@Elana I think Ctrl and + cycles through BuildInfo's different modes and one of them shows thrust vectors.

I'm pretty much out of SE modding for the time being. I fix stuff if it gets broken 'cos Keen changes something but apart from that I'm on extended shore leave.

I have build info, but I don't see anything obvious to indicate which direction it's facing.

My suggestion:

Alter the textures on the other faces of the blocks to show a thrust indicator for placement. It doesn't need to be large, simply having a label that says something like " ^ thrust direction " would help....could even stylize it to match the lcars labels you see on things like doors, power conduits, etc for keeping the trek feel for the label.

@Elana It is difficult. I use BuildInfo so I can visualise the flame vector; I don't know of any other way offhand.

How can we tell which direction the thrusters will push the craft? especially with the ones on slopes, it's difficult to tell which way they are facing for functionality.

@hyphoenix You could make a local copy for yourself of the mod since it's probably not going to change any time soon and then change away to your hearts content. I never get upset when anyone does that; I wish I could give you a config file like with the weapons so you could edit away however much you want.

Maintaining integration between your edits and the original would also require time that I don't have right now. Plus it would open the door for anyone else who has a different idea of balance. Overall the best solution for you is a local copy of the mod that you edit however you like.

To balance it i'd say Impulse should have 10% weaker thrust then Hydrogen, but around 110% more energy use then ION. So, you're forced to pick Hydrogen for power, Ion for efficiency, or Impulse for a mix of both (with the benefit of no damage and small block sizes). If I edited the patch myself that's what I would set

No worries, I understand that.

I know how to make the change. So hypothetically, if I edit the values by myself inside the block definitions closer matching vanilla, could I send you the new files (or values) for you to upload an optional patch? If not I won't change anything, your decision

@hyphoenix The thrusters were designed for really large, really really heavy grids (upwards of 100 mil kg). My greatest wish is for a thruster where the user can select the thrust output in the Terminal. It could "maybe" be done with scripts but it's way beyond my ability.

At the moment I don't have the time or the resources to do anything more than emergency maintenance to a mod that breaks unexpectedly.

Is there a chance we could have an optional version of the mod balanced to the core game, instead of your method? I like it, but with no damage to nearby blocks + very high thrust, it doesn't balance well compared to other vanilla thrusters

@hyphoenix Hmmm, Does the same thing happen if you use different types of vanilla thrusters in a group?

@The Bush Wolf You can use them both together but there'll be lots of blocks that look the same.

I have a bug, if you use a combination of Impulse Engines, select them all, and enable the thrust override. It works great. Now if you select them all again and disable the override, the slider won't reach 0 for all of the engines.

@Qarannia In that case is it workable combining all the modules and the mod pack? Will it interfere at all with anything to you're knowledge?

@The Bush Wolf This module is an equivalent to the mod pack for people who don't want the custom ores / armor. I don't plan on adding anything else to it in the foreseeable future.

Is this module going to be updated and have the building mats like the modpack? Missing several thruster variants and all blocks have the same building material amounts plus the lack of deuterium and tritanium parts.

ok i typicly use ships with light armor like the federation actualy would

@Masterbuilder2.0 Yes, all my ships are built with heavy armor and weight around 70 - 100 million kilograms so I (I had some bigger ones as well and I know others who've made ships 2km long) made them OP.

so these things are just op

oh wow

@Masterbuilder2.0 If your impulse engines are that big then fill most of the space with the cosmetic versions of the Impulse Engines and RCS thrusters.

One reasonable way to balance thrust vs. weight is to take the weight of your ship in kilograms, multiply by 10 to get Newtons and then double that so your ship can safely manage 1G even if you load it up with ore and stuff.

So, for example, if your ship weighs 10 million kilograms then you need 100 million Newtons (or 100MN) of thrust to manage a 1G environment. Double that and you have 200MN so that is how much thrust to put on your ship in each direction.

and these things produce way too much thrust my builds (which i dont post due to the risk of theft)have impuls engines that are about 5 blocks tall and 7 blocks wide

i also seem to have the wrong idea of how much thrust things produce

lol i refitted the uss enterprise by weezy with these things and it accelerated to max speed instantainiously and also knocked loose the escape pods/kelvin pods and made holes in the back of the bridge tone it down much?

@StarfleetPups Ok, good to hear.

i figured it out already. thanks

@StarfleetPups All the Impulse Engines and RCS thrusters have multiple power variants of the same shape. The first variant is always a 1N decorative block that is just there to fill in. Scroll through the variants and select the thrust output that suits your grid. Apart from that there's nothing special, they're just standard Keen thruster code.

before you ask yes i have animated engine installed

hey is there something special i need to do with the impulse engine cause i can't get it to work for some reason.

@Captain Harlock Mod Adjuster should be able to adjust any XML tag value in the SBC files from what I understand. Even tags that aren't there have a default value set by Keen so you should be able to add them in.

OK, I'll take a look at the Mod Adjuster, thanks.

I also looked at the files and settings of the thrusters and compared them with the vanilla thrusters. Apart from the values ​​and the names, the files are practically identical. Since the glow probably wouldn't work so well, would it be possible to create an engine flame with the line: <FlameLengthScale>0</FlameLengthScale>? It doesn't have to be big, just enough to see the difference when accelerating.

If you don't mind, I'd like to make a copy of this mod and rewrite it a bit for our server to test it. Or can Mod Adjuster change these values ​​too?

@Captain Harlock Not as far as I'm aware. If they used emissives then I could do it but Keen doesn't allow the emissives to glow bright enough for my liking. So the "glow" when the impulse engines is turned on is actually a transparent texture like the window textures. It "might" be possible to change the values in game with a script but that's well beyond the scope of my expertise.

Concerning the components for the thrusters, i suggest checking out a mod called Mod Adjuster by BDCarillo. It allows you to tweak pretty much any of the values in the SBC files for a mod since it's just XML. You could set your own values as you think the thruster blocks should be balanced. That way, other users don't get surprised when their super cheap OP thrusters suddenly cost and weight a lot more, and if I ever did change anything it wouldn't affect you as your custom values would overwrite my changes anyway.

Would it be possible to change the impulse thrusters so that they glow more brightly when you accelerate and go black when you turn them off completely? It's hard to tell whether they're on or off because they look the same in every situation.

So generally speaking, these thrusters are great, although I and my gaming friends sometimes have the feeling that they are a bit overpowered...
Realistically speaking, you only need one or two per side for the entire ship, the rest is done with the deco version.

Only the components required for the stronger thrusters should be increased. In general, I and my gaming friends are of the opinion that the RCS and the impulses cost too little material for such thrust.

I also have to say that the RCS thrusters are perhaps a bit too strong. In theory, you no longer need impulse thrusters. Because the RCS are just as strong and even work in the atmosphere.

@JWA Yes, most of them have small block variants. In the case of this module, all the thrusters come in small block size as well.

Do any of these packs work on small grid?

@TORGMASTER Yep, that's the idea. Use the parts you want without the overhead of the parts you don't.

awesome, creating separeted parts, can make you use those mods, without Weapon core