Space Engineers: Crash Testing The Physics Update #2 (tutorials, tests and tips for Space Engineers)

[@solospirit4212]

Baking the Perfect Splitsie Pie :) First make a crusty Immortal Brick...Which laughs at puny planetary gravity, and sops up trees with ease (The dings will polish out...no worries). Next add a delicious, juicy, Drop Bear filling...a tasty insight into what is really happening when you drop bears into the pan. Finally the cream on top ..Bouncy Bears with their lighter than air performance, and mockery of basic game physics...Thumbing their noses at Clang. All that was left was to add the cherry on top , with a hilarious Bouncy Bear survival of the fittest, most Bouncy, Bear run :D Another Classic Splitsie Pie...Done!

[@Splitsie]

Love it! Nice work :)

[@frightenedfreddie]

So you went looking for piston droppings and discovered the elusive cousin of the Drop Bear, the Bouncy Bear. Best engineering documentary ever!

[@Splitsie]

Lol 😂 Thanks!

[@DerIsy]

Now we all have to keep an eye on the sky to watch for Splitsie's secret weapon - the bouncy bear! Not the most destructive weapon of the world but maybe one would die from laughter ;) Great video - as always! Keep it up Splitsie!

[@Splitsie]

You may not need to watch out for the bouncy bears, but those trees they knock loose! ;)

[@nonplayercharacter6478]

Piston droppings, so that's what that stuff was. I visited a river lock when I was a kid, there was all this shmoo around the giant door pistons. Now I know. ;) I think your bouncy ship failed some drops because of the angle. It drifts nose down despite the center of mass being where it is, and the pistons snap off rather than bounce. The bouncy buggy reminds me of the Mars lander they used in "The Red Planet" (2000). That thing bounced down a mountain and half way across Mars and they did survive, most of them.

[@Splitsie]

You've got to watch out for those poison droppings, though it can be fun to convince your younger relatives that they're raisins ;) Totally agree with you on the piston tests, if keen don't change their behaviour soon I'll have to come back to it and test it properly :)

[@macroshaft5517]

@Splitsie I think you could actually easily re-test it without waiting on Keen. You're dropping the ships by cutting power to the whole ship with that reactor cuttoff button, but all you actually need to be doing is cutting power to all thrusters with a thruster group; that'll leave the gyros operational, and let you (or even a script) maintain a correct angle during the drop.

[@faguolvlv]

With gyros override on.. the ship would not turn even if you move the mouse. I use it all the time so my miners don't shake while mining ^^

[@Forcemaster2000]

Your bouncy bears that got destroyed over the ice were hitting at too much of an angle between the pistons so that the force was being applied more to the blocks that supported the pistons instead of being applied to the pistons themselves

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, I wasn't thinking of them as serious tests at the time and to get them to hit consistently from that height will be very fiddly. I was thinking of them as a sort of real world test to show how survivable an uncontrolled fall from that height would be since they outlast every other design by a huge margin anyway :P

[@davidpodeszwa7010]

The tree in the start got possessed by clang

[@Splitsie]

I'm now imagining a tree vomiting leaves as it spins round and round...

[@MrRedinator_]

@@Splitsie **a certain song by dead or alive plays**

[@wishyourlife6861]

You could try puttin the Pistons on an Angle with Rotors. You might die of clang but its for science after all :P

[@Splitsie]

Death by clang is at least a quick way to go - and stylish! ;)

[@cargo_vroom9729]

Bouncy Bear is my new favorite thing I've ever seen in SE.

[@Splitsie]

It was so much fun to mess around with :)

[@cargo_vroom9729]

@@Splitsie While I have your ear. I'd be very interested in tests of how much weight wheels can move. Like your thruster tests but horizontal.

[@Splitsie]

That's an interesting idea, could be interesting to test :)

[@david-ul3ch]

you could make a bouncing war head like the dam busters

[@Splitsie]

I'd love this idea! I wonder if it would work well enough for me to try to use it on the enemy headquarters I my survival scenario - that would be a very stylish way to soften up defences :)

[@david-ul3ch]

nice ;] i am look forward to seeing it.

[@tackytrooper]

I can never get enough of these testing videos

[@Splitsie]

Thank you! 😊

[@jalakor]

You should test the best ways for surviving a realistic crash in Survival, say you run out of hydrogen or are shot down, but with power.

