Ship Turning Mechanics make NO sense whatsoever!

[Valiant70]

The current turning system is really hurting the playability of the game. For one thing, it makes NO sense. None. Zero. Zip. Notta. Less sense than a Koala driving a Smart Car with no engine around in a ferry boat in the middle of the ocean somewhere off the coast of Antarctica in the middle of a hurricane while drinking vodka from a cologne bottle shaped like a banana.

On top of that, its impeccable illogic makes ships very hard to design because it's so hard to tell what shape turns well. On top of that, I think it has changed (gotten more bugs?) in recent versions.

This is less of a suggestion for a specific system, and more of a request for an immediate temporary fix. Please make the turning system logical and consistent or give us a mass-based turning system until something better can be devised. This really hurts the playability of the game and needs to be addressed immediately.

EDIT:

What turning system do you mean?
Turning the ship or turning the blocks when building?

Turning the ship.

EDIT #2: Someone gave me an idea.

While I definitely agree that thrust to mass ratio should factor in (since we don't have a gyro or RCS block), I don't think it should be everything, and it should scale with mass as well.

To reiterate, I just came up with an idea based on your idea and it's like this:

1. Ships get lower turn rate based on increasing mass, and decreasing thrust-to-mass ratio.
2. The mass factor is considerably smaller and must be server-configurable (magnitude, upper and lower threshold) to balance different configs
3. The thrust-to-mass ratio has less need for configurability. It's more for influencing ship styles and less for balancing different weight classes. The multiplier should still be configurable though.
4. Leave boxdims out of it. A properly designed maneuvering thrust system will counter moment of inertia differences and all this does is cramp ship style by making some shapes superior to others. (FYI I'm a realism junkie, but this nonsense has gone far enough!)

 

[jayman38]

Yes.

Ships need to be at least a certain minimum mass to be useful, and by the time they reach that mass, they are already starting to slow down.

Survivable in a pvp environment? Even bigger and slower to turn.

 

[gravypod]

I think engines should require more strategic placement than 10x10x10 cubes. You should be able to face thrusts to get rotational thrust. That would be the best thing in my opinion.

 

[Honytawk]

What turning system do you mean?
Turning the ship or turning the blocks when building?

 

[jayman38]

What turning system do you mean?
Turning the ship or turning the blocks when building?

...On top of that, its impeccable illogic makes ships very hard to design because it's so hard to tell what shape turns well....

We're talking about turning the ship.

 

[Valiant70]

Here's what it's doing right now. It's boxdim based.

Increasing length reduces roll and yaw.
Increasing width reduces yaw and pitch.
Increasing height reduces roll and pitch.

In this version, the best ships are tall and long, and somewhat longer than tall (due to screen dimensions affecting turn rate).

Can anyone explain any logic into this whatsoever?

 

[NeonSturm]

Ships need to be at least a certain minimum mass to be useful, and by the time they reach that mass, they are already starting to slow down.

Do we think about the same definition of "useful"? I think computers, are just too large in very small ships

If you ask me, ships should not have less than x blocks. Or else they shouldn't count as ships (perhaps space-bikes or space-boats)
But there is the problem of some players which want very small stuff because of performance or sentimentality or player-ship size-ratio
(last also applies to me, if I want to build a puddle jumper, it should possible with about 5m not 9m in with like now?).

I think engines should require more strategic placement than 10x10x10 cubes. You should be able to face thrusts to get rotational thrust. That would be the best thing in my opinion.

Some would say, that this would hurt newbies and design choices and is not everybody's way to play.

Here's what it's doing right now. It's boxdim based.

Increasing length reduces roll and yaw.
Increasing width reduces yaw and pitch.
Increasing height reduces roll and pitch.

Why does increasing length reduce yaw? WTF1
Why does width reduce yaw? WTF2
why does height reduce roll and pitch? WTF3​

It should be like:

Pitch (around x/width) = (36° /tick) / (height * length) ^reasonablePow
Roll (around z/length) = (36° /tick) / (width * height) ^reasonablePow
Yaw (around y/height) = (36° /tick) / (width * length) ^reasonablePow​

Everything else is plain stupid and non-intuitive.

