2024-04-12 Drop Pod, Mine, Capitol Buildings, Bug Fixes

[Haxus]

Drop Pod
This one has been on my list for a long time. There is a room on the Atlantis called the Pod Bay that has always been empty.

This has been a fun one. I added a new vehicle called a Drop Pod. The model was designed in the Designer.

• Drop pod is rocket propelled, like a space rocket.
  
• Flight controls use the Space Rocket controls.
  
• Drop pod is manufactured at aircraft factories.
  
• Drop pod has retractable landing gear. The default key for this is I. You also get an on-screen 'Landing Gear' button. That button appears and the state of landing gear is depicted on the screen when the current vehicle has retractable gear.
  
• New Aircraft Factory and Colony Aircraft Factory blueprints are included. They now have a drop pod shop so there is a place for the drop pod to be parked when manufactured. There is a dozen parking spots so there will be a lot of pods handy when a ship needs to load them.
  
• Buildings do not fetch drop pods to drop pod parking spots, in case the aircraft factory is used for some other purpose.
  
• A 'Launch' button appears when you are in a drop pod aboard a spacecraft. The engine does not have to be on. Launch is immediate, placing the pod just outside the bottom extent of the hull heading away at 200m/s with its engine on and gear retracted.
  
• Recovery system can recover drop pod if the ship has a drop pod parking spot.
  
• Atlantis was updated to carry drop pods in the Pod Bay.
  

The retractable gear was fun. The pod falls over on its side when the gear is not down.

Landing is fun when you get a feel for the pod. Standing in the pod looking out the big front window, you almost have the feeling of being a superhero flying in and landing on your feet. Don't forget to put the gear down.

This work caused me to flesh out the vehicle design portion of the Designer quite a bit. It isn't ready for the general public but it can make vehicles that I can use.

This created two new to-do items. 1) Troops need to know how to fly drop pods, which also teaches them how to fly space rockets. 2) Order needed to launch drop pods to a specific long lat, that can be selected off the map or input directly.

I am currently working on a bug related to drop pods. I am aboard an Atlantis decelerating from about 58,000m/s. When the pod launches it gets destroyed by a collision with the ship.

Mine
A new Mine 10 blueprint was added. It features an underground area that is accessible via turbo lift from the building.

Capitol Buildings
It was so nice to be able to go inside the undersea capitol building.

I designed Capitol Spire for habitable climates and Colony Capitol Command Center for harsh environments. They feature interior spaces. Capitol Spire has a turbo lift.

Parts Columns
Parts window stopped letting the icon-only columns be very narrow. This is a waste of space.

Fixed.

Workshop Blueprints
All of my spacecraft and building blueprints in the Steam Workshop have been updated, with the exception of the new aircraft factories. I just finished updating the blueprints before this update. I will update them in the workshop eventually.

Turbo Lift Jig
Turbo lift jig is broken after cutting through a hull.

Fixed bug when turbo lift part was in an unexpected state during the cut.

Designer Item Placer
The item placer in the Designer does not remember my preferred on/off state for each new item.

Fixed.

Turbo Lift Bogus Error
I designed a building with a turbo lift. The finalize process kept telling me the turbo lift was outside the hull but it wasn't.

Fixed.

Unpublish Blueprint
Cannot unpublish my own blueprint from the workshop if the blueprint is not in my local library.

Fixed.

Login Whereabouts
Login whereabouts information should say if an avatar is in a designer.

Done.

Pose on Sailboat
The sailboat is supposed to allow different body poses besides standing. It doesn't.

Fixed. Sitting is a great pose because you can see under the sail. You can also lie prone.

Creatures Attack
Creatures attacked me when I was inside a drop pod. It is considered an enclosed vehicle.

Fixed bug that allowed creatures to see people inside enclosed vehicles.

Design Modified State
When I use the designer in the game, it always warns me that I will lose changes, even if I just saved the drawing.

Fixed.

[Haxus]

To try out a drop pod, start a new avatar in the Lost Atlantis scenario. The pd bay will be full of drop pods.

[Deantwo]

Drop Pod

• A 'Launch' button appears when you are in a drop pod aboard a spacecraft. The engine does not have to be on. Launch is immediate, placing the pod just outside the bottom extent of the hull heading away at 200m/s with its engine on and gear retracted.
  

I am currently working on a bug related to drop pods. I am aboard an Atlantis decelerating from about 58,000m/s. When the pod launches it gets destroyed by a collision with the ship.

I would suggest just having the drop pod appear on the side of the ship that is towards the nearest gravity well. Be it a plant, gas giant, or sun. That was you are sure the drop pod will never collide with the ship, even if the ship is topside down.

Now we just need crew to have a random chance of launching in drop pods when a ship explodes too. That way they can double as escape pods.
Of course we have no need for crew that aren't assigned to a ship as it is right now, but it would be cool. Have them drop a beacon and a pressure tent upon landing, and allow us to recruit/rescue them for a while before they despawn.
Pirates could even do the same, allowing you to capture or hire them.

[jakbruce2012]

Love to see the new updates, this one looks like it would have been a lot of fun in the old days for planet raids. So many times the transporter was just out of range of the target.

[Haxus]

They are sort of a poor man’s transporter.

I wondered if people aboard an exploding ship should automatically be moved to drop pods and then launched. That would be a nice alternative to being thrown clear with injuries, as happens now. Any opinions?

If there aren’t enough drop pods, is it random or does the captain go down with the ship?

[Haxus]

Launch toward nearest gravity well? Sounds like a great idea. I’ll do it.

[Deantwo]

I wondered if people aboard an exploding ship should automatically be moved to drop pods and then launched. That would be a nice alternative to being thrown clear with injuries, as happens now. Any opinions?

If there aren’t enough drop pods, is it random or does the captain go down with the ship?

At worst you can add a Spacecraft Policy for rather or not crew is allowed to use them as escape pods and rather the captain should go down with the ship. The options could include rather or not captain gets priority.

For NPC avatars, it would definitely be nice if they tried to escape and return to their homeworld. Since they won't respawn and all that. But we are still waiting to see how all that will work.

[Haxus]

It probably should be an avatar preference. “Do I go down with the ship so these dweebs can live?”

If you say no, you get included in the random selection, figuring the final moments would be hectic and unpredictable.

Then who in their right mind would say yes? The option becomes pointless.

I think your distance to the nearest pod should affect your chance of reaching the pod. That could result in some pods being unused because nobody made it to them.

[Haxus]

It isn’t cast in concrete that npc emperors won’t respawn. They could act just like human avatars in that respect.

[Celarious]

Haxus, sorry to keep bugging about this, but there's a bug with the wiki dark mode extension that makes it not persist for logged-out users and also not work on some pages, been waiting on some fixes for those here: https://hazeron.com/mybb/showthread.php?...4#pid11804