@Warbrine Ok, also see my previous post..AI is not targetable if the game is trying to determine if the plane is flyable (can take 90seconds)...so you may not see 'em right after jumping into the new update.
Each plane has to be tested by the AI so it knows whether it should try spawning it again...necessary evil for all the non-flyable designs out there.
@Warbrine It can be hard to see them when they are more than a couple miles away...use Air-to-air targeting so you can get a targeting box around them (you don't need weapons to do that).
@keyman We've yet to determine what can/can't be supported on mobile from this update. I know we have AI in races/dogfight current on mobile, but we don't yet know if we want to introduce AI to sandbox and potentially slow down the general gameplay people use so often. We literally have not play-tested it at all yet to see how it feels.
It seems like the destroyers should be able to be included though, but again...we have not really decided on anything.
For people not seeing AI traffic, a few things to note:
-If a plane has not been flown in sandbox (aka, non-challenge flying) by the AI before, it will spawn the plane in a "fly-ability" test mode. The plane will not be targetable for up to 90 seconds until it can be determined if the AI can fly the plane or not. If it cannot fly the plane, it will be marked as un-flyable and won't be spawned again.
-As a result, if you quickly jump in/out of sandbox, the AI won't have enough time to do the test and will never mark planes as flyable. It will still be spawning them, but they won't be targetable until they are marked as flyable, so they will be hard to notice. Maybe we should make 'em targetable but just immune to weapons (with a notice to players) so this isn't as confusing.
-Designs will be re-tested every time they are saved in the designer.
-Only designs with less than 15 wings and 300 parts will be spawned to keep the framerate from tanking.
-If you leave the game in sandbox for a couple minutes and still see no AI, let me know.
@AsrielDreemurrYT The easiest way to find the AI planes is to switch to Air-To-Air mode for weapons (you don't need any weapons on your plane to do this)...this will add the targeting boxes around the AI planes.
If you stay on the runway long enough you should see 'em come in for a landing over your head. If you fly around they may come in close to you and "buzz" you, or follow you around in "follow the leader"...or they may just do their own thing and do loops around the bridges, practice flying the races, or just leisurely stroll around.
They have to get pretty close for you to see 'em well, so using the targeting is the best way to figure out where they are.
@TheTekkit101 The first time the AI picks a design, it runs a flight test on them. If the design doesn't respond "correctly" to inputs, it won't pick it again unless you re-save that design.
-Edit-
Hellfire beat me to it! He probably knows as much about the game as we do :)
@Rifqigamers1 It depends on what type of issues pop up...most likely sometime next week though...probably early next week unless we get some bigger issues reported.
@Wildblueyonder578 I guess I need to do some more testing with larger aircraft. It targets a bit ahead of your predicted position in the future. It doesn't take size into account.
@IStoleYourMeme The AI should occasionally go into a "buzz" mode and attempt to fly past you. They should rarely actually hit you, however...it does happen though.
@TheGuyWhoFliesToGetHisPie - Thank @NathanMikeska ! He put a TON of time into it and many hours of overtime to get it ready before he had to take a bit of time off for paternity leave.
@TheOwlAce The water physics are admittedly not the best...I'm not sure it will ever make it high enough on the list of things-to-do to address though.
@Rifqigamers1 The black-screen issue shouldn't happen anymore as far as we know.
@surfimp I actually bought a TrackIR a few weeks ago and contacted their team to get access to an SDK to see what it would take to integrate it into SimplePlanes. I have no idea if it will ever get support though, but it is something I am investigating.
@Skua I was editing the post and removed it. Here is what you replied to...
"Maybe we could add an input which zeros out the VTOL slider? You could use the controls as they are and then hit a certain key/button to snap it back to neutral?"
@amoldymuffin "i was, it only accepts the input for throttle but i can manage..."
I'm not sure what is going on there...after discussing with the other devs it seems we did test that and it seemed to work fine (using slider for VTOL). We'll investigate it. Thanks for reporting it.
Did it work at all? Or did it just not work how you were wanting?
@Skua "is there an option to get the old keyboard VTOL controls back? I quite liked having the keys quickly max out the slider and return to neutral once they were released."
There is not currently. Sorry if that is messing with any of your designs. We're not sure how to please everyone. We've talked about having some additional input related settings being saved in the aircraft design itself so it transfers with the aircraft (for something like this in particular), but that could be pretty confusing to some players if it behaves differently based on a specific design.
