[BLOCK SUGGESTION] Conveyor Tethers

Keen, we know you happily implement mods if there is enough hype for them, like the weather mod for instance. So here you go https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1927786100

I was literally thinking the same thing re: Medieval Engineers. I think this feature is long overdue to allow for rovers to charge or share resources via home base without the clunk of the connector blocks.

I think this will spark joy in you:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2104723957&searchtext=rope

Or have 3 types of tubes:

- Energy only (cheapest)

- Item only

- Both (most expensive)

I would say Transfer Energy &/or Hydrogen only. Moving steel plates with a sharp edge within tubes seem unreasonable...

Maybe they come packaged in styrofoam?

@KuuHaKu

What, the plates, or the tubes?

@Shih-Sung Chen "Moving steel plates with a sharp edge within tubes seem unreasonable."

Then again, sending steel plates through ninety-degree steel conveyors doesn't seem all that much better....

I disagree with needing gold for this. Feels like basic functionality.

Cables - Power only

Tubes - Gases only (o2/h2)

Connectors: Gases, power, items

Downside of both cables and tubes, they barely have any integrity, minimal damage or pull will break them

I've always wanted to make a Giant Generator on one grid and link it with other grids like factories and stuff without having to worry about making everything the same grid or having to have a reactor in every grid, Which is why this is so fricking important.

Thankyou :) let's hope keen takes interest.

I agree with that! I'm really hoping Keen takes interest in this idea... and if not, somebody to make a mod that adds this block into the game. It would make transportation between my main base and mining bases so much easier.

I just did the same. This is an idea worth pushing - hard!

Absolutely!

Cool mod! Though this block would work more like the tether system that's in Moonbase Alpha, except it would also act as a conveyor between the ship/rover and a base to allow resources (ice, ore, components, etc) to travel between the two things that are connected.

Yeah, that is the ultimate plan if possible ofc and my knowledge/help i get to actually do it.

This is a great mod, I'm using it!

If you have a Keen feedback page I'll upvote it!

you could just grab the link for this post, and post it places, asking people to upvote... pestering people wont get you anywhere though, so be aware of that at least

however, something like this...

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/pc/topic/piston-exerts-force-using-connected-blocks-but-only-in-certain-directions-non-axis

...is something we need to fix, before they add more things that can break. they are on a roll, lets get this game as polished as possible

OP is aware that Keen is trying to minimize the physics workload and make the game run faster especially on dedicated servers and XBox. If every kink in the cable had physics interactions with grids and players, there would be a greater likelihood that the entire idea was shelved as too CPU intensive without giving it consideration. When writing up a proposal It's always helpful for your cause to take the perspective of the developers, predict pressing questions and address them in your "sales pitch". It also signals to other players that OP has put some thought into this proposal and it can actually go somewhere.

That said, it is always possible to add the missing physics interactions and immersion later on as a client side option.

These would certainly help the realism aspect. Being able to park #near# a dock and hook-up is much better than having to build-in specific connectors to match structures to ships. 👍

So much truth there. I don't see the physics being as huge of an issue as long as they don't give it the hugest range ever but that's a different can of worms entirely. I don't mind the connector option but it seems rather limited in terms of functionality and overall just seems clunky.

I don't think physics interactions would be the end of the work, but like pistons the physics interaction doesn't have to be complex, say, 1 or so interactable mesh along the length of the weird that could be nudged around and would apply some level of resistance. (also this could be used as a way of severing the connection).

That would be useful for combat.

The collision mesh wouldn't have to have complex geometry, spheres would likely suffice given the shape of a pipe.

Being able to land my small ship in a large ships hanger and connect to a "hose" connection to refuel or to a refueling vehicle would be better than a massive connector on my small fighter etc...

need this to be vanilla, sometimes you just have that ship that can't quite make it back to base to dock having a lenient connector would save a lot of engineers quite a bit of time and another plus would be clusters of independent grids bridged by these.

I have the impression that the max length is supposed to be so short that the lack of physics wouldn't become too obvious and that they don't replace actual conveyor blocks with a free alternative where you don't have to pay for the meter. I.e. 5m or something.

It could need some clarification in the OP.

