Remove Thrust:Mass ratio cap...

[Magrim]

...and decouple it from top speed. Mainly for ideological reasons but I do feel it could improve gameplay.

If the T:M ratio cap is removed then the cap will naturally default to the maximum amount of thruster modules a ship can power efficiently. This will allow ships ranging from slugboats to ones that achieve max speed in a near instant. In other words a player could use their entire reactor output to achieve a high acceleration rate beyond the current 2.5 t:m ratio limit. I would also like it to take the place of dimensions in determining turn rate.

Regarding top speed, I believe chambers can do a better job at handling this than thrusters. Chamber tier would give you a base speed to factor from and in order to increase nuance, I propose adding volume as a multiplier to this base speed. The greater the volume of the chamber the higher the overall top speed. A consequence of this will be larger ships will have a higher top speed, which also feels natural to me. Oversized mobility chambers would be an option for those that want the fastest ships.

Or maybe a ratio of chamber volume to ship volume would be better. Or perhaps volume isn't the way to go at all. Thoughts?

 

[Coyote27]

I'd mentioned similar thoughts a couple days ago, but your take on it is more detailed and explanatory. I'd like to add, though, that considering mass distribution for rotational acceleration - not simply total mass or where the CoM is located - would be a nice touch.

Making thrust and acceleration more realistic in physics terms is a worthy goal, not just for realism's sake or opening up more possibilities but because it's also much more intuitive and easy to understand in the first place.

 

[Magrim]

I'd like to add, though, that considering mass distribution for rotational acceleration - not simply total mass or where the CoM is located - would be a nice touch.

I wouldn't mind having something like that although it probably won't make a noticeable difference on the majority of ships and I think center of mass is close enough to realism. It would be especially cool though if it was done on the fly, during battle, with chunks of mass being blown off here and there. Those calculations tho...

Your suggestion got me thinking. What if the player was given the option to choose the axis of rotation? As long as it was within the body of the ship and wasn't a requirement, meaning the game would choose if they didn't. Might be an interesting feature. You could do it much the same way symmetry planes are handled.

Making thrust and acceleration more realistic in physics terms is a worthy goal, not just for realism's sake or opening up more possibilities but because it's also much more intuitive and easy to understand in the first place.

There are those that would argue starmade isn't a sim. I agree but I don't think this suggestion is going to take anything away from the game. like you said, it should make the thrust mechanic more intuitive and further diversify ships.

 

[Coyote27]

Your suggestion got me thinking. What if the player was given the option to choose the axis of rotation? As long as it was within the body of the ship and wasn't a requirement, meaning the game would choose if they didn't. Might be an interesting feature. You could do it much the same way symmetry planes are handled.

Nah, ships should always rotate around CoM. What I meant by "consider mass distribution" is in regards to momentum and having more mass toward the ends of a ship versus having more toward the center, and how that should reflect different values for rotational inertia on designs that are laid out differently but have the same mass and a CoM in a similar place. A dumbbell-shaped ship should not rotate as easily as a football-shaped one.

 

[Dire Venom]

Interesting idea.
I fully support anything with more acceleration/ top speed :3
My most memorable moment in starmade was when I made my ship go into negative mass (on a mp server) and accelerate up to 5260 m/s :3
Traveling at that speed was glorious, and weirdly enough there was no lag/clipping or issues. Just pure Adrenalin :D

 

[Magrim]

Nah, ships should always rotate around CoM.

I wouldn't mind being able to set rotation on the cockpit of an asymetric ship. Might make it easier flying from the pilot seat.

What I meant by "consider mass distribution" is in regards to momentum and having more mass toward the ends of a ship versus having more toward the center, and how that should reflect different values for rotational inertia on designs that are laid out differently but have the same mass and a CoM in a similar place. A dumbbell-shaped ship should not rotate as

Ah, gotcha. Good idea.

Interesting idea.
I fully support anything with more acceleration/ top speed :3
My most memorable moment in starmade was when I made my ship go into negative mass (on a mp server) and accelerate up to 5260 m/s :3
Traveling at that speed was glorious, and weirdly enough there was no lag/clipping or issues. Just pure Adrenalin :D

Hell yeah! I've heard of negative mass but never experienced it for myself. How does it work? Would make cloaking a non issue.

