Mule

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chuck_starchaser
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Re: Mule

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Okay, so we know for sure that the Rlaan's armor would be bolt-on type, and hexagonal. Possibly a single bolt in the center of each hexagonal plate.
Aera armor could be triangular... Problem is, I think according to canon the Aera try to make their ships appear like they are made of a single part. Not sure how this applies to armor.
Perhaps the LIHW would use square panels bolted at all 4 corners.
Not sure who uses fish scales of what shape or size. There's so many factions... Andolians, Shapers, Uln, Unadorned, Klkk ...
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

Found an EXCELLENT resource for thrusters, internals, and the like: http://cs.astrium.eads.net/sp/Spacecraf ... asar_x.htm

They have a bunch of videos, too, including some hot fires. take a LOOOONG look!
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

Okay....here's a trio of hydrazine RCS thrusters, with 4m diameter cones:

Image

Alternatively, 4m ion thrusters:
Image

The ions appear to be a better choice, but are technically useless in this scenario -- they simply don't provide enough acceleration to work as reaction thrusters. I came across some smaller designs for RCS thrusters, but in looking at how these things scale up, those compact designs wouldn't work.

Hell, even on the main thrusters, I'm using liquid fuel combustion designs when they really should be ions. Unfortunately, ion engines aren't as interesting to look at ;)

EDIT: UGH. The mule is 28 million kg (28,000 metric tons), empty. To accelerate it at 0.1G, 2.8 MN of force is required. For comparison, the Space Shuttle (with boosters) exerts 12.5MN to get into orbit. That same thrust would accelerate the mule at 0.45 m/s^2. The solid rocket boosters are a little over 3m in diameter, and ~45m long. So, a pair of my 4m diameter hydrazine thrusters should be sufficient (if we make some HORRIBLE (and I do mean horrible) assumptions about how different thrusters work, let alone how they scale) to accelerate the mule in a given direction at .5m/s^2. (chuck, double-check my math; I could be WAY off)

But, if we make those same assumptions, and scale them down to about 2m (where they were before), we can place several around the perimeter, and maintain the half-G acceleration.

That being said, half-G acceleration is insanity for a ship like this. But reducing the number and/or size of the thrusters is out of the question -- everyone seems to agree that my last image didn't make them large enough :/
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Re: Mule

Post by chuck_starchaser »

nphillips wrote:Okay....here's a trio of hydrazine RCS thrusters, with 4m diameter cones:

