Winch block

You can tow objects with ropes/cables even without gravity field.You just have to take care when changing acceleration.

The problem with ropes are, that they "always must have tension to be useful".

Even if you tow the other else car, the car behind you, that you are dragging must always have the brakes activated for the rope to have "tension". If tension on rope is lost then the car behind you will pass you, or crash into you.

How you gonna ensure the rope tension with no natural gravity? Yeah all stuff/ships attached to the rope must have thrusters that force them to opposite direction to achieve "the tension" on that rope.

If you do sharp turn with your tow ship the stuff on the rope you have attached will throw you away or the rope will just broke.

There was Blueprints on Workshop of rotor based "chains". The simulation of that "chain" kinda kill the simulation speed. So....

I'll first face off with saying that I would absolutely love ropes, even if they're primarily useful on planets, they fill a gap that rotors and pistons really cannot reasonably do. IF keen were to add winches to SE (and i genuinely hope they do) they would likely add them in a similar way to how its done in medieval engineers, where the actual "rope" is a basically physicsless entity that can control the distance

Secondly, its kind of irrelevant to try and compare a rotor based block chain to ropes that would be implemented for this. You wouldn't actually be simulating a physical rope. Essentially all a rope is in terms of havok is a "spring" constraint that has an adjustable X value (max length) and a K value (spring constant) that basically goes from 0 to infinity as the position approaches X.

Third: while its true that you can only use a rope under tension, doesn't mean that you can't find a way to have tension in more than one direction, you specifically mentioned towing a ship, so what if you just have the "tow ship" attach ropes from more than one side? by pulling the ship in opposite directions you easily get the tension you need, and a relatively secure, non rigid connection.

As SE is kinda Space Sim i really do not get the need of something that without tension by (gravity mostly) will just bends warps, flips, rotate etc...

About that rotor chain... that was example.... Ropes in games that want to act naturally are done like chains...

I really like to have 1 km rope that you can pass through without your ship being cut in half...

You like ropes, but i can see you never saw how hard is to stabilize platform that must be attached to 4 corners. Even in gravity it is really hard to stabilize with extra ropes from ground controlled by many people to forbid the rotations of vertical axis.

In SE there is no way the player can grab item, no way he can stabilize that plaform it by hand. The platform in space without natural tension created by gravity that naturally push her down and without any player grab feature will just seesaw, twists warp, flip, rotate by her "center of mass".

Seriously man? Ropes in space? What they learn in schools about physics? No Really useless in space stop thinking in gravity ;)

If you seek is just block that is able to move and position in direct straight line like lift on rail...

I submited this kind of idea with the possible "doable solution" https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers/general/topic/simple-rail-system-rail-blocktrain-block

The idea is based on Source engine func_tracktrain that can follow path_track entities...

tension == acceleration (== gravitation)

Nothing a good engineer isn't able to use to his advantage.

Rope/Cable == minimal investment in joining two objects. With its own drawbacks, of course ... but engineer must weight whether it is worth to use rope/cable or to use more permanent (and more expensive) solution.

The game shows many inexpensive ways (in times of space exploration) to handle objects and stabilize them without any issues. "Nothing a good engineer isn't able to use to his advantage". I Do not see nowdays that airplane engineer use "ropes" for controlling wing flaps of an airplane. All stuff is now hadled by "fly by wire" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire)

In that time SE is happening, the ropes can be considered as "ancient way" to alter things and useless for space applications.

Main part of SE is space exploration. "Planets" are the addition, also i do not see keen implementing stuff like generated structures, mines, caves, forests... that is hapening in medieval engineer.

I know Piston block kinda s*ks with the limited distance but in era of SE (with knowledge for artificial gravity generators) you can do elevators without ropes... And ropes considered in that era as "obsolete". As you can alter the gravity in that time.

When you search Steam Workshop you will find many examples of

Elevators based on:

1. Pistons (set the distance)

2. Gravity generator/ Artificial Mass (altering gravity up and down)

3. Ion/hydrogen based drone inside platform with remote block that search for connectors placed on floors.

And [EEM] Exploration Enhancement Mod have "trader ship" that shows great example of inexpensive way to change floors...

In space you do not need elevators. As you can wall walk with magnetic-boots.

You made a rather condescending comment there about going to school, so I'm going to assume you know absolutely nothing about rigging and lifting.

