Modular Thruster Preview Feedback

[karmic hedge]

it's the bottom pin

[boreal violet]

this is the version you need

to test them

[novel notch]

ok thanks

i got it

[boreal violet]

no problem whatsoever

[vivid stratus]

TBH I would greatly prefer if MRs were superior in thrust/crew over thrust/cost. Crew is the number one limiter in career and also in terms of framerate AFAIK so reducing crew/increasing their usefulness would be ideal, you can always get money for more parts eventually

I acknowledge PVP builds have different priorities tho

[chrome marlin]

Yeah that's why I asked about thrust/crew ratios

Balance is super super important for pvp but need to make sure it's also useful for career

I think the bigger thing for career on further thought will be size compaction

[deft crow]

they're usually superior but not always. Medium reactor spam is very very expensive even for career, you practically have to cheese the game (push stations into the sun) to be able to afford it

[chrome marlin]

@deft crow in current testing, your LR setup is equivalent to 20 huge thrusters with ERs and your MR setup is equivalent to 16 huge thrusters with ERs, right?

[deft crow]

each huge is 12000 thrust iirc

[chrome marlin]

Each huge with an ER yeah

[deft crow]

mhm

without er, 8000

currently, each extender is equivalent to a huge thruster

[chrome marlin]

Yeah so in career I think people will be able to make their ships smaller and lighter will be another big advantage

[deft crow]

and the nozzles are equivalent to huges too

[chrome marlin]

In pvp you all will probably just make faster ships lol

[deft crow]

yeah

[deft crow]

I honestly don't expect new players in career mode to figure out optimal setups

these thruster setups are very advanced and require a lot of knowledge to make them work

[chrome marlin]

True, though that's not unlike a lot of things in this game

[deft crow]

their thrusters will still probably be about the same in cost effectiveness and crew efficiency

[chrome marlin]

Oh good point, so if that's the case it's really about ship compaction for career

Trading ramp time for more compact thrust modules

[deft crow]

I bet these thrusters will allow those super tall ships that they love so much to at least be decent for career

[chrome marlin]

Cause they'll be able to fit more thrust while keeping the exterior profile they want?

[deft crow]

yes

[supple pagoda]

Any reason you like extinguishers so much? Flavor?

[chrome marlin]

FE foam tasty

Realistically I have a lot of optimizing I can do on all my ships

I don't think I factored in very well where the FE need to be if the module takes damage

I also don't test module on fire often enough

Will fix some of that in my next round of optimizing everything 😆

[supple pagoda]

wow i haven't even scratched the surface of this game have i

[sullen merlin]

yeah

[deft crow]

i don't play career anymore because it's too easy for any experienced player.

[sullen merlin]

Luna plays this game with spreadsheet

[deft crow]

spreadsheets useful :3

[chrome marlin]

I'd probably delete the 8 exterior FEs if/when I go through and optimize that module eventually

[boreal swan]

1 thrust only career when

[deft crow]

that could be a cool challenge

[supple pagoda]

dammit i can't write the rest of "eve online" up there

[sullen merlin]

now I gotta figure out how to get access to the holy grail Luna spreadsheets

[supple pagoda]

tbh it's a sensible approach in an engineering game

[deft crow]

it's a mess, i'd recommend to do your own spreadsheets

[deft crow]

specially to figure out tradeoffs with new parts. I did it with chainguns too

[sullen merlin]

says it's corrupted

[deft crow]

hmm

[sullen merlin]

honestly i think I mostly want access to your crew tool cause I genuinely can't figure out how you run 6-12 less crew than me

[deft crow]

that's just intuition i don't use the crew tool that much

i could send it but it's very difficult to use ask jun she might let you use it

[sullen merlin]

then teach me the intuition

[tawny smelt]

I suggest that you make it wider than just 3 blocks. Make it an even number, so that most ship designs could in theory choose to have only one central thruster. Having it be 3 tiles wide make shaping the hull kinda awkward sometimes, judging by how engine rooms feel. Also, making it 4 or 5 tiles wide makes it more pronounced in the overall shape of the ship - worthy of the amount of thrust this thing will provide.

[karmic hedge]

Just use 2 rockets adjacent?

They don't need to be powered from both sides, bigger ships may as well use 2 central rockets if they need to be even and have a spinal engine

[tawny smelt]

When would you ever, if Walt said that keeping them powered without Fuel Pods is gonna be hard in practice?

[deft crow]

you could also have the mirror axis in the middle of a block xd

[tawny smelt]

Maybe make it longer than the vanilla build zone?

[chrome marlin]

He's saying it's pointless and bypassable cause locking exists

It is longer than the vanilla build zone

[sullen merlin]

the dead zone should increase with the amount of extenders

[chrome marlin]

I don't agree with Air's take cause the thing is using locking in career isn't a great idea

Cause of hyperjumping

So the dead zone will work as intended for most players

[chrome marlin]

I like this technobabble wise but the current dead zone is longer than the build zone, right?

[sullen merlin]

yes

shrink starting dead zone

[chrome marlin]

Ah okay yeah, that's what I was gonna ask

That might make locking with this kind of thruster easier though is a risk

A lot of locking relies on controlling the starting vertical distance between the two locking halves, right?

You can't do that if the deadzone is larger than the build zone

[sullen merlin]

locking is supported by Walt for the time being so we don't really need to worry about it being used

[sullen merlin]

yes

[boreal violet]

2 rockets seems to be the sweetspot

its hard to get the full benifit of the speed when adding more to your ship

ntm its crew intensive and power intensive

[chrome marlin]

Iirc there's an ask walt response where he said he's not a fan of people using it to bypass thruster deadzones. I'm interpreting he's supporting it for other use cases until linking/docking exists

[boreal violet]

both of which could be dedicated to defenses or weapon

i think i remember that

[chrome marlin]

#ask-walt message

This response (not as explicit as my comment implied but yeah)

[boreal violet]

same point

[sullen merlin]

yeah

[boreal violet]

it's probably a good guess to say when docking is added locking will be removed?

[chrome marlin]

Probably

[sullen merlin]

the locking problem as a whole will be taken care of during docking most likely, we don't need to design around an issue that will be solved later

[boreal violet]

i say removed as if its a feature i should really say patched up

[chrome marlin]

If people start exploiting locking with these new thrusters often we might risk it being removed sooner 😝

[boreal violet]

i see so few locking ships now...

[chrome marlin]

True, good point

[boreal violet]

i dont think it'd be a big problem

[chrome marlin]

Yeah tbf I don't play pvp, I just see what people send in Excelsior

No idea if Blaze's locking UL Morbiter is still used often

[sullen merlin]

locking is mostly used by blaze, the big focus on locking ships has gone at this point

[chrome marlin]

But I remember him talking about how good it was awhile ago

[boreal violet]

that makes sense

[sullen merlin]

somewhat iirc

[boreal violet]

i imagine their biggest usage would be pvp anyway

and since rockets are pretty situational

i dont see ships that would use locking and also rocket thrusters as much of a problem

[chrome marlin]

It'd bypass the whole intent of the giant deadzone

But if nobody is gonna do it anyways not a big deal

[boreal violet]

well that and the fact that not every ship works with rocket thrusters

but thats the point

[chrome marlin]

Also I don't think these rocket thrusters are gonna be pvp only

Based on discussing earlier

[boreal violet]

oh definetly not

there are alot of uses for it in career already

the only issue with career specifically is just how crew intensive it is but as you progress that can be pretty much rectified anyway

its definetly not an earlier game thing probably

[tawny smelt]

But that goes counter to how the rocket thrusters work, namely that they become more efficient the longer you make them.

[tawny smelt]

Yes, but only few ships actually do that, I feel.

[tawny smelt]

I see

[boreal violet]

im sorry just to clarify. are you thinking about making the rocket thrusters wider?

i feel like im missing a few peices of your suggestion

if so. ive made several points as to why wider thrusters in any capacity would be a pretty bad idea. and having only one main thruster for your ship would essentially be a slightly better boost setup

itd pretty much ruin the point of rocket thrusters which is something we dont want

[tawny smelt]

Yes, though I realize that might lead to problems with fitting them into neat little packages with the 3x3 engine rooms. But I'm not sure if engine rooms work efficiently with rocket thrusters cost wise.

[boreal violet]

i can show you my setup

it works just fine

i get the full benifit with ER and fuel pods and 2 rocket thrusters

[deft crow]

even if that's true, you still probably want 1 nozzle on each side of the ship to turn using differential thrust

[tawny smelt]

Why would it ruin rocket thrusters?

[boreal violet]

ntm its turning speed

[boreal violet]

well one thrusters rampup is pretty damming. I did mention that the sweet spot is ~2 thrusters (ofc this is dependant on what kind of ship you have)

[tawny smelt]

You could turn using side thrust. Might finally introduce some use for side thrusters.

[boreal violet]

making them wider would mean theyre alot more awkward to fit in ships and remove the ussage of fuel pods just because they wouldnt be worth it

4 +1-2 tiles doesnt sound very great

ontop of engine rooms which are 3x3

[deft crow]

it will always be more efficient to turn using the massive thruster that you are using to move forwards

[boreal violet]

also i mentioned in the past that a 4 tile wide thruster or any wider would feel very icky with the current hp and thrust.

[tawny smelt]

Fuel pods would remain just as useful, if the rocket was 4 tiles wide, as all the other stats would remain the same.

[boreal violet]

thats the issue.

if you want it to be 4 wide then youd expect it to be alot more powerful for what it is

its hard to see the benifits of the thrusters speed right away due to its ramp up

and your ships weight matters alot here

so if your going to make the thruster bigger you likely will need more thrust aswell

like i said before. theyre already pretty wide as is with 2 fuel pods and an engine room

[tawny smelt]

Unless the modular thruster is so much more effective when made long, vs a setup with 2 rocket thrusters that are half as long, that this is no longer true for this thruster.

That's what I meant with "introduce" a use for side thrust.

[deft crow]

it's already useful if you want a thinner ship

[tawny smelt]

Well, you'd adjust the thrust so that it stays the same per tile.

