About the ejector racks
I intentionally avoided using fuselage blocks, because they have (it seems) infinite connection points... meaning I cannot eliminate connectors, which in turn allow them to get stuck on other parts of your plane you don't want them to attach to.
If anyone has a difficulty connecting bomb or bomb rack to a correct pylon, here's what helps:
1)first, hide the pylon(s) using visibility button. (Eye button)
2)second, reverse visibility (another eye button), so you see only the pylons you just hid.
3)third, get the thing as subassembly like normal, and put it on your pylon. It shouldn't stick to other blocks, since you only have the pylons visible.
-A-6 (with the bombs) coming soon... maybe. (hopefully!)
.
-There will be a triple-bomb-rack version of the 500lb ones at some point.
.
-I can't say when I can publish it, but I'm working on even more mobile friendlier version of these bombs, with just 2x fins each. (That's 4 parts per bomb, and if you mount 4x of the 500lb version (24 bombs), that'll be a reduction of 48 parts.)
@THEOKPILOT
Oh, I was referring mainly to the 'abandoned again' part. I mean, who would steal (or retrieve?) a truck and do body works only to abandon it again. If these really are the same truck that is... Hey I just got an idea, maybe you can hide a GPS tracker on the truck somewhere, in case someone tries to steal it again. I doubt it'll happen (again), but if it does... it might lead us somewhere.
.
As for storm from around 1995... I can't say it rings a bell. I wasn't around Wright Isles at that time. These cases of missing people seem kinda under reported around here, though, come to think of it...
@THEOKPILOT
Oh... oh boy, yeah that wagon's seen better days. I'm surprised it still drives. Haha. And about the truck... I guess those items aren't anything too strange. Unless the fabric was all bloody or something, lol Also, as you say this one looks more weathered, like it's been exposed to the elements for much longer. License plates are different, too. But then again, someone could just swap the license, and 4 years might be enough time to do that... do you suppose the truck's previous owner stole (or 'retrieved') the truck after I found it, turned it into a box van, then abandoned it again? If that was the case, it would be bizarre to say the least.
Woah- I thought this was the Dord I found for a second! Looks like the same color, same level of rust and everything. Although... mine was a regular pick up. It's been a while since that truck went missing though... pretty sure someone stole it.
.
I brought that abandoned truck to the police to see if I can register it as my own (I needed a new vehicle since my green Dord dove into the ocean... forgot to use parking brake that day), but the truck disappeared from the police station before they found any records of the previous owner. They thought it was related to an unsolved case (that famous people-gone-missing incident), but the truck was never found again. Did you see anything.. strange.. in the truck, by any chance?
@Monarchii
Ah, got it.
.
The critical state thing, I'm thinking of it as a way to prevent a dead ship from continually attacked by AI controlled planes/ships.
.
Oh btw, if you want to change reload time depending on the gun arc, (if that's the case) I think you can add another set of barrels with longer reload time, and use target distance to activate/deactivate them (so you automatically switch between fast reload and slow reload)
@Monarchii
Oh you did the work! This is very cool, awesome.
I'm still reading it, but your explanation of the system is pretty easy to understand (at least for me).
.
Just got an idea as I was reading it, what if we add a system that forces "critically damaged" state (i.e., ship is dead and no longer targetable) when most of the ship is under the sea level?
I think this can be done by adding a secondary cockpit which we use for altitude reference (if the ship is sunk it'll be negative), and it going below sea level triggers critical damage maybe by detaching a big wing. (Since the conditions for critical damage are 1) 1/3 of parts disconnected/destroyed or 2) losing half the wing area, if I remember right)
This is primarily to prevent ship from (somehow) staying alive while being completely destroyed & underwater, which sometimes happened another physics based ship game I used to play. I dunno, maybe it's unnecessary.
Also, maybe you can just use the primary cockpit as reference (it needs to place it somewhere inside the hull for AI to hit it).
@Monarchii
Nice boat! And yeah, less impact force is certainly better. I wanted to make the hull tougher than regular planes and such (and that's still possible), but ship sliding sideways upon getting hit was pretty silly & annoying.
