Dissapointed Space Age doesn't do Space correctly

[BraveCaperCat]

How would you then deliberately slow down because you don't feel like you can handle the current rate and speed of asteroids ?

Brake thrusters, which apply "negative force" to slow you down. They would have to be placed at the top of the space platform, and would be able to slow down when necessary. An idea to help would be if the space platform logistics menu had a speed setting, allowing you to set the maximum speed, though circuits would make it a more interesting challenge.

[BlueTemplar]

And now you've complicated platform design to the point that you're going to lose even more players. (It's already hard enough when you're doing it for the first time.)

[...]
Note that I've tried Newtonian physics in my own space game, and the problem quickly becomes that a major part of the gameplay then becomes about managing that, instead of the other gameplay you envision for your game. Speeds can go off the charts, causing all kinds of other problems.
[...]

Compare with the much simpler current solution to remove in a panic thrusters/pipes/chemplants, or the self-correcting solution of adding

laser turret(s) in a way that they starve chemplants of electricity if you start going too fast and start encountering more asteroids than you can handle

(instead of the self-aggravating consequence of losing the ability to slow down when you need it the most).

[Clair]

They can't do space travel like in KSP, with orbital mechanics, because it requires giving the player the ability to time-warp, to the tune of 500x to 10000x. Even KSP makes some concessions to work, reducing the scale by a factor of 8 and simplifying how gravity works.

[mrvn]

How would you then deliberately slow down because you don't feel like you can handle the current rate and speed of asteroids ?

Circuit wire to the engine, "set speed" or "set trust" and a negative value.


While newtonian physics sound great I think this would be really problematic in factorio.

Where should the trust be aimed at? Because depending on how much fuel you are going to produce the aim should be different.

At the start your pipes are full of fuel and the thrusters on full power. But if you don't produce enough fuel for the trusters then after you got up to speed you suddenly don't have the fuel to slow down in time. So you would overshoot the target? You you then just jo-jo around getting closer and closer on each attempt? In most cases fuel production won't be smooth. The recipe is discreet after all. And it gets so much worse if you have a buffer tank for fuel.

The only way I can see this working is if fuel tanks are required and you could only speed up as much as reserve fuel allows to decelerate. The spaceship would need to have a "set max speed" setting somewhere though to prevent crashing through asteroids at unmanagable (for the weapon loadout) speeds though.

A fun thing would be though that for the second half of the journey asteroids would come from the back instead of the front. You would have to build out both ends of the spaceship.

PS. The spaceship could also rotate freely when fuel is cut. Since rotating the ship would be bad with tiles being tiles the asteroid direction would change instead, the background would spin and if you are out of fuel to long you end up going sideways.
PPS: solar power changes as you travel and your fuel production can run out of power. Not just resources.

[BlueTemplar]

Wouldn't it look really weird if the ship accelerated in the direction of thrusters ?

[mrvn]

Wouldn't it look really weird if the ship accelerated in the direction of thrusters ?

Not to me, not with the asteroids coming from behind. It's space. Be happy you aren't accelerating opposite to the direction you want to go In orbit you need to break , which moves you in at 90 degree to your trust, which makes you overtake whatever you breaked for. That is weird.

[BlueTemplar]

But there's no actual orbit here, so orbital maneuvers don't matter (and would be extra-confusing without at least a 2-dimensional frame of reference).
(And even in these, F = ma still holds, you don't suddenly end up with F = -ma, even if velocity changes can be weird when you have to account for / can exploit a third party Force.)

(And asteroids from behind is a separate suggestion.)

And how would you make the player understand positive thrust vs negative thrust from the same thruster oriented in the same way? Would you invert the flame colours or something ? Hmm, maybe the animation could show flames being sucked into the thrusters instead of being pushed out ..?

[mrvn]

But there's no actual orbit here, so orbital maneuvers don't matter (and would be extra-confusing without at least a 2-dimensional frame of reference).
(And even in these, F = ma still holds, you don't suddenly end up with F = -ma, even if velocity changes can be weird when you have to account for / can exploit a third party Force.)

(And asteroids from behind is a separate suggestion.)

And how would you make the player understand positive thrust vs negative thrust from the same thruster oriented in the same way? Would you invert the flame colours or something ? Hmm, maybe the animation could show flames being sucked into the thrusters instead of being pushed out ..?

There is no negative thrust. As I said, asteroids come from behind once you turn over to decelerate. Newtonian physics makes that the only possibility. Alternatively the whole spaceship turns or you have to place thrusters on both ends of the spaceship. 3 ways this could be done but all just changes in perspective.

One additional thing I would suggest though: Rocket thrust should damage asteroids. Or at least deflect it.

[Stargateur]

you could just multiply all numbers by 1000. at least if speed would be realist, and so distance that would explain why asteroid is a thread cause in real space, asteroid field is like... empty space at 99.9%... you would really need to be a bad pilot to hit an asteroid.

[mrvn]

Here is another fun thing about how wrong space is done.

Have you ever looked at the weight of your space platform?

My space platform for Aquilo has 2.3k foundation at 1ton per 50 tiles = 46 tons. A few stacks of belts, buildings and inserters at a ton a stack generally. But overall the space platform comes in at 500 tons. I certainly did not send up 500 rockets to build that platform.

[BlueTemplar]

My answer that you quoted was responding to BraveCaperCat suggesting (as I understood it) to remove non-newtonian effects (which would be drag and possibly the «interplanetary river» if it's not part of drag). There was nothing in it about rotation or asteroids coming from behind or placing thrusters to point forward. (Which does effectively mean you would never be able to stop.)

But then I see that BraveCaperCat has already answered roughly the same thing before you did (this page break was unfortunate...), so looks like this whole sub-discussion was pointless...

[mrvn]

My answer that you quoted was responding to BraveCaperCat suggesting (as I understood it) to remove non-newtonian effects (which would be drag and possibly the «interplanetary river» if it's not part of drag). There was nothing in it about rotation or asteroids coming from behind or placing thrusters to point forward. (Which does effectively mean you would never be able to stop.)

But then I see that BraveCaperCat has already answered roughly the same thing before you did (this page break was unfortunate...), so looks like this whole sub-discussion was pointless...

Well, we could accelerate towards Gleba and then airobreak on arrival. Or just crash.

[DeadMG]

I agree that this would basically turn Factorio into KSP, and I'm not necessarily complaining about more KSP (especially after disaster KSP2) but that's not what I expected when I bought Space Age.

[mrvn]

Indeed. I didn't expect realism in space. But that you drift towards the nearest planet at 10km/s surprised me a bit though.

I bet it's so you can't get stuck in space with your thrusters or fuel production destroyed. But really what is the point of that? Everything on the platform will be destroyed in the time it takes to drift home once you leave the safe region around Nauvis. And before that you won't notice that you lack proper defenses.

Or is it so that pausing a space platform mid transit is more dangerous than around a planet? The rest speed increases the amount of asteroid impacts.

[Nemoricus]

Indeed. I didn't expect realism in space. But that you drift towards the nearest planet at 10km/s surprised me a bit though.

I bet it's so you can't get stuck in space with your thrusters or fuel production destroyed. But really what is the point of that? Everything on the platform will be destroyed in the time it takes to drift home once you leave the safe region around Nauvis. And before that you won't notice that you lack proper defenses.

Or is it so that pausing a space platform mid transit is more dangerous than around a planet? The rest speed increases the amount of asteroid impacts.

My first platform only made it back to Nauvis because of that drift value.