After getting boats and with cars soon arriving, I thought let's look at what vehicle we can have next. The logical follow up would be aircraft I believe
Aircraft can globally be divided into gliders, airships, helicopters and airplanes. Due to the great open seas connecting all relatively small islands, airships wouldn't make much sense (also due their massive size!) at the moment, and gliders and helicopters would have limited functionality as well. That's why I've decided to come up with some concepts on how to make airplanes work in Ylands.
My core idea for airplanes is to be easy to learn and difficult to master. To do this there should be certain types of airplane parts, semi realistic physics to make building a basic plane easy, yet making an advanced (fast, big or efficient) more challenging to players. If your airplane looks like an airplane it should at least be flyable.
1) Physics
Starting with the physics: Basic concepts of drag, lift, thrust and center of mass, lift and thrust should apply. To make flying more "approachable" the air density should be very high. This will increase drag and lift greatly, reducing the maximum speed of aircraft and reducing the speed at which they take off and stall at. The air should become thinner when going higher to allow higher speeds up in the sky where there's nothing to crash into Engine power and lift should also decrease with altitude to create a ceiling which is still fairly low to prevent flying very high.
Different engines should have different power output, different ideal RPM's and different fuel consumption. For propellers there should be fixed pitch and variable pitch. Mixing the right engines and props to an airplane should make it more efficient/perform better. For example 2 engines running at ideal RPM should be more efficient than 1 bigger engine running at too high RPM. Using instruments such as fuel flow meters (see mechanics) should make it easy to learn this mechanic
More advanced effects such as propeller wash, wake turbulence etc. should be ignored to make aircraft more predictable.
I'm not sure if engine cooling/temperature should be a part, it might be an interesting mechanic to mix in. Having an aircraft that is fast, efficient but can only be used for short periods?
2) Mechanics
It would be nice to have a GUI which is expandable by adding certain parts such as air speed indicators, altitude meters, fuel flow meters and some basic navigation devices, either just a compass+map or maybe a beacon system. Adding those parts would make the instruments appear on your GUI so you can learn and understand your airplane better!
Controls should be WASD/arrows like in most Battlefield series games: W/S for throttle, A/D for rudder, left/right for bank and up/down for elevation. Holding W should increase the speed, not the throttle setting, S should decrease speed in the same way. Releasing W/S should make the aircraft try to maintain it's speed by either throttling up when climbing or throttling back when descending.
3) Parts
The parts needed for aircraft should be "tiered", to make making a basic aircraft fairly doable, but making a very advanced aircraft something for late game.
The parts that would be needed are: A basic chassis like cars/boats to build on. Most difficult is to make a chassis that's stable and allows for people to build all sorts of aircraft. In the same era as the cars, all aircraft were either float planes or tail draggers (with 1 small tail wheel being higher). I have tried to make a tail dragger concept that isn't too determining but I have found this to be nearly impossible. On the other hand, the float plane makes much more sense because we all live on islands There are even float planes with retractable wheels so you can still land on land and make a nice airfield if you want. Here's pictures of the floats, they come in different sizes. The small one is roughly 19 blocks in size and is the cheapest. Then there is the smallest one with added wheels and finally there is a 25 block version with added wheels. Sizes are just for rough size ideas!
Next after the chassis/floats you will want to place some cockpit/seat blocks along with an engine. I've decided to make the default cockpit blocks the same size as the normal car engine which should be usable on airplanes as well. On the screenshot is 1 normal car engine, as well as a 5 cylinder radial engine with an optional fairing. More engines should be added, at least 1 larger radial and maybe an opposing 2 cylinder engine that is very small and basic for the slowest and most basic type of aircraft.
Of course we need a propeller on our engine. I've designed 3 props, a simple 2 bladed one, a faster 3 bladed one and a variable pitch 4 blade. The variable pitch propeller will allow in air braking. All props should be able to slowly push an aircraft backwards when standing still to prevent people from getting stuck into objects. Also added is a prop spinner to decrease drag.
You can't have an airplane without wings of course! For the wings there should be various sizes which connect to each other, including universal control surfaces and rounded end caps. Current sizes are all 4, 6, 8 and 10 long and all are 4 wide. On the right is an example of a wing you could possibly make, on the left a normal block for size reference! Especially tail stabilizers should be placed half a block off grid to be in the center of the tail. If this therefor should apply to all wing parts (would also benefit engines mounted on wings) or if there should be dedicated tail wings and normal wings I haven't found the answer to yet.
Further to make the fuselage nice and streamlined we're gonna need blocks that connect from the new cockpit/engine/radiator block to square, sloped and pointed blocks. Also, seeing that single seats are only 2 blocks wide, 8 wide cabins with multiple passenger seats could be a thing and still be relatively compact. All wings are top/down symmetrical so no left/right parts to keep part count down!
Now with these very limited blocks, what can you make? I'll show you a quick example I've thrown together, this would be a very basic plane. I will make a more advanced one this week and add it to this post!