Not that it really needs clarification in the OP per se. It's something Keen should think about anyway and find the best balance. And I don't think this would ever replace normal connectors even if it was more then 5m or something.

But yeah, as long as they make it moddable so people can make mods that adjust by their tastes, we should be more then fine. :)

We just need the base, we can do the rest. ;)

The chain idea would be for building/repairing/deconstructing very large objects like a full base or a large carrier/battleship.

Not at all, if we remove physical interactions with the tube, it boils down to a simple bezier curve with a tube mesh linked to it

whoops wrong field

i still eject the stone even though stone is now useful you still get so much gravel from that you end up having more than you needed and end up having to dump the gravel or make so much inventory for it that is out wighs the cost of keeping it

if i ever need gravel or stone it's simple mine it it' take a hole lot less energy however this idea is good for small outpost where you don't want to make such a huge based for one material

They couldnt really be used like this in small or tight environments. For example, on my single player world i have a train line which currently uses hinges, but even that is still quite buggy when lag decides to strike. With tethers that wouldnt be an issue, all i'd have to do is have a rotor go into a hinge, then into another rotor, allowing me to still pull the carts behind the engine and also allow more movement with the carts, creating less clang. A practical use for this though could be long range conveyor lines that span afew kilometers. They can be placed between multiple small pylons or support pillars that transport cargo, gas, or power to girds over a long range, without having to use cargo bots, create long clangy conveyor+hinge lines, or having to manually shift the goods

I have little to say outside of, 3 meters is a better distance. 2.5 is a bit close and doesn't really leave much room for "oops".

For your case you can just use a few hinges as a cable :P

A few dozens of hinges. My outposts are several kilometres away. Closest is about 700 blocks in one direction.... furthest is about 2000 blocks in another direction.

The planet's curvature "forces" me to use a hinge / rotor correction about every 100 blocks ... or it will look to odd.

Without the transformation of "ship" to station I would have several unstable grids. And the adjustment of rotors or hinges to the next part of the pipeline is a pain in the ... something.

I am just lucky I don't have to move the outposts so often.

yeah digi, for a modder, thats a pretty stupid thing to say

hes right, adding more grids increases the likelihood of things going wrong, and causes more strain on whatever is processing them, especially if ANY are under tension/compression/torsion, which usually means about a million times worse of an impact than if they werent, which means to relieve that, you need a needlessly complex system to do so

not to mention it would save us from having to get the server to align the grid (which causes performance issues and sometimes breaks a LOT of stuff in the process (subgrids, locked grids, etc.)) every time this happens we dont need anything special, just something to connect two points and look somewhat realistic

edit: maybe some sort of wire and tether system, where you can only connect one or the other, or have a combined one, but the combined one costs more and has a lower max range

so the tether could be a maximum of 6m to 8m, the electric one could be 100m to 500m, and the combined one could be 4m or 5m which means that instead of more blocks connecting the two grids, they think they are connected and a rope is drawn between the two connections, with maybe the electric one being more limited in range on mobile grids but longer range (like power lines) one stationary grids, allowing for some sort of power relay system

look, digi, i get it, and i also love your work, but this is less of "keep things as vanilla as possible" and more of "lets solve a lot of problems that happen that probably dont have a good fix or are too complex for some to understand" because ive seen so many people destroy servers with their lack of knowledge on rotors/pistons, destroying their stuff in the process, and other people then saying that those features need to be removed, which kills servers or makes servers extremely specialized, in which people who dont use pistons and rotors literally complain until they are removed because they then think that they are "overpowered" in combat

we also need a better tutorial for this kind of stuff, one of the problems with a tutorial like the one currently in the game is the either A. lack of content or B. time it takes to get to and learn every subject, and there may exist tutorial worlds out there on the workshop, but they go largely unnoticed.

if you really want a good example as to WHY that would have been a bad idea, look at splitsie's ultra hardcore "Survival: Impossible" series where he is trying to get a conveyor around the curvature of an asteroid, because a straight shot would cost too much or just wont work for the application.

Digi Is right you can use hinges as cable with manipulation mod.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1815824812

I was aware of one mod that can spawn Small grids directly from inventory item.

