A little brainstorming about hinges, and very responsive sensor-based movement.

[Lurkily]

So hinges, motorized hinges.  At once, they both have tremendous potential, and they are a tremendous disappointment.  Tremendous potential because of what they can do - swing a sword, aim a gun, walk like you have legs!  But also a tremendous dissappointment, because of their inability to handle these tasks well.

I want to brainstorm a few ideas on how to make hinges useful.  Let's run down the problems they have.

1. Speed.  You can't really move them intelligently.  They have one speed, and you can use very fast intervals on a timer to slow that down by rotating intermittently (which is kind of slower) but you can't really speed them up or slow them down.

2. Speed, again.  You can't move intelligent assemblies quickly.  To be intelligent, you need sensors as child parts.  To put sensors on them, they get heavy and clumsy.  To let them rotate freely (without using yet more sensorts) you have to use long connections that are inherently unstable, leaving hinged assemblies sometimes wanting to shake themselves to pieces if you move them too fast.  And every sensor you put on them is as unstable as the hinge itself is.

3. Self-awareness.  Hinges don't know what direction they're pointing.  You can hang sensors on them, but it makes them clumsy and weird and jittery with the weight unless you make them move slowly or incrementally, which limits their responsiveness.

4.  No 'smart' activation criteria.  You can't move left or right ninety degrees.  You can't turn to a specific angle.  You can move left one second, but if you change its speed, you have to change that time, too, and everything reliant on that interval. 

Hinges, unless used in the simplest possible ways, almost always have the potential to 'go bad'.  End up at an unexpected angle, wedged against something, switching directions too quickly until they shake apart, or grinding parts against terrain until they explode.  They NEED at least the capacity for intelligent handling.  

 

[Garheardt the Black]

To clarify, motorized hinges recently received the option to adjust the speed of their motion. Were you referring to an inability to adjust a motorized hinges movement speed during a mission? 

 

I would definitely like to see motorized hinges become more attractive. I use them for an elaborate hanger bay door in one setup, but it required a great deal of troubleshooting to get the motion to work without looking tacky or failing unexpectedly. activating the door with anything short of a carefully calibrated logic block was asking to blow the whole door off, trapping the drone inside. For other moving parts, I've found motor-less hinges actuated by thrusters are often more effective, which seems like a missed opportunity.  

[Lurkily]

6 hours ago, Garheardt the Black said:

Were you referring to an inability to adjust a motorized hinges movement speed during a mission? 

Yes, input based adjustment; I seem to recall that being briefly available during the closed alpha.

My ideal - which I expect to be too much of a UI overhaul to deliver - is to be able to add or remove actions to a hinge.  Each action would rotate by x degrees, or rotate to a position of x degrees,  at a speed unique to that action. 

The UI for adjusting parts right now seems to be one size fits all, and I think hinges are too demanding for that. 

[Garheardt the Black]

I could get behind those changes. Some kind of option to have a hinge "ratchet" before breaking would also make me very happy. 

[Lurkily]

Huh.  Ratchet against resistance . . . huh.

I don't think I'd need it if I had pre-set 'move to' angles.  But it would be nice.

[Lurkily]

I had hoped for more response, so I'll post my own thoughts in detail. 

I'd like to be able to add multiple inputs and reactions. Each input would have a rotation speed, rotation angle, and a toggle for whether you rotate to that angle, or rotate that many degrees.  Normal rotation can be achieved with 1 or 0 degree increments. Do not stack multiple activation.  Every activation of the sensor resets the rotation required, instead of adding to it.

Normal scanning, to keep sensors stable, can be at limited speed.  (Though a way to address sensor stability would be welcome.) Sensors at a 15 degree spread left or right can turn the turret very quickly to that exact angle.

[Garheardt the Black]

I would personally like all of this. I do worry that this level of complexity would put off more casual drone engineers. Sadly, as far as triage goes, there may also be a lot of other quality of life tasks ahead of this nuanced kind of awesome. That said, if we are fortunate to see such detail, it may be wise to include a UI setting that hides it initially, but mentions it's existence in a tool tip similar to tags. This could allow users to ease into it without getting overwhelmed.  

[Lurkily]

I would hide the abilities in progression menus, unlock new capabilities. 

But really, a novice drone builder might like the idea of hinges, but what chance do they have of using them well?