[sinful vapor]

Would be interesting if once this Rocket engine is complete it gets more sizes implemented. Have some ultrawide fat rocket engine that has absurdly long ramp but insane thrust, allowing for truly massive amounts of armor and stuff while keeping speed. I imagine something like this for when melee stuff/boarding options are implemented in the future.

[deft crow]

#546333653605679104 message

[tawny smelt]

1 tile

[boreal violet]

my point still stands?

[boreal violet]

i dont get what you mean here

[boreal violet]

also if you want to make the thruster bigger by 1 tile AND only have 1 centeral thruster then you practically lose all of its benifits

i really dont see how any of that would make for a good feature

[tawny smelt]

Yeah, I guess. But outside of that side thrust is nearly useless and I think that shouldn't be.

[tawny smelt]

But is not really that big a deal, since it's just 1 tile. How much weight is that gonna be in the end?

[boreal violet]

well combine that with all of its extenders engine rooms crew beds and fuel pods. ontop of other systems like defense and offensive weaponry on your ship

same with armor

[deft crow]

it's useless because it needs to rampup to start turning the ship (unless boost like that example)

however, differential thrust starts turning immediately because thrusters shut down instantly

[boreal violet]

that weighs alot also

[boreal violet]

^

[tawny smelt]

No. As with railguns or chainguns, the longer you make them, the more efficient it becomes per credit. Should be the same with this ship part. If it isnÄt the case, then why even use a modular thruster? Of course the idea is to make one really efficient and really long thruster.

[deft crow]

differential thrust is strong because no rampdown. and that won't change

[boreal violet]

railguns arnt fully comparable with this

neither are chainguns

they also are a bit less complex than rocket thrusters

there are more benifits to the rocket thrusters than just a huge ammount of thrust after a rampup time

[tawny smelt]

The difference is still just 1 tile in the total profile of your ship.

[boreal violet]

but you also want people to be insentivised to use 1 centeral thruster.

ontop of a setup that can already be 6 wide throughout.

just to point out how beefy a good efficient setup is already

[tawny smelt]

Yeah, that's an inherent weakness of any thrust setups that don't only use forward thrust. So if Walt was to introduce a new thruster type that is specifically very efficient the longer it is, then that thruster might be valid as a central piece and that in turn might enable somewhat broader use of avoider-type sidethrust pods. But I realize it's finnicky.

[chrome marlin]

I think there's too many weapons that need to be a central piece to want to do that with thrusters

And have that be their only viable use

Unless the thruster is also a weapon 🤔

[boreal violet]

id like to correct myself btw its upto 7tiles wide currently

[tawny smelt]

I understand that a double rocket setup is already beefy. But adding a total of +2 tiles to this very setup is not huge. I'm not really insistant on the idea that rockets should be 4 tiles wide, but I think it's worth pointing out that this is an opportunity to introduce viable ship layouts that have only 1 central thruster. Why? Because it looks cool - many beloved sci-fi ships use a central thruster and so far that has not (really) been possible in Cosmoteer.

[boreal violet]

listen man

[chrome marlin]

Wait you know you can mirror around the middle of a tile, right?

[tawny smelt]

good point

[boreal violet]

your asking for a glorified worse engine cluster with boost thrusters

these already define ships a lot

you can still find reasons to use central thrusters with a 7 tile wide setup

[deft crow]

that's what i'm saying xd

[tawny smelt]

It's not really worse, if the values get adjusted accordingly. It's just +1 or +2 wider in most cases, depending on what layout you use.

[tawny smelt]

Of course

[boreal violet]

your main point is that "it looks cool"

im trying to argue on a balance perspective

and how fun it feels to even use these

if people were limited to having to use 1 central thruster because any more would be too intensive on power and crew

then the update would feel pretty shitty imo

that amongst other lost benifits from using 1 central thruster

[chrome marlin]

Wait so what's wrong with making a really tall 3 wide thruster then?

[boreal violet]

^

[tawny smelt]

But your main argument against it seems to be that the values would be off, even though they are not final yet. I realize there may be good reasons not to make the size 4 tiles wide. But the arguments you've been using just aren't that strong, I think.

[boreal violet]

ok here

ill list of every negitive these thrusters currently have

and all the benifits you would be missing out

so you understand why its not worth making wider

[tawny smelt]

Well, most ships, for many different reasons, use an even number of tiles for width. That makes a central thruster design awkward. It's not a big deal.

But it's a bit of a deal.

All I'm saying

[tawny smelt]

Again. No. That's just not true. All benefits? How would it lose all benefits?

Eh whatever

[chrome marlin]

I don't have the rocket thruster, spent all of 2 min making this

But what's wrong with something like this @tawny smelt ?

Aside from the fact it'll suck at turning lmao

You could do something like this but much longer thruster

(and put in some sideways thrust somewhere)

Also if you put in two of them side by side then it'll be central for even block ships

[sinful vapor]

|-----| shaped ship with engine placements are both fast and turn really well.(turn that vertically)

[chrome marlin]

Yeah I do that for most of mine, but I don't blame people for wanting to emulate other sci fi ships or make a ship with a specific appearance

Just like I think it's still possible to do that with a 3 wide thruster

[sinful vapor]

I think mods will cover larger sizes moving forward, once the first interation is implemented.

[chrome marlin]

Yeah realistically if you want to make the Pillar of Autumn from halo or something you're gonna need like a 9 wide thruster or something

And at that point you'd want mods for it

[boreal violet]

rocket thrusters. like railguns, are long and ship defining. they are a big roadblock for crew to get on either side of the ship. its possible by having crew go around (or even through at a 50% speed reduction) giant thruster collums. 1 benifit of many for having a dual or more rocket thruster setup. is that it HEAVILY upgrades turn speed. aswell as redirecting the flow of your crew to the back or sides of your ships. this removes the issue of having crew walk all the way around or through your thruster setup. another benifit to the current state is that engine rooms are not fully necessary whatsoever. so you can cram them into smaller spaces despite how crew intensive they are. this allows you to setup your crew management pretty easily even though they take alot of crew to function perfectly. you can already have one central thruster complimented by other engine clusters right?... alot of the current builds for testing these currently have been ramming-type ships broadsiders. or hit and run (forgot the name) which all work super well with the current thrusters mechanics. Ik you can technically do all that with one centeral thruster. but the second that one central thruster gets hit you lose alot of its benifits anyway. ntm the nozzles are pretty weak. and theyre the only thing providing thrust right? your making them harder to cover with shields and armor by making them wider. also id like to mention HOW CREW INTENSIVE they actually are. atm two thrusters takes like 30+ crew off of my hands and thats for smaller shorter rocket thrusters as compliments to my Engine clusters. I really dont see why putting all my crew traffic in one area is a good idea at all

not all my thoughts on this and sorry for the huge paragraph about it

but i really honestly think you are ONLY thinking of ship aesthetic as apposed to any of the other gameplay issues itd cause

[boreal violet]

also this is a perfect thing if you honestly think 3 wide thrusters - 7 wide setups are too small

this kind of thing is exactally what modding is for

[tawny smelt]

There's nothing "wrong" with this. It's just that most ships use an even number of tiles for width. That's just how most established ship shapes turned out to be I guess. You can absolutely make ships with an uneven tile number width.

[boreal violet]

why do they have to be even

thats my question there

[chrome marlin]

Yeah but like a lot of unusual ships exist, particular the design/aesthetic focused ones

[boreal violet]

all of fringe.

[chrome marlin]

@tawny smelt I really like your Razorfist SotD submission as an example of an unusual shape

I don't think central thruster will ever be say pvp meta for torque reasons

[karmic hedge]

Honestly I like them at 3 wide, bc you can use them as spinal thrusters for even or odd ships, if they were even they'd only work on even ships

[chrome marlin]

But I think it should be possible as is for career even if it's not as common

[sinful vapor]

So, has anyone tried making a /\ shaped diagonal ship using Rockets?

Or even an X shape using 4 rockets. Could potentially create some pretty good rotating ships with TONS of weapons in the crevices. Would be expensive though.

[chrome marlin]

I'm curious about that also

[boreal violet]

I have a few ships already I could try making a diag

[chrome marlin]

Wondering if rockets can help diagonal ships overcome the inherent thrust inefficiency of being a diagonal ship

[junior harbor]

you mean like this?

[sinful vapor]

Makes me think of those rotating sun divers with shields but with a lot of weapons, and could now have the thrust to be viable.

[boreal violet]

The rampup wouldn’t hurt diags too much either…

[sinful vapor]

Yep, like that

[chrome marlin]

I hope somebody makes a spinner that uses these at some point

[boreal violet]

I did already

[chrome marlin]

It'd almost certainly spin wayyy too quickly but would be funny

[boreal violet]

Not a full one though

[chrome marlin]

ooh

got a gif lol

[boreal violet]

No sadly but the rampup is fun with spinners

I really suggest making some test ones

It makes them feel

Weighty?

[sinful vapor]

One of the biggest weaknesses of Spinners is well...getting bodied, and not having the thrust to rotate them off.

[boreal violet]

But once they get top speed they’re really fun

[chrome marlin]

Oh so maybe you'd have slow spin thrusters and then rocket thrusters as get off me thrusters?

that'd be cool

[boreal violet]

I wanna see that

[chrome marlin]

I just heard that rail spinners can't spin too fast because the shots will start missing

I haven't made any spinners cause uh career lol

[boreal violet]

That is true

[sinful vapor]

Or just have some YOLO quad Rocket spinner with mini rails built in. The moment the target enters line of sight it gets shot by like 20+ mini Rails

[boreal violet]

All this talk about spinners is making me want to play with some

[tawny smelt]

That a longer thruster splits your ship in half is, of course, true. However, as I understand it, the modular thruster is supposed to be worth it. If the bulk of it wasn't worth the benefits over regular thrusters, then there'd be no point in adding them. I have faith in Walt that he'll finalize the values in such a way, that it will be worth it to have a really long thruster. This means that players will want to have as long a thruster as possible/reasonable. And this in turn means that central thruster designs will be intuitive.