Here are vanilla Hinges with (Connectors+Collectors)Mod + (GridPickupMod)

(GridPickupMod) == https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2417159596

(Connectors+Collectors) == https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1736785358

i would just have it baked into the cost of the tether block to where theres a max distance and it "breaks" if you get it too far while connected, maybe allowing for much more flexible intra-grid connections in niche scenarios that would actually improve the likelihood of NOT fucking something up

not exactly a great reason why, as you can put those connectors sideways, but i agree with the spirit

maybe for that reason, we could have a 2x2 connector or a 1x1 connector that can lock with larger connectors as if it were a larger connector, basically using the existing ejector but a slightly higher cost, as barely anyone uses ejectors anyways aside from spitting out massive amounts of waste into the server (which causes problems if theres too many, from deleting people's accidentally dropped stuff to just causing lag, etc.) that of which could be solved with some sort of "item deleter" for things like gravel or just simply recycling items that can be recycled

edit: speaking of which, keen could make the items stack, because i know one of the worst issues with items in cargo containers is the fact that they keep their exact orientation and each slot is another thing that causes a tiny bit of lag, which is really a problem once you have too many cargo slots filled

so maybe just simply having non-stackable items stack and also having the items be alphabetically sorted with priorities (like weapons/ammo, bottles, tools, components, ingots in that order) by default

i have a feeling that there would be some sort of magnetic force instead, like with connectors, but only at the tether's max length, meaning it would be harder to completely break the tether without intentionally doing so, and people would use them to suspend things, and we would have a rope situation on our hands, if they didnt, how would they tell if it met max length? theres many ways, but i think that the lag would be roughly the same and essentially, it would be better to have another method of using existing tools.

The performance impact of a tether would absolutely be less than stacking hinges or rotors, as there would be reduced or perhaps even no need for complex geometry physics calculations. Parachutes don't check for obstructions, so tethers wouldn't have to either - just keep the two tethered points within the tether's max length, and you're golden.

maybe not, as the way that they work is essentially the same once they are at max range, otherwise, if theres no actual physical connection between the two and its only a calculatory and graphical connection, there also wouldnt be a way to have them be "ropes"

but, another thing is the way they have the inventory system working, theres no current system for "wireless inventory interfaces between grids" so they would have to be connected somehow, and thus there will ALWAYS be some sort of physics calculation

also, i think you forget that rotors/pistons/hinges alone, even stacked, dont do NEARLY as much as people like LSG want you to think, they dont know what the game does

its like saying that a drunk driver can blame their truck for getting them a DUI and killing multiple people in an accident, its not the tool, its the application

If instead of an actual physically present connection we used one based on LOS like the laser antenna, it has full range of motion on one face and is a full connection but if an object passes in between LOS is broken and as such the tether as well. And maybe having the tether's magnetic pull break after being pulled to max length and held at max for a few seconds or maybe if a certain amount of force is applied it breaks immediately,

i love the harpoon mod, we can have pitons and capture ships without damage (theoreticly), this idea has merit!

While a jump drive is easily produced, tho entirely fictional.

I would like to expanding this by suggesting two additional options.

A merge block tip version simply sharing power. Could also be used for towing.

And large grid version that can go a significant distance (50-100m). This is to allow you to make conveyor and power lines over long-ish distances without having to worry about the orientation of various structures or the planet's curvature. Say you want to have several smaller bases across an area of the planet where the curvature would affect it, or over a mountain range. This would allow you to transfer power and goods over them fairly easily.

Something like this:

edit: mods pls delete this comment because I can't for some reason, didn't meant to put it here

I seen Ideas that had over 2000 likes but the fact KEEN reject Rope Mod means this will end same.

Game have problem with basic stuff (micro shake of subgrids) and also game is "Space" Engineers not Earth Engineers.

Rope in 0 G have no use :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXoNMYDvPHM

Game have issues if you try any thing that act like "rope"

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1815824812

@DIO_SVK ropes in 0g are actually used as tethers to keep astronauts from drifting out in space, just because they can't be used in toys that rely on gravity does not mean they have no use.

