So I've posted about this a few days ago when Alpha 10 came out of EXP: https://empyriononline.com/threads/volume-needs-fixed-mass-does-not-equal-volume.50337/ 1) Mass does not equal Volume! Heavier blocks should not take up more space than their lighter, weaker counterparts. This skews lifting ability and causes lift capable vessels to be useless, instead needing more cargo boxes and drastically increasing build sizes. 2) CV thrusters are way out of proportion to SV thrusters and lift capability. This undermines the role of SV's in play and emphasizes the use of CV's. Currently, the smallest CV thruster, at 1x1x1 in CV size or 3x3x3 in SV size, produces 8MN of thrust (That's 1.45 times as much thrust as the Falcon Heavy!). The largest SV thruster, the XXL Jet Thruster, at 3x3x13 in SV size or 1x1x4 in CV size (4x as large as the small CV thruster!), produces just 1.33MN of thrust. Using an approximate ratio of 80 tons of cargo to 1MN of thrust, this means that the SV Jet thruster can only lift 106 tons of cargo, while the CV Small thruster, at a quarter of the size, can lift 640 tons of cargo (6 times the amount of the largest SV thruster!) !!! 3) Mass is an amazing gameplay element that really transforms this game. Volume and thrust need to be proportional to make it work though.
Just putting this out there, but your sizes are off by quite a bit. One base/CV block equals 4x4x4 SV/HV blocks, not 3x3x3. Large blocks are 2m x 2m x 2m. Small blocks are 0.5m x 0.5m x 0.5m. I do however agree that the thrusters are all kinds of unbalanced, I just wanted to correct that size difference.
Well ill be damned it is. Well that doesnt change the math too much, just means that the XXL Jet thruster is only 3 times as large as a CV Small. Does not change the massive jump from the largest SV engine to the smallest CV engine. Realistically, that Small CV thruster should only put out 1MN or so. Bring the medium down to say 7.5MN, the large down to 70MN, and the XL down to 280MN
I had edited that before you posted. I meant to say that your sizes were off. I still agree that thrusters are out of balance for all vessel types, as are RCS values.
@Hummel-o-War Can you add thrust to the subject of this thread? If we are talking about balance between mass and volume, we are going to have to talk about thrust ratios or at least MN to Tonnage. That said, the current 1MN to 80 tons of cargo ratio is really good! RL puts 1MN equal to about 100 tons of weight at 1G earth normal. Now, using real world values for weight, a 2m x 2m x 2m cube of steel weighs almost 70 tons! Lets not use that number for blocks though!! Lets keep the game values for now, I'll have to really look at the mass values to see how off they are. I know some of them are just arbitrarily bad. For Volume though, we really need to base all volume off of the CV/BA sized Steel Block.
I recommend opening a new topic about the thruster balancing. I did a full revampt a few weeks ago, but it was not added due to the delay of the new flight mechanics. In that context, SV thrusters would have gained a lot more thrust and CV were reduced (cost of mass and energy would be raised in the same scale) For the volume > there is no way we could use a real world example. This currently does not scale in a way that you could play the game anymore. I tried that in a few ways. Geostar also has made a lot of attempts to approach this in a "consistent" manor. Problem is: None of the approaches would lead to a system that would make "fun", simply because the templates are also not balanced this way...so this would be a giant undertaking with a lot of changes that would make most of the BACV blocks and devices A LOT more costly...not sure that is a good idea. For the sake of gameplay, we chose an "in-between" compromise for volumes. @weight > except the items and components, there hase been no real balancing of mass (what means for devices and such. Except the most recent rebalancings of ramps, doors etc ). Same reasons as for volume do apply as well, i am afraid.
With all respect: I have difficulties to see the point here. What do you mean with "costly"? Isn't "costs" always measured in a form of currency? And are you not free to set the exchange rate of this currency at your will? If things would cost 1000 times more iron - why not make iron deposits yield 1000 times more ore per time mined? Wouldn't this neuter the increased demand, so that "costs" remain basically the same?
This is actually the kind of trade offs to be avoided because they completely mess up gameplay. More ore output means less incentive to mine and even less incentive to use Autominers. More ore also means less incentive to balance your ship designs. I'll do that. That thrust profile overhaul sounds real interesting and I personally would love to know more. Here I have to vehemently disagree. The first issue with volume is really simple and doesn't hurt gameplay as long as we have decent mass numbers: blocks of the same shape, size, and function should all have the same volume. SV steel should take the same amount of cargo room as SV hardened steel. Its just that simple, make their volumes the same! It's the mass of those parts that should be the limiting factor to storage, not their size. If hardened steel weighs twice as much as regular steel, then one can only pick up half as much, and this makes gameplay sense. Secondly, although real world examples do not apply, a simple reasoning based on the Storage Unit (SU) does. If we simply make 1 SV/HV block (full block size) equivalent to an SU, and thus a BA/CV block (full block size) equal to its amount in SV/HV block (4^3) we get that a BA/CV block is equal to 64SU. Although not a terrible ratio, it is far beyond the current ratio of 2:15. And this is somewhat okay, we can look at a SV/HV block as 2SU and get 128SU for BA/CV but this is worse on storage. So lets rethink just a little, and lets keep the 1SV=2SU ratio for a moment. In our rethink, lets instead ask how many BA/CV blocks should be able to be stored in the same amount of space as 125 SV/HV blocks. Currently that number is a mere 16 blocks which is a decent number. But, if we said, for example, 4 per 250 SU, then we are back to a closer original number of 62.5 SU per BA/CV block. We could halve this though and compromise on SU for the sake of gameplay and arrive at 30SU per full sized BA/CV block for a total of 8 BA/CV blocks per 250 storage. This actually feels like a good compromise in terms of gameplay. Currently this is the volume value for BA/CV Hardened Steel. But this only works if all variants of this block take the same amount of space. And that right there is the real issue: Volume needs to be consistent and Mass needs to be what changes! At the end of the day, I'm not talking about using real world values for any of this. What I am proposing is to respect what Volume really is, a measure of the space something takes up, not the density of the object.
