HV handling / leveling too slow

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Pear78, Aug 1, 2020.

  1. Pear78

    Pear78 Captain

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    I was test driving an HV and it struck me that they seem to nose dive into mountains/hills lately.
    On second look it turns out they just don't level out as quickly as I think they should..
    it only really slowly levels out with the terrain, so slow that it actually seems a bit unnatural..

    I know this nose diving can be avoided by tilting back or forward.. but it just feels weird driving them around, that they react so slowly.. I think the hovers should adjust faster to the terrain.. it took literary 20 seconds(!) for the HV to level out from pic 1 to pic 2.. and no, it's not a 0.1 G planet, just regular 1 G ;)
     

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  2. dichebach

    dichebach Captain

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    Overall, I find that they handle pretty well. Keep in mind a couple things:
    1. the T0 hover pods are a lot less performant that the T1s
    2. The T1s do not provide attitude and orientation control, i.e., "toruqe" nor propulsion, so for that configuration you need an RCS and at least four thrusters (fore, aft, port, starboard). I like to add at least one up and one down near the front of the vessel and of course more on the horizontal planes helps with torque and thrust in those directions too.
    3. If mass and volume are turned on, then the load inside containers matters: e.g., put all your cargo containers in front and fill them up, the thing will want to dip its nose. This is one of the big benefits of the containter controller system: you can spread the 'web' of extensions all around the quadrants of a vessel and thus spread the load at all degrees of capacity.
    4. If it is "reacting slowly" then you may not have enough thurst on one or more plane, or you may even lack enough power.

    When properly configured (and it isn't absolutely clear until you've managed to get the hang of it, but it is at least intuitive if you have just a bit of understanding of real world physics) they handle great.

    The one thing that I find annoying about them now compared to the past is: when you come to a stop, the bounce and wobble quite a bit any time there is any irregularity on the underlying ground, forcing you to wait till the oscillations stop to exit the vessel. This is much more pronounced with the T0 model.

    If you are really struggling, let us know and I'm sure I or someone else can upload a simple functional HV blueprint go the workshop that you can use as a guide for how to make a good one.
     
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  3. Brimstone

    Brimstone Rear Admiral

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    I've had good success with lighter HVs mixing the green and blue small engines. Blue at the 4 corners for lift and stability, green just inside for torque and thrust. I sometimes add one rear small thruster just to bring speed up

    I really think all the hover engines should produce torque and thrust as well, leaving actual thrusters for use in tanks and heavy haulers where the mass is extreme. "Bikes", "cars" and "vans/pickups" should be fine with the base engines

    Tested it with some success, but for some reason the blues adopted the 1.5m hover height, even though all I added were the two torque and thrust lines. I wish that setting was exposed also
     
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  4. dichebach

    dichebach Captain

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    Interesting; have not tried that. As far as I recall the ones that do NOT provide torque and thrust (only lift) the "T1 "blue hover pods (both small and large) are the original design, and hover craft going way back to the beginning of the game were built with those, plus RCS, plus thrusters for torque and propulsion. I vaguely recall when the green ones were introduced, but had not played with them until recently and learned that they provide adequate propulsion and torque as long as the vehicle is not too massive or large (top-heavy is probably bad).

    In learning this, I had taken the Damaged Hoverbike and added RCS and thrusters and this made it function very badly if I recall.

    What I infer is that the green and blue hover pods are NOT intended to be mixed together (thus my surprise that you've had some success doing so). The Green "T0" pods are (my take on it): entry level, super cheap and for super duper light vehicles, effectively just oversized jetpacks. It is a shame there is still not a REALLY small standup "cockpit," call it a "control stand" or whatever. Something that is literally the same size as the player character (so I guess 1 small block "wide and deep and 2 tall"), and an ultra small gen+fuel tank combo (with perhaps 2/3 the power of the current small and half the fuel consumption. This could create some neat EVA or low-gravity planet quick machines, sort of like a scooter.
     
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  5. Brimstone

    Brimstone Rear Admiral

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    The biggest thing for stability I've found is square or rectangular placement. First thing I do with the damaged bike is take off the front engines, add spacer blocks, then put them back so they form a rectangle with the rear instead of a wedge. Only problem then is the 1.5m height allowing you to get stuck on every rock- or weight if you add a closed cockpit. You need to add blues to support that
     
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  6. dichebach

    dichebach Captain

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    I've got a lot of mileage out of the damaged with just the greens, but at this point I upgrade it to blues immediately. Really, I just salvage off everything except the core and build a new on using the legacy cockpit I like.
     
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  7. Pear78

    Pear78 Captain

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    these are comments about thrust; I mean the rate at which HVs (very slowly) level out.
    reaction to terrain and stabilization after using (mouse) up and down (arrows) is very slow.
     
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  8. Brimstone

    Brimstone Rear Admiral

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    It's kinda related- HV's have little pitch torque because they don't have up/down thrusters. You're only going to enhance it with RCS or trying my trick with the green engines

    Or hit "O" to level out faster every time you tilt

    Also, the wider the footprint, the more stable the ride
     
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  9. Pear78

    Pear78 Captain

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    I know the fixes ;)

    my suggestion for game mechanic change is to have HVs react more realistically and give better drive ability at the same time, because you wont nose dive into mountain any more. it's the slow up/down levelling that 'overrules' the upwards power of the HV engines ánd the downwards pull of gravity.

    this well might be a choice to accommodate mouse users, or another good reason.. but I think it could be improved and I also think it used to be better in past alpha's
     
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  10. Brimstone

    Brimstone Rear Admiral

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    Heh... No argument there...
     
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  11. Pear78

    Pear78 Captain

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    this is me in my HV when I try going up a ramp in a CV with this nice new HV flying system
    it just always stays horizontal, and it is not nice, it doesnt feel finished, it gets you stuck on things we didnt get stuck on before..
    it used to be smoother/better than this.
    upload_2020-11-21_1-28-14.png
     
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  12. zaphodikus

    zaphodikus Captain

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    I am not really comfortable with the SHIFT+O attitude lock yet. It kinda helps here, but you still have to use the HUD attitude hints to know for sure what is going on. I'm just glad we dont have terrain like the terrain in SE. That is some serious bumps to jump over at times.
     
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