> "Rope in 0 G have no use :D"

> shows video to prove why Ropes are one of the most useful things in Space

Have you watched any and i mean ANY movies that involves space at all? How do you think Astronauts are secured to the staton/ship/whatever when they do spacewalks?

Oh look the strawman is back. This isn't his first attempt.

Also here is another example of ropes working perfectly fine in SE:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2104723957&searchtext=rope

Doesn't look like an actual rope. Sure, there's the visual representation of a connecting line, but to me that looks more like visual fakery (a fair cop) in combination with a separate "attachment" of a "pocket" of physics that "acts" like what a connection to a rope would really do, namely applying some force (the pull) at a fixed maximum distance (the rope's length) in a place offset from the roped objects' (yes, plural, both ends) CoMs.

I like it.

Rope mod is on workshop that use same code as source engine does. It is just 2 point linear connection that use texture to mimic "Rope".

It is funny how kids want something that is quite expensive to simulate. You can make rope in vannila SE with hinges.

Will it work? Yes Performance friendly? NO.

Keep dreaming :)

The best part about this mod is that after adding it and using only ropes to haul a battleship into the void is that they didn't drop my frames at all, so it is performance friendly!

Piss off with your obsession of telling people what can or can't be done in SE just because you know how to end lines with a semicolon. You're not a Keen dev, you're not a Keen employee, you can't even SPELL Keen correctly and insist on spelling it KeeN.

This whole thread isn't even about WANTING ropes. This thread isn't even WANTING a

• flexible
• mechanically contiguous and continuous
  
• fixed-maximum-length

implement to do anything physical that ropes are classically used for.

This thread is about logically connecting inventories and power grids of cube grids that are

• separate
• misaligned

and whose connection and alignment is seen as situationally detrimental to gameplay.

The rope-like, or hose-like appearance is at best requested as a purely cosmetic, client-side-only, nice-to-have feature, with no physical implications and effects on objects connected or otherwise touching the visualised rope or hose. Here, it even says so in OP's picture!!

Although that, too, would be nice to have. But that's the nature of must-have vs. nice-to-have, and it's about time you learnt the difference.

So, let people have their requests, as other people let you have yours. You may raise your thoughts and opinions, but you are in absolutely no position to rate, dismiss, let alone berate or mock for, other people's requests. You're not that important.

To further pour fuel on the fires of andersenman, we should further evolve the concept of jump drives.

We could have conveyor jump transportation too. Just adandon the damn rope flexible thinghie eltogether, put a teleportation block on one end, and another on the other and transfer items between them.

I made a virtualy identical suggestion for teleportation of players, to avoid using programming blocks to turn on and off different survival kits.

Make the power consumption dependant on range and mass, and other usual features that come with jump drives.

I would only enable it to teleport to gravity or out of it too.

And make it coded to be decentralised and peer-to-peer-capable so that people could run a teleportation-based interplanetary parcel service between multiple endpoints! And make it a store block so that you could charge fees based on distance! (And for extra trollery, the Send button must be a physically accurate pull rope, like an old-fashioned toilet flush chain. And it must make a flush sound when sending.)

andersenman"Piss off with your obsession of telling people what can or can't be done in SE just because you know how to end lines with a semicolon."

I know truth hurts so badly and you are butt hurt very hard.

"So, let people have their requests, as other people let you have yours."

Why creating illusion for people to vote on something that will NOT make it to the game as it will make game experience by BUGS just worse?

YOU will just make them angry and they abandon game as "DEVS ARE LAZY TO ADD MY IDEA" or

"DEVS ARE BUGGY CODERS"

YOU can have even 1 Milion votes on "Realistic Water simulation" and guess what

IT WILL NOT BE ADDED

Why?

Because computing volumetric particles is for NASA PC and not your overpriced Potato PC that have problems simulate 16 ships fly at different speed and angle.

You say in other idea that "i not care what is behind the screen to make it work"

You just have no idea how games work and that is why i am here to tell you that forget your NASA grade simulations.

SE is not able to simulate WIND related stuff like turbulences, wind drag....

SE have problems with BASIC game engine stuff.

Old SourceEngine (June 2004) is better coded to handle game related stuff than KeeN are not even near that with 6 years of SE development.

