Rails/Turrets - Would more than one connection point ever be possible?

[CrunkPrime]

One of my biggest complaints with making things out of rails, or making turrets, is how things rely on a single, tiny block to make that connection. You lose that block and your entire assembly and everything attached to it comes flying off the ship.

What I want is basically the ability to have some redundancy with joints and rails.

For example, say I have a straight line of rails, and a wall that I want to slide along that line of rails. Instead of just a single connection to that line of rails, Id like to be able to have 2, or maybe even 3 or more rail dockers attached down to that line of rails. So if 1 or even 2 gets taken out, the last one still hanging on will keep the wall in place. It obviously wouldnt work with certain designs that have to move around a complicated system of rails.

Another example would be a turret with barrels that pivot up and down on the base to aim. Right now you can only have a single connection connecting the barrels to the turret. Most people typically put this connection on the left or right side, or even in the center. This makes turrets incredibly weak in many cases, since once that single connection is gone, the turret comes flying apart. But what if you could arrange 2-3 Rail Turret Axis blocks to effectively act as a hinge, since they are all lined up along the same axis on the turret? One on each side, and one in the middle?

It would be great for building more durable ship parts that require a sturdy hinge to move parts that can take a few hits and not instantly come flying off.

Another idea I like is the ability to put down a single rail turret axis block, put other axis blocks around it in a circular shape, then slave them to it, and then selecting the center one as the "pivot point". Then doing the same with a set of Rail Dockers on the other connecting half that docks down onto it. Essentially making a jumbo sized turret dock, that will keep functioning so long as it has at least 1 block of each type left on each side of the connection. Only downside I can see is that maybe it would make turrets TOO durable and long lasting? I could see the same idea being applied to other rail parts as well to make similar jumbo sized joints for ship/station parts that you dont want coming apart very easily.

What says the mighty peasants of starmade?

 

[AnthonyAnderson]

If it helps, and this is an idea I've been building around these past few days, is that you don't actually need your axis blocks to be on your turret.. so to speak.

In another post in the discussion forum I got some help with a rotating hull turret design (Which I've now perfected and improved upon). The axis blocks are well within my ship (centered to their rotating planes), little to no risk of being caught by an AOE blast to the guns themselves, or even the main hull

http://starmadedock.net/threads/rotating-hull-turret-design-need-some-help.21508/

It takes some creative thinking when it comes to "where can I place stuff so my turret will still have full range of motion without being as vulnerable in case of emergencies"

And not sure about mighty peasant, but I like to think that my 900 mass ship looks like I know what I think I'm doing.

 

[Mork2]

Id like to have two connection as well for hinges one on each side. They would have to force it so multiple docks only worked between 2 entities only to avoid some craziness. But just thinking of how to program that in and to get it to work is boggling my mind.....I would also be worried if this caused an increase in collision calculations as that would make lag caused by turrets worse.....

These are only some in game design options that help turrets or railed entities survive longer.

To make them survive longer I usually have the first rotator and its critical systems under the main hull. So the first part of the turret in invulnerable to fire until the main shields are actually fully down. Since most of the systems are under the hull it also won't overheat from damage to the above hull part of the turret since not enough system hit points are available above the hull to overheat it.

I generally can't get around the second rotator being outside the ship though it might be possible to have it below the hull line with some kind of issues. What I usually do is if its a small turret put advanced armour on the front. If it can do over 1k ehp to take out an advanced armour block 100hp for a normal block wasn't really going to stop it. Put a shield recharger in even if it is a small turret as that adds 5.5 shield regen to the 220 shields available to the core. For larger turrets provide some shields, advanced armour on the front and around the turret axis parts, put the rotator up the back somewhere and hope.

 

[Ithirahad]

Seeing as docked entities seem to use some kind of parent/child structure, I have no idea if this is technically feasible.

 

[jayman38]

Seeing as docked entities seem to use some kind of parent/child structure, I have no idea if this is technically feasible.

First a logic-style link: Rail primary (master) -> Rail secondary (slave)
Dock the master first. Then dock the secondary. The master is in charge of how the mechanics work. If the primary mechanics separate the secondary dock from the secondary rail, that secondary connection is broken and there is no longer a "backup" rail connection. However, competent builders should make sure it stays connected. (E.g. matching mirror rails on opposite sides of a door, for instance) If the master is destroyed, the secondary becomes the master and takes over the mechanism if the secondary rail docker is still connected to the secondary rail. Simple.

 

[Valiant70]

Another possibility is a heavier, more expensive version of each rail block (or at least those used in turrets) that has the same properties as advanced armor.