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[forsy]

Actually, you can get shot in the wings quite a lot with bullets before they're useless.  Bullets are far more dangerous to fuel lines and the power train (and cockpit).

Yeah, I think the most fun I've had playing is when in less-than-ideal circumstances, so I think having a damage model might be kind of interesting. Hadn't thought about fuel lines and what not, but that could add some nice depth too.

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In other news, the challenges have been attempted just over 2000 times, with a success rate of about 8%. I think this is a result of learning curve plus not all planes fly the same or are even appropriate for all the challenges.



It appears I misjudged the difficulties a bit also

[forsy]

Did a quick mockup today of a possible new editor style:



Oops, got a little carried away there.

It is definitely more fun to use, and faster. I think with this type of interface combined with an advanced mode where you have full control like you do now, it should satisfy most people.

I'm also going to try integrating some prettier components and prefab components to select from to drag and drop like this.

[diegzumillo]

YESSS! Love your project. It's not exactly enjoyable right now. I'm not a huge fan of the controls and the building part isn't functional yet. But this will be great 

As others said, KSP is pretty much the only game at the moment where you can build your planes and fly but, being a game about space travel, flying planes is not the main feature but kind of a bonus.

[Christian]

Did a quick mockup today of a possible new editor style:



Oops, got a little carried away there.

It is definitely more fun to use, and faster. I think with this type of interface combined with an advanced mode where you have full control like you do now, it should satisfy most people.

I'm also going to try integrating some prettier components and prefab components to select from to drag and drop like this.

Mirroring is smart. Will make creating symmetrical planes so much easier

[forsy]

YESSS! Love your project. It's not exactly enjoyable right now. I'm not a huge fan of the controls and the building part isn't functional yet. But this will be great 

As others said, KSP is pretty much the only game at the moment where you can build your planes and fly but, being a game about space travel, flying planes is not the main feature but kind of a bonus.

thanks for your feedback. Can you elaborate on the controls issue? I'm not suggesting the current setup is ideal or anything, just curious to hear what you think. I'm sure down the road I'll have to integrate all sorts of joystick support and what not. Looking forward to that!

Mirroring is smart. Will make creating symmetrical planes so much easier

Mirroring is getting a little complicated already. I was hoping to have some level of intelligence built into the system so it knew what you were trying to mirror and where, but that isn't going to work. The user will have to be explicit about what object they want to mirror across, and more specifically what axis.

For example in the gif, those are all being mirrored across the middle of the plane. But what if you wanted to mirror locally across a specific wing or other part. Not every plane will need to be perfectly symmetrical, in fact I'm surprised there hasn't been any traditional looking asymmetrical planes built yet.

[eigenbom]

Provide mirroring across the global axes only I reckon, as this will be the 99% use case. Local mirroring will just have to be done by hand. I think you should have "snap" points at the middle of faces, edges, and at vertices - to help align things. The editor gif looks good, and the challenge modes look like they are taking shape!

[forsy]

Provide mirroring across the global axes only I reckon, as this will be the 99% use case. Local mirroring will just have to be done by hand. I think you should have "snap" points at the middle of faces, edges, and at vertices - to help align things. The editor gif looks good, and the challenge modes look like they are taking shape!

I'm not sure about the snap points yet. I really like the fluid nature of just pointing and clicking, and then once it is placed you can fine tune with traditional translate/rotate handles. If there are snap points I feel that just suggests those are appropriate places to put components, when really it is totally dependent on the makeup of the plane. I think I will still expose the position and rotation values so you can adjust those manually, or maybe have buttons to snap to an axis, for placing a rudder down the middle of a fuselage or something.


And I got slightly distracted today when someone linked me this video:



So naturally I had to drop everything and try making a bird.


This was basically just a proof of concept, taking the flappy sky whale one step further. It was a pretty big hack job, and each time I messed up I had to start over so this is as good as it will get for now. It doesn't work quite right, but after setting this up, I'm 100% confident that at some point down the road there will be a fully functional bird plane.

[eigenbom]

Cool flappy bird. The snap points would be useful, for example, when joining an aileron piece onto the back of a wing so the centers line up exactly. I envisage it would snap only if you were placing within some small distance from compatible snap points, and you could hold CTRL to disable snapping. The idea is to subtly turn the designer's intention into a more precise and aligned model.

