Hovering

[m7macross]

Ok I know someone has already asked this at some point now, but im over 20 pages and not seeing so I'll ask again. I've been trying to get my ship to hover, yes it is a large ship that is to work for me on the planet then at our choice in time take back to space. Getting it into space is easy. But while on the planet we can't get it to hover for the life of us. Even in creative with both Hydrogen and Atmospheric thrusters and both. and it still keeps sinking. Any info from my fellow engineers that may help with this.

[Hello There]

How to hover?

Trying to create a 'skimmer' that hovers a few meters above the ground. I thought that I could just override downward thrusters until they barely lifted my but they go from 0 lift at 25kn to launching me into the atmosphere at 30kn. Is there an alternate way to make this work?

[Tynendir]

Use one thruster to override no? Instead of using all your thrusters use only one at the center of mass (2 parallel or 4 circling, etc; depending on your ship's mass), I haven't tried yet so I wouldn't know what actually work. Also having a heavier ship with more thrusters might help.

[Hello There]

I am using atmospheric thrusters. Guess the solution is just to only override when you want to ascend/descend and use dampeners for maintaining. More button on my control bar but should work at least.

[Legas]

Dampners will keep your ship hovering static if there is enough thruster to counteract gravity.

[Hello There]

It doesn't adjust to changes in the terrain, which might not be possible right now without wheels. So every little bump or hitting a slope means you have to adjust manually

[Twelve]

im working on somehting atm, not fully tested but its made like this.

thrusters facing down with inertial damp on (as many as needed to keep in the air or so that it falls ever so slightly)
a few more downward thrusters hooked up to sensor that is activated by proximiy to the ground

lateral movement can be done with wasd or go with thruster overide on the forward and reverse thrust to make it feel more like a hover vehicle.

you have to ballance the amound of downward thruster very careful otherwise it bounces as it moves along.

edit: quad ninjad!

[Namdoolb]

You can use CTRL and right click (i think) to enter a specific value on the slider. That way you can be exactly as precise as you want to be.

The thrust you want will be somewhere between 25 and 30, you just gotta pin it down.

When you do get close enough, you can use a pair of sensors to control the override on the thruster(s) and keep you at a specific height.

One sensor needs to have a range slightly longer than the other. (probably by about 0.5 meters)
(They both need to be set to detect asteroids and nothing else.)

You'll also need to make your downward thrusters into a control group. If you don't know how to do this, look up a guide... It's pretty easy.

On the longer ranged sensor, click on "setup actions", drag the thruster group into the right hand box, and select reduce thruster override.

On the shorter ranged sensor, drag the thruster group into the left hand box, and select increase thruster override.

What this will do:
When the ground leaves the longer ranged sensor's radius it will reduce thruster power, and when the ground enters the shorter sensor's radius it will increase thruster power.

[Hello There]

Perfect. I'm out of time to try it for now but that sounds exactly like what I need and I"ll give it a shot when I can. Good to know also that asteroid sensor setting works for planets too.

[Sovereign]

Not really sure what you mean. In terms of the physics, when you have atm thrusters with inertial dampeners turned on, the downward-facing engines will provide enough thrust to exactly counter the acceleration due to gravity. While it's technically dependent on altitude (since the thrusters are less effective in lower gs and gs decrease with altitude) it doesn't actually matter since you have to travel a large distance to see a difference in gravity, nothing you are gonna see if you are based on the surface, even on a mountain. That being said, you can't just set a certain thrust and have it maintain a specific altitude. You will always have to use the thrust up and thrust down (which cuts downward thrusters) to change altitude.

[PUMMA]

too heavy. add thrusters

[Jarvavion]

As dumb as it sounds, are you sure your inertia dampeners are on?

[F-16D Block-60 FemboiDILF]

Jiggle the cord, clean the gunk out of the mouse.

The main thing though is having enough atmospheric thrusters. I'd say, for like a red ship, a dozen small thrusters, and a couple large. Also, for whatever reason, all ships seem to sink a small bit every second, unless literally nothing is happening, or they're coasting in one direction at a .5ms or more. You will notice this when working on a hovering ship.

[King Benjamin]

Newtons law of motion bruh

Look its simple, Force, Mass, Acceleration.

F = m x a² ---> 1 Newton = 1 Kilogram X Meter's per Second Squared.

10,000,000 Kilogram Ship X 104 meters per second squared = 108,160,000,000

Simply, 108 Meganewtons. (108.16 but dont worry about that)

Large Atmospheric thrusters have 4.5 Meganewtons worth of force.

108 meganewtons Divided by 4.5 meganewtons = 24

Conclusion, you need 24 Large Atmospheric Thrusters to provide enough force to accelerate your ships mass of 10,000,000 kg, that and enough power to fuel said thrusters so they are working at 100%.

At least I think thats how it works hehe. :^)


TLDR: SCIENCE! (Your ships mass times 10 divided by 4,500,000. It wont be as accurate like the above version, but just add 2-4 extra) :^)

Now..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-H8PuweRVA

[SpetS]

dont forget the additional mass of the 24 trhusters

[Rodrigo]

Personal experience:

4 large atmospheric thrusters will lift 1.200.000 Kg or 1200 tons of mass.
5 small reactors should be used cause of peak power usage
1 large reactor will do the job instead if your prefer.

Keep the ship aligned, if is not aligned and leveled with the horizone it will start going down either forward or backwards (nose up). Make your the the crosshair is in the middle of the horizont indicator and its aligned, hit Z and your ship should stay there immovable.