Should excessive use of gyros cause structural damage?

Ezekiel Richards ●

Centrifugal force and the damage resulting from extreme numbers of it would be very interesting. But it would need to be balanced gameplay wise. Perhaps an optional toggle?

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Semtex ●

The reason may be simple - during combat turns, the edge of a large ship can very easily reach the "speed limit" of the game. Imagine a ship 250 meters long. When turning in the opposite direction - 180° - in one second, the circumferential speed of the ship's parts reaches up to 392 m/s! Centrifugal acceleration reaches up to 1233m/s2 - 123G.

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captainbladej52 ●

No it shouldn't cause structural damage purely because someone has a larger ship. Because then you're just punishing people who build "incorrectly" and build larger than you think a ship should be. Something like this would massively restrict the build freedom we have now and drive people away from the game. IRL if a large enough ship were to whip around fast enough, potentially yes you might see some kind of damage depending on several factors. However this isn't real life, but a video game. The game doesn't need to be 100% realistic to be fun, nor should it be 100% realistic in my book because then you defeat the purpose of it being a game. Even if someone somehow builds a large ship the size of a city that can whip around in a second, it's easily explainable in game by saying they have better materials, ways of building and abilities to account for excess forces than we do. Especially if they can make artificial gravity.

Another thing is if we're going to now say it should cause structural damage, you have to define a start point for when that damage starts to occur. In other words, how big is too big? Where is the start point? Because what some people consider a dreadnought sized object is a medium sized cruiser to me and so on. A ship that's 200 blocks long is still 200 blocks long even if it's able to move like a fighter. Also the larger builds are already balanced out by the fact it takes ALOT more investment resource wise to make a big ship move that fast vs a smaller one. In other words if I'm able to get a 200 block long dreadnought to move like it's a 40 block long cruiser or like a small fighter, there's a ton of extra prep and resources that went into making that happen vs the smaller ship. So you already have a balance, it's just not structural damage.

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Deon Beauchamp ●

I really enjoyed the series 'The Irresponsible Captain Tylor'. It should be possible to simulate Space Opera like battles in SE. To say that you can not, would be a complete spoiler. You do you, let other SE players do the game play that they enjoy. With game options on Gyro to mass ratios everyone can be happy. (You would set slider to zero for no limit)

A game as successful as SE would not be where it is today without making it possible to play SE in many ways.

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captainbladej52 ●

I generally operate under the "you do you so long as I'm not forced to participate" doctrine with a very select few notable exceptions. That said, this does not preclude myself or others from giving thoughts that something like this is a bad idea, especially on a publicly accessible site. While I wish they could incorporate every request people make as some form of togglable option, they do not have nearly enough resources to do this.

Also respectfully you're not stopping to fully think about what you're asking them. One of the chief draws and core gameplay elements of SE1 has been the build freedom it offers. If you can think it and build it, which includes giving it enough thrust and torque, it would fly or move. Doesn't matter if it's only 15 blocks long or 1500. If you could think it and build it, you could do it. You're essentially asking them to make a change to a core gameplay element that would severely restrict the build freedom people have now and add a ton of extra calculations and performance drain for little to no return on it. While you may enjoy stresses like that, many more don't. This suggestion of hull stresses like you've outlined above is basically asking Keen to change a core mechanic and punish people for building bigger than you think they should be building, while simultaneously heavily restricting the build freedom we have now. In other words, devoting development resources to adding unneeded calculations to the game that will decrease performance while restricting people for no good reason.

I get that some people want the game to be more realistic and that's fine, but not everyone else does. Another key problem is a feature like this harms the builds and gameplay of others purely by existing where as something like shields, energy weapons, food systems, aerodynamics (assuming basic lift/drag only), and other highly requested things do not. A feature like this in my book falls into the same category as folks who frequently ask for Jump Drive Jammers so they can prevent other people from using their jump drives. It allows someone to flip a switch and harm another's build while they can do nothing about it. Something like this is similar in that it harms the build of others while there is nothing they can do about it. I also see no upsides to a system like this as it comes off as "build this way or you're wrong." Based off your suggestions I've seen on here, I don't believe you personally are intending it that way, but for many others that's how the feature itself would be perceived. It's all downsides with no positives for interacting with it which won't attract that many people. If you would want people to support a feature or something you have to give them reasons to want to support it. Speaking as someone who has experience creating content for other games, SE included (no I'm not a dev), you can't make people play the way you want them to play. You have to give them reasons to want to do it. So far all I see are reasons for me to avoid the system and not want to interact with it.

