next »

[eigenbom]

Wow that was quick. It works well!

As an aside .. Unity player in Chrome (win8) sometimes seems to stall when loading, so it'd be nice to see a loading bar or something..

Here's some available domains:

lift-game.com
liftwing.com
fixedwing.io
wingconstructor.com

Actually I really like "wing constructor" as a name -- a blend between wing commander and soda constructor. Anyway, keep up the cool work. :D

[forsy]

Wow that was quick. It works well!

As an aside .. Unity player in Chrome (win8) sometimes seems to stall when loading, so it'd be nice to see a loading bar or something..

Here's some available domains:

lift-game.com
liftwing.com
fixedwing.io
wingconstructor.com

Actually I really like "wing constructor" as a name -- a blend between wing commander and soda constructor. Anyway, keep up the cool work. :D

I'll see what I can do about the unity player issue. I don't have a windows 8 machine so it might be tricky. I wonder if that is a known issue or if it is related to something I'm doing. Have you seen this with other games?

And thanks for the domain suggestions. I hate picking names for stuff like this. It just seems so.. permanent.

[eigenbom]

Hmm, it might be a loading time issue - but I see a black screen for a number of seconds (say 10-20) then I see the Unity loading bar for another 20-30 seconds. That initial black screen might seem like a broken site to some -- a quick fix could be to display a custom loading screen where the player will go.

[forsy]

Uploaded a new build tonight - 0.0.8



In this build I added some rings to fly through and recorded an attempt at flying through them, as you can see in the screenshot. I have found there is a lot more pressure to hit the rings when there is a previous path going through them.

I only have a single plane for this version for now, but I will probably create a few more and drop some links down.

http://www.czkproject.com/lift/e3698

I did a lot of behind the scenes stuff on the server and in the player for handling the new plane url system. That link will load up version 0.0.8 of the build and the proper plane. If you were to click on any of the previous direct plane links it will load version 0.0.7 since that is the version those planes were created with. I can also specify which version is "live", so if you go to http://www.czkproject.com/lift/ without including a plane, it will load the "live" version so I can still do development on a new version hopefully without breaking the old one. Some of the scripts on the server are version dependent also so they are in separate folders as well.

The builder interface is still coming along. It's set up so you can build a plane and when you click save, it will upload to the server and automatically copy a link to the saved plane to your clipboard so you could just go paste it somewhere to share it. Unfortunately, it is still lacking in terms of user friendliness. Without having a game plan for the future of this project it is kind of hard to take it any further. I think I will spend another day or two polishing it and put a build out. At least so I can say it's there and have an initial version of it done.

[forsy]

I just uploaded a new build with a bandaid on a problem I've been seeing.

Play!


The problem seems to be if there is no downforce applied to the tail of the plane by adjusting the pitch during takeoff, the tail will lift off the ground and then the plane drifts to one direction and the result is likely a crash. Unless you see it coming and can adjust the pitch appropriately, but that isn't something a new player will know to do.

So, this "bandaid" just auto sets the elevator to a certain angle right away so if you don't touch anything the plane will take off by itself.

I'm not sure if this is actually a real world problem that can happen or just an issue with the physics simulation. It is kind of a nice feature in some ways, but really annoying for a new player if they don't know what to do or what is happening.

[Pishtaco]

I just uploaded a new build with a bandaid on a problem I've been seeing.

Play!


The problem seems to be if there is no downforce applied to the tail of the plane by adjusting the pitch during takeoff, the tail will lift off the ground and then the plane drifts to one direction and the result is likely a crash. Unless you see it coming and can adjust the pitch appropriately, but that isn't something a new player will know to do.

So, this "bandaid" just auto sets the elevator to a certain angle right away so if you don't touch anything the plane will take off by itself.

I'm not sure if this is actually a real world problem that can happen or just an issue with the physics simulation. It is kind of a nice feature in some ways, but really annoying for a new player if they don't know what to do or what is happening.

I just tried it, and saw the issue. I have some rudder pedals plugged in to the computer, and unity is seeing them as a joystick. I kept flipping to one side, and then realized that my left foot was controlling the ailerons; if I kept it tilted forwards, they would be level. Then I still kept flipping over, until I realized that my right foot was controlling the elevator, and moving it from your setting.

I don't see why you should push to one side like that. Maybe it's an issue with the wheels?

[forsy]

I just uploaded a new build with a bandaid on a problem I've been seeing.

Play!


The problem seems to be if there is no downforce applied to the tail of the plane by adjusting the pitch during takeoff, the tail will lift off the ground and then the plane drifts to one direction and the result is likely a crash. Unless you see it coming and can adjust the pitch appropriately, but that isn't something a new player will know to do.

So, this "bandaid" just auto sets the elevator to a certain angle right away so if you don't touch anything the plane will take off by itself.

I'm not sure if this is actually a real world problem that can happen or just an issue with the physics simulation. It is kind of a nice feature in some ways, but really annoying for a new player if they don't know what to do or what is happening.

