Artificial Gravity Ships in Free Floating / Zero Dampeners Mode Not Affected
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Hello,
From my observations in Space Engineers 2, there seems to be an interesting behavior regarding artificial gravity and ships in Free Floating / Zero Dampeners mode:
- Ship Type: Both small block ships (0.5 m blocks) and standard ships (2.5 m blocks) were tested.
- Ship State: Thrusters were active but produced no thrust, and Dampeners were turned off. Ships were freely floating above a green station.
- Gravitational Field: The station’s artificial gravity was active. The player character (astronaut) was correctly pulled by the station’s gravity, but the ships remained floating freely in space.
Observed Behavior:
- Ships do not respond to the artificial gravity, regardless of block size.
- After a small push, ships drift slowly in the direction of the push without any effect from the station’s gravity.
Expected Behavior:
- All objects within the station’s artificial gravity field—including ships of any block size—might be expected to experience the same gravitational effect as the player character.
Note:
- This is an observation that may be relevant for consideration regarding how artificial gravity interacts with grouped block ships in Free Floating / Zero Dampeners mode.
Thank you for your attention and for creating such a detailed and enjoyable environment.
I really love the game!
I like this feedback
This behavior is a holdover from SE1 (same interaction).
while it would be nice to have ships effected by artificial gravity (and entirely feasible to accomplish as well), the interactions between nearby ships can be very complicated and potentially problematic for a number of reasons (hence current behavior).
Though I think it would be nice if grav gens had a mode that did effect ships though maybe to a limited degree and with massive additional power draw. Specifically, to avoid making grav drives too cheap and easy, and to prevent gravity generators being used to punt enemy ships to their doom with no easy counterplay.
This behavior is a holdover from SE1 (same interaction).
while it would be nice to have ships effected by artificial gravity (and entirely feasible to accomplish as well), the interactions between nearby ships can be very complicated and potentially problematic for a number of reasons (hence current behavior).
Though I think it would be nice if grav gens had a mode that did effect ships though maybe to a limited degree and with massive additional power draw. Specifically, to avoid making grav drives too cheap and easy, and to prevent gravity generators being used to punt enemy ships to their doom with no easy counterplay.
I think there could be two reasonable ways to look at this:
Right now, ships are not affected by artificial gravity at all, while the player is. I understand why that might be intentional
— if large grids were pulled around by station gravity, parked ships could start drifting or interacting in unpredictable ways.
Also the gravity-drive could be explicitly more powerful, if the full ship got pushed.
On the other hand, it would feel more intuitive if ships were influenced at least a little bit, depending on their mass. A small grid with dampeners off slowly sinking toward a station or a big grid even slower sinking, wouldn’t break the gameplay. It would just match the physical expectation players already have from how their character behaves.
In Space Engineers 1, this was handled quite elegantly: artificial gravity only affected ships if they had additional mass blocks installed. That gave players full control — if someone wanted gravity influence on a ship, they could build for it.
Maybe something similar could be a good middle ground again. Not required, not forced — just an optional mechanic for those who like the idea.
I think there could be two reasonable ways to look at this:
Right now, ships are not affected by artificial gravity at all, while the player is. I understand why that might be intentional
— if large grids were pulled around by station gravity, parked ships could start drifting or interacting in unpredictable ways.
Also the gravity-drive could be explicitly more powerful, if the full ship got pushed.
On the other hand, it would feel more intuitive if ships were influenced at least a little bit, depending on their mass. A small grid with dampeners off slowly sinking toward a station or a big grid even slower sinking, wouldn’t break the gameplay. It would just match the physical expectation players already have from how their character behaves.
In Space Engineers 1, this was handled quite elegantly: artificial gravity only affected ships if they had additional mass blocks installed. That gave players full control — if someone wanted gravity influence on a ship, they could build for it.
Maybe something similar could be a good middle ground again. Not required, not forced — just an optional mechanic for those who like the idea.
I agree.
It would be nice if the behavior of "natural" and "artificial" gravity were the same, governed by the same rules and corresponding to the rules of real physics (which is of course not possible due to the very small size of the planets).
For planets, a suitable "source" of gravitational force would be a sphere with a radius of ~0.8-0.9 times the radius of the planet's surface and a decrease in gravitational force with the cube of the distance. (Real gravitational force decreases with the square of the distance.)
There is a slight problem with sources of artificial gravity - the source of gravitational force (governed by the same rules as natural gravity) cannot be a point, as this would create a singularity. Such a solution has consequences - there is a minimum possible size of an artificial gravity block in order to "fit" the sphere of the artificial gravity source. Let the radius of the sphere of the artificial gravity source be two meters. The decrease in the gravitational force of artificial gravity must be significantly faster than that of "natural" game gravity. I haven't calculated it, but I estimate that the necessary decrease is proportional to higher powers of distance - 3.5 to 5 powers of distance. And in both cases of "game gravity," there should be a limit to the "minimum" gravitational force, probably at the level of one percent or one per mille of the "surface" gravitational force.
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I agree.
It would be nice if the behavior of "natural" and "artificial" gravity were the same, governed by the same rules and corresponding to the rules of real physics (which is of course not possible due to the very small size of the planets).
For planets, a suitable "source" of gravitational force would be a sphere with a radius of ~0.8-0.9 times the radius of the planet's surface and a decrease in gravitational force with the cube of the distance. (Real gravitational force decreases with the square of the distance.)
There is a slight problem with sources of artificial gravity - the source of gravitational force (governed by the same rules as natural gravity) cannot be a point, as this would create a singularity. Such a solution has consequences - there is a minimum possible size of an artificial gravity block in order to "fit" the sphere of the artificial gravity source. Let the radius of the sphere of the artificial gravity source be two meters. The decrease in the gravitational force of artificial gravity must be significantly faster than that of "natural" game gravity. I haven't calculated it, but I estimate that the necessary decrease is proportional to higher powers of distance - 3.5 to 5 powers of distance. And in both cases of "game gravity," there should be a limit to the "minimum" gravitational force, probably at the level of one percent or one per mille of the "surface" gravitational force.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
Grav-drives are enough of a problem in SE1 already, they start out better than any thruster, scale exponentially, and quickly pass the point where if you could use them to spin a turbine you'd get more power out than you put in. We really don't need large ships in SE2 maneuvering like they think they are martial-artists in an anime, it breaks immersion and balance enough in SE1 already.
If you want realistic gravity-interactions between grids, then the rules need to be more along the lines of "the gravity generator causes the two grids to pull on each other with equal strength" (meaning a small grid or player accelerates a lot faster than a large grid, but once they are touching they push/pull on each other with equal force and so don't move).
Grav-drives are enough of a problem in SE1 already, they start out better than any thruster, scale exponentially, and quickly pass the point where if you could use them to spin a turbine you'd get more power out than you put in. We really don't need large ships in SE2 maneuvering like they think they are martial-artists in an anime, it breaks immersion and balance enough in SE1 already.
If you want realistic gravity-interactions between grids, then the rules need to be more along the lines of "the gravity generator causes the two grids to pull on each other with equal strength" (meaning a small grid or player accelerates a lot faster than a large grid, but once they are touching they push/pull on each other with equal force and so don't move).
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