It's pretty late- I'll try to keep today's post a bit shorter, but knowing me that won't happen. Today, I'll be talking about walking in Space Engineers- not with the player, but with a vehicle.
Walking vehicles are a pretty cool-looking concept. Anything from AT-ATs in Star Wars to Scarab Tanks in Halo- they're big, slow and imposing. They're also incredibly inefficient and hard to make. And I say this from experience.
There are two designs I've come up with so far for legs. The first is simple- two rotors, spinning opposite directions at equal speeds. This means the "foot" is moving in a circle, so it can push backwards, lift up, go forwards, and step down again. It's a very simple, but effective, design- assuming you have enough torque. More often than not, the weight of the vehicle will push the legs out of alignment, and even if that doesn't happen, they don't have much grip.
The second is more complicated, and it happens in 8 steps. There are 6 legs, moving like those of an ant (two on one side, one on the other). It's too complicated to explain without illustrations, but essentially it uses 3 pistons per leg to lift, bend and push. This takes a very long time to set up, and the legs end up being pretty big, but at least it works. I managed a speed of about 10 large blocks per minute with this (around 1/10th of the player's walking speed), and it took maybe 4 hours of R&D to get even that.
The sad truth is, walking vehicles are very inefficient. Had I spent 4 hours making a vehicle with wheels, or a flying vehicle (which the game encourages- it is called Space Engineers, not Walking Vehicle Engineers), it would have been significantly faster, significantly less buggy, and capable of surviving at least one rocket, something the walker can't manage. To make something that walks viable, it would need to be able to balance on one foot, like a human- as is, they're hardly better than wheels, if at all.
There is one thing that's definitely better about walking vehicles though. They're more fun to build. A spaceship just requires a few thrusters. A car just requires a few wheels. But a walker requires around 6 legs, each with multiple parts, and a complex series of timer blocks telling each one how to move. To be honest, I couldn't even figure out how to make the thing turn- it would have taken at least twice as many timers, and probably twice the time.
Anyways, that's gonna be it for today- hopefully you've enjoyed this post! If you have any designs for good/fun walking vehicles, feel free to share them here : )