-----------------------------------------

Do not worry my ideas here are trolled by kids just by that fact. I do not like ideas that will kill game performance and add de-sync issues everybody HATE in games.

As i say before "good concept on paper, but not do able in reality"

Have a nice simple day.

KeeN DEVS

If you read this (i know you are)

Then add this "idea" by

1. Ray-Tracing connectors connection (Unity rope simulation)

2. Simulate tube with dynamic polygonal "Cloth Simulations"

Let kids Cry how their PC are garbage.

"Butthurt"?? Hahaha, dude, I'm so relaxed in my position as a user and customer being distinct from a developer and supplier, you can't even hurt my feelings! You should try the same distinction some time, too!

"As i say" – Correct. As you say. But you're just some guy who deludes himself into believing that he can self-appoint himself to be spokesman of Keen's dev chain. But that's about it. You're wasting your time and breath on doing something nobody, nobody, has asked you for. You are the sole and only source for your own exasperation.

"creating illusion for people to vote on something" – I don't create anything. In actuality, the only one creating things here is you. You are the one who thinks himself terribly clever "proactively" answering questions on a technical implementation of what, at best, is a napkin scribbling of an idea. Literally nobody but yourself is invoking low-level technicalities of VRAGE and whatnot. But unless you hold some sort of dev or managerial position at Keen, you're not even remotely qualified to do so, and for your own sake you had realise this rather sooner than later, because the only thing this says about you is that you can't think of a way of designing, let alone coding, an implementation of a user's request, but that doesn't mean that somebody else couldn't do so, either. You're reaching so far beyond what you're approved to judge, it's almost painfully laughable.

Nobody in the non-Keen audience asked you to protect them from make being made "angry" to "abandon game". Nobody asked you to be moderator of ideas or feedback or whatever. Nobody asked you to be some godsent saviour of the unwashed masses.

And again, why do you keep pathologically, habitually misspelling "Keen" as "KeeN"?? What's wrong with you?

Wireless inventories would also be a pretty impressive thing to have, would allow mining ships to just zip by the base and warp the inventory in without needing to maneuver to connect to a port but if it can work in gravity it should be more expensive than a version that can't. Especially if we progress with tethers, wireless teleporter and then wireless teleporter that can work in gravity.

Sorry, an error on my end caused my comment to get posted twice.

Ignore this one until Mods can delete it please.

Have a great day.

andersenman

"Nobody asked you to be moderator of ideas or feedback or whatever" - andersenman

A few comments up ==

"Isn't it time this thread got its status upgraded from Submitted to Considered, given the amount of votes?" - andersenman

Who is moderating here :)

Your own words == you're not even remotely qualified to do so.

"Nobody in the non-Keen audience asked you to protect them" - andersenman

Again moderating here? Nobody ask you to this also.

Your TEXT wall is worthless... Bash to table what ever you want, tag people that no agree with you what ever you want.

The idea is way to complex to add and KeeN (troll name) will not spend time to write something that add bugs.

They are only able to adopt mods on workshop.

I push them to LCDs in cockpits.

I know game before rotors and pistons where added as you not even know that SE exist.

Go ahead write another pointless wall of text.

You are aware that posting links to people's user profile does exactly nothing other than posting links to people's user profile and looking pitiably obsessive in the process, yes?

There is no such thing as a tagging function in this forum, at least none I've seen in action so far. You get an update notification regardless of being mentioned, it's solely dependent on whether you are subscribed to the thread. So, no idea what you keep referring to by "tagging" in your many posts responding to both my posts and those of other people. Maybe it's something lost in translation?

Maybe similarly lost in translation as for the term "moderation", perhaps?

All hail Lord Clang, hallowed be his name.

i vote yes on this

If I understand it right then they have no Physical Interaction. They just get longer/shorter if the 2 grids move and disconnect at a limit but don't generate any force

I have to agree. This feels a bit like cheating but would be soooo useful. I think it should also have a limit to the amount of gas and power it can transfer because it would be too easy, people should have to dock themselves.

Idea: what if someone uses this as a refueling boom with thrusters attached to the end of it? it would be so nice.

Connectors are 'solid', this sounds like it will snap in half if you move too far.