Image
ROFL. What I meant was to keep the stuff inside the hull, only have the muzzle showing at the surface, but just know what it looks like inside, to make sure it fits, given the position of the exit hole. But yeah, that looks more realistic than tiny blisters.
The ions appear to be a better choice, but are technically useless in this scenario -- they simply don't provide enough acceleration to work as reaction thrusters. I came across some smaller designs for RCS thrusters, but in looking at how these things scale up, those compact designs wouldn't work.
Very true, and I think we were talking about chemical for maneuvering, ions for forward thrusters, or something along the lines? I once hit JackS hard about the thrusters issue... This was AFTER the first time I hit him with it and he started suggesting retro thrusters; in fact, I hit him again, about whether it would be efficient to have so many thrusters pointing in all directions, and he kind of wanted to dodge or postpone further discussions on the issue, but suggested he'd be open to the idea of ship autopilot ai's turning the ships around at mid-trips (just as you and I planned for Tadpole). Later I presented to Hellcat an algorithm for autopilot that would do just that, and he ignored it; but some time later he said to me "you wanted to program an autopilot? you can edit function such and so, file such and so; but I couldn't figure out how to get some data I needed. Well, anyways, maybe we should brainstorm some more about all this. Perhaps we can make the main engines be ions or vasimr's and point back (autopilot turnaround pirohuette notwithstanding), and all lateral and maneuvering thrusters could be chemical.
Hell, even on the main thrusters, I'm using liquid fuel combustion designs when they really should be ions. Unfortunately, ion engines aren't as interesting to look at ;)
Well, really, they should be vasimr's rather than ions, and if they had dual mode, like with chemical injectors for occasional bursts, all the better; it would save additional chemical thrusters.
EDIT: UGH. The mule is 28 million kg (28,000 metric tons), empty. To accelerate it at 0.1G, 2.8 MN of force is required. For comparison, the Space Shuttle (with boosters) exerts 12.5MN to get into orbit. That same thrust would accelerate the mule at 0.45 m/s^2. The solid rocket boosters are a little over 3m in diameter, and ~45m long. So, a pair of my 4m diameter hydrazine thrusters should be sufficient (if we make some HORRIBLE (and I do mean horrible) assumptions about how different thrusters work, let alone how they scale) to accelerate the mule in a given direction at .5m/s^2. (chuck, double-check my math; I could be WAY off)
Can't right now; going for surgery tomorrow morning; --no joke. Gotta get to bed.
But, if we make those same assumptions, and scale them down to about 2m (where they were before), we can place several around the perimeter, and maintain the half-G acceleration.
This ship is way too big for 1/2 G acceleration, anyways. If a fighter can do 1 G, then something slightly bigger than a fighter could do 1/2 G. Can you imagine a 200 meter long truck, 40 meters wide, and 10 stories high, accelerating like a Porsche?
That being said, half-G acceleration is insanity for a ship like this.
Exactly.
But reducing the number and/or size of the thrusters is out of the question -- everyone seems to agree that my last image didn't make them large enough :/
Also true. Well, you could make them smaller and make it really slow maneuvering. Space-shuttle kind of slow. But that is really, REALLY slow. Slow as in put a paper-weight on an arrow key, go brew some coffee. Nobody will want to fly this ship. OTOH, nobody would want to fly this ship in RL, so, problem solved.
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

chuck_starchaser wrote:ROFL. What I meant was to keep the stuff inside the hull, only have the muzzle showing at the surface, but just know what it looks like inside, to make sure it fits, given the position of the exit hole. But yeah, that looks more realistic than tiny blisters.
I know what you meant ;) I just made the interior stuff to ensure sizing and placement. And that's what I got when I turned on the RCS layer with the main ship layer :D Just having three thrusters, at that size, take up the entire ship's insides. And then we need fuel...

Those pics were to illustrate a certain ridiculousness....
Well, anyways, maybe we should brainstorm some more about all this. Perhaps we can make the main engines be ions or vasimr's and point back (autopilot turnaround pirohuette notwithstanding), and all lateral and maneuvering thrusters could be chemical.
Well, for the larger ships, this makes sense. Stuff that the player will be flying, not so much. Why? It's what people expect. VS is already entrenched in the "space flight like atmospheric flight" approach, and I think folks would find it awkward (e.g., "Why's my ship flying backward? My throttle is at 0!").
Well, really, they should be vasimr's rather than ions, and if they had dual mode, like with chemical injectors for occasional bursts, all the better; it would save additional chemical thrusters.
True! And the vasimr looks quite a bit like what I modeled on the Mule. :D
Can't right now; going for surgery tomorrow morning; --no joke. Gotta get to bed.
Good luck!!
This ship is way too big for 1/2 G acceleration, anyways. If a fighter can do 1 G, then something slightly bigger than a fighter could do 1/2 G. Can you imagine a 200 meter long truck, 40 meters wide, and 10 stories high, accelerating like a Porsche?
I can imagine it. It's scary ;)
Well, you could make them smaller and make it really slow maneuvering. Space-shuttle kind of slow. But that is really, REALLY slow. Slow as in put a paper-weight on an arrow key, go brew some coffee. Nobody will want to fly this ship. OTOH, nobody would want to fly this ship in RL, so, problem solved.
To say no one would want to fly it is crazy...I think the Mule should end up being one of the more popular mid-range freighters. It's well armored, and has decent gun mounts, and it's supposed to be fairly versatile.

