Zero G Ship Interior

[Archer]

Some of the early screenshots suggest that ships will rely on artificial gravity, though I was hoping it would be practical to design a large ship with no artificial gravity.  I would imagine that artificial gravity generators would probably be pretty time and resource intensive; even if they are relatively cheap it would still be nice to have the style choice.  One thing that bugs me in Space Engineers is that you can't move around without either gravity or a jetpack, though using a jetpack inside a space ship is probably a bad idea.  Here are some of my ideas on this:

 

First thing's first, don't lock the player character in a standing position.  Space Engineers (among others) tend to keep the character in an upright position facing forward as if they were standing up even when there is nothing to stand on.  This tends to cause the character's legs to bump into door frames and things unless either the doors are oversize or the player lines up perfectly.  If the character were set to something closer to a swimming position it would be much easier to get around and the interior corridors could be made smaller.

 

Next up, handholds.  At a basic level they can be made to work like a ladder in most games, though it would also be nice to see something resembling a simplified variant of Assassin's Creed's free climbing system, possibly with other context-sensitive movements depending on how difficult this system would be to program.  With somewhat narrow corridors and regularly spaced handholds you should be able to pull yourself along fairly easily without having to use a jetpack.

 

Finally, magnetic boots.  This could be used as an easy way out, though they could also be used to interesting effect if you can switch them off and jump across the room at any time, with or without a jetpack.  Also, if someone tries to dictate which surface is the floor you do not have to agree with them.

[norab7]

Interesting concepts,

 

Gravity will be a choice I would imagine, if you want it or don't totally upto yourself unless you are on a planet, then you get planet gravity regardless of if you have it or not.

 

The swimming thing you suggest as a alternative to standing position could be a good idea. But I think there would need to be a way to switch between swimming and standing, otherwise you would be using consoles lieing down if you don't lock yourself to it and are floating around, little strange to look at as another player.

 

Hand holds for traveling around the ship could be good but I fear the difficulty of doing this when all players ships are different and voxel based. This works in assains creed because all the hold points are static and known, in a ship designed by the player they would need to be placed or calculated and I think the overhead for this might be a lot. Good if they could do it but I'd prefer the jet pack over this if any gameplay is reduced by implementing this... also, how would this work for damaged ships. Could potentially be a glitch created by grabbing through a ships hull to enter without breaching ect. Good idea, but I fear the difficulty.

 

Magnetic boots I like though. My thoughts on this was to think about the game 'prey' where you could walk on the walls and ceiling given the different portals you go through and come out of.

With magnetic boots you could have consoles on every wall of the ship and they would be the correct orientation for you all the time even if they were on the ceiling.. this would need to be toggleable again, if you have gravity or need to move from one wall to the other.

 

Good ideas I like them, I hope Nyz throws these to the devs to have a look at.

 

Nora,

[KlatuSatori]

+1 cool ideas

[Ripper]

Nyzaltar has said that there will be both jetpacks for atmospheric and MMU (Manned Maneuvering Units) for space based maneuvering.

 

As far as moving without a MMU, nothing has been said.

[norab7]

Nyzaltar has said that there will be both jetpacks for atmospheric and MMU (Manned Maneuvering Units) for space based maneuvering.

 

As far as moving without a MMU, nothing has been said.

 

he didn't confirm it, only that he would transmit the idea to the Devs saying that it 'would make sense'

 

Actual Quote:

 

@Nora: Jetpacks are something still heavily work in progress, so we can't give precise information on it yet.

However, we'll try to give them limited capabilities in order to keep hovercraft meaningful and interesting to build.

 

@Cavadus: We plan to have different propulsor categories: atmospheric propulsors and space propulsors.

So making jetpacks to move in an atmospheric context and MMU to move in space would make sense. 

I'll transmit this suggestion to the devs 

 

Best regards,

Nyzaltar.