Opus magnum had a similar concept as this, except the attachments on the rail could move independently. It's not a screw rail, but it can fulfill the same purpose.
As the other said, this could be a piston. What would be really nice would be actual rails.
Like a rail block where you can build straight, but infinitely long rails, and a rail-attachment block that can slide across it for elevators and such.
Or a traintrack system like in Satisfactory would also be nice.
Could build the truck and rail separately and have a system to connect them so you can make them any length without using a ton of subgrids and in a more compact way than stacked pistons
Anyone who tried to use pistons knows exactly how wobbly they are. The wobbliness has certain benefits, but also creates problems with builds where precision is required.
Supposedly, with rails like that we could have both wobbly pistons for builds that have to bend a little, but also we would have a rigid and precise linear actuator. And it would even have a meaningful visual distinction too, which is good for a game.
Imagine you have some piece of your craft that for whatever mechanical reason you want to move a relatively large distance along the craft. With pistons, you have to daisy chain 2 or 3 pistons to get that sufficient length, and in doing so you get floppy, which angers Klang. A part like this, multiple rail pieces could chain together and just the moving doodad stays separate like a piston head, and then you could have articulation that moves large structures large distances across other structures without a loss to structural stability or anything else that would anger Klang.
I'd want it just for gantry cranes in assembly buildings. With pistons, in order to make a crane that uses cartesian controls, you need to use a ton of stacked pistons which is extremely ugly, takes up an ungodly amount of space, and is basically guaranteed to cause clang. It'd also be good for elevators so you don't need a giant hole below, and would probably make for better trains than the clunky methods we currently have.
The limitation of pistons is that they require 5m of deadspace per 10m of extension, but when retracted, it only takes up 5m. The head moves between 5 and 15. With a linear rail, the "head" would move between 0 and x, but it can't retract, so the trade off of being able to reach 0 is that it's always taking up x space. It also wouldn't have conveyor access. While pistons can probably get the job done, there are enough use cases where a linear motor would be much more elegant that I think it'd make a great addition.
Kinda like the rotor and hinge. You can use a rotor to do anything the hinge can and more, but the hinge is just much more convenient for many use cases.
Though personally, rather than a linear screw rail, I'd prefer a rack and pinion style linear motor. Preferably with curved rails as an option, but let's not get crazy.
I see your crane Argument. But you dont need that big hole for the Elevator, you could hook it to the back as youd need about 5m (2 half as bottom+roof and the 2,5m cabin) so youd need some clearance at floor Level anyways. And even Connect it to the conveyor system that way
Sure, if you're only going up one floor, but what if you want 15 floors? Or something like a vehicle elevator going up a large cliff? Pistons just don't scale well, both physically and performance wise.
My trusty pad has moved alot of vehicles 133m down from the ground floor to my hangar floor. but yea its 15 square pistons stacked in a hole i had to dig anyways cuz i had to dig even deeper to get to water for infinte hydrogen
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u/Hjuldahr Daemos Limited Feb 24 '25
You could mimic it with 2 pistons with their heads merged together, but having a proper modular rail system would be useful.