I really hate to break this to you, but lifting with cables/chains is a process that is extremely unlikely to cease a few years into the future.

The general term for stabilizing a load is called a spreader bar, provided you can distribute the load reasonably well it would come in extreme handy on planets, and worst case it would be a unique set of possibilities in space. Just because you personally cannot see the uses for them, does not mean that nobody can.

Heh somebody is really pig-headed here :D

Yeah man i know about lifting many things.

For single armor block in zero gravity (space) you will need 6 ropes from each side that are attached to 6 tow ships. All moves of that tow ships must be "synchronized" to forbid the error of losing the tension on ropes. Otherwise that single block will randomly fly and rotate by center of mass.

If you do not get it Space Engineers is SPACE exploration/build sim, not Planet sim. Planets are just "addition" and i now know why Keen hate that idea of adding them...

Man like having the knowledge of altering the gravity (gravity generators, artificial mass, space ball) and someone want to still use ropes... He will look like ancient ape compared to people of that era. I assume you still travel on horse to the work, not by the car don't ya?

Sorry to break your illusions, but keep dreaming about your "ropes". Keen will never add something that will potentially add thousands of issues than one benefit (bugs=1000/1=Benefit) to already over bugged game. Adding something like this will be like throwing napalm to already burning village...

You can handle stuff more effectively with ion based tow ships that have magnetic landing gears or build a forklift on "planets" You really do not need ropes, they are "obsolete" in that era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6AnVdL--zo

still ... ropes (and nets) in space ... used also as weapon ...

Also to keep tension without acceleration you need min 2 ropes, 3 is better, 4 is ideal - anything more is probably too much as it requires more synchronization (see, here I agree with you ;-) )

Why I am still arguing here ?

That video is great example how WRONG is space and zero gravity portrayed. YOU HAVE NO FRICTION IN ZERO GRAVITY AND SPACE!!!

Once the object start to move you do NOT need extra trust form engines to keep it on the move. Once the speed is set and the the trust is turn off the rope will start to lose tension and became uselles and probably deadly to you! As every rope has ability to rubberband a little, then it will cause the object with less mass to slow down or rubber band back to object with bigger mass.

Every particle in space (even the tiny ones) flying freely is super DEADLY to you. Crushing the hudge rock in zero gravity like that will expose so many tiny particles that will act like projectiles and torn your ship apart. It is like shooting with a shotgun on you. It is "stupid suicide" what they do in that video. Stop thinking with GRAVITY and FRICTION!!!!

And stop watching movies that are miles away from real space simulation...

The good thing about SE is that the game portrayed the space and zero gravity how it is really like. (exept from some aspects that engine compute side cannot handle). Bad is that people are affected by the "Airplane simulators/movies that takes place in space". Star Wars, Star Trek, BSG are just how people in that day want to portray the space travel + add fancy mechanics to look cool. They are basically airplane simulations that fly with friction and wing uplift in mind as most of designs are just fancy airplanes.

Okay ...

Let's developers decide whether they add "rope" and winch. I think it can be useful even in "no-gravity", and I think many people will be able to use it with greater success than rotor-piston-connector-merge_block combination for temporary connections (even some semi-permanent).

Even if properly implemented ... :P - although that's impossible, because while micro/no-gravity is simulated OK, the artifical absolute speed limit of ~100m/s (=> max 220m/s relative speed) is way too low to even think about proper simulation - although it is clear why there is it.

Without planets no body will ever think about adding them. And NO as i say Keen will not add something that will create more bugs than one benefit. It is bad that people are unable to use the pistons and rotors properly.

Even with simple rotor tower (2-3 rotors) the game have really bad issues with handling the all time changing position of the center of mass.

If you like ropes go play Medieval Engineers. If the feature was good, then even SE have ropes too (as the game use the same engine) ;)

But Keen KNOW it is a BAD idea to have ropes in space. As the ropes in space are pointless...

The parachute blok for example is just thruster( with inertia dampeners tun ON) that automatically calculate trust power to just slows down the fall from natural gravity. If your ship is too heavy you must add them more. The fancy animation of that block is just animated 3D model of parachute that rotate around one point near block doors. There are NO ropes involved!

Mon dieu ...

1) The explosion part of the video is irrelevant to the topic.

