You can't enter numbers manually, sorry. It's come up in the forums a few times as a suggestion, but it hasn't been added to the game yet.
Ungrouping stuck together objects can be a little easier. I'm guessing you know there's a button to undo steps (that also works with Ctrl-z). The game likes to keep things attached to cockpits, so to ungroup stuck together things, stick a cockpit on the bit you don't want to remove. You should then be able to drag the other bit out and get rid of it easily.
It's already been mentioned by RedstoneAerospaceDivision, but I'll say it again: Use the nudge function. It makes it much easier to build things and get them looking how you want them. To use it, select the part you want to move, then hold the shift key on your keyboard. You can then use the WASDQE keys to move the selected part very small amounts in different directions, even having them overlap with other parts if you like.
The final tip is to practice! No-one can turn out perfect planes straight away, but keep at it and you'll improve.
Hope this has been helpful, good luck with building your planes.
I think the translation of neurons firing into recognisable thoughts is analogous to making a net out of ropes. You can't have a net without rope, just as you can't have thought without firing neurons. But just having pieces of rope doesn't make a net, and just having neurons firing doesn't make a thought (you don't generally think about the neural activity in your autonomic nervous system for example). To weave a net out of rope, the individual ropes have to meet each other, they have to interact and change how they behave. Similarly with neurons firing, they have to affect each other and increase their activity in a specific way to create a recognisable thought.
A good general rule is to have the CoL (centre of lift) behind the CoM (centre of mass). If you don't, your planes will tend to flip uncontrollably. CoT (centre of thrust) is less important, that can be in front or behind the CoT or CoL. Just don't put it off to the side or it'll push your plane round in circles!
Also, welcome to the game, hope you have fun here.
A while back, I made a really huge build and couldn't get it to upload. I'm wondering if there's some kind of part limit or timeout trigger when uploading a plane.
Wouldn't that kill discussions, though? When we had the Lunar Arc race, I helped out a mobile user who couldn't test their plane as they didn't have the race on the mobile version. I used comments then to explain the changes and how to make the plane better. Your idea would penalise me for helping someone else - not a good way to build a supportive community.
I think the only way you could make this idea work would be to have two different types of points. Each user would have their earned points from upvotes, successors and competitions, and those would be theirs forever. Meanwhile, each user gets given some amount of points a week to give away on upvoting other people's creations - and at the end of each week, any unused ones disappear and they get a new allocation. It might work, but it adds a layer of complication.
OK, that lets people get points. But where's the motivation to give them away? You're treating the points like money. If I like someone else's build, I could give them some of these limited points. Or I could write "nice job" in the comments section, which costs me nothing. It seems like it would make more sense for people to hang on to their points and never give anything away.
I don't like this idea, but let's explore it and see what happens. The first thing I want to know is how this gets started. If you need points to give points to someone else, users would either have to be given free points when they join (encouraging people to make fake accounts to upvote their own stuff) or be given a weekly or monthly allowance, which would mean you could just accumulate points by not upvoting anyone else.
My fifth and final plane to guard island M2 is ready! If any enemies approach, they'd better be fast - my Ronin interceptor strikes swiftly and powerfully.
It would be nice if it was possible to upload (or put in the url of) an image, select the area you want it on on the plane, and have it automatically paint itself on that area. Of course, a good reason not to do that is this is a family-friendly game, so porn-painted planes would be problematic.
I mostly build fictional planes because I find it easier. I have tried doing a replica, and getting it right is a lot more effort. And when you succeed in making the replica, it sometimes doesn't fly that well because real life physics is different to SimplePlanes physics.
I think the replica planes tend to get more upvotes because people recognise how much effort has gone into them.
I'm in, my Adashi is up as a successor. I've tested it by flying from Yeager to Bandit, deploying the car and parking it there. I'm sure it will work at other airports as well. Enjoy!
I like the Edgley Optica. The bulbous cockpit sticking out the front makes it look very different.
And while I was trying to look that up, I found the Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender, apparently nicknamed the "ass-ender" for being a pusher plane.
No hostile action yet, but the situation remains tense. Recommend escalating the readiness status of the Thunderclap bombers; the threat of retaliatory strikes will act as a deterrent.
I had a weird issue with the new wheels. I made a plane that only had the new ones, larger ones at the back, smaller ones at the front. When I started on a runway, I got the tyre squeal noise and the plane began moving on its own, no engine input at all. Anyone else had a similar issue?
In the build space, I'd like to be able to change the background, so grey or black planes will actually show up in screenshots. It would also be nice to be able to have access to gear & VTOL controls, so you could do screenshots showing your plane in different configurations.
Reconnaissance shows that island M2 is undefended. Time to occupy it and establish a presence there. Send in a Lewill transport plane load of troops to claim it.
