Away with thruster walls.

[kiiyo]

This post was born from a discussion in the main discord's #alpha-feedback channel. The discussion happened on April 1st, around 3:30PM GMT if anyone would like to find it and read it for themselves.

The general statement is as follows: Smaller, more powerful and potentially modular thrusters would allow for more creative ship design in addition to making the creation of viable ships more accessible to the average ship builder.

The discussion came to the conclusion that making thrusters take up less rear area (by at the very least making longer and smaller thrusters) would assist all ship builders in creating viable ships that look much better than ones created right now. This contrasts the current game state, in which weak, fairly large thrusters require you to fill the entire rear-facing surface of the ship with thrusters, therefore creating a "thruster wall" effect, and limiting ship shapes to ones with a lot of rear surface area - namely, cubes.

The hardest, and yet potentially best way to mitigate this issue is to implement a system of modular thrusters, potentially even fully replacing the current thrusters. This system would allow the design to fine-tune all characteristics of their thrusters, including but not limited to warm-up time, power, consumption rates, in a much more interactive and hands-on way. This system should be initially implemented specifically for surpassing the thruster wall issue, instead of simply replacing it - these new modular thrusters shouldn't be so weak as to require filling the entire back of the ship with nozzle modules, therefore simply repeating the problem. A ship of Hedron size should be able to fly with ~6 modular thrusters, each one's nozzle taking up somewhere around 2 box thrusters' nozzle space but being quite a bit longer. This is simply an approximation, though, and the exact details are for the design team to figure out.

Everyone hates cubes. They're boring, ugly, and frankly, their amount of sides reminds me too much of the quantity of braincells I possess.
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Here are some counter arguments that have been raised against this during the discussion. I will add more as replies to this thread come in.

"They'd only reinforce borg cubes being the meta"

No, no they would not. From a design perspective, cubes are dumb - every direction you're shot from, you're giving the enemy what one would call "a pancake shot". Ships closer to what our current jet fighters look like will start popping up a lot more once the rear doesn't need to be covered entirely in thrusters to reach max speed (since a jet fighter shape only has 2 pancakes - the top and bottom). The only reason cubes exist is their sides have high surface area (hence being pancakes), giving a ton of space for thruster walls. Eliminate the need for thruster walls and the cubes will leave with them.
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Thanks for reading, comment your opinions, arguments and any changes I should make to the original post.

 

[Quevin]

Less device spam in general is a plus in my book!

 

[XenoCow]

I think there are some good ideas in here. I like the idea of modular thrusters (we do already have that with the plasma thrusters), and the search for solutions that don't limit creativity. However, I'm worried that this approach is more of a band-aid than a solution for the underlying issue.

Firstly, why do people build the walls of thrusters? To travel at max speed. I'd like to argue that the need (perceived or otherwise) to travel at max speed is the root of the problem, rather than weak thrusters. There are various discussions about what could be done to combat every ship being max speed or considered bad: non-linear thrust to weight ratios, increased power drain, or my personal one, inertia that incentivizes flying slower as to not break your ship.

If these new thrusters are introduced, what's to stop people from still covering the whole back of their ship in thrusters and just being hotdog shaped instead of cube? Now being a cube is less viable. It feels like a trade-off rather than a fix.

I just think that more time spent looking into the root of the problem might lead to more nuanced and long-lasting fixes. I don't think that weak thrusters are the root.

 

[Cavilier210]

I agree that people's desire to have maxxed speed is the root problem. You don't need to zip around at max speed. Its wasteful. When talking to my friends on this topic, we think a medium speed option (a drive between thrusters and the warp gates) is a desirable option. Then the long hauls don't have to be so long, and it adds my much loved complexity to ship design, but you'll still need to have thrusters. But, perhaps the drive to have maxxed out thruster velocity will fall in that scenario.

Thoughts?

 

[CalenLoki]

Don't bring fast travel into this topic. Long medium thrusters are needed for situations when you can't use warp (i.e. combat), your ship is too big for triangle/box and too small for plasma.

Also warp won't shorten travel times. It'll just spread playerbase further apart.

