Rotations - Angular Velocity
Hello,
During the playtime I found out that even having ship without gyroscopes (ups) it makes them move in all directions without any problems (x,y,z). Engines were clustered in one end just to save space. It makes a bit confusing behavior, as there is no rotation applied to ship mass.
Gyroscopes are in current form without limitations in all axis. My suggestion is to add limitation to axis and calculating thrust vector based on center of mass and location of the thruster. If the thruster central line is not alligned with point center of mass it creates rotation force. This can be negated by Gyroscopes. Gyroscope location will not affect rotation force.
This change will require also change to gyroscope limitations this means that one Gyroscope will have max of i.e. 100N of rotation for each axis. If non central engine will generate less than 100N of rotation force in particular axis it could be negated by gyro. But in this case ship will have degraded turn capacity when thruster is enabled (i.e accelerating).
When Rotation is more than 100N, ship goes into rotation (more gyros to add in current thrusters configuration to exceed the rotation force from thrusters, or reconfigure the ship thrusters locations/shift mass of the ship).
This way you can actually build ship without gyroscopes. By having all thrust negate themselves reaching equilibrium , rotating ship is just disabling one particular thruster, with additional enabling opposite thruster for faster rotation. Controlling it should be same to current one mouse/controller movement it will just cause engines to turn on with the rotation vector.
This applies only tho ships. When merging/connecting ships central mass is recalculated.
This will cause "real" space behavior and when crashing in something it will actually make ship properly rotate along the central mass point. Ship creations will be harder in this way, this can be switched by new ingame menu : Advanced rotation physics.
I believe that the calculations are not very complicated and will not decrease the performance of game.
Cheers.
PS. I will try to make visual representations in SE when have time.
I like this feedback
Simple expedition with one axis.
Second screen is when we have equlibrium and we rotate ship without gyroscope.
Simple expedition with one axis.
Second screen is when we have equlibrium and we rotate ship without gyroscope.
Problem is: You only have a fixed grid to position lateral thrusters, meaning unless your ships are perfectly rotationally symmetrical builds around the CoM, there would always be some torque from accelerating as you cannot adjust thruster placement finely enough. Also, ship mass can and does change (consumption of ice, for example), shifting this CoM, and there is practically nothing you can do about it. There are no stock mechanisms you could easily use for trimming.
Sure, you could use programming to asymmetrically scale thrust to restore balance, but that would mean that practically everybody would have to use coding just to get their ships even remotely stable.
As such, it's perhaps not the best system, but it's probably the best all things considered.
That said, if you still want that, there's of course a mod for that, by the great Digi no less:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=575893643
Problem is: You only have a fixed grid to position lateral thrusters, meaning unless your ships are perfectly rotationally symmetrical builds around the CoM, there would always be some torque from accelerating as you cannot adjust thruster placement finely enough. Also, ship mass can and does change (consumption of ice, for example), shifting this CoM, and there is practically nothing you can do about it. There are no stock mechanisms you could easily use for trimming.
Sure, you could use programming to asymmetrically scale thrust to restore balance, but that would mean that practically everybody would have to use coding just to get their ships even remotely stable.
As such, it's perhaps not the best system, but it's probably the best all things considered.
That said, if you still want that, there's of course a mod for that, by the great Digi no less:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=575893643
Hello andersenman,
Thanks for your comment.
That is correct. I do not want to have perfectly symmetrical ship. I would like Gyroscopes to up to some point cover for such unsymmetry, reducing turning force in the direction they are fighting. And faster in the directon they are figthing against. If the torque is greater than the one provided by multiple Gyros ship will rotate around CoM based on engines vector if it is not balanced.
Thanks for the mod link!
So even there author says: "Gyroscopes will help dampen the amount of torque an off-center thruster adds" And this is point. Gyroscopes in the current implementation does not work this way. They only give you fast/slow movement based on the mass of ship and amount of gyroscopes. There is no 3D space rotation vectoring.
As Digi wrote: "The game applies thruster force at center of mass, this mod changes that force to be applied at the individual thruster's positions instead." That is perfect but there is no change to Gyros and their behaviour which will lead to the state you mentioned => need for making ships perfectly symmetrical.
I hope I made this more clear :)
Attaching screen with just one plane. Red arrow is where you want to go forward and it fires one engine back (red dot is CoM), Torques are explained with blue. We have torgue generated from engine, exactly as in Digi mod. Additionally to that we have opposite Gyroscope torque. If we do not exeed some Gyroscope threshold we can steer the ship normally, but with limited turning speed (like heavier ship in particular direction) Those are represented by Green arrows. I want to turn with the torque from the engine it should be easy (force = mod(engine torque+gyro torque)). Against it it should be harder or even impossible (force = mod(engine torque - gyro torque)) Where gyro torques is static max value for sum of all gyroscopes in this axis.
PS this way is actually used in some (unsymmetrical) satelites here :
"Spacecraft stability and accuracy is maintained by several reaction wheels"
PS2. sorry for childish painting I am not an artist.
Cheers :)
Hello andersenman,
Thanks for your comment.
That is correct. I do not want to have perfectly symmetrical ship. I would like Gyroscopes to up to some point cover for such unsymmetry, reducing turning force in the direction they are fighting. And faster in the directon they are figthing against. If the torque is greater than the one provided by multiple Gyros ship will rotate around CoM based on engines vector if it is not balanced.
Thanks for the mod link!
So even there author says: "Gyroscopes will help dampen the amount of torque an off-center thruster adds" And this is point. Gyroscopes in the current implementation does not work this way. They only give you fast/slow movement based on the mass of ship and amount of gyroscopes. There is no 3D space rotation vectoring.
As Digi wrote: "The game applies thruster force at center of mass, this mod changes that force to be applied at the individual thruster's positions instead." That is perfect but there is no change to Gyros and their behaviour which will lead to the state you mentioned => need for making ships perfectly symmetrical.
I hope I made this more clear :)
Attaching screen with just one plane. Red arrow is where you want to go forward and it fires one engine back (red dot is CoM), Torques are explained with blue. We have torgue generated from engine, exactly as in Digi mod. Additionally to that we have opposite Gyroscope torque. If we do not exeed some Gyroscope threshold we can steer the ship normally, but with limited turning speed (like heavier ship in particular direction) Those are represented by Green arrows. I want to turn with the torque from the engine it should be easy (force = mod(engine torque+gyro torque)). Against it it should be harder or even impossible (force = mod(engine torque - gyro torque)) Where gyro torques is static max value for sum of all gyroscopes in this axis.
PS this way is actually used in some (unsymmetrical) satelites here :
"Spacecraft stability and accuracy is maintained by several reaction wheels"
PS2. sorry for childish painting I am not an artist.
Cheers :)
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