As for the Space Shuttle...it has 3 RCS thrusters on the nose that pitch it down. Each thruster provides 3870 N; 11,610N total, providing 0.0057 m/s^2 acceleration. I need to dust off my physics books, and calculate how long it would take for all of these ships to rotate...that teency acceleration might feel a lot faster than it is.
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Re: Mule

Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote: I don't know. The fish-scales model is what is apparently the intent in many WC capship textures, possibly in starwars models, and it's smart the way you are describing it. I never thought of it that way, but now it makes sense.
For vegastrike's purposes, I think a brainstorm should aim at producing a variety of "armor philosophies" and then assigning them to the various factions. Deus?
My personal favorite is two layers of plates, one fully covering the other, the layers being offset so that each covers the seams of the other.

Anyway, do we want to discuss this in the main brainstorm thread?
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

Okay....using some bad physics, the space shuttle can pitch itself 360 degrees (pushing down on the top of the nose; assuming it's center of gravity is dead-center) in about 2 minutes.

Using the *same* bad physics, the Mule can perform the same maneuver, using the *same* thrusters in ~460 seconds (7 minutes). Again, pushing my bad physics to the limit, tripling the size of the thrusters results in a rotation of 263 seconds (4 minutes). Again, this is with a trio of 2m thrusters (same size as I used originally).

Of course, if we add an additional trio to the aft-bottom portion (opposite side, applying the same directional thrust), the rotation time shaves off a minute.

I'll write up and upload my math used to calculate this, tonight; I'm fairly certain it's not very accurate.
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Re: Mule

Post by Fendorin »

hi

i did this as i imagined the reworked mule : something not extravagant :
for my part i really doesn't pay attention if is stick to real physics then i will not entrance into discussion just aesthetic is my concern
As wrote by Chuck it will be obvious to see seems on hull even for separate this huge shell into easy fixable/replacable part
Agree with u it can be handle by normal map to but th most important part must be handle by modelization too.

Picture below is just a quick example of how you can improve.
- i don't ask you to follow exactly my sketches
- i did it for showing you little detail u can put for improve a bit the size effect of the model
Image
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

Thanks for the pic, Fendorin :)

I apologize if you thought I've been ignoring and/or not caring about your input -- quite the opposite! I'm just not satisfied with the model yet, so adding those sort of details isn't even a question, yet.

The perfect example is the paneling around the RCS thrusters that you added -- If I end up having to change the thrusters (which I will), all of those beveled edges and angles would need to be reversed. As it stands, I can just select the verts making up the holes, delete them, and add 5 new faces; all in all, a 30 second "repair". The work going in to making all of those panels as you drew them (which I love, by the way...gave me some good ideas) would take a lot longer than 30 seconds to undo.

I do like those panels, though -- different material is good. Plus, the section of plating that you have running along the tops of those panels implies service entry: in the event the fuel lines need servicing/replacing only that one segment of armor needs to come off, as opposed to huge chunks.
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Re: Mule

Post by Deus Siddis »

nphillips wrote:Okay....using some bad physics, the space shuttle can pitch itself 360 degrees (pushing down on the top of the nose; assuming it's center of gravity is dead-center) in about 2 minutes.
Is that using cold gas thrusters though? Could you get better results out of liquid fuel rockets or some low efficiency, reaction mass spewing form of plasma thruster?
UGH. The mule is 28 million kg (28,000 metric tons), empty.
If worse comes to worst, and it doesn't require you throwing away work at this point, the ship could be scaled down in mass or both mass and dimensions.

