Mouse wheel to set desired thrust and top speed

Wilhelm shared this feedback 2 months ago
Under Consideration

As it stands right now, if you hit 'W' to accelerate, the engines go to 100% and start to move the ship/vehicle. If you have a lot of thrust, this can lead to you going too fast very quickly. Also if you want to go some speed less than 100% and still have inertial dampening, you end up bouncing between 100% thrust, then slow down, 100% thrust then slow down as you hover around your desired speed.


I would like to suggest that in addition to the 'W/S/A/D' keys to say 'go' in whatever direction, allow the mouse wheel to provide additional fine control of how much thrust (out of the maximum potential thrust) you want to apply in said direction at that time. So if I wanted to slowly accelerate in a specific situation, maybe I set the desired thrust to 10% and the ship would creep forward.

Additionally, a similar method (hotkey select) should allow you to set your maximum desired speed. In this case, you might want to do some precision navigation, accelerate quickly but not go very fast (like trying to dock with a connector). In this case, the mouse wheel could be used to set the current desired top speed to 10m/s, but still apply higher thrust (also selecetable).

These settings should have a hotkey to revert to default (max) and ideally a way to set specific configurations via a hotbar. This would allow someone to create their own (for example) 'flank speed', 'docking speed', 'mining speed', etc. with configured thrust % and top speed.

Replies (8)

photo
2

This is a repost of an older archived feedback from the initial release over a year ago. Playing more, I feel like this is more essential.

Archived: https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/46066-mouse-wheel-to-set-desired-thrustspeed-in

photo
2

Some kind of speed limit option would be very useful. I’ve always wanted this in SE1.

It could simply be a setting directly in the thruster block (like the suspension blocks in SE1).

This would allow for different speed limits in different directions and even different limits for various thrusters in the same direction.

For example, it could automatically turn off expensive hydrogen thrusters once a certain speed is exceeded and continue using only ion thrusters.


The limit could be easily modified via the toolbar.

I would really appreciate that.

photo
1

Hmm this gives me a build idea, hydrogen for back and forward, and ion for the rest...

I guess this would balance the use of renewable and fuel power.

photo
photo
1

Hello,

I support this idea, it would be neat.

So far, for some ships I grouped my larger thrusters and disable them for fine movement like aligning.

I had the idea, but not posted about it, of a speed limit while keeping the dampeners, so the ship aligns if I move it.

I don't know if thrust % would be practical for this in that manner, because it would change for every ship, while speed is static. Go 125m/s is 125, but 55% of thrusters/mass is different for every ship. It can be done tho... but would require fine tuning and more PCU, I think, to manage everything.

photo
1

I would envision that you could set different % preset in the hotbar, so you could pre-set 'docking speed, mining speed, flank speed, ludicrous speed, whatever speed, or the like and tap your choices as needed (best if Keen also gives us my requested 'save/load hotbar configs to/from a file' so you can just load up the hotbar config you need (and port it from ship to ship or cockpit to cockpit)).

photo
photo
3

In general I'm in favor of more hotbar settable presets,

(heading off the archive topic police, hopefully). Sheesh,

photo
1

I support the idea of being able to adjust engine thrust.


But the players themselves are largely to blame for the problem. They’re in a hurry, don’t want to move at low speeds for long periods, and are too lazy to group engines into sets based on their purpose—they haven’t divided their engines into “cruise” and “maneuvering” categories. And they don’t know how to—or don’t want to—use “motion damping” correctly.

photo
1

Right, the main practical uses here are related to docking/landing or maneuvering in tight spaces. Even being able to say 'don't exceed safety speed', above which the ship starts to take damage from collisions would be useful

photo
1

I agree. The ability to set a maximum safe speed would definitely be a big help. Similarly, the ability to set a maximum permissible acceleration would be helpful.

photo
1

Agree on the maximum acceleration as an option also

photo
photo
1

Been playing a bunch of SE1 since the last update, and I keep running into this same feedback there. As in, after extensive gameplay on SE1 and hundreds of hours on SE2 already, the 100% engine on, engine off, 100% engine on, engine off as the mechanism for precise movement is less than ideal.

Being able to preset speed limits (and hotkey those) would be such a time saver.

photo
3

Thank you for your feedback. It has been collected and passed on to the developers for discussion.

Cheers,

Arron CM

photo
1

I really like the idea of adding more control over thrust, but I think it could be expanded into a broader Flight/Drive Modes system.

A good real-world comparison is the different driving modes found in modern vehicles (Normal, Sport, Off-Road, Eco, etc.), where each mode changes how the vehicle responds without requiring constant manual adjustment.

Instead of only adjusting thrust on the fly, players could create and save customizable modes with their own settings, such as:

  • Maximum thrust output
  • Maximum speed
  • Acceleration response
  • (Potentially other flight characteristics in the future)

This would let players quickly switch between profiles depending on what they're doing. For example:

  • Docking – Low top speed with smooth, controlled thrust for precision maneuvering.
  • Mining – Tuned for heavy loads, making a fully loaded ship easier to handle than an empty one.
  • Atmospheric Flight – Settings optimized for flying in gravity without excessive acceleration.
  • Cruise/Travel – Full performance for long-distance travel.

Being able to save these modes and assign them to the hotbar would make them easy to switch between during gameplay. It would also provide a scalable system that could support additional vehicle handling features in the future, rather than only solving the issue of fine thrust control.


For example:


Mining ships (loaded vs. unloaded): A mining ship often has very different handling characteristics depending on whether it's empty or carrying a full load of ore. When empty, high thrust can make maneuvering through tight tunnels or mining shafts difficult, where even a smaller input can cause the ship to accelerate too quickly and collide with the walls. On the other hand, reducing thrust enough to make empty operation comfortable can leave the ship feeling sluggish and underpowered when it's fully loaded. Having separate flight modes would let players quickly switch between an "Empty" and "Loaded" profile without constantly adjusting their controls.

Leave a Comment
 
Attach a file
You can't vote. Please authorize!
You can't vote. Please authorize!
You can't vote. Please authorize!