Rail ideas, brainstorms, and thoughts.

[PIE_OF_DOOM]

This is just a collection of ideas and thoughts about rails and things to add or change about them. This is including turrets in this which will be my first points. If you have any ideas to add go ahead and add them.
Also of note is that extra past the main point is what I think would work well with the main premise.

Point 1: Ship Cores should be able to act like a rail docker only when it comes to rail turret axis. (below 50 mass)

Now before you say it will make the rail docker obsolete there are some conditions.

• The mass docked must be lower then 50 mass as mass enhancers will not work for turrets without rail docker. (It will not even attempt to dock if docking with a core that has >50 mass.)
• The core has to be added in advance build mode or in the shipyard. This could be done by selecting a rail turret docker and telling it to add just a core in the orientation you want or a pre-built turret or turret part.
• The AI of turret will aim from core unless you attach a camera to the gun barrel and have it slaved to the core or AI. (optional)
• Core and or rail docker docked in this way can not be undocked (unless its attached the main ship) and when destroyed it stays attached to the ship or turret base.(expanding on this point the barrel will not be physically destroyed (but will no longer work when it reaches the point where it would be destroyed) but just look damaged and partly transparent in till the turrets HP(base and barrel) hits the point when it would overheat. The part of the barrel that is non functional will not stop projectiles any more.)
• The turret base must be docked with a rail docker still to the main ship. (This is so the complete turret can be removed at will but not have the gun just float off. If there was a delay when you undock a turret then we may not need this part.)
• When turret HP reaches the point that it would over heat instead of over heating it will blow up. (This would apply to the full turret. If the base over heats but the barrel is fine the full turret will still blow up.)

Now any turret or turret part above 50 mass would need to use a rail docker.
The reasons for this idea is to allow for more PD turret ideas that may be restricted by the fact of there being to many redundant parts. I'm choosing the core instead of the rail docker because I'm saving a special thing for rail docker which I will talk about in a bit.

Point 2: Can just use a rail docker (no core) when attaching a moving part to a ships or stations rail system.(example elevators.)

Here are the conditions for this part.

• Can't do this on rail turret axis.
• Entity is consider a part of the physical ship or station and will get full shield and armor protection. It will also contribute full shields and armor protection.
• Energy generation on part will contribute to ship like if you had built it on ship to begin with. (still have to build legit docked reactors with cores.)
  
• Any power axis or weapons on part that are touching a ships weapon or power trees count towards them. This is only the case when it is not moving thou it will act like a independent power tree in the mean time. (In the case of weapons it would only connect if it is flush with weapon part on ship and connected on same computer. power use from groups would change accordingly. Think of an X-wings lasers that when closed it will shoot 2 higher powered lasers and when wings are open it would shoot 4 lower powered lasers. When wings are moving lasers are disabled.)
  
• Can't undock entity from ship if it dose not have a core as it is consider a part of the ship.
• As hinted in an above point you can have weapons connected to a computer on the main ship. The weapon outputs would be what you set at each stopping position or it picks a default setting.
• Can only add rail docker directly without a core to a rail system in advance build mode or in a ship yard and when you do you get the option of just adding the docker and building the rest or take a pre-built structure blueprint and added to the ship.(mostly a ship yard option) You can also just design structures in a shipyard by adding a rail docker instead of a core to the core anchor, thou you can't actually build them without a ship for it to dock to. You can also save the design in advance build mode if you select the rail docker and select an option to save.(meant for stations.)
• You can switch from one rail system to another but you first have to use a secondary rail docker on the entity and dock it to the other rail system. Then you can undock from the first. This still means that you can not undock the entity from the ship. (probable should not be able to do this trick between 2 different ships unless anyone can think on how to balance that.)
• The docks are still effected by mass.
• Logic can directly be connected to the parts without wireless logic as the part should never leave the ship.
• Entity's only using a rail docker can not shoot the mother ship so you have to still use a core on docked reactors. (docked reactors count as a docked ship not a physical part of the ship.)
• We can still use a rail docker and a core for docked ships and reactors. (current system is still in place)
• Can't place a faction module on this entity. This is to prevent super armor. (one faction module per core.)

Cool thing about this idea is that it would allow for legit transforming or mech ships that don't have to use logic fired weapons on the moving parts. (thou weapons would be disabled when part is moving and you still need to use logic to move the part.) Also legit cranes.

Point 3: Entity's that undock when moving on a rail keep there speed in the direction they where going. (conservation of momentum.)

Some point for this below.

• Allow the rail speed controller to also attach to mass enhancers which would increases the speed and acceleration that the object will move on the rail to a percentage above the server max speed. The percentage increases and acceleration would depend on the mass of the object on the rail, the number of mass enhancers, and the length of the rail. If you want to reach higher speed you need to not only need to have a long rail but also a lot of enhancers. The longer the rail the more time the object has to accelerate but also the more mass enhancers the more acceleration per rail. (up to a max of 2 (value can change) enhancers per rail) (think rail gun physics)
• The longer the object is accelerating on the rail the more power is used.
• The more enhancers the more power is used but the power use is less then a longer rail. (2 enhancers per a rail would give best power use.)
• Only objects with cores could use this. (The point 2 objects do not get a speed boost.)

This would allow for rail guns, high speed elevators, or fighter launchers. (like whats on aircraft carriers)
The speed of the object would slow down over time based on the magical star-made space drag. push effect will only slow down the drag and maintain the server max speed once there.


If you have any ideas add them but plez don't say no because of imbalance or personal dislike but instead add constructive solutions. And for the love of god plez read the full thread properly before you comment and don't dis's the thread because you don't like how I presented it. I expect maturity on the subject. I'm trying to brainstorm the ideas so I want solutions to problems and not apocalypse theory's.

I'm ok with this thread being moved to the suggestions page if the admins think it should go there.

AND GO :D

 

[GRHayes]

I would like to see where rails can be connected across more than one object. Example a ship docks to a space station. Then rails can be used to load and unload various things. Such as maybe a tray of chests or just for looks as to make it look like the place has an actual work going on and purpose. Or maybe I would like to load in and out different modules for changing the ships setup.