[stark gorge]

Fixed for the next preview build, thanks! It turns out this is actually bugged in the current stable branch (which I will hotfix soon) but probably more common in rocket thrusters.

[boreal violet]

I’d rather build engine clusters with boosters.

They’d be much more effective and free up crew for weapons

[stark gorge]

Same bug.

Also same bug.

[sinful vapor]

Monster bug fix, nice.

[boreal violet]

This game is the king of bug fixes

[tawny smelt]

@stark gorge Is the intention behind the modular thruster that making one really long thruster is more effective than having several shorther thrusters? Kinda similar to how Chainguns want to be as long as possible? (As long as you don't mind limiting your dps in favor of more total damage carried)

[boreal violet]

This is such a weird discussion.

[marble mauve]

yay

[chrome marlin]

Walt has been tuning them the past few days to make longer more worth it btw

So they're not like a 1:1 replace huge thrusters on big ships

[boreal violet]

currently as it stands theyre in a very good spot rn

[chrome marlin]

The extenders used to only be 50% boost and now they're 100%

[tawny smelt]

Do you mean the wide vs tall aspect? I don't think that's weird. It's, rather, built in to the dynamic between modular and regular thrusters. What function would a modular thruster have, if not that it grows more efficient than regular thrusters the taller it is? If tall modulars wouldn't win over wide regulars, then there'd be rarely a point in even having them. No?

[deft crow]

that's the intention and it's the result of my spreadsheet yes

[boreal violet]

no im just frusterated because your purely arguing from an aesthetic perspective

and you have hardly any capacity to meet in the middle on anything im saying

its kind of pointless to continue this discussion or drag walt into it

[deft crow]

you get diminishing returns though

[tawny smelt]

Yes, that's what I expected. If that's so, then modular thrusters will want to be as tall as possible. It will be more effective to have one tall thruster than 2 shorter thrusters of half the size. If so, then people will want to go for a central thruster and I think the shape of the thruster should accomodate that. And, because most ships use an even number of tiles for width, the modular thrusters should probably also be an even number of tiles wide.
That's my point. Is there anything wrong with my reasoning here?

[tawny smelt]

Walt is the one who asked for discussions dude. But feel free to drop it yourself.

[sinful vapor]

Because each new Extender is less and less % of the total, makes sense, though as long as you can manage to build around the final result efficiently it should be the best thrust/weight/cost. It just gets more risky the longer it is. One break in the middle of the chain and you lose all that thrust above.

[boreal violet]

can i just point out "want to be as tall as possible" is inharently wrong. you can make a thruster taller sure. but your sacrificng more crew and more power to a rather weak part of of yoru ship. the longer the thruster is the more you lose when its nozzle gets shot out no?

[tawny smelt]

So at some point you'll want to split your thrust in two. But before that, it should in theory be more effective to have a single tall thruster, right?

[boreal violet]

again you can put more crew into weapons or sheilds or anything else rather then having that 4 extra m/s

[deft crow]

I would say that after ~10 extenders you can build another nozzle without worrying too much about efficiency

[boreal violet]

not at all

[vagrant flume]

I generally prefer the energy of pods and what they are attached to being linked as one unit, allows for a wider range of setups at the cost of not being able to extinguish a fire in the unit if doors aren’t added

[sinful vapor]

For sure, it is a resource dump, but it will be stronger the more invested into it. High risk though for that investment.

[boreal violet]

that depends on your ship though.

[chrome marlin]

By the even tiles wide logic every module in the game should be even tiles wide

[boreal violet]

i agree largely with your point

[chrome marlin]

The only thing I think should be even tiles wide are the things you only need one of

cough cough sensors

[tawny smelt]

If your nozzle dies, you're probably dead anyway. That's not a bad thing. Just another interesting aspect to consider that differentiates the modular thruster from regular ones.

[boreal violet]

but depending on what kind of ship you want to go for. having a liiiitle extra speed gets largely outweighed by more defensive or offensive rooms

[boreal violet]

this is why you have

two

and other engine clusters

so you dont die when ONE room gets blown up

[chrome marlin]

Oh but with most tall things in the game it asymptotically approaches an efficiency limit

[boreal violet]

ntm having it be central weakens your whole ship in the middle

[chrome marlin]

ie rails

[boreal violet]

leading to more dmg

[chrome marlin]

chainguns

[tawny smelt]

Yeah, that seems healthy. But that will likely only affect... what 2mil$ ships and above?

[deft crow]

it affected my 1.5M ion

i built 4 nozzles

[sinful vapor]

Yeah, Nozzles are high risk in these builds. I think more critically, losing a middle section mid fight is crippling. You may survive in the moment, but it won't be for long, probably.

[vagrant flume]

It definitely effected my 1.5M UL nuke

I got 6 nozzles

[boreal violet]

i second this

mainly cause ive been trying to say it for like

30 mins

[tawny smelt]

Again. If one of your big double thrusters gets blown, then you're dead anyway. You will lose most of your ability to maneuver efficiently anyway. So again not really a good counter argument.

[boreal violet]

but it doesnt.

[chrome marlin]

@tawny smelt I don't think there's any reason you can't make it as tall as you want

[boreal violet]

the only way thatd happen in most ships is if a huge chunk gets punched out

[tawny smelt]

Again. Walt will make it worth it. If long thrusters will not be worth it, he might as well not bother making the ship part.

[boreal violet]

aesthetic vs balance argument.

[chrome marlin]

If you want to make it from one end of the grid to the other (minus some space for armor and/or shields) I don't think there's any notable inefficiency from doing so

[tawny smelt]

I see. So ships below 500k might go for only a single nozzle?

[chrome marlin]

It's mainly gonna be based on utilizing reactors fully

[sinful vapor]

I suspect we will see a Rocket Orbiter meta for PvP at some point, and I mean the ones that only have armor/weapons and stuff on one side of the stick and orbit targets. Will allow more investment on one side, instead of protecting both sides. At least for particularly long ships.

[deft crow]

yes

[boreal violet]

i thought that rockets for orbiters specifically would be kind of inneffective because of their ramups and crew intensiveness but id like to be proven wrong there

[deft crow]

around 500k-750k it might be viable to build a single nozzle with sideways turning thrust

[vagrant flume]

Nah, nuke orbiters probably benefit the most from this

[tawny smelt]

Isn't losing one nozzle out of a total of 2 almost equally as crippling?

[vagrant flume]

Since it’s much more thrust in a much smaller space

[boreal violet]

i believe i and some others mentioned nuke ships that exceel in hit and runs as apposed to orbits working better.

but again i want to be proven wrong there

orbiters using rocket thrust sounds awesome

[tawny smelt]

Adding graphics to Cosmoteer at all is also "only aesthetic". Yet graphics are important.

[boreal violet]

???

[vagrant flume]

Yes UL nukes, UL morbitors will probably have a harder time doing that

[pseudo kelp]

ion spinner

[boreal violet]

were adding a feature that has to be consdiered for multiple different modes. it also defines your ships shape a LOT

ofc purely working off aesthetics is a bad idea here

thats why the art for them isnt even done yet

were still trying to find balances for them

[sinful vapor]

Yes? I was talking more about the difference between losing your back engines being death normally on any ship, but rockets having the fatal issue of also losing mobility from shots along most of the ship.

[tawny smelt]

Yeah, so only somewhat small ships may go for a central nozzle design.

[pseudo kelp]

hell, use the super prisms and forky prisms mods with the ion spinner and have what is essentially a pulsar

[boreal violet]

the goal shouldnt be "what makes a ship look subjectively better" it should be "what makes a ship feel functionally good and balanced for all gamemodes"

[deft crow]

I don't like these "redundancy" arguments, because yeah, the ship is less redundant, but you don't use that argument to spam small reactors

[pseudo kelp]

spinning really quickly and shooting a beam whose glow rivals heavens forge in size

[chrome marlin]

It might not be worth it at all for small ships

Because the nozzle itself (without extenders) is a worst huge thruster

[tawny smelt]

So that'd be roughly a quarter of content in career.

[boreal violet]

i think i mentioned rocket thrusters definetly not being the most useful for smaller ships

[tawny smelt]

yes

[pseudo kelp]

i have an idea for how eextenders and fuel tanks might work

[boreal violet]

yaddah you really have to change your arguement from aesthetic to balancing.

[tawny smelt]

You're acting like making it 4 tiles wide would be the end of the ship part. I still don't see why after all the arguments you laid out. Seems like most of them are either not really a big deal or could be dealt with by adjusting the final values accordingly.

[chrome marlin]

The problem with ion spinners is the prisms don't turn fast enough to focus damage. Your damage would be spread across the entire face of the opponent ship

It would look really cool though

[chrome marlin]

Making it 4 tiles wide will make it worst

Objectively more space, more weight, etc.

and the balance already seems pretty good imo

[tawny smelt]

I guess I must've misread then. Aren't rocket thruster designs actually more defendable, since they're probably less wide?

[chrome marlin]

Making it 4 tiles wide would require a counterbalance to make them better in some other way and make them only worth it on a larger size of ship than at present

[boreal violet]

no im not saying that. ive agreed that even central thrusters can work in certain ship designs. but if the goal for a thruster like this is to allow for bigger ships to reach faster speeds amongst other benifits. then you would want to have to have more anyway. you can redirect gunfire on your ship to seperate parts of your ship instead of one focused area aswell as work on better crew control grouping and logistics

[tawny smelt]

Sure, all aspects of a feature need to be considered.

[vagrant flume]

Not really, their width makes them bigger targets from the side

[boreal violet]

ive already explained every issue i can think of with that idea

its not too far up in chat

[pseudo kelp]

i know but it would be one hell of a defense platform

[chrome marlin]

Oh yeah it would be pretty sweet looking lol

[boreal violet]

your argument is make them four wide and insentivise people to only build one because it looks neat btw

youve admitted to this

[pseudo kelp]

plus, cool light show for civvies

[sinful vapor]

Well, where are their weapons and shields gonna be generally on a long ship? The side. Any breaks in your wall will end up cutting into it and damaging mobility. It will be interesting to see the innovations cuz of this. It's not like current wall ships, which can be built to break up into multiple parts. Rocket gets a deep cut and it is a sad ship.

