Constant suspension damping value ruins lightweight rovers impression

Nemo shared this bug 2 months ago
Won't Fix

The constant damping value which is 0,7 has been an issue ever since the wheels overhaul.

It has been mentioned several times in feedback, but got out with "not enough votes", probably because people don't understand how serious it is, so I made a video where I modified the damping, that should explain the issue better:

https://youtu.be/26WgxKQGWfI?feature=shared


I reduced the damping from 0,7 which was waaaaay too high to 0,02 which was perfect for this type of vehicle. Note how big the difference in numbers is.


The current damping calculations use linear interpolation function with a constant 'a' value which is 0,7:

float suspensionDamping = MathHelper.Lerp(0.7f, 1f, currentAirShock);

The only dynamic value here is the currentAirShock which applies only when AirShock checkbox is selected, and only affects the damping by increasing it up to 1.0, which stiffens the suspension even more.


The preferred solution would be to bring back the damping slider to the suspension block (preferably with other previous sliders like minimum suspension height or turning speed).

Now I get it that the game was simplified and some of it could be overwhelming for some players, though the engineering aspect of the game shouldn't be removed for the sake of simplicity (it's an engineering game after all), so the perfect solution would be to add a checkbox in main menu called "Advanced mode" or whatever (similar to Experimental mode) that allows players to edit "advanced" properties on blocks. Similar feature is already present in Kerbal Space Program 1.


Another solution would be to edit the calculation and instead of 'a' beeing a constant 0,7 value, make it a function that calculates the 0 - 1 range by including grid's mass or suspension strength.

This solution is not perfect, since the amount of damping should also depend on the location of center of mass, number of wheels, whether it's supposed to be a race car or offroad vehicle etc.


This is the reason why light vehicles tend to flip so much on slightest bumps. Please fix.

Replies (2)

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Hello, Nemo!

Thank you for writing to us and sharing the video link.

The video was certainly helpful in understanding the issue. Could you kindly also send us the world save file where you tend to mod the suspension damping value? It would help if you could keep both modded and unmodded grids there to help reproduce the issue there.

  • You can access your save files by typing %appdata% into your Windows search bar and you will be redirected to the hidden Roaming folder. After that just follow: \Roaming\SpaceEngineers\Saves. There should be a folder with your SteamID and your saves.
  • Please zip the file and attach it here. If you are having difficulty attaching files you can optionally use Google Drive. When sharing a google drive link please make sure it is set to be downloadable by anyone with the link.

Kind regards,

Keen Software House: QA Department

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1

Hello Nemo,

as there has been no reply to this thread in some time, we will close it. If you're experiencing this issue, please create a new thread.

Kind regards,

Keen Software House: QA Department

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