Space Engineers

Space Engineers

[v1.5.4] MECS: Motor Extensible Control Sequencer
Trekki  [developer] 27 May, 2019 @ 4:42pm
General Feedback
If you have any ideas for how I could potentially improve the script, this goes here.
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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
Aer0Whiskers 13 Sep, 2020 @ 2:48pm 
It would be convenient if there was a way to speed up the training process. Mainly in terms of Bipedal mecs in regards to setting the speeds for each step.
Setting a speed for the sequence, instead of for each rotor/hinge within the sequence.
(This could be used in other projects, its just I am currently building a mec)

Using the motion where the mec has one leg in front of the body and moving it behind the body to propel the mec forward as an example, it can be tedious setting the speeds right to give it a fluid motion.
The more joints there are, the more difficult and time consuming it gets.

Sequence: The entire motion that happens when you run a [start sequence] argument.
Step: The individual actions that happen within a sequence.


Example:

(The current Bipedal Mec I am making has 1 Hip, 2 Knees, and 1 Ankle)

Taking 4 joints from point A to Point B.

Point A is when one leg on a Bipedal mech is in front of the body.

Point B is when the same leg is behind the body.

Moving from Point A to Point B propels the mec forward.

If you could calculate the difference in angles for each Rotor/Hinge between Point A and Point B (Which the script already does).

Then, add an algorithm that automatically calculates what speed each Rotor/Hinge needs to move for each Rotor/Hinge to arrive at the desired angle at the same time.

This would make it significantly easier to plot out walk cycles or advanced movements that require fluid motion. This would also provide a smoother experience for the user and make the training process a lot faster because of not having to trial and error the right speeds.
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With this feature, I believe it would be possible to set the speed of a sequence rather than just the individual steps.

Referencing back to the example, the sequence from Point A to Point B.
Let's say this is the walk cycle and it propels the mec at 6m/s.

If I wanted a run cycle that propelled the mec at 12m/s, I would have to train an entire different sequence and adjust the speed of every Rotor/Hinge within each step.

If you have a multiplier that could be added to the sequence for the speed of the Rotors/Hinges, it would be unnecessary to create a different sequence.
You could then just add a 2x multiplier to the walk sequence to propel the mec at 12m/s.

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To help with performance, you could have this speed calculation only happen the first time the sequence is started and permanently log the speed of each Rotor/Hinge so it isnt constantly doing math.

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It would be cool if the multiplier could be changed on the go to adjust speeds to provide a more realistic experience depending on the situation.

I don't believe this is possible due to performance issues but none the less should be kept into consideration.
Last edited by Aer0Whiskers; 13 Sep, 2020 @ 3:05pm
Trekki  [developer] 24 Jan, 2022 @ 8:44pm 
I am thinking of eventually getting around to a new script that would be better optimized for controlling legs and sequences, I will be thinking of ways to be able to train walk cycles more effectively. Maybe having some kind of live edit mode where you move the leg once to each position, and then can adjust it's animations bit by bit as it performs the walk cycle. Overall speed and force modifiers would probably be nice too.
Aer0Whiskers 25 Jan, 2022 @ 7:09pm 
Yeah the liver mode would be cool. Maybe even have multiple positions, kind of like frames for a movie
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