[boreal violet]

THIS EXACTALLY

it is such a big risk to rely on only one for your ship

[chrome marlin]

So I don't think they need to be an even size to make symmetric ships

[boreal violet]

the balance is mixing in other engine rooms

[boreal violet]

they dont

[chrome marlin]

The main reason sensor rooms irk me is people don't build the ship around the sensor room

If you have a ship design around one central thruster the ship will be built around the one central thruster

[boreal violet]

i mean that just depends on how people prioritize them.

[tawny smelt]

Why wouldn't they be? If you need a lot of forward thrust, you'll want to use modulars. Unless you're so small that they're not necessary. And if you're above that sizem but still below 500-750k$ then many might want to go for a central nozzle design, as that one will be the most cost efficient. Sure there are other things to consider for such a design - like the ship being split like one of those small ships which use long railguns. But that is not a bad thing, it just makes building these ships more interesting.

[boreal violet]

for the sensors i mean

[pseudo kelp]

i once made a scout ship built around its sensor

[chrome marlin]

So even though it would be 3 tiles wide if you decided to build it around one central thruster you'd put the symmetry line in the middle of the central block

[boreal violet]

i shoot your nozzle a few times with emps and cannonfire or something

[sinful vapor]

We may even see some kind of internal shielding on the opposite side of a Rocket stick in Orbitals, as a final line of defense to internal damage.

[boreal violet]

i do like internal sheilds ive used them alot

[chrome marlin]

That's fair, I suppose if I was irked enough I would build the ship around the sensor room

[tawny smelt]

Well, the values would have to, of course, be adjusted to be the same per tile. I assumed this is clear.

[boreal violet]

but again this argument is so dumb because yaddah has admitted to only arguing about the aesthetics of the thruster

so im just like

losing my mind rn lnao

[chrome marlin]

Feels a bit silly to redesign a like 2 mil railfan for that reason but I suppose I could do it lol

[chrome marlin]

It would still make it not viable on smaller ships than it is viable on at present

[tawny smelt]

Yeah. I'm looking forward to the implications for ship design.

[boreal violet]

reiterating most of my concerns about insentivising one central thruster btw so yaddah can read through this

[chrome marlin]

I mean my bigger issue is it can be a central thruster that is 3 tiles wide

[boreal violet]

id like to say any one of your extenders getting destroyed can be devistating depending on how close to your nozzle they are

[chrome marlin]

And if you want one central thruster on say a 3 mil ship you're gonna need a mod anyways

For 3 or 4 tiles

[boreal violet]

if i destroy lets say an extender just a few modules away from a nozzle it cuts its usability by a mile and a half

[chrome marlin]

At that point you'd need ie an 8 tile wide thruster

[tawny smelt]

Again. That risk is present for double nozzle builds in a significant way too, as losing one of your 2 nozzles is crippling too. I have said that already.

[boreal violet]

so having multiple thrusters as a safegaurd has nearly no downsides if your willing to spend more crew

[boreal violet]

not NEARLY as much

ntm having other engine rooms to make up for a small loss

[chrome marlin]

@tawny smelt think about it this way, the width of the thing more sets the minimum size of ship that is needed to use the thing

[tawny smelt]

They do, because most ships just so happen to be even. Just look through the list of buil-in ships for uneven ships. The amount will be relatively small. There's ar eason for that. And the final version of modular thrusters should consider this reason, whatever it is.

[chrome marlin]

For any device in cosmoteer

ie there's no starter ships with TBs

[sinful vapor]

So, real talk about a potential change we should consider. Should Fuel Pods for these Rockets be heavily armored? Maybe increase their price, so they don't become some silly meta part, but if they were armored they would have an additional use and protect the rocket on the sides with those pods somewhat.

[boreal violet]

the reason this ship works so well is that the two nozzles are well defended. sure they have a few weakspots on the side where its only ~one armor thick. but due to its turning speed its hardly an issue. ntm you dont even want to hit there because then your weapons arnt focused on the guns of this ship

it overall benifits from two thrusters

[tawny smelt]

As if that wasn't the case for the majority of ships of that size.

[chrome marlin]

So if you make it 4 tiles wide and correspondingly increase the thrust what you're doing is raising the minimum size for a ship to use the rocket thrusters. And that minimum size is already pretty big since they're larger than huge thrusters and you need extenders for it to be worth it over a huge thruster

[boreal violet]

this is the same size you want one thruster setups to be viable in.

[chrome marlin]

I think that'd be cool

A bit counterintuitive, but it the fuel pods were armored it would give more incentive to use them to make the thruster less fragile

[tawny smelt]

You could only conclude that, if you havenÄt read what I've been writing for the last 10 minutes afterwards.

[chrome marlin]

One could technobabble that the fuel pods have armor becaue they are fuel pods and it would be unwise to not armor them lol

[sinful vapor]

Yeah, currently fragile and efficient reactor setups are ideal in these builds, but the fuel pods being some protection options could incentivize more spread out setups, since they would have longer fuel times to be refilled, and would be more protected.

[tawny smelt]

You mean not *more viable? You think these thrusters will not be used by ships below 750k$ at all, I take it?

[chrome marlin]

Can someone send the current prices of things

[boreal violet]

yes

[chrome marlin]

Of the nozzle and the extenders

[tawny smelt]

I have read and responded to this argument already.

It's not a strong one.

[boreal violet]

youve agreed with everyones reiterated points but mine

i went over all the things everyones already brought up

ntm multiple people have agreed or came to the same conclusion that having one central thruster is a pretty big weakspot for your ships

[chrome marlin]

Okay so a huge thruster costs 10k, two huge thrusters is 20k

So a rocket nozzle with 1 extender will match a huge thruster in thrust/cost efficiency but not rampup

[tawny smelt]

That is, of course always possible. But why does it always feel crappy to put 3 wide ship parts in the middle? Doing that just always feels "off" due to how the other ship parts incentivize design.

Wouldn't you agree?

[chrome marlin]

So to be worth it the ship needs at least 3 huge thrusters that would be replaced with one rocket nozzle with two extenders

At present

So lets find the cheapest built in ship that thas 3 huge thrusters

[tawny smelt]

... ... how can you answer what I said with this? It makes no sense dude. No offense, but you seem to have some fundamental misunderstanding somewhere.

[boreal violet]

in theory booster thruster setups would outweigh the benifits of having only one large and long setup due to how crew intensive rocket thrusters are.

ntm the VERY obvious flaws

[tawny smelt]

I say losing 1 of 2 nozzles is also crippling and you reply by saying that losing your central nozzle is too cripling... wha?

[boreal violet]

it also locks you out of using certain designs with it

i dont agree with blocking some creative freedoms just so one type of ship works better than others

[chrome marlin]

The cheapest built in Monolith ship with greater than 3 huge thrusters is the iconoclast at 470k

[vagrant flume]

Soda, please clarify your point

[boreal violet]

i feel like i have been with yaddah here for like 30+ minuts...

[vagrant flume]

The more I read you two’s discussion the less I understand what you are discussing

[boreal violet]

ill recap a little bit

[chrome marlin]

So at present rocket thrust isn't gonna be worth it till around that range. If you make it 4 tiles wide that range gets higher

[boreal violet]

because this discussion doesnt start with just yaddah

[boreal swan]

air is here to provide objectively correct balance discussion

[boreal violet]

ty air

[vagrant flume]

Lol

[boreal swan]

/j

[tawny smelt]

Yes. Making it 4 tiles wide would add +1 tile that you need to defend for each "column" of modular thruster you add. I know that is restrictive. However, I'm just saying that it might be worth thinking about, because for some reason most ships tend to want to be an even number of width tiles.

[boreal violet]

yaddahs point at the start its been unclear if he has changed his stance at all. but essentially he wants rocket thrusters to be four wide (so 8 in total with a proper setup including pods and ERs) but also insentivises people to only build one long central thruster "be cause it looks cool"

[chrome marlin]

It's only a problem for ships with even tile widths if you have a single central thruster. And if you have only a single central thruster you'd probably build the ship around the thruster

[tawny smelt]

I think it's fine to have ships with a critical central flaw. Just defend that flaw as best you can. That's the crux behind all prism chamber ships anyway.

[boreal swan]

1+ width does literally nothing other than make a couple logistics slightly worse

[chrome marlin]

If you have two central thrusters even tile ships are already fine

[boreal violet]

that wasnt the full discussion sadly

id like to mention yaddah has agreed with people who have made the same points i have yet disagreed with mine for some reason?

[chrome marlin]

Here's a tiny even tile wide cabal ship with two central thrusters that are an odd number of tiles wide

[sinful vapor]

Oh for sure. I am fine with the flaw existing. Was just an idea that came to mind.

[tawny smelt]

I'd say this ship doesn't work well at all, because you're broadsiding which essentially cuts the dps you paid for in half. But that was not your point. So assume you lose one of those thrusters. You will be pretty crippled, but not as crippled as if you used only one long modular thruster. Sure. But on the up side you'd get a more efficient thruster which essentially translates to a lower cost. It's an aspect that you have to balance, which is why this game is fun i nthe first place. If you want tomake modular thrusters so that it would only ever make sense to have two, then you'd get rid of that aspect to consider. That's not necessarily a good thing.

[vagrant flume]

Aside from allowing for symmetrical 3 nozzle designs, it just makes them slightly worse

[boreal violet]

the whole point is for it to alternate sides.?

[tawny smelt]

What if a central nozzle would be so much more cost effective, that it would enable a use for sid ethrust? That'd be interesting

[boreal swan]

u would almost never use 1 long thrust instead of 2 short thrust for the same reason u use 2 short rails (even if they were more efficient to be long, ppl would still use 2 short for logistics reasons)

[boreal violet]

the ship aside from being weak on one spot of its thrust works very well

[tawny smelt]

Yeah that's usually not a good strategy.