I agree that some other game mechanics that discourage always aiming for top speed would help in general. But "your ship will look worse if you want to go fast" is not the desired way to achieve that.

 

[kiiyo]

I think there are some good ideas in here. I like the idea of modular thrusters (we do already have that with the plasma thrusters), and the search for solutions that don't limit creativity. However, I'm worried that this approach is more of a band-aid than a solution for the underlying issue.

Firstly, why do people build the walls of thrusters? To travel at max speed. I'd like to argue that the need (perceived or otherwise) to travel at max speed is the root of the problem, rather than weak thrusters. There are various discussions about what could be done to combat every ship being max speed or considered bad: non-linear thrust to weight ratios, increased power drain, or my personal one, inertia that incentivizes flying slower as to not break your ship.

If these new thrusters are introduced, what's to stop people from still covering the whole back of their ship in thrusters and just being hotdog shaped instead of cube? Now being a cube is less viable. It feels like a trade-off rather than a fix.

I just think that more time spent looking into the root of the problem might lead to more nuanced and long-lasting fixes. I don't think that weak thrusters are the root.

Well, many people flame me for being pessimistic, but unless the devs pull a Jesus move in this area and somehow fix everything in some magic way, which won't happen, this is, in my opinion, how the game will go.

Humans minmax designs in videogames. A lot. And very often. This game will be minmaxed to hell and back.

All remotely viable fighters, freighters and miners will go 150m/s, because anything less than max speed has no justification for it.

You can't stop ships from going 150, and you can't stop humans from desiring speed in a game where distances are so vast and space is so empty.

Ships will fly 150m/s. All of em. All viable ships will fly speedcap.

So at least let them be sexy while doing so.

 

[CalenLoki]

Not necessarily all will fly 150. If speed requires exponential amount of thrust, top speed could be just unreachable number.
If people are forced to find their sweet spot, ships will be more unique.

I.e. balance drag to make only ship that contains only thrusters and necessary equipment to reach max speed (no weapon, cargo, plating, ect).
Then make halving the thrust:mass reduce the speed only by sqrt(2). (To ~105m/s).

Another mechanics could be reducing drag based on ship mass, so big ships require less thrust:mass to reach the same speed. But with much worse acceleration.

I guess both of these fall under "magic Jesus moves". But I'm optimistic, and believe that devs can pull it.

 

[kiiyo]

Not necessarily all will fly 150. If speed requires exponential amount of thrust, top speed could be just unreachable number.
If people are forced to find their sweet spot, ships will be more unique.

I.e. balance drag to make only ship that contains only thrusters and necessary equipment to reach max speed (no weapon, cargo, plating, ect).
Then make halving the thrust:mass reduce the speed only by sqrt(2). (To ~105m/s).

Another mechanics could be reducing drag based on ship mass, so big ships require less thrust:mass to reach the same speed. But with much worse acceleration.

I guess both of these fall under "magic Jesus moves". But I'm optimistic, and believe that devs can pull it.

I suppose an exponential debuff to thruster effectiveness to thrusters could help, but wouldn't it just encourage ways to thrusterspam even further, only making the difference of most ships still being unable to reach speedcap?

 

[XenoCow]

All remotely viable fighters, freighters and miners will go 150m/s, because anything less than max speed has no justification for it.

You can't stop ships from going 150, and you can't stop humans from desiring speed in a game where distances are so vast and space is so empty.

Ships will fly 150m/s. All of em. All viable ships will fly speedcap.

You've given me an idea for a suggestion, I'll make a new post for it to not detract from this medium long thruster discussion. Thanks.

 

[id405]

What about removing the speedcap but requiring exponentially more thrust the faster you go so that you could keep people from going too fast?

 

[CalenLoki]

I suppose an exponential debuff to thruster effectiveness to thrusters could help, but wouldn't it just encourage ways to thrusterspam even further, only making the difference of most ships still being unable to reach speedcap?

Some min-maxers will still go for max speed. But many will also consider if it's really worth it, if it means sacrificing firepower, armour or agility. Some meta fighters already fly slower than max (i.e. Empire's Typhon).
ATM reaching max is so cheap that it's pretty much required.

