How should starmade generate thrust?

[PreparationsA-G]

Interpreting the Words of the All-Mighty Schema :D

Schema said:

I didn't really change anything purposefully with thrust. There may be some correcting things that have caused this (wrong calculation in another place fixed).

The calculation itself is not permanent at all and will be balanced

CyberTao and also Sven_The_Slayer ,

I could see how you might come to the conclusion that Schema was saying that the old thruster calculations were a bug and he was fixing them with what is the current thruster calculation, but to me at least, it seems like he's not really sure what caused this (and that perhaps he was not previously aware of it). It looks like he's giving a general estimate of what it could be, because he's not sure. I thought this because he said he didn't change anything "purposefully," so I would assume that would include not intentionally "fixing" the old thruster calculation (and replacing it with this new one), which would hint at it being unintentional (and a bug). Also he said there may be some correcting things that have caused this. This wording made me lean towards the idea that he's not really sure if that's what caused it (like I said, sounds to me like he was spit-balling). But I would definitely not jump to the conclusion that the whole previous thruster system was (indeed) a bug, and now this new one is what it was supposed to be all this time.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I love that people keep quoting what schema said to me to me

Now he does state that these calculations will change but I think that's more in line with the future thrust changes where you distribute thrust into the various directions.

 

[PreparationsA-G]

Ohhhh... Yeah you're probably right, that's the only part of his statement that I couldn't really "figure out" (the last part that is).

Oh- and also: Sven, you said that the best we could do was to keep posting and hope the thread gets noticed, but couldn't we just pm (or "conversation") Schema directly?

-Prep :D

 

[der_scheme]

Or we simply do this: schema

 

[Trafalgar]

I'm going to bet that it was a mistake with refactoring into similarly named functions and then calling the wrong one.

 

[NeonSturm]

I would like "thrust vs FTL"
Ships which favour FTL will have less sub-light boni and vice versa.

I would encourage designs which disallow too many vitals next to each other, so ppls can build Role-Play ships with interior and are not that much apart from Borg Battle-cubes.

I would count non-vitals connected to only thrusters as vitals also toward thrusters. Hull next to a thrusters will also be a thruster.
At least to some extend to encourage hull on small ships.


My formula would be similar to:

• powerEfficiency = thrusterArray.blockCount / ship.blockCount + array.longestAxis^1.025
  
• thrustEfficiency = 1.025^density(( (thrusterArray(.x*.y*.z) - x*y*z of intersection with other thruster arrays) / thrusterArray.blockCount )) * thrusterArray.blockCount

It will encourage large thrusters for power efficient setups.
It will encourage low density for thrust efficient setups thus encouraging empty space in ships (better cooling with bigger surface)


I know, I had other approaches earlier, but now I see the importance of ships with interior. I see the importance of thruster-empty space (and space empty of vital parts)

 

[MineCatFTW]

I would like "thrust vs FTL"
Ships which favour FTL will have less sub-light boni and vice versa.

I would encourage designs which disallow too many vitals next to each other, so ppls can build Role-Play ships with interior and are not that much apart from Borg Battle-cubes.

I would count non-vitals connected to only thrusters as vitals also toward thrusters. Hull next to a thrusters will also be a thruster.
At least to some extend to encourage hull on small ships.


My formula would be similar to:

• powerEfficiency = thrusterArray.blockCount / ship.blockCount + array.longestAxis^1.025
  
• thrustEfficiency = 1.025^density(( (thrusterArray(.x*.y*.z) - x*y*z of intersection with other thruster arrays) / thrusterArray.blockCount )) * thrusterArray.blockCount

It will encourage large thrusters for power efficient setups.
It will encourage low density for thrust efficient setups thus encouraging empty space in ships (better cooling with bigger surface)


I know, I had other approaches earlier, but now I see the importance of ships with interior. I see the importance of thruster-empty space (and space empty of vital parts)

This would be very interesting, both for balancing and roleplay. You could have transports that are slow sublight but really fast FTL, or fighters that are super fast sublight but next to no FTL.

 

[Elit3]

This would be very interesting, both for balancing and roleplay. You could have transports that are slow sublight but really fast FTL, or fighters that are super fast sublight but next to no FTL.

Or transports that are slow overall, so they can take as much cargo as possible.

 

[MineCatFTW]

Time is money when transporting stuff, so it would make the most sense to have as fast an FTL as possible. But it would be largely up to player design, which is the best part of both this idea and StarMade.

 

[Trafalgar]

Time is money when transporting stuff

Sure, if you can make the same cargo ship go faster, you can make a trade run faster, but you would have to ask yourself which is more efficient in terms of delivering cargo per unit time: Adding another FTL drive block, or adding another plexstorage? It would depend on how the FTL was implemented, and if the FTL drives made the ship go faster, would likely depend on the ship's design and various factors.

