Can't build a manuverable ship for crap

[chelatek]

I havent played for a while but I've come back and I see there were big changes to movement.

 

I used to have no issues with my ships and speed/manuvering but now literally anything I build is almost all engine and can't turn or stop for shit. I've tried all kinds of combinations of the new blocks but it's always horrible, the power needs are astronomical, and it takes a ton of crew.

 

Was it also changed so that iron engines are always horrible and I need to get to better metals before I can build a good ship? Iirc iron is best for  some of the blocks right?

 

I just don't know what I'm doing wrong.

[Gontarekt]

Well for brake thrust you would want to use Directional Thrusters, And keep sure they face forwards / backwards on your ship to add brake thrust, Also Iron is the best for its Inertia Dampner, But then whe you get to avorion it becomes obsolete.

For Maneuvering when you are mid-placing a thruster you'd notice a + sign shape inside your ship ( Usually centre because most ships are symmetrical ) to show the centre of mass. Thrusters Work best when as far away from that as possible. For power problems I recommend you get power upgrade modules for your ship as soon as possible because they save a lot of resource building generators.

Iron is by far the heaviest resource in the game  with Ogonite as the 2nd. Each resource have their own traits, The best one in my opinion is Trinium because it has the best Hull/Weight ratio ( Lightest Resource ) And Avorion for its amazing Power Capabilities.

If you wanted to get advanced with adding maneuverability to your ship you could focus the centre of mass on your ship, perhaps putting Massive stone blocks at the very side of your ship and building out on the other side all your thrusters, just an idea.

And yes crew is a pain in the ass. It will be a bit difficult to explain everything you need to know so it'd be best you found a guide for it.

[AstroOwl]

Was it also changed so that iron engines are always horrible and I need to get to better metals before I can build a good ship? Iirc iron is best for  some of the blocks right?

 

Iron is basically worst for anything. Only reason to  use for it is Inertial Dampeners, and/or lack of other materials. So move to Titanium asap, but still, even ship made out of Iron should be able to turn.

 

Now, if you check Workshop, you can easily see that there is a lot of good-turning ships, so it IS possible, now let's see how they do it.

 

First. Thrusters, especially directional thrusters are your friends, so you need to know how they work.

(just in case: "thruster pancakes are no more, thrusters are now volume-based).

 

Thrusters give you more torque (which is what you want to rotate fast) the more lever they have.  Now,  to gain more lever, you want to place  your  thruster so that  it would be  as far  from center of your ship as possible. You can get good  results even by just placing simple (non-directional) thrusters  somewhere far from the center of mass of the ship. Bad rotational speeds can then be covered by gyroscopes (be sure to rotate them to achieve effect on the desired axis of rotation!)

 

 

But to really  control and imrove particular rotation speeds even on high-mass ships, you need to use directional thrusters.

You get maximum result if you place directional thruster rotated  to certain direction (axis) if you place it as far as possible from the line going through the center of mass in the same direction.

 

I bet this is completely non-understandable, so  some  more practical examples:

 

If you want to get more result from the thruster oriented along "up-down" axis, for example, you want to place it far to the side (left-right), in which case it will give you more roll, and/or to the back  or front, in which case it will give you more pitch.

 

Applying general principle to this example, you maximise lever by placing this vertically-oriented thruster as far as possible from the vertical line going through ship's CenterOfMass.

 

Likewise, to get maximum yaw/roll form "left-right" oriented thruster, you place it  further to  top/bottom , and/or further to back/front.

 

And, finally,  to get maximum  yaw/pitch form "backward-forward" oriented thruster, you place it  further to  left/right, and/or further to top/bottom.

 

Hope this somewhat  convoluted explanation helps a bit. Good luck!

[DracoNB]

Best way to slow down is to flip a 180 and reverse thrust... see the expanse ;)

 

But yes, thrusters all over your ship! The work the best when on the outside edges of your ship, but put them all over. You can also use gyros, but usually thrusters will give better performance overall.

[chelatek]

Was it also changed so that iron engines are always horrible and I need to get to better metals before I can build a good ship? Iirc iron is best for  some of the blocks right?

 

Iron is basically worst for anything. Only reason to  use for it is Inertial Dampeners, and/or lack of other materials. So move to Titanium asap, but still, even ship made out of Iron should be able to turn.

 

Now, if you check Workshop, you can easily see that there is a lot of good-turning ships, so it IS possible, now let's see how they do it.

 

First. Thruster, especially thrusters are your friends, so you need to know how they work.

(just in case: "thruster pancakes are no more, thrusters are now volume-based).

 

Thrusters give you more torque (which is what you want to rotate fast) the more lever they have.  Now,  to gain more lever, you want to place  your  thruster so that  it would be  as far  from center of your ship as possible. You can get good  results even by just placing simple (non-directional) thrusters  somewhere far from the center of mass of the ship. Bad rotational speeds can then be covered by gyroscopes (be sure to rotate them to achieve effect on the desired axis of rotation!)

 

 

But to really  control and imrove particular rotation speeds even on high-mass ships, you need to use directional thrusters.

You get maximum result if you place directional thruster rotated  to certain direction (axis) if you place it as far as possible from the line going through the center of mass in the same direction.

 

I bet this is completely non-understandable, so  some  more practical examples:

 

If you want to get more result from the thruster oriented along "up-down" axis, for example, you want to place it far to the side (left-right), in which case it will give you more roll, and/or to the back  or front, in which case it will give you more pitch.

 

Applying general principle to this example, you maximise lever by placing this vertically-oriented thruster as far as possible from the vertical line going through ship's CenterOfMass.

