Recoupler part.

[The_Cubed_Martian]

like the decoupler, although the two separated parts are connected by a faint energy beam. and when the assigned key is pressed the two parts are pulled together and rejoin, allowing them to be decoupled a second or third time. it would make it much more fun to have mini-drones in our builds.

[Markus]

Hmm, do you mean like a "physical coupling"? In the way that train-carts are connected to each other?

Maybe we could add such a part, that you have a "coupler" part. And if you activate it, all other "couper" parts which are touching it (or are near it), simply stay connected to it in a rigid way as if it would be normally linked together. And if you release the "coupler" part, the other parts detach from that spot.

[Roger]

This would be like a Traktor beam recoupler. Hm...nice. Upvoted myself 😃

[STM]

Good idea! Upvoted👍

[Marker Mage]

So these faint energy beams... They remain after decoupling and just pull back the part for recoupling, not allowing recouplers to switch what they recouple to?

[The_Cubed_Martian]

Yup! thats the idea, the energy beam would bend and curve and all that, and re couplers can only recouple to the parts that they were once coupled with. furthermore the tractor beam thing can only apply so much force, so you could end up with some interesting physics based problems to work around if both parts being decoupled have thrusters.

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[Markus]

Pulling back the parts is not a problem and probably easily possible, but re-aligning them is probably tricky  How would you like the disconnected part to re-attach? Even if it re-aligns in the same way, the shape might be different making it difficult to re-attach, hmm  But the idea is good, maybe we can find a good solution.

[Entity]

Why a REcoupler and not a generic coupler block?

Then you can make snake drones without making your own bulky magnet based connectors to link the segments.

 

[Entity]

14 minutes ago, Markus said:

Hmm, do you mean like a "physical coupling"? In the way that train-carts are connected to each other?

Maybe we could add such a part, that you have a "coupler" part. And if you activate it, all other "couper" parts which are touching it (or are near it), simply stay connected to it in a rigid way as if it would be normally linked together. And if you release the "coupler" part, the other parts detach from that spot.

Exactly like railway couplings, yes.

Multi-point couplings sound good too.

Also throws a bone at people wanting struts I guess

[Markus]

Ah, interesting. Yes, this way we could have some kind of pseudo-struts  I'll definitely have to suggest that to the others in the team ^^

But as always, I can't make any promises. But would be an elegant solution, I think  

[Lurkily]

12 hours ago, Markus said:

Pulling back the parts is not a problem and probably easily possible, but re-aligning them is probably tricky  How would you like the disconnected part to re-attach? Even if it re-aligns in the same way, the shape might be different making it difficult to re-attach, hmm  But the idea is good, maybe we can find a good solution.

I would say when in range, and the input is active, exert force on the coupler block to rotate it to it's coupled orientation, and pull it closer.  Couple the blocks once they're close enough.

I would replace the decoupler with a "coupler," since this basically obsoletes the decoupler.

[Zixvir]

this allows the player to make a spinning drone that goes in and out easier.

upvote

[Woworm]

This sounds accomplishable easily using small magnets, and it sounds a little complicated but I like it. upvoted.

[Zixvir]

this makes the player have a reason to attach multiple couplers to their drone.

[Catacomb Crabbo]

I think that it would work like a free hinge when connected, so if you wanted to have the connection to be rigid then you would have to use two parts

[Ællin]

Think it could be had that the coupler parts would only attach to ones that share the same key input or Tag input
This would allow targeted coupling, as well as make it have a nice potential for complexity