I just tried it, and saw the issue. I have some rudder pedals plugged in to the computer, and unity is seeing them as a joystick. I kept flipping to one side, and then realized that my left foot was controlling the ailerons; if I kept it tilted forwards, they would be level. Then I still kept flipping over, until I realized that my right foot was controlling the elevator, and moving it from your setting.

I don't see why you should push to one side like that. Maybe it's an issue with the wheels?

Thanks for testing it. I have read some not so good things about unity's wheel physics (or more specifically physx I think). I have not enjoyed using them, there just seems to be some strange behavior with them. I might rip them off and put something custom in. I don't think I need ultra realistic wheel physics so it shouldn't be too hard to get something else working.

On a side note, I got some feedback from someone saying the plane pulled hard left or right into the wall after takeoff and they thought it was wind or something. This didn't make much sense so I tried to reproduce it. After a few tries I was able to see it happen and at first I sat there puzzled trying to figure out what could be happening. It just looked so odd. Then I realized the plane was stalling and that was the result. I definitely need to add some visual feedback for when that happens, because it even had me confused

[eigenbom]

I love the polygonal graphics and I love having a goal now. I was experiencing the stall too .. I think a little "STALL" flashing message would be sufficient. Pressing 'H' should pause the game. Also I found that F1 didn't work sometimes and F2 didn't seem to work at all. Keep it up :D

[forsy]

I love the polygonal graphics and I love having a goal now. I was experiencing the stall too .. I think a little "STALL" flashing message would be sufficient. Pressing 'H' should pause the game. Also I found that F1 didn't work sometimes and F2 didn't seem to work at all. Keep it up :D

Thanks for the feedback!

I noticed F2 didn't work, but F1 seemed to work every time for me. You have to press tab to switch to the newly created plane. Depending on how that function is used later on, maybe an auto switch toggle will be needed in an options menu or something.


Anyway, working on the builder a bit tonight and created the "beast":


Fly the beast!

It should be noted that I didn't actually get the thing off the ground successfully, but it should fly pretty well once its airborne. Assuming you can dodge the rocks.

Good luck to anyone who tries!

[forsy]

Slow motion destruction

[forsy]

That same missile vs the beast. After impact it is moving backwards slightly... 

[Christian]

This environment is so cool. Love how it just opens up into the big open area.
Is there another area at the bottom of that hole?

And definitely keep this abstract style. It just works. Could be your selling point. A realistic flight simulator in an unrealistic world

[forsy]

This environment is so cool. Love how it just opens up into the big open area.
Is there another area at the bottom of that hole?

And definitely keep this abstract style. It just works. Could be your selling point. A realistic flight simulator in an unrealistic world

What lies beneath the rocks at the bottom of the hole shall remain a mystery until sufficient explosives are found.


Speaking of explosives... a near miss!



Except the missiles took each other out at the end there, which is pretty rad.

[forsy]

Uploaded build 0.0.8b.

Nothing too significant, except for missiles! See gif in previous post for an action shot. There is an option in the menu to fly against the missiles and also to fly like before with no missiles.

Fly the 'underwing'
Fly the 'beast' (still can't get the damn thing off the ground)
Fly a missile, or at least launch one off the runway and watch it crash


These missiles were kind of a pain in the ass to set up. It was mostly a lot of trial and error figuring out how much to lead the plane and when to launch them, and it still isn't that accurate. I have been hit a few times though.

I'm not sure how this could fit into the long term plan for the game. Given the open ended nature of building this stuff, I don't know if there is a mathematical formula out there to handle an arbitrary build and get it to be accurate enough to pose a threat.

Looking at it another way, if I could attach a plane to the red path that shows a previous flight, you could try to design missiles and place them and actually aim and launch them to try to hit the plane out of the air. Might be kind of fun. I really enjoy watching the missiles launch so I definitely need to fit them in somewhere.

[forsy]

Almost made it...




I think I want to set it up to have crash debris be persistent across different play sessions and people. So if someone else were to try this, they would see the result of all of my failed attempts.

Or even do something like dark souls and have a playback of a previous failed attempt.

[forsy]

I know you were all wondering if this plane would ever fly, so you can sleep well tonight knowing that it does.

It can even take a hit from a missile!

[eigenbom]

Loving the gifs

[forsy]

Loving the gifs

Here is one from the other perspective...



I need to spend less time making these and more time actually working

[failrate]

But making new airplanes and missiles *is* work.

[forsy]

But making new airplanes and missiles *is* work.

I was referring to making the gifs

I need to figure out a way to build an in game replay system so these gifs or videos can be recorded without the use of the Unity editor.

Unfortunately, physx is not deterministic so being able to accurately reproduce the physics simulation is difficult. A very brute force approach would be to just record the position and rotation of all the active physics objects in the scene every frame. Given the current state of the game that doesn't seem so bad, only because there is very little going on. I'm not sure how that type of system would hold up in the future.