Discussing the (missing?) 4th type of transport!

[Takezu]

Well could also shoot that stuff with a cannon. Same thing.
Rockets are projectiles, projectiles impact somwhere and if something impacts, there is not much left.
Especialy if it's that fast.
And i could be wrong, but that physical prinziple exists in the game. Drive your car with round about 100km/h against your Wall or play chicken with a train.
It's the same force only with an other face.
Fireworks are nice, yes no question, but if it goes unbraked onto the ground there is not much but a crater.

[kiba]

Well could also shoot that stuff with a cannon. Same thing.
Rockets are projectiles, projectiles impact somwhere and if something impacts, there is not much left.
Especialy if it's that fast.
And i could be wrong, but that physical prinziple exists in the game. Drive your car with round about 100km/h against your Wall or play chicken with a train.
It's the same force only with an other face.
Fireworks are nice, yes no question, but if it goes unbraked onto the ground there is not much but a crater.

Rocket capsules could do retropropulsion and land itself like a reusable rocket.

Of course, you now have a useless capsule that you need to transport it all the way back to the rocket pad.

[Takezu]

Well as said that would be offset the higher travel speed through the landing.
Because it would need time for breaking, thats how it works.
With higher speed would came a longer breaking sequence.
So then we would stand at roughly the same point as we would with the plane example.

And the next question is how hard should the breaking be, in the example it was 3G, i 'don't know but 3G on Freight which usually has the one or another Ton is much.
And even the best rocket can only take so much.

[ratchetfreak]

what about parachutes?

also don't overthink what it models just focus on how the mechanics should work and the devs can handwave the lore later

[Koub]

That's what I had in mind too : Propulsion stops when the rocket is close above the destination, and when it's in free fall, parachutes open, so that contents don't crash.

[Takezu]

Which gaves away the mentioned speed advantage. How do i put it, landing per parachute is far slower then landing by plane.
It would depend to a degree on the gravitational force of the planet (which is unknown but seeing the charchter i assume somwhere around earth niveau, 9,807m/s²)
Well landing with roughly 10m/s² out of 1500meter height or more seems to me much slower than a 20 second plane landing.
And yes you need a certain height or your parachute won't work at all.

[ratchetfreak]

Which gaves away the mentioned speed advantage. How do i put it, landing per parachute is far slower then landing by plane.
It would depend to a degree on the gravitational force of the planet (which is unknown but seeing the charchter i assume somwhere around earth niveau, 9,807m/s²)
Well landing with roughly 10m/s² out of 1500meter height or more seems to me much slower than a 20 second plane landing.
And yes you need a certain height or your parachute won't work at all.

a flyover and paradropping is faster than lining up to land depending on various factors.

Letting the "plane" then return to base immediately for restock would add another factor of gameplay: you can only request so much per drop and travel time and fuel costs to and from increases by distance.

building on that I can see Airports with a number of planes that will take on cargo at the base and then fly over the drop site and drop a box with the requested stuff and then fly back for refueling and restocking.

they cannot pick up items when not landed on base (to avoid supplanting logistic bots) and fuel is more expensive than for trains (using a light oil derivative)

[Takezu]

True a flyover drop would be faster if you take the time from starting to the drop.
Would beat every landing. But if you take the time until the goods arrive ground i'm not that sure.

Nonetheless the idea has something. if the cargobox where to be passiv provider like, the bots could use the contend as soon as grounded.

Fuel is a bit complicated, as far as i'm aware every thing with a fuel value would be considert valid, but
it could be easily handelt through the KW (or MW) consumption of the aircraft. Trains are using 600Kw, that thing could use more, maby double or triple.

[ratchetfreak]

True a flyover drop would be faster if you take the time from starting to the drop.
Would beat every landing. But if you take the time until the goods arrive ground i'm not that sure.

Nonetheless the idea has something. if the cargobox where to be passiv provider like, the bots could use the contend as soon as grounded.

Fuel is a bit complicated, as far as i'm aware every thing with a fuel value would be considert valid, but
it could be easily handelt through the KW (or MW) consumption of the aircraft. Trains are using 600Kw, that thing could use more, maby double or triple.

no need to use existing fuels instead just pipe in the liquid fuel into the base. et voila a specific fuel type for planes.

Going further with that each base has only one package that it can send. That way I can see a miningoutpost buildkit with a set of drills, modules, belts, inserters trainstop and defenses. And have another package for a oil outpost.

[Takezu]

Liquid fuels aren't supported yet. As it stands now it would be Solid Fuel all the way.
Everything else where "fakefuel" like 20 lightoil per operation in a recipe... Well not really a fan of that, it would somewhat distort the current Fueling System.
and in the end wouldn't make that much sense to go that way in one case of transporting and another way for the next system. All current Transportsystems
use the same system of fueling. And a high consumption on solid fuel base would be easily calculabel for comparison.
No need for overcomplicating existing working fuelsystems i think. BTW the first kerosene was distilled out of coal in the end they are all Carbohydrates.