Further blocks we need but which I haven't got around modeling yet are cockpit/sloped windows, doors, the instruments to measure speed and flow, a normal cockpit seat and a passenger seat to place in a larger aircraft. If you want to I can have a go at those as well
Thanks for reading again, and please throw your ideas at the developers with me! If you have an idea which you want me to visualize for this purpose please feel free to shout
Hello,
After getting boats and with cars soon arriving, I thought let's look at what vehicle we can have next. The logical follow up would be aircraft I believe
Aircraft can globally be divided into gliders, airships, helicopters and airplanes. Due to the great open seas connecting all relatively small islands, airships wouldn't make much sense (also due their massive size!) at the moment, and gliders and helicopters would have limited functionality as well. That's why I've decided to come up with some concepts on how to make airplanes work in Ylands.
My core idea for airplanes is to be easy to learn and difficult to master. To do this there should be certain types of airplane parts, semi realistic physics to make building a basic plane easy, yet making an advanced (fast, big or efficient) more challenging to players. If your airplane looks like an airplane it should at least be flyable.
1) Physics
Starting with the physics: Basic concepts of drag, lift, thrust and center of mass, lift and thrust should apply. To make flying more "approachable" the air density should be very high. This will increase drag and lift greatly, reducing the maximum speed of aircraft and reducing the speed at which they take off and stall at. The air should become thinner when going higher to allow higher speeds up in the sky where there's nothing to crash into
Engine power and lift should also decrease with altitude to create a ceiling which is still fairly low to prevent flying very high.
Different engines should have different power output, different ideal RPM's and different fuel consumption. For propellers there should be fixed pitch and variable pitch. Mixing the right engines and props to an airplane should make it more efficient/perform better. For example 2 engines running at ideal RPM should be more efficient than 1 bigger engine running at too high RPM. Using instruments such as fuel flow meters (see mechanics) should make it easy to learn this mechanic
More advanced effects such as propeller wash, wake turbulence etc. should be ignored to make aircraft more predictable.
I'm not sure if engine cooling/temperature should be a part, it might be an interesting mechanic to mix in. Having an aircraft that is fast, efficient but can only be used for short periods?
2) Mechanics
It would be nice to have a GUI which is expandable by adding certain parts such as air speed indicators, altitude meters, fuel flow meters and some basic navigation devices, either just a compass+map or maybe a beacon system. Adding those parts would make the instruments appear on your GUI so you can learn and understand your airplane better!
Controls should be WASD/arrows like in most Battlefield series games: W/S for throttle, A/D for rudder, left/right for bank and up/down for elevation. Holding W should increase the speed, not the throttle setting, S should decrease speed in the same way. Releasing W/S should make the aircraft try to maintain it's speed by either throttling up when climbing or throttling back when descending.
3) Parts
The parts needed for aircraft should be "tiered", to make making a basic aircraft fairly doable, but making a very advanced aircraft something for late game.
The parts that would be needed are: A basic chassis like cars/boats to build on. Most difficult is to make a chassis that's stable and allows for people to build all sorts of aircraft. In the same era as the cars, all aircraft were either float planes or tail draggers (with 1 small tail wheel being higher). I have tried to make a tail dragger concept that isn't too determining but I have found this to be nearly impossible. On the other hand, the float plane makes much more sense because we all live on islands
There are even float planes with retractable wheels so you can still land on land and make a nice airfield if you want. Here's pictures of the floats, they come in different sizes. The small one is roughly 19 blocks in size and is the cheapest. Then there is the smallest one with added wheels and finally there is a 25 block version with added wheels. Sizes are just for rough size ideas!
Next after the chassis/floats you will want to place some cockpit/seat blocks along with an engine. I've decided to make the default cockpit blocks the same size as the normal car engine which should be usable on airplanes as well. On the screenshot is 1 normal car engine, as well as a 5 cylinder radial engine with an optional fairing. More engines should be added, at least 1 larger radial and maybe an opposing 2 cylinder engine that is very small and basic for the slowest and most basic type of aircraft.
Of course we need a propeller on our engine. I've designed 3 props, a simple 2 bladed one, a faster 3 bladed one and a variable pitch 4 blade. The variable pitch propeller will allow in air braking. All props should be able to slowly push an aircraft backwards when standing still to prevent people from getting stuck into objects. Also added is a prop spinner to decrease drag.
You can't have an airplane without wings of course! For the wings there should be various sizes which connect to each other, including universal control surfaces and rounded end caps. Current sizes are all 4, 6, 8 and 10 long and all are 4 wide. On the right is an example of a wing you could possibly make, on the left a normal block for size reference! Especially tail stabilizers should be placed half a block off grid to be in the center of the tail. If this therefor should apply to all wing parts (would also benefit engines mounted on wings) or if there should be dedicated tail wings and normal wings I haven't found the answer to yet.
Further to make the fuselage nice and streamlined we're gonna need blocks that connect from the new cockpit/engine/radiator block to square, sloped and pointed blocks. Also, seeing that single seats are only 2 blocks wide, 8 wide cabins with multiple passenger seats could be a thing and still be relatively compact. All wings are top/down symmetrical so no left/right parts to keep part count down!
Now with these very limited blocks, what can you make? I'll show you a quick example I've thrown together, this would be a very basic plane. I will make a more advanced one this week and add it to this post!
Further blocks we need but which I haven't got around modeling yet are cockpit/sloped windows, doors, the instruments to measure speed and flow, a normal cockpit seat and a passenger seat to place in a larger aircraft. If you want to I can have a go at those as well
Thanks for reading again, and please throw your ideas at the developers with me! If you have an idea which you want me to visualize for this purpose please feel free to shout
Adrie
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