You are forgetting that it is not complete yet thus disabled. Thrusters already are, problem is with CCs/CEs - any decent HV volume requires a lot of 'passive' power to the point where CVs are more efficient (125KU volume requires 1MV pasively from HV or 16KW from CV, which is the main problem). Thruster, especially SV are extremely underused at the moment, there is no reason to create new types, old ones lift all that weight without trouble. P.S. Personally I wouldn't mind trusters branching into two variations: combat ones - high trust/size ratio, but very low energy efficiency, can be armored. And heavy duty - large size, price, much lower thrust/size ratio, but very energy efficient and bigger output due to sheer size.
Nope, not forgetting. But Eleon should only think about this with the rework of other systems in tandem, not this "mess" we have right now. And that is a problem. While the values you cited are just numbers, the concept of making a type of vehicle way more efficient than other in a generalized way is troubling. Agree with you to a point. The weight is being put in the game without looking at the other systems first, resulting in all this problems. Sure, it's "disabled", but the door is already open and it will not be closed anymore. The tracked vehicle suggestion would deal with the "weight" problem in early game because you wouldn't need to worry about countering it with energy, just suspension load capacity. The player already has too much in his hands in the early game, balancing weight with energy (thrusters) should not be a concern in this stage of the game.
I'm playing it with volume right now and I don't need to balance my HVs, all that energy is consumed not by thrusters but by CCs! If my math is correct, single hover engine can lift over 140t of mass, for comparison 1000 units of cobalt ore weight 31t, and we usually have at least 3 hover engines, why might we need more vertical thrust/lift capability? How much you want your tracked vehicle to lift per track? Hover thrusters are overpowered at the moment. And SVs also have powerful thrusters, they are just much bigger.
Going by your example you're not exactly that "early game" anymore, right? I mean, no new Empyrion player that just crash landed will have 1000 ore of any type with him. That's what I have in mind, something for the player that just started. Something for the player that still doesn't have a base, access to prometheum or anything. Something very, VERY basic. The idea of a tracked vehicle would tackle that. it would replace the bike, provide a low (energy) cost mobile base and cargo hauler. Not only that, but it would provide a way more stable base for drilling. The idea of a tracked vehicle would also present two gameplay choices for the player: the slow, heavily armored and huge cargo hauler, or the more speedy, light and versatile HV. These are two gameplay styles that can coexist, even if tracks are "lower tech". Now imagine a planet that has a 10g gravity instead of the ~0.5g-2.0g. Would it make more sense to use a tracked vehicle instead of hauling cargo in a HV or SV? Imagine all the possibilities! EDIT: i don't have any track load capacity, because that's just "numbers". At this stage i'm more interested in the "philosophy" behind the vehicles, how they relate to weight and each other.
There is a 'basic' hover thruster that has very little trust and is very early game and cheap. And HVs like Wisp are Very cheap, to the point where I usually bypass it, even with volume limitation and additional CEs it turned out to be too cheap) But I do get what you mean. It would be nice to have tracks, even if just for variety, it just is not related to volume directly and solves no volume related issues (at least I didn't encounter issues that could have been fixed by new land engine types, they are overpowered as is, and if one was needed devs would have just added new hover type). Even tracked vessel will end up high-energy cost right now due to modular containers' issues. Correction: there is one issue with HV 'engines', but it is related to forward thrust/acceleration: Can we please get bigger 'jets' for HVs? The ones SV uses. HV do have trouble with acceleration when carrying very large loads - 70-80t of cargo requires 12 jet thrusters for any decent acceleration and those have energy efficiency issues, any 'bigger' cargo HV turns into pincussion full of thrusters instead of pins.
Just because it can be disabled or modded out doesn't mean it's not important to have. One could make a similar claim about power consumption and fuel, and it would be just as wrong. If you choose to play without mass and volume, that's fine, but it means that your game will be lacking in balance compared to a game that uses consistent mass and volume values. Agreed, and I've been pushing for them to consider the mining system as well as thrust/RCS and fuel/power values when consistent mass and volume numbers are calculated, because all of those systems are affected by what mass and volume items have. Personally, I think that this should have been looked at more before pushing to exp (and certainly before pushing to a public release), but at least Eleon has kept the system off by default so far.