[ssilk]

That's what I had in mind too : Propulsion stops when the rocket is close above the destination, and when it's in free fall, parachutes open, so that contents don't crash.

I like that. This kind of "transport" works perfect in games like Battlefield and many others...

My picture I have in mind for that "Rocket Idea" is currently like so:
- A cargobox (that is like a chest, but can contain only one stack) is filled at a special station.
- this station puts the cargobox on a rocket (I think a parachute is not really needed, because it has no game value to produce parachutes only for that usage)
- When this type of item is requested, this "flying cargobox" is fired.
- destination within 5 seconds
- landing with parachute another 5 seconds.
- rocket is destroyed, the cargobox lands via "parachute" on some free ground within the logistic network and works exactly like an active provider chest.
- cargobox is emptied by the bots (either transported to the constuction site or into storage boxes).
- empty cargobox is put into the storage and can be returned back.

This enables delivery to a construction site within 30-50 seconds.

Using a flyover instead: Yes, the exact method doesn't play a role. It can be invisible/hidden... But I think a plane, running with a speed of 1000 tiles/sec over the screen looks just ridiculous. It is also much more complicated, because the plane needs to return and such things.

Think also to the fact, that you need this most, when you are running out of resources, so you need to be able to create this very easy, a cargobox (like a small steel chest) and a rocket, plus start-station.

It enables "manual delivery", fire the cargoboxes into the target area and then travel there and built.

Takezu: This method don't needs to be super realistic. It is a game, reality is not always game-value! But luckily we can ignore physical reality, if it doesn't gain game-value. The same is valid for the game-design: If it looks good, and feels good, why should it look realistic? These are the mantras, which the dev-team follows.

[jorgenRe]

I would say Pneumatic Transport is a fairly nice and easy way for sending small amounts of cargo very very fast!
If i remember right it was 50 tiles per 4 seconds ( :O! )(pardon me i just found out i increased the time and forgot to increase the segment length...oops )
What may be the speed of it when i rebalance it even more would prob be something like:
Each packet moves at a speed of 100 tiles per second. Whereas each packet is up to 2 items.

Now other than that i do have to agree a rocket do sound like an awesome idea, but is probably a fairly resource intensive thing !
But you know if you got the resources then why not ?

[ssilk]

I would say Pneumatic Transport is a fairly nice and easy way for sending small amounts of cargo very very fast!

Well, I try to find the best solution. Of course, I like it too (it's my idea ) but we need to find the best.

but is probably a fairly resource intensive thing !

I think to find the right balancing is not part of the idea. If we find for example, that the rockets are too expensive, well, we can create cheaper rockets. We have hundrets of possibilities to balance it out, but much less possibilities to generate a working idea.

But you know if you got the resources then why not ?

Jorgen, this is the point: You can built this transport to gain more resources faster. So it is part of the game-play to risk a bit: "Oh, my iron is getting out soon. Will I be able to create an outpost soon enough? Should I create the rocket delivery? It is a bit expensive, but that would enable me to be so much faster, than doing everything myself."
Players loves such decisions.

[Takezu]

Thats priceless, making that which was mentiont in an other thread yourself.
In this that but in any other case that.
Nice One. Coming with G-Forces and calculations for one thing and throwing some random numbers for another.
Distanz 5000meter, for 5 seconds, including starting sequenze for a rocket, which itself takes serval fractions of a second, due to be a cargo rocket, that thing won't work like a AIM-9 Sidewinder (taking into account that even a thing like this don't take of in an instant), leaving a flight time round about 4 seconds. Landing with parachute 5 seconds? Where the Criteria that the cargo should be usable afterwards? if not then no problem throw it by 1250m/s² straight to the ground, well correctly it would be a higher speed due to accelation from zero.
As for the speed, 1000m/s² would look equally ridiculous for everything, the only thing your eye makes out is something zipping by. Gone bevor even noticed right.
But if thats your only aceptable vision of a 4th type of transport, then we should better discuss a 5th and maybe 6th, things that were named in this discussion which were good. The Truckstop idea would be a great transportsystem for ranges which are to close for trains, but to far for belts. And some other things mentioned here.
Because Fireworkes aren'T the only thing. And dropping arbitrary deathpoints, there were good proposals, doomed to fail from the beginning but good nonetheless.

[SHiRKiT]

I have built outposts around 15k tiles away from center. OR it was 20k, but it was pretty far.

[ssilk]

Takezu, well, forgot all these numbers, that was because I calculated too much stuff and was too tired to delete it again.

But I believe it is a difference of how something will look like. It will look ridiculous, if an airplane drives with that speed, but for a rocket - well the implementation can just say "We cannot see the rocket, it's too fast, too high".

It's a game.
We define, what we want to play and how.
The implementation has to follow the idea. And not the other way around.

Indeed, I think it's the job of the community to find the way to play it. This was the reason, why I created this discussion, cause I thought it cannot be discussed in the suggestion board.

If you are not satisfied with the ideas we create here, then you are really invited to create your own ideas. But don't get pissed, if nobody likes it.