[@Splitsie]

I've been thinking of doing something like that, it's tough though as you want the tests to be reasonably reproducible which is more difficult when you're not dropping something square, but there are some ideas I have that if I run through the setup a few times it might give a useful result :)

[@RetroPlus]

I've experimented a lot with this and I've found putting blocks on the bottom of the ship (kind of like how a helicopter landing gear works) you can avoid major damage.

[@StarDruid]

If this stays in we might be able to use pistons on ships like hydrolic shock absorbers like most sci-fi have it, since the current landing gear don't do that, even though that have "pistons" in thier models. I really just want to crash land a ship like in the 80-90s anime and cartoons then be able to make repairs and take off again. Instead of needing a broom and dust pan to clean up the resulting mess.

[@Splitsie]

We all need a little bit of plot armor every now and then ;) It would be pretty cool though, I think you certainly could use the pistons to protect your small ships, but I haven't tried them on large ships yet, I expect the results to be somewhat less helpful :P

[@darandomator4010]

When you were testing the Bouncing ship at 500m, you should have tilted it back a bit because it kepy rolling forward, Thus causing the piston not to hit dead on and absorb more shock.

[@Splitsie]

We'd also need a system to ensure that it's level so it can be used in normal flight. Then it'd be a great crash safety system :)

[@JUNIsLuke]

It’s awesome to see him actually react and act on possible things people say in the comments

[@Splitsie]

I've always found my comments section to be quite helpful and have learned a lot from it over the years :)

[@dubdogstep]

heeeeey Splittsiematie! I love ure scientifish testing, but what i really love how u keep it real Big ups bro!

[@Splitsie]

Thanks mate :)

[@D3StInIeus]

Loved it nice ending!

[@Splitsie]

Thanks, I had to turn off the block and grid limits but it ran surprisingly smoothly :)

[@dndhatcher]

I saw someone else testing rotors. Rotors have a limited turn speed. BUT if you stack rotors, the turn rates are additive so you can get things spinning much faster. Might be fun to explore what you can do with high speed rotors.

[@Splitsie]

Since the update you should also be able to get them turning faster with thrusters too :) I was thinking some sort of flinging machine...

[@dndhatcher]

You should be able to get a rotor/merge block clang engine moving really fast.

[@mawkishdave]

The bouncy bear would make a good escape pod in PVP. Your ship is going down, get on that and bounce your way to safety.

[@Hankbob_Hillpants]

I’m fairly certain that the game places the centre of thrust on the centre of mass of a grid. By adding pistons you add addition grids, which change the centre of mass without changing the centre of thrust to compensate

[@Macabri_2k10]

the high altitute piston tests are not clean since you rotated out of axis of the pistons and you got substancial sheering forces on the pistons and not so much compression it would porably have survived the first 500m drop with no damage if it would have come down straight

[@Splitsie]

Yep, I completely agree. It's probably best to think of those tests in terms of, if I fell from this height while playing and had pistons to protect me, what were my chances of surviving of I can't line things up perfectly" :)

[@JaredPinkham]

If there is a script that can tweak the gyro's to keep it level during the drop that would be interesting to see.

[@vision-of-dog]

You could just add gyros with pilot control off to each sub-grid. That should hold it upright until the gyros are lost.

[@dragonpc8258]

so the first two theories I came up with after watching this is, one if you have a ramming ship and you put the ram in front of some supporting pistons, your ship will have superior survivability even as the ramming armor gets wrecked, and second, making piston supported armor for getting rammed will absorb a lot more and keep you from getting obliterated.. that would be interesting and fun to see.

[@Splitsie]

That could be something fun (and probably spectacular) to test ;)

[@brettknox2727]

You should try making a orbital drop pod using the bouncy bears piston concept. However you should make a target pad made of heavy armor, as the bear seems to handle it better.

[@Splitsie]

I'm certainly thinking of making something like that, just need to figure out how many pistons will allow how much weight to survive a full speed impact... :)

[@nathanj2439]

I feel like the piston idea could be done with merge blocks so you could make them into replaceable armor and as a plus ilbet you can make a game from this. Thats of this stays ingame. Thanks for investigating this further!

[@Splitsie]

It's a lot of fun messing about with them, so I'm torn on whether keen should fix it :P

[@arlangaming3022]

I always like your videos before I even watch them, because you never disappoint.