[boreal swan]

good luck balancing that for all sizes

[chrome marlin]

You can still make a symmetric 3 nozzle ship, you'll just have to use symmetry in the middle of a block for a total ship that is an odd number of tiles wide

[boreal violet]

in practice there doesnt seem to be downsides

you give sheilds time to recharge and weapons to reload

your essentially attritioning your enemies

combine that with intense turn speed

and it works VERY well

[vagrant flume]

Yea but that wouldn’t work with large reactors

[deft crow]

yaddah is still pushing for the side thrusters xd

after 1h

[boreal violet]

mhm...

[vagrant flume]

Yea lmao

[chrome marlin]

You just need 2 large reactors to either side

[tawny smelt]

I do recognize that the version we currently have is already pretty wide with all the necessary logistics.

[boreal violet]

and crew intensive

and ship defining

[vagrant flume]

Sounds cost inefficient

[chrome marlin]

Until you make a bigger ship yes

But if you're putting 3 rocket nozzles on the ship you're a bigger ship haha

You're well above 500k most likely

[boreal swan]

@tawny smelt even if 1 central thrust is more cost efficient, everything else on the ship will bel ess cost efficient for the same reason that having a single rail makes everything cost inefficient (even more so for thrust since it needs to come out the back)

[boreal violet]

can someone also point out how easy itd be to direct all your fire at one thruster too

[boreal swan]

if u lose any thrust even w/ multiple thrust, generally you've already lost so i don't think that's a good point

[chrome marlin]

The big cost inefficiency with a central nozzle is gonna be that you're gonna suck at turning unless you invest in sideways nozzles

[boreal violet]

that REALLY depends on like

a lot of different factors

[chrome marlin]

And investing in sideways nozzles costs money

[boreal violet]

with one thrust yes

[tawny smelt]

That's not what would happen, but ok.

[boreal swan]

show a pvp ship that can consistently win after being so damaged that it's losing thrust

[boreal violet]

thats purely pvp.

im trying to think of both career and pvp

[chrome marlin]

Yeah in career if you have multiple ships it's no unviable to have a damaged ship run away

Cause you can have another ship finish the fight and repair the damaged ship

[boreal swan]

in career, just teleport away

[boreal violet]

ntm this is a situational thing

losing some thrust doesnt ALWAYS 100% mean you lose

[chrome marlin]

Which will be cheaper than having the damaged ship fight to the death

[vagrant flume]

In career balance doesn’t matter much… just make a bigger ship

[boreal violet]

take into dmgs on the enemy ship for examples

[boreal violet]

i sort of agree here?

things should still feel balanced though.

[chrome marlin]

true, I haven't tried that mid battle. It'd mean you actually need to have not awful logistics for your hyperdrives lol

[sinful vapor]

Sooo, is there any reason we can think of for disposable Rocket Sticks? Like, one time use with Fuel Pods, and then detach them. I can't think of a reason other than Reactor stick bombs.

[vagrant flume]

Yea, that’s why I focus on elimination balance

[boreal violet]

or at the very least feel good to use

[vagrant flume]

Haha, impossible

Ramp up is too long

[boreal violet]

if you attach nukes on it thatd be REALLY fun

[chrome marlin]

Sumo rocket stick

Push them into the RoD

[tawny smelt]

Yes. But for some reason the ship designs that are built around a single engine room are few and far in between. I suspect there are more reasons for that.

[boreal swan]

there are no ship designs that use single er because every ship needs speed and single er can't provide speed (maybe they can now though)

[chrome marlin]

I think the thing is at the price point you're only using 1 ER your ship is probably built around the reactor

[tawny smelt]

Yes, it does make logistics worse in conjuction with the 3x3 engine rooms. I don't deny that at all.

[boreal violet]

mhm

[chrome marlin]

and if you have a ship fast enough to need an ER you probably have an LR

An MR probably couldn't sustain the weapons/defenses of such a ship

[boreal violet]

why is it that you agree with everyone but me despite making the same points i do

thats

so

[boreal swan]

so the change only makes logistics worse a bit? what other reason to make the change is there (and it also makes it more unique ig)

[boreal violet]

interesting

[chrome marlin]

The rocket thruster (as is) probably will make central thruster ships more common

[tawny smelt]

Maybe they just worded them better. 😉

[chrome marlin]

Cause ships with 2 LRs would be in the same price range it becomes viable

[boreal violet]

air theyre also trying to insentivise people building only 1 rocket thruster designs too ontop of +1 tile width

that causes alot more logistical issues

whilst not adding much in terms of ship defining features

[boreal swan]

why would +1 width incentivize 1 rocket design

[vagrant flume]

I like how they are now, I don’t see a benefit to adding 1 width

[boreal violet]

it doesnt thats what yaddah specifically has been arguing

[tawny smelt]

Well, why are there almost no ships that use an uneven number of width? I rarely ever see ships built around a single engine room, even though it would make sense for some small ships. My hunch is that the current pool of ship parts just subtly leads to favour evenly tiled width ships. Am I wrong in that assumption?

[boreal swan]

1 sec i will find some

[chrome marlin]

tada

I was just looking

Does it need to be symmetric lol

[tawny smelt]

I'm sure you can find some, Air. But you'll have to agree that the vast majority of ships are evenly tiled.

No?

[boreal swan]

yeah because mr is rarely used

[boreal violet]

i have a ton of ships that are asymmetric and arnt built around reactors

[boreal swan]

hmm actually ig ppl could do that

[boreal swan]

usually having a central thrust w/ 2 lr on the side is logistically challenging

[vagrant flume]

Only because LRs are more efficient

[chrome marlin]

The reason it's rare is a lot of ships are built around one SR or one LR

[vagrant flume]

And many designs have a LR in the center

[chrome marlin]

If you look at ships with one MR or ones that are expensive enough for multiple LRs you'll probably find more

[boreal swan]

a modern flak version of this would work, but it's just so much harder logistically to make it work

*w/ 2 lr

[tawny smelt]

So if that's the case, then that would be one reason to make modular thrusters 4 tiles, so they better match with LRs. It would make the overall ship size larger for any design that uses more than 1 tall modular thruster. That is a downside, yes.

[chrome marlin]

edit: symmetric ships with an odd number of LR are also always even tiled

[boreal swan]

if u use a single lr, ur logistics will either be 1/2 wasted or assym (ig it could work in u put crew on the other side)

ig it could work, but some archetype (like avoider) already have 1/2 even and 1/2 odd ship parts already, so i don't see why it couldn't happen for rocket as well

especially because thrust that's offset by 1/2 tile has almost no actual impact other than looking ugly

[tawny smelt]

Looking ugly is a big part of how the game feels. I think that's worth considering.

[boreal violet]

ugly is subjective though.

[chrome marlin]

I don't think making it 4 tiles wide will incentivize LR usage

at least not tall and LR usage

Because the pathways get longer

If you want tall and LR usage you're either going to put LRs in the middle of two rocket thrusters or put LRs on the outside of a single (or pair of) rocket thruster

[tawny smelt]

Yes, but for small ships that might make sense. Have your LR in the front to power weapons & shields, then run supply lines towards the back. Sure you'll need a few extra crew per side, but it's probably more efficient than splitting the modular thruster which wants to be tall into two shorter stacks.

Now the question is, how much would making it 4 tiles wide mess up all the other designs that use any number larger than one single modular thruster.

+1 tile per stack can be significant

[deft crow]

lmao

[tawny smelt]

But I'd just like to know.

[boreal violet]

its still going.

[tawny smelt]

Nobody is forcing you

[boreal violet]

you're right.

[sullen merlin]

yet /j

[boreal violet]

lmao

[chrome marlin]

Speculative math, these become worth it at about 500k, make it 4 tiles wide ads 33% to all costs and thrust and you're at 666k. Ships that price range are often gonna have more than one LR

[boreal violet]

my question is. if the majority of people enjoy it in its current state. and 4 wide as apposed to three seems rather redundant overall? and walt has expressed that hes satisfied with the thrusters in the current state. then does it have to be this big of a discussion

[chrome marlin]

But anyways I have to go so have fun arguing lol

[tawny smelt]

+33% to the entire ship because of +1 tile? I... don't follow.

[boreal violet]

:3

[tawny smelt]

It doesn't have to be a big discussion. I just brought it up because it's a thing to consider. Then mostly you started arguing vehemently against it with arguments that don't make too much sense and it took off from there. I know that it might in the end not be a good idea.

But it's still worth discussing it is all

[chrome marlin]

Making the rocket thruster more expensive means holding onto huge thrusters into higher price ranges more worth it. Also speculative math lol

[boreal violet]

??

[tawny smelt]

yes

[boreal violet]

you admitted you were arguing for aesthetics and specifically ignoring any points i made whilest agreeing with others who were making the same exact points...

i dont really understand why you're so quick to try and pin it on me?

i brought up very big concerns with centralized thrust and 4+ wide thrusters

yet all of that was ignored because you were annoyed with me

[tawny smelt]

never ignored your points, just explained why the counter points weren't as horrible as you made them seem.

[tawny smelt]

I mean I guess. ^^

[boreal violet]

you are a confusing and or confused soul

[tawny smelt]

k

[stark gorge]

I've fixed this for the next preview, but it's possible the fix may have unintended side effects, so please keep an eye out for new thrust issues in other ships (including those that don't use rocket thrusters).

[marble mauve]

nice

[boreal violet]

hell yeah!

[stark gorge]

Umm, not really. The intention is to allow more thrust power to be buried within a ship's interior to create more flexibility and interesting choice when designing ship thrust.

[sinful vapor]

Large ships did have a lot of empty space and they were often quite slow unless you go super wide or turn into a weird scaffolding monster. This will be a nice change instead of just more and more ER Thruster Clusters lined up.

[tawny smelt]

So "more" thrust in a stack, rather than "almost all" of it, hm? Will there be some sort of hard cap, as with range for railguns?

[marble mauve]

i dont think a hard cap is ever needed on something like this

[vagrant flume]

I’m really confused on why you are pushing this so much, it’s clear that none of us here like the idea of a singular rocket thrust being most effective

[tawny smelt]

The question I just asked is not necessarily related to that thing.

