Show block properties in build menu

Rabiator shared this feedback ago

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When designing a new vehicle, it would be nice to have the full stats of the blocks you consider using displayed.

For example, the attached file shows the build menu with the 0.5m hydrogen thruster selected. In the area where currently only the component list is displayed (highlighted with a red ellipse) I'd love to see things like the weight of the block, hit points, thrust, fuel consumption and so on.

Knowing these details would help to pick the most suitable blocks. In this case, one large or many small thrusters?

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Replies (4)

Allison M ●

This! So much! I nearly rage-quit SE1 early on over not being able to get the stats I needed for blocks. If I hadn't found Digi's Build Info mod, which provides all that information, I would have stopped SE1 at under 100 hours (I'm now well over 2k) and certainly wouldn't be playing SE2.

For a game that literally has the word "Engineer" in the title, the lack of info about blocks has always seemed a huge oversight to me. Engineers don't slap pieces together and hope they work as intended - we (yes, I am an actual aerospace engineer) design our creations in advance, based on hard numbers. I have literally charted the performance of all SE1's thrusters based on a number of characteristics and ratios so I could find the best choice for different ships - something only possible because the Build Info mod gave me the thruster statistics to analyze.

Also, devs, please take note that the Build Info mod is the 5th most popular SE1 workshop item of all time. I think that speaks pretty clearly to how many people want access to this kind of information as they build.

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David Roby ●

Seriously would love vanilla Build Info and Build Vision.

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4Peace ●

Both in G menu and when you place a block. This is some QoL feature that I expect in the final game for sure. The UI can also be changed and improved in many ways. I think it is a matter of time. Build Info and Build Vision were one of the most popular mods for the original game, and I think devs are considering something even better for the sequel :)

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Waterlimon ●

I would like information about speed, acceleration, turn speed.

But most importantly, maximum cargo capacity in a given direction in 1.0G. So you know if your mining ship can actually carry a megaton of ore while pointing down. Or if your carrier ship can carry all the ships you want it to.

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Rabiator ●

Those are not a property of a single thruster. In detail...

Maximum speed: Whatever Keen sets as game wide maximum (currently 300 m/s, but mods may be able to change this.) Even a weak thruster will gradually accelerate to max. speed, if nothing is slowing the ship down. Changing the thruster will not change the top speed, only the acceleration.

Acceleration: In general, acceleration is force divided by mass. The mass is the total mass of ship and cargo, the force is the thrust of the thruster. So acceleration does not only depend on the thruster, but also on the rest of the ship. Without knowing ship design and load, you cannot predict acceleration from a single thruster.

Turn speed: Unless I missed something, this is only given by the gyros (and it still depends on gyro power vs. ship mass.) The thrusters have no influence there.

Maximum cargo capacity: We can partly answer that question. To take off in 1G, the ship needs an acceleration over 10 m/s². That is 10 N per kg of mass. If your thruster has (for example) 20kN of thrust, it can lift up to 2000 kg. But that is for ship plus cargo. Subtract the weight of the ship itself, and you get how much cargo the thruster can (barely) lift.

Also, the thrust from many thrusters pushing in the same direction adds up. Calculate the total force, repeat the above calculation and subtract a thrust reserve to accelerate off the ground. But the data sheet of a single thruster will not tell you enough.

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