Perhaps we need a nice and simple system for HP & damage scale that's easy to adopt? And maybe like a starting base for each class of warships (DD, CL/CA, BB... etc.) that one can build the exterior/cosmetic parts on top of.
@YarisSedan
I have some improved/updated versions of my past builds. Low-part machine gun AAA, AI fighter (that can be spawned both mid air and on the ground), etc. I have new builds too but I don't know if any of them will be finished.
@rexzion
I'm thinking of simply using cumulative VerticalG or sum of positive G time as a trigger for bailout. Plane can be a normal one without FT-autopilot. This should allow for some randomness (given how randomly AI flies planes) without having to do crazy stuff. Making a stable enough helo seems like the harder part to me.
I have some new pilot themed figurines that can be used for this, so I should be uploading them soon (fingers crossed).
@LM0418
"You stole fizzy lifting drones! You bumped into the factory self destruct control which is now enabled and cannot be reverted! You get nothing! You lose! GOOD DAY, SIR!"
Here's some quarks I've noticed/learned about this trick as I messed with this system. Might help people who want to build other AAA build for AI based on this build:
.
.
-Gun seems to stop firing if the cockpit is moved too much after spawn. And once it stops firing, it seems they never fire again. So spawning the gun on moving objects such as USS Tiny or Beast makes it not work, at least on my game (latest iPhone 1.12.203).
.
I tried making a moving version of this AAA by combining it with 11qazxc's automatic gift truck, but couldn't get it to fire a single round for some reason. I gave up on the project, and later realized that even static versions stop firing when something moves the cockpit, or so it seemed. There might be a different, actual, precise cause for guns stop firing, but for the time being I presume this is the cause.
.
.
-Gun and cockpit can be misaligned due to movement caused by rotators (seems to be a characteristic/bug of the game). When this occurs, naturally the gun becomes inaccurate as it always aims at a wrong spot.
This can be mitigated by attaching a second cockpit to the base of the gun (in this case hull of the static vehicle), setting up Current Heading part variable of the second cockpit (by giving it a name), then modifying the rotator's FT by replacing all the Heading with the name for the heading variable of the second cockpit.
I did not expect this to push me past the 25k, but thank you all nonetheless for downloading, commenting, upvoting and highlighting.
Happy Simple Planing!
@Ye4567
!https://www.simpleplanes.com/Notifications/View/51382749
Here it is, I've included all wings as it was easier in a way. It says RF-84, but it's identical to my F-84's (G, I think). Flap is assigned to trim, and trim tabs are assigned to VTOL
@Ye4567
No, I don't mind, go ahead!
I have actually built flyable versions before turning them static, but I never completed them. I'll link one here if I still have it somewhere, you may use that as the base, instead of one of those static models, if you like:)
Here's some I could find on my phone chii, I may find a few more on my computer if I'm lucky. (Don't get your hopes up for the Natter though!)
Did you figure out the AI gun thing btw? Sorry I haven't looked into it much yet, I've been away x(
.
.
Chii's builds
Airplanes
Doug AI https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/K8tZHr/AI-Fighter-Doug-Redesign-by-Tsuchiisan
@Ceilies
I assume you used an explosive cannon or one with high impactDamageScaler? System doesn't work with large explosion or too high an IDS due to the way the game works.
(My comment got cut off, it was probably too long. Here's the rest:)
But AI will stop firing the cannon under some conditions (I'm not sure what exactly are those conditions), and when it stops, you basically have to make it, the AI, repeat the process if you want it to fire a cannon again. And this is how my Missile & Rotator based bot trigger mechanism works. Every time AI stops firing its weapons (=not pressing down on the Virtual.. Insanity.. jk, FireWeapons button), missile re-activates, so AI can & will fire a missile again.
Feel free to throw me more questions about this thing if you don't understand something about it. I try my best to explain it, but it's kinda convoluted and it can be hard to tell how well I'm explaining it.
@Monarchii
Sorry for my late response chii, been kinda occupied.
Anyhow, no problem at all:)
.
So, the radar-tator and the activation missile+the orange cannon are separate things.
.