I disagree on this one. If you think about that you can put several full blocks into a single container it is obvious that the things (with some black magic) are made smaller in the cargo containers. That why we the container volume is measured in SU and not in m³. Therefore a small Generator can have a different SU volume than a large O2 tank or two fulls steel blocks. Different blocks made of different materials and/or with diverse complexity or different mass can be micronized less or more effetictive.
I understand where you are coming from on it. Sure, a small generator is going to pack down smaller than a large generator and the O2 tank is going to be smaller still. And I have no issues with that mechanic. I specifically have issue with the same objects, one which upgrade in-place, having different volumes. There is no reason hardened steel blocks take twice as much space as regular steel, nor for combat steel to take up four times as much space while carbon takes a third the volume of a steel block. Therein lies the issue, not in the comparison between completely dissimilar devices, although those should be based off of their full block sized counterparts but, in the general sense of how volume works.
Sure there is. You are assuming they are solid blocks. The construction process makes me believe they are hollow blocks though. Then assuming they are hollow blocks, armored blocks probably have a thicker "hull" if you will. Since armored blocks have a thicker hull they can't be compressed as much in storage, hence the larger volume in storage. I mean the blocks are made out of plates first and foremost. This leads me to believe they are just plates welded at the seams basically. Don't ask me to explain HOW it gets compressed in storage though and magically goes right back when I pull it out. Lol Edit After all, if a large steel block was truly solid steel through and through I would expect it to have a much higher durability than it does.
I'd assume they get folded up like a flatpack set. In this, the hardened steel and combat steel blocks wouldn't fit the same space as a regular steel block. What jieirn conveniently just glosses over is the fact that the three different types of armor blocks contain different amounts of plates and would therefore obviously compress to a larger space.
I would only say that i like the idea of volume/weight but i Think that the system must be intuitive and easy to understand. Right now it is complex for nothing and this way the game would remain poor known as it is in this moment. One example of useless complexity is the connected toolbar: it's just crazy that i have to navigate all that clutter UI only to place the most encumberancing things. Just my 2 cents.
Yes there is and i wrote the reason for this before. Different materials. The Sathium-Iron alloy for the hardened and combat steel blocks is obviously micronized less effective than a steel block of pure iron (oh irony).
It's not so much clutter as it is poor display. Relying on buttons with actual names would be better than putting a tiny square with a plug+socket symbol on it to connect a player's inventory to a container. It's simply not user friendly. If you know what you're doing, all you need to do is open the inventory that has the object you want to place and click the plug button, then drag the block to your toolbar. That's still very unintuitive, since this is the last thing anyone new to the game would consider because it has no founding whatsoever in reality; Like a door that opens by sniffing it. No one's going to try it because it's stupid and makes no sense.
Yes but no games has this type of inventory/Volume management. As you said is no user friendly and a New Player would just think: "why in the hell i have to do all this big mega caos just to build something where other games are so immediate and easy to understand?" IMO this is the problem and as an old time player i've tought it too.
???? I dont get your argument. There is NO difference in incentive, if the ratio of supply and demand stays constant. If i need 2k iron for my ship and i get 500 iron ore out of one deposit in 30 seconds, i have the incentive to mine for 1 minute. If i need 2000k iron for my ship and get 500k iron ore out of the deposit in 30 seconds, i have the incentive to mine for 1 minute. No difference at all. Why should this cause problems?
I am not glossing over this fact, it's just that the difference is negligible. A BA/CV Steel block takes 10 steel plate which use 0.10SU (1/10th of a storage unit) each for a total of 1 SU of material for a 15SU product. So that means the combined material space is a fifteenth of the block itself! Not worth storing the blocks! Okay, same example, different level of block: BA/CV Hardened Steel Block takes 10 steel plate (0.10 x 10 = 1SU) and 5 hardened steel plates (0.80 x 5 = 4SU) while taking up 30SU. The total of it's materials consumes 5SU of space while the (y'all say folded down) block consumes 6 times the space! Conclusion: Material volume is negligible to the final product and thus does not need consideration currently.
I think I missed the original thing about increasing 'costs' and thought you were following the conversation. Having fully looked back over at what you are saying, I see you missed the point of what Hummel was saying. Which was that if they used real-world values for BA/CV blocks, it would cause issues in most likely materials for only BA/CV blocks. They wouldn't be able to change other mechanics without then unbalancing against SV/HVs since those would not change. Bolstering values just because you want to build easier does not make for good overall gameplay, simply too much reward to be properly incentivizing.
Maybe, yes. Ahh, i think i overlooked the "only". Let me try expressing it in my own words, just to be sure: If i use those "realword" values - throughout the game! - then the effect is such, that the costs only for blocks go up into the sky, while the costs for other items remain about the same. This way its not possible to adjust costs overall in the described manner. And (while i guess i myself could live with the consequences, as there are soooo much blocks to loot), they consider the result to be no fun to play. Right, now?
