how do i assign control to weapons and such?

[UshankaMan]

im new. im trying to build a space fighter. i add weapons and a retractable landing gear. great! but now how do i activate them? i press K and i see them on the panel. but i want to be able to press a button to activate them. i searched on youtube but all i could find were just design tutorials. i searched a guide and it just shows me how to build and rotate blocks and links to mods, which i am not interested in right now. i wanna learn to build a functioning ship before i look at mods

[jafiwam]

For most weapons you can go into the control panel and press the "control" button in the settings. You must be in a flight seat or seat of some kind to do this.

The sitting requirement is new I think so lots of video tutorials don't include that bit.

So make a weapon, make a seat, sit in the seat and open the control panel. Find the settings for the weapon you want and press "control".

It helps a lot if you name things as you build so you can find which turret of fifty to use.

You can also set the numbers (when you sit there are functions 1-9). Press "G" then find the weapon icon, drag it to the slot and it will ask you what you want to do, find 'control' on the list.

The weapons do pretty good all by themselves if you set what you want them to target and set the range before hand.

[UshankaMan]

Originally posted by jafiwam:

For most weapons you can go into the control panel and press the "control" button in the settings. You must be in a flight seat or seat of some kind to do this.

The sitting requirement is new I think so lots of video tutorials don't include that bit.

So make a weapon, make a seat, sit in the seat and open the control panel. Find the settings for the weapon you want and press "control".

It helps a lot if you name things as you build so you can find which turret of fifty to use.

You can also set the numbers (when you sit there are functions 1-9). Press "G" then find the weapon icon, drag it to the slot and it will ask you what you want to do, find 'control' on the list.

The weapons do pretty good all by themselves if you set what you want them to target and set the range before hand.

thanks. do you know of any video tutorials relating to the things youve said? i understand best by seeing.
regardless, now i have some idea of what to do

[UshankaMan]

Originally posted by jafiwam:

For most weapons you can go into the control panel and press the "control" button in the settings. You must be in a flight seat or seat of some kind to do this.

The sitting requirement is new I think so lots of video tutorials don't include that bit.

So make a weapon, make a seat, sit in the seat and open the control panel. Find the settings for the weapon you want and press "control".

It helps a lot if you name things as you build so you can find which turret of fifty to use.

You can also set the numbers (when you sit there are functions 1-9). Press "G" then find the weapon icon, drag it to the slot and it will ask you what you want to do, find 'control' on the list.

The weapons do pretty good all by themselves if you set what you want them to target and set the range before hand.

pressing control does nothing. it lets me choose multiple entities at once. other than that, nothing. i am still unable to assign keys for a control group

[Ronin Planetary Industries]

Thank you for stating that you're new. Okay, when you get into your cockpit of flight seat, at the bottom of the screen is a toolbar. I'm assuming that you know how to work the toolbar.

Press the "G" key and it'll take you to an overlay where you can populate your toolbar by dragging in icons. There's a category called "Block Weapons". From that list you can drag the appropriate icons into the toolbar. You can then toggle between the different weapon types on your ship by presing the toolbar number you've associated with that weapon.

[UshankaMan]

Originally posted by Ronin Planetary Industries (RPI):

Thank you for stating that you're new. Okay, when you get into your cockpit of flight seat, at the bottom of the screen is a toolbar. I'm assuming that you know how to work the toolbar.

Press the "G" key and it'll take you to an overlay where you can populate your toolbar by dragging in icons. There's a category called "Block Weapons". From that list you can drag the appropriate icons into the toolbar. You can then toggle between the different weapon types on your ship by presing the toolbar number you've associated with that weapon.

yeah, i figured out that when i get in the ship, my toolbar changes. i put 1 rocket on the "1" hotkey, and when i pressed 1, it fired.
now im trying to make a retractable landing gear. i connected a piston to a landing gear. but the piston wont activate. my guess is that since its not connected to the cockpit, and only connected to normal armor blocks, it is not getting my commands. but how do i connect it then? the landing gears are far apart from the cockpit

[DustDevil]

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

yeah, i figured out that when i get in the ship, my toolbar changes. i put 1 rocket on the "1" hotkey, and when i pressed 1, it fired.
now im trying to make a retractable landing gear. i connected a piston to a landing gear. but the piston wont activate. my guess is that since its not connected to the cockpit, and only connected to normal armor blocks, it is not getting my commands. but how do i connect it then? the landing gears are far apart from the cockpit

Press G and set you piston to reverse.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811058200

and set your landing leg to switch lock.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811058153

The piston will not move if your landing leg is locked. You need to unlock it first then tell the piston to reverse.