 

Likewise, to get maximum yaw/roll form "left-right" oriented thruster, you place it  further to  top/bottom , and/or further to back/front.

 

And, finally,  to get maximum  yaw/pitch form "backward-forward" oriented thruster, you place it  further to  left/right, and/or further to top/bottom.

 

Hope this somewhat  convoluted explanation helps a bit. Good luck!

 

Fantastic, I get what you're saying, thank you! To get over my paranoia of having my good thrusters blown off in combat, can I put armor over them? Or will the weight on the sides really affect how well they work since it would start to inch them towards center mass?

[AstroOwl]

To get over my paranoia of having my good thrusters blown off in combat, can I put armor over them?

I would say: do cover your thrusters and other valuable blocks, but by relatively thin layer of armor. Make sure to protect your ship with integrity fields so that your armor won't be blown off.

 

Or will the weight on the sides really affect how well they work since it would start to inch them towards center mass?

You will get slight decrease in maneuverability, but  not because of that. (your center of mass won't move if you add armor symmetrically, anyway). 

That decrease is due to increased moment of inertia (aka rotational inertia) - measure of how hard your ship is to turn around certain axis. Moment of inertia is  increased by adding heavy blocks to your ships, and said increase is proportional to  how far from central aixs the blocks are placed.

 

(I mean, 2 armor blocks close to the center of the ships don't hapmer its maneuverability as much as, say,  2 same blocks of armor, but placed on the ends of a long rods pointing away from CoM).  So, how hard is it to turn your ship is defined not only by its mass, but also by distribution of said mass.

 

 

Overall, i would say:  have an outer shell of armor or hull, and directly beneath it - to maximise lever - you place your thrusters,  keeping in mind their orientation to maximise their effect. Functional blocks like generators, shields, cargobay, dampeners, etc can fill the center.

[Kamo]

To get over my paranoia of having my good thrusters blown off in combat, can I put armor over them?

I would say: do cover your thrusters and other valuable blocks, but by relatively thin layer of armor. Make sure to protect your ship with integrity fields so that your armor won't be blown off.

 

Or will the weight on the sides really affect how well they work since it would start to inch them towards center mass?

You will get slight decrease in maneuverability, but  not because of that.

Effectively, that's how wings work in space :). Adding 75% of your thruster volume as armor to protect them will make the wing as strong as a hull block.

Integrity fields multiply the armor strength of a wing by a whopping 5 (or is it 10) in terms of block breaking (though I may recommend to space the armor a little, as sometimes hits go through - sometimes happens on a Taki's wings or most of my designs' millefeuilles ::)), so there is a huuuge difference between an Irongrade ship which'll need "thick" armor, and a Titaniumgrade ship which'll need five times less armor :o for the same durability.

Irongrade ships have nothing to counter that difference, so they need way more work than ships of other material to get maneuverable, especially since they also are the heavyiest ships as they are only made of the heavyiest material :(. You can put gyros but they do not thrust, so it's kind of a "fake maneuverability" you should ignore (to put more thrusters/inertial dampeners instead) unless you plan to do one-eighties to stop the ship a la Asteroids, or have an inexplicable hyperstrong bias between yaw and pitch, or severe lack of either despite good-looking thruster placement.

[Riftmaster]

I've built a few ships using combos of Inertia Dampeners, Thrusters (both directional and regular), and Gyros to get maneuverability.

 

Generally speaking, I think Thrusters work better the larger volume the block (more power) and the further away from the center of mass (more leverage).

Based on what I've read/watched, I think in earlier game versions it was surface area rather than block volume that was more effective in terms of thruster power.

 

Thrusters work the same even when covered by other blocks, although it can be cool to have them exposed and see the maneuvering jets (but they can't take hits like Armor when you encounter enemies with shield-penetrating or depleting weapons).

 

If memory serves (I'm not at my gaming PC right now), it's useful to have enough thrusters installed to allow horizontal (A/D default controls) and vertical (Q/E default controls) strafing, as lateral movement can allow more precise adjustment of your location without changing ship orientation (hold Ctrl to prevent that change when moving mouse).

 

Roll is useful as well (Z/X, I think).

 

 

When I built my most recent ship, I kept adding gyros and thrusters until it had about 0.5-1.0+ pitch, yaw, and roll. Inertial Dampeners are mainly useful to stop by releasing all controls and waiting, but depending on ship design it may be faster to flip the ship backwards and do a main engine burn to kill most or all velocity.

 

I'm actually not sure what those numbers are now, I've upgraded everything to trinium and tacked shield/power generators on the back.

But it's decently manuverable.

 

My thrusters would probably be more effective if they were further from center of mass, but it works well enough for now.

[Warrax]

Just a quick reply to RiftMaster (immediately above), and his mention regarding a solid response target of roughly 1.0 rad for turning L/R, up/down and Roll.  I also try for around 1.0 rad for each manouvering attribute.

 

So ... back to the main question, “How do you build to 1.0+ rad?”

 

One of the biggest challenges is to manage weight properly.  My suggestion is avoid thick layers of armour. 

Once you balance your expectations around HP, open up your build.  When placing Directional Thrusters remember that these are optimized by placing them away from Centre-of-Mass.  Also, use a combination of gyros and thrusters.

 

My best advice ... scan the forum and the workshop for a large ship that has the stats that YOU like.

Take the xml and take the ship apart, see where the original builder place bits to achieve their engineering marvel.

 

Good luck.  I hope you find your way on this topic.

;)