What about removing the speedcap but requiring exponentially more thrust the faster you go so that you could keep people from going too fast?

Speedcap have to stay, due to technical reasons (lag and collisions). But it can be made so exponentially hard to reach that it'll feel like softcap.

 

[Quevin]

This thread had become talk about max speed not about thruster spam / walls, i want build diversity, long ships to be viable instead of opting to go for a max surface area ship to spam thrusters at.

Look at almost any ship in universe, their entire backside is full of thrusters.

Not all ships are going max speed, its about build diversity not ship speed.

 

[Cavilier210]

Large ships are going to be slower. It it wasn't for trying to straight line to various places as fast as possible, I don't think you would see that kind of spam as much.

I don't have a problem with making box thrusters be modular in a way that makes them longer for higher thrust. They would weigh the same, and should take up as much volume. Whether made into a wall or stacked lengthwise.

 

[Kodey]

I’d love to see longer or medium thrusters. I love how you can change the length of the plasma thruster to change it’s thrust level and I think a smaller thruster would be great with that. The Shashka - my most recent jet fighter - suffers from a giant thruster wall, despite using cursed thruster techniques, and still doesn’t go top speed despite all the thrusters.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/635742331315945472/827553416979939418/image0.jpg

I think the current thrusters are great, and that a smaller, less expensive, version of the plasma thruster would be an awesome addition; one about the size of a box thruster with the ability to be made longer.

 

[kiiyo]

I'd like to see smaller, lengthwise-stackable thrusters. Maybe in addition to a general increase in thrust at the cost of the same proportion of increase in fuel/electricity consumption? Like double both or something. Would be very nice.

 

[Cavilier210]

I’d love to see longer or medium thrusters. I love how you can change the length of the plasma thruster to change it’s thrust level and I think a smaller thruster would be great with that. The Shashka - my most recent jet fighter - suffers from a giant thruster wall, despite using cursed thruster techniques, and still doesn’t go top speed despite all the thrusters.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/635742331315945472/827553416979939418/image0.jpg

I think the current thrusters are great, and that a smaller, less expensive, version of the plasma thruster would be an awesome addition; one about the size of a box thruster with the ability to be made longer.

Do you think maybe part of why you can't reach max speed is too many thrusters?

 

[Breadley]

In my opinion the max speed should be the same for all of the ships. The thrusters should only affect the acceleration of the ship along the thrust vector.

 

[RyuShihan]

couldn't the max speed issue be solved with using more fuel? A fighter should hit max speed fast with smaller thrusters but should be hemorrhaging fuel. Could also make thrusters be affected by weight, add too much weight to a small thruster and you need alot more than if you just had box or triangle thrusters. So adding 50 small fighter thrusters would eat up a large tank of fuel too fast to make it worth while.

Fuel consumption would also make fighters with fast thrusters only have a certain range, requiring ships to carry ships for deployments.

 

[Cavilier210]

couldn't the max speed issue be solved with using more fuel? A fighter should hit max speed fast with smaller thrusters but should be hemorrhaging fuel. Could also make thrusters be affected by weight, add too much weight to a small thruster and you need alot more than if you just had box or triangle thrusters. So adding 50 small fighter thrusters would eat up a large tank of fuel too fast to make it worth while.

Fuel consumption would also make fighters with fast thrusters only have a certain range, requiring ships to carry ships for deployments.

I think having to make a design decision based on anticipated range of use should be a part of the whole process.

 

[XenoCow]

For ease of development, couldn't the current thrusters be used but have different component variations that provide different amounts of thrust, effectively filling many roles in the same form-factor.

Maybe you could have really expensive parts that push way harder than their cheaper counterparts. I'm sure many of you out there would be willing to pay 10-20 million for a box thruster that is 5x more powerful.

For balance, the better components could be more expensive, like FCUs and tradeoff between thrust, fuel consumption, energy consumption, fuel type, acceleration time etc.

It would only take a new color scheme, some dials tweaked, and updating the shops for this to be added.