Factorio Forums

dewast wrote:For start ther is an AIRPLANE MOD
http://www.factoriomods.com/mods/aircraft
http://www.factoriomods.com/mods/aircraft,
the rest would have to copy from Trains (travwling betwen stations LUA and train stations LUA)

Adil wrote:I believe I've seen somewhere that traffic lights don't differentiate rails of different kind and while not colliding or able to follow them, locomotives would be hindered by planes flying around.

Adding a realistic airplanes is not a simple thing to do.

I'm actually currently working on custom flying paths that can be traversed automatically. But rl presses me so hard that I'd be willing to participate in collaboration project, despite deriving most pleasure from doing things myself and being very protective of my designs.
I'd estimate that finished state aircraft mod would be thousands lines of code.
How far are you actually willing to go?

All the way through

I won't disclose the implementation for now, but when stuff is in the air it is actually simple part. (Minus the gui for path creation, which I've almost hobbled through by now.)
But real airplanes are not only about air, the mechanics on the ground also need implementation.
I think that cars are better representation for grounded planes, after I release current mod I plan to take up selfdriving cars, which then will be reused as ground autopilot for planes. This grounded plane will go to the runway, accelerate, when certain speed reached, it's inventory will be memorized and car entity will be replaced with other, one which will represent flying plane.

One important thing for plane simulation is the takeoff and landing animation. I believe it is possible to implement those by using entities of type "explosion", which run animation unconditionall
So, a plane accelerates, then it is destroyed, and explosion displaying the liftoff is created, then flying state is created.

If you want to take part in this, do the challenge described below and we'll have a github project together. (With a pair of conditions below.)

I can do it - Programming challenge

Implement the liftoff stage. For example, complete the following code so that when a car hits 88 km/h mark the explosion is created, player and inventory contents are transported to the plane from Aircraft mod.

Code: Select all

script.on_event(defines.events.on_player_created,function(event)
    p=game.players[event.player_index]; s=p.surface; c=p.character;
    car=s.create_entity{name="car", position=p.position, force=p.force}
    car.passenger=c
    car.insert("coal")
    script.on_event(defines.events.on_tick, function(event) c.riding_state={direction=1, acceleration=defines.riding.acceleration.accelerating}; end )

Feel free to equivalently rephrase the conditions as in this most basic form trees really get in the way

bonus:
Add invisible vehicle to hide the player in while the liftoff animation is played and it is actually too soon to spawn flying plane.
Spawn different explosions depending on the direction of liftoff.

20% cooler (very cool actually):
You know, you could go and implement that liftoff and landing for already existing planes. With base pictures already there all needed is the coordinate shifting on spritesheet. Or maybe pester Youkitani so he makes animations with shadows.

Still interested - Coworking conditions

Licensing
(I do realize I may sound like an arrogant moron by this point, but whatever.)

I agree to any free licence with an additional condition: no modpacks. At least until mod gets 500 downloads.

I case of conflict any member of party is free to branch off his own project, in the thread of initial mod release all such versions have the right to be presented in the beginning of the thread.

Graphics needed

There actually is quite a lot of free blender models for vehicles.
For example I've found these two in a quick search.
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/83983
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/67155
I believe CC BY 3.0 allows their use for purposes like this.

Wyrframe wrote:To completely dodge the flightpathing and takeoff/landing cycles entirely... I'm making Cargo Zeppelins. Basically planning on them being loaded and unloaded by Logistics robots, having them fly between specified points and turn themselves into Passive Provider or Requester chests during specified sections of their patrol and contributing to whatever logistic network they are overflying at that time.