Recognized Thrust Profiles & Race Classes

[ToasterBorst]

Given recent news I should add that this was posted before any of those elected knew the news and is solely me making good to my twitch viewers on bringing one of our on-going discussions there to the forums to see it further evolved by the greater StarMade community.

jayman38: This could create another facet of the player economy on servers, I dig it! Hope we can get some more input on this topic and see what people think.

Lord_Greyscale: ikr... us weirdos and our love of planetary racing. Blueprint association with a thrust profile is a huge point though, thank you for adding it to the discussion!

TheWurm: The size of the race gate restricting racers is an interesting point, but really does not account for mass or internal systems. Most racing has classes, there is racing in the game and the discussion from twitch was essentially that a class system could improve it; as well, that a thrust profile system could drastically improve the thrust management system regardless of what happens with racing. Comments continue when responding to kiraen.

kiraen: To answer you, I have to specifically cite skid-racing and its important to note that the potential and scope of racing in StarMade is much more complex than this one sport. That said, in Skid racing the majority of your momentum is lost in friction to the track. The slightest bit of up/down can not only give you a big advantage over the other racers, but completely kills the feel of the sport. To allow any to configure their thrust as they wish and just say don't go too high just evolves into a class of racing with small ships hovering just over the surface of a track; though don't get me wrong, that does sound interesting. I should add, your out-of-bounds pulse cannon array sounds hilariously entertaining.

 

[Criss]

IIRC the conclusion some councilors and team members had come to was that the thrust profiles would activate upon entering a race. It would be an option for the race computer and that it probably shouldn't let you disable to profile or alter it until the race is complete. It is low on the priority list, however it is a great idea and as such we can keep it in mind for when we have time.

 

[Ghent96]

The whole thrust nerf in general needs to go away. Thrust profiles or directional thrust is fine, but I think it should be based on which orientation you lay down the thruster blocks. Then, it's static per ship, per design. You can tell by looking at your ship or your competition how it will roughly perform. Do away with the thrust window and let us just do it via block orientation.

As is, under the thrust nerf 2 patches ago, small ships have been disproportionately hurt just as much if not more than large ships. Small ships need more love, not a thrust nerf or a speed nerf. Small ships from before the thrust nerf that had amazing acceleration now are crap, sluggish, slow... they're totally different, and their mass hasn't changed. That's not good.

Lastly, top speed should be static, never determined by thrust. This is just obvious. Thrust and mass determine acceleration, which just means you hit your top speed faster or slower.

 

[jgames666]

The whole thrust nerf in general needs to go away. Thrust profiles or directional thrust is fine, but I think it should be based on which orientation you lay down the thruster blocks. Then, it's static per ship, per design. You can tell by looking at your ship or your competition how it will roughly perform. Do away with the thrust window and let us just do it via block orientation.

As is, under the thrust nerf 2 patches ago, small ships have been disproportionately hurt just as much if not more than large ships. Small ships need more love, not a thrust nerf or a speed nerf. Small ships from before the thrust nerf that had amazing acceleration now are crap, sluggish, slow... they're totally different, and their mass hasn't changed. That's not good.

Lastly, top speed should be static, never determined by thrust. This is just obvious. Thrust and mass determine acceleration, which just means you hit your top speed faster or slower.

I do believe that having thrust based on the direction of the thruster would be nice, but I believe having a top speed in space for thrusters is limiting to say the least. I think the maximum speed should be based on a mass to thrust ratio. The bigger the ship the more thrust it needs. Each ship would have their own max speed, and there is no discrimination in whether a ship is big or small.

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

I think the maximum speed should be based on a mass to thrust ratio. The bigger the ship the more thrust it needs. Each ship would have their own max speed, and there is no discrimination in whether a ship is big or small.

To varying degrees, what you've just described is the current system.

Sure, the top-end speeds are all Massively influenced by server speed, but it's Waaaaaay better than the hard-limit that server speed used to be.

Each ship does, at the moment, have their own max speed determined mostly by their Thrust/Mass ratio.

Bigger ships DO currently need more thrusters than smaller ships, due to diminishing returns per thruster block.
(or are you meaning something slightly different? this might be a mis-communication.)

Aside from the Total mass, and the diminishing returns per thruster, there currently IS no discrimination between Big and small ships.
(or, are you saying they should toss the Diminishing returns? Because, that's part of what's making this a game with newtonian physics, NO-one can get infinite thrust. Oh, and just in case you were thinking that and really didn't know, the game looses its puny silicon mind when ships get above a certain speed, relative to the ship's size. [the bigger they are, the lower this "wiggy" speed is])

 

[jgames666]

Aside from the Total mass, and the diminishing returns per thruster, there currently IS no discrimination between Big and small ships.
(or, are you saying they should toss the Diminishing returns? Because, that's part of what's making this a game with newtonian physics, NO-one can get infinite thrust. Oh, and just in case you were thinking that and really didn't know, the game looses its puny silicon mind when ships get above a certain speed, relative to the ship's size. [the bigger they are, the lower this "wiggy" speed is])

I was just meaning I like the way thrust is done in the current system, Also I love having the config option. (I set mine to about 50% increased max speed than the default) Just I would like it to be based on the direction that the thrusters are facing like in the comment I was replying to. The diminishing returns is a good thing because it makes small efficient ships buffed in a sense.