I do realize that weight values are not finalized, but I must report that my SV project started from Alpha 8 now suffers significantly more weight increases in Thruster jet S and all weapons mounted (Really? 330kg gatling gun compared to M61 Vulcan's less an hundred and a half?), discouraging myself from continue developing it after come back to see its purpose of being both well maneuverable and well armored SV has been utterly defeated. Please do consider during rebalancing phase that SV (and HV to that extend) already suffers from weak thruster/rcs per weight or dimension (progressively worse pass thruster jet S for SV). Especially if loading weight is going to be implemented in vessel performance's calculation, both HV and SV engines will be in dire need of rebalancing as well. Someone has already pointing out that these crafts is going to need much more power. Also, another voice for small CE's power consumption. Demanding so much space for effective POI raiding is already punishing for many HV/SV designs already.
And were back to a level of thinking that makes me think its a Character from 1803, with technology from 2305. What era is this game taking place in? 1800's? We have technology far beyond the capabilities of the 21st Century and your thinking of Mass, Density and Volume Mechanics in a 2 dimensional plane... Even using today's understanding of Quantum Theory and Aeronautical Mechanics, most of this is just nonsensical. For example, at the simplest level Compression of Volume is simple, Remove Oxygen. its 99% of a objects Volume, while this would make a object more dense but also lighter... This Dense object can fit into a very small space now. Period. Now i know what your thinking "But this would take a extraordinary amount of Energy to Achieve. Thats not possible" - Your creating thrust on a Hovercraft; That shouldn't be possible, the amount of energy required to create lift a object made of steel would be astronomical. But its being done... How... Were worrying about object mass, but we have clearly solved all our problems on creating more physical energy with less electrical energy. I mean we can magically create Complex Machines on our back while operating a object that fires what appears to be plasma at rocks... that requires no fuel source to power. Its certainly not nuclear as it would be depleted within minutes... So back to the point, That compressed mass object, thats now the size of a pinball, that started off as a Cargo Container. What can it fit into? Well, think thats obvious... JUST ABOUT ANYTHING... again, i can understand the desire for mass mechanics but we are not really thinking things through. its not 2018, its 2402. Why are we fighting over something that makes no sense in the first place. If you want to make more sense, use Compressed Volume mechanics for objects, only on character bodies, limiting the available slots thus based on compressed object mass+volume. Cargo containers clearly have more physical volume, so why are we worried about "Having infinite ammo" when projectile ammo is 90% oxygen... Ignoring compression even, the thought of carrying so much could be possible... a SAPHEI 30mm Round, in REAL LIFE weighs 490g, so 1million rounds would have a max mass of 490t(on the metric system). given the fire rate of the Artillery Cannon on Empyrion. in Practical terms, thats practically infinite... all for 490t. now, a Medium sized Oceanic Cargo Ship, can carry 153,222 tons of mass, not including its own stationary mass. So by comparison, a HV should EASILY be able to carry 1000t of cargo with minimal issue, given as said before, those hover engines are creating lift that defies gravity for the amount of energy they take. bigger HV, more hover engines, more lift. so that comes to the next point "But how would you move that mass!" easily. force of a object can be simplified into this equation mass / friction = force required. Since we are floating above the ground, the only friction being applied is that from the atmosphere. so thrust can be determined by that easily. since gravity on momentum would still play a role, stopping would require significantly more thrust obviously, but that is hardly the point, its 2402, im pretty sure they solved the energy factor of momentum already. So HV's can effectively carry what everyone here seems to think is impossible loads... --- Did it get mentioned yet, that these mass restrictions make it impossible to get through early game without grinding obsessively. In order to produce a base or HV from blueprint, i would have to make a bare minimum between 5 trips for the simplest things. Not including gathering food and some how storing that. For a Survival game like this, thats a bit crazy. i mean 300 units of copper is 15u of ore, 15u of ore is my entire reasonable carrying capacity. given the distance from where where you start, and where a you find resources, getting enough units of one thing, say copper on easy difficulty, on a starter planet like akua, would take around 4 ingame hours. by this point, ive wasted 1/3 of my characters "hunger" my inventory is full and i cant even build a constructor to store anything. so either, i drop the copper i need and travel quite a ways across the map to find some silicon which is never close to copper usually. or i magically hope a POI is nearby with a cargo container i can store this in for a few minutes. The point is, for new players, easy is insanely hardcore, for existing players, easy atleast what hard used to be. It makes no logical sense to keep the system as is. Making more cargo limits could make the game more challenging, and adding mass physics to ships could be fun if done intelligently. But as its currently implemented, not only is it rudimentary and completely illogical. it completely breaks normal gameplay. When i play a game, i want it to be fun. Not always a Life-or-Death struggle... and if i play multiplayer, i may not have 4-5 hours just get get a base set up for my first game (some times your friends are not always online to join you. But doing something for the team is always been something i partake in) So please, Re-Think how you want to do this. take alot of these very valid and complex points into your plans, before dumping a simplified system of mass on a player. Because Realism can be too much to simulate some times.