I'll give this a go. I'm going to try to claim island M2. I'll start by sending in an unmanned reconnaissance drone to inspect it. I'll add more planes as I develop them.
@AndrewGarrison I'd like to be able to have fully circular fuselage pieces at >2 diameter. I'd say to leave the current curved corner in and add the fully circular as an additional option. Or - and I'm guessing this would be a lot of work and might not be possible - set the fuselage edge settings to a roundness slider. So 0% would be completely square, like the existing Hard setting, while 100% would be fully circular.
If this is implemented, it would be good to be able to assign a plane to more than one folder. So if you do a replica fighter, you could have it show up in the replicas folder and the fighters one.
For me, each upvote (which should be one notification) has been appearing as two notifications. It's been fine with the people I follow creating planes, though - each of them only appears as one notification. I don't know if the new notification system will have solved that problem, but it wasn't a major issue anyway.
Use airplane 1. You won't get anywhere if you crash. And in previous tournaments, even slow planes have got through a few rounds by always getting to the end of the race.
Two different designs of mine both made it under 1:10. One is more reliable at finishing, so that's the one I've entered. That's the limit for me, I don't think I can make anything faster.
A lot of good advice here already. I'd just say to keep making stuff and to get involved with the challenges that people put up. It may also be worth giving the tournaments a go - even if you can't make something fast enough to win, if it's fast or eye-catching you'll get noticed.
You can't enter numbers manually, sorry. It's come up in the forums a few times as a suggestion, but it hasn't been added to the game yet.
Ungrouping stuck together objects can be a little easier. I'm guessing you know there's a button to undo steps (that also works with Ctrl-z). The game likes to keep things attached to cockpits, so to ungroup stuck together things, stick a cockpit on the bit you don't want to remove. You should then be able to drag the other bit out and get rid of it easily.
It's already been mentioned by RedstoneAerospaceDivision, but I'll say it again: Use the nudge function. It makes it much easier to build things and get them looking how you want them. To use it, select the part you want to move, then hold the shift key on your keyboard. You can then use the WASDQE keys to move the selected part very small amounts in different directions, even having them overlap with other parts if you like.
The final tip is to practice! No-one can turn out perfect planes straight away, but keep at it and you'll improve.
Hope this has been helpful, good luck with building your planes.
I've hatched a cunning plan to win this challenge. See it with my Eggsecutioner, it's up as a successor.
I'm entering, my Balmoral is up as a successor.
This is really good, well done!
@Seeras Thank you very much!
@Ilovesthecheeses2 Shell we stop them?
Thanks for the nice comments!
I've submitted my Airspeed Ferry for this contest.
I think the translation of neurons firing into recognisable thoughts is analogous to making a net out of ropes. You can't have a net without rope, just as you can't have thought without firing neurons. But just having pieces of rope doesn't make a net, and just having neurons firing doesn't make a thought (you don't generally think about the neural activity in your autonomic nervous system for example). To weave a net out of rope, the individual ropes have to meet each other, they have to interact and change how they behave. Similarly with neurons firing, they have to affect each other and increase their activity in a specific way to create a recognisable thought.
I'm in, my Hatif is up as a successor.
@Thefalloutplayr No, I have a highly paid team of writers to create forum posts for me.
@Thefalloutplayr You cared enough to comment.
@Powman5703 I got a "Location discovered" thing for it.
I'm in, my Ormr is up as a successor.
I'm in, I've managed to make something that flies without wings.
A good general rule is to have the CoL (centre of lift) behind the CoM (centre of mass). If you don't, your planes will tend to flip uncontrollably. CoT (centre of thrust) is less important, that can be in front or behind the CoT or CoL. Just don't put it off to the side or it'll push your plane round in circles!
Also, welcome to the game, hope you have fun here.
A while back, I made a really huge build and couldn't get it to upload. I'm wondering if there's some kind of part limit or timeout trigger when uploading a plane.
Wouldn't that kill discussions, though? When we had the Lunar Arc race, I helped out a mobile user who couldn't test their plane as they didn't have the race on the mobile version. I used comments then to explain the changes and how to make the plane better. Your idea would penalise me for helping someone else - not a good way to build a supportive community.
I think the only way you could make this idea work would be to have two different types of points. Each user would have their earned points from upvotes, successors and competitions, and those would be theirs forever. Meanwhile, each user gets given some amount of points a week to give away on upvoting other people's creations - and at the end of each week, any unused ones disappear and they get a new allocation. It might work, but it adds a layer of complication.
OK, that lets people get points. But where's the motivation to give them away? You're treating the points like money. If I like someone else's build, I could give them some of these limited points. Or I could write "nice job" in the comments section, which costs me nothing. It seems like it would make more sense for people to hang on to their points and never give anything away.
