The Grasshopper needs more upward thrust

Callum Millward ●

I see where you are coming from, but the game is called Space Engineers for a reason. If a player feels like the ship doesn't have enough upward thrust when fully laden, then they should engineer around the problem. Perhaps add more thrusters onto it themselves (which teaches them about building and modifying) or understand that this small ship has a max safe lifitng capacity and to not exceed it.

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Bob McDowell ●

I agree that if an engineer wants to solve an engineering problem, they should engineer a solution.

But that's not what this is. It's a ship that's not quite fit for use in the tutorial, provided to the player, with the assumption that it'll fly right. When it goes all weird and wonky, they won't assume it was just BARELY engineered enough to fly. They'll believe they can fill their backpack with 3000 ores, as the mission tells them to do, and fly home without crashing.

If they do crash, they'll assume piloting in the game is too hard, the game is buggy, etc.

It's a trivial fix. Make the ship fit for use.

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Rumblestrip ●

atmo thrusters have a ceiling, more likely thats your issue with the grasshopper, I dont have that issue...not saying you dont, just saying i've not found it and i've added cargo to the poor little grasshopper and intentionally made it hard to fly by adding 32 tons of various ore to it. it hauled that around... it wasnt happy about it, but it did it... handles 6 crates attached to it quite well tbh. little hard to stop forward momentum but otherwise was fine.

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Dume ●

I've played through the start several times and yes, the ship sucks but that's because the flight model needs to be fixed. Gravity isn't being accounted for with flight while dampers are turned on so they fly wonky as hell.

If you turn dampers off and load the ship you cant take off from half the landing platforms leading up to the hydrogen ship, however with dampers on it flys around fine.

Bad flight model, the ship that chases your cursor that you have no direct control over with the mouse and the increased ship speed are making players who don't understand what's going on splat. The Grasshopper flys fine even at max capacity with a full player inventory.

My question to you is you've used a very broad statement about it being "unsafe to fly", what is actually happening and in what scenario are you finding it doesn't have enough thrust to fly right?

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Bob McDowell ●

Steps to recreate:

1) Play the scenario to the Repair the Hydrogen ship stage.

2) Fly a grasshopper to the top mining platform.

3) Fill your backpack with the ores specified by the mission.

4) Try to fly back. You can't. It won't clear the platform.

I'm not sure why this is getting so much discussion. I'm not asking for advice. I've completed the scenario several times now. I am simply relaying the success I've had of advising people who were struggling that they should add thrust.

If we want the scenario to be smooth for new players this is a no-brainer.

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Dume ●

https://youtu.be/lbws4p7oqT4

It's uploading now but I took the stock Grasshopper from the first landing pad. Completely filled the inventory (that last 5% wont fill, the connector has 8t in it. I filled my inventory to the brim and as I said you can't take off with dampers turned off but if you turn dampers on you have enough thrust to fly around. I went up to the first mining platform as it's higher then the ice mine by the looks and you can fly to and from fully loaded? have you got a mod loaded messing with stuff?

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Dume ●

Figured it out, the cockpit inventory wasn't showing up but yes, full stock grasshopper and full inventory (I had a hunch but didn't know the player weight had an affect which is sweet) and yeah, completely 100% loaded it just barely has enough thrust to hover, but the ship still functions. Can fly back and forth from the hydro ship to the mining camp and land at both platforms. The ship isn't even meant for cargo hauling, it's an atmo exploration ship which is why the feedback doesn't make allot of sense and gets friction. With the nerfed physics even completely loaded it's not unsafe, hell kill your dampers 10m above the pad and just plop it down lol.

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Kryzzk ●

I disagree with them simply adding more thrusters, I have played the scenario several times, I personally have not had any problems with the ship, but I'm an experienced SE1 player so I added thrusters as soon as I saw the setup. The purpose is to teach new players, not give them everything, I think adding a warning to the players that they might need to add additional thrusters to handle the weight would be a better way to handle this, this would make new players think about how much thrust they have vers the amount of weight they load the ship with, were simply fixing the ship for them would teach them nothing.

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Bob McDowell ●

I tested by actually following the steps, but you're right, it flies fine today. Must be something was fixed.

Or it's intermittent.

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Bob McDowell ●

@Kryzzk the existence of the ship undermines your position. Note there are THREE of them. The purpose is to lead new players through the tutorial, which teaches them things. It's entirely on rails. This is not the time to introduce brand new players to SE physics.

The type of gameplay you enjoy has a time and place, but the first mission of the tutorial scenario isn't it.

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Kryzzk ●

if at the start ISN'T the time to teach them then when is? later on when they should know what they are doing?

You are incorrect, they should be taught from the start how to do it right or you're wasting your time and theirs and it will be more frustrating for them later.

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Bob McDowell ●

Does progression exist? Why?

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Callum Millward ●

I agree with Bob that progression needs to be considered, especially with Keen’s focus on improving the first-time user experience. However, it should come as no surprise that if you push a vehicle to its limits, it will struggle.

As Dume showed in his video, the ship is more than capable of flying and manoeuvring at 95% cargo capacity, which for a scout is an admirable effort. Therefore, there is no need to modify it. If players want to push it to 100% capacity or greater then they need to use some common-sense logic and understanding that their actions will have negative effects on handling performance.

Either accept it and move on, or engineer around the issue.

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The Grasshopper needs more upward thrust

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