The parachute isn't quite done yet. I need to do some work on the deployment mechanism, and some work on the mechanism that changes the chute angle to match the vehicle's trajectory. When first dropped from a plane in level flight, the chute will be behind the vehicle, where it should be. As the trajectory transitions more downward, the chute will move to a position above the vehicle. The positioning of the chute attachment point and the drag force will be adjustable. I'm going to try to make it universal using the license plate design and pain design slots. The parachute will also be usable by the forklift-compatible loads so you can conduct cargo drops. This is my first mod that uses aero forces. After I get this done with the chute, I'm going to turn the AN-12 into a float plane. You know the AN-12 version that has skis? I'm going to try to build some floats to install in the ski slots. Such a mod would enable cargo aircraft to takeoff and land anywhere there's enough water. This will be my first mod that uses buoyancy forces.
I've always want to do that lol, any chance of also doing the 262? Also would you be interested to join our discord? Quite a number of aircraft modders are in it and we would love for you to join.
Thank you. As Nick Cage would say, "That's high praise." Depending on how well the AN-12 floats work out, maybe I'll try to floatplane the 262. I'm not sure how it would steer while taxiing on water considering it uses differential braking on land. Yeah, I'm always interested in getting together with other Beam pilots, either land or sea based. The parachute didn't come together last night. The parachute test that I snapped a photo of earlier was a test with a chute that was fully static. To make it dynamic, I'm using hydros to grow the chute on deployment and shrink the chute on retract. I'm using some slidenodes to keep the chute oriented the right way rather than spinning on its main connection point. For some reason, the slidenodes didn't connect to their respective rails even though the slidenodes spawn exactly on the rails. Very disconcerting. So, I'm going to try to structure the chute in a different way and see if it behaves better. I'll still be using hydros to grow and shrink the chute, and slidenodes to maintain orientation, but I'll be connecting them in a different way. This my first foray into slidenodes, and it's proving to be quite the learning experience.
I figured out why my slidenodes weren't sticking to their rails. It's because I missed a colon. I entered "links" and it should have been "links:". The lesson learned here is to make sure no punctuation was missed. I'm feeling a little frustrated because I missed something, but excited because this might work now that I figured out what I was doing wrong. I'll probably be testing something basic in the next few hours. --- Post updated --- UPDATE: The basic structure of the parachute works. The slidenodes, rails and hydros are in-place, but I haven't wired them up yet. I dropped a FedEx van from 100m, its vertical speed topped out at ~10 mph, and it landed safely with no damage. I made no modifications to the suspension. It's a straight-up, stock fleet van.
I can provide a 2nd model from the ksp forums, surely there is something good there that is free to use --- Post updated --- Also there is a ksp mod that adds aircraft carriers, and has tailhooks, I could ask the modder about those 3 models
Sorry for the response delay. Yes, please. I'd like to take a look at the drag chute. I think I have my chute design under control, but I'd like to see how others did it. I wonder how portable KSP mods are, or hard it would be to port them...
I believe KSP mods have their models designed similar to beamng ones, though the deepest ive gone into the Kerbal mod rabbit hole is being the consumer. In beamng, ive made a couple meshlaps for personal use, but that was before i know the forums even existed, when i got the game 2 years ago
PARACHUTE! First, the parachute is definitely in a prototype state. It works, works well, but not for every vehicle, and it exhibits some odd behaviors sometimes. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to test the parachute to its absolute limits, and report your findings in this thread. Details are given below. Features Deploys and retracts. Looks like a spikey wad of over starched fabric when stowed. Adjustable drag and forward drift forces. Normal steering controls can rotate the parachute during descent. Can be positioned above vehicle for normal descent. It can also be positioned behind vehicle to help pull it out the back of a plane, and it can tilt between those positions. Adjustable open/close rate. Adjustable tilt rate. Adjustable positioning. The parachute can be opened fully or partially, in increments of 5%. The parachute deploy/retract control toggles between fully-closed and the current opening setting (0% - 100%). Skins Strange Behaviors On Saturday 30 Nov 2024, I was in a multiplayer session dropping vans from planes all day long. However, within a few minutes of spawning a parachute-equipped D-Series, the BeamMP client console window would close. This would sever the connection to the server, and require BeamNG to be shut down and restarted in order to get back to the server. I don't know why this happens, but it's consistent: If it happens