Over the Thrusters Forward Thrust Issue.

[xisec]

First of all, I would like to say that I love the last movement update (inertia, gyros, and so on). It creates a nice range of movement opportunities and fix some other issues. But, along with that nice update, other issues was highligned.

 

What is the issue exactly?

It is simple: thrusters do not thrust our ships forward. The forward thrusting is disabled for them.

 

It is this really a problem?

OMFG OF COURSE:

 

a) It causes balancing disorders.

 

At first, I would like to make some differentiations about efficiency:

[E1S] "Efficiency in one movement sense". Has into account the force that a type of block can perform (per volume, mass, and other considerations like energy, and so on) in one determined movement sense.

[E1D] "Efficiency  in one movement direction" (or axis). Has into account the sum of forces that a block can perform (per volume and so on) in the two different senses of one direction.

[EAS] "Efficiency in all movement senses".  Has into account he sum of forces that a block can perform (per volume and so on) in all different senses of all movement directions.

 

Engines, for example, have one high E1S but low E1Ds and lower EAS.

Inertia have high E1Ss, high E1Ds and high EAS.

Before the last movement patch, Thrusters had a higher EAS, and even a better E1D than Engines (and pancakes, maybe, even better E1S).

I hope I had managed to explain this correctly, because it is important for this part and other explanations.

 

Some thrusters are more eficients (in terms of EAS) than others. Directional thrusters on axis X and Y contribute with N thrust in the two movement senses, while the directional thrusters on axis Z only contribute in one movement sense, so it is half as efficient. This way, give to our ships backward thrust is a painfull waste; and for braking, inertia dumpeners are much better.

 

b) It causes a common sense distorsions, confusing people.

Why can we not build a small ship (like a drone) with only thrusters? If we build it, we would find that it moves backwards, sideways, but not forward. It has not a lot of sense.

 

c) It is not only a practical issue, but an aesthetic one. On my point of view, this forward thrust exception breaks the game symmetry in many ways. It is Ugly. And I don't know why, but humans (ones more than others) have symmetry in a high esteem.

 

Solutions:

 

0) Thrusters should be able to forward thrusting.

 

And then, tune and balance as desired; the movement system is much more easy to balance now. However, I think there is not much threat of thrusters to become more powerfull than engines, replacing them. Anyway, I will leave here some balance ideas:

 

1) The main idea is that engines increase the max speed, while thrusters do not do that. This would be a main incentive for using engines. Thus, the thrusters EAS and E1D over engines should not be a problem. A ship with thrusters is agile, while a ship with engines is faster. The only thing that is common sense, is that engines should have a better E1S than Thrusters.

 

2) To incent the engines use, if needed, its max speed function could be soften a bit (from current blue line to something like the bad drawn red line, for example).

 

 

3) And about the current balancing, I find thrusters a bit underpowered to move our ships horizontal and vertically.

 

 

 

[Uthael]

It's VERY unintuitive, but I got used to it. Thrusters should have the current Engine texture. You're welcome to add single-directional ones, too... Although I'd use dual-diractional ones because I like to have a lot of brake thrust :P

 

Engine should be the "core" of the ship, the most important component, producing power.

In that case, Generators would drain that power and convert it to "tamed" electricity. A lot of stuff stuff would still work on raw engine power. Hyperspace drive, thrusters, plasma weapons, repair turrets, etc. Maybe even some weapons that get implemented in the future.

 

I don't know what the formulas are, but here are my thoughts on mobility:

The ratio of thruster volume to ship total mass would dictate acceleration. Tiny ships would still have to have Engines, which would limit them.

The bigger the ship, the higher the top speed (unless you apply the Velocity Security Control Bypass upgrade).

- Capital ships would be used to carry small ones over long distances.

- Haulers could reach great speeds, but due to having a lot of utility blocks, they'd also have low acceleration.

- Corvettes, fighters, interceptors and scouts would accelerate to their max speed fast. Good for close quarters combat.