EDIT: To not make doom-cubes better than RP ships, you have to do above with

width, height, length = mass^(2/3)
area = mass^(1/3)
The sum or product of results should be equal.​

 

[Valiant70]

Why does increasing length reduce yaw? WTF1
Why does width reduce yaw? WTF2
why does height reduce roll and pitch? WTF3
It should be like:
Pitch (around x/width) = value / (height * length)
Roll (around z/length) = value / (width * height)
Yaw (around y/height) = value / (width * length)
Everything else is plain stupid and non-intuitive.

Exactly... It's either a glitch or someone at Schine was coding on no sleep.

 

[mrsinister]

I said it before in another turning thread or many....lol, but an easy way for this, quite possibly, is to use the thrust to mass ratio.
If you happen to go over mass with thrust it could increase turning by 1/8th or 1/16th till you achieve double thrust over mass for a full turn rate around the size of a heavy fighter. It would still be difficult for really massive ships to attain the max 100% (turn like a heavy fighter) turn rate since thrust output has diminishing returns, especially for massive ships.

 

[Valiant70]

I said it before in another turning thread or many....lol, but an easy way for this, quite possibly, is to use the thrust to mass ratio.
If you happen to go over mass with thrust it could increase turning by 1/8th or 1/16th till you achieve double thrust over mass for a full turn rate around the size of a heavy fighter. It would still be difficult for really massive ships to attain the max 100% (turn like a heavy fighter) turn rate since thrust output has diminishing returns, especially for massive ships.

While I definitely agree that thrust to mass ratio should factor in (since we don't have a gyro or RCS block), I don't think it should be everything, and it should scale with mass as well.

To reiterate, I just came up with an idea based on your idea and it's like this:

1. Ships get lower turn rate based on increasing mass, and decreasing thrust-to-mass ratio.
2. The mass factor is considerably smaller and must be server-configurable (magnitude, upper and lower threshold) to balance different configs
3. The thrust-to-mass ratio has less need for configurability. It's more for influencing ship styles and less for balancing different weight classes. The multiplier should still be configurable though.
4. Leave boxdims out of it. A properly designed maneuvering thrust system will counter moment of inertia differences and all this does is cramp ship style by making some shapes superior to others. (FYI I'm a realism junkie, but this nonsense has gone far enough!)

 

[mrsinister]

While I definitely agree that thrust to mass ratio should factor in (since we don't have a gyro or RCS block), I don't think it should be everything, and it should scale with mass as well.

To reiterate, I just came up with an idea based on your idea and it's like this:

1. Ships get lower turn rate based on increasing mass, and decreasing thrust-to-mass ratio.
2. The mass factor is considerably smaller and must be server-configurable (magnitude, upper and lower threshold) to balance different configs
3. The thrust-to-mass ratio has less need for configurability. It's more for influencing ship styles and less for balancing different weight classes. The multiplier should still be configurable though.
4. Leave boxdims out of it. A properly designed maneuvering thrust system will counter moment of inertia differences and all this does is cramp ship style by making some shapes superior to others. (FYI I'm a realism junkie, but this nonsense has gone far enough!)

I understand, I was just offering up my 2 cents, that and I hate the fact that one of my vessels takes forever to turn when it's not supposed to, especially when recreating one from a t.v. series and it's not even all that large....lol In reality though, it all boils down to us playing the waiting game for the Devs to decide if they are going the route of what was/is in the works or something else entirely.

 

[NeonSturm]

Leave boxdims out of it. A properly designed maneuvering thrust system will counter moment of inertia differences and all this does is cramp ship style by making some shapes superior to others. (FYI I'm a realism junkie, but this nonsense has gone far enough!)

EDIT: To not make doom-cubes better than RP ships, you have to do below with

width, height, length = mass^(2/3)
area = mass^(1/3)
The sum OR product of results (roll, pitch, yaw) should be equal to these below.​

It should be like:
Pitch (around x/width) = (36° /tick) / (height * length) ^reasonablePow
Roll (around z/length) = (36° /tick) / (width * height) ^reasonablePow
Yaw (around y/height) = (36° /tick) / (width * length) ^reasonablePow
Everything else is plain stupid and non-intuitive.

Added an edit. How did I forgot that?

 

[Edymnion]

Well there is some real world logic to this.

Think of an ice skater who is spinning. With her arms out, she spins slowly. When she brings her arms in closer to her torso (the axis of rotation), her spin speeds up.

