When are we getting better gravity generators?

Discussion in 'FAQ & Feedback' started by Aetrion, Feb 15, 2021.

  1. Aetrion

    Aetrion Lieutenant

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    The current implementation of gravity generators leaves a lot to be desired. The spherical area around them basically means that any ship design that doesn't fit within that ball is going to either have holes in its gravity field, or is going to have zones of overlapping gravity where just going down some stairs can result in getting injured.

    This would be relatively easy to solve by simply adding a large 3x3 gravity generator that creates a larger sphere, or by adding an advanced gravity generator that covers a box shaped area, possibly with some sliders in its command panel to be able to dial it in.

    I honestly can't see any reason why this shouldn't be in the game. It can't be all that difficult to just make a bigger gravity generator. I don't think anyone would mind being able to build larger ships and stations without weird gravity holes. Why hasn't this been done a long time ago?
     
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  2. Spoon

    Spoon Captain

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    Personally I think they should keep them the size that they are but allow us to alter the size of the gravity field. A bit like the way we alter Sensor fields. Job sorted.
     
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  3. MikeCobalt44

    MikeCobalt44 Ensign

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    I've thought maybe they could Keep the Gravity Generator we have like it is, that would be the main gravity device. New, there could be Gravity extenders, ancillary generators or addons. Continue to place the main gravity generator like we already do, then any area's *beyond that Sphere we could place an extender, it would operate exactly the same but a much less area of influence (Smaller Sphere). If the total structure/habitat is super big then place 2 main generators but if only Marginally larger then the gravity sphere, put in a small Extender to cover the left out area. The extenders are useless without the main they simply operate from the main generator. Also the intersecting area's were the main and extender spheres meet should be very minor noticeability (they're both creating the same field from a single generator.
     
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  4. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    Since we build everything with cubes it would make sense to have a "box" and not a "sphere" as volume definition for the gravity effect. We would have way more control on what areas we want covered or not. With a sphere it's very hard to avoid overlaps, like mentioned in the OP, and also hard to see where the effect ends exactly.
     
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  5. Spoon

    Spoon Captain

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    This is what I was thinking of in my post above but worded it completely wrong.
    I'll try again:

    Personally I think they should keep them the approx same size that they are but have a 'cubed' area instead of a 'sphere'. Then allow us to alter the size of the gravity field. A bit like the way we alter Sensor fields. This will allow us to place the fields next to each other, without any cross-over or the field going outside our ships too much, which then interferers with space POI gravity generators.
     
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  6. zaphodikus

    zaphodikus Captain

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    I believe... you can edit the size of the field in the itemsconfig, I don't "use" gravity generators, but on bases that I have got generators, I have multiple generators. And definitely think that a perfectly square field might be a lot easier for designers, I always assumed it was square, but clearly I was wrong.
     
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  7. Kassonnade

    Kassonnade Rear Admiral

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    Unfortunately, there's no "radius" or any similar parameter we can adjust ( the "field") in the BlocksConfig.ecf.

    They have a sphere, precisely 37.5 blocks radius from the center of the device (which is a 2x2 device). The effect ends at half a block's position, and we need to be very precise when "linking" neighbouring gravity zones. That's what I did in my big "wheel" station to be able to walk around it and upside-down, without feeling the transitions : each gravity field ends and starts on the precise blocks at mid point between them, but that leaves the next blocks right on the side of that one with no gravity.

    You can see each field's radius in this picture (green circles) :

    NewGame_2020-12-21_04-43-06.png
     
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  8. zaphodikus

    zaphodikus Captain

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    I can see why mathematically a sphere makes sense, but allowing users to set the range within a reasonable limit of 1-255 and then for the game to do a
    floor(radius) + 0.5
    Afterwards would be so much more intuitive for Bases and CS's and even gravity generators on SV's - (I think the issue with SV's is that CV's are just bloody ugly looking because the block do not allow you to get much detail, so I prefer allowing SV's to just be min version of SV and not have hard limits like gravity generators)
     
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  9. MrGReaper

    MrGReaper Lieutenant

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    A suggestion to the devs would be to have the generators use the same code as the repair bay does for putting a cube around the ship. They already have the code that can do that so having it do the calculation quickly when the ship stops moving shouldnt be too hard? (would love to walk around while the ship is in flight but one thing at a time)
     
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  10. Aetrion

    Aetrion Lieutenant

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    Having cube generators of a fixed size would already be enough to at least put several of them together to cover a larger ship.
     
