Atmosphere flight capable Capital Ships

[Diabolico]

There is a script interdicting Capital ships to fly in the atmosphere.
Even if Capital ships are not desired to be able to fly in a planet's atmosphere, It would be cool to allow them (or just make an option in the def files) so modders can make capital ships that can do this.
This could be interesting for Star Wars, Star Gate, Star Blazers and many other universes where big ships can hover around in the atmosphere.

=S=

[LeonH]

you should beable to make a Capital ship able to go in atmosphere, I had a play around at one point flying cap ships in atmosphere *stock ss ships* kinda fun trying to keep it in the air, altho with the current ships its a case of what goes up must come down.

yeah maby having some smaller ships flyable in atmosphere would be great, kind of a gunship idea.

[AncientAngel]

Just hit the q-drive and see what happens.

[Pheonix Starflare]

Is the issue with capships in the atmosphere hard-coded? Or has milo just made his capships really heavy with rediculously huge Coeffs of drag?

[Diabolico]

yeah maby having some smaller ships flyable in atmosphere would be great, kind of a gunship idea.

I didn't want to limit/impose this ability just to stockSS ships. I intended a broader spectrum of players - those that mod for other universes like SW, Stargate, Star Blazers and a few others, where huge Capital ships can roam in the atmosphere.

Is the issue with capships in the atmosphere hard-coded? Or has milo just made his capships really heavy with rediculously huge Coeffs of drag?

Last I heard, if I am not mistaken, Dragonlead was under the impression that it was script-imposible to have ships larger than LCA flying around in the atmosphere.[:-]

Although Milo should say something about this, as SS is one thing and what modders can/want to do is another.[:-]

=S=

[Gordon]

Last I heard, if I am not mistaken, Dragonlead was under the impression that it was script-imposible to have ships larger than LCA flying around in the atmosphere.

It's not impossible, after reading this I did a little experimenting using the Arcadia, here is a photo of it on a planet. Problem is that it will not stay airborne for long, I guess it's weight and lack of proper thrust is preventing it from doing so. As LeonH stated what goes up must come down. [;)]

[Burzmali]

Ships need a "Lifting Body" component that subtracts from their weight for the purposes of atmospheric flight. How else are we suppose to create the airships from the Last Exile!

[LeonH]

oh well it seems the arcadia flew better than most ships i tried most just went nose down into the ground. im sure there must be a way for modders to make ships that can cope with atmospheric flight.

[Mr. D]

It is indeed possible to make them atmosphere capable.
DamoclesX did it in his B5 mod, although it was not always intentional, I guess.
Problem is that they cannot leave orbit or simply q-jump into the atmosphere...guess they would jump to level zero on the y-axis anyways.
Just take a look at some of his Centauri vessels in the open source version...they should still do it, even if it is just at full burn.

[Gordon]

It is possible for them to fly in the atmosphere, after posting the picture above I made some adjustments to the Arcadia's Def file and got it to stay airborne. I was even able to let it fly on it's own via waypoints so it can be used while scripting planetary missions. I could adjust it further but then it would not have the feel of a capital ship anymore and would react like a fighter, no fun in that.

For it to fly it must be at full thrusters the whole time and you can not have it make any waypoint turn more than 45 degrees since it will lose altitude as it makes the turn. When writing a script you must put it at a decent altitude to allow it to make these turns and be able to recover before crashing into the ground, just make sure you adjust the waypoint markers from their default 10,000 feet to a much higher value and you'll be able to use cap ships for scripting planet missions.

The biggest issue I see is that after altering the def file these ships can not be used in space since they would not be in balance with the rest of the cap ships, but for using them in scripted planet missions they're just fine.

[Velosipo]

The next normal step will be make them land softly on the ground... even if it con only be done in a spaceport as do fighters... [8|]