Sliders and Pivots

[Kraengis]

Right now we have rails and rotators but those "just" (it's still possible to do a lot of cool things) provide simple movements : translations and rotations on one axis only.

That's were sliders and pivots can come in handy.
Basically, sliders are rails and pivots are rotators but without motors functions. An object docked to them could either move or rotate on one axis but freely, either using an external push or onboard thrusters, and would restrict all other axis of movement on the point of contact. I do say "point of contact" and not "docking point" because the entity would still be docked to an usual rail/rotator and those sliders/pivots would act as secondary dock points (could still be primary thought).

That way it would become possible to build mechanisms like these :

That could lead to 2 possible things :
- Really nice and RP looking systems (mechanic engines, cogs, pistons on hatches, ...)
- Complex movements

That last one is interesting, because by combining several pivots and sliders it become possible to move not only on one axis at a time but it would be possible to create movemets following a spline, witch will create intersting results.

In that suggestion the rail+slider would be analog to ballscrew/leadscrew/belt+linear guide systems.

Following that idea, to reward engineering and "force" to use them a concept of maximum load can be added. We have the docking enhancers, that we need to add to move faster something heavy. Additionally to them it can be said that each rail can take up to let's say 50 mass. If something heavier is trying to move on those rails, they get damage proportionnally to the moved mass until they break. So if you want to move something heavier you 'll need to add one or more sliders parrallel to the main rail that would take a part of the load, for example a mass of 100 each.

It would looks like that :

To illustrate, imagine builing a linear moving autocanon, it's pretty big so it weights 325. In that case you will need a first line of rails that will pull the canon and then 3 lines of sliders that will take on the mass load. Each slider takes 100 mass and the rail 25.
If there wereonly 2 sliders, they would take 100 each, the rail 50 and the last 75 will be distributed evenly as a surplus of load on the sliders until their blocks take enought damage (only when the canon is being moved) and get destroyed, then the surplus of load gets to the rail wich will get destroyed too but faster.

For the pivot/rotator case you would have create a long axis of spaced pivots and a single rotator and pivot's dock modules in between.


Overall it would add to SM a touch of realism to it's mechanics and getting closer to this wich would be awesome :

 

[jayman38]

I agree with the first part of this suggestion: rails and rotors that can be moved freely by external forces (astronaut or another rail element pushing against it), but I would generally avoid the second part, where forces cause damage. Combat will already destroy plenty of rail systems, and the need to build up your rails to accommodate more massive constructs will limit creativity and send the less engineering-oriented players into a migraine.

The game also needs multiple rail contacts, where the mechanism keeps running, even if one of the rails is damaged. Think: A door with rails on both sides. If you destroy one side, the door can still function, by basing its movement on the second set of rails.

 

[OfficialCoding]

This system would be great but this would probably cause monster lag and clipping and all the stuff we hate. So it's a good idea but could cause problems

 

[Captain Fortius]

Would love to have these, but they seem rather out of SM's league.
In fact, SM discourages moving parts in general, as the more entities you have on a ship, the more laggy it becomes. It's sad.
Like, does that airlock HAVE to be a separate entity? Can't it be some sort of simplified sub-grid, so I won't piss off server admins for having docked doors and elevators?

SE can handle the proposed joints, because it's all physics based, but complex mechanisms tend to put a heavy strain on the pc and the moving parts ultimately self-destruct.
In the end that game fails harder, because complex, physics based mechanisms would be one of their high selling points, but more so than SM, you're better off having a single solid piece ship, or space gods forbid, a rover - aka the thing that WILL find a way to roll over, whatever you do.

 

[Kraengis]

I agree with the first part of this suggestion: rails and rotors that can be moved freely by external forces (astronaut or another rail element pushing against it), but I would generally avoid the second part, where forces cause damage. Combat will already destroy plenty of rail systems, and the need to build up your rails to accommodate more massive constructs will limit creativity and send the less engineering-oriented players into a migraine.

The game also needs multiple rail contacts, where the mechanism keeps running, even if one of the rails is damaged. Think: A door with rails on both sides. If you destroy one side, the door can still function, by basing its movement on the second set of rails.

I didn't consider battle when I wrote that suggestion, you may be right.
Thought for casual players it would be just a migraine among many others, the first one being because of the power system

This system would be great but this would probably cause monster lag and clipping and all the stuff we hate. So it's a good idea but could cause problems

Would love to have these, but they seem rather out of SM's league.
In fact, SM discourages moving parts in general, as the more entities you have on a ship, the more laggy it becomes. It's sad.
Like, does that airlock HAVE to be a separate entity? Can't it be some sort of simplified sub-grid, so I won't piss off server admins for having docked doors and elevators?

SE can handle the proposed joints, because it's all physics based, but complex mechanisms tend to put a heavy strain on the pc and the moving parts ultimately self-destruct.
In the end that game fails harder, because complex, physics based mechanisms would be one of their high selling points, but more so than SM, you're better off having a single solid piece ship, or space gods forbid, a rover - aka the thing that WILL find a way to roll over, whatever you do.

Do you think adding a limit to how many mechanic systems of these blocks can be put per ship can solve it?
Also does it really lag a lot online when you have docked doors and such? I'm mainly playing offline up to now and most of my ships have them everywhere (I don't really like Plex stuff)

 

[Captain Fortius]

I was once contacted by an admin that the server identified one of my airlock pieces as a source of 3 seconds of lag. It's made of 10 blocks, moves back and forward on a rail. One out of a hundred or so entities that made up my ship. It wasn't even glitched into a weird position or anything.

The game's just strange like that.

 

[Kraengis]

I was once contacted by an admin that the server identified one of my airlock pieces as a source of 3 seconds of lag. It's made of 10 blocks, moves back and forward on a rail. One out of a hundred or so entities that made up my ship. It wasn't even glitched into a weird position or anything.

The game's just strange like that.

Damn, I'll have to try to minimize them in my future builds.

 

[Lone_Puppy]

Oh I so want this. I've experimented with Turret Axis for this very purpose, but of course it's not ideal.
I found that the functionality is already in the game in the Turret Axis, we just need a new block to provide it for non-turret purposes.

Then I can finally get my Steampunk designs working without tons of logic/rail hocuspokus trickery!