For Backers Only: One Moon, No Waiting

It's one of those cases where I would have preferred showing a short video clip, but this is what made sense, at least for a few more days.

Hopefully in the context of their full use, the design will make more sense. We just haven't had a ton to share today, so when we were messing with the rockets earlier, thought the backers forum might like to check out the current state.

I wasnt making a science point, just a point of appeal. I am aware that some can apply more thrust thant another etc. This was a point based on making an animation more readable when presented with a technical issue. The issue being its easier to place a building that is following the same rules as the rest. The Thrusters in the kickstarter were all aligned in a straight line. The flaps would allow legitimacy to pointing the thrust animations all in one direction. Although it would be pretty awesome and raw to see it sparking here and there like a giant ball of rcs thrust rolling around, might not sell the weight of the object however.
The flaps could be a bit tighter though, for instance perhaps inset inside the main blocks a bit rather than hinged on the outside rim. In example, the moment a fighter jet fires up its thrust and the iris shaped cone focuses the thrust and adjusts slightly. Those subtleties are very appealing in an animation like that.

For the record, my fight jet example is mostly an example of movement and i prefer this cool blocky square thruster over an iris cone shape for this kind of style.

The complexity is the animation stuff. The original kickstarter video showed a very simplified idea of all of the engines being on one side and thrusting in the same direction. No vectored thrust or anything like that which we would like to try and get in there. Often the direction of acceleration is not the direction the body is moving (e.g. orbital mechanics 101).

We debated whether these things should even look like engines at all or if they should just be some kind of big inertial accelerator ball on a stick or something.... rockets look cooler

You should totally have gone with an Orion Drive instead, now that I think about it. (Yes, the Troy Rising series was a great read. Thanks for the recommendation Neutrino.)

Is that the same as the Star At War style Orion Drive? ;p

Mike

Is there a way to get the thrusters to point in the same direction?

Maybe highlighting a completed thruster before building another one will cause it to snap in the same direction, and on the same plane.

That, or the thrusters themselves can rotate on a ball socket depending on which direction the asteroid is moving. Each individual thruster would rotate, and telescope out so the nozzles are all on the same plane.

Not sure, but it is the one based on blowing nukes up behind you to propel yourself forward. It is also badass.

Then it is!

Mike

Who says we won't eventually do an orion drive of some sort? Maybe you build one of those instead of a dozen of these....????

An orion drive attached to a moon...that blows away its parent planet in the process ahah.

Based on the 'Stars at War' Orion drive and the current cost for Nucks in PA, I'm not sure it's Economically feasible.....

Mike

Very sexy you guys!
Would like to maybe see them being placed more parallel to each other, so they don't point in different angles. Makes it looks a bit wonky.
I do realize that engines on a small planet/moon/whatever forced parallel might make it look even more wonky if you build enough of them though. Maybe one initial engine defines the thrust vector, and all the others are either parallel to it, or even have a different shape that angles the engine 90 degrees if it's placed on the "side" of the planet, and thus still have a parallel thrust vector to the initial engine

O.O so... amazing

So much talk about flaps. I'm just happy they got stuff building somewhere other than the planet you start on.

MOAR FLAPS!

MOOOOOOOOAR!!!!one!1!!eleven!

I remember seeing a documentary on Project Orion, built more like a submarine than spacecraft. If I remember correctly, they would be built like buildings, from the ground up, using heavy duty steel to withstand the blasts. I like the idea of a rocket devastating a planet just by taking off, just like in Sky Captain. I'm sorry about mentioning Sky Captain.

On the subject of placing engines on celestial bodies, what's the point of smashing whole moons into planets? Will it obliterate everything on a planet even more than an asteroid? It seems like such a waste of time and resources, building up a moon, putting extractors, power plants, and engines all over it just to blow it up. I suggest being able to place engines on moons, but not for the sole purpose of crashing it. The idea is to slowly move from planet to planet and bombard them with nukes, artillery, and unit cannons. That way, you take out the enemy leaving the planet more or less intact, and the moon can move on to the next planet. It would be like a battle station, or an extra line of defense for your planet. It would make sense for artillery shots and missiles to travel farther on moons than on planets, maybe even far enough to bombard neighboring bodies.

With building up asteroids, what do you guys think about having engineers on them? does it even make sense to have walking units on such a small object? I mean in real life they would take one step and float away, lol, but it would look silly too, on such a small object that is to be crowded with engines and stuff. I was thinking with the space egg idea, you can send a space egg/lander (built at a space port), to an asteroid or moon, and it will slowly generate power and metal, and build up the engines and power.

I would think that like in the KS video, asteroids would be for large tactical strikes, and moons would destroy whole planets. I guess the planet could also explode from instability after so many asteroid strikes. However, are you really suggesting not Annihilating Planets?!?! I'm thinking that in a multi-planet game, where someone is dug in like a tick on one planet in the system, destroying the planet is quicker (and cooler) than trying to take it back. Also, there is the option of positioning the moon into the orbit of an enemy planet and using it as a battle platform to launch an attack (not as sexy, but still requires propulsion on the moon).

So, what determines how many separate engines per celestial body to get it moving? Is it 9 per moon? Or is what is pictured just one single build item off of the build menu, and the components of it get placed/arranged automatically in accordance to the planet/moon/asteroid that it is placed on?

The same propulsion method is used by the Serenity in Firefly. I don't think it would work for asteroids or moons, though.