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What I want to see in SimplePlanes2 - megathread

2,664 LotusEngineering  4.8 years ago

What I want to see in SimplePlanes2

With talks of a possible sequel to SP, I've compiled a list of things that I would love to see in SP2- if that becomes a thing.

I'm a student pilot and engineering student, and the reason I am where I am in my life working towards my PPL is hugely due to the discovery of simpleplanes when it first came out 7 years ago. It fueled my love for aviation and engineering and I wouldn't be where I am without it. Thanks Simpleplanes :')

Car engine overhaul. transmissions/driveshafts?

I feel that I and many others would agree when I say we need a drastic car engine overhaul. The current state of engines is highly unrealistic, and here Is what I'm proposing:
- exhaust mechanics. Exhaust has nowhere to go, the engine explodes over time?
- Connection to a transmission or driveshaft to directly power wheels and parts directly
- air intake mechanics, direct breathability or horsepower will decrease
- customizability options, type, orientation, cylinder count that all directly affect power output
- functioning turbo/superchargers that need a certain amount of breathability and connection to exhaust (to power hot side of the turbo) to function properly

GLASS

I feel SP is missing something huge. Glass would likely be a paint/texture with sliders for:
- color
-opacity
- tint

Instruments

Instruments found in irl aircraft cockpits could include analog and digital:
- altimeters
- tachometers
- airspeed/groundspeed indicators
- AOA indicators
- stall warning horn?

Improved wing/aileron physics

Instead of the current rectangular slabs of 'wings' we currently have, we should be able to create and customize the thickness, chord line, angles and types of airfoil wings.
- ability to customize the type of wings (flat bottom, symmetric, semi symmetric)

Built in part scaler

Parts should be able to sized and scaled without mods like overload and fine tuner.

Tank Treads

Tank treads. No clue how they would work, tanks aren't my deal, but perhaps someone could brainstorm ideas in the comments.

Materials

Parts could be made of different materials, e.g, carbon fibre, aluminum, tin.
- each material would perform differently in high-stress environments/crashes (see below)
- Each material would weigh differently
- Each material would heat differently

improved crash mechanics

SP2 could benefit from improved crash/stress mechanics, instead of just exploding or falling apart, parts would bend, beamNG.drive style
- glass would shatter
- metal would bend or snap
- under high G environments, wings would tear/rip off the airframe

Better shapes for fuselage blocks

half tubes, perhaps canopy shaped or for landing gear/bomb bays

Better painting

Imagine logging on to the simpleplanes website and seeing planes with stunning works of art painted on them. Real-life liveries could effortlessly be created in-game, instead of individually painting parts and arranging them in order to create a shape.
- It would likely work by being able to paint on the aircraft itself photoshop 3D editor-style, however, translating the 3d model with real-time texture editing could be difficult.

Cross compatibility with SP1

Atmospheric heating

Similarly to how the X-15 experienced atmospheric heating during one flight, once a certain speed is exceeded the aircraft will begin to heat.

An actual person/character to place inside the aircraft instead of a cockpit block

I feel this would make more sense, as there are currently no people (minus the old dummy block) in SimplePlanes. It would a malleable humanoid that could not be scaled/sized in-game.

Actual clouds instead of the weird endless ceiling we currently have

Thanks to wonderful comments by users, here are some ideas that are not my own:

credit: @starbound
- Removal of the max angular velocity limit, which is currently set to 7 radians per second or about 66 rpm.
- Heat damage to the character
- Different fuels with different properties
- Combustion simulation inside engines
- Carbon monoxide poisoning on the character as a result of incomplete combustion
- Turbo blowoff valves (PSHHHHHH-TFUTFUTFUtfufufu sound)
- Engine temperature management, liquid-cooling or air-cooling
- KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System)
- Modular ICU (Integrated Control Unit) for engines
- Customizable props that can be mounted on engines separately. The props make sound based on blade count, diameter, pitch, rpm etc. The sound drastically changes above supersonic tip speeds, or when they are in the wake of another propeller (like in a contra-rotating layout)
- Propwash, jetblast, wake vortices.
- A gearbox
- Hydraulics, fuel lines, mechanical control lines if necessary. The choice to have hydraulic assistance for ailerons (If you don't they can lock up at high speeds).
- Electrical wires
- Hydrogen fuel cells
- Different types of storage tanks rated for a certain pressure, will explode if exceeded.
- When a plane crashes, fuel spills everywhere and mixes with the air. Explodes in a fuel-air explosion when the mixture is ignited. Ignition sources could include: sparks, violent metal deformation releasing heat, heat from friction, extreme pressure and short-circuits.
- Boat props
- Terrain destruction
- Intake condensation
- Vibration caused by engines could be dampened with shocks.
- Delta P (pressure differential, could be a low-pressure zone in front of a jet engine)

(P.S: are we allowed to tag @AndrewGarrison to ask about the feasibility of this?)

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    Better graphics in general like trees, vibrancy, and grass would be nice as well

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    67.1k SnoWFLakE0s

    @LotusEngineering
    .
    A ton of these are already possible, I see no incentive for devs to add those... but some things are valid ideas.