[@Splitsie]

Wow! Thank you :)

[@Gottaculat]

1:45, I never like finding piston droppings, 'cause then I have to put out piston traps. XD

[@CorneliusCornbread]

The bouncy bear's survival is based on how it his the ground. If it hits the pistons straight on, it lives, if it his them sideways it crashes and burns

[@Splitsie]

Absolutely, the angle played a big role. I thought of those tests as being more 'real world' if you're crashing a ship while playing you aren't going to be able to control your angle, so will you survive if you have pistons all over your ship? But I mainly thought that way because it was fun to drop the bouncy bear and quite a challenge to make a perfectly square drop :P

[@AnomalyTea]

I'd be curious to see what 2 layers of armor does. I have no idea if they changed it with the update, but here's how it used to work: if a deformable block (e.g. armor) deforms into the space occupied by a non-deformable block (e.g. battery), the non-deformable block is simply destroyed. However, deforming into the space of another deformable block would simply cause deformation rather than outright destruction.

[@Splitsie]

Yep, that's definitely something I want to test as I suspect you're right. I think I can achieve a usable test with the hand drill but I've yet to try it out...

[@Nusszucker]

Great video :D

[@Splitsie]

Thank you 😊

[@GammaKiwi]

Well, now that we know how crash destruction works this update, maybe you could test whether a shell surrounded with spines ("Hedgehog") or spines surrounded by a shell ("Turtle") is better at protecting ships' internals from crashing?

[@Splitsie]

That's an interesting comparison and could be relatively easily implemented in designs. Next time I get around to testing impacts I'm definitely going to be testing this :)

[@kevingriffith6011]

Welp, time to weaponize the bouncybear. I'm thinking sensors and warheads instead of thrusters and a cockpit... a battery and some timer blocks... yeah... that'll do.

[@Splitsie]

Time for some explosive caltrops! ;)

[@xanbs503]

Wow... okay, so the next experiment, aside from aligning centre of gravity is to create the piston 'bouncy bear" with a wheel like surface; meaning extending the armor blocks around and connecting to other pistons so even if it drifts forward or side to side, the materials inside and the pistons should absorb the shock. Similar to how the early russian probes sent to the book used 'air-bags' to 'lithobrake.' Or not? Either way, definitely loved the tests and very well done. I think I want to give the piston/shock absorber/lithobraking concept a run for myself.... for science. :) Cheers Splitsie. Love the content and thank you!

[@Splitsie]

You absolutely should give it a go, I didn't try it but I wonder if it still works with the pistons mounted on rotors so you can get to all of the angles needed so you've got an airbag like system all around... this might be fun to try :)

[@xanbs503]

project for tomorrow. off to bed, but this is a "got to do it."

[@AzuriteCoast]

XanBS Any results?

[@xanbs503]

lots of them. so far.. all failures unfortunately, but its given me a few ideas for kinetic pmw's. No, refuse to give up! Having to much fun with it and may try mods to see what I can make work.

[@zachw2906]

Until they 'fix' that piston effect, that might be a good way to deploy some kind of probe, either a mobile unit housed inside the bouncy shell or just an ore detector and antenna to see what's available below you

[@Splitsie]

I'm starting to think it'll be something they keep so you should definitely try to make that probe - if nothing else it will probably make an awesome GIF :)

[@timcarrier7499]

i think the reason why the bouncy bear kept breaking at 500 meters is when it hit the ground you had it at an angle, where the pistons couldnt recoil back. so in turn it just passed through the blocks. next time maybe increase the surface area of the pistons or correct the angle, who knows thats my theory anyway

[@Splitsie]

I have an idea for a redesign that could make it even more survivable that I'd like to try that involves a whole lot more pistons ;)

[@hollowvoices1268]

The bear was hitting the ground at a weird angle because it was front heavy. You may get different results if it were to impact evenly.

[@Splitsie]

Completely agree, but it still managed to survive a reasonable percentage of the time from a mostly uncontrolled drop at upwards of 80m/s which is amazing!

[@ytho3557]

I think the reason the bouncy bear sometimes gets destroyed and sometimes doesn't is due to the angle of impact. Whenever it got obliterated it seemed not be hitting any pistons head on, and instead was going to impact the blocks at the head of the piston in a way such that the piston wouldn't have an effect on their destruction. I think that if you made sure that the ship always was hitting the ground with at least one piston pointing directly down you would be fine. I could be entirely wrong but it would be great to see that tested.

[@Splitsie]

I'd say you're right. I wonder if some clever script could be used to make sure that happens even if the pistons make your ship wobbly so you could use it in emergencies on an actual ship...

