I'm feeling pretty good at the minute. I'd tried a bunch of different designs that were all clocking 1:30 or more, but my latest one has managed to beat that barrier. Now I've got the basic design down, I can focus on tuning it for best performance and reliability.
I think a good design for this course has a fairly small wingspan, that seems to help get through the tight turns without smacking into a cliff. And I think it does need landing gear to help make a quick start on the runway.
@Shawniepie It's for this challenge. Pilotmario's being kind enough to give us detailed feedback on the the planes we submit and letting us know which areas they think could be improved.
The first plane I uploaded wasn't too bad. It's not the most agile plane, but is pretty stable and controllable. What's less good is the story behind it - I was trying to beat the missile dodging challenge and thought that if I had a plane with a big hole in the middle, the missiles might fly straight through it without damaging me. That didn't work.
Now that we're doing tournaments again, maybe the next mobile update could have low-detail versions of the races that are on Maywar, allowing mobile users to compete. It wouldn't have to have the whole island or even much detail, just the rings in the correct places and visible solid objects to represent the terrain. They could be special mini-maps that only load up when selected from the race menu (obviously they'd have to be available without having to fly around and unlock them).
GeekPride Fabrications have recently handed over their last prototype in a bid to win the Pilotmario forces contest to create a new close support/attacker plane. Our team is looking for new work and we would like to design planes to meet whatever needs you have.
I like this idea, but I'm not sure about having a cutoff for users above a particular rank. How about a diminishing returns thing? For example, 2 points after the first 5 downloads, but then it needs to get 10 more downloads for another 2 points, then 20 etc.
@bspboy Again, no problem, you're welcome. Just for your information, you could also have taken the cockpit off and saved the rest of the plane as a subassembly. Start a new plane, get the body from the subassembly list and stick the cockpit on - it won't show up as a successor, it will be like an entirely new plane.
@Hutchpar Sort of. The race starts with the plane on the ground at the runway, so having landing gear can make for a smoother start. Alternatively, you can do without landing gear and take off by skidding, but that's a bit more difficult. Just keep testing your design - if it works and can take off OK, that's all you need to worry about.
@WalrusManufacturingCO It flies pretty well, in my opinion. It is a big and heavy plane, so it doesn't handle like a fighter - it's not the fastest at rolling or changing pitch. It's not too slow at it either, stuff like lining up on a runway is easy. It has good stability in the air, it never feels near to being out of control, and it doesn't really have any nose or tail wobble after making a turn. Taking off is easy, the engines give it plenty of thrust to get into the air, and landing is also pretty easy, the big wings give it good lift even at relatively slow speed.
Yay, new tournament! But the tournament section in the menu at the top of the page has disappeared? What's up with that? I can just see "Buy" "Airplanes" "Forums" "Rules" "Stuff" and my points and username.
@Pilotmario Going out of character for a minute, it's been an interesting learning experience for me. I enjoy the challenges that have limited parts or limited weight because working within restrictions can inspire creative solutions. I might have to start giving myself self-imposed challenges of keeping designs relatively simple and thinking whether it would work with the kind of logistical considerations you've thought of for this contest.
I'd like a fuel slider in the pause menu of sandbox flight mode. When you build a plane with a lot of fuel and external features over the fuel tanks, you can't find out how it flies at low fuel without having it fly on autopilot for ages. It'd be useful to be able to just slide it down to 10% fuel and see how it handles once it's lighter.
It certainly packs a punch, but it's quite hard to use. I blew myself up a few times before I realised I needed to be in a climb when dropping the bombs.
I've put my Onager up as a successor. That's going to be my last entry unless you highlight a need for some minor changes.
I've also got a load of planes that didn't make the grade. I'd like to wait until after the challenge closes and upload them with comments about why I rejected them. They were all made as successors, so do you mind getting a load of random notifications, or would you rather I changed them to not being successors?
@Pilotmario Thank you once again. It looks like I'm a bit more on the right track, but could still improve. I don't know if I'll do another entry or not, I'll have to see how I feel. By the way, you might want to try putting the engine from a Pathfinder on the front of the Pummeler instead of the current engine - it's a simple way of giving it a nice performance boost.
Option 1: Just write it in the description of the plane.
Option 2: Download the earlier design from the site as if it was someone else's plane. Change it, save it under a different name and re-upload it. It will now show up as a successor of the earlier plane.
@ACMECo1940 It's the old name for Wright. If you fly in a straight line from Bandit, you'll see the mountains of the island it's on. Head for the left of them and land on the runway you'll find there.