Its because though her overall mass stays the same, as she moves some of it out away from the axis of rotation, it has to travel further as the circumference of the circle it forms is larger. To move a set amount of mass a greater distance requires greater energy, which in turn means a slower spin than an object of equal mass closer to the axis.

 

[Valiant70]

Well there is some real world logic to this.

Think of an ice skater who is spinning. With her arms out, she spins slowly. When she brings her arms in closer to her torso (the axis of rotation), her spin speeds up.

Its because though her overall mass stays the same, as she moves some of it out away from the axis of rotation, it has to travel further as the circumference of the circle it forms is larger. To move a set amount of mass a greater distance requires greater energy, which in turn means a slower spin than an object of equal mass closer to the axis.

In reality, I'd just increase the RCS power to compensate. Unfortunately Schine decided RCS should be metaphysical and unmodifiable. I mean, come on... Can't I peel a few of the ghosts off the sides and duct tape them to the front and back to make the ship turn like a cube?

 

[Edymnion]

Well you did ask how it made any sense at all, and it does make sense in light of the idea that the attitude control for ships is of fixed power regardless of size (which is what doesn't make as much sense).

I would personally rather have it this way than the alternative that makes the most sense, that turning be treated like acceleration. Start turning slow, turn faster the longer you do it, but that would mean it should also take that much longer to STOP turning, and I wouldn't want that.

I would support better scaling in respect to ship size. I agree that currently it goes from "fast turning" on a ship too small to care about, to beached whale in *FAR* too short of a run up.

 

[Valiant70]

Well you did ask how it made any sense at all, and it does make sense in light of the idea that the attitude control for ships is of fixed power regardless of size (which is what doesn't make as much sense).

I would personally rather have it this way than the alternative that makes the most sense, that turning be treated like acceleration. Start turning slow, turn faster the longer you do it, but that would mean it should also take that much longer to STOP turning, and I wouldn't want that.

I would support better scaling in respect to ship size. I agree that currently it goes from "fast turning" on a ship too small to care about, to beached whale in *FAR* too short of a run up.

Increasing length reduces roll and yaw.
Increasing width reduces yaw and pitch.
Increasing height reduces roll and pitch.

This is the part that needs explaining!

 

[Edymnion]

They do appear to be off compared to real life physics, if what he said is correct.

Roll - Longitudinal axis, nose to tail
Yaw - Vertical axis, up through the middle of the craft
Pitch - Lateral axis, wingtip to wingtip

Longer ship should affect pitch and yaw, but not roll.
Wider ship should affect roll and yaw, but not pitch.
Taller ship should affect roll and pitch, but not yaw.

 

[NeonSturm]

To move a set amount of mass a greater distance requires greater energy,

Not energy, Time.

 

[Valiant70]

They do appear to be off compared to real life physics, if what he said is correct.

Roll - Longitudinal axis, nose to tail
Yaw - Vertical axis, up through the middle of the craft
Pitch - Lateral axis, wingtip to wingtip

Longer ship should affect pitch and yaw, but not roll.
Wider ship should affect roll and yaw, but not pitch.
Taller ship should affect roll and pitch, but not yaw.

That's how everyone seems to think it works, but experimentation proved otherwise.

 

[Xielvanic]

What we all seem to be glossing over here or there is that this is in space, where you cant just turn a rudder and air pressure do the rest to turn a ship. sure, you can turn your engines or redirect thrust by funneling it, but in reality you turn by releasing bursts of energy in the direction you want to move away from.

it's from this that I suggest that we implement either A.) a new block which is designed specifically for applying thrust every direction but backwards. this block would be more efficient the farther away from the closest thruster and would work alongside the current turning system(which is based off of ship dimensions). simply giving you increased turning ability in relation to the number of these thrusters and the distance they are from the nearest source of thrust on your ship.

or B.) allowing you to rotate the direction of thrust coming from thrusters when you initially place them, allowing you to control if your ship is better at changing pitch and yaw vs rolling. etc.

C.) allow for all thrusters to be able to apply thrust to different directions -

all three of these also rely in finding a point in the center of your ship which would be essentially your center of balance. a ship with more thrusters (and mass) in the rear would have it's turning axis closer to the back, whereas a ship with it's thrusters (and mass) in the front, with a few in the back would notably have it's turning point farther up


tldr: thrusters and allocation of mass should be the deciding factor in turn speed.