Hey,

I saw you added helicopter compatibility. Will you talk to me about how you did that? I have a fork of helicopters where I've split out the autopilot functionality into a separate mod, leaving just the helicopter entity and flight code in the vehicle mod. I'm considering the viability of using your flight mechanics instead. Did you replace the helicopter flight mechanics completely, or how are you interfacing with the public helicopter mod?

Hi,

My apologies, my changelog about helicopter compatibility is a bit misleading, my mod does not replace the helicopter flight mechanics or apply any of my flight mechanics to it. All I did to helicopters so far is making it emit pollution in its wake.

The above was accomplished simply by testing for the helicopter entity and spawning pollution on the surfaces which it stands on.

If you are ever interested in adding my flight mechanics to planes however, I would be more than happy to discuss how to implement it.

The helicopter already emits pollution in its wake, you realize. I don't recall if it's emitted from the main helicopter entity or one of the auxiliary flight entities, though.

Yes, let's discuss that. I have a number of flying vehicles that I'd like to add functionality for. I thought I should code something like this since I studied physics, but have been making other mods first... it's been on the back burner. But from a quick glance at your code, it at least looks clean and readable, which is always a good sign, so if you're down to be the keeper, I will both help you and use it in my vehicles.

Right now, I have the helicopter and the blimp (sort of like the blimp on the mod portable already, but much larger), but for a good flight library we have more ideas. I'd like to conquer just a vertical takeoff and landing first, though, on these vehicles. Here's my current position...

Adamo Clicker has an autopilot function. For a car, it'll crash right through your buildings; we don't want that. :P But for the blimp or the helicopter already in flight it'll fly them over your buildings. If the blimp is always in the air (as it is now), then there's no issue. For the helicopter, the autopilot needs a remote access function to tell the helicopter to "lift off" before flying anywhere. Reaching this point is where I realized the right path forward is a standard flight library, with a couple important remote calls. Once this works for sure with hovering mechanics, then I think it will only be a couple steps to make it work for linear take off mechanics, provided the airplane is left in the right position/space, but for landing it will be harder... however, I think I know how to make landings work in my autopilot, so if we get to that point then I think it'll be a solvable problem.

Does that give you an idea of where I'm headed? I'll take a look through what you have so far, and let me know what you think.

How are you handling shadows?

I like your ideas, a standardized flight library would make everybody's job easier going forward.

I myself too have been thinking about creating autopilot for the planes to make automated aerial transportation, the trains of the skies perhaps and it's great that we can work together on it.

Shadows of the planes are done by having a clone of the grounded planes, once the plane is airborne, the player gets teleported into a shadowless version of the plane and back when they land. With this, if someone really wants to, they can make a takeoff animation of gradually shrinking shadows.

I already have the autopilot ready, so let's get together on that. I stripped it from the original helicopter mod (with the license, of course) and generalized it to any vehicles that have the equipment in their equipment grid. It's a state machine that, once you get to know it, is pretty simple to add algorithms to. That's why I think it'll be doable to add the ability for an airplane to orient itself with a landing strip.

Alright that sounds good, do you have your github or any other platform for me to check out your autopilot and for us to collaborate?

Do you have the same name on the forum? I'll send you a link to the current code.

yes, my name is the same

Do you have any ETA on what you talked about here?

No. We started working on it but I got distracted with trying to find a job and haih_ys on some things, as well. We are getting back to it, I promise!