Besiege

Besiege

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Levitation through Vector Entanglement
By Neon
This guide shows you how you can build autostabilisation and levitation devices.

Recommended mods:
Precision Building Project 2 Mod by ITR or another unlimited scaling mod(neccessary)
TGYD building tools (highly recommended)
No bounds mod by ITR (optional)
Being able to edit .bsg-files is also practically essential.
   
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Entangled Systems in General
The name 'Vector Entanglement' describes the connection of two blocks
by either Ropes or Springs.
Because they are one- or two-dimensional,
meaning that the size of the block is zero in two or one dimensions,
the two connected blocks can move freely in the directions where the dimensions are zero.

As you can see,
one vector does not determine the orientation of the blocks,
just its position in one or two axes, in this case the y-axis.








The axis the connected blocks can move in relative to each other is determined
by the starting position and orientation and stays fixed forever.
Because onedimensional blocks or vectors can not be accessed by anything else
but bsg. file editing, twodimensional leviation mechanisms are far easier to build and should be,
if possible, preferred.

A issue that you need to bear in mind while building, is the abilty of ropes to be cut,
even if they are onedimensional.
The hitbox of the rope remains on its original position unless it is two-dimensional and needs to be alligned with the axis you can draw though the entangled blocks.
Autostabilising Systems
The Idea behind Autostabilising Systems is that you contract the connecting vector
and connect the two entangled blocks normally after you moved them away from each other.
That means that these blocks have to be on the same height,
because the orientation of the entanglement is fixed.
Because they are connected normally, that complex will always try to be level with the ground,
but only on the axis you draw between the two connected blocks.
The larger the distance or the strength of the normal connection between the entangled blocks is,the stronger the stabilisation will get.

Here is the setup of the mechanism depicted with colored components:

The rail system is not a neccessary component, but it allows you to determine the position of the moving entangled block much more precisely.
You always have to contract the rope or spring completely before connecting, so your rails has to tolerate some bending, a hinge on the rail's end can be used to archieve that.
When distances are shorter, you can also use springs to pull the block to th grabber

You can decide between two different setups:
Placing two systems horizontally to the ground and perpendicular to each other.
Even though this setup takes up way more space and tends to be more complicated,
it has the advantage of being flat and therefore usable for sleek arial creations.
The components have to be alwys zerodimensional.

Here you can see a construction of an Zerodimensional Autobancing component:

Because one component only prevents tilting back and forth,
you have to use two of them arranged like this:
springs instead of rails allow you to let both components intersect each other.
As you see, both components also need to be connected with each other quite well, weak connections can break if the tilt is strong enough.

Using one autostabilising component placed perpendicular to the ground
with a (0|1|1) rope or spring (the 0-dimension has to face the ground):
It is far more simpler, does not require bsg. file editing because the spring or rope is still visible, is probably more stable, but is tall and sleek instead of flat.

As always, you have to choose between ropes or springs.
Ropes provide you with a very strong resistance to tilting because the can not be streched,
you also can manually change their length,
wich corresponds to the degree it can be tilted before resisting,
but they can be cut wich destroys the mechanism,
and because you can hardly see them,
depending on the its dimensions, you may cut them accidently.
Keep in mind that ropes will not move in directiones they are zerodimensional
(Meaning that your vehicle can drive through its own ropes)

Possible Uses
  • Autostabilising aircraft, like this

  • Vehicles with weak autostabilisation (they refuse to be turned upside down)

  • Unicycles

  • Bombs wich attach to the target and will then be pulled around remotely

  • Missiles with strong autostabilisation (infinite range, but flat travelling path), like this
31 Comments
fat joe 17 Oct, 2021 @ 5:08pm 
I cant find the "Precision Building Project 2" that you listed, is there a link you can copy paste? Also, how do you get multiple starter blocks? Ive tried a lot and I cant get another
Neon  [author] 29 Aug, 2021 @ 6:33am 
Well, my goal was to explain the principle behind the design, so that you would understand that neither a spring nor a rope is neccessary for an autobalancing system
(and newer iterations indeed often don't use them)
swosh 18 Jul, 2021 @ 11:59am 
a rope connected to a grabber boi needs multiple paragraphs of explains according to you lol
Neon  [author] 7 Aug, 2019 @ 8:10am 
magik
FredTheFlipin'PufferFish 6 Aug, 2019 @ 8:54pm 
Wut?
Neon  [author] 18 Mar, 2018 @ 3:39am 
That guide is quite a bit outdated as of now, knowledge is mostly shared orally (?) in the besiege discord [discord.gg] nowadays
Here's a video that explains a better way of doing this:
Face 17 Mar, 2018 @ 5:23pm 
i dont understand any of this
LeCarbonator 6 Oct, 2017 @ 7:26am 
Nevermind, I found it out myself. I tried it with a big creation, and it works like a champ!
LeCarbonator 6 Oct, 2017 @ 7:02am 
If I'd want to attach this to (for example) an aircraft, how would the propellers have to be attached to this?
Loshirai 23 Jul, 2017 @ 8:32pm 
This is great help. I will use this on my future creations :)