[@ytho3557]

scripts can know which way is down, and the vector thrust script proves that you can have a thing always pointed straight down. Do the piston bounce things work if they are on rotors? If so it would definitely be possible, if it doesn't work on rotors it probably would be possible using gyroscopes but I'm not sure if that could adjust quickly enough. Also either way it would only work if you are falling, not if you are crashing into the side of something a mountain.

[@Splitsie]

I like the thinking about putting them on rotors, just use gravity to make them all line up the right way... I might have to look into that :)

[@dreakvexille8968]

It seemed that the pistons on the bouncy bear handled the fall just fine if you fell straight down on them, but as the ship slightly rotated while falling, that seemed to make a difference. It may actually not be that way, but it seemed like that to me. So I thing it could survive even longer fall if you landed straight on the extended piston without any angle.

[@Splitsie]

I think you're right, the real challenge is in keeping it perfectly level at the time of impact - a gyro on override may help but you'd still need to line it up (I'm not that good a pilot) :P

[@kaksspl]

*piston ship drops from the mountain and survives* -wow, that's pretty cool, but will it survive 40m drop? You can also test how much from do we have with subgrids now like pistons pushing each other or looking rotor chain around ship or something. I think that'd be interesting even though developers said they disabled few things about subgids to make them stable.

[@Splitsie]

It sort of rolled down the mountain, at least that's what I thought at the time, but yeah I could have gone for a greater height sooner. Thought it'd be nice to do at least a couple of direct comparisons to other tests though - to show how ridiculously effective the bouncy bear can be :P With the subgrids thing, they do no damage to each other or the main grid, it's completely disabled from what I've seen and what the devs said.

[@Psycorde]

Seems like it's all about piston alignment, piston should be perpendicular to the surface for the most efficient absorption. But natural terrain is usually uneven, so you'll need a special landing zone to provide flat surface required, obviously. Considering craft has engines, it should be possible to use algorithm that would adjust trajectory and keep it in correct position if needed

[@Splitsie]

You're right on all counts there I'd reckon. A skilled pilot could probably get the landing pretty level if they had enough gyros and time, but some sort of raytracing levelling script would be amazing, not sure if it's possible though...

[@macgabhann1108]

you should do a new compassion with the bouncy bear one with the new sub grid damage option turned off and the other with it turned on , to see if it will still bounce the same or explode in to pieces.

[@Splitsie]

That's a good point, I should have tried that out. I'm thinking of testing the pistons on the talisman so I'll try that then as well :)

[@freightshayker]

Can you attach pistons at 45-degrees ... trying to imagine a "honey comb" structure covering the ship's landing surface maybe hidden with a veneer of armor blocks

[@Splitsie]

Without having them attached to rotors that's not possible, which might work but I suspect will end up with the creation of a launch vehicle instead of something to soften collisions (because clang would probably launch it right into the sky on the first bounce) :P

[@DranKof]

Place armed warheads in the middle of piston bouncers and then drop a layer of those down the hill!

[@Splitsie]

I really, really want to do this as a way to attack a base in my survival game :)

[@Xenro66]

I feel that the red brick was significantly slowed by that tree... But I'm not sure :L Nice piston tests! Only thing I would do differently is keep the ship power on and have only the gyros enabled (with override, of course). That way it would land as flat as possible. The Bouncy Bear might've been breaking at 500m because of shearing force. Relative to the ground, they impacted at ~45°, which probably doesn't help xD. Either way, I'm glad you revisited the tests and proved that the voxel material was causing the structural failure. Nicely done :) P.S: These tests are scientific, by definition. You're conducting repeatable tests in a controlled environment, testing 1 variable at a time. If that isn't scientific, I don't know what is :) My reply to your reply on my comment on your last video, since there's no point me writing out 2 separate comments (that's a mouthful, jeez xD): Tracks in survival are virtually impossible. They can be done, but it's just not worth the effort. I've tried to make tracks and failed, so a tutorial would be much appreciated ;). Player-made missiles will be good for long range attacks, but they will be expensive. As for building with large grids... Be careful! Large grids make you an extremely easy target :)

[@Splitsie]

Hmm, that's an interesting point about the tree, could be fun to try to test if you come of better in a crash if you hit a tree instead of the ground first :P With the bouncy bear, those tests were almost certainly affected by angle, it's probably better to think of them as a guide to how well you might survive using that system in the 'real world' where you can't easily control angle, since they beat every other system :)

[@Xenro66]

I'm a bit dubious about those trees tbh... Half the time when I hit them, nothing happens, the other half they'll end up phasing into my ship and causing it to explode. Strange behaviour :D Fair and very valid point. At least now I know that if I want proper landing gear or virtually unbreakable suspension on rovers, I can just use pistons. Cheers ^-^

[@Splitsie]

Yep, those trees are still quite strange to collide with. I wonder how well wheels with suspension would work on the end of a piston?