"Radar-tator" is a mechanism which rotates the Cockpit (set as Primary) 360 degrees until it finds a target (and reset when it does). This is for helping the AI find a target. It's needed for "enemy AI turret" type builds because aggressive AI has a frontal field of vision that's probably less than 180 degrees (angle is based on the current heading of the main cockpit block) and only "sees" other active planes inside this cone. Only exception I know is when the AI gets locked-on by other active plane's missile from any angle, in which case it can "see" the threat and react to it.
.
.
The orange cannon is a part of a mechanism which limits the maximum firing range (altitude & distance) of the flak gun. This is an optional thing, mainly for realism & (I suppose,) game mechanic.
Basically, AI must keep firing a weapon/ (=a cannon) if you want it to keep firing/using a cannon. Meaning, if you give it only a cannon(s) that disables itself under certain conditions, it stops firing under said conditions, and it won't fire the cannon again. But you do want to disable the cannon under some conditions, so what you can do is to give it a fake cannon to replace the "real" cannons when the real ones are disabled.
I think technically it's probably possible to give this function to the bot trigger missile, and remove the fake cannon, but I think that'll probably introduce some other nuisances.
As for the trigger (Activation) conditions for the fake and real cannons, you just need to write an Activation FT for the real cannons as a Custom Variable (condition which activates the real cannons), and give the same variable to the fake gun as its activation FT except with an inverse function (=!).
.
. How AI uses cannons
I should write a quick refresher on how AI uses cannons. Basically, AI never uses air-to-air weapons other than missiles (as weapons, using FireWeapons input) under normal conditions. (I don't think they ever use air-to-ground only weapons)
But if it fires a missile that's AtA (including multirole), and "runs out" of that missile, AI switches to the next AtA weapon, while still pressing-down on the virtual FireWeapons button. And if the next weapon is a cannon, it continues to press down on the virtual FireWeapons button, which causes the cannon to fire. This is how AI fires a cannon (in current version of the game).
B
@MrCOPTY
Not sure if this is the issue you are having, but there seems to be a bug where having "&" condition inside the activation FT of a parachute does something weird. When I used it (the & condition) trying to create a retardation/high-drag device for a bomb, game would alway glitch and became unplayable, spawning my aircraft some crazy distance below ground.
Love the design and functionality. The buikd quality/the finish is very nice, and it 'looks' and 'feels' like a medium bomber--which is one my favorite class of aircrafts!
@SILVERPANZER
Thanks for tagging:)
Yeah I am very much interested in this. I have some speculations on how this might work (in a very simplified way), but I'd love to see it for myself when it's uploaded.
About the ejector racks
I intentionally avoided using fuselage blocks, because they have (it seems) infinite connection points... meaning I cannot eliminate connectors, which in turn allow them to get stuck on other parts of your plane you don't want them to attach to.
If anyone has a difficulty connecting bomb or bomb rack to a correct pylon, here's what helps:
1)first, hide the pylon(s) using visibility button. (Eye button)
2)second, reverse visibility (another eye button), so you see only the pylons you just hid.
3)third, get the thing as subassembly like normal, and put it on your pylon. It shouldn't stick to other blocks, since you only have the pylons visible.
@F16xl
Yes, it's just a term used in military aviation. Now, let's have more interesting discussions here, thank you!
-A-6 (with the bombs) coming soon... maybe. (hopefully!)
.
-There will be a triple-bomb-rack version of the 500lb ones at some point.
.
-I can't say when I can publish it, but I'm working on even more mobile friendlier version of these bombs, with just 2x fins each. (That's 4 parts per bomb, and if you mount 4x of the 500lb version (24 bombs), that'll be a reduction of 48 parts.)
@ShinyGemsBro
Snake's Eyes
@THEOKPILOT
Oh, I was referring mainly to the 'abandoned again' part. I mean, who would steal (or retrieve?) a truck and do body works only to abandon it again. If these really are the same truck that is... Hey I just got an idea, maybe you can hide a GPS tracker on the truck somewhere, in case someone tries to steal it again. I doubt it'll happen (again), but if it does... it might lead us somewhere.
.
As for storm from around 1995... I can't say it rings a bell. I wasn't around Wright Isles at that time. These cases of missing people seem kinda under reported around here, though, come to think of it...