Maybe go as far as to cut that mass down into a third, based off of this maritime analogue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_class ... tores_ship
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

Deus Siddis wrote:Is that using cold gas thrusters though? Could you get better results out of liquid fuel rockets or some low efficiency, reaction mass spewing form of plasma thruster?
Nope: Nitrogen tetroxide is the oxidizer, and monomethyl hydrazine is the fuel (http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/tec ... s-rcs.html), and it's a hot burn. I think liquid fuel is probably the most inefficient thruster we've got :D

While plasma thrusters/VASIMRs are more efficient than combustion (fuel consumption, weight), they don't provide the same amount of immediate thrust. Unless we find some "magical" plasma thruster, I think traditional fire is going to be the best method for the fast reaction that's required of RCS functions.
If worse comes to worst, and it doesn't require you throwing away work at this point, the ship could be scaled down in mass or both mass and dimensions.
Well, my question is, where did that mass come from? There are no other measurements on the wiki, just metric tonnage. Compared to the size/mass of the space shuttle, it looks like it's an appropriate mass. Let me do some more math to figure out if it's even in the right ballpark.
Maybe go as far as to cut that mass down into a third, based off of this maritime analogue: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_class ... tores_ship
I think that's exactly what the Mule is supposed to be doing. Though, for the size of the ships she's supporting, it'd need to be as big as it is.
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

Okay...I did some very simple mass/density calculations for the Mule. Just using the upper shell's bounding dimensions (164.8m x 57.4m x 30.0x), I made a theoretical box of carbon nanotubes (our best hope for high-strength, lightweight materials). The box was hollow, but with 1m thick walls. Using the highest density for the CN (1.34 g/cm^3), this cube "weighs" in at 42 million kg -- Fourteen million more than what's on the wiki!

Now, this box gives a LOT of extra material, when looking at it from a purely physical standpoint. The shell has a lower volume. However, I wasn't adding in the fins, nacelles, and the lower living quarters. Not to mention all of the internal materials for systems, fuel tanks, and armor. I figure the additional material makes up some of the difference, but the mass would likely be higher than my estimate. Especially adding the weight of armor (and ultimately cargo).

I think, in the end, we need to fall back to a comment chuck made (don't know where it was), and just pay lip service to the idea of retro and RCS thrusters. Find a design that looks marginally plausible, and integrate it into the model.
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Re: Mule

Post by Fendorin »

HI i don't want boring you

but maybe you have to rescale by half the Lenght of the Mule
as i found an interressing real boat exactly the same lenght as the mule your mention
http://www.ssmaritime.com/ellerman.htm

As you can see the command deck are much more tiny than the One on the MULE
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

Good find, Fendorin! And no, you're not boring me :)

I did a quick comparison of the mule's profile, along with one of those images (first one had the closest angle to a profile), and scaling down my mule image to the Quartet, the bridges of both ships matched pixel for pixel.

Now, I'm just comparing the upper set of windows to the Quartet -- I sort of assumed that the top portion was the bridge, and the lower was an observation deck. I can't imagine *one* person is able to fly the Mule (not easily, anyway), so it only makes sense to have a full bridge, as opposed to a single cockpit. With the added turrets and guns, I figure she has a crew of at least 5 (10-15 if they don't work 24 hours a day), so a small rec area up front makes a bit of sense, too.

...and I just realized that I need to figure out how/where I need to mount the guns.....
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Re: Mule

Post by chuck_starchaser »

nphillips wrote:
chuck_starchaser wrote:ROFL. What I meant was to keep the stuff inside the hull, only have the muzzle showing at the surface, but just know what it looks like inside, to make sure it fits, given the position of the exit hole. But yeah, that looks more realistic than tiny blisters.
I know what you meant ;) I just made the interior stuff to ensure sizing and placement. And that's what I got when I turned on the RCS layer with the main ship layer :D Just having three thrusters, at that size, take up the entire ship's insides. And then we need fuel...