My two entries have been found to have flaws. I intend to try again, but before doing so, I've gone through the reports that have already been issued and produced an information pack based on what we've learned. This should be helpful to anyone entering the contest.
I don't like the idea of having to earn in-game money to buy parts. Some kind of career mode with more missions would be good, though. And how about tracking some stats - total distance flown, number of crashes, number of planes shot down etc.
Isn't the copyright date just the date when they claimed it? After that, I think it carries on for however long copyright lasts (different in different countries, I think).
@CanofBeans Weird - it doesn't have any beta parts on it. It's just a VTOL engine with nozzles, some primary wings and vertical stabilisers, and fuselage blocks. Are you able to use other planes that have been made on the PC version?
@SeraphimVault I got the same thing. How I got the actual location was to spawn at the point I'd set inside, fly out, then fly into the dock at the bottom of the mountain, unlocking that. I then took off with a seaplane from there and flew it up to land on the base runway. The defences didn't shoot at me, I'm guessing that's because I started from inside the mountain.
I really don't like the way a grey or black plane disappears into the background on screenshots. It would be good to be able to change the background colour.
I'm feeling pretty good at the minute. I'd tried a bunch of different designs that were all clocking 1:30 or more, but my latest one has managed to beat that barrier. Now I've got the basic design down, I can focus on tuning it for best performance and reliability.
I think a good design for this course has a fairly small wingspan, that seems to help get through the tight turns without smacking into a cliff. And I think it does need landing gear to help make a quick start on the runway.
I'm in, my Femto is up as a successor.
@Shawniepie It's for this challenge. Pilotmario's being kind enough to give us detailed feedback on the the planes we submit and letting us know which areas they think could be improved.
The first plane I uploaded wasn't too bad. It's not the most agile plane, but is pretty stable and controllable. What's less good is the story behind it - I was trying to beat the missile dodging challenge and thought that if I had a plane with a big hole in the middle, the missiles might fly straight through it without damaging me. That didn't work.
Now that we're doing tournaments again, maybe the next mobile update could have low-detail versions of the races that are on Maywar, allowing mobile users to compete. It wouldn't have to have the whole island or even much detail, just the rings in the correct places and visible solid objects to represent the terrain. They could be special mini-maps that only load up when selected from the race menu (obviously they'd have to be available without having to fly around and unlock them).
I like this, it's stable in the air and easy to fly. I also like the look of it, especially the slightly bulbous engine mounts. Good work!
GeekPride Fabrications have recently handed over their last prototype in a bid to win the Pilotmario forces contest to create a new close support/attacker plane. Our team is looking for new work and we would like to design planes to meet whatever needs you have.
I like this idea, but I'm not sure about having a cutoff for users above a particular rank. How about a diminishing returns thing? For example, 2 points after the first 5 downloads, but then it needs to get 10 more downloads for another 2 points, then 20 etc.
I have the same thing. Yes, undo then redo works, but it's still annoying.
Slightly modify this, and you've got yourself a Pixar lamp, complete with jumping action.
@bspboy Again, no problem, you're welcome. Just for your information, you could also have taken the cockpit off and saved the rest of the plane as a subassembly. Start a new plane, get the body from the subassembly list and stick the cockpit on - it won't show up as a successor, it will be like an entirely new plane.
Try entering it in the contest now, I've deleted my upload of this.
@Hutchpar Sort of. The race starts with the plane on the ground at the runway, so having landing gear can make for a smoother start. Alternatively, you can do without landing gear and take off by skidding, but that's a bit more difficult. Just keep testing your design - if it works and can take off OK, that's all you need to worry about.
Are modded parts allowed?
@WalrusManufacturingCO It flies pretty well, in my opinion. It is a big and heavy plane, so it doesn't handle like a fighter - it's not the fastest at rolling or changing pitch. It's not too slow at it either, stuff like lining up on a runway is easy. It has good stability in the air, it never feels near to being out of control, and it doesn't really have any nose or tail wobble after making a turn. Taking off is easy, the engines give it plenty of thrust to get into the air, and landing is also pretty easy, the big wings give it good lift even at relatively slow speed.
Yay, new tournament! But the tournament section in the menu at the top of the page has disappeared? What's up with that? I can just see "Buy" "Airplanes" "Forums" "Rules" "Stuff" and my points and username.
