[MOD 0.16] Helicopters

[kumpu]

1. Add settings for "auto-land-at-destination" with Helipads set to YES and others NO: crashed several times because the auto-landing took place after I'd moved or was in a bad spot on the map (e.g. biters)
2. Make the "ownership" of a helicopter (for multi-player games) more "sticky" in that the last 'copter you used is the one chosen when re-activating the remote control.

No problem.

3. I like the new gauges, but on my screen/resolution they are overlapped, making the lower fuel readings tough to see..

Can you post a screenshot please? What's your resolution and gui scale?

[skyfan_muk]

Can you post a screenshot please? What's your resolution and gui scale?

Running the laptop at 1920x1280, GUI scale is 100% (default). The physical screensize is 13.8" (diagonal)

Here's a link to the image on my display at those settings:

Let me know if you'd like anything else. Thanks again for this wonderful mod!

Donn (Skyfan_muk)

[skyfan_muk]

After a but of debugging help from Kumpu,the squeezing turns out to be an effect of a configuration setting in the base game; the Helicopters mod is working just fine!

The specific parameter that seems to be behind the squeeze is the 'Sprite Resolution' in the Graphics settings of the Options menu: a value of "Low" or "Extra Low" triggers the squeezed gauges. A value of "Normal" or above means the gauges are rendered as expected.

The starting values of these settings are determined at game start by inspecting the amount of VRAM available, so computers with an older or lower capacity graphics card may experience the symptom; forcing them higher may generate a warning message if the amount of VRAM needed exceeds what's available.

Fly on!

[jessefjxm]

Your helicopter is really amazing! The controling system can almost reach the complexity of vanilla train controling system. Can you extends your framework to ships like those in https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ships_extended? These vehicles works pretty simlar: drive directly, travel from one site to another.

Pathfinding for ships might be tricky as they can only sail in the water, and may strike the land when sailing directly. But we may leave these problems to the user so a trival path finding will only sail directly from harbor A to harbor B, which defined by some landing filed-like building like harbor/lighthouse.

For additional ideas, a multi-stop path finding will better increase the power for both your aircrafts and ships, which may works like: start flying at spot A, pass spot B,C.. and stop at spot E, so they can take complex routes and avoid obstacles for ships. If we can combine conditional automated start/stop on them, like wait at station/harbor A for 30s, or leave when cargo is empty, we can create a fully functional 3D transportation including land, sea and air

[kumpu]

Your helicopter is really amazing! The controling system can almost reach the complexity of vanilla train controling system. Can you extends your framework to ships like those in https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ships_extended? These vehicles works pretty simlar: drive directly, travel from one site to another.

Pathfinding for ships might be tricky as they can only sail in the water, and may strike the land when sailing directly. But we may leave these problems to the user so a trival path finding will only sail directly from harbor A to harbor B, which defined by some landing filed-like building like harbor/lighthouse.

For additional ideas, a multi-stop path finding will better increase the power for both your aircrafts and ships, which may works like: start flying at spot A, pass spot B,C.. and stop at spot E, so they can take complex routes and avoid obstacles for ships. If we can combine conditional automated start/stop on them, like wait at station/harbor A for 30s, or leave when cargo is empty, we can create a fully functional 3D transportation including land, sea and air

Hi, there is no real framework, it's rather direct in what it does. Anyone is free to use my code and I'll be glad to assist. But I think for ships you really want pathfinding anyway. Maybe you could look at the "AAI Programmable Vehicles" mod, iirc it uses bitter AI to navigate.

[Sn1gger]

Hi,

I've just updated to 0.16.37 and the helicopter mod seems to have been broken a bit. The rotors are drawing beneath the chopper and it doesn't draw as smooth anymore?

[kumpu]

Hi,

I've just updated to 0.16.37 and the helicopter mod seems to have been broken a bit. The rotors are drawing beneath the chopper and it doesn't draw as smooth anymore?

Check out the latest release

[Sn1gger]

Hi,

I've just updated to 0.16.37 and the helicopter mod seems to have been broken a bit. The rotors are drawing beneath the chopper and it doesn't draw as smooth anymore?

Check out the latest release

Awesome. Thanks for the quick fix

[dood]

Would it be possible to have an option without tank controls?
Helicopters can fly sideways no problem.
Also this thing should probably have more braking force because stopping with the same acceleration force as accelerating is another thing helicopters do since all motion comes from leaning the rotor into one direction.

[kumpu]

Would it be possible to have an option without tank controls?
Helicopters can fly sideways no problem.

This was suggested before, and I thought about it, but I'm not sure how it would work out in combination with the existing vehicle physics. Probably means creating a new movement system from scratch. And I imagine it would complicate simple tasks like coming to a halt a lot.