Oh by the way... do you remember what the newspaper was about, or when it came out? Might help us figure out when this truck was abandoned
@THEOKPILOT
Oh... oh boy, yeah that wagon's seen better days. I'm surprised it still drives. Haha. And about the truck... I guess those items aren't anything too strange. Unless the fabric was all bloody or something, lol Also, as you say this one looks more weathered, like it's been exposed to the elements for much longer. License plates are different, too. But then again, someone could just swap the license, and 4 years might be enough time to do that... do you suppose the truck's previous owner stole (or 'retrieved') the truck after I found it, turned it into a box van, then abandoned it again? If that was the case, it would be bizarre to say the least.
Woah- I thought this was the Dord I found for a second! Looks like the same color, same level of rust and everything. Although... mine was a regular pick up. It's been a while since that truck went missing though... pretty sure someone stole it.
.
I brought that abandoned truck to the police to see if I can register it as my own (I needed a new vehicle since my green Dord dove into the ocean... forgot to use parking brake that day), but the truck disappeared from the police station before they found any records of the previous owner. They thought it was related to an unsolved case (that famous people-gone-missing incident), but the truck was never found again. Did you see anything.. strange.. in the truck, by any chance?
@Monarchii
Ah, got it.
.
The critical state thing, I'm thinking of it as a way to prevent a dead ship from continually attacked by AI controlled planes/ships.
.
Oh btw, if you want to change reload time depending on the gun arc, (if that's the case) I think you can add another set of barrels with longer reload time, and use target distance to activate/deactivate them (so you automatically switch between fast reload and slow reload)
@Monarchii
Oh you did the work! This is very cool, awesome.
I'm still reading it, but your explanation of the system is pretty easy to understand (at least for me).
.
Just got an idea as I was reading it, what if we add a system that forces "critically damaged" state (i.e., ship is dead and no longer targetable) when most of the ship is under the sea level?
I think this can be done by adding a secondary cockpit which we use for altitude reference (if the ship is sunk it'll be negative), and it going below sea level triggers critical damage maybe by detaching a big wing. (Since the conditions for critical damage are 1) 1/3 of parts disconnected/destroyed or 2) losing half the wing area, if I remember right)
This is primarily to prevent ship from (somehow) staying alive while being completely destroyed & underwater, which sometimes happened another physics based ship game I used to play. I dunno, maybe it's unnecessary.
Also, maybe you can just use the primary cockpit as reference (it needs to place it somewhere inside the hull for AI to hit it).
@Monarchii
Nice boat! And yeah, less impact force is certainly better. I wanted to make the hull tougher than regular planes and such (and that's still possible), but ship sliding sideways upon getting hit was pretty silly & annoying.
Perhaps we need a nice and simple system for HP & damage scale that's easy to adopt? And maybe like a starting base for each class of warships (DD, CL/CA, BB... etc.) that one can build the exterior/cosmetic parts on top of.
If you are interested, here's some stuff I made which use rotator as number-storing memory.
You can see how much it shakes on the coords recorder.
.
Earlier version of my autopilot
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/GXJVvB/Auto-climb-wing-leveler-gyro-TALT-3-2
Coords charter (records XYZ coordinates of your flight)
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/Wo4LgC/XYZ-coord-recorder-Route-charter-Mk1-record-longitude-altitude-and-latitude-au
@Rob119
It took a while for some reason...
@MastaCheefondaSoda
No, it's all made in vanilla SP
@THEBIGGAKLIPA
There used to be one, but I can no longer find it. I think it's been deleted.
@SPsidearm
Yeah, it should work. Put secondary cockpit (orange one) on the turret and primary on the hull.
@YarisSedan
Oh... hey, you are RoadTrainGuy. Didn't realize right away haha
@YarisSedan
Nah, not really.
@YarisSedan
I have some improved/updated versions of my past builds. Low-part machine gun AAA, AI fighter (that can be spawned both mid air and on the ground), etc. I have new builds too but I don't know if any of them will be finished.
@YarisSedan
If it comes to iOS, I'll probably get it. But at the moment, I'm not sure if I'll be active in making & uploading things.
Thank you for your work! It's been and continues to be a great resource.
Looks nice and handles nice!