@Pilotmario Going out of character for a minute, it's been an interesting learning experience for me. I enjoy the challenges that have limited parts or limited weight because working within restrictions can inspire creative solutions. I might have to start giving myself self-imposed challenges of keeping designs relatively simple and thinking whether it would work with the kind of logistical considerations you've thought of for this contest.
I'd like a fuel slider in the pause menu of sandbox flight mode. When you build a plane with a lot of fuel and external features over the fuel tanks, you can't find out how it flies at low fuel without having it fly on autopilot for ages. It'd be useful to be able to just slide it down to 10% fuel and see how it handles once it's lighter.
It certainly packs a punch, but it's quite hard to use. I blew myself up a few times before I realised I needed to be in a climb when dropping the bombs.
I've put my Onager up as a successor. That's going to be my last entry unless you highlight a need for some minor changes.
I've also got a load of planes that didn't make the grade. I'd like to wait until after the challenge closes and upload them with comments about why I rejected them. They were all made as successors, so do you mind getting a load of random notifications, or would you rather I changed them to not being successors?
@Pilotmario Thank you once again. It looks like I'm a bit more on the right track, but could still improve. I don't know if I'll do another entry or not, I'll have to see how I feel. By the way, you might want to try putting the engine from a Pathfinder on the front of the Pummeler instead of the current engine - it's a simple way of giving it a nice performance boost.
I'm trying again, my Prowler is up as a successor.
@DatWalrus Thanks - but I'll wait until the end of the contest before I celebrate. There's still time for more entries.
Thanks! I remember this now, I still use the plane from it to judge the performance of my latest design.
Option 1: Just write it in the description of the plane.
Option 2: Download the earlier design from the site as if it was someone else's plane. Change it, save it under a different name and re-upload it. It will now show up as a successor of the earlier plane.
I'm in for this, my Stratofighter is up as a successor.
@ACMECo1940 It's the old name for Wright. If you fly in a straight line from Bandit, you'll see the mountains of the island it's on. Head for the left of them and land on the runway you'll find there.
My two entries have been found to have flaws. I intend to try again, but before doing so, I've gone through the reports that have already been issued and produced an information pack based on what we've learned. This should be helpful to anyone entering the contest.
@Rmagnum Cool, thank you. I liked this challenge, it's interesting to work within restrictions.
Hmmm, back to the drawing board I think. Is it OK to keep submitting new designs?
I don't like the idea of having to earn in-game money to buy parts. Some kind of career mode with more missions would be good, though. And how about tracking some stats - total distance flown, number of crashes, number of planes shot down etc.
@Pilotmario Thanks to your report, I have created a successor to my first design in an attempt to resolve some of the problems you identified.
@Seeras It's for Pilotmario's close support and attack plane challenge. This is my redesign based on the detailed evaluation of my first design. See the description for the problems that were identified and how I've tried to resolve them.
Isn't the copyright date just the date when they claimed it? After that, I think it carries on for however long copyright lasts (different in different countries, I think).
I'm in, my Doxil is up as a successor.
@stadlles No, I thought that might be a problem. I used fuselage blocks with 0.5 width and height, they were in the old version.
@CanofBeans Weird - it doesn't have any beta parts on it. It's just a VTOL engine with nozzles, some primary wings and vertical stabilisers, and fuselage blocks. Are you able to use other planes that have been made on the PC version?
I'm entering, I've made a Cessna 172 as a successor.
I'm in, my Achillobat is up as a successor.
Thanks to @Pilotmario for doing this, it's good to get such detailed feedback.
@Pilotmario I've just read it, thank you very much. It's nice to get such detailed feedback on a design.
@Pilotmario That's fine with me.
@AeroEngineering By flying in a heterosexual manner?
@DatWalrus Thank you very much. I'm pretty proud of this, I like to think I'd have done well even if there had been more competition.
I'm in with my Celadon. It's up as a successor, now with a story to go with it.
I'm in, my Mettler is up as a successor.
I'm in, my Tengiar is up as a successor.
No, there isn't a nudge for rotation in the normal game. There might be a mod that allows it, but I'm not sure. I don't know much about modding.
@SeraphimVault I got the same thing. How I got the actual location was to spawn at the point I'd set inside, fly out, then fly into the dock at the bottom of the mountain, unlocking that. I then took off with a seaplane from there and flew it up to land on the base runway. The defences didn't shoot at me, I'm guessing that's because I started from inside the mountain.
I really don't like the way a grey or black plane disappears into the background on screenshots. It would be good to be able to change the background colour.