Also this thing should probably have more braking force because stopping with the same acceleration force as accelerating is another thing helicopters do since all motion comes from leaning the rotor into one direction.

You're right of course. Braking is as I intended, I actually wanted forward acceleration to be smaller but couldn't figure out how to do so without reducing top speed.

[dood]

This was suggested before, and I thought about it, but I'm not sure how it would work out in combination with the existing vehicle physics. Probably means creating a new movement system from scratch. And I imagine it would complicate simple tasks like coming to a halt a lot.

Oh that "coming to a halt" part can just happen as soon as you release the key.
You know, like with the player, perhaps with some minor inertia to get the whole "I'm in a chopper" point across.
I suppose this isn't an easy task to do within the constraints of modding though.
Otherwise, there would be some manner of floating platform that mimics player movement and serves as an extension to that already.

You're right of course. Braking is as I intended, I actually wanted forward acceleration to be smaller but couldn't figure out how to do so without reducing top speed.

Well that's just super annoying and in my opinion, you should probably aim for the opposite.
It makes no sense to have your chopper act like a 1 loco train with 20 wagons, nor is it fun.

Or is braking force irreversibly linked to inertia and you wanted that feature of keeping on going forward for 5 minutes after releasing the key?

[kumpu]

This was suggested before, and I thought about it, but I'm not sure how it would work out in combination with the existing vehicle physics. Probably means creating a new movement system from scratch. And I imagine it would complicate simple tasks like coming to a halt a lot.

Oh that "coming to a halt" part can just happen as soon as you release the key.
You know, like with the player, perhaps with some minor inertia to get the whole "I'm in a chopper" point across.
I suppose this isn't an easy task to do within the constraints of modding though.
Otherwise, there would be some manner of floating platform that mimics player movement and serves as an extension to that already.

I'll think about it, strafing would be cool but must be done in a way that makes sense and keeps controls simple. Not sure what you mean with that floating platform.

You're right of course. Braking is as I intended, I actually wanted forward acceleration to be smaller but couldn't figure out how to do so without reducing top speed.

Well that's just super annoying and in my opinion, you should probably aim for the opposite.
It makes no sense to have your chopper act like a 1 loco train with 20 wagons, nor is it fun.

Or is braking force irreversibly linked to inertia and you wanted that feature of keeping on going forward for 5 minutes after releasing the key?

I think it's not as bad as you make it out to be. But if you want you can tweak line 116 in prototypes/entities/heli_entity.lua.
Hmm after trying higher values I must admit it feels kinda nice so maybe I'll change it.
Ideally I want them both to be lower though. I did the math and the heli pulls like ~5.3G (0-100km/h) with rocket fuel which is ridiculous.

[dood]

I'll think about it, strafing would be cool but must be done in a way that makes sense and keeps controls simple. Not sure what you mean with that floating platform.

I meant a platform that controls just like the player but is faster and has no collision.
Be that a helicopter, a hoverboard, a jetpack, an UFO, or whatever.
Basically, a vehicle you can just enter and never get out of since it's a straight upgrade to player movement rather than those clumsy tank controls.

As for strafing, I don't think there would be much point if it happens within the constraints of tank controls, relative to the direction you're facing.
It would happen naturally if pressing left moved you left and pressing down moved you down etc anyway.

I think it's not as bad as you make it out to be. But if you want you can tweak line 116 in prototypes/entities/heli_entity.lua.
Hmm after trying higher values I must admit it feels kinda nice so maybe I'll change it.
Ideally I want them both to be lower though. I did the math and the heli pulls like ~5.3G (0-100km/h) with rocket fuel which is ridiculous.

If I unzip the mod, change stuff, zip it back up and load the game, the mod is gone so I can't test it myself but if it does feel nice to you, that should come before fussing over theoretical real world numbers.
This is a game that lets you carry multiple trains and a nuclear reactor in your pants after all. Gameplay first is written all over it.

[kumpu]

I meant a platform that controls just like the player but is faster and has no collision.
Be that a helicopter, a hoverboard, a jetpack, an UFO, or whatever.
Basically, a vehicle you can just enter and never get out of since it's a straight upgrade to player movement rather than those clumsy tank controls.

Still not sure what you mean in the context of this mod.

If I unzip the mod, change stuff, zip it back up and load the game, the mod is gone so I can't test it myself but if it does feel nice to you, that should come before fussing over theoretical real world numbers.
This is a game that lets you carry multiple trains and a nuclear reactor in your pants after all. Gameplay first is written all over it.