However I will elaborate.

As I understand they used localized low yield charges to break the asteroid. They had the net to catch the bigger rubble and they deemed the pebbles not worth the effort and too low energy to pose a problem. However, the young man forgot to properly lock the web (or it broke because it was too old) and they lost a lot of the material.

Explosion in space are NOT that dangerous as in atmosphere - there is no medium to transfer the shock (so no air friction). So even if you fire a nuke missile to some ship, unless it hits directly, it won't do much damage - unlike in atmosphere where you have to hit only 'somewhere around'.

If such kind of asteroid mining might work or it is too dangerous I don't know - I find it quite plausible, however I didn't understand why they didn't tow relatively compact asteroid whole, unbroken. That would be simpler

... but then they won't have kinetic shotgun for the next part of the video :P

About no gravity in space: you are partially wrong, there is always (micro)gravity in space, however it is low enough to be practically useful in our timeframes (we are speaking about acceleration less than 0.01m/s2).

Same about friction: that is not attribute an attribute of gravity or space, that is attribute of mass (or lack of it).

And about every particle deadly to me: again not quite true, only those whose relative speed to me are "high".

And I didn't saw nor gravity nor friction broken in the whole video.

2) second part of the video, relevant to the topic (from 5:30 with interludes and then 6:40-6:55).

You can think that they were at "relative" speed of 0. The patrol ship moved away from them (with more or less constant thrust == acceleration), so if the old man wanted to hit it with the gravel he towed, (simplified) he had to match the patrol's ship vector and be much faster than them so the gravel will a) catch them b) have enough energy == relative speed to cause damage -> primitive rail gun.

What I find bothersome is the precision of hit and the inability to detect and avoid the damage. However against "stationary" target (other asteroid) it would work easily.

Understand that ships in The Expanse have partially solved the rocket equation - they can be under constant thrust (== acceleration) for long periods of time, even whole journey (acceleration thrust to midpoint of ballistic curve, flip around 180 degrees, same thrust with ass turned to target to deccelerate) - the constant thrust also provides kind of "artifical gravity".

That is unlikely we have in reality - our space ships just "farts" to get some speed and then just free-falls.

And due to speed limit that is true also in Space Engineers. There is no point in thrust when you are moving at max absolute speed at desired vector.

You should also watch The Expanse - that is one of the more realistic TV shows in space. Yes, there are some story segregations or oversights (they are shooting the scenes in gravity ;-) ), but it is MUCH better than SW, ST etc ...

In fact, due to speed limit (and default skybox), I find The Expanse portrayal of space much more realistic than Space Engineers. Mostly.

And the rest:

- I find it immersion breaking and very time consuming when I have to use pistons and/or rotors for simple tasks when rope/hose/cable would suffice.

- SE and ME don't use same engine. They use different versions of it, ME has newer branch.

And why are you acting like you knew what is inside of Keen's developers mind ? Are you one of them or have direct access to one ?

In reality I don't think that "ropes" in space are useless just because you think it cannot be done. They have a plethora of uses (mostly for temporary uses) and complications are just engineering problem. It is up to engineer to consider whether it is worth to use rope or more stable connection (in time and resource cost).

In game I can understand that due to engine complications, sheer amount of bugs / ideas and desire to 'finish' the game they won't be implemented.

pig headed as i may be, you yourself aren't exactly a pleasant flower to deal with, honestly like a face full of cactus, but regardless of that.

Whether you like it or not, planets are a part of the game, and they spent a great deal of time developing them, so it stands to reason that they would like to make the experience be more desirable, cables have been used since early stages of humanity, even if we can manipulate gravity, apparently that tech doesn't work with conflicting gravity fields (planets) so that's a really moot and foolish point to try and use to stand against them.

You talk as if you have a line to the developers, which is perhaps laughable at best, but hey. i'll give you the benefit of the doubt. If you do, by all means, tell them about this conversation and let them decide by themselves. Again, they have already implemented a basic rope/winch model in ME, while ive spoken to the devs and a direct port isn't really possible, they atleast have a basic idea of how to go about it.

PS: if you are having trouble with only a few rotors, i can honestly say, you are probably doing something wrong. I've had quite a high level of success with them and can honestly say: they aren't nearly as bad as the general attitude toward them would have you believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2r6LMMD6UY cheers

@GG I don't really have problems with rotors & pistons, I just think that with ropes/winches some things would be easier and much less time consuming. Plus I wouldn't have to create contraption that would be considered needlessly complex or byzantine in real world.

