Space Platform Control/Speed QOL Improvements

[sethbreloom94]

Suggestion 1: Allow Thruster Enable/Disabled on Circuit Network

When taking off to Planets, I constantly had to feather the controls between Auto and Paused thrust. Otherwise, the asteroids would come way too fast and destroy my ship. And this was no ship built for speed- it had a mere 2 thrusters and 8 turrets, including 6 for the front, as well as a medium stockpile of ammuntion. I know the ship automatically speed up and slows down under certain conditions, but I don't know for sure what they are- whether it's the presence of multiple asteroids or Asteroid Collectors being active.

The Main Hub can already be read to measure the platform speed, and you can enable/disable pumps to stem the flow of fuel on the circuit network, but it doesn't work super well since the Thrusters can stockpile fuel. It would be really helpful to enabled/disable the Thrusters when the ship reaches a certain speed and/or turrets are firing (using Inserter pulse mode) to maintain a slower speed. It would be particularly useful for disabling half the thrusters for a slower but constant speed.

Suggestion 2: Platform/Train Wait Condition "Until Further Notice"

Trains are rarely used as Taxis and can be driven manually, so it makes sense that trains in Automatic mode don't have an Eternal wait condition. However, it is very tiring to have to climb into my personal taxi ship, add the planet I'm heading to, and then delete the current current so my ship doesn't abandon me. I can add wait condition "Until Cargo signal Pistol > 100" to keep it from leaving, but that's ugly.

A generic wait that lets me stop a vehicle and keep it there until I tell it to move would be handy.

[Tinyboss]

Please only make one suggestion per thread. You could edit this one to remove the second suggestion and create a new thread for it.

A better way to control the flow of fuel to your engines is to put a fluid tank between the pump and the engines, and use a circuit connection to keep the tank filled to a particular value. That is much more responsive than connecting the pump directly which floods the engines in a very short time.

[Stargateur]

I disagree, to not being able to disable thruster is by design, I think the purpose is both to force player to be smart, and to simulate real life thruster, you can't just "stop" a rocket thruster. Thus except for being able to disable/enable I would like more way to control thruster, being able read fuel of thruster for example.

[Dory]

I also disagree - it is already possible to throttle ship engines without much trouble (e.g. by PWM'ing the fuel line like how a microcontroller's timer-counter works). I don't think having an even easier option to control the engine thrust would be in the spirit of the game.

[heliocat]

Suggestion 2: Platform/Train Wait Condition "Until Further Notice"

Trains are rarely used as Taxis and can be driven manually, so it makes sense that trains in Automatic mode don't have an Eternal wait condition. However, it is very tiring to have to climb into my personal taxi ship, add the planet I'm heading to, and then delete the current current so my ship doesn't abandon me. I can add wait condition "Until Cargo signal Pistol > 100" to keep it from leaving, but that's ugly.

A generic wait that lets me stop a vehicle and keep it there until I tell it to move would be handy.

This already exists, if you set "circuit condition" as the wait value you can have something that will never be true (like "nothing < 0") and your train or space ship will wait until you press go.

[spacedog]

I don't think having an even easier option to control the engine thrust would be in the spirit of the game.

Well, for better or worse an even easier option exists. You build it like this, starting from the chemical plant(s) producing oxidizer:

Chemical plant -> pump -> storage tank -> thrusters

Don't do anything special on the thruster fuel side. Then hook up a green or red wire between the pump and storage tank, and set the pump's enable condition to something like "oxidizer is less than 300". It will throttle your engines to a slower speed, and you don't need PWM circuits or anything fancy. Just play with the number to get the speed you like.

So, basically, this is already in the game.

As an added bonus, it makes the exhaust trails turn a reddish color. (And runs the engines more efficiently so you don't burn as much fuel.)

[jaylawl]

I would love the ability to instantly turn the thrusters off using circuit network control.

As for the other things, there already is pretty fine control we have over the thrusters - so I disagree with that. Its quite fun to play around with the thruster input for different circumstances as it is.

[Dory]

I would love the ability to instantly turn the thrusters off using circuit network control.

You can do almost that by using PWM on a fuel pump to control speed; controlling the timer-counter cutoff point is instant, and since the thrusters are already starving at that point, it doesn't take very long for thrust to cut out (at maximum thrust, it only takes 3s to drain fuel in a thruster).

You can also set an emergency stop system by both stopping the PWM fuel pump _and_ activate a pump that drains fuel away from the thrusters, but I find that 3s (often more like 1s) is enough for my cases.

Like spacedog mentioned, the fact that factorio dev indicates if an engine is running rich or lean by exhaust color is a very nice touch.

[jaylawl]

I would love the ability to instantly turn the thrusters off using circuit network control.

You can do almost that by using PWM on a fuel pump to control speed; controlling the timer-counter cutoff point is instant, and since the thrusters are already starving at that point, it doesn't take very long for thrust to cut out (at maximum thrust, it only takes 3s to drain fuel in a thruster).

You can also set an emergency stop system by both stopping the PWM fuel pump _and_ activate a pump that drains fuel away from the thrusters, but I find that 3s (often more like 1s) is enough for my cases.

Like spacedog mentioned, the fact that factorio dev indicates if an engine is running rich or lean by exhaust color is a very nice touch.

I never thought to pump out the fuel yet, great idea - thanks!