Those pics were to illustrate a certain ridiculousness....
Only looks ridiculous (flimsy) for it to br exposed. Nonhing intrinsically ridiculous.
Well, anyways, maybe we should brainstorm some more about all this. Perhaps we can make the main engines be ions or vasimr's and point back (autopilot turnaround pirohuette notwithstanding), and all lateral and maneuvering thrusters could be chemical.
Well, for the larger ships, this makes sense. Stuff that the player will be flying, not so much. Why? It's what people expect. VS is already entrenched in the "space flight like atmospheric flight" approach, and I think folks would find it awkward (e.g., "Why's my ship flying backward? My throttle is at 0!").
Well, fuck them!
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Re: Mule

Post by safemode »

Actually, I'm not so sure this is true that VS has atmospheric like flight. The models appear that way, sure, but the actual in-game dynamics are very much more realistic than their models convey.

We have up and down and left and right only thrusters. These are triggered automatically with the forward thrusters when you are using your joystick.

Basically, in-game. We have at least 4 thrusters in the rear at the 2 axis and 4 in the front mirroring those in the rear. This allows the nose to turn one way about the ship's center without having to worry about center of mass. (computer automagically controls the thrust so that we rotate about our physical center).

The only thing i think we dont have in-game is a reverse thruster.

But i dont know if getting hung up on current cutting edge technology for basing VS engines on is necessary. It takes place significantly far in the future that we have some room to breath when it comes to sublight propulsion. Though, since all the ships behave the same way, no matter which one you are in, the solution should definitely have to fit that little aspect of the game.
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Re: Mule

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Fendorin wrote:hi

i did this as i imagined the reworked mule : something not extravagant :
for my part i really doesn't pay attention if is stick to real physics then i will not entrance into discussion just aesthetic is my concern.
Aesthetic sense varies, though, Fendorin. If I were to model the Eiffel tower, but only showed vertical and horizontal trusses, no diagonals, it might look pretty to someone that's never seen it, but it might offend you if you have; and might offend you even more if you knew that such a structure could never stand without diagonals.
Same thing here: With space ships, about 1% should be payload; the other 99% fuel and propulsion, really.
Failing that, half & half?
But when we put tiny thrusters... Well, that looks absurd (to me).
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Same thing here: With space ships, about 1% should be payload; the other 99% fuel and propulsion, really.
Failing that, half & half?
But when we put tiny thrusters... Well, that looks absurd (to me).
Technically, yeah. They should be 1% payload. I think 10% could be a believable concession.

Unfortunately, we have a HUGE number of ships that don't follow these rules. Ships that I don't think we can delete and start over with.

Would something like the thrusters on Fendorin's previous post look better:
Image
That's basically the direction I'm headed, at this point.

EDIT: Sorry; I thought they were bigger in that pic. I'd probably make them 2x as large.
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Re: Mule

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Typing very hard lying down, 1 hand, so last time
i try 4 now.
2x bigger AT LEAST; and there needs to be room 4 the internal stuff; so u can't bunch them
along the rim. The pic u posted as proof of absurdity was exactly right.
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Re: Mule

Post by safemode »

I'm wondering if cones are really necessary for space thrusters.

Wouldn't a mostly ionic exhaust (assuming some type of advanced high output ionic drive) be better confined from the walls of the exhaust by magnets, and then directed by magnets, so that the thrust can be direction (ala fighter jets with the crazy iris that directs exhaust gas) from any output. Depending on the power applied to the magnets at the exit, we could direct the ions away at varying angles. So really an exhaust port on such an engine would look somewhat like a doughnut around a hole. Magnets direct the exhaust from the engine to the hole so that it doesn't contact the walls, then it exits the hole and the doughnut feature (really a series of maybe 4 high powered super magnets) can push the ions to any angle of a semi-circle just short of perpendicular.