PS: And for that 1st place contraptions from the physics contest ... I already checked that world on workshop, it's great ... I just don't have computer powerful enough for it :(

You are both (GrindyGears, domingo) pig-headed and blind. :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km-vj6f3TPo

Game engine is unable to simulate "realistic rope simulation" like in video and it will just add more issues than one benefit.

No Keen will NOT add something like this... (it will just add 1000+ more bugs to the game).

Even having the rope just "simple two point connection that can change distance" (most of games use this technique). That technique is only used where gravity is involved, otherwise it will just broke immersion, as you can pass over the rope without bending it, just fly over it. Domingo please go educate your self, as i see, you have no idea about environment of zero gravity and void space.

Have nice day you two :D and keep dreaming about thing that has no point being added.

Ropes are uselles in space

Here you go you two, without tension ropes are useless in space...

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

If you think you have powerfull PC that kind of "realistic rope simulation" will KILL the sim speed to 0.0001 and FPS to MAX = 5

Do you have a car ?

Did you already towed someone ?

And was part of the trip down the hill ?

You are right in one thing - no tension == rope is mostly useless. But you don't really need gravity to create that tension.

Creating tension between two object for rope to work in space is engineering problem. If you are unable to do it, don't. Others will, if they have a chance.

Ropes are NOT useless in space. Ropes are useless only if you cannot create tension, either due to physical constraints, game engine limitations or other inabilities on part of the engineer.

domingo if you read my every reply here carefully, you already know the answer.

Simple two point connection that can change distance what you want will just broke immersion, as other player can pass over the area between the connection "as rope" , without bending it".

I really like to have few armor blocks flying feely, on fictitious 2 point connection "as rope" with the rope texture just go like ghost, straight through my asteroid and my base. *claps*

"Wow i really like that" (irony-Off) == *go to the support.keenswh.com and submit !bug! issue ticket* = (nahahahh.. The ropes go through my base acting like ghosts... please fix that....)

"Ropes are NOT useless in space. Ropes are useless only if you cannot create tension, either due to physical constraints, game engine limitations or other inabilities on part of the engineer." - domingo

https://youtu.be/VXoNMYDvPHM?t=40s

Why i forcibly complicate my build with all that thrusters and energy spend to stabilize that stupid cargo ball on rope to forbid the loosing the tension on it? hmm.... It is simpler and less expensive (performance friendly) when i directly glue it to the ship with the magnetic landing gear or some huge pliers. Actually "havok physics" used in SE is not suitable for the any kind of pliers idea.

If you want realistic rope simulation (with all that physical bending altering the shape) == Forget it

None of today HW or CPU out there is able to handle this kind of realistic rope simulation.

And if you do not know, SE game engine is having problems with simple tasks already!

Keen will not add something that will just make it worse. Really SE needs more nails to the coffin...

The de-sync issue in the Multiplayer of this thing will be nightmare..

Immersion: simple boundaries around line and breaking of the "virtual" link over some force threshold are simple enough to implement.

However I got the impression that this conversation turned away from point to the "I need to win it".

Ok, you won.

I don't see a point in continuing this conversation anymore, In fact the real point was lost maybe ~15 comments ago.

domingo if you know something about physics in games, you will already know this... You will not arguing on something, that is unable to achieve... It will add more issues than that one benefit.

"Phun" the 2D physics sandbox simulator will kill your CPU using realistic rope simulation just in 2D dimesion.

Nobody here is asking for "realistic" rope simulations mate, thats a strawman argument if i ever saw one.

Do you see the people in Medieval engineers complaining about "muh immersion" with the relatively simple implementation of ropes? No? okay, well i'd wager a lot of people who play ME also play SE, so that would render that argument useless anyway.

Let's just pretend that ropes are infact completely useless in space (which with a bit of creativity and logic could be easily made into any number of uses) that still leaves planetary gameplay which is intended to make up a large portion of the game, as it stands right now, people try to get off a planet as fast as they can because putting up with gravity honestly sucks, adding more gameplay that is planet focused like ropes could help a lot of people, and work towards player staying on planets longer, as a simple example, building on planets would likely be made much easier with access to ropes and cables, because it would allow people to build modules and install them, or on a less grand scale a simple vehicle being flipped over, just hook a cable or two and roll it back over, a common practice when there aren't any roads to speak of.