The settings file has changed in the beta, and going back to the old version requires deleting the Settings.xml before starting it. The file is located at...
@Thepos What description bug are you referring to?
@RocketLL Unfortunately, we cannot have the old UI as an option, really. It has been removed entirely...and having both would take a fair amount of effort in development upkeep time.
@mattmck Regarding a map, I'm not sure when, but we will probably add a minimap back to the game (we had one it a previous beta) once issues with it are addressed.
@BoxGlow Thanks, we were wondering if people would like how the VTOL controls work now. I know some designs depended on them snapping back though.
@IateMyCrayon Thanks for the feedback. Warthunder's mouse control is kinda like an auto-pilot that flies the plane "toward" the mouse cursor instead of directing specific control surfaces. We might look into such a thing if we get enough feedback, but none of us have discussed it.
Restarting the level fixes it, right? We've not been able to reliably reproduce it though, so any info on what you did before it happened would be appreciated.
What would you like to see as options...Expo: Minimal, Standard, Aggressive, Off? Something like that? I doubt we'd add a curve editor in the game for custom expo.
I'm also thinking people who have joysticks with software/drivers capable of setting expo curves would probably not even want to enable it in SimplePlanes b/c they they'd conflict (be additive) with their default joystick settings...
@BRuthless Regarding adjustable curves. This would be awesome...what other games have such a feature? I know Radio Control flight sims have them, but no "regular" flight sims that I know of do...however, I've been so busy with SimplePlanes that I have been a bit out of touch with flight sims recently.
@Delphinus Glad you are enjoying it! Nathan worked a TON of hours on the new input system before he took a break last week for his first baby :)
@Buntycliff There is no way to make acivation grp 8 be inactive on startup. This is by design. We removed the dedicated "RCN" button and instead mapped them to AG-8 so older designs would still work.
@Nickasaurus Lots of people want a rotation nudge...we are looking into it, but the game wasn't really designed for that and could lead to very weird looking aircraft.
@Thepos The orbit camera should only auto-switch if you crash in most cases. Is that what you're wanting to disable, or is it happening in other circumstances?
@NovaTopaz It took me a bit to get used to the new default keyboard mappings as well. We moved to inputs that other games use as defaults to help new players jump in.
Of course, you can change it back if you want. I am used to the new mappings now though.
@Nickasaurus We are adding new parts. The plan is to add some "design enabling" type parts instead of just things like new engines, etc.
@DeezDucks Hope you like the mouse input :) I do really enjoy it when I don't have a gamepad/joystick handy.
@BeryllCorp That would be cool :)
@Sirstupid Yes, you can control zoom with keyboard bindings now. You can optionally set an activator button to make them only work when the activator is pressed (handy for joysticks).
@MediocrePlanes The mouse control is kinda similar to WarThunder, except it directly changes control surfaces instead of flying the aircraft "toward" the mouse pointer.
@DeezDucks This is an update mostly about improving joystick/gamepad input support. It has some additional input related features as well, such as using the mouse to fly the aircraft, and using a gamepad/joystick to control the camera.
@Warbrine Ok, also see my previous post..AI is not targetable if the game is trying to determine if the plane is flyable (can take 90seconds)...so you may not see 'em right after jumping into the new update.
Each plane has to be tested by the AI so it knows whether it should try spawning it again...necessary evil for all the non-flyable designs out there.
@Warbrine It can be hard to see them when they are more than a couple miles away...use Air-to-air targeting so you can get a targeting box around them (you don't need weapons to do that).
@connorbirmingham We'll get back with you tomorrow with a key.
@Rmagnum You can turn the AI off from the game settings.
@Zetlin Are you using the Air-To-Air targeting to verify there is no AI traffic? They are very hard to spot unless very close w/o using the targeting.
@connorbirmingham Contact us...we'll give you a Steam key when we've verified the Mac app store purchase.
@keyman We've yet to determine what can/can't be supported on mobile from this update. I know we have AI in races/dogfight current on mobile, but we don't yet know if we want to introduce AI to sandbox and potentially slow down the general gameplay people use so often. We literally have not play-tested it at all yet to see how it feels.
It seems like the destroyers should be able to be included though, but again...we have not really decided on anything.
@connorbirmingham It is available on Mac...are you using Steam, or the Mac app store?
@jfriss They are escorting the large carrier to the NE of the "old" island.
