Flight

[Hague]

I do like the idea of a fast travel system of sorts built around small aircraft. Since it’s the future, the planes/choppers will practically fly themselves, relatively speaking. I imagine that a player will have to activate some atomic back-up radio at an airfield so as to “activate” the quick travel point through aircraft. Without any guidance or instrumentation, it’s very difficult to land. Presumably landing at night with no lights or radio guidance would be very tricky.

Again, it would just be a placeholder for real vehicle flight but I see that being quite a ways away.

[Womble]

JATO cars.

[Hague]

Well to properly simulate flight (which is tricky) you’d have to make it so any vehicle could potentially fly. This means that you’d be able to weld vectored thrusters or helicopter blades to your RV… Doubt you’ll be able to get very high, if properly modeled. I can’t even imagine how to implement the yaw, pitch and roll necessary for simulated flight.

[kevin.granade]

Meh, flight happens all the time in 2.5D environments, you just end up discarding a bunch of details because it’s not a flight simulator. The more pertinent question is whether it’s worthwhile to go to the trouble of implementing manual flight control for vehicles considering that your options are flying from airport to airport and suicidally crashing into buildings. You can drop things out of the aircraft, and maybe fire guns, but I don’t see that either of those require manual control, which would be clunky, hard to implement, probably buggy, and most likely unsatisfying.

If you want a vehicle to fly, it needs to be designed for it from the get-go, which pretty much means using an already-constructed aircraft, or possibly assembling an ultralight. Bolting wings or helicopter blades on your car… bleh.

I have no problem with the survivor strapping a JATO unit to their car, but if they do so, there are two options.

1. It’s heavy enough to not go airborne.
2. It isn’t, and it goes airborne, and you die.

Side note, if your reasoning includes, “since it’s the future”, I will ignore everything you say.

[Hague]

I figure you might as well just make the player flyable stuff things like helicopters and futuristic VTOLs like the GMC Banshee from Shadowrun:

Keep in mind, in Shadowrun, the game world starts at 2050, and in the setting the world already faced several extinction-scale plagues, a global computer computer network collapse, and the resurgence of magic. So I figure the idea of a VTOL rapid-response or military vehicle wouldn’t be out of the scope of C:DDA. The damn things use a LOT of fuel though, but they’re great for smuggling. Able to hold enough armament to fight off a patrol and maneuverable enough to hide in sensor-dead zones when trying to cross borders secretly, the GMC Banshee and other VTOL panzers were ideal smuggling vehicles.

If you’re gonna do free-form flight, it sorta makes sense to use the flying stuff that would operate most closely to the vehicle system as it currently exists. No fixed wing aircraft but easily translatable rotor-craft and ducted jet-craft.

[KA101]

[quote=“Hague, post:25, topic:6475”]I figure you might as well just make the player flyable stuff things like helicopters and futuristic VTOLs like the GMC Banshee from Shadowrun:

Keep in mind, in Shadowrun, the game world starts at 2050, and in the setting the world already faced several extinction-scale plagues, a global computer computer network collapse, and the resurgence of magic. So I figure the idea of a VTOL rapid-response or military vehicle wouldn’t be out of the scope of C:DDA. The damn things use a LOT of fuel though, but they’re great for smuggling. Able to hold enough armament to fight off a patrol and maneuverable enough to hide in sensor-dead zones when trying to cross borders secretly, the GMC Banshee and other VTOL panzers were ideal smuggling vehicles.

If you’re gonna do free-form flight, it sorta makes sense to use the flying stuff that would operate most closely to the vehicle system as it currently exists. No fixed wing aircraft but easily translatable rotor-craft and ducted jet-craft.[/quote]

204X, thanks. Most recent item with a year on it is the Augmentative Tech Review 2041.

Shadowrun is a Nifty world but I’m thinking DDA isn’t quite there: no magic unless you count Nether stuff, for starters.

