Plane construction

[Performance nut]

Hey all. Been trying (and failing) to design my first plane on my Xbox One. Dear lord, it is a miserable experience.

1. For the life of me, I cannot get my parts to go on straight. I try to get the part (lets say wings) on as close to flat as possible on my fuselage and then use the rotate function to fine tune. The controller is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too sensitive for minor adjustments.
   1. Some parts are particularly troublesome like the tail fin (totally throws off my center of lift and is nearly impossible to get perfect).
   2. Any chance you can use the keypad for fine tuning or have a way to lock in fine control?
2. Plane steers off the runway. Probably due to the crooked parts but wanted to see if this is happening to anyone else.
3. Offset function moves the part to the center of the root part. Lets take landing gear as an example. I rotated the fixed landing gear so that the wheels were perpendicular to the ground but found they were too low. When trying to offset them, the wheels moved to the center of the fuselage and (what is way worse) only allows adjustments in one direction (x, y, or z). If you try to make another adjustment, it resets to the center of the fuselage again.

I realize planes kick people's butt in this game but I'm thinking that my problems are design issues. Once everything is straight and lines up, I think I'll be fine (until it is time to land). Can anyone help me?

[MrDave]

If you press and hold LB or RB, it gives you fine control over the cursor, as well as parts and rotation in the SPH. Hold LB or RB and press L3 for fine control during flight. The roll, pitch and yaw arrows on the bottom left of the screen will be blue when fine control is active. 

Hope this helps!

[timmers_uk]

Hey,

On point 1, I hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs, but I recommend if you aren't using it already, switch on angle snap. Also changing the camera position for me has been key to getting things like tailfins aligned correctly. I also found for certain things like getting alignment spot on (and for removing rogue struts), temporarily enabling the motion control which I turn off by for everything else helped me (though this is on PS4 and I have no idea if xbox controller has motion sensors).

On point 2, if your plane is zigzagging around the runway its quite likely your fuselage or other parts your wheels are attached to are a bit wobbly. Strutting helps here - landing gear on console doesn't seem keen to be strutted, but strutting wings/fuselage to reduce wobble has helped me a lot.

I've seen quite a few bugs, but haven't had the offset bug you are seeing here. Sorry I can't provide any advice there

If it helps, here's an inspiring(?) video of how big it is possible to get on PS4, which should be broadly matching performance on xbox.

If I can find the buildout VOD which I think I streamed, I can export that to youtube if you like.

Keep plugging at it.

 

[DaCana]

I think using the Angle Snap mode is a must.  Its the Icon bottom left.

When you got angle snap Off, it shows a Dot within a Circle,

When you got angle snap on, it shows as the pic under. Dot With a Hexagon around it.

  (thanks too Wiki for this pic.)

 

This should make it alot easier too Place parts.

 

Also use the Symmetry Mode With either bilateral or radial symmetry.

 

You dont Place left wing, then right wing, but Place them mirrored, both at the same time.

 

 

[qzgy]

46 minutes ago, DaCana said:

Also use the Symmetry Mode With either bilateral or radial symmetry.

 

 

 

 

I would say to use just bilateral, no radial, with planes. This can prevent future confusions when say, giving the wings dihedral.

[Performance nut]

First of all, thank you all for your advice. I heard of a snap mode on the computer (never used it) but didn't know how to turn on snap mode on the Xbox One, that is extremely helpful, can't wait to use it later! Thanks guys!

3 hours ago, timmers_uk said:

Hey,

On point 1, I hope I'm not teaching you to suck eggs, but I recommend if you aren't using it already, switch on angle snap. Also changing the camera position for me has been key to getting things like tailfins aligned correctly. I also found for certain things like getting alignment spot on (and for removing rogue struts), temporarily enabling the motion control which I turn off by for everything else helped me (though this is on PS4 and I have no idea if xbox controller has motion sensors).

On point 2, if your plane is zigzagging around the runway its quite likely your fuselage or other parts your wheels are attached to are a bit wobbly. Strutting helps here - landing gear on console doesn't seem keen to be strutted, but strutting wings/fuselage to reduce wobble has helped me a lot.

I've seen quite a few bugs, but haven't had the offset bug you are seeing here. Sorry I can't provide any advice there

If it helps, here's an inspiring(?) video of how big it is possible to get on PS4, which should be broadly matching performance on xbox.

If I can find the buildout VOD which I think I streamed, I can export that to youtube if you like.

Keep plugging at it.

 

That is quite a beast and something I hope to achieve in the future

 

 

3 hours ago, DaCana said:

I think using the Angle Snap mode is a must.  Its the Icon bottom left.

When you got angle snap Off, it shows a Dot within a Circle,

When you got angle snap on, it shows as the pic under. Dot With a Hexagon around it.

  (thanks too Wiki for this pic.)

 

This should make it alot easier too Place parts.

 

Also use the Symmetry Mode With either bilateral or radial symmetry.

 

You dont Place left wing, then right wing, but Place them mirrored, both at the same time.

 

 

Symmetry mode I knew about, snap mode I did not. Thank you very much for that awesome explanation!!

[Performance nut]

Quick update all, got my first three birds off the ground and landed (well one didn't really land, just stopped on the ground in one large piece). Thank you all for the help!

[DaCana]

Good Job ^^ Prolly a little easier getting stuff lined up now. :-)