I wasn't able to find any good examples of this method of mixing elevators and ailerons without using hinges or other hacks, so here's my method:
- Read the latest docs.
- "Funky Trees" functions and input variables doc
- "Funky Trees" 1.9.202 Addendum
- "Funky Trees" 1.0 wiki page
- Install/activate the Overload mod (Windows, Mac, Android) or find another way to edit your XML files (iOS).
- Build a plane which will need elevons; usually this will be a delta or flying wing configuration.
- Add one control surface to each wing. You will probably want this to be close to full span for a delta wing, but for heavily swept flying wings the elevons should be about 1/4 to 1/2 span, at the tip furthest back from the Center of Gravity of the plane (Cg).
- Edit the XML for each wing:
- Right wing: ControlSurface: "inputID" = "((Roll - Pitch) / 2)"
- Left wing: ControlSurface: "inputID" = "((Roll + Pitch) / 2)"
- Fly!
Notes:
- The operator is reversed between left and right wings because SimplePlanes is reversing one of the inputs behind the scenes for one of the wings.
- This mixing function is pretty simple: add the values of the Roll and Pitch inputs (both are [1, 0, -1] inclusive) and then halve the total so that the absolute value of the effective input never exceeds 1. This means that the effective Roll and Pitch inputs are each 1/2 of normal, but since you're using larger control surfaces this shouldn't be much of an issue.
I also tried a normalized mixing function:
inputId = ((Roll - Pitch) / (max(1, abs(Roll) + abs(Pitch))))
which gives full control authority when using only Roll or only Pitch, but prevents exceeding 1 when e.g. Roll is 0.75 and Pitch is 0.75. I found this to be too sensitive but it could be useful for e.g. dogfighters.
Example craft using my elevon mixing functions can be found here:
Dobson Convertiplane Prototype 7
@TutorialPlaneswOw Probably replace "roll" with "yaw" but you'll have to check the docs to be sure.
how to make this for a v tail
Thank you I've been trying to work out v tail mixing. Will have to look into more advanced XML stuff.
hacker
@WNP78 Good point, although I did have to manually enable it from the Mods menu.
No need to download and install Overload, it should be bundled with the latest version of the game on all platforms.