Topic: Hoverbots

I have no idea how any of these could be implemented or what game balancing
would be required - I'm not a game designer; I'll leave that to the experts. smile

Terrain:
Make the terrain effect the speed and manoverability of the bots. It should be slower
going uphill for example, faster on concrete, swamp-like terrain somewhere in between.
Perhaps allow bots to maintain speed going uphill by burning accumulator? I suppose you
could free-wheel down hill and recharge the accumulator?

Hoverbots:
I don't mean flying bots but hovercraft instead of tracks or wheels. Coupled with the
terrain mods the hoverbots would still slow down going up hill but would maintain speed
on swamp-like ground. Then add more lakes to the islands and allow the hoverbots to skim
across the lakes or perhaps even go around the inland shore of the islands.

2 (edited by Celebro 2011-12-04 15:08:26)

Re: Hoverbots

Hoverbot freighter coming next week I think, dunno how it's going to work though.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Hoverbots

I think this is a great idea.

I would like to see more tracked bots as well as wheeled bots too.

The Gifter
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Re: Hoverbots

Hoverbots, like the upcoming freighter, should be able to ignore certain terrain gradients and/or objects (like rocks & plants) and traverse water.

Re: Hoverbots

As always, game mechanics trumps physics, but 'hovering' doesn't mean the vehicle can ignore slopes.

---- Just for fun ----

Center of gravity and power to weight are two defining factors when looking at the ability for a vehicle to navigate a slope.

On a flat surface the weight of the vehicle is perdendicular to gravity, to the motor only needs to overcome friction and the initial inertia of the veihcle to get it moving (Fluidic resistnace comes in later as you reach higher speeds). As the angle increases, the motor now has to increase the power delivered to the drive to overcome a % of the weight of the veichle. As the angle increases the greater the force it needs to overcome.

The gravity vector changes as the weight shifts from the front to the back, once the vector passes a certain point, the vehicle will tip. The lower the center of gravity, the higher that angle can be.

If we assume the hoverbot uses some kind of anti-gravity, then neither of the abover issues applies, and basically it could easily 'fly'. But since they used 'hover' and not 'jet' I'm going to assume its electromagnetics generating a field between itself and the ground.

Move on Water:
In order to move, it has to 'push' against the ground. Equal and opposite reactions at work here. While it may be able to hover over water, it can't push against it effectively; water would just roostertail out the back with very little forward motion. It would need to add another horizontal propulsion mechanism then to move on water.

Tipping

The purpose of the hover lift is to push vertically against the ground with an assumed horizontal component for forward motion. As the angle increases the weight is no longer distributed equally along the EM lifting surface. Reasonably smart systems can reduce the amount of lift at the front and transfer that power to rear lift and forward thrust.

At some point, depending on the CoG, the front of the vehicle will require zero power, the entire weight of the vehicle is essentially all on the rear 'tires'. If the rear thrust pods are powerful enough to hold the weight of the entire vehicle, then it won't bottom out at this point, however the rear pods are also burdend with the entire horizontal thrust capacity too.

Assuming power isn't an issue, if the slope angle continues to change, the gravity vector will eventually move downslope of the rear pod, resulting in it tipping over.

While this event would be determined by the CoG location, I think its more likely that the hovercraft would bottom out due to weight to power ratio during the front to back transition.

I say that mostly because its ineffcient design to have the ability to output 100% power to weight on a vehicle not designated for vertical travel. That is, there may be a version of hoverbot out there capable of traversing slopes exceeding the zero front thrust envelope, but wouldn't be a cargo vessel that's expected to mostly travel on highways.

tl;dr - It would be cool, but OP, for a cargo bot to cut across valleys and mountains. It could easily be LESS capable of traversing slopes, but more power effcient as it doesn't have to over come friction.

Re: Hoverbots

as far as i can see and guess from the informations we got about the freighter - its advantage over lithus is its cargo hold and its offensive capabilities (two weaponslots?)

im rather sure that there will be more QQ about its negative properties when they get announced.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear