Propeller Planes

[SirCephalopod]

Has anyone gotten propeller planes to work? I've tried several times but I can't seem to get anything moving fast enough( or moving at all) to get off the water. I don't know if it's just that I'm using the heli-blades wrong or whether they're just not intended for that kind of propulsion. The description on the heli-blades says that when placed properly they provide forward force, and there's at least one AI ship (lighter-than-air admittedly) that uses them. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Solus The Immortal]

the ai doesnt understand rotors from what iv tried

[ZombieHunter]

You can get them to rotate but all I've done is built a helicopter that was not very stable. Also the ailerons did not work on it for some reason.

You can get a spin / block to rotate without an engine if you connect it to a complex controller. You will need a counter rotating prop though to counteract the torque. For helicopters a tail rotor works fine and for the rest of stability you can use jet stabilizers.

I've not attempted to get the AI working with helicopters or any prop driven vehicles. If you notice the prop driven planes the AI use usually also have jet engines.

[SirCephalopod]

Yeah, I've got a helicopter to work. I can get UPward force from heli blades just fine, I just can't get FORward motion from them. I can place them so they are on a verticle plane as opposed to a horizontal one. I think I even got a tail rotor working enough to keep a 'copter from spinning itself in circles, but I cant get enough force on a rotor like that facing forward to get any significant speed out of it, at least, not enough to get the wings/ailerons to provide the upward force. Basically I kinda wanted to build something like a WWII B-25. It looks like rotors placed like the tail-rotor can produce the small amount of force necessary to stabalize or steer, but not enough to get a vehicle moving forward on their own.
Thanks for the contribution.

[⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞]

Yeah the rotors are pretty weak, but I overheard Nick saying that rotors in "Rotate Mode" are supposed to spin super fast, faster than the continuous mode at least.

[SirCephalopod]

Really? I'll have to look into that. Thanks

[ZombieHunter]

I have not been able to get any forward motion as well. This is likely b/c real choppers have blade pitch which actually causes the rotors to 'bite' into the air at different angles thus producing thrust. Spinning an airfoil through the air will produce lift in one direction. Real life helicopters are actually pretty complex beasts. So much so that after you earn your single engine license here in the U.S. you then have to do 40 to 50 more hours for a helicopter pilot's license. They are extremely finicky, dangerous and there is little room for error.

I'm not sure the AI in the game or the controls for this game are up to the task of controlling a helicopter. Usually it requires very fine inputs on analog controls, something that would have to be done with a gamepad or flight stick.

It might be possible to put ailerons on the blades to change the pitch of the rotors and use a complex controller to control the positive / negative inputs for the ailerons.

[⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞]

I think you could just pitch your helicopter by using pitch thrusters on the front and back of your craft. If you use the unstabilized rotors it should work then.

[SirCephalopod]

@Aarki I tried that, but I didn't think to use unstabalized rotors. It sort of worked w/o them, but not very satisfactorily.

[⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞]

Usually if you use stabilized rotors they just pull you upwards vertically, no matter if they're facing forward from turning your vehicle. I tried using forwards facing propellers like for a plane, but their thrust is really negligible. Then again drag is really hardcore in this game.

[SirCephalopod]

Maybe thats why, no matter what I tried, it just made the vehicle jiggle on the z axis when using normal blades. Central propeller, multiple propeller, counterspinning/not counterspinning, even putting props on just one side of the vehicle had the same result.

I've been wondering about drag a lot too. I don't know whether having part of the propeller underwater when trying to take off is causing problems or not. I tried using hydrofoils on the bottom of the plane to help get it off the water, but they're no good if the thing won't move forward.

Still, I'll have to try working with the unstabalized blades some, just to see if it makes a difference.

[⎛⎝Tiùwilo⎠⎞]

If in doubt, just use MOAR ROTORS. and bigger ones, but more is always a good alternative, too.
The air in FTD is basically like jelly. If you just spawn a big pure-metal ship in the air, it geently, sloowly sails down into the water like it was made of paper, too.

You could also try levelling up your sky captain skill, that should reduce drag while simultaneously boosting rotors lift force.

[SirCephalopod]

Yeah,the whole floating to the ground thing needs to be changed and I hope it's on the list. I've tried stacking ridiculuos amounts of rotors and only get the same jiggle effect, just at a higher frequency. I've never been one to specialize so I disregarded things like sky captain in favor of resource and repair improvements. That is another thing I'll have to look at.

[TheGingerOriginator]

I've got a working prop plane! I will be posting it in my complex controller guide!

[SirCephalopod]

Cool! I'll be sure to check that out.

[ZombieHunter]

I tried some designs last night with similar results as others. Using tail rotors seems to have little or no effect on the z wobble induced by the torque of the main rotor. I attached them to a drive maintainer so I could make fine adjustments to the speed. Nothing helped. I also reversed and used different blades and still nothing worked.

I did place the main rotor just aft of the COG so that I could add a forward component to the lift vector. I also placed thrusters just above the COG so that forward thrust would induce some negative pitch into the aircraft. Even with all of this my helicopter was still an unstable mess. I also tried to create prop planes using some of the same techniques but could not get any forward thrust from them.

I concur that gravity and/or drag is calculated incorrectly at this point in the game. Gravity should be cumulative thus increasing acceleration per second squared and then adding said acceleration to the overall downward velocity vector.

What is strange is that when objects collide with the terrain damage occurs but when objects collide with the water no damage occurs. But in real life hitting water from 1000 ft is not much different than hitting land from 1000 ft b/c of the acceleration and velocities involved.

Still it is a work in progress but overall this game offers far more than other games of this type. Finally a game where I am not only building cool machines but I'm testing them in combat and eventually using them in a campaign against capable AI. So many games get the build part right but then miss the 'game' part. This is more than a designer with no purpose...this truly is a 'game' in every sense of the word.