Stabilizer Tweaks

[Valiant70]

Currently, the most effective way of maximizing power in a long ship is to put the reactor in one end and stabilizers in the other. I'd like to at least see the reactor placed in the center of the ship, or closer to it.

In order to do that, I think there should be multiple stabilizers, up to six. I think they should work in pairs, roughly opposite each other. As long as you can draw a straight line that goes through the reactor and both stabilizers, the pair works.

The more pairs of stabilizers, the closer you can put them to the reactor. There are a maximum of three pairs for the three spatial dimensions. Thus, if the values are right, different shapes of ships should be fairly balanced against each other.

In other words, a sphere, a saucer, and a stick up with an appropriate amount of power for their size. However, once again, this relies on the distance values being set correctly.

 

[Ithirahad]

Still has an arbitrary rule (line must cross the reactor) and so wouldn't solve things. What about ships with split tails like mine? What about Star Trek's ships, where the nacelles would be perfect for stabilizers except that the reactor can almost never be right between them? What about catamaran hulls?

 

[Valiant70]

What about Star Treks ships, where the nacelles would be perfect for stabilizers except that the reactor can almost never be right between them?

You could possibly get a pair in the front and back of the secondary hull if they didn't have to be too large. It would be desirable to also have a pair in the nacelles though, so how can we get the game to recognize that as an acceptable pair? Maybe just the fact that they're across the reactor's XY plane from each other?

What about catamaran hulls?

Unless the two halves of the catamaran are very far apart, it would be more efficient to put the reactor in one half with stabilizers in fore and aft.

There are other ways to look at the concept of multiple stabilizers, too. Pairs might not be the best, although it is fairly simple. I'll think that over some more.

 

[Ithirahad]

The solution I've been mentioning occasionally is just to draw a big polygon between the centres of all the stabilizer groups on a ship. Take the volume of that polygon and the total number of stabilizers, and from those two values create a 'stabilization field strength' somehow, i.e. the maximum size of reactor it can support. Don't ask me about the actual formula, as there are plenty of people here that are far better acquainted with how various mathematical functions with those two numbers would scale.

This would probably have an optimal configuration per mass, but if balanced properly it shouldn't matter too much.

 

[Valiant70]

Alternative mechanic:
1. The more stabilizers you have, up six, the closer they can be to the reactor.
2. The closer each stabilizer is to others, the less it reduces minimum distance.

Here's a few examples of what that should do:

• If you place two stabilizers right next to each other, there's not much of any difference. You might as well have one.
• If you place two stabilizers in the ends of a long ship and the reactor in the middle, the stabilizers get the maximum bonus possible with two
• If you place six stabilizers on the faces of your Borg cube and the reactor in the center (totally not how Borg cubes work!), you get the maximum possible distance bonus.
• If you place two stabilizers on the ends of a long ship and two on short nacelles close to the reactor, the ones on the end get more bonus than the ones close to the reactor.
• If you put a reactor in the Enterprise NCC 1701's secondary hull and stabilizers in the nacelles, you'd get a decent bonus, but not as much as you would by making your own design with the nacelles straight out to the sides, as far apart as possible.

Star Trek ships are hard to emulate because they were built that way in-universe for specific reasons that don't apply in Starmade. I think we can still do okay though.

 

[NeonSturm]

I think we should be allowed 2 reactors and one acting as stabilizer for the other while deactivated.

This would allow symetrical designs at least.

 

[Valiant70]

I think we should be allowed 2 reactors and one acting as stabilizer for the other while deactivated.

This would allow symetrical designs at least.

Using an inactive reactor as a stabilizer... that's a cool idea. We still need to deal with the reactors being placed almost exclusively in nose/tail though.