| Gyroscope | |
|---|---|
| |
| Category: | Maneuvering |
| Status: | Functional |
| Function: | |
| Allows players to control a ship's rotation, or lets you override rotation. | |
| Fits small ship | |
| Mass: | 613.6 kg |
| Power: | -0.6 W |
| Force: | unknown N |
| Fits large ship and station | |
| Mass: | 18,469 kg |
| Power: | -30 W |
| Force: | unknown N |
| Data Controls: | [edit] [purge] (?) |
Small and large gyroscope.
Adding 
Gyroscope blocks to a mobile grid enables the player to control the vessels's orientation.
- On PC, Gyroscopes add the ability to control the grid’s pitch and yaw by moving the mouse or the Arrow keys, and to use (Q key) and (E key) to roll.
- One console, it enables the controller sticks to turn and tilt the ship.
The rotation is centered on the Center of Mass. Consider that, since Gyroscopes are heavy, adding Gyroscopes will shift the centre of mass.
| Yaw | Pitch | Roll |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Gyroscopes need power to function and are very heavy. When placing them, a space engineer needs to find an effective balance between mass and turning speed for each ship.
- See Gyroscope mechanics for in-depth details about this block's effects.
Usage[]
Gyroscopes let the pilot control a grid’s pitch, yaw, and roll with the mouse.
- When steering a rover, gyroscopes let you turn left/right, and correct roll/pitch when you catch air, with the mouse.
- The Remote Control block requires Gyroscopes for its Autopilot functionality.
- A Drop Pod or damaged ship that lacks thrust in some directions also lacks automatic Inertial Dampers. Careful manual gyroscope rotation allows a skilled pilot to apply the remaining thrust in the desired direction.
Overridden gyroscopes are not available for mouse control. Typical usecases for Gyroscope Overrides are:
- automatically stabilising rovers and racecars (constant braking torque)
- stabilizing walkers (constant braking torque)
- stopping a spaceship from spinning after a collision with an asteroid (constant braking torque)
- rotating a flipped vehicle once (temporary rotational torque)
- spinning a space station continuously (constant rotational torque)
Balance of Speed and Mass[]
The gyroscopes' effectiveness is proportional to the number of working gyroscopes onboard, and inversely proportional to the vessel's mass. This means that constructing additional gyroscopes on a vessel will make it yaw, pitch, and roll quicker. However, when you increase the mass which the gyroscopes will have to move (by adding gyroscopes, thrusters, machinery, structural armour, etc.), the ship's responsiveness will decrease again.
Although it is the centerpiece of a ship's Inertial Dampers, a gyroscope alone cannot alter a spacecraft's speed. In order to make the inertial dampers fully functional, remember that the ship must have at least one thruster facing in each cardinal direction (forwards, backwards, left, right, up, and down).
On the Control Panel Screen under Power, you can adjust the rotational sensitivity of a gyro from 100% to 0% (off). Well tuned gyroscope settings allow for very small ships to react to input with precise turning, rather than violent, jerky spinning.
Placement and Size[]
Small and large gyroscope size comparison. Left: Small ship gyroscope. Middle: player. Right: Large ship gyroscope.
A Gyroscope takes up a 1x1x1 block space on both small and large ships. It attaches to blocks only on its bottom face. This means that gyroscopes are relatively vulnerable to breaking off when their only attachment blocks gets destroyed, which may suddenly rob a ship of its manoeuvrability.
Large Ship Gyroscopes feature a control panel on their front side. Small ship gyroscopes lack this control panel, and they are also too small to carry a Control Panel, so their settings can only be accessed from a Cockpit's or Remote Control's Control Panel Screen.
The front of the gyroscope (for large grid, where the control panel is) determines where which rotational axis will be, not the cockpit orientation. Gyroscope Overrides are easier to configure if you place the gyroscope to face the same way as the cockpit. Otherwise, the axes will seem mislabelled, which is an inconvenience but not a hindrance.
Similar to thrusters, gyroscopes apply their effect to the Center of Mass, no matter where on the grid you place them. At the same time, due to their high mass, the act of placing them will invariably shift the Center of Mass and the point around which they rotate. Rotation feels more intuitive when the center of mass is where the pilot perceives the center of the ship to be, or where the cockpit is. So keep an eye on the Center of Mass while placing your gyroscopes and make sure it ends up where you expect it to be, and not shifted off to one side.
See also Does Gyroscope Placement Matter?
Tip: To see where your center of mass is, open the Info Screen and enable Show Center of Mass while building.
Power Usage[]
Gyroscopes use only a tiny amount of power, regardless of whether the ship is at rest or being made to roll. The large ship version uses approximately 30 W at full power, while the small ship version uses only 0.6 W - 1/50th the power. It is difficult to estimate the exact figures, due to reliance upon power usage outputs while piloting the ship.
Gyroscope Override[]
In the Control Panel Screen under Override Controls, you can create a constant rotating or braking torque along an axis (pitch, yaw, or roll) of the gyroscope. Such an overridden gyroscope will force (or prevent) the vehicle to spin around the chosen axis, centered on the center of mass.
- By default, Override Controls is switched off. This means the pilot can use this gyro to control the vehicle’s rotation through the mouse and keyboard.
- If Override Controls is switched on, and RPM is set to zero, the Gyroscope applies a constant stabilising braking torque on that axis (gyro lock).
- If Override Controls is switched on, and RPM is set to a non-zero value between +30 and -30 RPM, the Gyroscope applies constant rotational torque.
You can tell from the outside which gyroscopes are on override because they shine blue. It’s important to know for the pilot how many gyroscopes are on override, because overridden Gyroscopes are no longer available for mouse control.
The amount of the RPM value (rotations per minute) determines whether the gyroscope spins violently or gently. Increase the override values slowly, because sudden powerful overrides, or rather the resulting sudden spin, will slam the vehicle against the ground and damage it.
Usage Examples[]
If you have the capacity to build several gyroscopes on a vehicle without it being too heavy for its size, you can configure them differently. Some examples:
- On one or more gyroscopes, keep the override switched off, and use them to steer the vehicle manually with the mouse and keyboard.
- On one additional gyroscope, switch the override on, and leave all RPM sliders at 0, and use it for constant automatic stabilisation.
- For a rover, switch an extra gyroscope off and give it a low override on the “roll” axis. When ever the rover lands on its roof, switch this overridden gyroscope on for a few seconds to force the rover to roll back onto its wheels.
Troubleshooting[]
For Gyro axis configuration to be user-friendly in the Control Panel Screen, it is recommended to build all Gyroscopes facing the same way, so their axes end up being labelled the same. Sometimes your ship interior forces you to build them in different orientations. Then remember you can't select them all and apply the same override settings. Label and group them and then find the right axis for each group.
Be aware that, if you set two gyroscopes' overrides along the same axis to opposing values (for example, one gyro to +10 RPM yaw and the other -10 RPM yaw), they cancel each other out and nothing will happen. You can get into this situation accidentally if one of the gyroscopes faces the other way round, so if two overrides together don't do anything, try them separately.
Gyroscopes on a zero-RPM override don’t keep the ship/rover level, they just resist rotation in general.
Recipe[]
| Gyroscope | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Component | Large Ship/Station Required | Large Ship/Station Optional | Small Ship Required | Small Ship Optional |
 Metal Grid | 50 | — | — | — |
 Computer | 5 | — | 3 | — |
 Motor | 4 | — | 2 | — |
 Large Steel Tube | 4 | — | 1 | — |
 Construction Comp. | 40 | — | 5 | — |
 Steel Plate | 500 | 100 | 15 | 10 |
Gallery[]
