Thrust Mechanics Explained

[Johnathan Dahmnation]

Am I the only one to disagree with the whole menu idea and percent thrust in some directions?

Let me explain:
I think this system is bad from an immersion point of view, just as the current system

Let's say I build a little shuttle with a main engine in the back and some landing engines (downward thrust) on bottom
With the planned system I set let's say 60% thrust foreward 30% downward for VTOL landing on planets and 5% both for right and left because I like to be agile. Good. Now I get shotted by a defense turret while getting off the planet and it destroyed all of my bottom thrusters.
With this logic, I am still able to use my downward thrust even if the thrusters supposed to do so are destroyed (that's so much illogic) until I change the setting or repair my shuttle. But while escaping, my overall thrust being lower, I have not as much foreward thrust as before being shot, even if my main engine (supposed to give foreward thrust) is untouched.

I feel like you don't want to get serious and manage deep thrust mechanics.
The thrust should be applied depending of the gravity center of the ship (I feel like all the ships rotate around the ship core position, why isn't there anything in the new system to change this?) so to thrust foreward (STARIGHT) with the ship on this shema I did you have to use both thrusters 1 and 2

Assuming there is no main engine in the back to do it.
Using only Thruster 1 or thruster 2 should make the ship spin (in the yaw axis) in the opposite direction.

I know it would be much harder but I think the players need SOMETHING more than just new values to catch their interest. Personnaly I haven't played this game for quite long and I don't know if I'll start it again ever with this kind of mechanics.

There has been plenty of discussion of thrust mechanics, it's just been buried under the enthusiasm surrounding FTL, for better or worse. Regarding logic surrounding thrust, the current and planned systems IMHO make no less sense than power structures which require no connection to storage and further storage that requires no connection to the systems that draw from it.

I still think the concept of "capital ship" as a distinct class is ill-advised. Just make the hyperspace drive a way to move base structures. including base structures with gates.

The creation of the distinction allows functionality to be easily restricted to one but not the other. Thus a base becomes the method of using functions balanced round the idea of not moving, such as gates, which I think should absolutely remain static, which a capital ship allows lesser functions to still be moved.

Personally I like it for that reason.

 

[EricBlank]

I also think gates should remain static. The gates, as far as I've come to understand, allow ships which lack onboard FTL drives a FTL transit system in known space between two points, kind of like a railway network. If one or both ends are aboard a jump-capable or otherwise mobile ship that gets moved around regularly, pilots looking to use that network won't know where to find a gate, or have any way of knowing where a gate might take them.

Perhaps instead allow capital ships with a specialized hyperdrive or jump drive to propel smaller craft using their drives. That itself could become an issue, though, since you're effectively giving players a way to instantly deploy an assault force right on top of an unsuspecting players base. Abuse of that could be prevented through: 1) a cool down between jumps, such that only one craft at a time can be sent. 2) an interdiction method that prevents craft from jumping into a given sector (as a defensive measure) or 3) by requiring something of the ship being sent, such as equal power input as the capital ship.

I do see a capital ship entity class being useful assuming they can provide something more than just mobile (and extremely slow) factories.

 

[starmier123]

How do I use/get Hyper Drives in the 1634 test?

 

[ltmauve]

Well, I do want the option to "warp in" additional fighters once mine start getting destroyed during combat. I'm thinking an 800m capital can support jump capability for 20-25m fighters with noticeble slowness, while if you want to warp in something 100m big you need something about 5km long. To warp in something around 800m you would need something about 75km long.

 

[Lecic]

Am I the only one to disagree with the whole menu idea and percent thrust in some directions?

Let me explain:
I think this system is bad from an immersion point of view, just as the current system

Let's say I build a little shuttle with a main engine in the back and some landing engines (downward thrust) on bottom
With the planned system I set let's say 60% thrust foreward 30% downward for VTOL landing on planets and 5% both for right and left because I like to be agile. Good. Now I get shotted by a defense turret while getting off the planet and it destroyed all of my bottom thrusters.
With this logic, I am still able to use my downward thrust even if the thrusters supposed to do so are destroyed (that's so much illogic) until I change the setting or repair my shuttle. But while escaping, my overall thrust being lower, I have not as much foreward thrust as before being shot, even if my main engine (supposed to give foreward thrust) is untouched.

I feel like you don't want to get serious and manage deep thrust mechanics.
The thrust should be applied depending of the gravity center of the ship (I feel like all the ships rotate around the ship core position, why isn't there anything in the new system to change this?) so to thrust foreward (STARIGHT) with the ship on this shema I did you have to use both thrusters 1 and 2

Assuming there is no main engine in the back to do it.
Using only Thruster 1 or thruster 2 should make the ship spin (in the yaw axis) in the opposite direction.