[@Xenro66]

Well, I just fired up SE and made a simple rover with the wheel suspension on extended pistons... And unfortunately, it seems you can't control wheels if they're a part of a subgrid (on pistons), which sucks :/. However. I did drop the 'rover' from quite some height and it soaked up the impact pretty well. 100m seemed to be the limit before the suspension exploded and the wheel flys away at terminal velocity.

[@Splitsie]

Ah, so it seems like the impacts are still limited to about what the suspension alone can handle, I guess the impact isn't pushed through to the pistons until after the wheel suspension reaches its limit :(

[@tryazeve9420]

It's obviously the impact angle which totals the bouncy bear... Landing as you did with a downwards pitch of 45° meant that neither the nose nor belly pistons could compress

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, impact angle was hard to control and almost certainly made a big impact on the results. Was fun to do though ;)

[@tryazeve9420]

Splitsie such an awesome video 😁

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@stanpollard]

If you stack tires all around your ship will that give you some protection

[@Splitsie]

Not any better than coating it in armor sadly :(

[@woodlandfoxes9323]

I don’t blame you, before the sparks of the future update large grid ships crashing into voxels is pretty disappointing.

[@Splitsie]

It's something that's gone up and down over the years, I still miss the detail of the early crashes but they really weren't good for performance :P

[@sowiwiody3681]

The brick was intact, because the PC couldn't keep up with calculations. I one downloaded a ship from the Workshop that barely allowed any more blocks to bulid, it was so huge. One I crashed it into Alien Planet it just slowed down to 0, and then bounced off, without any damage. I think Space Engineers tries to make it easier for the PC and completely halts calculating of huge crashes.

[@Splitsie]

That's the way it works now, back then things would phase through the planet under certain conditions, it was almost like the calculation would time out and then not bother :P

[@exemida]

When your upset with the world so you drop a brick on it.

[@Splitsie]

Then even more upset because the brick doesn't even break! 😂

[@CompactCowboy]

Yea as I thought, they didn’t really update the physics they went back closer to what it was originally, before entire ships just exploded and crumpled.

[@tassie7325]

Wicked! Teasing viewers with the drop bears. But where are the hoop snakes?

[@Splitsie]

Ooh, I wonder how we'd do that...

[@tassie7325]

Well, if anyone can, its you.

[@ruubz001]

lol that last image, like caltrops for giants

[@Splitsie]

Lol! So true 😂

[@panareasy6749]

Hello there a newbie here o/ What about drills head as shock absorber for voxel ? That seem heavy af but when my rover hit the ground with a drill head it seem like the voxel take all the damage. It make bigger hole also

[@Splitsie]

Drills do take collisions very well but they're a little difficult to apply as armour - if I redid these tests now I'd probably include it though just out of interest :)

[@panareasy6749]

@@Splitsie So I'm not the only one to wonder lol

[@SirAroace]

can they be use to make better landing gear?

[@Splitsie]

The might be, but you'll have to balance them about your center of gravity which can be a bit of a challenge at times

[@elrondmcbong467]

Do you know the Three Body Problem Trilogy by Liu Cixin? Space Engineers is this Trilogy in a Nutshell... P.S. The Pilot will survive in the Bouncy Bear, he will Vomit all over the whole Cockpit BUT he will survive.

[@xarles_noriac9035]

splitsie you derp the pistons broke from the 500m drop because it hit the side of the pistons

[@Splitsie]

I know, but I had too much fun dropping it to test it properly ;)

[@ben1000bhp]

I feel as if the impact angle was the main factor of the last tests, though I may be wrong on that

[@Splitsie]

I think you're right, was fun to drop it that many times even if the results weren't that reliable :P

[@DudeJakeK]

I literally just asked for this on a lsg vid last week. Please do a PMW update too!

