Asymmetric thrust

Realistic thrust vectoring. It would be interesting if there was a Thruster Management Computer that did the following:

• Thrust equalization - Automatically applies the correct amount of thrust to allow thrusting perfectly straight (or as straight as physically possible) when holding a directional input.
• Rotational thrust - Allows the ship to utilize its thrusters to rotate the ship similar to using reaction wheels Gyroscopes. This also automatically aids to help fly the ship in a straight line.
• If the Thrust Management Computer is damaged, controls revert to Direct Law, meaning inputs go unmodified to thrusters, and thruster-based rotational controls are lost.

This seems like something that would be a good optional setting at world creation, there are times (especially when recreating sci-fi props) where the thrust placement not mattering is very important but your suggestion would work great for adding some fun challenges when we get survival.

I wouldn't mind seeing this as an optional thing for people to use. Because there will be times that I would want to fly something akin to a borg cube, and other times I may want something to take advantage of a feature like this. As long as it's not forced on me full time then cool. If I can cycle it on and off as I please then sure, let's go.

As an option, YES! It should be turned off by default though, or at least, when you create a new game it should require some input (a pop-up with a slider maybe?) Because I know a lot of players want that more arcad-y feel, and not KSP but with blocks.

It would be awesome to make it look like the thrusters are rotating the ship, whether or not they are.

How about a method where the acceleration to rotate is added depending on how far away the thruster is from the center of gravity?

Even if the gyros are lost, I would like to see the thrusters barely turn the head.

It may be too early to say, but when planets are implemented in the future...

I think it is also important that the shape of the hull and the density of the water and air affect the acceleration, even if only a little.

This is easily the thing I want to see the most in SE2. This would reward placing thrusters further from a ships center of mass, as that would provide more rotational control, at the cost of exposing them to damage. It would also encourage balancing cargo space and keeping hangars and cargo close to a ships center of mass. The current system of placing thrusters and gyroscopes anywhere, although good for making the game easy to get into, restricts the skill ceiling of ship design. This reduces the reasons to build a well thought out ship, as why bother when a brick will fly exactly the same as any other shape.

On a related note, I think this would go well with a world option to reduce the power of gyroscopes. I can't be the only one who feels like super-powered gyroscopes take away half the fun in designing a good ship.

I agree with the base concept here as I am a long time KSP player. But thrust vectoring and RCS systems and the physics calculations might be quite complex (IDK). I would love this to be a thing so large ships are able to turn more realistically, given a gyroscope requires a not insignificant size to mass ratio in real life. I always felt 100 gyros was silly and just suspended my disbelief. But as this is a new game.....Please.

Bonus points if this was a world setting toggle, that way imported SE1 ships could still be ussed.

I think this is a good world setting, not a permanent thing though for sure.

Cant wait to see Dzhanibekov effect on massive starship.

Alternative idea: a specific block that allows for asymmetric thruster capabilities. I like star wars for this as they use the 'inertial compensator' to do all sots of stuff with omni directional thrusting.

But I do agree with the other comments on world file toggles for "thrusters work in all directions" I personally, do not care for banks of a thousand thrusters for any ship but i do like intelligently designed ships that do not require the need.

Not sure about that one. It would make asymmetric building of ships a LOT more difficult. Also don't forget that also the interior and how it is build makes an impact, you change too much inside your ship and boom, your ship didn't fly straight anymore.

But maybe you could bound this to something like a flight computer. This computer activates the actual flying (it simply put that mechanic off so it is like now), the idea is that it feels like it use all thrusters to automatically make sure that you fly straight. Without that flight computer your ship reacts asymmetrically. This computer could need some a bit more rare resources so you can't build it from the start and because it is a system, you can switch it on/off when ever you want.

Honestly it would be cool to have as a setting toggle in the world options. Allowing players to have either the SE1 system, or switch on asymmetrical thrust for more of a challenge.

Could be a world toggle, but definitely does not feel like it should be vanilla. It would greatly increase the barrier to entry, and it would reduce the design space to where a given ship has to follow a more stringent design, overall reducing the variety of viable ships.

So long as 'interior thrusters' is not possible, then I could go with this.

I would love to have this as a world option that could be toggled on and off. I would personally have it on all the time but I can see how some people would prefer to have it off. One advantage of having it on would be the use of reaction control thrusters allowing ships to behave more like real space ships. It does add an extra level of complexity in that thruster placement, which does matter, but for ship designers like me, that just adds an extra layer of fun and challenge. There was a MOD for SE1 that added this and it became a default mod for me.