[UshankaMan]

Originally posted by FilipinoFOX:

When you press 'G' is the piston showing up? You should be able to create hotkeys to increase and decrease piston velocity

figured it out. turns out they need to be connected via conveyors from my cockpit. i found a major flaw with the game physics tho. i built a functioning retracting landing gear. basically connect a piston with a landing gear. and the whole point of it was so that i could hide it, cuz flying around with those thing dangling make it look stupid. i surrounded the retracted landing gear with blocks, to protect from damage and also to hide it. the ship then started to absolutely go grazy and spin around uncontrollably. i remove the surrounding blocks or the landing gear, and it stabilizes. it really threw off my entire vision of my fighter ship, cuz now this is forcing me to put 1 block distance between the landing gear and the surrounding blocks, making my ship look fatter and bigger

[DustDevil]

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

Originally posted by FilipinoFOX:

When you press 'G' is the piston showing up? You should be able to create hotkeys to increase and decrease piston velocity

figured it out. turns out they need to be connected via conveyors from my cockpit. i found a major flaw with the game physics tho. i built a functioning retracting landing gear. basically connect a piston with a landing gear. and the whole point of it was so that i could hide it, cuz flying around with those thing dangling make it look stupid. i surrounded the retracted landing gear with blocks, to protect from damage and also to hide it. the ship then started to absolutely go grazy and spin around uncontrollably. i remove the surrounding blocks or the landing gear, and it stabilizes. it really threw off my entire vision of my fighter ship, cuz now this is forcing me to put 1 block distance between the landing gear and the surrounding blocks, making my ship look fatter and bigger

They don't need to be connected via conveyors if they are only going to be used as landing gear. Thats just to allow items to pass through. but if you got it sorted that's great.

Instead of having a full block space. use a half block. As long as the landing gear has a little space and doesn't connect to your ship it wont go crazy.

Edit: its only the base of the foot that needs to be seperated from the ship. You don't need space surrounding it.

As you can see here in these screenshots. I use Hinges instead of pistons on my build.

Back Leg
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063013
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063116

Front Leg no surrounding space.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063059
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063090

Both work fine.

[UshankaMan]

Originally posted by DustDevil:

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

figured it out. turns out they need to be connected via conveyors from my cockpit. i found a major flaw with the game physics tho. i built a functioning retracting landing gear. basically connect a piston with a landing gear. and the whole point of it was so that i could hide it, cuz flying around with those thing dangling make it look stupid. i surrounded the retracted landing gear with blocks, to protect from damage and also to hide it. the ship then started to absolutely go grazy and spin around uncontrollably. i remove the surrounding blocks or the landing gear, and it stabilizes. it really threw off my entire vision of my fighter ship, cuz now this is forcing me to put 1 block distance between the landing gear and the surrounding blocks, making my ship look fatter and bigger

They don't need to be connected via conveyors if they are only going to be used as landing gear. Thats just to allow items to pass through. but if you got it sorted that's great.

Instead of having a full block space. use a half block. As long as the landing gear has a little space and doesn't connect to your ship it wont go crazy.

Edit: its only the base of the foot that needs to be seperated from the ship. You don't need space surrounding it.

As you can see here in these screenshots. I use Hinges instead of pistons on my build.

Back Leg
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063013
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063116

Front Leg no surrounding space.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063059
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2811063090

Both work fine.

yeah, i considered that too, but the reason i went with the piston is it just looks better to me. but i will go for the hinges if i see no other option. as for the pistons. they wouldnt extend and retract prior to me connecting them with conveyors. if i dont need conveyors, then how else would i be able to use the pistons?

[DustDevil]

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

yeah, i considered that too, but the reason i went with the piston is it just looks better to me. but i will go for the hinges if i see no other option. as for the pistons. they wouldnt extend and retract prior to me connecting them with conveyors. if i dont need conveyors, then how else would i be able to use the pistons?

hmmmm im not sure. They should of worked as long as the piston was connected to the same grid. i'e your fighter.

when you connected them with conveyors did you replace the pistons?

Only ways i could think why they didn't work was either the landing gear was locked preventing the piston from moving or the landing gear wasn't placed on the piston head and was actually placed on the piston itself. I know that sounds weird but sometimes it seems to take me awhile to be able to attach something to the piston head. I think it's just the way i look at it though. I suppose it could even be that you didn't have enough power but that one seems unlikely.

This game loves to troll you at times but its a labour of love and you learn to get around certain things.

If something doesn't work the way it is intended too the best option is to replace the item that isn't working right. For example your piston and see if it sorts itself out.

I use pistons and hinges quite a lot in my builds. IF you do end up going for hinges don't forget to set the torque, brake and velocity in the control panel first otherwise it wont turn.