I know it would be much harder but I think the players need SOMETHING more than just new values to catch their interest. Personnaly I haven't played this game for quite long and I don't know if I'll start it again ever with this kind of mechanics.

I prefer the current/planned system. It'd be a massive pain to have to arrange thrusters into the exact direct we wanted them to go.

 

[NeonSturm]

I would like settings only change-able in shipyards. I dislike the ability to change these settings on demand.

It'd be a massive pain to have to arrange thrusters into the exact direct we wanted them to go.

It is also a huge pain to put your core in the mass centre of a ship.

And sometimes it would be right in the middle of your door between cargo bay and bridge on a shuttle.

Having the core not in the centre is very ugly if you want to align on gates or tunnels to a hangar.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

The ship turning mechanics need changing: why doesn't it turn around the center of mass? Scratch that, having it turn around the center of the box dimentions of the ship would work too. And ship turning speed really shouldn't be calculated with the boxdim of ships, but with the mass. That will make larger, lighter ships just as good and possibly even better than cubes.

 

[BillGHero]

Let me para-phrase the gist of this post to make sure I am understanding it correctly:

--It is intended that propulsion will become less efficient as it is scaled up.--

I think this will hurt the game in the long run. There are a lot of people who love this game because Starmade aims to do what no other sci-fi sim has ever done before (as far as I am aware); an MMO experience without arbitrary limitations.

Yet, at the moment, both power and propulsion scale up less efficient. I assume this is meant to keep ships to a manageable size? Maybe keep the user experience positive and grow the support base? Yet it works against the long-term goals of the game. Because big ships are actually more efficient in both real life and sci-fi. You trade maneuverability and acceleration for the ability to have more than just an engine in the thing.

That's the rub, isn't it? In both real life and sci-fi nearly everything becomes more efficient as you scale it up. That's the only reason why we have massive ships in real life. It's also why there are massive ships in most sci-fi. Without this basic engineering principle, a kind of economy of scale, larger ships don't make sense.

So, if you continue in this direction you will have to implement what amounts to an arbitrary class system in order to support the idea of a large ship. Which would be in direct conflict with what people want out of this game.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

This isn't called a game for no reason.
On starmade we like to build big. If every would be better bigger, everyone would build bigger. Thus, in the 'long run', as you put, things would actually be a lot worse. The immersion and roleplay would be non-existent, because there wouldn't be fighters, there would be mid-sized ships, and there would be so many capitals that the game would crash on just about every server.

 

[NeonSturm]

Maybe with the new recipes we can have ships with 0.5m^3 blocks, because nobody can afford the really big ones

With more details peoples would build smaller ^^

 

[BillGHero]

This isn't called a game for no reason.
On starmade we like to build big. If every would be better bigger, everyone would build bigger. Thus, in the 'long run', as you put, things would actually be a lot worse. The immersion and roleplay would be non-existent, because there wouldn't be fighters, there would be mid-sized ships, and there would be so many capitals that the game would crash on just about every server.

Nonsense.

Servers will always have block size limits to protect against ridiculously large ships.

I just want to build a ship with it's role in mind. Small will always have it's place. Smaller means more agile and less expensive to build. Large means greater threat but much more expensive to replace. I'm not looking for a lack of limitations, just a set of natural ones that don't funnel designs away from realistic concepts.

Isn't that what everyone wants from SM? Why else would anyone play a game where damage is resolved down to the cubic meter?

 

[FunnyBunny14]

It's called an opinion for a reason. I have mine, you have yours. If you like big ships being bettter, you could probably edit some values in configs to achieve what you want. But for default starmade players should be able to start small, build a bigger ship that doesn't require too many blocks, and then build bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and each time they would need more blocks to achieve the same goal.
Ok, certain things need to be realsistic, but not everything.

To be honest, I think it would be best if everyone just waited to see how the new defensive effects will fit into the game. For example, if you can build huge ships without too many thrusters, but with a couple of push/pull/overdrive modules, nobody would really complain, and in time they will all start to see the benefit (I hope). But anyway, this is most likely going to be configurable in a few ways, so if it isn't to your liking you can always change a couple of values.

If you don't know how, and you really want it changed, you can always ask someone to help you. I would love to help you get a config that is better for you. It isn't a lot of work, but you really need to know what you are looking for, and it is rather large, so it would be understandable if you didn't know how to do it at first. But after you get the hang of it, you can do amazing things.