[@Splitsie]

I haven't done any videos on PMW before, it's something I plan on doing though. Can't make any promises about how soon though :)

[@Mandred85]

anyone else thinking of emergency drop/escape pods, while looking at the piston test?

[@Splitsie]

I know I was! 😉

[@Mandred85]

It remembers me to the CGI footage, NASA showed us how the rovers landed on mars :P

[@Splitsie]

I was thinking of those exact airbag systems when I first made the bouncy bear :)

[@Mandred85]

XD I see. I like the way you're thinking. I subscribed ;)

[@Splitsie]

Thanks :)

[@robbertslijkhuis5491]

I flew a 1.9m ship against a tree with 100m/s and my ship bounced back. The tree might have stopped alot of the force of the brick in the start. I was able to reproduce the bouncing multiple times with 100% success rate.

[@Splitsie]

Wow, I hadn't noticed how much trees could affect your crash as I'd pretty much always hit them side on where they mostly work normally. If I'm ever in a large ship that's crashing I'm going to aim for the trees now :)

[@aracuron9956]

Your Bouncy bear had one OR 2 Pistons into 6 directions. Is it possible to have a Armor sphere with 26faces and 2 Pistons on each side? The Cockpit or even a room inside, this should make up for a very survivable emergency drop pod, or even a distraction weapon. Include a decoy inside and drop a dozen on a enemy base. Good Chance some do even survive and can be collected and reused.

[@Splitsie]

If you could set up the rotors required to have things in more varied orientations you probably could set it up that way, the hardest bit about working with these things is that they're as likely to impale themselves and partially phase through the terrain as they are to bounce :P

[@rudolfcopieckelberg4239]

Introducing the planetary lander class personal pod: the Bouncy Bear

[@Splitsie]

Love it! I do want to play around with it a bit more and see if I can make something that can survive an unpowered drpo from space...

[@rudolfcopieckelberg4239]

With the 100m/s it seems doable, judging from what you achieved on this video. Not exactly sane, but hey... this is space engineers, we fall from the skies for fun

[@alexmckeown123]

I wouldn't mind seeing this as part of a drop pod or cargo drop pod

[@Splitsie]

I once used a similar device to deliver resources to a friend stranded on the moon - launched them at him at high speed and they survived the landing :)

[@ZeniusAug]

another great video - thank u

[@Splitsie]

Thanks! And you're welcome 😊

[@thecrazyrai0]

blue and gray ships? colourblindness?

[@Splitsie]

Nope, I choose the testing colours somewhat at random, except for when I have lots of them, then I go for a rainbow :)

[@0ozymandias641]

Try to make emergency landing mechanisms using anything except autolock landing gears and parachutes.

[@Splitsie]

I think I'm pretty close to coming up with exactly that concept :)

[@GamerbyDesign]

You should level with the horizon and lock your gyros before drop

[@Splitsie]

The bouncy bear has a tendency to spin without the gyros trying to offset it, it's one of the quirks of how force is applied through pistons :/

[@leviathan1082]

if you noticed that tree dampened a lot of the bricks momentum

[@Splitsie]

If only we could place trees on the fronts of our ships we'd have some amazing shock absorbers :P

[@leviathan1082]

play some bumper ships xD

[@ThatUnrealGamer]

It upset me more than it should have when you didnt keep the ships level. They failed because the pistons were not hitting dead on, therefore it was creating a different force on the front one, making it fail. Perhaps you should retry it but keep them level.

[@Splitsie]

It's not possible to, there are phantom forces causing the ships to continuously turn slightly so a clean impact is next to impossible to achieve

[@aBuIIet]

your original idea of some impact force moving through the ship may not be totally wrong: the deformation of the armor blocks might also destroy the batteries (and other non-deformable blocks) [shooting armor with a rifle deforms it a little iirc]. the bouncing "solution" might work fine at 500m, even at regular settings, when a piston hits straight on, and not in a 45° angle (as the accidental drop kinda has proven)

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, completely agree with the piston. I've got to try to come up with something that can reliably test if deformation can damage blocks behind them as it's something that comes up a lot with testing this stuff. It's a challenging one to control for though as most things that deform might also damage the block behind...

[@Zilver071]

you could also just turn off Voxel destruction :D

[@Splitsie]

I prefer not to change any world settings from the default for these tests. I presume they don't have any impact on the results but since I'm not sure I like to figure out other ways I can test without changing them :)

[@unshackledjester]

Not going to test the bouncy bears for reentry from orbit? I think you were almost at max speed.