[UshankaMan]

Originally posted by DustDevil:

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

yeah, i considered that too, but the reason i went with the piston is it just looks better to me. but i will go for the hinges if i see no other option. as for the pistons. they wouldnt extend and retract prior to me connecting them with conveyors. if i dont need conveyors, then how else would i be able to use the pistons?

hmmmm im not sure. They should of worked as long as the piston was connected to the same grid. i'e your fighter.

when you connected them with conveyors did you replace the pistons?

Only ways i could think why they didn't work was either the landing gear was locked preventing the piston from moving or the landing gear wasn't placed on the piston head and was actually placed on the piston itself. I know that sounds weird but sometimes it seems to take me awhile to be able to attach something to the piston head. I think it's just the way i look at it though. I suppose it could even be that you didn't have enough power but that one seems unlikely.

This game loves to troll you at times but its a labour of love and you learn to get around certain things.

If something doesn't work the way it is intended too the best option is to replace the item that isn't working right. For example your piston and see if it sorts itself out.

I use pistons and hinges quite a lot in my builds. IF you do end up going for hinges don't forget to set the torque, brake and velocity in the control panel first otherwise it wont turn.

i ended up going the hinge way, but i also added rotors into the mix. this way, the landing gear can fold neatly in a horizontal manner, rather than vertical since it would mean the landing gear would dangle. but then i encountered another issue. when retracting from a deployed state, i need the rotor to go first, then the hinge. and when i am deploying the landing gear from a retracted state, i want the hinge to go first, then the rotor. i could do it by assigning individual keys to the rotor and hinge, but the thought of me having to press 2 separate keys everytime i want my front landing gear to retract or deploy, and also in reverse order depending if its retracted or not, is painful and annoying. i wanna be able to just press 1 button, and the resulting motion would be hinge first, then rotor, and vice versa depending on the state of the landing gear. is that even possible though?

[DustDevil]

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

i ended up going the hinge way, but i also added rotors into the mix. this way, the landing gear can fold neatly in a horizontal manner, rather than vertical which would mean the landing gear would dangle. but then i encountered another issue. when retracting from a deployed state, i need the rotor to go first, then the hinge. and when i am deploying the landing gear from a retracted state, i want the hinge to go first, then the rotor. i could do it by assigning individual keys to the rotor and hinge, but the thought of me having to press 2 separate keys everytime i want my front landing gear to retract or deploy, and also in reverse order depending if its retracted or not, is painful and annoying. i wanna be able to just press 1 button, and the resulting motion would be hinge first, then rotor, and vice versa depending on the state of the landing gear. is that even possible though?

Absolutely its possible to setup a sequence using only 1 button but you would need to use timing blocks and it would still result in 2 buttons. one to extend and one to retract.

For each step in the sequence you need 1 timing block.
to set it up you would need to set timing block !'s actions to Reverse hinge and Start timing block 2. Set the delay to timing block 2 to how ever long you want it to take to activate the rotor and then set its action to reverse rotor..

Same for vice versa So timing block 3 would be reverse rotor and start timing block 4. set timing block 4's delay to what you want and set its action to reverse hinge.

personally i would just do it manually but if you do it with the timing blocks then you can have other actions going off at the same time like having landing lights and what not to go off while they extend and retract. That sort of stuff.

[UshankaMan]

Originally posted by DustDevil:

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

i ended up going the hinge way, but i also added rotors into the mix. this way, the landing gear can fold neatly in a horizontal manner, rather than vertical which would mean the landing gear would dangle. but then i encountered another issue. when retracting from a deployed state, i need the rotor to go first, then the hinge. and when i am deploying the landing gear from a retracted state, i want the hinge to go first, then the rotor. i could do it by assigning individual keys to the rotor and hinge, but the thought of me having to press 2 separate keys everytime i want my front landing gear to retract or deploy, and also in reverse order depending if its retracted or not, is painful and annoying. i wanna be able to just press 1 button, and the resulting motion would be hinge first, then rotor, and vice versa depending on the state of the landing gear. is that even possible though?

Absolutely its possible to setup a sequence using only 1 button but you would need to use timing blocks and it would still result in 2 buttons. one to extend and one to retract.

For each step in the sequence you need 1 timing block.
to set it up you would need to set timing block !'s actions to Reverse hinge and Start timing block 2. Set the delay to timing block 2 to how ever long you want it to take to activate the rotor and then set its action to reverse rotor..

Same for vice versa So timing block 3 would be reverse rotor and start timing block 4. set timing block 4's delay to what you want and set its action to reverse hinge.

personally i would just do it manually but if you do it with the timing blocks then you can have other actions going off at the same time like having landing lights and what not to go off while they extend and retract. That sort of stuff.

ooh thats a nice idea! i will def do that. thanks alot!

[DustDevil]

Originally posted by UshankaMan:

ooh thats a nice idea! i will def do that. thanks alot!

Np bud. Glad i could help. Have fun and Happy Gaming.