[HunterAlpha1]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:24, topic:6475”]Meh, flight happens all the time in 2.5D environments, you just end up discarding a bunch of details because it’s not a flight simulator. The more pertinent question is whether it’s worthwhile to go to the trouble of implementing manual flight control for vehicles considering that your options are flying from airport to airport and suicidally crashing into buildings. You can drop things out of the aircraft, and maybe fire guns, but I don’t see that either of those require manual control, which would be clunky, hard to implement, probably buggy, and most likely unsatisfying.

If you want a vehicle to fly, it needs to be designed for it from the get-go, which pretty much means using an already-constructed aircraft, or possibly assembling an ultralight. Bolting wings or helicopter blades on your car… bleh.

I have no problem with the survivor strapping a JATO unit to their car, but if they do so, there are two options.

1. It’s heavy enough to not go airborne.
2. It isn’t, and it goes airborne, and you die.

Side note, if your reasoning includes, “since it’s the future”, I will ignore everything you say.[/quote]Yeah, basically you’d simply add a different category of vehicles; aircraft parts could only be used on aircraft, and regular vehicle parts could only be used on ground vehicles, and all-purpose parts could be used on both. In the construction menu you’d have a new option; “begin aircraft construction”, which you’d need a an “aircraft frame” to begin.

[Arek_PL]

alslo make flying wechicles will be hard maybe just a overmap where player use special actions (scout area, bomb ,supply drop) of aircrat and chose landing spot like airfield for plane (and field for plane too with risk of crashing into something) helicopters able to land on most flat surfaces like helipads on roofs parking lots fields and airfields alslo small planes are easier to pilot while bigger planes and helicpoters are harder while jet will be hard to pilot and new flying skill what tell what actions player can do (bomb run is hard thing to do flying helicopters and big Jumbojet is hard to do too not to mention fast military jet fighter) flying a plane what is hard to steer without skill can make player crash leaving player dead or near dead in wreckage with zombie horde walking in his direction summoned by crash

scout area will reveal hordes with information like in debug (but only for short time) and map in scouted area
bomb will just drop some bombs (damage depends on what bomb is used)
supply drop is just like bomb but drop some supplies but something like this will need so many crates and parachutes

maybe if player have parachute and plane have autopilot player will be able to make autopilot land on chosen airfield and player will jump in chosen area

[Hague]

Yeah, basically you’d simply add a different category of vehicles; aircraft parts could only be used on aircraft, and regular vehicle parts could only be used on ground vehicles, and all-purpose parts could be used on both. In the construction menu you’d have a new option; “begin aircraft construction”, which you’d need a an “aircraft frame” to begin.

I believe the term “airframe” would be appropriate.

[Womble]

[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:24, topic:6475”]I have no problem with the survivor strapping a JATO unit to their car, but if they do so, there are two options.

1. It’s heavy enough to not go airborne.
2. It isn’t, and it goes airborne, and you die.[/quote]

There is a third option: the survivor doesn’t get in the car, they just fire it at a high-value target.

[Annoyed_grunt]

Fourth option: jetpacks.

[Mrnocamera]

Fourth option: jetpacks.

Heat-proof everything required.
Well, for the rocket strapped to your back kind of jetpack, at least.

Because seriously, it’s gonna at least burn your legs if it’s the traditional movie-style one.

[Womble]

[quote=“Annoyed grunt, post:31, topic:6475”]Fourth option: jetpacks.

Heat-proof everything required.
Well, for the rocket strapped to your back kind of jetpack, at least.

Because seriously, it’s gonna at least burn your legs if it’s the traditional movie-style one.[/quote]

If it’s made out of a JATO unit, you won’t be worried about getting burned.

[system]

Eh, assembling vehicles with magic future thrusters with atleast 3.5 TWR wouldn’t be hard. It’d be a matter of balancing load, maneuvering pivots, safety gyros, and a hella lot of aluminum or other light strong metal.