@rexzion
I'm thinking of simply using cumulative VerticalG or sum of positive G time as a trigger for bailout. Plane can be a normal one without FT-autopilot. This should allow for some randomness (given how randomly AI flies planes) without having to do crazy stuff. Making a stable enough helo seems like the harder part to me.
I have some new pilot themed figurines that can be used for this, so I should be uploading them soon (fingers crossed).
Nice build!
Love the destructible smoke stacks.
@LM0418
"You stole fizzy lifting drones! You bumped into the factory self destruct control which is now enabled and cannot be reverted! You get nothing! You lose! GOOD DAY, SIR!"
@SPsidearm
Image doesn't display for me unfortunately, is it a link to discord image perhaps?
@SPsidearm
Cool! Were you able to find the file?
Incredible, love it!
Here's some quarks I've noticed/learned about this trick as I messed with this system. Might help people who want to build other AAA build for AI based on this build:
.
.
-Gun seems to stop firing if the cockpit is moved too much after spawn. And once it stops firing, it seems they never fire again. So spawning the gun on moving objects such as USS Tiny or Beast makes it not work, at least on my game (latest iPhone 1.12.203).
.
I tried making a moving version of this AAA by combining it with 11qazxc's automatic gift truck, but couldn't get it to fire a single round for some reason. I gave up on the project, and later realized that even static versions stop firing when something moves the cockpit, or so it seemed. There might be a different, actual, precise cause for guns stop firing, but for the time being I presume this is the cause.
.
.
-Gun and cockpit can be misaligned due to movement caused by rotators (seems to be a characteristic/bug of the game). When this occurs, naturally the gun becomes inaccurate as it always aims at a wrong spot.
This can be mitigated by attaching a second cockpit to the base of the gun (in this case hull of the static vehicle), setting up Current Heading part variable of the second cockpit (by giving it a name), then modifying the rotator's FT by replacing all the
Headingwith the name for the heading variable of the second cockpit.@DimitriIqbal91
Thanks! And I did not think of that, I gotta try that. Seeing these fall seems fun lol
@AluminiumFX
Thank you!
I did not expect this to push me past the 25k, but thank you all nonetheless for downloading, commenting, upvoting and highlighting.
Happy Simple Planing!
@Ye4567
!https://www.simpleplanes.com/Notifications/View/51382749
Here it is, I've included all wings as it was easier in a way. It says RF-84, but it's identical to my F-84's (G, I think). Flap is assigned to trim, and trim tabs are assigned to VTOL
@Ye4567
Sure thing
@Ye4567
No, I don't mind, go ahead!
I have actually built flyable versions before turning them static, but I never completed them. I'll link one here if I still have it somewhere, you may use that as the base, instead of one of those static models, if you like:)
Looks good and very fun to fly! (even on smart phone!)
Great build.
Here's some I could find on my phone chii, I may find a few more on my computer if I'm lucky. (Don't get your hopes up for the Natter though!)
Did you figure out the AI gun thing btw? Sorry I haven't looked into it much yet, I've been away x(
.
.
Chii's builds
Airplanes
Doug AI
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/K8tZHr/AI-Fighter-Doug-Redesign-by-Tsuchiisan
Geoff AI
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/WekXVr/AI-Fighter-Geoff-by-Tsuchiisan-lpfighter
Nachute AI
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/I8g2uI/AI-Fighter-Nachteule-by-Tsuchiisan
E-3 Bandog AWACS
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/28k28v/AI-ASAP-AWACS-E-3-Bandog-by-tsuchiisan-chiis-old-build
Hamuko - single seat fighter
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/VIPN43/Hamuko-by-Tsuchiisan
Giant Seaplane Zephyr II
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/GR78ON/Giant-Seaplane-The-Zephyr-II-TT3-by-Tsuchiisan-LPplane
Air ship
Grand Explorer
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/9IKs07/Airship-Grand-Explorer-Holy-Lyre-TGT2-by-Tsuchiisan
Hover bike Sleipnir
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/614Z0k/Dieslevr-Aeroflotmotorwerks-H-11L-Custom-Sleipnir-by-tsuchiisan
Senko pilot fig
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/g9Yn4O/Figure-G_suit-Senko-by-tsuchiisan-anime
Ships
HMS Reaper, CVE
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/0uNXFU/HMS-Reaper-escort-carrier-TT2-by-Tsuchiisan-LPS
I-15 sub carrier
https://www.simpleplanes.com/a/4tochL/SSV-I-15-Floatplane-Submarine-TT4-by-tsuchiisan-lps-AIS
@Ceilies
I assume you used an explosive cannon or one with high impactDamageScaler? System doesn't work with large explosion or too high an IDS due to the way the game works.
