update planetary approach package to augment directional thrusters

[Darth Ender]

When a ship is equipped with planetary approach pkg, the game engine should augment the magnitude of the thrusters that are opposing gravity

so a ship that is say, hovering above the surface, should have a very visible thrust cone coming out of the thrusters that are keeping the ship above the surface. This augment would be applied to any thrusters (as the ship rotates etc) that is opposing gravity.

The higher the gravity, the larger this thrust would be augmented.


Currently, this does not occur, and so these tiny little thrusters are all that is shown keeping say, a 400+ ton ship above the surface ...regardless of gravity. they look ridiculous.


Additionally, on sparse atmo planets, a heat wave effect (visual mirage-ish effect) should be visible surrounding the thrusters. This effect would be related to he thrust cone (which is related to the thrust magnitude and physcial dimension of the thruster).

The heat effect will be greater nearer to the surface and phase out the higher you get.


Bonus:
Near the surface, the thruster could also kick up a lot of dust. Since there is no weather on these planets, and thus no wind, we should assume quite a bit of dust to be disturbed by the ships landing and taking off. this should also occur on airless worlds with a more explosive (less resistant) effect to the dust blow-off.

 

[varonica]

When a ship is equipped with planetary approach pkg, the game engine should augment the magnitude of the thrusters that are opposing gravity

so a ship that is say, hovering above the surface, should have a very visible thrust cone coming out of the thrusters that are keeping the ship above the surface. This augment would be applied to any thrusters (as the ship rotates etc) that is opposing gravity.

The higher the gravity, the larger this thrust would be augmented.


Currently, this does not occur, and so these tiny little thrusters are all that is shown keeping say, a 400+ ton ship above the surface ...regardless of gravity. they look ridiculous.


Additionally, on sparse atmo planets, a heat wave effect (visual mirage-ish effect) should be visible surrounding the thrusters. This effect would be related to he thrust cone (which is related to the thrust magnitude and physcial dimension of the thruster).

The heat effect will be greater nearer to the surface and phase out the higher you get.


Bonus:
Near the surface, the thruster could also kick up a lot of dust. Since there is no weather on these planets, and thus no wind, we should assume quite a bit of dust to be disturbed by the ships landing and taking off. this should also occur on airless worlds with a more explosive (less resistant) effect to the dust blow-off.

I get dust, quite a bit when hovering close to the ground.

Also thrusters were visible in Horizons, still are. Here you can see the thrusters and dust kicked up in Horizons, it does depend on the surface you are hovering over though;

This thruster effect is something that either hasn't been implemented in Odyssey or is not working and needs a bug report, this is the same location and height in Odyssey. It's not the same surface so dust won't be kicked up, but I think Odyssey still gives dust on the right surface, I will have to check but I think there's just a tiny bit here;

 

[Darth Ender]

I get dust, quite a bit when hovering close to the ground.

Also thrusters were visible in Horizons, still are. Here you can see the thrusters and dust kicked up in Horizons, it does depend on the surface you are hovering over though;



This thruster effect is something that either hasn't been implemented in Odyssey or is not working and needs a bug report, this is the same location and height in Odyssey. It's not the same surface so dust won't be kicked up, but I think Odyssey still gives dust on the right surface, I will have to check but I think there's just a tiny bit here;

This is on a planet with > 1.2g (odyssey)
See how tiny the thrust output is? That's holding up many hundreds of tons of space ship.

I know the magic of the planetary approach kit allows the thrusters to always beat gravity and is in no way realistic. But i would expect the thrusters opposing gravity to be significantly larger than the standard directional thruster cones you get when you move your ship to and fro.

Also, the dusting effect i think is tiny because of this tiny magnitude of directional thrusters. If that was corrected, you would probably get the dusting effect that i think would make more sense and look better in the game.

Also, the heat wave effect does occur ...for the rear thrusters. So it stands to reason you would also see that more on the other thrusters if the ones opposing gravity were increased.

All of the above suggestions are visual adjustments, no change to how it actually works or it's actual power. I just think the visual representation is not in sync enough with the behavior and it looks ridiculous.

yes, there is some dusting.

 

[varonica]

Also, the dusting effect i think is tiny because of this tiny magnitude of directional thrusters. If that was corrected, you would probably get the dusting effect that i think would make more sense and look better in the game.

Look seriously, that's not actually dust on the planet surface blowing, it's a graphical effect, so just having more powerful thrusters won't make more dust blow up, you aren't actually hovering just above a planetary surface with thrusters because it's a game not real life, increasing the power of the thrusters won't increase the dust cloud, that's a graphical effect that FDEV apply around the ship when it's close to the surface, the same way they do the dust cloud around the SRV when it's moving, which I should point out sometimes still blows around even when it is stationary and parked.

The dust is nothing to do with the size of the thrusters, the two are entirely unrelated effects that FDEV can tweak and increase or decrease as they wish. If you want bigger dust clouds ask for bigger clouds, but don't ask for bigger thruster expecting bigger dust clouds because that's not how it works!

 

[Darth Ender]

it's not actually dust in this digital computer game?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!! OMG... my entire understanding of reality has just been blown up and corrected.

Thank you for that.



In other news in regular reality.

It's entirely possible and extremely common for engines to string effects together in dependencies so that designers dont have to create and describe every little effect that happens directly. Things like how a humanoid character moves their arms when they walk. Or what sounds are made when they jump and land on something. And how the environment reacts to say a thruster of a certain size and strength colliding with the surface of a planet.

Like here we can see that the rear thrusters, which are much bigger produce a much larger dust effect (and give a heat mirage effect). it looks as if above a certain height, a general dust effect is produced, but if the thrusters get close enough, they produce their own individual effects too.

overall, the dusting addition is a bonus i was mentioning. which if you bothered to read the OP, i did ask for separately, as an addition to the primary goal of having the thrusters be bigger just because it makes more sense that they are visually. Not to make them bigger just to have more dust (i described the opposite).

That's how language works!