I don't like this idea, but let's explore it and see what happens. The first thing I want to know is how this gets started. If you need points to give points to someone else, users would either have to be given free points when they join (encouraging people to make fake accounts to upvote their own stuff) or be given a weekly or monthly allowance, which would mean you could just accumulate points by not upvoting anyone else.
My fifth and final plane to guard island M2 is ready! If any enemies approach, they'd better be fast - my Ronin interceptor strikes swiftly and powerfully.
I'm in, my Choffy is up as a successor.
It would be nice if it was possible to upload (or put in the url of) an image, select the area you want it on on the plane, and have it automatically paint itself on that area. Of course, a good reason not to do that is this is a family-friendly game, so porn-painted planes would be problematic.
Been there, done that. It's really discouraging.
This might not be that hard to do. You get the wake effect when travelling on water, so change that slightly and it could work as dust on land.
@osame Thank you, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
@WhiteWing Woooooooo! Thank you!
I mostly build fictional planes because I find it easier. I have tried doing a replica, and getting it right is a lot more effort. And when you succeed in making the replica, it sometimes doesn't fly that well because real life physics is different to SimplePlanes physics.
I think the replica planes tend to get more upvotes because people recognise how much effort has gone into them.
I'm in, my Adashi is up as a successor. I've tested it by flying from Yeager to Bandit, deploying the car and parking it there. I'm sure it will work at other airports as well. Enjoy!
Interesting. I'd tried hitting it with Boom 50s, but didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Maybe I just need to aim better.
I'd say to fit it with the new jets. I think it will look better with the cleaner lines of a jet - at the minute it looks like a flying wind farm.
I like the Edgley Optica. The bulbous cockpit sticking out the front makes it look very different.
And while I was trying to look that up, I found the Curtiss-Wright XP-55 Ascender, apparently nicknamed the "ass-ender" for being a pusher plane.
No hostile action yet, but the situation remains tense. Recommend escalating the readiness status of the Thunderclap bombers; the threat of retaliatory strikes will act as a deterrent.
I had a weird issue with the new wheels. I made a plane that only had the new ones, larger ones at the back, smaller ones at the front. When I started on a runway, I got the tyre squeal noise and the plane began moving on its own, no engine input at all. Anyone else had a similar issue?
In the build space, I'd like to be able to change the background, so grey or black planes will actually show up in screenshots. It would also be nice to be able to have access to gear & VTOL controls, so you could do screenshots showing your plane in different configurations.
Yes, get it. I've got the mobile version and the PC version, it's a lot easier to build on PC.
I'm in, I've submitted my Kinonin as a successor. I just hope it's not too realistic for this.
Flying troops and weapons to the island is being noticed. Best to send some Dabun escort and patrol fighters out in case of hostile action.
Reconnaissance shows that island M2 is undefended. Time to occupy it and establish a presence there. Send in a Lewill transport plane load of troops to claim it.
I'll give this a go. I'm going to try to claim island M2. I'll start by sending in an unmanned reconnaissance drone to inspect it. I'll add more planes as I develop them.
@AndrewGarrison I'd like to be able to have fully circular fuselage pieces at >2 diameter. I'd say to leave the current curved corner in and add the fully circular as an additional option. Or - and I'm guessing this would be a lot of work and might not be possible - set the fuselage edge settings to a roundness slider. So 0% would be completely square, like the existing Hard setting, while 100% would be fully circular.
I've just confirmed that the glitch where one upvote makes it appear I have two notifications is still there with the new system.
I'm in, my Ortham is up as a successor. This is a good challenge - I'd got very used to using fuselage blocks, this made me build in a different way.
If this is implemented, it would be good to be able to assign a plane to more than one folder. So if you do a replica fighter, you could have it show up in the replicas folder and the fighters one.
For me, each upvote (which should be one notification) has been appearing as two notifications. It's been fine with the people I follow creating planes, though - each of them only appears as one notification. I don't know if the new notification system will have solved that problem, but it wasn't a major issue anyway.
Use airplane 1. You won't get anywhere if you crash. And in previous tournaments, even slow planes have got through a few rounds by always getting to the end of the race.
I'm in, my Thestra is up as a successor.
Two different designs of mine both made it under 1:10. One is more reliable at finishing, so that's the one I've entered. That's the limit for me, I don't think I can make anything faster.
A lot of good advice here already. I'd just say to keep making stuff and to get involved with the challenges that people put up. It may also be worth giving the tournaments a go - even if you can't make something fast enough to win, if it's fast or eye-catching you'll get noticed.
I'm in, my Chael is up as a successor.