Tip: Don't criticize the things you don't like. Instead try to find the good points in an idea and enhance that with your own points.

[Takezu]

Ssilk, that was a bit off a slap in the face, thinking of the last thread in that direction.
Clearly i could easily bring my plane down to 50 seconds, nobody said it has to be a conventional starter, could also be a Vertical Starter, much quicker in the air.

But that wasn't the point to beginn with. Here were good ideas thrown overborad, reagarding a jammed idea of rocket transportation, i think you can'T deny
That the idea of a rocket was all to mighty from the start. Good proposals where easily wahsed of on an arbitrary stepping stone.
And thats a thing that i truly can'T find right. rachets idea of predefined kits for transport, is superb. An aircraft, maybe not as emergency transport but nonetheless as longrange low quantity transport, wouldn't be ridiculous if it flys with your said speed of 500tiles/s(?) and would make a great addition as would the truckline idea from, i belive klonan was it.

All those good ideas where grounded with the word rocket. Yes fireworks are nice, but not the first choice of transportation.
As emergency Transport, as you describe it would make sense, but what was the seeking, a 4th transport method or an emergency transport method. if the later, i'd
agree to your rocket system, in an emergency it's pretty indifferent how the stuff comes to the target, main thing is that it comes.

As a 4th transportation method for longrage i'd be opposed, because i think for that where much better ideas in the discussion.
So tell me, do you seek a 4th transportation method, then i would suggest dropping the Time thing for transport alone it's not that important, or somewhat of an emergency backup, as said then i'd find a rocket a viable choice.
I can only say i thougth of longrange transportation as addition to trains, for low quantity transport to supply far outposts.
Not for transport in case of, the stuff has to be moved over, the day befor yesterday.

And i somwhat can'T be helped, physiks and chemistrie are my right and my left hand from young age on ... hard to suppress.

[Klonan]

I dislike the Pneumatic tube idea, It only really makes sense as something for a smaller scale than transport belts. As in the real world, the tubes are used to small, low quantity transport, within a small service area. The idea does not fit well with the idea of long range, fast transport.

I like my truck idea for mid range, mid-speed transport, less setup than trains and belts, but more investment in trucks and servicing stations (truck automatically refuel if low)

For long range, rockets fit perfectly, especially with the new end game content, which is exactly what this idea is, launching rockets.
But to me it just does not make sense for the rocket to be dispatched WHEN you order it. I mean, with trains, the train isnt packed up full of what you want when you tell it to go to a station, you have to set it up prior to your delivery. It should work the same way with rockets. It is entirely unrealistic, even for a game to have a rocket lanuch, travel 5k+ tiles, and land, within 60-120 seconds. The rocket should already be up there. You should have to plan in advance, Not let the game fill up your rocket for you, with exactly what you request, you should set up the rocket, much like you set up a train station.

It makes so much more sense to me, to have the rocket simply land when requested, rather than liftoff, accelerate, fly at mach 25, decelerate and land.
Low tier rockets (or dorp crates) could slow down and crash land with parachutes, expendable, one use deliveries, higher tier rockets can use advamced engines with control systems to precisely land at the target location, and after delivery, take off once again, to re-fuel, and re-supply at an orbital outpost.

[ssilk]

So tell me, do you seek a 4th transportation method, then i would suggest dropping the Time thing for transport alone it's not that important, or somewhat of an emergency backup, as said then i'd find a rocket a viable choice.

I think that the needed time is the most important technical requirement for this (4th) transportation method. When I hear from players, that built up to 20,000 tiles away, and with the optimizations in 0.12 it will be possible to make it even bigger, then this is really not just a crazy idea, but really needed game-mechanics.

By planes, by locomotive, pipes, rockets and so on is then the next question. That is the creative part: how can it work?

How is it looking then and would I like to play it? That is the decision-part. Is is clear, that this is not "Hey, I have an idea" and everybody says "hurray". A really good system is hard work. So it is not slapping into someones face, it is just a realistic discussion.

I can only say i thougth of longrange transportation as addition to trains, for low quantity transport to supply far outposts.
Not for transport in case of, the stuff has to be moved over, the day befor yesterday.

But why should we need it then? That is already there...

In the real world, nobody would came to the idea, to install a maglev-train, if there is an existing good enough conventional train system and if the maglev-train has not some advantages, which makes it worth building. What advantages? Speed and comfort of course.

The same is valid for a game, too.

[Smarty]

i had an idea close related to the pneumatic tubes and trains like mid /long range underground monorail system that uses magnets to propel containers to a very high speed and that you can manage it the same way trains work. Like the maglev trains but for containers.

It could add a bit more content to the game like a machine that can make the magnets for the rail things.

Its high tech endgame stuff and is expensive as hell but worth in the investment.

A container can carry 10 slots of items and can move twice as fast as a train.
also the power consumption is insane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPduAYKk_6I
this is the basic idea
http://imgur.com/R3cYjqu

Just a simple idea but can be really fun to have.

I had this idea every since i heard of the maglev trains to use in real life (less trucks and trains)