[billyboob]

It doesn't work quite right, but after setting this up, I'm 100% confident that at some point down the road there will be a fully functional bird plane.

You mean fully functional Death Ray Chicken.

[forsy]

The idea is to subtly turn the designer's intention into a more precise and aligned model.

So poetic. You sound like you've done this before

You mean fully functional Death Ray Chicken.

Precisely what I mean. I just need to hurry up and finish dissecting this bird to study its wing mechanics so I can implement them properly. All these feathers...

[eigenbom]

Ha yeah, well I did my PhD in computer graphics and creativity, so I guess I've had a little bit of experience. But it's all academic, and you really just have to try and test different things.

[locknic]

In Kerbal Space Program, they have a button to turn snap on or off. That is always an option. :D

[forsy]

In Kerbal Space Program, they have a button to turn snap on or off. That is always an option. :D

If we start thinking like that, pretty soon I'll be implementing space travel with these planes

But yeah, snapping will have its place. Y'all just gotta trust me, have I ever let you down?


And now I present "Lift Mk2". It started with the letters on the wings and I requested a banner trailing behind and acrobats. Thanks to Cosmic Grenade for this. Not sure if they frequent the forums or found the game some other way.



Not the most pleasant thing to fly, but it is good enough

[eigenbom]

I had another play. I love the reflection in the water and the challenge mode etc. This is all coming along together very quickly, well done.

[Christian]

In Kerbal Space Program, they have a button to turn snap on or off. That is always an option. :D

If we start thinking like that, pretty soon I'll be implementing space travel with these planes

But yeah, snapping will have its place. Y'all just gotta trust me, have I ever let you down?


And now I present "Lift Mk2". It started with the letters on the wings and I requested a banner trailing behind and acrobats. Thanks to Cosmic Grenade for this. Not sure if they frequent the forums or found the game some other way.



Not the most pleasant thing to fly, but it is good enough

That would make a good alternate menu screen.

[forsy]

I had another play. I love the reflection in the water and the challenge mode etc. This is all coming along together very quickly, well done.

That is just the standard issue Unity water. It gets the job done for now, but I feel like it could be improved. I'm not exactly sure what I would change though. Oh I guess for starters I should add some actual water physics so you don't just fly through it like its not even there. Hmm, water landings anyone?

That would make a good alternate menu screen.

Yeah that is definitely going to get integrated into the menu somehow, assuming that plane is still functional in upcoming versions.

After seeing those little dudes on the plane, I now need them to be moving or something. Maybe add some parachutes and drop a hundred of em on the battlefield. There would have to be something for them to do though, like fight some kind of evil force... I should stop there, this could get out of control in a hurry

[eigenbom]

After seeing those little dudes on the plane, I now need them to be moving or something. Maybe add some parachutes and drop a hundred of em on the battlefield.

Ha, do it! Some sort of bombing-raid/paratroopers  functionality/challenge would be fun. I imagine a huge skywhale dropping millions of them..

[forsy]

[eigenbom]

O_O W.T.FUCK?! That's awesome.

[forsy]

Not much to update. Been a pretty unproductive week as far as Lift development goes, unfortunately. Cue excuse #1, #2, and #3.

Enough of that, let's talk about community productivity!

(click for big)


By my calculations, that is a total of 5235 attempts and 421 successful completions for a success rate of just over 8%. That number seems to be pretty steady. Unfortunately I think there is a bug with the "mount the sky whale" challenge and it is granting successful completion when it shouldn't be.

And again I have confirmed that most of the failure is due to plane selection. Certain planes just are not capable of completing some of these challenges. I've caught myself trying several times just to get a plane off the ground in the ring leader challenge when it is clearly impossible, and each one of those attempts counts as a fail.

I am a little bit surprised though that more people don't stick with it and try to beat these after failing. I think I will definitely need to add some better plane sorting and user plane rating for specific challenges if I continue down this path with the challenges.

I would love to showcase some more community built planes but there have been 111 new planes published for this latest version. There is just no way I could capture those in a screenshot or hand pick a collection to show. The complexity is reaching new heights, and I'm starting to feel bad for not having a larger selection of parts to choose from.

Soon though, I hope. I'm still trying to figure out what direction this is going to go in. There's just a million ideas running through my head and on paper. One thing is certain though, the editor needs improvement, so that is where the focus is for now at least.