This would minimize the features and polys while maintaining a futuristic look to ships rather than putting these cones everywhere making it appear like thruster tech hasn't advanced in a thousand years from now. Anyways, if we're dealing with ions, i feel that magnetic direction andcontrol of the thrust would definitely be used over mechanical (the friction and heat would be far too costly to thrust, as well as stressing the ship and providing massive heat signatures for missiles to follow).
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Re: Mule

Post by chuck_starchaser »

I wouldn't worry about tech not advancing much in 1000 years; it won't. The age of invention has already run
its course; it ended about 30 or 40 yrs ago. We've only been making quantitative refinements since, and this
age of optimization will probably end in a few more decades.
Anyhow, the idea of vectored thrusters' come up many times, and JackS has pointed out each time that
redirecting high energy particles is a non-starter, and I fully agree: You'd need very powerful magnets
to do that. MUCH easier to turn the whole assermbly.
But anyhow, we were (or at least I was) going chemical for all but the main, forward thrusters.
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Re: Mule

Post by nphillips »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Anyhow, the idea of vectored thrusters' come up many times, and JackS has pointed out each time that
redirecting high energy particles is a non-starter, and I fully agree: You'd need very powerful magnets
to do that. MUCH easier to turn the whole assermbly.
But anyhow, we were (or at least I was) going chemical for all but the main, forward thrusters.
Agreed. Even if they were some form of VASIMR, we would still need cones and combustion chambers.

What I've been trying to puzzle out is if there's some way to use a shared chamber to help cut down physical space...though I highly doubt it's possible. It just doesn't make sense, and it certainly wouldn't provide uniform thrust between the nozzles.
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Re: Mule

Post by chuck_starchaser »

nphillips wrote:
chuck_starchaser wrote:Anyhow, the idea of vectored thrusters' come up many times, and JackS has pointed out each time that
redirecting high energy particles is a non-starter, and I fully agree: You'd need very powerful magnets
to do that. MUCH easier to turn the whole assermbly.
But anyhow, we were (or at least I was) going chemical for all but the main, forward thrusters.
Agreed. Even if they were some form of VASIMR, we would still need cones and combustion chambers.

What I've been trying to puzzle out is if there's some way to use a shared chamber to help cut down physical space...though I highly doubt it's possible. It just doesn't make sense, and it certainly wouldn't provide uniform thrust between the nozzles.
A shared chamber might be doable; but probably at an efficiency price, --probably too high.
other things might be more sharable, like fuel lines and pumps, coolant citcuit, etc.
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Re: Mule

Post by Deus Siddis »

safemode wrote:Actually, I'm not so sure this is true that VS has atmospheric like flight. The models appear that way, sure, but the actual in-game dynamics are very much more realistic than their models convey.
According to the wiki, there's some ships that were built with atmospheric flight being a higher priority, like the Ancestor. This implies that the designs of other ships don't make atmospheric flight a major consideration.

I think for practical reasons though, at least the ships too small to carry a shuttle have to be able to land and take off, otherwise they wouldn't be able to reach worlds without space elevators.
The only thing i think we dont have in-game is a reverse thruster.
Actually, it's almost certain there are retro thrusters on ships in VS (most likely all ships). They are both listed in units.csv and would be required to decelerate in space when facing the direction of travel, as we can do in game. The retros are often more powerful than the lateral thrusters too.
chuck_starchaser wrote: Anyhow, the idea of vectored thrusters' come up many times, and JackS has pointed out each time that
redirecting high energy particles is a non-starter, and I fully agree: You'd need very powerful magnets
to do that. MUCH easier to turn the whole assermbly.
Pivoting engine sections might be visually interesting if the code was available for them at some point in the future. At least on a portion of the vessels. Make things look more "alive", IMO.
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Re: Mule

Post by klauss »

nphillips wrote:Yeah...adding the maneuvering thrusters would be nice...but it would probably eat up a lot of resources. Turning might be a bit much, but if we add the WASD-controlled "strafing" for ships, sticking in a few small pngs of venting gas might be doable.
I knew how to make maneuvering thrusters.. I just never coded it. It wouldn't be hard, it would be fully automatic, and very cool-looking.

I guess I might tackle that if I get bored with the other stuff ;-)

The relevant pieces of code are:
Here
And here
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