Main Boosters & Attitude Stabilizers

Steady progress this month as I continue rebuilding the main flight systems. Things are going a bit slower than I'd originally intended, but as I mentioned last month, the goals have shifted. I'm not worried so much about 'catching back up' to where I was before. Instead, I'm focusing on building robust systems that work, more or less, the way I imagine the final version to work, right off the bat.

I'm also just being smarter in the way I structure the code, taking refactoring detours as needed. Whenever I find myself about to write a comment like "Dear future me," I ask myself if I'd be better off taking a little sidequest rather than adding another point to the future todo list. So far, future me has appreciated the effort.

Booster System

Wooosh

The boosters work basically the same way as before, but there are some important changes. First, just like with the RCS thrusters, the port & starboard boosters are modeled independently, and accumulate damage asymmetrically, requiring occasional adjustments & repairs. They're also upgradable, with a few different booster options already added to the game.

As before, there are 3 boost modes: reverse, normal (formerly 'maneuvering'), and overdrive (formerly 'boost'). Once I get around to putting the cockpit together, there will be a shift lever to change modes, rather than console buttons, because that feels more badass space trucky to me. Boost is now separate from RCS, so you'll still have access to RCS regardless of boost mode. There's no longer a docking mode. Instead, you'll have more control over RCS power to facilitate high precision docking maneuvers.

Unlike the previous 'boost mode', overdrive is intended for emergency situations only. It provides a lot of extra thrust, but burns through fuel prohibitively quickly. Speaking of fuel, it actually has mass now, as does the fuel tank itself, which is also upgradable.

Finally, you'll no longer have to throttle down completely in order to change booster modes, but it will still be best practice to do so in order to avoid unnecessary damage to the boosters. There's now a 'throttle lock' toggle that will prevent accidentally shifting while throttled up, but whether or not you use it is up to you.

Attitude Stabilizers

I'm currently finishing up the new & improved attitude stabilizers, which I'm calling gyroscopic because it sounds cool, but they're modeled as reaction wheels. I say 'they' because rotational velocity is now considered on all 3 axes independently. Each axis has a wheel with a maximum 'saturation' velocity, above which they need to be desaturated manually by applying rotation in the opposite direction via RCS. This makes the system slightly less magical, and brings it more into line with it's intended gameplay use, which is just to bleed off that last little bit of angular velocity as you steady the ship. It also means that I can give the stabilizers meaningful stats and add them to the repair/replace/upgrade system along with the boosters & RCS thrusters.

I'm still working on these, so I'll have a little more to say about them next month. But, like, they're cooler than before is what I'm trying to say here.

Coming Up Next

Once work on the stabilizers is complete I need to spend some time modeling the internals of the fuel system. That shouldn't take too long, I don't think, so I'll finally be able to move on to system scale & close range physics, I MEAN IT THIS TIME PROBABLY!