[@Splitsie]

It was pretty close, it had reasonable survivability at 80m/s but I think I'd need more pistons to survive the last bit of speed... I wonder how well the system would work on the talisman? 😉

[@unshackledjester]

I think you hit like 84 or so on one of the runs, but I can't be sure. That said I'd say that any extra weight added is going to exponentially decrease survivability. Useless for anything but a hot-seat escape pod with a hilarious decel, but entertaining all the same. Not sure HOW much heavier the Talisman is....but I'd put money on it just dying. The bouncy bears looked pretty bearbones.

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, the bouncy bear has only a little more than it needs to function and is pretty light so I'd probably need quite a few pistons on the talisman for it to have a chance to survive even a low speed impact as you say... might be fun to try though :)

[@howyoutubesmells]

Good that someone is interested in trying this types of tests. Bad is that you don't have any clue about what are you doing. Make better design for bear - balance it so it will fall always on two lower pistons and it can survive any height, but we better talk about velocities, so it should survive max limited velocity.

[@Duke00x]

I think the piston head broke because it hit sideways on the rock. I think if it had hit on the bottom t would not have broken even at that height and speed.

[@Splitsie]

Absolutely, the angle played a big role, think of those tests more as a: you could expect to survive this often if you had an uncontrolled crash from that height with a piston system in place :P

[@steeljawX]

I'm a little confused beyond the fact that you just wanted to destroy more test ships, why this drop test was done onto the heavy armor plates. You're not mining into heavy armor plates, so all this really proves is what to expect your small grid to experience after dropping onto your stations or larger grids. The last tests were valid in the sense that we have to deal with that residual ore cluster that the material voxels generate. I think a better test would be to see how much material/space would be needed to insulate you and the core of your ship from those kinds of clusters and if you could make some kind of netting system to catch your miners. This is very well done and thoroughly tested, but I'm failing to see why in the context of the original issue; our atmospheric miners dying to hard landings and what material could best save them. This definitely wasn't worthless. I now know that I need to get enough resources to build heavy armor plated stations for that added amount of protection from things and that I should also invest in a piston landing pad.

[@IG40fied]

Is it possible that bouncy bears dropped on ice suffered from same cause of death as drop bears on voxels? Did you happened to try dropping them on srmor blocks from 500m? As a side note this is my first comment, but I enjoy your videos! These ones for understanding Ed's cases and the survival ones for entertainment. Have you considered following a format similar to that of some of the other accomplished SE streamers (ie longer videos, donations+monitoring, server play)? I could see it working out well for you, you got what it takes :-)

[@Splitsie]

It's certainly possible, I don't know how often I'd run into grids from that height though - even if I was trying to :P Thanks for the kind words :) I'm still trying to come up with something to support a bit more of a community that won't take too much time away from the video content, hopefully early next year I'll have enough time away from my day job to set something good up

[@IG40fied]

Splitsie thanks for deciphering that lol. That is what happens when you talk-to-text when you can't look and verify it understood you... :-p. Also, I figured "having a life" was a decent factor in the format, but I see some of the other guys bringing in some good revenue and you def have the following and quality of video to do the same and it would be cool to see your work reaping similar rewards. If you were ever interested I would not be against helping in that as a form of supporting ya :-).

[@SondreWingarElnes]

Only reason it got destroyed at the drop wirh pistons at 500, was because off the falla ndgle on the piston. Another lower piston would solve it

[@Splitsie]

Yeah, it's certainly wasn't the perfect landing. Still they work impressively as shock absorbers now which is cool :)

[@y.decimal]

can’t you just turn voxel destruction off?

[@Splitsie]

I chose not to do that as I wasn't sure what effects that might have on the collision mechanics. It might well not make any difference and I suspect that's the case but as I'd have no way of knowing that for sure I figured I'd drop it on heavy plate instead :P

[@y.decimal]

hm yeah didn’t think about that. It’s possible the game just puts all the input force on the ship instead of splitting it between voxel and ship then

[@Splitsie]

Yep, that's exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of :)

[@Psycorde]

That fucking brick got me Yeah, i'm new here

[@Splitsie]

I was really hoping for a more spectacular explosion with it as a stylish opening, thankfully the bouncybears worked well :)

[@vega1287]

i managed on multiple aocasions to punch a hole into my ship by trying to connect to a connector atatched to a piston

[@Splitsie]

That can happen, connectors on pistons have always been a little sketchy :P

[@vega1287]

@@Splitsie makes sense it just sucks when i have to park my about 30000000 ton ship (with like 700 gyroscopes) in a masive hangar with a sliding roof

[@ChozoSR388]

LONG LIVE THE BOUNCY BEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@Splitsie]

Absolutely, that things a survival machine!