[boreal violet]

alot of us have mentioned that you can still utalize a singule rocket collum too

itsn ot like it needs to be 4 wide.

[stark gorge]

There's a hard cap enforced by the size of the build grid. 😉

[tawny smelt]

lol ^^

[vagrant flume]

Exactly, just use two rockets next to each other lol

[boreal violet]

honestly for a few designs i might consider doing that

im inspired by a nuke stick.

[tawny smelt]

Valid

[marble mauve]

lol i made a nuke stick once

useing rocket engines would be funny for it though

[boreal violet]

randomly crashed? ive never had this happen before

[stark gorge]

To be clear, long rockets are supposed to be marginally more cost-efficient than shorter ones, but that's primarily to discourage really short rockets (don't want them to replace huge thrusters) than it is to incentivize really long rockets.

[vagrant flume]

.

[stark gorge]

I already have that fixed for the next preview.

[boreal violet]

ah okay

thank you

[vagrant flume]

Rocket thrusters + RTS crashes the game lol

[boreal violet]

i see

[vagrant flume]

Best do testing using direct control for now

[stark gorge]

Most of the incentive to build longer rockets is supposed to come from the exterior space savings, not from a direct thrust advantage.

[sinful vapor]

Good point.

[vagrant flume]

Also Walt what do you think about this?

[stark gorge]

Um I think I'm going to try to make that work, though coding might be tricky.

[vagrant flume]

:D

[sinful vapor]

Wait, does that mean if you had Fuel Pods constantly connecting all the extenders, you would only need pool all energy into one part of the rocket, since it would then refuel the connected chain?

[boreal violet]

oh sweet!

if that is a thing thatll fix one of my irks lol

[tawny smelt]

Makes sense. But it will also allow us to make slimmer ships and thus we have to invest less in defense. So, in a way large ships will always be incentivized to use rocket thrusters, as they allow them to stack more "stuff" behind a single shield. Right? If so, will these thrusters not displace most use of regular thrusters?

At least for large ships

[vagrant flume]

No, just the extender connected to it

[sinful vapor]

Hmm, seems akward. We'll see how it looks I guess if Walt can manage that mess lol.

[vagrant flume]

Right now the extender and pod connected to it act separately so you have to fuel both which makes it a bit awkward to do some of the designs

Especially since the extender has such little capacity it calls at most 1 crew

[boreal violet]

ive found ways around it but it definetly is annoying

[sinful vapor]

Yeah, I definitely think Fuel Pods should just be a direct extension of the extender. Should be able to input fuel to either and have it fill up both imo. Will Fuel Pods be able to connect to 2 different Extenders though?

[boreal violet]

i do however like the fact you can supply fuel pods across extenders rn though that feels very nice despite the issue

[boreal violet]

wait do you mean like this?

[sinful vapor]

Yeah, that is the chain of Extenders I somewhat feared as being broken if it becomes a thing, as well as fueling them from any Extender. in the chain.

[boreal violet]

i get that

i dont know if im for that really but my mind could be changed

rn i think i like how you have to be precise about it.

[sinful vapor]

I mean...it is an investment, but at that point it would be silly. Why wouldn't the Extenders themselves work that way if that would?

[boreal violet]

ig thats fair

[vagrant flume]

Though a fun idea, it would mean you could connect the entire chain of extenders and fuel it from a single point, would be quite a bit OP lmao

[boreal violet]

thats TRUE

theres GOING to be a mod for that.

im predicting it

[vagrant flume]

Lol

[stark gorge]

Therein lies the complication.

[vagrant flume]

Lol, makes sense

[stark gorge]

@everyone New rocket thruster preview!

• Rocket Thrusters are now called "Modular Rocket Systems" (or "M.R.S." for short).
• Fuel Pods connected to extenders or nozzles are now treated as a single large battery storage to which batteries can be delivered to any of the three horizontally-connected modules (left fuel pod, extender/nozzle, right fuel pod), either directly or via an engine room.
• Increased Rocket Extender cost from 5000 back to 7500.
• Rocket lateral thrust no longer scales with number of extenders.
• Fixed occasional random-seeming crashes while flying. (Actually a stable branch bug but now also fixed in this rocket preview.)
• Fixed ships with very long rocket thrusters sometimes getting stuck.
• Fixed bug where long rocket thruster plumes would disappear when panning the view far enough away from the thruster nozzle.

[sinful vapor]

So does this mean Fuel Pods connected to Engine Rooms now count as boosting the attached Nozzle/Extender?

(Not actually playing the previews, just critquing and giving ideas)

[stark gorge]

No. ERs can distribute to/through pods but not buff through them.

[boreal violet]

Ik it’s a bit early to ask but will there be any other thruster types we can add to the extenders in the future?

Ik someone mentioned booster thrusters at some point earlier on.

But it’s a bit foggy

[novel notch]

Its actually clear outside right now

[sinful vapor]

Good, working as desired. Could probably easily have become a bug though I imagine you coded around it specifically.

[junior harbor]

please add a 3-way rocket just for laughs

[boreal violet]

These are the suggestions we need!

[frail pagoda]

like some sort of... vector thruster?

vector jet

[plucky thunder]

Using extenders both ways is a suggestion

[deft crow]

I think the balance is perfect now with the new update

[boreal violet]

100%

they feel great currently

[plucky thunder]

it's never perfect, but it's good enough

[deft crow]

now we should build a few ships and see if we notice something op

[plucky thunder]

I think when we see it in pvp we will be able to tell if it's perfect

Yes

Guys

[boreal violet]

someone start doing pvp then!

[plucky thunder]

We need 2.5mil pvp

[sullen merlin]

make everything 100 credits cheaper just to mess with people :3

[boreal violet]

lmao

if theyre in a good state though and nothings too op that just leaves spritework no?

[plucky thunder]

corridors are free and structure give you money

[sullen merlin]

we had 2 mil as the standard but then people just brought 1.5m and .5m

[plucky thunder]

yes

[boreal violet]

very nice.

[plucky thunder]

That may change with rockets

[boreal violet]

excited to see these ingame

[plucky thunder]

Cheaper and more compact thrust

2mil ships might be viable again

[sullen merlin]

I don't think standard will change, it's the agreed apon format, allows diversity, good on lag, forces you to make compromises

anyways this isn't the place for this convo

[boreal violet]

sooo

when are we gonna see some beta rocket thruster pvp >:3

[deft crow]

build some ships. Tips to build with rocket thrusters.

• engine rooms are only worth it if they touch at least 3 things (nozzles/extenders/huge thruster), preferably 4

• you should try to avoid fuel pods and only use them if your thrust is flickering

• longer rockets are always better, each extender has the same thrust as a huge thruster, but for less money. Huge thrusters are usually better than rockets with only 1 extender.

• for the rest, general rules about design and optimization apply

[languid sand]

I already played a bit 2 days ago. Was pretty fun. But the thrusters got nerfed now 😦

[boreal violet]

do you have any videos at all from the match?

id love to see how they fair against other ships

[boreal violet]

i might make a pvp ship. all my test ships are broken aside from one

[languid sand]

Should still have the replays but they will most likely desync now

[boreal violet]

awh darn

[languid sand]

I can offer these 5 seconds: #multiplayer-lfg message

There I sadly piloted like a clown and the input delay is also much worse on such small and compact ships.

[boreal violet]

more than likely better than me :)

and ty

[brittle thorn]

but hey, atleast you only died to random explosion guns

[boreal swan]

i don't like the name change since mrs (medium reactors) is the same as mrs

engine instead of system? mre

[brittle thorn]

from modular rocket system to meal ready to eat

[deft crow]

i mean we will probably call them rockets anyway

[brittle thorn]

or modular thrust

i don't think anyone will use mrs acronym

[marble mauve]

just calling them rockets kinds makes sense because you build them like a rocket

[boreal swan]

help reduce confusion for discord, especially for noobs

[brittle thorn]

i mean then we should rename deck cannons, direct control and design contests to not use the same acronym

things like that already exist, even if rocket thruster is going to be refered to as mrs i'd just go with that and not use mrs for medium reactors

[maiden shell]

You could just say MRs for reactors and MRS or mrs for the thruster

[lone grotto]

ah yessss.

@analog mantle

fun fact, if something had a batterystorage and u remove the game wont load
keep it and set it to MaxRes = 0 and it will----

[golden mauve]

That reminds me of Redstone's ''Torch''

[stark gorge]

Please upload the saved game file.

[languid sand]

Well.. is 190 m/s too fast? it isnt

Though its more like 18x because of the imperfect thrust uptime

[lone grotto]

~nvm tho, that savefile contains WIP parts of SW:ACD mod...~ the crash is still related to the rocket part tho

[supple pagoda]

oh, got the same error

[lone grotto]

could u upload your save file then for @stark gorge

[supple pagoda]

@stark gorge i got the same bug so they suggested I send you the save

[deft crow]

you should try making it even thinner, 2 columns of thrust, 6 shields

[languid sand]

I know its still just a prototype

[deft crow]

i know, I'm just not sure if it's better or worse to have 2 columns instead of 3

[supple pagoda]

Woohoooo! To infinity and beyoooooond
Can confirm both bugs are fixed, RTS drives this now, and the rocket plume shows even if the origin of the particle emitter isn't in the screen
This thing's turn radius is silly large, feels so realistic! Orbital mechanics vibe

It keeps correcting the trajectory with the small braking thrusters, but i guess that's because of flicker

[deft crow]

nice

[supple pagoda]

The turn radius must also be proof that the lateral thrust doesn't scale, else it would manage it much sharper

[deft crow]

looks like reducing the lateral thrust was a good idea

[sinful vapor]

So, does everyone just kind of agree the MRS is now in a good state? Now it is more about if there will be any more additions to it?

