@ThomasRoderick Something like that. I'll probably use some different terminology, but yeah, that would be the gist of it.

@spefyjerbf
Something like this?
"The control softwares, originally designed by Nelan Drive Yard to control their distortion impulse drives - a design abandoned by SPE Corp after the Grounding but refined by Nelan Drive Yards, is modified to control the SPE Corp pulsed atomic thrusters."

Also, let's just say that trig thrust is a shoddy design for anything remotely related to orbital travel.

@spefyjerbf Cannons... So a pulsed atomic drive! Looking forward to it.

Ah. A misunderstanding on my part. I will certainly mention it in the case that I use your throttleability logic (which I probably will if I build a voidframe). I will probably use a cannon approach, but the throttle logic will definitely be appropriated (Trig thrust isn't good on warp-capable ships, so your version of throttleability is MUCH better for space travel).

@spefyjerbf Not necessarily a crossover, more like "the technology, revised by Scarlet Crimson, CEO of Nelan Drive Yard" and something like that. Note that Crimson left human space before she revised the impulse drive so actual collab between Nelan and SPE Corp is rare if not simply unheard of. And that her company makes alcubierre drives first and foremost, but SPE Corp use slipstream drives, so there's even less collab.

@ThomasRoderick That would be a pretty fun crossover! I’ll consider making one.

@spefyjerbf Also, IIRC a twenty-metric-ton starfighter is not exactly a voidframe... So you don't really need to use inertial dampeners (aka XML the mass) to achieve high speeds.
And please make sure to mention Crimson (full name: Scarlet Crimson) and Nelan Drive Yard if you're ever to make another impulse-powered craft.

@ThomasRoderick That fits very well with my understanding of the lore, with some good individuality on your part too. Definitely, a warp drive that just imparted a massive force on a ship would kill the entire crew - your explanation of a warp drive makes more sense.
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Orbitas had some extra lore related to everything breaking (I think the term was "The Grounding", but "Flashout" sounds better tbh.
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Man. I should make a new voidframe sometime!

@spefyjerbf Also, the repulse drives on the Ethos of Settlement- class freighters and the Partemidon raiders are explained as "Slipstream" drives, or warp drives that "dives" into subspace/hyperspace to achieve high velocities (Starfire ships use jump drives that simply wormhole the ship through two locations, and Nelan ships use accelerated alcubierre drives). Because trust me, nobody is going to survive that much acceleration without being turned into a fine paste on the cockpit wall - assuming the craft did not disintegrate first.

@spefyjerbf I'll try to see which works best.
A snippet from the lore of the starfighter:
"Never again shall the flyers of SPE Corp be chained by gravity and bound by air, forever longing for the stars they can never return to. I rebuilt the drive from ground up, and the end result is here. Ships bearing the mark of SPE shall once again soar through the endless void with majesty and grace. May SPE Corp grow ever stronger, and may the spark of human innovation never die. Your eternal friend, Crimson".

Note that Crimson (an OC) is the one in-universe who refined the impulse drives after the "Flashout" incident (aka. the upgrade that broke old impulse drives), and her company, Nelan Drive Yard (yes, that's an OC and a star wars reference) along with her old company, Starfire Tech (another OC) are the ones building FTL drives and capital ships, and SPE Corp is the one building sublight engines for many Starfire ships along with their usual products. Vira is explained in-lore as ambi-atmospheric (fully capable both in and out of the atmosphere) scout crafts carried onboard Starfire FTL science ships when humanity first explored the stars.

Exactly that logic! Pretty much using the “peaks” as light pulses.

@spefyjerbf
like constant1 * sin(time * constant2) + (constant1/2) - (constant3 - Throttle)?
or perhaps the same function but cosine?

True, though I am just not sure how the code works. The way that numerical integration works with Funky Trees is counterintuitive for me, and may be buggy too. I'm not sure how to fix your code, but I can provide a substitute that uses some nice trig arithmetic. Each cycle stays the same length, but amount of time that the light is on can vary with throttle.

@spefyjerbf That's why I gave you that code in the first place...

The Generic Form:
repeat(sum(constant1), constant2) - (input)
The code means that the each "cycle" is (constant2/constant1) seconds long, and in (input/constant2) of the time the light will not be turned on - at least on paper...

@ThomasRoderick ah. Yeah, I’m not sure how to do that. Maybe superimposing a sine wave over a value of 1-Throttle would work.

@LucasNicky Thanks!

@spefyjerbf Ok... sorry for bothering! The point is that the time for the entire cycle is fixed but the time for the "pulse" is differentdepending on the throttle to make it looking like a pulsed plasma thrust.

@ThomasRoderick I cant test it at the moment because work is being really demanding these days. If you want flash rates to change with throttle, you can also use a sine function that has a throttle-dependent frequency.

@spefyjerbf How's the beacon light code I gave you? Shove it in the "input" part of the light and its flash rates should change according to the throttle input. The thing is that the beaconlight exhaust plume cannot change in length, so I'm thinking: if length cannot be changed, how about the flash rate to simulate pulsed plasma thrusters? And there is the prototype code.

@ThomasRoderick If you are within your part budget, then I don’t see why it would hurt to have those thrust levels. The nice part is that the control scheme will be intuitive, too!

@spefyjerbf Yeah, basically my thought is somewhere on three or four different forward thrusts levels and a reverse level (yes there will be reverse thrust on the final model). I'm wondering whether I should make it |0|~|100| or |0-25|25-50|50-75|75-100| (each bar a "gear")...
Set acceleration to three-zero Gs, aye sir!

Also, one code to simulate engine lights, although it seems to be slow motion only:
repeat(sum(20), 1) - (1 - Throttle)

@ThomasRoderick Ah, yeah that’s an annoying bug. Using different sets of drives would be cool. Maybe some Funky Trees with throttle inputs would make gearing more user-friendly.

@Sadboye12 Glad you like it! Read my profile, there's my "Ten Commandments of Simpleplanes" that dictates mow much emphasis I put on functionality.

soo i tried using this this is very solid build, love the design best part of it is the functionality! good work on this!!!

@spefyjerbf After extensive testing, the idea works on paper but not so much in reality, given that the impulse drive, when using graviton or tachyon reactors (aka when the muzzle velocity is well within relativistic or superluminal speeds), has some quirks like "bullets fired by the downward-firing gun does not impact anything" and the like, so I guess I'll stick w/ stuff like having multiple sets of impulse drives and shift them w/ throttle input like gears on a car. I mean, the impulse drive as of now have a power output of 3Gs of sustained acceleration, or around 646 kilonewtons. I'm thinking about having basically two (or should I use four?) "gears" on the saucer, each having an impulse drive linked to them, so that there's meaningful thrust controls between "on" and "off".