CVs got volume and power, regular HVs and SVs don't. Capital HV made of large blocks would close this gap, using very slow tracks for propulsion, CV-sized devices, and serving as a mobile base capable of closing in on the deposit and deploying nimble wifi-enabled driller HVs without their own storage. The looks, aestetics and dynamics don't need to exceed those of Space Shuttle Mobile Launch Platform Bonus points if it would be CV-transportable with a dedicated carrier.
While I do like the idea of hovering or tracked capital, I hate idea of having one more vessel type. I would prefer an ability to build a 'freaking BOLO Tank' based at CV
There is no possible way of making ground engines work on a CV/SV, and HV can't use "down" thrusters for the same reason - no type mixing. Making a new type will be a smaller change from the programming point of view than changing the existing hard-coded restraints.
They said same about Space Engineers' vessels and bases and then just went and united them. This is programmed restriction, it can either be removed or programmed around. Well, I built one without grinding (unless you mean level-grinding) on Arid planet+volume+hard difficulty. The only thing to note is that wood is much more limited on Arid so I opted to use fully metallic HV. You character's inventory is 500 units, that's 100 untis of ore = 200 ingots, some prefabs cost less then 100 ingots, plus space for tools and lets say you need a bit for making constructor, bike, couple small containers and basic food. Overall: '2 trips'. And here you go... you are on HV with at least 500+250 units of total inventory, One more trip and you have enough for small base (and all resources for tier1 prefab can easily fit in 500 units of inventory) or significant extension for you HV's inventory... P.S. Some prefabs now need a check, their balance is off when loaded.
Well, I have weight in mind when talking about this, more than volume. But in the end, a tracked vehicle would be able to haul more cargo than an HV either way, just slap more containers on it! =P One thing that we have to keep in mind is that HV/SV/CV will always have to deal with gravity. They will always waste energy counteracting gravity; when on a planet this is simply not negotiable (except very low g's but yeah). An hypothetical tracked vehicle would never have this problem, and it's engine would only be used to move it's cargo at a decent speed. Making an analogy, think of train/ship cargo transport compared to planes; one is way faster but way more expensive, the others have a sheer energy and volume advantage. And they don't cancel each other, only present more options. Now, regarding the vehicle types comment, I agree with you. With that in mind, by finally merging the HV/SV categories, a "slot" would be freed to make space for ground based vehicles, no? Heck, just make tracks available to this new HV/SV category and it would be a non-issue. Agreed. Even if this is just number tweaking, this is what we have right now and it is an annoying issue! YES! I think everyone would be more receptive to these changes if they were more neatly presented. I, for one, will always be FOR weight system in the game, no matter what. But we have these issues now, and many more to come. Because right now, people will have to "relearn" the game due to weight (gonna ignore volume here) being a thing. Then, the devs will have to overhaul the whole rest of the game in order to fit weight in properly. Another player relearning time. Twice the headache! If they left the weight for way later, and implemented it alongside with the overhaul, not only the players would have to relearn the game once, but since it's all been done at the same time, it would have been a way less painless process. The game right now is clearly not ready for weight, and no number tweaking will change that. We already saw how much weight will change the nature of the game, the devs got this data. I think it would be best if they put it in the backburner and implement it down the line, with a complete overhaul especially of HV/SV/CV.