[deft crow]

I think it's nice, we need to test it in competitive ships

i don't see any big flaws

[languid sand]

The first thing Ill do is try to optimize the thruster module and compare them to yours. Can you send recebt ones? Cant load the older ones

[deft crow]

oki

give me 15 mins (I'll ping you)

[languid sand]

Im in no rush. Probably will only get to start working on it tomorrow anyways

[supple pagoda]

The previous gif was from 0 speed. This is how it makes a U-turn at full speed, kinda faster than i thought but looks reasonable. By full speed i mean thrust, this is 1x ingame speed

[deft crow]

that's x1? completely reasonable

[sinful vapor]

Can't wait till these Rockets are on stable. Create all sorts of new ships that are more viable now that a thousand engine clusters aren't needed. A ship shaped like |________| comes to mind. TONS of firepower in the middle of it, can have a ton of engine power from the sides and the back. Easily capture ships and rain down hell. May be too expensive to fill the gap with all the weapons and stuff though.

[deft crow]

i can't wait to see these thrusters in a release candidate, a lot more pvp people will play with them and we will see how broken they are xd

I'm expecting to see most 1.5M ships with 15% more thrust or an extra 75k on weapons and armor

that's a big advantage

[sinful vapor]

How would one protect the Rockets from Railfans though? Until we have some kind of more focused defense options we can invest in to hold of focused barrages, any Railfan seems likely to cut Rockets in half.

[deft crow]

the same way we protect anything else

armor shields

it's true that these modules are more fragilr

[sinful vapor]

I suppose so. and the |__| ship idea could throw in some Flak guns to hold off barrages coming through the center, on top of the shields.

[deft crow]

actually, point defense is better against rails than flak

cheaper for the same effect

[sinful vapor]

Interesting.

[deft crow]

flak turns the turret too slow to track the rail shot but we're here to talk about the rockets ig

[supple pagoda]

I think the sound of the rocket should scale with amount of extenders (within decent limits), right now a few other thrusters together make wayyyy more noise than a gigantic rocket thruster, which makes no sense

[sinful vapor]

Makes sense to me. All the visuals and sfx are obviously just placeholder atm.

Does make me wonder how different it will be from other Thrusters visually. Is it still going to be a giant orange brick inside our ships like Thrusters are on our backs? Coloring Thrusters doesn't do a whole lot about that either.

[deft crow]

good suggestion

[deft crow]

i hope the nozzles have a much bigger nozzle

[supple pagoda]

Remember the first preview version? Didn't they look much bigger and more rocket-like back then? Or is my memory muddy

Can't believe the ship in my gifs costs a whopping 3.8 millions though, there's nothing but 2 thrusters on it

You all make 3 faster warships with that same budget

[deft crow]

I'll update this:

Tips to build with rocket thrusters.

• engine rooms are only worth it if they touch at least 3 things (nozzles/extenders/huge thruster), preferably 4 or 5

• you should try to avoid fuel pods and only use them if your thrust is flickering

• longer rockets are always better, each extender has the same thrust as a huge thruster, but it's 2500 cheaper. You need at least 3 extenders per nozzle to break even with huge thrusters

• for the rest, general rules about design and optimization apply

[deft crow]

they were the same sprite iirc

[supple pagoda]

Oh that answers the price tag

let's see if i can apply those teachings

[plucky thunder]

3 extenders... no, 4, because of the operating crew

[deft crow]

I'm pretty sure 2 crew is less than 2.5k

[supple pagoda]

game says 50k for 100 crew right now, 500 per then

[deft crow]

that doesn't count the cost of their beds

and the doors

iirc it's about 700 per person

[supple pagoda]

right

I realize I had never seen a reactor permanently empty until now when i put one in-between the two rocket ship columns, those things drain something fierce

[deft crow]

good job it's hard to drain big reactors

[supple pagoda]

oh i just imitated the way you and Plaus do it

[sinful vapor]

If you need 3 Extenders per Nozzle to match the Huge Thrusters, that means Nozzles are weaker in thrust than Huge Thrusters(we know this), so how is each Extender, which gives +100% of the base Nozzle, equal to a Huge Thruster each? is it something like once you break even, their weight to thrust ratio is equal to Huge Thrusters?

[deft crow]

the nozzle has the same thrust as a huge thruster.

each extender gives an extra huge thruster.

but the nozzle is 15k+2crew, the extender is 7.5k, a huge is 10k

[sinful vapor]

Ahh, I thought Nozzles were weaker at base than Huges.

[chrome marlin]

Just want to mention on the break even, costwise you're correct of course but the ability to compact thrusters could make it worth it sooner

[deft crow]

honestly I doubt it.

[sinful vapor]

So, the values should check out then, but what about when accounting for weight? Extenders are smaller than Huges, so unless they have additional weight per space, technically they are faster right?

[deft crow]

the nozzle is also bigger. If you only care about twr i think it would be 2 extenders

not sure about that

[chrome marlin]

So im thinking, if you have |----| thrust, and only one rocket thruster on each side, you probably won't use ERs on them, right?

So you're probably comparing a 3 huge thruster + ER module bs a rocket thrust without ER?

[sinful vapor]

I mean, I am not doing any real math or building things here just wrapping my head around the efficiency, but yeah that would be the case.

[chrome marlin]

So for that you'd actually need 4 extenders to beat that thrust level

[sinful vapor]

The left and right Rockets on such a ship would be longer than that of course.

[chrome marlin]

Yeah or you wouldn't use rocket thrust till you're on a bigger ship

And replacing more than 3 huges per side

Central rocket thrust will probably become worth it at lower price levels because you can use a single ER for two rocket thrusters

[sinful vapor]

I think the bottom of any Rocket is pretty much guaranteed to have at least 1 ER touching a Nozzle, an Extender, and having 2 Huges on the other sides of the ER. It just makes too much sense.

[chrome marlin]

Good point

[sinful vapor]

So yeah, I have high hopes for very different shapes being much more feasible for ships with these.

[chrome marlin]

Means more work redesigning my ships lol

Good news haha

[supple pagoda]

i think i found my fav layout for speed and antiflicker
Nvm the perfectly placed vital organs

[sinful vapor]

A completely new meta will be worked out I hope. I do wonder once more testing is done, how projectile speeds will change. DCs will probably need a speed buff.

[chrome marlin]

You can probs go faster by deleting the corridors

[sinful vapor]

And isn't that overkill on reactor sizes and crew amounts a bit?

[supple pagoda]

oh right, i added them to see what i was doing more clearly
I guess they're placeholder mass for actual useful parts you could put on a ship like this

[supple pagoda]

crew uh probably, reactor sizes i tried smaller, they drained too fast

as in, the fuel pods in the center didn't get filled up fast enough (not the reactors themselves)

[sinful vapor]

That is 10 LRs, IIRC, that is 12.5 energy/s each? Been a while. An incomprehensible amount of energy lol.

[chrome marlin]

Yeah I think you're only using about 2.5 energy/s from each LR with that

[chrome marlin]

You don't need to keep the fuel pods topped off, right? Just make sure the module doesn't flicker?

You did achieve a ton of speed with that setup though!

[supple pagoda]

Actually i do! the moment they're empty, i get flicker realllly soon after

Managed to reduce crew a bit, any lower and it flickers consistently :

[sinful vapor]

I just don't understand how there could possibly be flickering with anything remotely this maintained as long as the AI is working properly. Are you at least allocating the reactors to the nearby engine rooms, and the crew specifically to those parts? Otherwise you may have crew running everywhere to power any part with any reactor, and having the AI target parts far away, which causes other AI to not try and fuel those parts since someone is already on the way.

[supple pagoda]

I need the 3-cells-trip from LRs to pull it off
So i guess the extra energy goes to making the ship's non-thrusters function

[supple pagoda]

I did zero allocation here since all crew rooms are at the reactors, but feel free to experiment

[chrome marlin]

Ah yeah I think you have crew walking to the other side of the ship

[sinful vapor]

Yeah, I assume because there are doors everywhere, with zero allocation going on, the crew is just in disarray when powering things far away from their starting places.

[supple pagoda]

file here, 197 m/s with dead corridors

[chrome marlin]

Also explains why there's crew in the corridors in the screenshot

If you direct assign crew and also direct assign reactors you'll probably be able to make it vastly more efficient

If you really hate direct assignment you can alternately make the modules cut off from eachother

[sinful vapor]

Yep, like medium reactors capable of doing the work of 2-3 Large ones here.

[supple pagoda]

Right, I just only do that in career for ships i care about, this here is mostly fast-prototyping

[chrome marlin]

Ah makes sense

For me even for prototypes now I direct assign

I've found the crew without assignment become very dysfunctional basically the moment the ship is large enough to have 2 reactors

[supple pagoda]

So i checked and some dudes walk 3 ERs away indeed, not farther, but that's not optimal already

[maiden shell]

I dunno who suggested it but someone thought that the fuel pods could work as an emp shield and they're kinda right

without the armor it doesn't work but I guess you could just add more fuel pods

[plucky thunder]

I did :3

Try loading the fuel pods too

ctrl shift v

[maiden shell]

they were loaded

you just can't see it

[plucky thunder]

oh yes

[supple pagoda]

Follow-up thoughts, I really wouldn't mind better fuel economy on these, if Walt feels that's okay. It's a huge setup just for thrust, pretty demanding

[maiden shell]

because of the disconnected icon

they get fully drained after the impact

[plucky thunder]

well thanks for proving me correct

[maiden shell]

but the cr doesn't get drained at all

[supple pagoda]

Just over 200 without them 🚀

[chrome marlin]

Nice!

[supple pagoda]

Thanks!
Now I'm just waiting for Plaus or Luna to optimize it through black magic and blow this out of the water

[languid sand]

slow

[supple pagoda]

See 🤣

[chrome marlin]

I remember Luna posted these modules yesterday

(100% credit to Luna, I just saved the picture to reference later)

[supple pagoda]

One LR for all this, clearly the forbidden arts (got darkest dungeon yesterday, don't mind me)

[chrome marlin]

I am curious how that LR setup would scale to taller modules

I think you'd just put LRs on the side

1 LR per 20 extenders/nozzle

[sinful vapor]

Yeah, the Rockets actually seem quite easy to power from the looks of it, surprisingly efficient despite so many spots to power. As long as you back it up with enough Crew, 1 LR can do an entire Rocket and then some, depending on size.