@BlueskyINC
For people not seeing AI traffic, a few things to note:
-If a plane has not been flown in sandbox (aka, non-challenge flying) by the AI before, it will spawn the plane in a "fly-ability" test mode. The plane will not be targetable for up to 90 seconds until it can be determined if the AI can fly the plane or not. If it cannot fly the plane, it will be marked as un-flyable and won't be spawned again.
-As a result, if you quickly jump in/out of sandbox, the AI won't have enough time to do the test and will never mark planes as flyable. It will still be spawning them, but they won't be targetable until they are marked as flyable, so they will be hard to notice. Maybe we should make 'em targetable but just immune to weapons (with a notice to players) so this isn't as confusing.
-Designs will be re-tested every time they are saved in the designer.
-Only designs with less than 15 wings and 300 parts will be spawned to keep the framerate from tanking.
-If you leave the game in sandbox for a couple minutes and still see no AI, let me know.
@AsrielDreemurrYT The easiest way to find the AI planes is to switch to Air-To-Air mode for weapons (you don't need any weapons on your plane to do this)...this will add the targeting boxes around the AI planes.
If you stay on the runway long enough you should see 'em come in for a landing over your head. If you fly around they may come in close to you and "buzz" you, or follow you around in "follow the leader"...or they may just do their own thing and do loops around the bridges, practice flying the races, or just leisurely stroll around.
They have to get pretty close for you to see 'em well, so using the targeting is the best way to figure out where they are.
@TheTekkit101 The first time the AI picks a design, it runs a flight test on them. If the design doesn't respond "correctly" to inputs, it won't pick it again unless you re-save that design.
-Edit-
Hellfire beat me to it! He probably knows as much about the game as we do :)
@bjac0 Do you have any examples of planes blowing up that worked in the old version?
@Rifqigamers1 It depends on what type of issues pop up...most likely sometime next week though...probably early next week unless we get some bigger issues reported.
@Wildblueyonder578 I guess I need to do some more testing with larger aircraft. It targets a bit ahead of your predicted position in the future. It doesn't take size into account.
@IStoleYourMeme The AI should occasionally go into a "buzz" mode and attempt to fly past you. They should rarely actually hit you, however...it does happen though.
@CarlosDanger13 I've never owned a Volvo, so I can't really say. Why do you ask?
Love the articulating trunk, man. I got it to do some...strange things after the elephants head popped off.
Hmm, I've not seen this. I'll see if I can replicate it.
One of my favorite movies :)
@BRuthless We're all wondering here at the office if you are a Jedi? Can you submit a blood sample so we can test your Midichlorian count? :)
That is insane flying, I absolutely would not have believed it w/o video...no offense :)
Very impressive!
@AnarchistAerospaceIndustries You can re-map the activation to another input instead of RMB if you are accidentally enabling mouse as yoke.
Love it! Wing mechanism and head-looking are great :)
@Brields95 - "My Sateck throtle and rudder pedals aren't being recognized when I try to set up the controlls."
Do you have the actual Make/Model number for them?
@Doge121 There really isn't much in this update that would benefit mobile platforms...unless you are trying to use a joystick with your iPhone :)
@TheGuyWhoFliesToGetHisPie - Thank @NathanMikeska ! He put a TON of time into it and many hours of overtime to get it ready before he had to take a bit of time off for paternity leave.
@TheOwlAce The water physics are admittedly not the best...I'm not sure it will ever make it high enough on the list of things-to-do to address though.
@Rifqigamers1 The black-screen issue shouldn't happen anymore as far as we know.
@surfimp I actually bought a TrackIR a few weeks ago and contacted their team to get access to an SDK to see what it would take to integrate it into SimplePlanes. I have no idea if it will ever get support though, but it is something I am investigating.
@Skua I was editing the post and removed it. Here is what you replied to...
"Maybe we could add an input which zeros out the VTOL slider? You could use the controls as they are and then hit a certain key/button to snap it back to neutral?"
@amoldymuffin "i was, it only accepts the input for throttle but i can manage..."
I'm not sure what is going on there...after discussing with the other devs it seems we did test that and it seemed to work fine (using slider for VTOL). We'll investigate it. Thanks for reporting it.
Did it work at all? Or did it just not work how you were wanting?
@Skua "is there an option to get the old keyboard VTOL controls back? I quite liked having the keys quickly max out the slider and return to neutral once they were released."
