Nuclear_Trinity Posted May 13 Report Posted May 13 How far off are the Wright Flyer's wings from windmill blades? Could we potentially implement a gearpunk flying machine into the game?
LadyWYT Posted May 13 Report Posted May 13 10 minutes ago, Nuclear_Trinity said: Could we potentially implement a gearpunk flying machine into the game? The thing about flight in videogames is that it's very hard to balance in relation to survival challenges and other methods of travel. Flight makes it very easy to avoid terrestrial threats and obstacles, while adding flying enemies in an attempt to provide challenge tends to frustrate the player more often than not. Minecraft's elytra and phantom, and I daresay happy ghast, kinda prove that point fairly well. The elytra, as fun as it is, renders most other types of travel useless, since it's relatively easy to acquire and is much faster than other typical travel methods. The phantom might technically be easy enough to avoid or otherwise deal with, but most players tend not to enjoy dealing with them since they don't really add anything interesting to the mix. The happy ghast is probably the best balanced of the three, but they can get lost by breaking leads and while they can be useful for building their slow speed makes them rather tedious for actual travel. In short, I think some kind of flying machine could be added to the game, but it's the kind of tech I would expect to see very late in the game and locked behind completion of specific story content, in addition to being quite limited in what it can actually do. If patterned after the Wright flyer, I would expect it to be mainly a novelty transport item, and not something that actually flies very far or is capable of hauling cargo. I'd more expect to see some kind of airship, since that would be more capable of transporting cargo around and the slow speed and high cost would help keep it at least somewhat balanced against other methods of transport. In the meantime, there is this mod, if you're keen on toying around with air travel in the game: https://mods.vintagestory.at/vsairshipmod
Rainbow Fresh Posted May 13 Report Posted May 13 Don't we... already have a Glider in-game? That is, like LadyWYT suggested, locked behind story location(s) and a rather crude, short-distance form of travel (I genuinely don't know what it can do, haven't gone do any story locations yet) which makes it much more balanced. But to re-iterate on this comment: 1 hour ago, LadyWYT said: In short, I think some kind of flying machine could be added to the game, but it's the kind of tech I would expect to see very late in the game and locked behind completion of specific story content, in addition to being quite limited in what it can actually do. If patterned after the Wright flyer, I would expect it to be mainly a novelty transport item, and not something that actually flies very far or is capable of hauling cargo. I'd more expect to see some kind of airship, since that would be more capable of transporting cargo around and the slow speed and high cost would help keep it at least somewhat balanced against other methods of transport. I do agree that any such item needs insanely careful balancing. Minecraft, as mentioned earlier in LadyWYT's post, is a very forewarning example. Elytra in that game completely change the game to the point even in your casual-ass survival world with no big ambitions, it would be worth it to go the stronghold early, maybe even use the Piston glitch to outright skip the end dragon boss fight and then just grab a pair of Elytra, store your stuff in an Ender Chest and go respawn at home - because it's worth it. Elytra change the way you treat the whole world in-game, have no drawbacks other than needing a mending book and occasional repair, and outclass literally everything if you got some gunpowder for rockets. Horse? Is nice but why bother looking for one with decent stats when you can fly. Happy Ghast? Why does this even exist. For the survival-creative-hybrid approach to building, I presume, but meh. Minecart tracks? Way too expensive and so 2015. Boat? May I remind you flying works on water aswell. Boat with Chest? Elytra + Shulker boxes. The Glider we already have, from what I expect it to be able to do, fixes this already by just not offering the option for infinite flight. Because it's a glider, not a powered flying machine. You can go greater horizontal distances than just falling but still need height to sacrifice making it only really useful when climbing up and jumping from mountains or a base-built high tower. Situational, balanced. If we were to introduce a literal, powered flying machine that allows you to go purely horizontal in the air, let alone further up, that would be a genuine shift in balance. As such, if such a thing were to ever exist, it would need to be an end-/post-game gizmo. Something only obtained at a point where none of the challenges it skips exist anymore (because you solved world hunger and are decked out in near-immortality levels of gear) for those that just want something else to achieve and love simply exploring the world. But at that point I feel like this drops into the same reign as previous discussions about the addition to actual trains to the game. Not just some crude rails with a minecart pushed along them, proper steam locomotive train at reasonably scaled size and reasonably realistic resource requirements to build. It would certainly sound really cool, it would certainly open up one or another mainly MP server-focused RP component. But from a mere gameplay perspective, especially considering the amount of coding effort needed to make it happen? Doesn't really feel worth it. With this train example, consider how long it takes to make steel in plate armor quantities. Now compare a set of plate armor to any steam locomotive. Would anyone, genuinely, want to put in that much work to build on? Not even including the amount needed to build rails for a couple thousand blocks. Just so you can move yourself, and probably sailboat-style your trusty elk and one or another chest of goodies between two fixed points? The boat can freely sail any amount of water in any direction. You can explore new areas with it. Such a train would only go places you have already been and probably consumes all the resources along the way in order to be built. Now granted, a flying machine would more fall into the category of the sailboat. It can go anywhere - cause it can fly - as long as you have the space to land it safely. Which, knowing VS's terrain generation, can be its very own self-"balancing" issue. But on top of needing metric tons of flax to make, it would need a powered engine to run. Such level of technology seems somewhat unfitting for the game considering the official roadmap includes steam power at best. The airship mod LadyWYT mentioned solves this rather with temporal gears; which is a simple crutch to avoid having to introduce proper powered engines but then in turn seems to easy for how late-game such a flying machine would need to be. Speaking of airships - they would make much more sense. Even a primitive airship would also be much more stable technologically compared to a Wright Flyer-esque flying machine. As it mostly just uses hot air, and burning coal to power a furnace to make hot air seems much more in-line and achievable in the world of Vintage Story. And seeing as airships are much more easily scable than plane-style flying machines, one could even go as far as to make mobile bases. You know, if using the sailboat mechanic but in the air isn't enough, could make a walkable surface you can build on for flying bases. That would be an interesting concept for an alternate style of survival experience, paired with altered "flying islands" world generation - but the problem is, there are other games out there for exactly that concept. For Vintage Story, this seems rather unfitting. The uses for airships past "sailboat but in the air" travel don't really fit into the world, and the unbalanced OP nature of free air travel required balancing pushing the availability of such technology so late in the game that there is no real content left to use this newfound ability on. So I think this is better suited for mods if people want to change Vintage Story into a different game's experience.
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