 

[NeonSturm]

Isn't that what everyone wants from SM? Why else would anyone play a game where damage is resolved down to the cubic meter?

There are just 4 voxel games out there:

1. Minecraft (has no space and no gates, worse logic)
   
2. StarMade
3. SpaceEngineers (only works on windows)
4. UntoldUniverse (very early alpha and requires more taxes spent for ati/nvidia graphic than I spent)

But I would really like 0.5m blocks. Every other of those games has blocks 0.5m high.
More than 4-5 per person-high are often overkill (except for interactive areas), but 2-3 per person-high lacks details. (my opinion)

 

[BillGHero]

It's called an opinion for a reason. I have mine, you have yours. If you like big ships being bettter, you could probably edit some values in configs to achieve what you want. But for default starmade players should be able to start small, build a bigger ship that doesn't require too many blocks, and then build bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and each time they would need more blocks to achieve the same goal.
Ok, certain things need to be realsistic, but not everything.
...

This thread is about our opinions concerning calbiri's original post.

We could definitely make our own thread or conversation concerning this new discussion. I would actually enjoy that.

But I will not bog down this thread with any further off-topic posts.

 

[Byamarro]

There are just 4 voxel games out there:

1. Minecraft (has no space and no gates, worse logic)
   
2. StarMade
3. SpaceEngineers (only works on windows)
4. UntoldUniverse (very early alpha and requires more taxes spent for ati/nvidia graphic than I spent)

But I would really like 0.5m blocks. Every other of those games has blocks 0.5m high.
More than 4-5 per person-high are often overkill (except for interactive areas), but 2-3 per person-high lacks details. (my opinion)

I hate how people names block-based games - a voxel games. Voxels aren't 3D models. Voxels creates 3D models. It's 3D version of pixel. There are 3 types of 3D graphics: based on polygons, based on curves and based on voxels. Starmade is based on polygons like most games.

 

[NeonSturm]

I hate how people names block-based games - a voxel games. Voxels aren't 3D models. Voxels creates 3D models. It's 3D version of pixel. There are 3 types of 3D graphics: based on polygons, based on curves and based on voxels. Starmade is based on polygons like most games.

Each 1x1 cube in Star-Made has 1 mass.
Wedges have the same memory requirements as a full block in how memory is currently handled.
You can only place 1 block per 1x1x1 m

I call a game voxel-game when you place things (whatever they will be) PER 1x1x1 cube.
I could say it is a 16x16x16 voxel-group game as each block has 16 texture pixels or say 32^3, but does this make a difference?

 

[GaeasSon]

I hate how people names block-based games - a voxel games. Voxels aren't 3D models. Voxels creates 3D models. It's 3D version of pixel. There are 3 types of 3D graphics: based on polygons, based on curves and based on voxels. Starmade is based on polygons like most games.

Yeah... it bothers me that people refer to the coax to Ethernet digital terminal adapter that provides my household internet access as a "modem". Nobody listens to me either.

 

[karkinosz]

From what I gather the block data for ships is stored in a way reminiscent of voxels but rendered as polygons. But I'm going to be honest voxel is just a buzzword and is pretty meaningless in describing the game, anyway back on topic... except discussion seems to be several tangents removed from the subject. Never mind then.

 

[Byamarro]

Each 1x1 cube in Star-Made has 1 mass.
Wedges have the same memory requirements as a full block in how memory is currently handled.
You can only place 1 block per 1x1x1 m

I call a game voxel-game when you place things (whatever they will be) PER 1x1x1 cube.
I could say it is a 16x16x16 voxel-group game as each block has 16 texture pixels or say 32^3, but does this make a difference?

It's like saying that every square is a pixel just because it looks like pixel.
Not every square is a pixel and not every cube is a voxel.

Voxel graphics is specific type of 3D graphics.

For example this game have voxel terrain and as You see it's not minecraft-like graphics:

This is animated render of 3D voxel leaf:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...a_micro_CT_scan_of_a_piece_of_dried_leaf..ogg


7 Days to Die also uses voxel based terrain:
http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk57/Feldynn/7DTD/7-5crater.jpg
It looks smooth but thanks to voxels technology You can dig in it

 

[Mariux]

I quite like these ideas, but I don't see myself using hyperdrive at all, not even on huge ships. The fact that it makes a ship completely immobile really bugs me. I'll use jumdrives instead. Also, how about instead of directly reducing thrust from factories an hyperdrive, just make their mass really, really large? That would also discourage mounting them on small ships as well.