There is not currently. Sorry if that is messing with any of your designs. We're not sure how to please everyone. We've talked about having some additional input related settings being saved in the aircraft design itself so it transfers with the aircraft (for something like this in particular), but that could be pretty confusing to some players if it behaves differently based on a specific design.
@amoldymuffin Were you wanting to use it or VTOL? I don't think we ever tested that, but I don't know why it wouldn't work.
@mattmck Mostly improving the input system (joysticks/gamepads) with some smaller fixes/changes as well.
@iFalco
The settings file has changed in the beta, and going back to the old version requires deleting the Settings.xml before starting it. The file is located at...
Windows: %userprofile%\AppData\LocalLow\Jundroo\SimplePlanes\Settings.xml
Mac: ~/Library/Application Support/Jundroo/SimplePlanes/Settings.xml
This will wipe out level completion, graphics settings, and custom locations. It won't impact any aircraft, however.
"Why don't they update the app store version q.q"
@DelphFoxFan Are you referring to iOS or Android? We have a beta out right now. We should have the final out fairly soon...maybe even this week.
@Byplain Thank you so much! You are awesome!
@Thepos What description bug are you referring to?
@RocketLL Unfortunately, we cannot have the old UI as an option, really. It has been removed entirely...and having both would take a fair amount of effort in development upkeep time.
@mattmck Regarding a map, I'm not sure when, but we will probably add a minimap back to the game (we had one it a previous beta) once issues with it are addressed.
@BoxGlow Thanks, we were wondering if people would like how the VTOL controls work now. I know some designs depended on them snapping back though.
@IateMyCrayon Thanks for the feedback. Warthunder's mouse control is kinda like an auto-pilot that flies the plane "toward" the mouse cursor instead of directing specific control surfaces. We might look into such a thing if we get enough feedback, but none of us have discussed it.
Pusher, twin fuse, flies pretty darn good, and looks great? Nice job :)
We have seen this.
Restarting the level fixes it, right? We've not been able to reliably reproduce it though, so any info on what you did before it happened would be appreciated.
Just checked this out...it flies very well. Nice job :) Going to check out more of your planes.
@BRuthless
What would you like to see as options...Expo: Minimal, Standard, Aggressive, Off? Something like that? I doubt we'd add a curve editor in the game for custom expo.
I'm also thinking people who have joysticks with software/drivers capable of setting expo curves would probably not even want to enable it in SimplePlanes b/c they they'd conflict (be additive) with their default joystick settings...
@BRuthless Regarding adjustable curves. This would be awesome...what other games have such a feature? I know Radio Control flight sims have them, but no "regular" flight sims that I know of do...however, I've been so busy with SimplePlanes that I have been a bit out of touch with flight sims recently.
@Delphinus Glad you are enjoying it! Nathan worked a TON of hours on the new input system before he took a break last week for his first baby :)
@Buntycliff There is no way to make acivation grp 8 be inactive on startup. This is by design. We removed the dedicated "RCN" button and instead mapped them to AG-8 so older designs would still work.
@Nickasaurus Lots of people want a rotation nudge...we are looking into it, but the game wasn't really designed for that and could lead to very weird looking aircraft.
@Thepos The orbit camera should only auto-switch if you crash in most cases. Is that what you're wanting to disable, or is it happening in other circumstances?
@NovaTopaz It took me a bit to get used to the new default keyboard mappings as well. We moved to inputs that other games use as defaults to help new players jump in.
Of course, you can change it back if you want. I am used to the new mappings now though.
@Nickasaurus We are adding new parts. The plan is to add some "design enabling" type parts instead of just things like new engines, etc.
@DeezDucks Hope you like the mouse input :) I do really enjoy it when I don't have a gamepad/joystick handy.
@BeryllCorp That would be cool :)
@Sirstupid Yes, you can control zoom with keyboard bindings now. You can optionally set an activator button to make them only work when the activator is pressed (handy for joysticks).
@MediocrePlanes The mouse control is kinda similar to WarThunder, except it directly changes control surfaces instead of flying the aircraft "toward" the mouse pointer.
@BeryllCorp Ah, good.
It is a bit confusing, we're hoping to improve the UI so some things like that are clearer.
@BeryllCorp Camera Look controls?
@Nickasaurus Thanks, lol. I fixed the link :)
@DeezDucks This is an update mostly about improving joystick/gamepad input support. It has some additional input related features as well, such as using the mouse to fly the aircraft, and using a gamepad/joystick to control the camera.