Rangefinder block idea

Anton shared this feedback 20 days ago
Not Enough Votes

Would be cool to have a block that works as a laser rangefinder. So you could get a distance reading on the controlseat/cockpit displays or other types of outputs in the future.

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Ideas for uses

Judge distance left to asteroid/objects

I have found that when approaching asteroids in larger ships its sometimes hard to judge the distance to the asteroid in the last 50 meters or so. The asteroid covers the whole of the fpv sightline so its hard to get a decent perspective of the remaining distance without using 3rd person view.


Navigation

If it was possible to get readings of visible asteroids or points it would be easier to make the calculations for when to start the "slow down thrust burn" to get to that asteroid or point without overshooting/crashing.


"Parking sensor"

When flying larger ships in complicated environments it could be cool to connect a rangefinder to a sound block to get a warning when the ship gets to close to something. Similar to the way modern cars can sence when you get to close to obstacles.


PVP

Could also be fun for when more pvp is implemented to be able to make more calculated decitions of when to launch rocket barrages or homemade missiles.

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Implementation and making it fair

To not make it to powerfull it could come in two different sizes with different ranges.

  • A small one for judging distances in the range of 0-100 meters with a more frequent update frequence.
  • A larger one with much slower update frequence (or perhaps needing manual input for each reading) that has a far longer range and mainly used for judging long navigation distances.

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Love the work you guys are doing! Keep it up! :)

Replies (2)

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I like it, seems like a good idea

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So we can build our own altimeters :)

On short distances, sensors were basically doing this already. But they output only a yes/no signal. So you might want multiple sensors to have separate warnings for, like, 10m and 1m proximity.

I would like to have sensors outputting continuous values though. For example, you set a min/max range and it outputs a value between 0 and 1. Same for Event Controllers — they should not only detect discrete thresholds, but also listen to continuous values and “map” them as inputs for other blocks.

For example:


  • A sensor detects objects in a range from 5m to 10m.
  • There is an object 7.5m away.
  • The sensor outputs a value of 0.5.
  • An Event Controller maps that value to set a piston extension to 50%.

There can be countless examples where this would be super useful. You could “link” almost anything together this way. Control one rotor and make five others copy its rotation, or invert the value so they rotate in the opposite direction.

I actually wrote about this in a suggestion some time ago.

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In my humble opinion, using a range of 0–1 or percentages isn't a soo great idea. It involves converting discrete values in meters and centimeters to relative values and back again. Not only does this consume processing time, but it also reduces accuracy due to rounding errors.

Although I understand that in many cases this would greatly simplify the design and control of moving devices. I’m not dismissing the idea—I’m just pointing out some potential pitfalls.


I agree with the other ideas regarding motion, distance, and angle sensors.

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The precision depends on floating point precision — there is an entire range of possible values. Instead of just 0.5, you can have something like 0.548478984984984.

The main point is that you need some kind of normalization in order to map values between different block types. A piston might extend between 2 and 6 meters, while a hinge can swing between 10 and 55 degrees. So you have a 4-meter range on one side and a 45-degree range on the other.

In order to map between those ranges, you have to normalize them into something like 0–1 or 0–100%, otherwise you end up with a complete zoo of values that can hardly be connected in a meaningful way.

Of course there can be some rounding errors, but for the level of engineering precision we deal with in this game, I don’t think they are particularly relevant.

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