posted 04-24- 04:28 PM               

I hope you can help me here, because you're both, a DOF-expert and you know something about CTDs.

I have followed you cookbook-recipe for speed-sensitive landing gears and succeeded in cooking up a DOF that detaches when activated. I have made this object the child of a droptank model that actually is a rocketpod (and thus can be loaded via loadout.ppf). onChildDetach 'dropper (the DOF that gets ripped off) the droptank is made to detach as well. The tank is dropped via the cmdDoorToggle (U).

Everything works fine except for the game CTDing as soon as I drop the tank:-(

Can I send you the aircraft (modified stock FW190A), so that you have a look?

posted 04-24- 06:08 PM            

Have you tried not dropping the tank but just start a coloured debug smoke trail from the tank? Did it work?

posted 04-24- 06:28 PM               

yes, that is my problem. Thanks for your hint, I'll try it.

posted 04-25- 10:54 AM               

the debug-smoke turned up, I guess that means that basically it works. What's causing the CTD is onChildDetach -> obDetach.

I have tried your approach afterwards (i.e. the droptank has the DOF), and this kinda works, too. Only thing is that everytime the droptank is detached the aircraft explodes (but doesn't CTD). Here's the proplist for the droptank:

(obProto 'COrdPylon)
(ordType 'Rocket)
(obSSO)
(obOrdPt 1 - 2.56634,1.05852,1.17237 )
(obDamage (obHits 10 onDmg 1 (obDetach)))
(phyLBS 200)
(plus
( phyRelDensity 1.000000
phyCylYInertia 2.099977,6.438003,2.096815
phyCG 0.000000,0.999996,0.000000 ))

[This message has been edited by Royohboy (edited 04-25-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Royohboy (edited 04-25-2000).]

BTW, I think my approach looks a little more elegant (because moving part is invisible), but your approach seems to be the one to work. I have looked at the inertia-stuff, nothing negative there.

posted 04-25- 01:49 PM               

I found out what caused the explosion:
After detaching the droptank was thrust against the fuselage, and the fuselage exploded, not the droptank. Adding obNoCollide to the droptank's proplist fixed it.

Now for the next problem: instead of just falling down like a well-behaved bomb it flies around like a leaf in the wind, and generally upwards through the aircraft - which looks really silly. I have tried making it well-behaved by pasting airfoils from a bomb to the droptank and adding (onDetach ('airfoil1 'activate ... etc.) to the droptanks proplist. Well, it didn't work.

Anybody who'd like to take a look at my droptank and experiment on his own - drop me a line. The droptank is really easy to cut and paste into your own aircraft, replacing my ugly tank with whatever you made.

posted 04-25- 02:37 PM               

BTW, this sounds pretty sweet... good work!

posted 04-25- 07:44 PM               

------------------
Cheers!
Jaguar
The FS Hangar

posted 04-25- 07:59 PM               

"I'm not sure how they managed to keep them from hitting the plane - aerodynamics, drop while pulling up, spring ejection?"

Your question reminds of a story that is supposed to have happened to a pilot in a J21R (Jet version), which carried droptanks on the wingtips.
After a flight the mechanic asked the pilot;

"Everything went OK?"

"Well, I dropped the tanks, they came off, so far everything was OK."

"Good." The mechanic was pleased.

"But...they didnīt fly off" the pilot added. "They came rolling towards me on the wings!"

This led to the addition of fins on the tanks that steered them away from the aircraft after jettison.
So I guess one answer to your question is, they didnīt!

/Robert

posted 04-26- 04:48 PM               

Royohboy, if you drop an email to Kopper he can get you setup on the OPP mailing list and the forum. Working on a plane by yourself is just too much work

TS