Handheld Gravity Tool (Mass Manipulator)

Ryan shared this feedback 2 days ago
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I noticed this shown off in one of the concept arts from the dev blogs a while back, however that was for the multi-tool which no longer seems to be a thing.


I'd love a dedicated gravity tool for picking up smaller objects, rotating, dropping and throwing them a short distance. It would add a lot of fun interactions for the player and would also be extremely useful in case you made a mistake and need to relocate a smaller object. One big issue with SE1 was you had to drive something to move it, I think a gravity tool would be amazing for this reason. Following in line with tool tiers, better tiers of the tool could carry more items at once/ have a wider gravity attraction area for more objects, and pull and push with more force depending on the tier.


In order to allow for the choice between more precise grabbing and more bulk item sweeping, the mass manipulator could have a quick menu sort of like the paint gun. You could select and enable or disable certain aspects, such as precise grabbing for grabbing individual items and allowing for rotation of those items, or by choosing to widen the effect field and pull in several objects at once, but while losing the ability to precisely rotate them. The tool should also be able to throw objects, with the force being changed through the quick menu, preferably with a slider. Lower tiers, like the mark one tier, will probably not be able to push or pull with too much strength, you will be more limited in your area of effect as well and things will take longer to come to you because the effect is weaker. Higher tier tools will have stronger options available.


To streamline the tool for ease of use, hotkeys could be available to instantly toggle on or off certain things on the fly, such as enabling single item grabbing, or enabling the wider gravity field instead. If using the single item grabbing, planetary gravity will not affect the item you are holding during that time, but with the larger gravity field you'll still have to contend with planetary gravity resisting you, however even with the default tool the pull should still be strong enough to move an object into the gravity field you are projecting. The tool should be able to grab rag-dolls/corpses, dropped objects, grid blocks, and water. When grabbing water only the wide field options will work, as it doesn't make sense to grab an individual droplet of water as that would be pointless. The tool cannot grab or move players. This tool also opens up new combat possibilities, as players could launch grid items at one another to deal damage.


Along with all the other tools, you should start with a basic variant of the tool in your inventory when spawning into the game. I hope this tool can be added at some point as it would open up lots of possibilities.

Replies (4)

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May I also recommend that the first tier of the tool be locked behind manufacture of gravity components? I'm okay with it also not being, and having the tool be given to the character upon loading into the world

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I was thinking about something like this, however I think that it might be better if only Mk 2 and above required that. My reasoning behind that is I feel like a basic version of each utility should be available and streamlined along with the other tools. The basic one shouldn't be too powerful so it won't feel overpowered I think.

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That's valid. T2+ requiring gravitational components while T1 is granted to the player as a base tool (I think we are agreed on that, unless I'm misunderstanding) is understandable

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Yeah, im totally in agreement with that. I think that's the best way to handle a tool like this

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In terms of implementation, I recommend looking at the Improvised Engineering mod (AKA "Grabby Hands") from SE1 for inspiration. That one does a lot of things right. The rotation is a bit fiddly though, so I'd suggest making it more steady and thus easier to use.

To make it even more useful, perhaps add a "weld to" function. Hold the carried item to another block, press the "weld" button and it is attached. The weld could be weak at first so you'd still have to get there and reinforce it. Like with freshly placed blocks in SE1. This "weld to" would be like the Advanced Welding mod in SE1, but streamlined.

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Ive played with this mod before! It's great honestly, and I think a feature to "weld to" would be great.

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Manual handling of blocks or "magnetic hands"

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/45269-manual-handling-of-blocks-or-magnetic-hands

Sawing/grinding and welding of blocks and grids

https://support.keenswh.com/spaceengineers2/pc/topic/45270-sawinggrinding-and-welding-of-blocks-and-grids

And there are several other topics from other contributors...

This requirement—manual division and joining of grids and manual handling of small grids and individual parts—is eternal and recurs almost regularly.

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I do love th "advanced welding" mod, and I'd love to see that implemented in the base game at some point, but if not, I'm sure someone will make a mod of it

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These two mods are also among my "must haves."


After all, the idea of expanding "Prototech" in SE1 practically calls for such an addition; without these additions, it loses a significant part of its meaning and possibilities.


The ability to obtain and use "foreign" existing parts, regardless of the ability to manufacture them, significantly increases the playability in the early stages of the game. It offers the possibility of a new play style - "scrapyard constructor."


In addition to the ability to manually manipulate objects and the ability to cut and weld grids, one more ability would be useful:

- The ability to place finished small parts (up to a reasonable size and weight - for example, 300 kg, 1 m3) in a backpack and storage/container - for example, a small engine, battery, computer block...

This ability can be partially substituted by magnetic panels, for example, but this is rather impractical.

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