Give AI Flight Blocks the option to operate with Inertial Dampeners disabled

Dread Mechanic shared this feedback 12 hours ago
Not Enough Votes

As I've mentioned in several Discord posts and Youtube videos, being able to disable Intertial Dampeners on ground-based AI controlled grids is vital to making them function properly.

And the now fixed Thruster Override bug was the only way to disable the Dampeners while having Grid AI active.

The Inertial Dampening mechanic only exists on planets because SE doesn't have an "Atmosperic Drag" or "Wind Resistance" mechanic to slow flying grids down naturally.

However a ground based vehicle has no need for dampening as the contact with the ground and the friction/braking controls of suspension blocks achieves the same results as Dampeners.


Unfortunately, there is no way for the Grid AI blocks to interact with any movement blocks other than Thrusters.

So to make a ground based AI vehicle it is neccesary to trick the Grid AI into using other blocks and mechanics to achieve this.


A simple Rover drone can be set up with an Event Controller to trigger the Override Propulsion actions on the Suspensions using a Thruster and the Thrust % Event.

That Thruster can then be used by the AI Flight Block to trigger the Event Controller and move the Suspension forwards like a player would.


However, the Inertial Dampening effect on Control Blocks can and will cause the Thrusters to fire and thereby trigger the Event Controller, causing unwanted activation of the control systems when the grid is on angle or just idling.

Essentially meaning the drone will never sit still as the Thrusters flicker in response to grid movements.

Increasing the Threshold of the Event Controller can remedy this a little, but only up to a certain point as setting the Threshold too high can make the vanilla controls unusable.

Players can simply turn Inertial Dampening Off in a Control Seat or a Remote Control to combat the issue, however the Grid AI will always turn it back on automatically when activated.

The Player can then turn it back off again manually or through a programmed command, but any further actions performed by the Grid AI will turn Inertial Dampers back on again.


The control systems I set up for vanilla mechs essentially use the same controls with Thrusters to trigger their walk animations and are subject to the same issues as the Rover example.

The Thruster Override bug that caused grids to ignore Inertial Dampeners and drop out of the air also happened to be the only work around for the issue mentioned above.

And as this has now been patched for the 210 update, it removes the only viable way (that I am aware of) to create functional vanilla ground based AI Drones/Mechs.


The simplest solution might be to have a toggle option on the AI Flight block, as that is the one that controls all the movement settings, that allows to Grid AI to ignore/respect Inertial Dampeners.

Perhaps have Inertial Dampeners active as the default setting so they function as expected when built, with the option to turn it off for more specific uses like ground based vehciles.

Or alteratively a new AI Movement block that is functionally the same as the AI Flight block but without the the Intertial Dampening, Altitude and Collision Avoidance components.


Grid AI has been a big part of the game for years now and there is still no legitimate way to use it with anything other than aerial/space vehicles.


This bug fix has killed literally years of hard work and dozens of blueprints both published and unpublished overnight.

It completely ruined my original concept for the Masters Of Motion Competion and forced me to come up with a completely new concept at the last minute.

It has broken an MES mod I've spent the last year or so working on that would spawn AI controlled ground based mechs and vehicles.

And it has forced me to cancel a Mech AI Tutorial that was halfway through production as the techniques used in the video no longer work.


Here is a link to a video I made specifically for the devs demonstrating the issue.

https://youtu.be/fwLqHJt20_s

Replies (1)

photo
2

Its kinda crazy they still havent adressed this yet

Leave a Comment
 
Attach a file
Access denied