[sinful vapor]

Same, I have saved a lot of the ones I thought were good concepts.

[supple pagoda]

So-so. They don't need that much total power compared to a LR's output (way more so a MR) but it needs to get there fast and continuously even with fuel pods.
So to me they're in the power-hungry category, like a large shield under fire

[peak hull]

DAYUM 12000 thrust

thats close to or even more than modded thrusters without any extensions

wow

[deft crow]

it scales quite well

the single LR module is ackward

i'm cooking again

i didn't think about using the supply lines for ions for the thrusters too

that should compensate the lack of ers

[boreal swan]

probably more cost efficient to use corridor

[deft crow]

i doubt it, i'm distributing a lot of power and the thrusters require low latency

i'll try

I suspect some extenders consume more than others

but i don't know how to prove it

[deft crow]

i'm going to try to force it

[chrome marlin]

If you put fuel pods on all of them and run it without crew resupplying

If they each have 10 batteries it'll be easier to see if they're draining unevenly

And remove any variability based on the supply line

[sinful vapor]

The crazy thing to me is that you can do the same kind of engine cluster at the top AND bottom of every Rocket. Bonkers thrust built into an already powerful setup.

[deft crow]

very good idea

oh yes they do drain unevenly

[sinful vapor]

Sounds like something that needs fixing no?

[deft crow]

@stark gorge Bug report (unless this is intended)
extenders don't drain evenly. steps to replicate:

• build a long rocket and recharge it with power
• build a few more extenders, leave them unpowered
• the extenders at the top will consume more power than the ones at the bottom

(The current balance of rockets feels great to me, i'm currently trying to build a viable competitive ship)

[sinful vapor]

It seems like it would make sense if it works this way.

[stark gorge]

How much is the difference?

[sinful vapor]

Well actually, no it wouldn't, it's not like a full canister draining from the top like I thought for a moment.

[deft crow]

i don't know how to measure it, (dev mode?) but enough to be noticeable, and I think it depends on the number of unpowered extenders.

probably double or triple energy consumption.

[deft crow]

without the unpowered extenders at the top, they drain evenly,

[novel notch]

I got just 1 thruster set up to 300 mps, and it just kept going but power wasnt being supplied fast enough.... was mine bugged?

the acceleration was constant

[deft crow]

with rockets?

[sinful vapor]

Ohh, ok, extra scuffed then.

[stark gorge]

Thanks, looks like that just happens because I changed some things between preview builds that made it incompatible. Shouldn't be an issue once the stable build is out.

[novel notch]

yes

[deft crow]

do you have the ship

[novel notch]

yep

lemme get it real quick

[stark gorge]

I'm not able to reproduce the behavior in your gif. For me, the power usage is slightly uneven but only slightly; the modules all turn off at almost exactly the same time. Can you please upload a save?

[novel notch]

Actually i dont have the ship but i figured out the bug

It keeps accelerating only if there are no other directions of thrust

Otherwise it caps out

But if its only forwards thrust it accelerates to stupid speeds

lemme re create it

[supple pagoda]

constant doesn't sound right, does it? infinite max speed or does it just instantly stop accelerating at max speed?

[novel notch]

I dont know cause the power supply kept running out

But i remeber it getting to 300 smth

before the power ran out

Ok maybe not

I have no clue how i got 2 rockets to go 300

But i cant recreate it

[deft crow]

@stark gorge save file for the bug report

[soft cypress]

wouldnt work cuz thrusters push away anyways so you not getting close

[sharp nebula]

One thruster pushing away, ten pushing towards

And have it off until you get close

[stark gorge]

Interesting, thanks. It looks like if the power amounts start even then they stay pretty even, but if they become uneven then the usage becomes uneven. I know why this happens, just need to figure out how to fix it.

[languid sand]

Made this module with crazy good uptime. Never saw those rockets sustain so long without fuel pods

[compact marlin]

Made some scalable modules.

[deft crow]

send ship file pls

[languid sand]

Can you send yours too?

[sinful vapor]

Well I don't see the Reactors running dry, so this should be a crew management issue right? Should have 100% up time?

[deft crow]

not sure if it's better tbh

[languid sand]

The reactors run out but mathematically I should have 0.2 energy per second left. I dont think I can manipulate the crew to do much better

[deft crow]

a lot of things have changed since i made it

[deft crow]

the problem is that crew wastes power

[sinful vapor]

Yeah I realized that with what Plaus said.

[deft crow]

if they give a size 2 battery to something that has 2 battery left and 3 battery capacity, they waste 1 energy

[languid sand]

My setup is more expensive on heavier but it has better uptime. Mine might be better but Im not really sure. Very hard to measure

[deft crow]

yours probably better

[languid sand]

The worst thing my crew does is that it sometimes walks across the middle er to the other reactor

[sinful vapor]

Technically, even if you can't completely fix the uptime, you should be able to add like 1 Capacitor up top with the Cockpits to increase the up time available quite a bit.

[languid sand]

but I think thats impossible to prevent without physically seperate them

which would be horrible of course

[languid sand]

Thats actually an interesting idea

[sinful vapor]

Actually, it may be pathing inefficient, but that would mean you could have the top Reactor not power the top Engine Room, and only have the Capacitor power the engine room, which means the Capacitor would be missing more energy than the batteries delivered to it, fixing the top reactors battery waste as long as the engines need the most of 1 battery delivered. 🤔

[languid sand]

Hm I pretty sure its just more expensive and less good xD

But thanks for the idea

[deft crow]

I would try to remove 1 extender before trying that

[sinful vapor]

Fair, just throwing out ideas.

[languid sand]

Funny idea

[languid sand]

Funny dc rammer

[compact marlin]

@languid sand you can get slightly better uptime if you put the up conveyers adjacent to the battery pods

[languid sand]

Yea thanks for pointing that out

But Im gonna go get some sleep now

[sinful vapor]

I think one LR next to a stacked MRS will end up pretty standard, and using whatever leftover energy there is for other things.

[stark gorge]

@everyone Another new rocket thruster preview! No major design/balance changes, just some polish/fixes. Barring major issues that arise, this will likely be the final preview until the official release candidate with actual graphics.

• Rockets now require blueprints purchases in Career and Build & Battle modes.
• Fixed bug causing rocket extenders to consume power unevenly.
• Lateral thruster activation increase/recovery times are now constant.
• Extenders now increase recommended crew and power.
• A power icon is now displayed in build mode when a Fuel Pod will be properly connected to a Nozzle or Extender.

[sinful vapor]

You know, it is kind of amazing how the Extender %s worked out so quickly. There may be adjustments down the road, maybe not, but the fact that it seemed to land at a good point on the second try is kind of amazing. Could have been like 75%, 80%, anything that looked good and was close, but it settled nicely on 100%. Any adjustments planned may just end up changing the base thrust of the Nozzle instead, to keep the % where it is. 😆

[little solar]

I think if it was any lower it would've not been worth the cost-space, specially since unlike Thruster arrays if you lose the nozzle you lose the whole thing

and higher it would've been too good and completely remove the good ol' thruster spam

[mint wyvern]

Can't wait for the modular thruster to fully release, until I get killed by a 200 m/s Monolith warcrime

[junior harbor]

would love to see an imperium ship just zoom by and notice that I don't have a ship anymore

[mint wyvern]

cabal ion brawler, monolith railgun saw abomination, imperium alpha nuker, fringe super scrapper, just some ship ideas

[karmic hedge]

that's the power of spreadsheets

[sinful vapor]

True, some of ya'll were crunching the numbers. Each extender is actually slightly better than a whole Huge Thruster because of the weight difference between the two.

But as we have said repeatedly, the risk for an engine this large to be damaged and lose everything is very high.

[sullen merlin]

full props to @deft crow her proficiency with spreadsheets in relation to this game is awesome

[tribal lion]

i dont know if i should be saying it in here or in the suggestions channel

but i think a cool idea could be adding a uhhhhhh extender

but instead of upping thrust and ramp up time it JUST lowers ur ramp up time a bit

so you could have big ships with massive rockets that accelerate pretty well

maybe instead of a % decrease it just offsets the ramp up time of 1 extender so you could have 1 extender + 1 rampup thing and itd stay at the base ramp up time at the cost of more power / size

[boreal swan]

why would u use this instead of smaller thrust

[tribal lion]

true

actually yea no thats true nvm

[cinder maple]

[tribal lion]

shot down instantly lol

[deft crow]

I have to say that walt has incredible vision for the numbers that might work, and how to modify them when they don't work as intended

[deft crow]

I like this idea, but it would be super hard to balance

maybe a future update might introduce new parts for the modular thrusters, for now it's already hard enough to fit these new parts without causing problems

[tribal lion]

would be cool

[deft crow]

i agree

[tribal lion]

tbf i assume once the modular stuff is done itd be possible to just mod in custom things aswell

i wanna get into modding sometime so maybe ill start with that once this stuff releases

[deft crow]

yeah, it should be easy to mod, but Walt has already said somewhere that he wants to add more parts to modify these rockets

[tribal lion]

[vivid stratus]

Being poor rich of course

[stark gorge]

If by "incredible vision" you mean "stumbles around in the darkness until bumps into something that works", then yes I can confirm.

[marble mauve]

trying to assign resources to these appears to be a bit broken

useing this ship, checking the power storages in resource assignment mode makes things get a bit weird

cant seem to assign them to any rocket thruster piece either

this was on a new save

[stark gorge]

Does assigning it to the fuel pod work?

[marble mauve]

nope

[boreal violet]

oh?

[languid sand]

Isnt there an engine room next to it?

[marble mauve]

yes but that's not how im powering it

[languid sand]

Thats normal? You cant supply engines that are next to engine rooms

[chrome marlin]

I thought I saw a bug report or idea where somebody said you can direct assign to thrusters with ERs but the lines are invisible?

Like the assignments work as intended but the lines aren't visible?