I generally operate under the "you do you so long as I'm not forced to participate" doctrine with a very select few notable exceptions. That said, this does not preclude myself or others from giving thoughts that something like this is a bad idea, especially on a publicly accessible site. While I wish they could incorporate every request people make as some form of togglable option, they do not have nearly enough resources to do this.

Also respectfully you're not stopping to fully think about what you're asking them. One of the chief draws and core gameplay elements of SE1 has been the build freedom it offers. If you can think it and build it, which includes giving it enough thrust and torque, it would fly or move. Doesn't matter if it's only 15 blocks long or 1500. If you could think it and build it, you could do it. You're essentially asking them to make a change to a core gameplay element that would severely restrict the build freedom people have now and add a ton of extra calculations and performance drain for little to no return on it. While you may enjoy stresses like that, many more don't. This suggestion of hull stresses like you've outlined above is basically asking Keen to change a core mechanic and punish people for building bigger than you think they should be building, while simultaneously heavily restricting the build freedom we have now. In other words, devoting development resources to adding unneeded calculations to the game that will decrease performance while restricting people for no good reason.

I get that some people want the game to be more realistic and that's fine, but not everyone else does. Another key problem is a feature like this harms the builds and gameplay of others purely by existing where as something like shields, energy weapons, food systems, aerodynamics (assuming basic lift/drag only), and other highly requested things do not. A feature like this in my book falls into the same category as folks who frequently ask for Jump Drive Jammers so they can prevent other people from using their jump drives. It allows someone to flip a switch and harm another's build while they can do nothing about it. Something like this is similar in that it harms the build of others while there is nothing they can do about it. I also see no upsides to a system like this as it comes off as "build this way or you're wrong." Based off your suggestions I've seen on here, I don't believe you personally are intending it that way, but for many others that's how the feature itself would be perceived. It's all downsides with no positives for interacting with it which won't attract that many people. If you would want people to support a feature or something you have to give them reasons to want to support it. Speaking as someone who has experience creating content for other games, SE included (no I'm not a dev), you can't make people play the way you want them to play. You have to give them reasons to want to do it. So far all I see are reasons for me to avoid the system and not want to interact with it.

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Ezekiel Richards ●

Perhaps a compromise to this suggestion would be: To expose the necessary resources in the modding toolkit so that modders could implement gyro damage if they wanted to.

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Deon Beauchamp ●

I am OK with that.

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captainbladej52 ●

I'm always cool with more api access for modding. I'm just not a fan of including stuff in the base game (unless it's off by default) that can restrict build freedom or harm a person's grid with no recourse. Exposing the resources to make it happen for folks that want it, absolutely cool.

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Ammorok ●

Lets keep SE2 physics REALISM a priority.

Gyroscopes should cause structural damage if the G-Force exerted on the structure would rip it apart in reality.

Capital ships are not Fighters, something that large would be ripped apart if huge torque was applied to it.

That was a huge problem for balancing in SE1. I understand pushing the envelope in a game, but at some point REALITY has to set in. I would support a REAL cause and effect behavior, without limiting the number you can add to a grid. If you ad more gyros that fine, just take note and realize that it will apply real forces exponentially to the grid and tear you apart if spammed.

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captainbladej52 ●

@Ammorok: There's a few things wrong with your argument.

First off this is a game, and games do not need to be 100% realistic to be fun, and in quite a few instances they shouldn't be 100% realistic as that defeats the purpose of trying to have fun. The game is what you make of it and 100% realism doesn't have to be a thing. You want it to be a thing clearly, but it doesn't have to be.

Second, how are defining "huge torque"? Because what you're thinking with "huge torque" and what I'm thinking with huge torque may be 2 completely different things. Also "without limiting the number you can add to a grid" and "tear you apart if spammed" are mutually exclusive and do not go together. If there's no limit to the number you can place then the second statement can't happen as there is no such thing as spam. If having too many of them means you can be torn apart via spamming gyros, then the first statement is false as there is in fact a limit. There is no middle ground to that.