[@captainjackloco]

A bouncy attack turret from low orbit

[@Splitsie]

There are so many good options with this, not sure how well the turret would keep up with the spinning that happens, but it would be fun to find out :P

[@uberium2004]

20:19-21:00 satisfying moment

[@Splitsie]

Sooooo satisfying - I may have had to turn off block limits for it to be possible but it was soooo worth it :)

[@mwbgaming28]

you just gave clang the middle finger later hes going to give you his middle leg

[@Splitsie]

It'll be like being punched by a baby's arm holding an apple... or something :P

[@incoherentscreaming5011]

Curious now as to how far this can scale up to, *hint hint*.

[@Splitsie]

Oh I know where you're going and I like your thinking ;)

[@Whackjob]

Tires. Put tires on the end of the pistons instead.

[@Splitsie]

Oddly enough, from my tests tyres have never performed as well as I thought they would. What I really want to do is get my head around creating rotor based suspension and have wheels on the end of them as landing gear :)

[@Whackjob]

Hrm. That's a result I would not have expected. How about blast door blocks? I did tests aeons ago regarding durability and ramming damage and power. Blast door blocks did fantastic. They may give a good result in this case.

[@Splitsie]

Actually, given what you're going for here, which is finding the block that can withstand the highest speed blast doors and heavy armour are probably going to be the better options like you're suggesting. Though I'm not sure exactly what it is that happens when the piston parts break since it's a bit hard to replicate and test thoroughly, it might not be a simple collision force thing...

[@Whackjob]

Hrm. Crumple zones, perhaps? Like U shapes pointing away from the end of the piston. That way, if there is momentary clipping in to terrain, it's those extensions what get the breaking.

[@DiamondPanda207]

new drop pod system xD

[@Splitsie]

Best drop pod system :P ... if you like bouncing on landing

[@onetrueone]

Can u put pistons and blocks like on the bouncy beer on a large ship Like this comment if u want to see this

[@Splitsie]

I haven't tested it yet, but I definitely want to :)

[@JJ_Adventures]

Damn. I wish there was a different youtuber testing the new physics, but being *less* boring about it. You know, like constantly doing stuff different than dropping ships like 5 feet? Any recommendations?

[@thewhiteboyandasian]

Splitsie, I would love to see your take on a station miner or a portable large grid miner. We are always in need of better ways of getting ore!

[@Splitsie]

It's been quite a while since I've attempted a large grid miner - my last one was able to bore straight through an asteroid and was large enough to include refineries as well. This was so long ago that upgrades didn't exist and neither did planets so I might be a bit rusty. Could be fun to mess around with though :)

[@Trotils]

3:50 something is wrong.. definitely...

[@Splitsie]

Trees, the ultimate airbag for crashing ships :P

[@Trotils]

Com’on... it’s like soda drink can work as airbag for train... definitely wrong :))) P. S. I like that you are responding to comments ;)

[@The1wsx10]

you should check out vector thrust 2, its much easier to setup now and is really stable! plus it would be a good stress test for the new physics :) here's the link: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1210578673

[@Splitsie]

I'll be sure to take a look at it, I like the idea of being able to use something like this properly now that they've improved the physics :)

[@The1wsx10]

awesome

[@manicmanticore7212]

Hahaha "piston droppings"

[@RowDyer]

Subgrid immunity

[@Splitsie]

The most unpredictable of forces :P

[@Nob-Stop]

First and why is this so esey

[@mako9673]

"Piston droppings" ;) eww...

[@Splitsie]

Bags not cleaning it up :P

[@planelander]

"physics update" - lol not really

[@Splitsie]

It's certainly an update, but as with a lot of software these days, you're never quite sure if you want the update or not.... :P

[@one-stopkilling2236]

I focused on the speed the second time on the 500 meters and the speed was different from the second and the third the second was over 100 the second was below 100

[@Splitsie]

It's odd that they were different, part of that might be the inaccuracy of the altitude meter though. If it survived at that close or slightly over 100m/s I'm pretty happy with that as a result - just need to make sure you can hit with the right angle and you can survive almost any drop :)