[Dragon]

I have recently started work on adding the landing system to Scooby Doo's ships as an experiment and managed to get the landing to happen (sound triggered, at least), but only after a few minutes of slamming into the landing deck at varius angles and velocities.
Since Diaspora seem to me the primary user of the system, I'd like to ask you to either share some sample values for landing entries with the community, or at least compare your data with mine and tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Code: [Select]

$Collision Physics:
+Bounce: 0.2
+Both Small Bounce: 0.5
+Friction: 1
+Rotation Factor: 0.2
+Landing Max Forward Vel: 40
+Landing Min Forward Vel: 5
+Landing Max Descent Vel: 40
+Landing Max Horizontal Vel: 20
+Landing Max Angle: 60
+Landing Min Angle: 1
+Landing Max Rotate Angle: 60
+Reorient Max Forward Vel: 80
+Reorient Min Forward Vel: 41
+Reorient Max Descent Vel: 80
+Reorient Max Horizontal Vel: 40
+Reorient Max Angle: 70
+Reorient Min Angle: 61
+Reorient Max Rotate Angle: 60
+Reorient Speed Mult: 1
+Landing Rest Angle: 0
+Landing Sound: 18
This is collision physics entry for my test fighter, although I didn't noticed any reorienting, I've managed to get the landing sound to play.
The ship used is Scooby's Javelin fighter, while the carrier uses the Enterprise model (also Scooby's).

[Reprobator]

Did you seperate the landing area as a subsystem with the "allow landing" flag ?
I don't have my tables right here but i'll take a look.

(wouldn't it fit better the modding subforum? )

[Dragon]

Yes, the subsystem is am indestructible, untargetable subobject with "allow landing" flag.
As I said, landing in itself does trigger, just not under the conditions I'd like it to.

[Sushi]

I guess a good question would be what conditions you want, and what you're getting instead? (What angles/velocities worked, and which did you expect to work?)

I recommend setting +Bounce to 0, by the way.

+Reorient Min Forward Vel and +Reorient Min Angle should both be less than their +Landing counterparts. If you imagine the Landing constraints as a circle, the Reorient constraints should be a bigger circle. Otherwise you can have landings that don't trigger reorientation.

[newman]

(wouldn't it fit better the modding subforum? )

It's just fine here, imo. It does mostly concern Diaspora anyway.

[KewlToyZ]

Kewl stuff =)

[Dragon]

I guess a good question would be what conditions you want, and what you're getting instead? (What angles/velocities worked, and which did you expect to work?)

I don't know what angle worked, but it was near 0 degrees. Speed was also very low.
I'd like to be able to approach on 1/3 throttle (~40m/s) and hit the deck at angle less than 60 degrees. I set it up in a way I though should work. It didn't.
In general, angles should be similar between fighters (carrier bays don't allow for a much choice anyway), but velocities should vary. Setting Bounce to 0 is also a good idea, it should make ships "grind" against ship's hull.

[Sushi]

A couple of things to keep in mind about angle:

1. Angle is only in terms of ship orientation, not your velocity vector.

2. Angle is relative to the surface you're landing on. 0 degrees means your wings are perfectly level when you touch down. 10 means nose is 10 degrees above level, -10 means 10 degrees below level.

So, for the table you posted, it seems like it should work if you touch down at fairly low speed, nose up. You won't get the reorient (since the reorient angle range is 61-70), but as long as you're in the 1-60 range you specified, it should still work. The way you have it tabled, though, you'll either need gravity, glide, or slide in order to get on the deck, since you've specified only positive angles of attack into your constraints.

[Dragon]

Ah, so there's the problem. That perfectly explains all he problems I had.
Now I know how to make these work, thanks.

[Dragon]

Thanks. It now works perfectly.
Here's the entry that worksfor me, both bounces are set to 0, because I kept bouncing off the runway even with +Both Small Bounce set to a non zero value.
The first five lines are also set on the carrier.

Code: [Select]

$Collision Physics:
+Bounce: 0.0
+Both Small Bounce: 0.0
+Friction: 15
+Rotation Factor: 0.0
+Landing Max Forward Vel: 70
+Landing Min Forward Vel: -1
+Landing Max Descent Vel: 70
+Landing Max Horizontal Vel: 40
+Landing Max Angle: 60
+Landing Min Angle: -60
+Landing Max Rotate Angle: 60
+Reorient Max Forward Vel: 120
+Reorient Min Forward Vel: 1
+Reorient Max Descent Vel: 120
+Reorient Max Horizontal Vel: 60
+Reorient Max Angle: 70
+Reorient Min Angle: -70
+Reorient Max Rotate Angle: 70
+Reorient Speed Mult: 2
+Landing Rest Angle: -2
+Landing Sound: 17



[Reprobator]

"Both Small Bounce" as far as i know doesn't involve the runway, it involve two small ship colliding.
Anyway i really liked to play around this new feature, what lacks  for me still to make it perfect would be :
+min landing bounce velocity :  would mean that beetween the landing max velocity setup and this value, your ship would bounce but with the friction effect and without damage.

ah and adding a sexp to activate or not the landing physics , that would allow the setting up of a gear system and belly landing.
But maybe diaspora as already a workaround that, who knows 

[Thaeris]

How difficult would it be to implement a new keystroke, such as for an undercairrage, or set up a script where, say, you request clearance to land in the comm menu, and once you have said clearance, the gear extends? Animating the gear doesn't seem to be a horrific task, as most of an undercairrage's movement is in the form of rotation, which the engine already supports.

[Sushi]

Actual landing gears are out of the scope of what we're trying to do at the moment. It seems they are pretty hard to do well.

It doesn't make sense to update the landing collision stuff until the harder problem (landing gears that work well visually and in terms of controls) is solved first.

I'm sure it will be eventually.

[Thaeris]

That's good to know, Sushi.

In general, the concept of scripted animations is quite interesting to me. For atmospheric mods of FS, barring AI collision avoidance problems and truly effective means of ground avoidance, visible control surface movement and things as dynamic wing sweep (ala F-14) are things that I'd really like to see. Landing gear also falls in this catagory. If there was a single script that could link rotational animation to control input ratios (ailerons, elevons, automatic flaps, etc.), sim environment factors (the speed of your craft in-game determines things as wing sweep), and sustained keystroke input (press gear/manual flap/etc. once and a system stays deployed... isn't that already doable now to some degree, as in certain BP fighter which have missile bays open when the bank in question is armed?), that would be great.

[Ace]

Combining animations with keystrokes would be really nice, but is tricky. Ideally things like having the Raider missile bay doors open, when firing etc. could be feasible if there's a good solution for gears.

But that's a ways away.

[Dragon]

Weapon bays are easy, but variable geometry wings and control surfaces are a different matter, since they'd require "dynamic" input (as in, the ability to move the surface only slightly, animation system works in on-off manner now). It would be great to see such input implemented though (and variable geometry wings can be crudely done as an AB animation).