You did something wrong while rezipping. But you can leave the folder unzipped and it will load fine.
Gameplay first I agree but there must be some tradeoff, I don't want this to feel like some cheat vehicle. Realism is a good thing unless it gets annoying. So I'd want a bit less acceleration but as I said it always results in less top speed in my attempts.

[dood]

Still not sure what you mean in the context of this mod.

Nothing.
After your reply that it wasn't possible I said "figures if it (vehicles with no tank controls) was possible/that easy to do, there would be mods making use of it by now".

You did something wrong while rezipping. But you can leave the folder unzipped and it will load fine.
Gameplay first I agree but there must be some tradeoff, I don't want this to feel like some cheat vehicle. Realism is a good thing unless it gets annoying. So I'd want a bit less acceleration but as I said it always results in less top speed in my attempts.

I used winrar, guess factorio doesn't like the way it does zip archives? Oh well.

Coming to a halt faster so you don't have to fly circles over the spot you want to stop at if you went too fast is a minor quality of life feature, dubitably in need of a tradeoff.
As for less acceleration, that is of course at your discretion but if you find a way to do decouple max speed from acceleration, do keep in mind that using rocket fuel as the baseline for acceleration effectively breaks the helicopter if you use lower tier fuels such as coal.
Which happens.

In my opinion, the acceleration right now is fine and so is the max speed.
I think it would only start drifting into cheaty vehicle territory if it had no inertia and abruptly moves and comes to a halt.
You're a far cry away from that, it integrates rather nicely into vanilla.

[kumpu]

After your reply that it wasn't possible I said "figures if it (vehicles with no tank controls) was possible/that easy to do, there would be mods making use of it by now".

Oh I think it's totally possible. But I can't see many mods where it would make sense. And you have to ask if the benefits outweigh the development time / maintaining.

As for less acceleration, that is of course at your discretion but if you find a way to do decouple max speed from acceleration, do keep in mind that using rocket fuel as the baseline for acceleration effectively breaks the helicopter if you use lower tier fuels such as coal.

Will do.

[Sutremaine]

Why can't I get it to power electrically? I have the following mods, on the latest stable release (16.36-2):

Aircraft 1.4.1
ElectricVehicles3 0.5.1
Helicopters 0.2.16
Induction Charging 1.5.12
Vehicle Grid 0.2.0

And, probably not relevant:
Bigger Batteries 1.0.2
Bottleneck 0.9.1
EvoGUI 0.4.302
Orbital Ion Cannon 0.6.3
Squeak Through 1.2.2
long-reach 0.0.12

The Vehicle Grid mod gives me a grid on the helicopter and on the Aircraft mod's cargo plane (it doesn't have one naturally, same as the helicopter). It does not allow me to place a transformer in those grids unless I edit the Vehicle Grid mod to allow the general car grid to use ElectricVehicles' "electric-vehicles-equipment" grid. (I couldn't figure out how to give the helicopter its own grid.)

This leaves me with a formerly gridless cargo plane running on electric power and a formerly gridless helicopter... not. The helicopter has multiple parts with individual power consumptions, and I don't know how to navigate that.

Can't really say much about the helicopter because I've spent much of the evening trying to get it electric, but I've managed to crash it on both landing and takeoff. It feels very present in the game world, and the tech balance is interesting. You can research it right after Flight and Automobilism and it doesn't cost too much, but then you need 250 processing units and a big pile of fuel.

[Koekjesfabriek]

IMA CHOPPAAAA dukdukdukdukduk

ahem.
So, awesome mod, just what I needed. Thank you very much.

Here's some feedback.
I figured out how to crash into stuff. Just lift off while holding W so you go forward at a dangerously low altitude. The problem is crashing into cliffs. You take no damage but there's a collision sound that repeats very quickly while you are touching it, and this is truly an assault on your hearing. There doesn't appear to be a difference between going up or down a cliff (I had to turn my sound volume low just to test this). Perhaps you could make cliff crashes silent, or insta-death. Luckily, cliffs are quite rare so it doesn't happen a lot.

As a suggestion, perhaps you could increase the viewing distance while flying, at least on the map so you can scout terrain even more quickly. It currently seems to be identical to that on foot. You could also think about increasing it as you gain altitude, or even altering weapon range at the same time.

[AndrewIRL]

FEATURE REQUEST: Would it be possible to make the helicopter's trunk into a requester chest so that stuff is automatically delivered?

[zupny69]

Hi Kumpu,

I have little problem with heli behaviour. It may be problem with this behaviour of LuaEntity:teleport which occur about 2 month ago.
I wrote in mods disscusion about it. Could you please take a look on that and advise or fix it?

regards