Anyway, i've said my piece, and i agree with domingo, at this point you're just ignoring whatever we say and stating that were "wrong" and you absolutely have to win this argument.

Winch block would be so awesome.

GrindyGears Then why Keen not add them to SE when they are in ME from start?

Hmm?

Keen know the feature in SE will just create only bugs. Planets are ADDITION, NOT MAIN Feature. Did you ever play SE Multi-player? Do you know how bad is the issue of de-sync? The game have problems to sync 2 ships glued together via lading gear.

You want feature of sub-grid flying freely all time changing position rotation and distance in the same time as main ship / grid.

the bug report forum will be overrunn

I really like to have few armor blocks flying feely, on fictitious 2 point connection "as rope" with the rope texture just go like ghost, straight through my asteroid and my base. *claps*

"Wow i really like that" (irony-Off) == *go to the support.keenswh.com and submit !bug! issue ticket* = (nahahahh.. The ropes go through my base acting like ghosts... please fix that....)

SE Changelog:

Rope Block was REMOVED

Well lets start with the fact that ME came out before planets were added to the game. While there would still be some uses, the primary intended usage area is in gravity, which at the time didn't exist, so thats another strawman, I could make the exact same argument complaining why compound blocks weren't added to SE, though they start with the same base engine, they diverged quite a bit in order to better support the desired features of ME (like structural integrity)

It's true that planets were added to the game, but that doesn't mean that you can't further support or flesh out a feature, thats like me saying you shouldn't get any more features in space because you already have broken NPC's :^)

I have actually played lots of MP, on planets, WITH clang machines, *gasp* a great deal of desync that actually causes issues went away with the MP update, they'll continue to fix bugs causing it, so frankly using desync as a means to deny a feature is a poor argument at best.

FYI: A less rigid connection, like a rope VS say a piston and landing gear would actually be much less prone to desync, simply because it's actually free to move, the system doesn't have to Forcibly move things as much to validate the position on the server.

It's actually remarkable how much of a vendetta you have against ropes/cables, it must be tiring to be so scrunched up all the time complaining about blocks that other people want. I could apply that "bug reports would be overrun" logic to literally any feature that keen would ever have the intention of adding, which makes it an absolutely crap argument :^)

Have a nice day

GrindyGears I describe to you in many ways why they will NOT add it. It is sad that somebody is that stubborn, to understand it. :)

"blocks that other people want" -GrindyGears

Yeah like that 16 people are really mutch. *claps*

"FYI: A less rigid connection, like a rope VS say a piston and landing gear would actually be much less prone to desync, simply because it's actually free to move, the system doesn't have to Forcibly move things as much to validate the position on the server." -GrindyGears

*facepalm*

Go learn something about game engines as you clearly have NO IDEA.

Have a nice day and start to listen people.

Ropes work in space!

ehm..This is like the "flat-earthers" all over again...

Its really sad how none of you have been smart enough to give up already...

must feel real high on that horse when the number of people who voted for a winch that keen will never add is greater than the number of people who liked a couple of your ideas.

But anyway, lets talk about degrees of freedom and the forces that are often involved to correct them when you push them beyond what theyre supposed to do, IE torquing a piston head. if you don't have to care about a connection, it doesnt need to send nearly as much data, or apply as many logical forces.

I don't recall, but I do think newer versions of havok do actually have "rope" constraints built right into the list, but im not sure if the older version that keen is using supports them.

In terms of constraints, they work much the same as pistons do, just a set max distance, so long as its within that, its fine.

GrindyGears

How many people liked my ideas is irrelevant.

My ideas have at lest "possible approach" how to do them, and one of them is already half done by one mod.

Most of stuff Keen ever add was already done by mods! (Half-Blocks, Corner Lcd / Light, Parachute Block)

You are only acting like pigheaded brat that use feature in other game and want that feature in this game without any knowledge "How it is done" or "what performance issue will that thing create".

I will not reply to you any more as it is not worth to speak with pigheaded brat. Go learn something, make functional mod, test mod performance impact, then sputter your nonsense.