to the planet, but it is 10-20x more efective. As I said before it could turn off shields and power when entity touches its. The standard shield mechanic is appliend only for docked entities, so the invading forces could destroy parts of planet (including shield blocks) but the turrets, docked ships and hovering platforms have their own standard shield.

It could work the same way on station with shields 2-5x more efective and field which shape depends on number of blocks in group and its placement. So if You wanna for example big cube, protecting your station, you will need one big group of shield capacitators. If you wanna shield some long parts, shipyards, docks, etc. you need to put more smaller groups in these areas. The power of shielding will depends of total sum of blocks (capacitators, rechargers).

This concept also provide some protection of astronauts and small ships near the station. Man, I missed it a lot in the past and now I can't even imagine my virtual life in starmade without it