Merge Blocks with Pistons, Rotors and Hinges

[Anthony AyeDog]

In the past I've designed ships (expanding cockpits, mostly) that uses a Piston+Merge Block system to allow a ship with SubGrids to still be used by Projectors in their entirety.
Pistons still work perfectly. I can merge the main grid and the sub grid via Merges, then turn one off and retract the piston to separate the two.

I was hoping I could get a similar result with Hinges so I could make large swinging doors for a ship's hangar, but so far I'm not having any luck.

Has anyone been able to get Merge blocks to connect by using a Hinge block? If so, what's the trick to getting em to snap together?

[Psojed]

Well, until someone finds a way to merge the subgrid on top of hinge, you can do a workaround.

The idea is to have everything as one grid, for easy building via blueprint and projector. So, you can create the door with two merge blocks. One merge block will be used to merge with the Hinge and open/close the door. Other merge block will be used to merge with the ship/station. This will allow you to make a blueprint with the door.

There is one caveat - one merge block (on the hinge) still won't get blueprinted. But adding one block manually is much simpler than needing to use two blueprints.

Here's an ugly proof of concept:

https://imgur.com/a/ZB1HSfm

[Jack Schitt]

Psojed の投稿を引用：

He's trying to merge stuff on the hinge with everything else that's not on the hinge.

PS: he has actually shown you. Here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2212215959

I saw that and it registered. In the screenshots shared it looks like it's all the same grid. So that does not answer the question "why bother" using merge blocks? They're not doing anything.
I'm aware the intention is to build large swinging hangar doors. So build the doors and test it. It doesn't seem like they've attempted to build their project. It might just work if you build the doors, Anthony.

Have you tried to build the doors you want to use this for?

If using blueprint's with a projector is an issue (the doors don't show up because they're a separate grid) there's ways around that:

1. Merge the doors before you make the blueprint.
2. Turn creative mode tools on if you're in a survival game.
- Will allow copy/paste the door grid to the main grid.

Does either of those not work? I know I tried making a blueprint with a sub-grid door on it and had this issue where, unless the door was merged with a merge block to the main grid the door wasn't in the blueprint. I had to use merge blocks to make the door and the other grid one grid to make the blueprint then remove the merge blocks after it was built from the projection.

[Anthony AyeDog]

Jack Schitt の投稿を引用：

Psojed の投稿を引用：

He's trying to merge stuff on the hinge with everything else that's not on the hinge.

PS: he has actually shown you. Here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2212215959

I saw that and it registered. In the screenshots shared it looks like it's all the same grid. So that does not answer the question "why bother" using merge blocks? They're not doing anything.
I'm aware the intention is to build large swinging hangar doors. So build the doors and test it. It doesn't seem like they've attempted to build their project. It might just work if you build the doors, Anthony.

Have you tried to build the doors you want to use this for?

If using blueprint's with a projector is an issue (the doors don't show up because they're a separate grid) there's ways around that:

1. Merge the doors before you make the blueprint.
2. Turn creative mode tools on if you're in a survival game.
- Will allow copy/paste the door grid to the main grid.

Does either of those not work? I know I tried making a blueprint with a sub-grid door on it and had this issue where, unless the door was merged with a merge block to the main grid the door wasn't in the blueprint. I had to use merge blocks to make the door and the other grid one grid to make the blueprint then remove the merge blocks after it was built from the projection.

I need the door to be able to be merged with, as well as separate, from the main grid. It allows the entire ship to be used in survivals without having to do additional projectors and the like.

Also, Clang. If the door is fixed to the main grid, even temporarily, it'll not affect physics.


The concept works with Pistons flawlessly, it's hinges that just aren't clicking together.

[entuland]

Not sure how it worked in the past because I've never messed with such things and I'm relatively new to Space Engineers.

My test so far points at pistons + merge blocks, or hinges + merge blocks, or rotors + merge blocks failing if the merge makes the two ends of the piston / hinge / rotor end up on the same grid.

If that would happen, the merge blocks blink yellow / red in a cyclic manner and say "nope".

If instead I use two pistons, two rotors or two hinges, the merge blocks work just fine (but I think this wouldn't achieve the target in the OP, cause you'd end up with a subgrid between the two moving devices and not a single grid).

[Edit] Weird, the first test with just one piston and two merge blocks failed, the second worked. I was able to replicate the technique in the OP at the second attempt, then at the third, it failed again, and failed again at the fourth one. Go figure. Blame Clang.

[entuland]

I think I found the culprit (why it was failing or succeeding seemingly at random with pistons) and the reason why it's likely not going to work with rotors / hinges:

https://imgur.com/a/LuAOsNH

The second image shows how the piston's bounding box is actually 3 blocks, despite starting about 2 blocks when fully retracted - this causes the merge at that exact distance to fail with the error shown in the terminal (collision).

The first image shows how it succeeds if you let the piston extend beyond the third block - the piston head would end up outside of the bounding box allowing the merge to happen (the piston head or whatever it is that is colliding).

In the case of rotors and hinges I believe something like this is happening, because even if I detach the hinge part or the rotor head and I push the "door" in place, the merge block detects that the merge would cause the two collision boxes (the one of the hinge with that of the hinge part) to overlap, causing the red / yellow blinking and the merge to fail with exactly the same message in the terminal.

[Daryl]

In case anyone is seeing the problem still, what worked for me was to use two hinges (limited between 0-45 each):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2374072635
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2374072564

Also I tried detaching the hinge head when they are touching but that didn't fix the issue.

[entuland]

Daryl の投稿を引用：

In case anyone is seeing the problem still, what worked for me was to use two hinges (limited between 0-45 each)

Also I tried detaching the hinge head when they are touching but that didn't fix the issue.

Consistent with the tests mentioned in my messages above - only going to work with a double piston / hinge / rotor at all all times, or with a single piston only if the merge happens beyond the collision box of the piston.

[Anthony AyeDog]

It's interesting to see that it "would" work, but I'd need it to be limited to 2 grids total. Looks like the above screencaps are 3+ grids for hinge merging. I may have to stick with pistons, unfortunately.