@ScoutTrooperGaming
No problem!
You need to disable AG8 & activate AG1, then lower the VTOL slider.
Feel free to ask questions if you have more:)
(My comment got cut off, it was probably too long. Here's the rest:)
But AI will stop firing the cannon under some conditions (I'm not sure what exactly are those conditions), and when it stops, you basically have to make it, the AI, repeat the process if you want it to fire a cannon again. And this is how my Missile & Rotator based bot trigger mechanism works. Every time AI stops firing its weapons (=not pressing down on the Virtual.. Insanity.. jk,
FireWeaponsbutton), missile re-activates, so AI can & will fire a missile again.Feel free to throw me more questions about this thing if you don't understand something about it. I try my best to explain it, but it's kinda convoluted and it can be hard to tell how well I'm explaining it.
@Monarchii
Sorry for my late response chii, been kinda occupied.
Anyhow, no problem at all:)
.
So, the radar-tator and the activation missile+the orange cannon are separate things.
.
"Radar-tator" is a mechanism which rotates the Cockpit (set as Primary) 360 degrees until it finds a target (and reset when it does). This is for helping the AI find a target. It's needed for "enemy AI turret" type builds because aggressive AI has a frontal field of vision that's probably less than 180 degrees (angle is based on the current heading of the main cockpit block) and only "sees" other active planes inside this cone. Only exception I know is when the AI gets locked-on by other active plane's missile from any angle, in which case it can "see" the threat and react to it.
.
.
The orange cannon is a part of a mechanism which limits the maximum firing range (altitude & distance) of the flak gun. This is an optional thing, mainly for realism & (I suppose,) game mechanic.
Basically, AI must keep firing a weapon/ (=a cannon) if you want it to keep firing/using a cannon. Meaning, if you give it only a cannon(s) that disables itself under certain conditions, it stops firing under said conditions, and it won't fire the cannon again. But you do want to disable the cannon under some conditions, so what you can do is to give it a fake cannon to replace the "real" cannons when the real ones are disabled.
I think technically it's probably possible to give this function to the bot trigger missile, and remove the fake cannon, but I think that'll probably introduce some other nuisances.
As for the trigger (Activation) conditions for the fake and real cannons, you just need to write an Activation FT for the real cannons as a Custom Variable (condition which activates the real cannons), and give the same variable to the fake gun as its activation FT except with an inverse function (=
!)..
.
How AI uses cannons
I should write a quick refresher on how AI uses cannons. Basically, AI never uses air-to-air weapons other than missiles (as weapons, using
FireWeaponsinput) under normal conditions. (I don't think they ever use air-to-ground only weapons)But if it fires a missile that's AtA (including multirole), and "runs out" of that missile, AI switches to the next AtA weapon, while still pressing-down on the virtual
FireWeaponsbutton. And if the next weapon is a cannon, it continues to press down on the virtualFireWeaponsbutton, which causes the cannon to fire. This is how AI fires a cannon (in current version of the game).B
Beautiful. Love the design.
So cool!!
@MrCOPTY
Not sure if this is the issue you are having, but there seems to be a bug where having "&" condition inside the activation FT of a parachute does something weird. When I used it (the & condition) trying to create a retardation/high-drag device for a bomb, game would alway glitch and became unplayable, spawning my aircraft some crazy distance below ground.
Love the design!
Love the design and functionality. The buikd quality/the finish is very nice, and it 'looks' and 'feels' like a medium bomber--which is one my favorite class of aircrafts!
Looks great! Tag please, whenever it's out.
T!
@SILVERPANZER
Thanks for tagging:)
Yeah I am very much interested in this. I have some speculations on how this might work (in a very simplified way), but I'd love to see it for myself when it's uploaded.