Now would shearing forces, excess torque shredding something be realistic, sure it would. There's plenty of things that are realistic that could be added, far too many to make an exhaustive list here. However not all of those realistic things would add value to the game. Even worse is many of them would cause MASSIVE hits to performance for little in return as far as gameplay goes. Outside of particularly obvious examples, gameplay matters to me more than realism does. I would rather play the 75% realistic game that's fun vs the more tedious and dull 100% realism game all day long. If you're the opposite that's perfectly fine as you're entitled to that view. However you should keep in mind most people who play SE do so because of the massive amounts of freedom we have to create what we want, be it a giant gun brick, more realistic vessels you might see in our current reality, or something from Trek or other sci-fi series. Restricting that freedom is going against a major core value of the game and would harm the game as a whole.

"Capital ships are not Fighters, something that large would be ripped apart if huge torque was applied to it."

As to this particular point, IRL yes that would happen. Without us having some kind of tech like Trek style inertial dampers or hull integrity fields, yes alot of builds we see in game would never be possible IRL. However gameplay wise, if I've figured out the engineering to the point I can get a build such as a 1:1 scale Enterprise D moving around like an F18 fighter, who is hurt by that? Who is negatively impacted if I've put in the engineering and work to make that happen? How is your gameplay in particular negatively impacted, especially if we're not even on the same server/world?

Because as I've said prior, stuff like this just stinks to me as wanting to punish people who don't build "correctly" by catering 100% to realism. If I wanted 100% realism I wouldn't play SE at all. Should something like this be added to the game it would be one of the first things I would disable for my server/world because I'm not dealing with that. If someone wants to use it then more power to them, but I won't be. And if it were hardcoded to force it, then that would be the end of my playing SE. I would rather not see stuff like this added, but if it were added and I could turn it off, or it was off by default meaning people had to opt in, I could live with it.

Otherwise something like what you're proposing would also be a MASSIVE performance hit to the game. You're basically adding a bunch of extra calculations that add no other value to the game and would basically function as an artificial limiter.

@Ammorok: There's a few things wrong with your argument.

First off this is a game, and games do not need to be 100% realistic to be fun, and in quite a few instances they shouldn't be 100% realistic as that defeats the purpose of trying to have fun. The game is what you make of it and 100% realism doesn't have to be a thing. You want it to be a thing clearly, but it doesn't have to be.

Second, how are defining "huge torque"? Because what you're thinking with "huge torque" and what I'm thinking with huge torque may be 2 completely different things. Also "without limiting the number you can add to a grid" and "tear you apart if spammed" are mutually exclusive and do not go together. If there's no limit to the number you can place then the second statement can't happen as there is no such thing as spam. If having too many of them means you can be torn apart via spamming gyros, then the first statement is false as there is in fact a limit. There is no middle ground to that.

Now would shearing forces, excess torque shredding something be realistic, sure it would. There's plenty of things that are realistic that could be added, far too many to make an exhaustive list here. However not all of those realistic things would add value to the game. Even worse is many of them would cause MASSIVE hits to performance for little in return as far as gameplay goes. Outside of particularly obvious examples, gameplay matters to me more than realism does. I would rather play the 75% realistic game that's fun vs the more tedious and dull 100% realism game all day long. If you're the opposite that's perfectly fine as you're entitled to that view. However you should keep in mind most people who play SE do so because of the massive amounts of freedom we have to create what we want, be it a giant gun brick, more realistic vessels you might see in our current reality, or something from Trek or other sci-fi series. Restricting that freedom is going against a major core value of the game and would harm the game as a whole.

"Capital ships are not Fighters, something that large would be ripped apart if huge torque was applied to it."

As to this particular point, IRL yes that would happen. Without us having some kind of tech like Trek style inertial dampers or hull integrity fields, yes alot of builds we see in game would never be possible IRL. However gameplay wise, if I've figured out the engineering to the point I can get a build such as a 1:1 scale Enterprise D moving around like an F18 fighter, who is hurt by that? Who is negatively impacted if I've put in the engineering and work to make that happen? How is your gameplay in particular negatively impacted, especially if we're not even on the same server/world?

