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Helios MID-6-2 Merge Inertial Dampener [superseeded]

[Vanilla|"Survival Ready"|Subgrids]


The MID-6-2 Merge Inertial Dampener is related to all the other clang drives, but not actually a drive itself, since it is incapable of generating any forward thrust. Instead it generates thrust in the direction you're turning. You're turning left, it accelerates you to the left, etc. This allows for turning without losing speed and without drifting. Since merge blocks generate a fixed acceleration the effect will have the same strength for every ship, no matter the mass.

For how complex the principle behind it is, the actual build turned out to be super simple. It is composed of two merge blocks facing each other, one mounted on your main grid, pointing forwards, one on a rotor with a small offset. Merge blocks do not attract each other like connectors, but they do accelerate sideways in order to lign up. When both grids are rotated, the game engine seems to think the merge blocks are moving apart laterally and will accelerate the respective grids in order to align them again. The acceleration is apparently related to the cross product of the angular momentum and the vector connecting the positions of the two merge blocks. The acceleration on the subgrid merge block is negligible, since it is connected via the rotors and can therefore not move. The acceleration is also not carried over to other grids. In order to avoid any acceleration on roll (q & e), the connecting vector between the merge blocks has to be pointing forwards or backwards. Backwards however yields an acceleration to the left when turning right and vice versa, so only a forwards pointing main merge block will yield the desired result, which is an acceleration in the direction of rotation.


For placement you have to remove 3x4x7 blocks of space. The drive is only 3x3x7 blocks large and you can fill in the gap on the side later. You just can't place it otherwise, because the subgrids get in the way. Building it in survival is kinda tricky, you have to build the subgrids separately and attach them to the rotors and add the casing afterwards.

This drive includes 2 rows of 3 merge blocks each. You can split it in half and only use 3 merge blocks, if you don't have enough space or want a weaker effect. You can also stack multiple on the same ship, but since the effect scales with mass, a single one will still be strong enough for even the largest of ships, unless you are using a speed mod. Instead consider to add a few more gyros, since you get more out of this the faster you turn.

Theres a video detailing how to build this in survival in the description.


-Blocks: 49
-PCU: 1,106
-Mass: 39 t
-Acceleration: ~100 m/s per 90° turn (hard to measure, probably more)


-Place it anywhere on your ship (conveyor sorters indicate forward direction, position does not matter)
-(Optional, but recommended) Install the Clang Drive Manager Script on a prog block on your ship
-To toggle it on and off, simply run the prog block with argument 'toggle'
-If you don't have the script, you can toggle it by turning the merge blocks on and off (all called Merge Block_MID)


-The Clang Drive Manager Script adjusts the power of this thing relative to the speed of your ship to prevent unwanted sideways drifting when turning on the spot
-You can remove most of the casing and replace it, just be careful
-It is possible to use it as propulsion by turning, toggling it off, turning back, toggling it back on, etc.
-When mounting several drives on the same ship, all merge blocks are grouped in one group and toggling the group toggles all drives (not recommended to put more than one on your ship, no matter the size)
-Want less power? turn the merge blocks off and remove a few from the group
-When you're using a speedlimit mod, you might want more of these for turning a high speeds.