[Long Term] Acceleration/deceleration/turn rate dependent on mass and number of engines.

It would be nice to see acceleration/deceleration/turn rate as a variable based on the mass of your ship and number of engines it has instead of it being essentially a constant.

Yes this is one the thing I need to add since a long time. Turn rate already depends on you ship mass though.

I double checked and yes it does depend on your ships mass but the difference in handling between huge ship(like yours) and a small ship is barely noticeable.

Saint Just:
Pitch 360: 8s
Yaw 360: 8s
Roll 360: 4s

Too Much Neon:
Pitch 360: 5s
Yaw 360: 5s
Roll 360: 3s

I think that you should be able to modify the turning speed of your ship with some sort of system block. Having an innate turning based on thrusters and mass is a good starting point, but if people start making Star Destroyers TO SCALE then this mechanic could get out of control. Maybe make a system block that can increase or decrease your turning speed with a slider. Put two of them together to make an even bigger output.

Being able to turn at a reasonable rate is a struggle I've seen in many space sims. Space Engineers solves this with the "Gyroscope" machine. Putting multiple gyroscopes on a ship will make it turn faster. However, there isn't any way, aside from adding more mass to the ship, to make them turn slower.

Starmade probably has the worst turning out of all the space sims I've played. It is solely based on mass and shape. Because of this, small ships spin out of control when rotating and large ships take entirely too long to rotate. Being able to change the speed either up or down with just a single device would be preferable. Of course there should be limits to this to help balance the game out when space battles become more popular, but getting a device that works properly should be the first goal.

Keep the turn rate based on mass, but give an option to modify it with the proper device or devices.

Hey thanks for this constructive input !

Yes I wanted to use a vernier block/brick to add more maneuverability to a ship. Now making them turn less fast seems a bit weird, we will see if we need that after further testing when I will improve the game. Now this block will have a power consumption so it will come at the expense of less system elsewhere. You wont be able to transform a destroyer into a starfighter also, but you might add more maneuverability if you need it. Also as I will add several race/faction with their own tech, some engine will have different stats, there will race that have slow ships and some other (more advanced hence costlier in ressources) will have faster blocks for the same power consumption.

Now for the turning speed on very low and high mass : I actually have a maximum maneuverability, that will be the one you will get on "space scooter", just the bare minimum components to fly a ship. There is also a maximum mass after which the maneuverability dont drop anymore, so big big ship wont fly as a brick. Of course all these value will change during testing that is goal of it (MIN MAX turn speed, MAX weight). The formula and use a log curve instead of an linear interpolation, so it the drop in maneuverability become less and less as you add more mass.
I might also add an intertia tensor to have the shape of ship have an impact.

I was thinking of the other space sims I've played and sometimes I wish there was a way to slow the turning down, but it could be that they aren't balanced very well for turning. Putting a maximum turning speed at the right interval would alleviate the problem of turning too fast. I was just thinking of a way to give the player the control, but it might be unnecessary if you are able to hit the right speed. I always think in terms of giving the players more control as most people will play the game differently. Think of it like being able to adjust the "mouse sensitivity" like in a first person shooter.

well, the non-plus-ultra version for controlling turning speeds would be to make thrusting and steering physics based.

you have a thruster in that direction, you can apply thrust there.
if that force is besides the center of mass you rotate accordingly.

combined with smart thruster controls (that you can use normal thrusters for steering as well), specialised RCS blocks that provide multidirectional thrust without large setup (including some sideways thrust from normal thrusters as well, "thrust vectoring" ) and a bit of leeway when the thrust isnt pefectly balanced (or the control system automatically compensating) it could work well.

basically what Kerbal Space program does but with a bit more smartness in the thruster controls.

sunwupen wrote:
Starmade probably has the worst turning out of all the space sims I've played.  It is solely based on mass and shape.  Because of this, small ships spin out of control when rotating and large ships take entirely too long to rotate.  Being able to change the speed either up or down with just a single device would be preferable.  Of course there should be limits to this to help balance the game out when space battles become more popular, but getting a device that works properly should be the first goal.

well, you can redistribute engine power from rotation to translation in starmade, though.