If we assume that the FTL system is a warp drive and that (FTL blocks / mass) is directly and linearly correlated with maximum FTL speed, then:

• You have a tiny ship, made of 80 storages, 1 core, 10 power, 4 thrusters, and 5 FTL for a total of 100 blocks. Adding another 80 storage will take the mass from 10 to 16, making the FTL drive less efficient (from 5% of the blocks to 0.0277...%). Cargo-delivering efficiency (storageBlocks * ftlBlocks / totalBlocks) goes from 4 to 4.444.... Which is a slight increase.
• If you add 80 FTL instead of 80 storages, efficiency goes to (80*85/180) = 37.77777.
• If, on the other hand, you have a 60,000-block ship, with 10 storage blocks, and 6000 FTL blocks, then your cargo delivering efficiency is (10*6000 / 60000) = 1.0 to begin with:
• Adding 80 storage blocks increases it to (90*6000 / 60080) = 8.99.
• Adding 80 FTL blocks instead increases it to (10*6090 / 60080) = 1.014.
• I ignored the issue of how far away particular destinations would be or how fast FTL would actually go on the assumption that if it scaled linearly it would be predictable enough to determine efficiency like this, but didn't attempt to prove it.

So you can see how it would depend on your ship configuration (if I haven't made a mistake).

But if you're using jumpgates it's a moot point since they probably aren't even on the ship that's jumping.

 

[Winterhome]

Alternately, massive ships carrying dockable cargo containers with external FTL drives in addition to normal sublight drives. Amazing FTL speed, crap sublight, moderate shielding, and few weapons.

 

[NeonSturm]

Who needs weapons if you can either run away or die to a tiny battle-cube, medium-fighter?

It also depends on how accurate your FTL drive is. If it puts you into the middle of a sector, you also need sublight to get to the shop.

I think the best combo would be a FTL ship without or just a few storages for things you wanna keep with you, but with a dock for a small sublight trading ship.

• separate the weight of FTL and greater power-supply/storage from your sublight capabilities, thus need less sublight thrusters (=mass) thus require a smaller ship.
• add the ability to quickly exchange your cargo with a station, fit through smaller doors with your cargo-shuttle.
• respect the 500-mass limit for landing shuttles rules on some servers much easier
• ...
• The advantage from weight separation increases if many shops are in the same sector and the main ship has turrets and more shields too.
• It will give you a possible escape ship with perma-jam and black hull when you can't have it on your fastFTL-capable ship.

 

[PreparationsA-G]

Schemadyne 8900 Plex Subject Re-Alignment Beam

*ahem* <-- (ice-breaker)
Wow, well, though the conversation on the whole FTL thing seems very interesting and all (really it does), and the original post (that started this whole FTL discussion) wasn't really tooooo off-topic, I can't help but feel like we've gotten distracted from the slightly more pressing matter that was being discussed a few posts ago (namely the whole "is-this-new-thrust-calculation-thing-on-purpose-cuz-if-no-then-I'd-love-to-get-rid-of-it" issue).

It's not that the what was (just) being discussed wasn't good stuff, or that I think FTL doesn't matter, or that I just don't like this new topic/focus, it's just that the whole "is-this-new-thrust-calculation-thing-on-purpose-cuz-if-no-then-I'd-love-to-get-rid-of-it" issue has been a bit of a pain in my side ever since I first got severe whiplash (in my side?) from the unexpected sudden lurch forward of my Vulcan-Class Heavy Starfighter at a whopping 41.4 thousand thrust (previously 2.6), and I would love to expedite the process of getting it (the maybe-bug) worked out.

Again, no offense.
Now, as to what was previously being discussed:
der_scheme Good idea. (I feel like you just activated the Schemadyne Plex 3000 Vigilante Notifier) Hope he sees this soon so I can have working ships again (in the near future).

Hoping not to offend anyone (and to get his ships and/or side fixed),
-Prep :D

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

So I've had plenty of time to play with the new thrust mechanic and I have to say I've come to terms with it. Creating ships with proper thrust is easy and intuitive if you know what you are doing. Can you create extremely powerful engines using very little thrusters? Sure, but this doesn't come without risk. Losing a single block from one of these high efficiency thrusters in a battle would be extremely detrimental and may simply cripple your ship. There is also the power considerations, the more thrust you have the more power you need. Sure requiring less thrusters as a whole makes it a little easier to power ships but the thrust keeps going up as the gains from thust eventually plateaus.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

I think both equations just plain overcomplicate thrust. Make it solely based on the number of thrusters and your thrust scales the same as ship mass. Both the current and old system made it so that clever designs could squeeze out ridiculous amounts of thrust; you might say that being rewarded for cleverness is good, but really it's just putting constraints on builds in a very artificial way that doesn't really cause us to gain anything. Space Engineers has shown us what a simple system based off number of thrusters (and position and direction...but that's not going to happen in StarMade obviously) can accomplish with ship scalability.
Personally, I think the current thruster system is a tad ridiculous. The smallest vessel I can make with a decent interior (imagine a frigate from EVE, that was basically what I was going for and I did end up correct on dimensions for that class of ships) ends up with incredibly overpowered engines even if I barely try to optimize them.