Realy big thing that would need to go with that in my opinion is that you can at least set gyros to counteract asymmetry than it would be awsome and still allow for isymatric build at the cost of energy for gyros

I love and hate this idea at the same time. I feel like this would make building ships a bit more difficult and remove the idea for a lot of unique ship variations. a lot of alien Sci-Fi ships could not work under this concept. However, the idea of being able to take out certain thrusters on enemy ships to immobilize them is a really cool thought.

In order for this to work, the tool set for building needs to expanded. modelling center of gravity in all three axis, fulcrum effects indication, and mass change modeling. IMO this may be way too much for the game.

Options toggle and server setting for this one. Good idea though, for those who are into it.

I would LOVE to see this as a world setting. I would play with it!

I have been playing SE 1 this way for over 10 years with the Realistic Thrusters mod. I would love fore this to be part of the core game!

A way to implement that, which would make sense for older BPs, is to have this be a setting in the cockpit just like inertia dampers are.

Some kind of "Thrust management" function, assuming that the cockpit auto-correct thrust levels to keep the ship flying straight, with the option to turn it off and get full power but without correction.

when i played the first time i thinked that gyro meant inertial mesurement unit as we often misscall this device in arduino modules or maybe other games of construction design not sure what was my knowelge in this era.

i thinked the gyro transmitted the info about angular speed to motor for corecting the spins.

it was at first not a deception but once i tryed to make other design not using wheels it was.

correct me if im wrong: in space engineers a gyro is an heavy mass that rottate at high speed and when accelerated or slowed induce an inverse direction spin ?

but what prevent the spin during the initial acceleration of the gyro for reaching the cruise speed ?

I would say im VERY against this.

As someone who put thousands of hours into KSP, i can say that the precision to get that perfectly aligned Center of Mass and Center of thrust is just not going to happen with a grid system.

at most, id say leave it as an option to allow unbalanced thrust in the game menus so players can see how much of a hassle it becomes.

since the f117 bomber jet the center of mass and center of thrust is not more an issue thank to cpu and imu power.

for those that play ksp without knowing drones controllers.

https://ardupilot.org

A flight type mixing slider to blend the two types; complete asymmetry vrs. axis planes, inside the ship info control.

You could do it like the Cosmoteer system - wasd controls as normal, but will compensate for any rotation caused by asymmetry through maneuvering thrusters

It should definitely be a world option. Basically a toggle that can enforce realistic thrust globally on the whole server. This would allow the player to choose if they want the challenge of realistic thrust.

When not enforced, I feel like players should still be allowed to enable realistic thrust per-ship in-game. This would allow unrealistic ships to co-exist with realistically designed ones in the same server/world. There would just have to be some kind of toggle in the ship's terminal interface perhaps labeled something like "always use realistic thrust."

There are a few reasons why you might want to allow both realistic and unrealistic thrust in the same game. For example:

• Multiplayer server where you might want to play with realistic thrust physics, but don't want to force every player on the server into it.
• Role-play, filming server or scenario where you need to have some Borg-like unrealistic sci-fi ships that defy physics, but still want other ships to fly realistically.
• Perhaps you're not intending to play with realistic thrust, but you spawn in a creation in a creative world that relies on realistic thrust for something.

they just have to rename the actual gyro as alien tech that will provide the same effect than nowdays .

and let the common of the player deal with their thruster and obivously a fly computer because i wonder if anyone can control each thruster manually with a push button and make a ship fly in atmosphere or even in space.

the only change it will add is that requiert to have more than a single thruster per axis for spining.

at my opinion a minimum of 3thruster per axis in a triangular shape around the center of gravity is ok .

it like for drone they can fly with only 3 motor but less eficiently than 4.the same logic with unbalanced plane like f117.

i understand people are underestimating their learning skill when they already mastering far more complex things globally.

I would like to see this in the game very much, please. Preferably without it being optional. The game can easily adjust the max-power of thrusters such that the center of thrust matches the center of mass. For existing ships with reasonable thruster placement, the ship would still be flyable as people are used to. Though, perhaps with better rotational control as thrusters could be used for that too.

This feature is probably necessary to implement [suggestion] Subgrid thruster control, built in.

Keen, if you want my help to implement this, please contact me. I have a BSc in applied maths and MSc in computer science & engineering.

Just an additional idea to throw in, 'cause i figured it could be fun.

Using artifical mass blocks to adjust the balance of a ship with asymmetric thrust.

It'd give them an additional purpose, to dynamically re-balance ships that are unbalanced in weight/thrust distribution.