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Barometer


ManTheMister

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Seeing as different planets have different atmospheric pressures, and I assume that air resistance decreases with altitude (if it doesn’t then it should), what if there was a sensor that measured the current air pressure/resistance? Not sure quite how useful it would be, but I don’t imagine it would be too difficult to implement.

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1 hour ago, lack_ofabettername said:

Isn't that just a  reskined altitude sensor?

No, different planets have different air resistances, so it could be used to make drones behave more consistently across multiple planets. It probably wouldn’t do much once you started a mission, but it could help calibrate your drone for a specific planet upon starting a mission.

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This would be a measurement of your drone's resistance to movement; it would only be an altimeter in as much as your resistance to movement would change (does it?) at higher altitudes.

As MTM says, I'm not sure it'd be useful, but it is a measurement that could be logicked on.  Anybody have a thought on when it'd be useful?

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With it, you could have 3 different sections, and depending on what section it is, you adjust the strength of dynamic thrusters to get a more consistent speed on different planets. When using a speed sensor, you slow down when you turn, so the barometer might be more effective.

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It's niche, but I could see this being very useful for consistency. If one were to do some program-fu, it would be possible to have dynamic thrusters automatically adjust their output for additional drag. If one activated self adjusting dynamic thusters like regular thrusters, so long as they don't top or bottom out, your thrusters would feel the same regardless of the resistance. If you're fine tuning an autonomous drone or performing tight maneuvers inside a planet, consistent output is important. Having this capability also opens the door for planets with dynamic pressure variances, such as what can occur in storms.  

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But adjusting your thrusters so they maintain X speed despite air resistance would do that too.  We're still talking about a measurement our speedometer can make; though they measure different things, they both make a measurement responsive to drag that can achieve this effect.

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I don't think a speedometer would be nearly as consistent. With a speedometer,  the effects of momentum and gravity alone would cause your thrusters to be constantly changing their output to compensate, making low speed precision flying difficult. A barometer would simply click a setting the moment the level starts that adjusts your output. While both sensors could normalize top speed, I think a barometer could also normalize momentum. 

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The barometer you mention would have to have multiple logic sets, repeated for every possible barometric pressure you want to adjust for, and that's assuming your barometer has more than two ranges to activate tags from.

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But you still need a separate set of logic, duplicated for each air pressure that adjusts your speed, which could become monstrous.  Without feedback from the thruster, you have to gauge that result against a sensor that judges the thruster's effectiveness - like a speedometer. You may be trying to make thrust consistent, but it's more likely you would never have a precise bead on your performance. 

Also, your barometer would have one defined setting, x to y, in the tolerance, and then x to zero and y to infinity.  Not tight tolerances in all the settings, though having multiple barometers on board would help. 

Anywhere else you could use it?  This is just really a fringe case, I don't think I would suggest that this is a feature we need just for thrust control. 

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The current data on air pressure shared by the planet description is low-medium-high-very high. If air pressure is that simple, that could be achieved with four barometers connected to four timed logic blocks. Even less, if you want to get canny.  A bit of data collection with an altimeter will tell you how long the timers need to set the thrusters. I can't bring myself to put "just" in front of thrust control. I've played too many reflex dependent games where consistency is the difference between victory and losing your controller in a field. 

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Have you really seen a difference in thrust control between the core and the sky?  If it exists, it's not influential enough for me to be sure it exists, and it's certainly never led me to mishandle a craft.

Beyond that, all you're really talking about doing is putting a speed limit on your drone, with a measurement other than the speedometer measurement.  I've made speedometer-based responses that tune thrust to perfectly counteract local gravity and activate thrust to stop all movement the moment the player is not manually activating thrust, and limit speed in zero-resistance environs to avoid collision damage, all dynamically, and on a single drone.  I really don't think a speedometer is a bad tool for this.

Being unable to think of a single other use for the barometer - something conceivably good for only one thing that can be done by another sensor - I'm just not sure I'd recommend it.  I'd rather hand dev time spent on other parts.

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