You all know how we can add dead weight and buoyancy to a fuselage. Well I'm thinking what if we had a slidder that reduced weight? Not by a lot though, but just enough to where we could make realistic airships. You see there would have to be a lot of the blocks to make it work. That way no one could abuse it and make weightless planes or something.
@Flakmagnet Okay i would love to have this "part" thing that sounds nice.
@Flakmagnet Please tell me how you did this oh and could you put it on youtube I MUST see it for myself.
@Squirrel No helium in most airships has little to no pressure well.. some. That way it won't rupture the gas bags it lies in as to much pressure might burst them.
@Flakmagnet Um what's the name of your physics resistant plane. I wish to look into it ;)
@Skua. Just to throw a spanner in the works. Isn't the helium in airships pressurised?
@Verdnan ahh sorry, I didn't realise you meant that they were too heavy for buoyancy to work. A single block is actually a 0.5 m cube, so that's a volume of 0.125 m^3.
density of air = 1.225 kgm^-1
mass of 0.5 m cube of air = 0.125 * 1.225 = 0.153125 kg
weight of 0.5m cube of air = 1.5 N = 0.33 lb, for any imperial users here
density of helium = 0.164 kgm^-1
mass of 0.5m cube of helium = 0.0205 kg
weight of 0.5m cube of helium = 0.2 N = 0.045 lb
So yeah, assuming a totally weightless structure, we'd still only get about 0.3 lb of lift from that buoyancy - obviously not even close to enough to lift the 22 lb structure, so you're totally right. However, I would imagine that what the game is actually doing is saying "this block creates this amount of upward force when y <= 0, the water's surface", rather than actually simulating buoyancy with displacement and everything. The only difference here would be saying "this block always creates this amount of upward force"
I did some light math and a 5x5x5 fuselage and a normal cockpit weigh 1796lbs. And I think if the fuselage was filled with hydrogen, that gas could only lift 313lb. Assuming 1 block = 1 cubic meter and 1000 cu ft lifts 71lb. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. @Skua
@Verdnan really? You mean the ordinary fuselage sections and so on? I tend to find that most of the weight in my aircraft comes from fuel and engines.
I think the current blocks are to heavy. @Skua
@Verdnan would we? I figured it would work just like the current buoyancy slider for fuselage sections - just have a little button for "Buoyancy: Air/Water" or something. That being said, I'm not a dev, so I have absolutely no idea how difficult it would be to make something like that.
I was afraid that might add to much complexity. We would need an entirely new block in that case. The game allows for helicopters but not the laws governing them. @Skua
Rather than reducing weight, it should probably provide buoyancy in air - that way it won't reduce your mass (so it won't improve acceleration, handling etc) but will still allow for lighter-than-air vehicles.