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  11. Myrmidon

    Myrmidon Rear Admiral

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    Gravity should be active per block. Airtightness is, why not gravity?
     
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  12. Nerd01

    Nerd01 Commander

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    Gravity generator is related to mass issues, and shouldn't be handled separately. Any kind of fantastic tech that can manipulate mass to create gravity should be able to reduce it as well. So this can be used to alter flight dynamics in both space and atmosphere, fixing a lot of problems.

    But to be fair, the best thing would be to get rid of it entirely and just get a pair of magnetic boots instead. Nothing really relies on artificial gravity in game.
     
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  13. Aetrion

    Aetrion Lieutenant

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    I mean, let's be real here, artificial gravity would basically define all of space travel if it existed. You wouldn't even see things like engines anymore, you'd simply create gravity wells to pull the ship in whatever direction is convenient. So, you're right that artificial gravity doesn't make sense in hard scifi settings that don't run with the concept all the way, but Empyrion isn't hard scifi.
     
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  14. Nerd01

    Nerd01 Commander

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    That would depend on how easy to manipulate your ship with artificial gravity, which would probably wouldn't that accurate especially when you need to make small maneuvers, and probably Newtonian way to move things would still be reasonable.

    But I wasn't really talking about that, I was referring to things like speed limit on space while you have large mass of cargo, you can easily change mass of your craft with this. And while at it, you can explain why million ton brick fly trough atmosphere like a normal craft. Thanks to this, you can balance the thruster efficiency in space and in atmosphere better. So they wouldn't need insane amounts of force to move the craft.
     
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  15. Aetrion

    Aetrion Lieutenant

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    I actually like features where clever engineering matters, so I'm not overly interested in implausible supertech that eliminates design difficulties. If anything I'd like to see more things that complicate ship design and force meaningful tradeoffs.
     
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  16. zaphodikus

    zaphodikus Captain

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    When elite 2 added slightly more realistic physics, they did not quite get flight model right, they messed it up more in elite 3 before getting a game that was fun to play again. There is always enough time in any project, to screw it up at least twice. I rarely bother with gravity generators, and would love if they had a larger radius, but I'm under no assumptions that the game engine will really make that easy to change at will.

    So right now, it's basically that you need to add quite a few and keep testing it out.
     
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  17. Nerd01

    Nerd01 Commander

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    I really hate explain stuff like this. First, what I suggest doesn't complicate the game, it fixes problems it has.

    "but I'm under no assumptions that the game engine will really make that easy to change at will"
    Game change the mass of stuff constantly, and calculate it continuously every time you put something on it in any way. So reducing the mass is completely no problem for it, since it is something it does continuously. In fact that might even make its calculations simpler.

    "so I'm not overly interested in implausible supertech that eliminates design difficulties"
    You are literally complaining about design difficulties - which bother you - related to an implausible supertech.

    "If anything I'd like to see more things that complicate ship design and force meaningful tradeoffs."
    So why are you pushing against a feature which would force people to a tradeoff to add a gravity generator to their craft? In my suggestion, you cant get inside atmosphere with a big heavy ship without one. I understand people in this game rarely care about the energy consumption, although gravity generator has a considerable amount of power draw even now. You can increase if further to force a trafdeoff. But I bet lots of people cry about it, so don't expect any meaningful change.
     
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  18. Aetrion

    Aetrion Lieutenant

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    If they added something like "Gravity Controlled Container blocks" that have a weight of zero but significant CPU cost I'd be fore it. But simply slapping a bunch of extra gravity gens on a ship to make mass into a non-issue seems silly to me. There is already a lot of 100 layers of armor cheese in the game.
     
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