Because as I've said prior, stuff like this just stinks to me as wanting to punish people who don't build "correctly" by catering 100% to realism. If I wanted 100% realism I wouldn't play SE at all. Should something like this be added to the game it would be one of the first things I would disable for my server/world because I'm not dealing with that. If someone wants to use it then more power to them, but I won't be. And if it were hardcoded to force it, then that would be the end of my playing SE. I would rather not see stuff like this added, but if it were added and I could turn it off, or it was off by default meaning people had to opt in, I could live with it.

Otherwise something like what you're proposing would also be a MASSIVE performance hit to the game. You're basically adding a bunch of extra calculations that add no other value to the game and would basically function as an artificial limiter.

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Warlord ●

I agree there is often not much point to small fighters in Space Engineers as they are very weak, have the same speed as even the biggest ships and die pretty fast to auto turrets.

One solution to this is to allow for admins & players to create ship classes which place certain limits and restraints on what can be built on certain ships. With such a system one could for large ships limit the amount of gyros available and thereby turning them into the big hunkering behemoths they should be.

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/46193-ship-class-system

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Oselotti ●

Hmm... Perhaps but I understood that structural integrity in Medieval engineers is quite heavy to run. I love complexity but it could be too much for servers perhaps.

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Tael ●

An interesting thought...

-To be sure it would feel odd to simulate just gyro-related structural stress without simulating other similar structural mechanics, so we'd want to ensure excessive conventional thrust did the same thing, and probably find a way to work out how the strain translated across a grid's structure so that we weren't ignoring the single line of small armor holding two halves of a huge ship together in combat in favor of damaging parts further from the center of mass.

-This would definitely need a toggle so that those that want the extra engineering challenge can have it on while those that don't keep it off.

-It would probably also require the ability to pilot it with something akin to key-lock so that people don't give themselves repetitive motion injuries trying to turn a 1-1 scale ISD.

-This would definitely affect the game's difficulty for new players and the combat-balance, so would require significant testing to balance properly and probably some manner of system that either auto-dials the output of gyros and thrusters to avoid breaking the ship, or some kind of obvious warning for people that hop in to the cockpit of something with the power to break itself that way...

-I find myself most concerned with the cpu-load this would cause, and while it would probably make for a passable combat-balance-mechanic to people flying things large enough to gravitationally retain their own atmosphere, unless Keen works a miracle it would probably need to remain off by default to avoid bogging the game down just because someone decided to turn while flying a common football field made of detail blocks.

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Balmung ●

I don't know, while the idea is nice, how do you will make this structural damage? Random blocks are damaged? Hard to find them all to repair a larger ship, could be easily get way too annoying when such damage happens. So there need to be a good solution for that.

But I generally agree, it should not be possible to put endless gyros on your capital ship to fly it like a small fighter. I'm only not sure if that is a practical solution.

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Diggrok ●

Me and a buddy have talked about this as a feature and this was the exact same conclusion we came to also.

While it would be cool to have forces acting on your ship while performing high-G maneuvers, having to figure out what is broken and where would be a nightmare. It would almost be worth it to scrap a ship and rebuild from a projector than to find every broken piece, especially when you're in a very complex build with many intricate details. And the calculations to figure out which piece of armor should break on a ship with thousands of blocks and constantly monitor the force on them would probably just slow the sim speed down more.

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Deon Beauchamp ●

The simplest way is to allow gyros to become detached from their mounts, destroying the nearest adjacent blocks.

The fun way would be for the gyro to destroy itself like a low powered warhead.

For this to be reasonable a warning system would be needed.

Having excessive gyros should not cause damage immediately, but would occur if the rotational demands were high enough, for long enough.

Managing gyro strength would be a valid method for avoiding damage.

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Ammorok ●

Regardless of what camp you want to pitch your tent (Realism or Non-realism), I would like to see some form of effect on the structure built with gyros where the structure mass and integrity is a consideration. Even if it means having a toggle switch in the main menu to turn certain features or effects on or off.

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Should excessive use of gyros cause structural damage?

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