    4.8 years ago
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    Plus deployable spinning radar dishs that detect and cone (plane)/fire control ones that track and send signals to missiles and share data to friendly aircraft for example if u built a radar less craft and you get in range with a friendly craft u previously placed that has radar it can share data with you and guide your missiles even.
    -Secondly a modular missile maker ranging from >seeker type (IR,Active Radar,Semi Active Radar,Anti Rad,Remote,Laser guided and home on jamm) including prediction point calculation so the missile hits the target.
    *Fusing (Proximity,depth pen,inertial,contact etc).
    *Warhead (Frag,HE,Kinetic,Heat and Emp)
    *Fuel tank
    *Fins or Thrusters (missile maneuverability depending on where you place them)
    *engine (solid,liquid,ramjet,scramjet etc) and so that u can make two stages too
    *And most of all you can elongate the missile by adding more of these blocks on top of each other and widen them how you see fit
    *Custom Bombs,Smart bombs,missiles,interceptors,laser guided munitions would be possible
    *oh and add some of those to the cannon as well (HEAT and Frag)
    *finally some form of missile defence we currently have flares and chaff Additional (smoke launchers/antilaser,CIWS anti munitions guns)
    *some form of stealth material rubber auto coating that ablies to fuselage like paint tool that minimizes detection bay say 80%.
    *And ability to save that weapon and name it showing up in weapons tab

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    @asteroidbook345 I agree also, we need a total sound overhaul

    4.8 years ago
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    69.4k Chancey21

    Pretty much all of this could be put into SP now

    +4 4.8 years ago
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    32.7k Wakescar

    If SP came out 7 years ago, maybe SP2 is already out!

    4.8 years ago
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    1,218 F1boss2018

    Change the engine shape too so it doesn’t look like a brick8 engine, make v8 and it could be changed to v12, v6 engines, and add a blower part to put on top of the engine so it could stick out of the hood

    4.8 years ago
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    15.1k Rodrigo110

    Would also love to realistic lights that project into things and work as headlights do in real life, electric motors and batteries to make electric cars and planes and war modes where you could have 3v3 battles or something like that (would also mean improvements on AI would have to be made)

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    12.1k Starbound

    This is brilliant, but I like this:
    - Removal of the max angular velocity limit, which is currently set to 7 radians per second or about 66 rpm.
    - Heat damage to the character
    - Different fuels with different properties
    - Combustion simulation inside engines
    - Carbon monoxide poisoning on the character as a result of incomplete combustion
    - Turbo blowoff valves (PSHHHHHH-TFUTFUTFUtfufufu sound)
    - Engine temperature management, liquid-cooling or air-cooling
    - KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System)
    - Modular ICU (Integrated Control Unit) for engines
    - Customizable props that can be mounted on engines separately. The props make sound based on blade count, diameter, pitch, rpm etc. The sound drastically changes above supersonic tip speeds, or when they are in the wake of another propeller (like in a contra-rotating layout)
    - Propwash, jetblast, wake vortices.
    - A gearbox
    - Hydraulics, fuel lines, mechanical control lines if necessary. The choice to have hydraulic assistance for ailerons (If you don't they can lock up at high speeds).
    - Electrical wires
    - Hydrogen fuel cells
    - Different types of storage tanks rated for a certain pressure, will explode if exceeded.
    - When a plane crashes, fuel spills everywhere and mixes with the air. Explodes in a fuel-air explosion when the mixture is ignited. Ignition sources could include: sparks, violent metal deformation releasing heat, heat from friction, extreme pressure and short-circuits.
    - Boat props
    - Terrain destruction
    - Intake condensation
    - Vibration caused by engines, could be dampened with shocks.
    - Delta P (pressure differential, could be a low pressure zone in front of a jet engine)

    +5 4.8 years ago
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    18.2k exosuit

    @Omel yes
    .
    It's been out for a long time tho

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    18.2k exosuit

    @Omel simplewings also has vortex when the wing is at high AoA and it's superior in every way when compared with stock wing
    .
    too bad people don't like it

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    18.2k exosuit

    @Omel there should be an option to hide the wing part similar to simplewings so that while the original shape can be preserved, making custom wings would be less of a hassle

    +2 4.8 years ago
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    18.2k exosuit

    what about mobile version

    4.8 years ago
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    @Johnnyynf I 100% agree. I can envision SP as sort of a CAD program with a game built inside of it, and I feel its not quite there yet, but with additions of stuff like belts/gears and overall more realistic game mechanics, it could get close

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    15.7k Johnnyynf

    I mainly build cars in SP, and here's my opinion about building cars in SP.

    About building cars, we can take a good look at the game "dream car builder".
    Just as you say engine, transmission, and drive train. But also tyre model and ball joints.
    A better tyre model includes the importance of suspension geometry and also tyre itself as a suspension components. And it would be nice, if we can build the rim with fuselage, let the driveshaft drive the rim, and tyre as an add on.
    Ball joints enable us to use less part in suspension, instead of stacking a bunch of rotator on each other.
    And also there's connection physics problems with the games. If you connect a little mass object relative to the total mass, the connection will be weekend. And that prevents us from building a realistic weighted components for cars.

    And I think it will be awesome to have belts and gears for those mechanical nerds.

    +2 4.8 years ago
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    @CenturiVonKikie Thank you so much! I was lookin but i didnt notice the new post. Thank you!

    +2 4.8 years ago
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    21.0k JessaLeih

    @KingCobra11 click on the website menu, then forums, then new post, select your preferred category (questions, suggestions, etc.), then click new post again and you're ready to make one of these.

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    33.0k SyntheticL

    need GPWS.

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    9,445 vcharng

    Those instruments are possible now already. I think we need some advanced parts shaping tool (like subtraction) and better damage/crash model.

    +1 4.8 years ago
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    Hey completely off topic and random but I'm kinda desperate at this point. How do I create a post like this? Or any kind of discussion post? Orrrrr a teaser???

    4.8 years ago