Hey everyone! Been playing since the game came out. Both a mobile and Desktop user. Love the game but totally feel like it could be better!! Here are some of my ideas, Please comment and let me know what you think.
Flaps and slats!- I feel that we all could benefit from the use of flaps and slats added to this game. Short take offs and landings would also allow pilots of all skill levels to be able to land on the ships at slower flying speeds without the added difficulty of larger or wider wings. My idea for this would to be to add a another control surface option to the wing properties and allow flaps and slats to either be set by VTOL slider or action group number with a preset value of deployment set by the player.
External Fuel- With the added BFE engine, fuel consumption has become quite an issue for myself and id imagine other players. I feel that with the added weapons, bombs, and pylons that dedicated fuel tanks could be easily added.
Re-arming/Re-fueling- I always thought it would be cool to be able to take off from one airport and drop bombs and burn fuel and then be able to goto a different airport or ship and upon landing and coming to a complete stop, I'd be given the option of refuel/rearm without having to restart or exit the level.
Ground base targets- Although the destructible bridges was an awesome add, I would really like to see some static targets such as houses and tanks that I can further play around with air to ground weapons on.
Jet engines- Since the last update we got 3 propeller engines that weve been able to customize fully (AWESOME) and we also got the BFE engine (EVEN BETTER). I would really like to see the ability to customize jet engines. The BFE is great but it would be nice to see .5 - 1.5 after-burning jet engines to further allow planes of all sizes to be created with out having the mandatory 2 size BFE on the back of it. My idea for this is to be able to customize the BFE by size and length and after-burning capability. All parameters would effect engine performance and fuel consumption but would allow more flexibility on the builder to create different size engines to match all sizes of fuselages.
Another idea I had was an engine similar to the VTOL engine but instead of thrust vectoring nozzles, a non vectoring nozzle for forward flight so that the engine can be placed anywhere on the plane for ease of COG/COM. Also as said above the engine itself would have the option to be customized for ease of the player and needs of the air frame.
Added Gizmos- Since we got the ability to fly at night I feel its only fitting we get some lights to outfit our planes with for the ability to fly at night. I saw on another persons forum about chaff/flares for air to air fighting. I think that's an excellent idea and only fitting since we were outfitted with air to air missiles.
Gauges- Iv felt since I started playing this game that it would be cool to have a heading indicator and possibly with the added capabilities of flaps and slats and an AOA indicator.
This is all I can come up with for now. Let me know if I forgot something. I love the game and always look forward to further updates.
@NovaTopaz you can disable the nozzle rotation by setting (in game)
Input: brake
Inverted: true
@Godsgift2halo I just did some for another user, they functioned, but not very well. Shaved maybe 10mph off of a 130mph stall speed. The game doesn't consider them to be part of the wing, so they need to be very close to the CoM to work.
@skua thanks for the comment. Regarding the fuel, you're totally right about fuselage parts and adding fuel, that is a valid way to add fuel but I'm surprised with the developers adding bombs and what not that they did not do pre made external fuel pods. Just an idea is all.
As far as the non vectoring nozzle. I was more or less referring to a nozzle that looks similar to that on the BFE engine that is fixed automatically. Something that would allow an engine to be placed more center on the fuselage to help with COM/COG without adding dead weight to the nose to compensate. It would allow more flexibility on wing placement.
@novatopaz excellent idea on fuel routing. That's a great idea.
If you guys have a solution for flaps please tell me. Everytime Iv done wing sections with rotators it provides more drag but without lift. Even on examples others have made. They all look good but do not function. All drag no lift.
@Skua It would be nice to be able to set the rotation to false on the nozzles, though, without XML. And for what he said on fuel... You know what would be better than dedicated fuel tanks(which we can already make)? Fuel routing options!(EG make fuel pods run out before the other fuel in other parts of the aircraft)
@NovaTopaz yeah, I just wanted to give a non-xml solution. Same reason I didn't suggest structural wings on rotators to act as flaps haha
@Skua Or, in the case of XMLing, you can actually set it to be 'false' and make them disabled regardless.
@amazingperson124 that's true, I did actually forget that
@Skua All fuel tanks are drained at the same rate, so the drop tanks are only empty if your plane has no fuel left.
While these would all be nice features to have, two of them are actually already available. You can make dedicated fuel tanks with fuselage section attached to pylons. They'll still provide your engines with fuel, but can be dropped with an action group when they're empty. For you want non-vectoring nozzles for the VTOL engine, give the regular nozzles an action group, so they'll be disabled when that group is off.