Thrusters, blocked thrusters and ship health

[RadiantFlux]

Hi all.

 

I am totally new and have built three ships so far.

And I had real fun building them. :D

 

WIth those ships I took painstakingly care that all thrusters have at least two blocks space "free" in their firing direction and when I built something on top of a thruster directly, I expected those thrusters to simply be gone or inactive on the blocked wall...

 

Now I noticed that blocking off thrusters does absolutely nothing as it seems. The ship can maneuver and fly just the same, no matter what material is over the thruster.

 

I googled this a bit and have read different posts, some stating it is just unfinished, other that it is intentional, other again even said it is a bug.

 

Now, if it is a intentional design thing, then I find it not quite so good because for me a big part of the design fun is to create ships that I design  with intelligent thruster placements. Such intelligent placement now is no longer necessary because I can just plainly put them anywhere I like, which is quite a downgrade from what I thought was the case.

 

Is there any intent on giving us the option to make thrusters like this:

- Need at least block 2 spaces free in their direct thrust direction

- Are completely inactive when built over directly.

 

That would be fantastic. :)

 

Another thing I was wondering about is ship health.

Please correct me if I understand it wrong, but as it seems no matter how much redundancy I put into my ship the ship dies even if most of the vital systems are still there. It dies because it used up its total pool of healthpoints, not because the vital systems all have been destroyed.

 

I would like to have a mode that allows for the ship to not have just a total health pool, but rather one where we have to define specific ship components that are the "core" components that have a minimum relative size and have to sdtay connected with eachother. So if the ship breaks apart at a specific point and too many of the core components are no longer connected then the ship goes boom/critical. The amount of core components could be defined by ship mass like the extension slots.

 

Something like that, maybe?

 

Ah, well, the thruster thing would be more important to me. ;)

 

Great and fun game you guys are creating here.

Now enough typing, more playing. :D

 

[Ravien]

Where you place thrusters still matters a great deal as far as your ship's maneuverability goes. You gain more benefit from using directional thrusters placed far from your ship's center of mass than you do from placing them closer, for example.

 

Being able to bury your engines and thrusters also allows for far more creative freedom. It allows you to design ships that look good while still functioning well. Let's face it, not all of us want the entire surface of our ships to be covered in thrusters. :D You can even do things like put thin slices of engines or thrusters to improve the look of your ship, even using a different engine material to change the color of your visible engines or mix/match them, while still using the best material for your main engine that is hidden behind your facade engine slices. Being able to hide your engines and thrusters also allows you to make a ship that you can pretend uses "advanced" propulsion methods that don't use visible engines or thrusters.

 

In the end, regardless of whatever technical limitations are involved, it comes down to a design choice. I think the developers have erred on the side of allowing players greater creative freedom, and nothing is stopping you from placing thrusters on the outside of your ship for the appearance, though I do understand the desire for more realism.

[RadiantFlux]

Ah yes, I see.

Indeed, such thruster behaviour is indeed better for more visual design freedom.

Well, in that case I would like to have it as a toggle, just like collision damage and such. :P

 

But until then I'll just pretend that all thrusters are simply gravitational or something like that and design my ships with more freedom now. ;)

[WSY]

You could see it as rcs ducting through armor. Silly for warships to have exposed manuevering thrusters.

 

Main engines get a pass because it's primary acceleration, though I think they too would likely either be grid, multiple smaller ones, or screened over with armor as opposed to the "place torpedo here" openness they normally have.

[RadiantFlux]

After having player more hours I can say that this is a non-issue.

The game is really fun and the thrusters are fine. :)