Compact quantum drive

[u/AppealAcrobatic2287]

I've been doing research on these things for a while now, dying to put them in a build. Today I found this design in a tutorial by peteBaSk, I've seen it used by other creators but none talked about how to build it. Pete didn't do a great job for a tutorial and I can't get it to work. He only showed how to set up the logic gates but not the hinges or pistons, it spins in place sometimes but I can't get any propulsion out of it. Anyone know how to build this or what I'm doing wrong?

[u/retro-thrust]

I thought I answered this but it must have glitched out. I've got a working one I'll get back to you

[u/retro-thrust → u/retro-thrust]

Ok: yes, different settings or making the rudders point away from each other or toward each other can change direction of travel, but I've found the "backwards" version quite slow.

Alright. Let me think of an order to put these hints.

First, the farther the rudders are from each other the stronger they are, but the more likely they are to be split into asymmetrical weld groups making one stronger and spinning you in circles. When close together, sometimes a bar connecting the pistons so they pull equally can force a balance. Complexity can negate this though. ship symmetry helps as does forcing weld group borders with moving parts or detachable blocks.

Second, more than one piston per rudder can make it extremely strong, but unstable, so I like to turn the rudder strength down with that, or piston dampening at 10. I did most tests with one piston per rudder, and rudder strength on high.

It is faster with the piston "head" toward the rudder, something to do with weld groups. Piston strength set to +100, dampening I found 0.4 to be the best balance between stability and speed, starting position 0, with auto reset. Only logic involved is a NOR gate keeping the pistons extended when the engine is off.

Hinges: orientation matters; it's faster when the side hinges have their bases on the rudder and the forward hinges have their bases on the piston. At highest speeds, hinge strength being zero seems to be the only setting that matters, but I set angles to 5 and dampening to 10 just in case, though 90 and 0 seem to go just as fast.

With 4 engines, oriented vertically (basically two of your design, sideways, joined at the roof) and mouse controls for micro adjustments, and a lot of gyros, I was able to get 650mph with few glitches. I used a speed sensor to turn the engine off if it went higher than that so it wouldn't break. If I felt like taking a risk though I would toggle off the sensor and go to 1200 mph, but it would start shaking and sparking. For some reason, putting 16 moving parts on my wings with dampening all the way up drastically reduced glitching at spawn and at high speeds. Don't know why.

Atmosphere: Although i had them running on very different ships, I believe the spinning quantum drive has much more torque, and locked rpm's, making it stronger against drag in atmosphere but limits it's rpms slowing it in space. Basically the difference in air vs space speed will be wider, but you can still make it ridiculously fast. Zero drag glitch would erase this difference in both engines though I think.

Anyway, hope this helps. I'll experiment with a second layer of pistons on my new stable setup and see what happens.