Jump to content

Thoughts on rocketry as of now


Recommended Posts

Another thing after the update : what is your opinion on the hydrogen engine ? 
At the moment, with same amount of liquid fuel tank and oxidizer, it has minor differences with the petroleum engines, with speed and range. Also it exhausts steam instead of CO2. 
In the base game, it had a much bigger gap with the petroleum, Now that there is no temporal tear anymore (or is it?!), balances issues would arise, and I think it is an interesting decision, I am looking forward to seeing where it goes :) 
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Liquid oxygen tank is shorter, and costs less oxygen to refuel, so I would probably go for it if I can.

Can't exactly make a hydrogen engine because it's very hard to make liquid hydrogen. Looking at the stats in sandbox, it's about the same as petroleum engine, but each tank gives you +9 range instead of +6. Since there's no way far enough for you to utilize it, I would stick to the petroleum engine because it's easier to set up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/9/2021 at 1:06 AM, Meltdown said:

Maybe an emergency ejection button? If rocket is stranded, it would become available and you may eject all your dupes in some sort of escape crew capsule (which should be embeded into crew modules). The capsule flies towards the nearest planetoid and lands in random location. After ejection, the rocket is lost. That way, stranded rockets are still potentially dealdy, but dupes may be saved, and cost of mistake may be reduced to rocket's materials and cargo.

This is a nice idea for how it could work. The emergency capsules could be accessed thorugh the pilot seat.

But i think we need other improvements. Like making the trailblazer able to redeploy back to orbit. If the rocket that deployed it is still there it would catch it with the module so you could use it again. If it`s a different rocket it would grab the dupe and discard the trailblazer. Similar to how Apollo moon landers worked. If the trailblazer had small internal storage it would allow you to grab small amounts of stuff without having to make a full base.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

just a idea cargo modules that are swapped/or dropped off  so they can be left behind on other planets, so we can load stuff into them without a rocket present and then the full cargo module loaded into a rocket when 1 arrives

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 2/10/2021 at 8:53 AM, Sasza22 said:

This is a nice idea for how it could work. The emergency capsules could be accessed thorugh the pilot seat.

But i think we need other improvements. Like making the trailblazer able to redeploy back to orbit. If the rocket that deployed it is still there it would catch it with the module so you could use it again. If it`s a different rocket it would grab the dupe and discard the trailblazer. Similar to how Apollo moon landers worked. If the trailblazer had small internal storage it would allow you to grab small amounts of stuff without having to make a full base.

 

Not sure if it's a bug, but you can reuse the rocket that dropped the trailblazer module.  After you drop the trailblazer, give it a new destination, and it will go, assuming it has range left.  I've been using this to land supplies with the same rocket that drops the trailblazer since I figured it out.  I always drop rovers first so I know how much height I'll have for the rocket, though.

 

I do think that's a bug, as the autopilot flies slower than duplicants do, and when I do this, the rocket travels at the duplicant rate, not the autopilot rate.  So a real, permanent solution would be nice.  Even just keeping the existing behavior but moving at autopilot speed would probably be sufficient.

 

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm doing this with one-man ships, so no, there isn't another pilot on the craft.

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After some experiments in sandbox, I can certainly name 3 issues with current rocketry:

1. Battery module shouldn't be required to provide power for command module while rocket is on ground.

Currently, if you want to power machines inside the rocket, you have to either build generator inside, or build battery module and connect it to power line. This forces to expend either valuable space inside or valuable module slot, just in order to get something working on the ground, while in space electricity consumption could be 100% covered by the engine.

I think that battery module should be completely optional, and there should be an option to power grounded rocket without it. Preferably, there should be a platform power port building that transfers power to rocket on the platform.

2. We shouldn't require cargo modules to use their corresponding output fittings inside the rocker.

Currently, if you want to output gas into command module, you need both powered output fitting and corresponding cargo module. Which again, forces us to expend module slot in order to do something it isn't actually required. Being able to buffer contents with cargo module may be useful, but sometimes you don't have to use cargo module at all. 

For example, you might want to buffer oxygen for command capsule into the gas cargo module, but you don't need solid cargo module to simply supply fridge/carbon pit inside rocket with few kilograms of food.

I believe that deciding to build or not to build cargo modules while using input/output fittings should be player's responsibility. 

3. Rocket fueling could be done with platform ports, too.

This is much less important issue than previous two, but still worth mentioning. It would be great if we could designate platform ports to work with rocket fuel/oxidizer tanks instead of cargo modules/output fittings. This would simplify rocket platform setups, and allow to make them universal for any rocket configuration.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@MeltdownI think that's an excellent suggestion. Have all relevant ports on the rocket platform. I can imagine there are some technical or complexity issues with doing so though, i.e. would it require multiple liquid ports specific to fuel and liquid oxidizer and storage? I don't really mind the idea that the fittings require storage because there needs to be some place for the material to go. I would love the crew cabin having some level of gas/liquid/solid storage built in, at least enough to support standard life support systems for a couple cycles. The reason I think platform connections would be great is mostly because right now it's a bit of a pain having different configurations of rockets landing on platforms and having to constantly adjust fuel ports, power connections, or rebuild ladders because dups accessing the rocket platform is really wonky. Particularly with the smaller modules not being reachable unless a ladder is built closer that can't be done while a larger rocket module is there (and prevents larger module building). On multiple occasions I've built a rocket, sent it to a planetoid, and then was unable to get my dups out of the rocket because the ladder configuration wasn't setup exactly right for the specific rocket I landed and same for the various port connections not lining up. This results in an entirely wasted trip as I have to send the dupes back, send a rocket I know for sure works there, make adjustments or build another platform, leave, then resend the original rocket...or the worst case scenario not being able to load fuel and having to reload the game or the dupe is stuck and dies. I'm also not a fan of the positional requirement of the port modules to load into and out of cargo, particularly in light of the fact that we have to build ladders, which gets a little tedious when having to build very tall for the rocket and then very wide at the base on at least one side to connect the ports. The system works right now, but it's a little clunky and unintuitive while also requiring constant care to make sure any rocket that uses it fits and everything works and is accessible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The rocket platforms are designed so that rockets can land on any one but if each rocket requires different connection ports and a different ladder setup it doesn`t work properly. Making every rocket connection through the platform would fix that but we`d need like 6 more add ons (liquid fuel, gas fuel, solid fuel, solid oxydizer, liquid oxydizer, power) so it would take a lot of space to make an universal rocket platform. Then maybe we could use an elevator add on allowing the dupe to acces the command module directly from the ground level.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Sasza22 said:

it would take a lot of space to make an universal rocket platform

Space-efficientcy factor adds challenge value by itself.

Theoretically, you could utilize building ports between platforms. Currently, if two platforms are "connected" by seqence of ports, any port ajdacent to any of those platforms may be used to send cargo to both of rocketes on those platforms (AFAIK the input would go to first rocket built/landed, and, if it can't take more cargo, it would go to second rocket). However, currently there is not enoght tools to reliably choose rockets or prevent cargo from going into wrong rocket in this setup.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Please be aware that the content of this thread may be outdated and no longer applicable.

×
  • Create New...