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[Ygdrad]

I don't think so

[Ygdrad]

Well, the co-op save bug is fixed in the current development branch and it changes how combat is handled. I'm up for some co-op fun whenever any of you are, just make sure to have some designs on hand.

I haven't played for a while and there are some great new things. I was trying to make an airship that would have balloons keep it almost buoyant and then be assisted by multiple propellers in a vertical shaft to control elevation. I was going to set up and test the propeller without the balloons to see how much flotation they granted on their own and noticed a new "motor drive" slider in there. It allows your spin blocks to use part of your engine's power for a buff to spin power. I thought it'd be great, set the slider to max and expected a minor boost which could come in handy if I lost buoyancy due to battle damage... I was not ready for what came next. The propellers used up half of my beastly engine's power, the ship rocketed out of the water and due to the newly added engine was not balanced, it flew off spinning and crashed into a nearby island.

The new engine-driven propellers are great.

[Graknorke]

That sounds amazing. Insanely powerful propellers have to have a useful niche somewhere.

[Ygdrad]

That sounds amazing. Insanely powerful propellers have to have a useful niche somewhere.

Niche? I'm currently looking at them as the main source of thrust on almost anything, they have pretty ridiculous power. Once I balanced that airship, I slapped 2 propellers at the back, 2 thick and with blades 3 long, so basically 2 propellers with 24 blades each(dimensions 7x7x2) and it made my 1400 block, 350 mass, totally not aerodynamic airship break 30m/s.

This thing

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Graknorke]

A deliberate slight understatement.
Did you manage to get back to the airship in order to accommodate for the ludicrous thrust?

[Ygdrad]

A deliberate slight understatement.
Did you manage to get back to the airship in order to accommodate for the ludicrous thrust?

You ninja-posted while i was editing my previous post with the pictures of the completed test airship. I ended up giving the vertical props only 2/10 motor drive otherwise I can't control lift force accurately-enough since a tap sends me skywards at 10/10. I was doing some underwater tests with more liberal use of the propellers and the test sub went 20m/s underwater. With a proper shape and some more props I can see that thing going 30-40m/s underwater. At that point might as well give it melee weapons on the front like spikes or drills and just charge out of the water at targets Jaws-style and take a bite out.

This kind of thrust requires fine-tuning of ship designs though since if you do not properly set up the center of mass and thrust you end up with an uncontrollable mess.

Further testing shows that these propellers do not need proper airflow and can be enclosed for extra defense and a more aerodynamic shape. I'm currently doing some !!science!! to see just how far this can be pushed before things break and the game crashes, or before air resistance starts disagreeing with my shenanigans.

[Graknorke]

At that point might as well give it melee weapons on the front like spikes or drills and just charge out of the water at targets Jaws-style and take a bite out.

Can this be a thing now? I really hope this can be a thing now. Once ramming AI is in at least.

[Ygdrad]

At that point might as well give it melee weapons on the front like spikes or drills and just charge out of the water at targets Jaws-style and take a bite out.

Can this be a thing now? I really hope this can be a thing now. Once ramming AI is in at least.

I'm not sure ramming AI's are in yet, but I seriously doubt AI's would be able to handle some of the extreme speeds I'm getting in testing, 120m/s is my record so far on a non-optimized craft.

Edit: Ramming something at 120m/s is pretty spectacular but the damage caused to both ships tends to not match the angle/location of impact properly. I slammed a long metal tube of a flying ship into the top of a DWG ship, tore out its turret and some of the deck as the bottom of my ship scraped by and then bang, my metal tube ship broke in half. If anything the bottom could've been torn out, but the sides and top should've been untouched. Maybe a large part of the turret got inside the tube, could explain the extra damage, but I had no way to check it out since the pilot seat was obliterated and the wreckage flew off to god knows where.

[LoSboccacc]

At that point might as well give it melee weapons on the front like spikes or drills and just charge out of the water at targets Jaws-style and take a bite out.

Can this be a thing now? I really hope this can be a thing now. Once ramming AI is in at least.

not properly ramming but distance 0 and angle 0 allows the razorback to close in at silly speed to cut you off with the disk of spinning rams

[Ygdrad]

Been having a load of fun experimenting with the motor-driven propellers. My latest prototype is a small agile personal vehicle(the AI really can't handle it). It reaches 20-25m/s on the water, 15m/s underwater, and up to 68m/s in the air. It can seamlessly transition between all 3 and remains stable I loaded it with 3 high-yield ejector-launched dumb-fire rockets and use lasers to figure out where they'll hit, leaving out the fins and guidance allows those 3 blocks missiles to pack quite a punch, mine are thruster>fuel>frag>frag>frag>emp. The missiles can be made longer if I really want more punch or range at the cost of reload time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If I had the propellers inside the ship or somewhere level with it I might not have needed all that lead under it to line up center of mass and thrust. I might try a double prop catamaran-style ship, but being wider will make it a bigger target and expose the props.

[scrdest]

Could you guys share how you handle the ends of the hulls? I have a really hard time with the geometry on these so all my vehicles just kinda get awkwardly cut at one end if they are 3D.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Could you guys share how you handle the ends of the hulls? I have a really hard time with the geometry on these so all my vehicles just kinda get awkwardly cut at one end if they are 3D.

semi-spherical, conical, or pointed are the best generally. Look up how actual ship hulls look.

[scrdest]

Could you guys share how you handle the ends of the hulls? I have a really hard time with the geometry on these so all my vehicles just kinda get awkwardly cut at one end if they are 3D.

semi-spherical, conical, or pointed are the best generally. Look up how actual ship hulls look.

Yeah, I know, but I don't really know how to voxelize them.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Could you guys share how you handle the ends of the hulls? I have a really hard time with the geometry on these so all my vehicles just kinda get awkwardly cut at one end if they are 3D.

semi-spherical, conical, or pointed are the best generally. Look up how actual ship hulls look.

Yeah, I know, but I don't really know how to voxelize them.

Well, I find that, whilst time consuming, building a ship in a manner similar to how you build a real one is the most effective. Personally, I almost always start with the top deck of the ship, then build ribbing beneath that to get a sense for the size and depth of the ship, finally, I construct the spine of the ship. That leaves me with a pretty good blueprint to eyeball the edges upfront, which are admittedly the hardest part. In the back, there are a couple of options, but the easiest way is to make a back that has no curve and simply slopes downwards. You can chamfer this slope that is effectively the back of your ship or leave its sharp edges.

EDIT: I think I can probably find some example pictures of how this turns out.

[Girlinhat]

Just got the game last night.

Just thinking, with multiplayer, how feasible would a large free-for-all battle between B12 players be?

We'd have to have rules.  The game is rather resource greedy, so lesser computers probably can't handle what B12 would bring against each other.  We'd also need like, weight ranges or allowed resource costs, etc.