Single direction thrusters

[orlandomason]

I think it would be really handy to have a thruster in the game that only produces thrust on one side but 6 times more powerful in that direction compared to the normal thruster, basically an engine that can be pointed in any direction.

 

For a start this would be helpful because you can increase the brake thrust without needing to add so many thrusters, but also when placing thrusters far away from the center of mass you can point them facing the direction that increases the roll most effectively thereby reducing the amount of thrusters needed. I think with the addition of this block you'll be able to make ships more effective by designing in a way that makes sense and looks more realistic.

 

one other suggestion (so far)

 

hull blocks should be much better,

 

to get 15hp from iron hull blocks:

30 blocks

191 tons

$42

19 iron

+1.88 MW required energy

+0.6s hyperspace cooldown

 

to get 15hp from iron armour blocks:

8 blocks

85 tons

$4

8 iron

+0 MW required energy

+0.3s hyperspace cooldown

 

why would I use hull blocks?

[Thundercraft]

I think it would be really handy to have a thruster in the game that only produces thrust on one side but 6 times more powerful in that direction compared to the normal thruster, basically an engine that can be pointed in any direction.

 

I agree, this would be useful.

 

Indeed, considering how broken thrusters currently are, I wonder if it would be better to replace the way thrusters work now with a single-direction thruster. Players would have to learn to use "R" to rotate the block and get in a habit of placing enough thrusters in each direction.

 

Then again, replacing the current thruster block with this would break all available ship files. I think players would grumble about that, even though we don't have Workshop ship sharing yet.

 

...

why would I use hull blocks?

 

I will agree that the way armor blocks work really needs adjustment for balance reasons. But then, the same can be said for how material affects HP, and how certain block types work or scale with size or material. See the Figuring out block stats topic for details. (Also, see the Material Flavor and Analysis topic for how weird material progression is in terms of the HP increase compared to the previous tier.) It's not just thrusters that are broken. The way frame blocks, solar panels, cargo capacity and other things are figured is... weird and unbalanced.

 

Anyway, on using armor blocks vs hull blocks:

 

Armor blocks do significantly increase HP and they're much cheaper than hull blocks. However, I believe that you're incorrect about Hyperspace Cooldown. (The red and yellow change indicators sometimes suggests that a change is "+" when it is actually worse, or "-" when it is actually better.)

 

In my experience, transforming iron hull blocks into iron armor blocks will increase the hyperspace cooldown - meaning the use of (iron, at least) armor will have your ship take longer before being able to jump to hyperspace again.

 

Here's how I see armor blocks vs. hull blocks. Armor gives:

• More HP
  
• Reduces the cost in both credits and materials
  
• Reduces Req. Energy (slightly)
  
• Possibly reduces the number of required Mechanics (1 less mechanic in my case)
  
• Adds a lot more tons of weight (esp. iron)
  
• Reduces Thrust (significantly)
  
• Reduces Brake Thrust (significantly)
  
• Reduces Yaw / Pitch / Roll (significantly)
  
• Reduces thrust (significantly)
  
• Increases Hyperspace Cooldown (slightly)

 

At least with iron armor, the huge amount of added weight and the massive reduction of thrust, brake speed, and maneuverability usually makes it not worth it. In one test, changing cargo space on my ship to iron armor reduced my brake thrust and maneuverability from high (8.8) to abysmal (about 4 or less). I got the flashing warning about my brake thrust being too low.

 

Then again, I'm talking about iron armor. Higher tier materials makes armor much more appealing.

[Sable Phoenix]

I very much agree with this, the way thrusters currently work is highly unintuitive.  The current omni-thrust block is pretty ugly and far too weak; I feel that having one thruster type and needing to place it directionally is much more intuitive, as well as giving you the opportunity to manually tweak the performance profile of your ship.