Box volume need up to x2-x3-x4. 3 max fuel cells occupy the entire box 1x2 size!!! 125 ore = 1 ore box 1x2 size!!! small arms 10 + ammo 4k = cargo box 1x2 size!!! I looked at my hovering vessel weighing 300 tons, with 2 layers of armor, 20 cargo boxes and 6 ore boxes, and I realized that with the existing system I need to increase it 6 times just to have a minimum fuel reserve, small box (5-10) on small arms with ammunition in 5-10k rounds and 6-10 boxes for 1-2k ore! This is nonsense, fierce and wild nonsense. the normal reserve of the fuel transported with them in the boxes may not be less than 125 cells. + 10k small arms ammo. + ore box capacity 5-10k ore. As a result, the volume of boxes 1x2 size = ~ 500-1000 or 2000 maximum for thish size, boxes for ore 1000-2500.
Well that's not a very good comparison. Weight/volume management is detrimental to the creative building aspect of the game. I know even right now, a lot of people just build and make blueprints in creative mode to be spawned in survival. At some point I would hope building in survival would be more viable than it is now...certainly not worse like the proposed changes are gonna bring. Doing everything through these Wi-Fi boxes and virtual toolbars is just stupid. Why are they trying to design some semi-realistic feature, and then go about bypassing that system in a completely unrealistic and roundabout way? Wouldn't it just be easier to keep things in such a way that makes sense, without all the nonsense?
Replace a layer of armor with cargo boxes, and you should just about have the extra cargo volume you need. This sort of tradeoff is exactly what introducing mass and volume is supposed to produce. You can pick some of (small, fast, armor, cargo, endurance), but not all of them. It just means there are additional design considerations. One can still be very creative and come up with clever designs just as before. Yep, and I'm one of them. Building in survival is annoying and slow and not tolerant of mistakes/misclicks; removing blocks is a pain, and not having copy-paste is frustrating. I would be much happier seeing a pocket creative mode accessed by a design station in survival, and a proper factory device for spawning and repairing of ships. And the previous system of being able to carry the mass of a small moon in your backpack made sense? With the new system, there's certainly room to flesh out the remote access feature by adding visualizations (drones, nanobot clouds, etc), energy costs, time delays based on the distance, etc. The general principle of not having to pass everything through your inventory is a necessary step toward more automation options. That building by hand is harder at present than it used to be is more a reflection of the currently poor implementation and UI than a problem with the underlying principle.
This "making sense" argument has been debuked times and over again. Just read @EndlessEden wrote on this page up here about it if it still eludes your comprehension. Like in many other aspects of the game you discuss, you seem to keep forgetting the game as a whole, where computers and networks have limits you don't seem to understand. I can send you back to our discussion regarding "walking on a moving ship" where this point was dissected. Well, frankly, what do you know about it ? You brainstormed about the possible programming issues with the devs when they decided this was the only way to get "automation" in the game? I think otherwise. The underlying principle is nicely exposed by @Ranger in a recent post... and by many other players as a matter of fact. Many players can think of easier ways to simulate (because that's what it is, just like the rest of the game, isn't it? a simulation of) automation, without forcing an illusion of novelty on players used to simple ways of doing things, and without requiring an overly elaborate tutorial just to make simple things. I think that what can be easily seen in your argumentations regarding complexity is that you see no fun if you have no way to show your intellectual skills when debating game features, while at the same time being completely foreign to the concept of intuition and gratification loops players enjoy most of the time, in most games, in general.
lol. there and so the armor is not very thick, 2 layers is very little. volume box 1x2 size CV = 16k volume box 1x2 HV = 250 HV box 1x2 < CV box 1x2 a HV box 1x2 is less physically and visually less than a CV box 1x2 8 times, , therefore thinking logically we simply divide 16000/8 = 2000!, 2000! but not 250, , so in this case everything is logical and fair.
1 CV block is actually 64 times larger than a HV block, not 8 times. 1CV block is 2m x 2m x 2m = 8m³ 1HV block is 0.5m x 0.5m x 0.5m = 0.125m³ 8/0.125=64 size ratio 16.000L/64=250L (or SU) So 250L for a HV container with the same proportions as the CV container is perfectly right. Even if it feels small. /jmc
