Colonizing Worlds - Quadcopter (Medium utility transport/scout)

Version 2 improvements:
-minor vizzy code tweeks

A 6 man VTOL ship for medium transport and colony support. The ship has a programmable autopilot; player can enter the altitude/speed/heading for the autopilot to follow. Autopilot also has terrain/obstacle avaidance capabilities. Player can send the ship to land at a selected target, or tell the ship to land anywhere; the ship will scan terrain for a suitable spot, place a target icon, then fly and land there.

The ship can be flown like a helo (by tilting it with roll/pitch/yaw) or with translation controls; for extremely accurate control over the ship.

It has plasma thrusters and turbo fans. So it’s usable in atmospheres and no atmospheres. You can fly it on any planet/moon.

Action Groups:

-AG1 - level assist
-AG2 - hover assist
-AG3 - engines
-AG4 - doors
-AG5 - landing gear
-AG6 - exterior lights
-AG7 - cabin lights
-AG8 - travel to a selected target
-AG9 - autopilot (will ask for alt/heading/speed) input
-AG10 - tell ship to land (it will scan terrain for a site/place a target/and proceed to it)

Controls:

Roll/pitch/yaw - helo style controls, tilt to move (have level assist turned off)
Translate up - move forward/reverse (have autolevel turned on for translation flight)
Translate right - move left/right
Translate right on left side (aka EVA turn) - turn ship left/right
Slider 1 - collective up/down
Slider 2 - camera zoom

Notes:
Autopilot will default any altitude below 100 m to its 100 m minimum. There are no other limitations on it, you can tell it to fly dangerously. A guideline example for inputs is: in the mountains around the village, min safe altitude 500 m at a max speed of 100 m/s. Faster speeds are safer at higher altitudes.

The obstacle/terrain avoidance is pretty good. It got me across the entire mountain range at 500 m Alt @ 100 m/s, without crashing. However is not as extensive as the autonomous ships.

For flying the translation controls are far superior to using the helo (tilt) style of control.

GENERAL INFO

  • Created On: iOS
  • Game Version: 1.3.204.1
  • Price: $72,121k
  • Number of Parts: 479
  • Dimensions: 6 m x 17 m x 17 m

PERFORMANCE

  • Total Delta V: 5,890.6km/s
  • Total Thrust: 2.0MN
  • Engines: 10
  • Wet Mass: 20,640kg
  • Dry Mass: 20,578kg

STAGES

Stage Engines Delta V Thrust Burn Mass
2 10 5,890.6km/s 2.0MN 16.86hours 20,640kg

4 Comments

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    @Banic great

    7 hours ago
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    2,602 Banic

    @BeaconIndustries there already is a probe for surveying prior to colonization and it’s fully autonomous.

    https://www.simplerockets.com/c/Z3G9Cf/CW-ASP-
    Autonomous-Survey-Probe#

    I’m working on the transport ship to get everything off Droo. It’s almost done and it’s huge. I’ll have it posted soon.
    It will be around 650 parts with no cargo.

    7 hours ago
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    What about making a probe drone tò scout Planet before crew arrived? Or gigantic under 700 part drop ship able drop scout vehicles and cargo?

    12 hours ago
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    11.2k Aludra877

    still looks like something out of avatar and I love it! I can see this being used irl should humans discover means of FTL Travel and we can get to distant earth like frontiers

    13 hours ago

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