Ship design console for grids

Wilhelm shared this feedback 20 days ago
Not Enough Votes

I put this in as a comment on another thread and figured it should have its own feedback. The idea here is that we have a 'Ship Design Console' that can be built or found in various outposts and stations. Log into the console and you a) are plugged into oxygen and power so you can stand indefinitely at the console and b) it places your space buddy view into a simulated build environment in creative mode. This would be like you're loading into an empty space (its own environment like you're teleported (virtually not literally) into a blank grid big enough that you can build anything you want in creative mode. At the end, you can exit and are provided with an opportunity to 'save blueprint' and you can also 'load blueprint' and perhaps look at blueprints you pull from the workshop, fly around it, make changes, etc. or work on previously saved ones.

The key here is that the design console can (but can be disabled is desired) provide feedback on what needs to be added to the ship still. 'your design has unbalanced thrust on the port side', 'you have no landing gear', 'your ship is too heavy for the atmospheric thrust currently attached', etc. This could act as a shipbuilding tutorial with things like leak finders for airtight spaces, finding breaks in conveyor networks, etc.

At the end, you have a blueprint you can project and build with as much or little hand-holding as you want/need. You step away from the console (without running out of power and o2) and go about your space engineering.

Replies (4)

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ive seen a similar idea on a thread about holo projectors.

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Yeah, I just really like the idea of being able to simulate builds and actually do some computer evaluation. Now Engineering (vs. Space Engineering) relies heavily on simulation prior to building anything. Could you imagine a rocket company with X in the name just slapping a rocket together and shooting it into space to see how well it flew?

I mean, that's how Goddard did it in the 20's (1920's), but now we have computers.

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I'm kind of surprised actually that more people aren't interested in this concept. Is it because people prefer to literally start a different game to make something for the current game? A console like this provides similar features within the same game instance, survival or otherwise. And as some of the below comments indicate, doing an active evaluation of the ship (more detailed information about the grid as you're building it) would be really handy.

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As mentioned in another thread, the 'standard practive' for SE1 and 2 (so far) has been to stop your survival game, create a new creative mode game and create a blueprint, save it and then go back to the survival game and build it. This feedback eliminates the need to switch, essentially creating a 'simulation' (engineers simulate the heck out of things) which is a mini creative instance you can build your ship and ideally have (optional) tutorial-like suggestions and ideally throw major block details in the corners of the screen like 'which faces of this block are airtight' and any other build-info like info that a user might want (or go look at the SE1 build info mod, it's fantastic).

The ability to load blueprints off the workshop and walk through them and even make changes and export your own version, I'm already really excited about. Yes, you can do it by starting a separate game, to which I say, but you could have it in the same game and cut out a lot of extra steps that break immersion and are likely confusing to new players. "Wait I need to start a different game to do something in this game?'

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This idea could actually be developed much further as an in-game ship engineering analysis system / evaluation matrix.


I think the most interesting aspect would be the technical feedback provided about missing components and potential issues with the ship. Instead of simple warning messages, these could be supported with more detailed engineering data.


For example:


"Your ship is heavier than the lifting capacity provided by your current atmospheric thrusters. It is recommended to add at least ... Newtons of additional thrust."

"Your ship's gyroscope capacity appears to be insufficient for its current mass and design. Increasing gyroscope power above ... value is recommended."

"Your ship's current power generation does not meet its overall energy requirements."

"Your ship's maximum power consumption exceeds 90% of your current production capacity. This may cause overload and inefficient operation. Adding additional batteries or reactors is recommended."


In addition, the console could provide much more comprehensive analysis:


"Your ship's maximum acceleration values in forward, backward, left, right, upward, and downward directions:"

"Your ship's pitch, roll, and yaw rotation speeds:"

"Your ship's electricity and hydrogen consumption values:"

"Engine efficiency and power distribution analysis:"

"Mass distribution and center of gravity analysis:"


If aerodynamic systems are added in the future, this console could be used to perform aerodynamic tests. Once water mechanics are introduced, hydrodynamic analysis could also be performed.


Different environmental conditions could also be selected, with adjustable intensity levels:


  • Flat terrain
  • Rocky terrain
  • Forest environment
  • Ocean environment
  • Wind conditions
  • Day/night conditions
  • Combat environment
  • Radiation environment
  • Hot environment
  • Cold environment


This would allow players to test their ships under different scenarios and measure their performance.

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Absolutely! It could be in the station services, or a base buildable item (I'd prefer base). Really think you could make it into a full simulator and the info including the things you're talking about would be incredibly useful to building.

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Along this point, the evaluation system could 'simulate this ship's behavior on kemik, or byblos or...'by looking at its various thrusts and determining how it would handle the varying planetary conditions.

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Another use case is power modeling, I'm over in SE1 right now enjoying 'prosperity' and I built a small grid planetary ship. I launched it and quickly discovered that a) normal flight consumed 90% of the available battery power and that said batteries allowed for approximately 20 minutes of flight time at that rate. If I turned too sharply, the added thrusters activating and the gyros cranking pushed me well over 100% at times.

A console like this could also provide details like 'peak power use', battery lifetime in a curve from all off to everything active, etc. Too much info? Maybe, until you really regret not having that info as you're crashing into a cliff.

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