 

[Madman198237]

Negative mass? Did you build a warp drive with it?

 

[Dire Venom]

Hell yeah! I've heard of negative mass but never experienced it for myself. How does it work? Would make cloaking a non issue.

Was 2 years ago, but was caused while I was deconstructing one of my miners using build mode. I think a result of adding and subtracting blocks somehow resulted in a math error that when I had removed everything but the core the ship had about -20 to -40 mass or so
With That I was able to add on some thrusters and overdrive blocks + power (to take it down to -20 mass or so).
Going forward resulted in significant accelaration, however going in reverse accelerated to 5km/s + almost instantly.
The mass got fixed during a server restart and wouldn't work on BPs of it though :/

 

[rocketman221]

It makes no sense to have top speed limited by the thrust to mass ratio.
Plasma thrusters can propel a space craft to tens of km/s with tiny amounts of thrust. It just takes a long time to accelerate and they could never get it off the ground.

 

[Valck]

It makes no sense to have top speed limited by the thrust to mass ratio.
Plasma thrusters can propel a space craft to tens of km/s with tiny amounts of thrust. It just takes a long time to accelerate and they could never get it off the ground.

That may be so, but the universe isn't limited by the speed of your network connection... there are technical reasons for the speed limit. Chunk loading being one of them, client/server communications another.

 

[Madman198237]

.95c does not play well with physics engines.

 

[Magrim]

That may be so, but the universe isn't limited by the speed of your network connection... there are technical reasons for the speed limit. Chunk loading being one of them, client/server communications another.

.95c does not play well with physics engines.

I agree with both of you.

There might be some misunderstanding going on here. What I want is:

• The 2.5 t:m ratio cap to be removed.
• Thrusters to of course determine the t:m ratio and in turn control acceleration only.
• Turn speed to be only affected by the t:m ratio not by dimentions. (Possibly. I could see some issues with this.)
• Chambers to be the only limiting factor of top speed, with t:m ratio havin no affect on top speed

All of which could easily be balanced.

 

[Madman198237]

I agree with YOU.

But the lightspeed comment was too funny to pass up.

 

[Zoolimar]

But if you want to go by more realistic approach dimensions absolutely would matter to how fast you can turn. You could even check it yourself without any need to calculate it.

 

[Magrim]

I agree with YOU.

But the lightspeed comment was too funny to pass up.

Apologies

But if you want to go by more realistic approach dimensions absolutely would matter to how fast you can turn. You could even check it yourself without any need to calculate it.

Or use Coyote27's idea. I didn't think it through fully but if the cap is removed, turn speed and rotation could be affected to a greater degree, which is ultimately what I want anyway.

 

[Jarraff]

The thrust to mass ratio cap of 2.5 does not have any effect on acceleration only on top speed.
[doublepost=1506975373,1506975043][/doublepost]When the thruster system was updated to the current system there was a bug that made ships able to continually accelerate. Terrifyingly high speeds were possible.

 

[silverfoe]

I think it would be cool but have concerns of this affecting performance and glitchiness.

 

[Dire Venom]

That being said you can already increase the max speed in the server configs. Maybe an option for this as well :?

 

[Magrim]

The thrust to mass ratio cap of 2.5 does not have any effect on acceleration only on top speed.

Huh? of course it does.

I think it would be cool but have concerns of this affecting performance and glitchiness.

Why would my suggestion be any more glitchy than it is now? Maybe I'm missing something.

That being said you can already increase the max speed in the server configs. Maybe an option for this as well :?

A config option to have chambers determine top speed and acceleration only controlled by thruster output? I would accept an option for that but my suggestion is more of a fundamental change than anything else. It would be taking an arbitrary cap and make it a ship design limitation. It would be quite possible to balance so that a ship's top speed capability is no different than it is now.

 

[silverfoe]

Huh? of course it does.
Why would my suggestion be any more glitchy than it is now? Maybe I'm missing something.
A config option to have chambers determine top speed and acceleration only controlled by thruster output? I would accept an option for that but my suggestion is more of a fundamental change than anything else. It would be taking an arbitrary cap and make it a ship design limitation. It would be quite possible to balance so that a ship's top speed capability is no different than it is now.

ahh nvm, misread the suggestion, ignore my post