once with a vehicle config, then it will always happen, and if it doesn't happen, then it never will. Maybe it only happens with some D-Series configurations. At first I thought some attachment nodes are different between the van and the D-Series but the same frame nodes were present in both configs. I don't know which vehicles and configurations exhibit this behavior and which ones don't. Update, 21 Dec 2024: In a multiplayer session today, we were dropping vans with parachutes out of planes, then we had the bright idea of base jumping. Our base jumping method involved driving a van or other sufficiently compatible vehicle really fast, launching off a ramp at the edge of a cliff, falling and somersaulting for a short while, then opening the parachute close to the ground. I equipped the Stunt Mortar and configured it to act like a rocket to give me ridiculous speed, and the BeamMP client console window closed just a few minutes later, just like it did with certain pickup truck configurations a few weeks ago. This tells me that some configurations of vehicles may be parachute-safe while other configurations may not be safe. I'm still not sure why this happens, but there's are ways to induce it so it can be studied and eventually addressed. Update, 08 Feb 2025: In today's multiplayer session, we discovered the following: It seems that, if we spawn a vehicle configuration that already has a parachute equipped, then the BeamMP client does not spontaneously exit. It also seems that, if we spawn a vehicle without a parachute then equip the parachute, or if we change the configuration of a vehicle already equipped with a parachute, then the BeamMP client will spontaneously exit. So, a reliable way to play with a vehicle with a parachute in multiplayer is the following: In single-player, spawn a vehicle, equip it with the parachute, and save the configuration. If the parachute has trouble attaching to the vehicle, then see the information below regarding the Parachute Attachment slot. You might have to make a new attachment. Don't worry. It's easy. Start up multiplayer and spawn a vehicle configuration already equipped with a parachute. I still don't know why the BeamMP client exits sometimes with the parachute, but the method above should avoid it. If you still experience the BeamMP client window closing when using the parachute, please post that information in this thread. The more data I have, the greater my chances of fixing this. Installation and Parts Selection Download the file HighBeam9000_Parachute.zip from this posting. Spawn a vehicle (H-Series van recommended for most testing) Equip the parachute in either the Additional Modification slot, or the Paint Design slot. Select a parachute skin, if you like. Map some controls to activate the parachute functions. These are found in the Vehicle section of the Controls menu, not the Vehicle Specific section. The Parachute Attachment slot has several choices because not all vehicle nodes have the same names. I tried to make the parachute as universal as I possibly could, but there were some wrinkles in the execution, node names being one of them. This is why multiple items exist in the Parachute Attachment slot. When spawning a parachute-equipped vehicle, if you see anything like the following in the debug console (access with tilde key '~'): ...then the Parachute Attachment is attempting to connect to nodes that aren't there for this particular vehicle. If this is the case, then try a different attachment. If you've tried all of the attachments and you still see the missing node warnings, then a new attachment is needed that connects to nodes that are actually there. Creating a new attachment is easy: Make a copy of any of the "HighBeam9000_ParachuteAttach_*.jbeam" files. Rename the copy. Rename the jbeam object in the file and its part name. Select 6 nodes that actually exist on the target vehicle. Replace the node names in the file with the nodes you just selected. Compare the differences between each of the attachments to determine which nodes to replace. Save the file, spawn the target vehicle, select the new attachment, and check for missing node messages in the console. I can make the new attachment for you, or you can make it yourself if you don't feel like waiting for me. I can roll it into the mod, with credit to you, if it works right. Settings Forces Drag Factor - How much drag the parachute produces. Affects the minimum downward velocity when descending. Drift Factor - How much the parachute drifts forward when falling. This doesn't have a lot of effect, and if it's set too high, the host vehicle might tip forward when on the ground. Motion Min Tilt - The minimum amount of tilt of the parachute when it's tilted backward. Open Rate - How fast the parachute deploys and retracts. Tilt Rate - How fast the parachute tilts between up and back positions. Position Y - Moves the parachute anchor point forward or backward as much as +/-2 m. This is used to set the balance point so that the front and back wheels contact the ground at the same time when touching down. Z - Moves the parachute anchor point up or down as much as +/-2 m. This setting can be used to move the parachute so that it's hidden when collapsed (not deployed). Notes on Collision Triangles The parachute uses the drag forces that work on collision triangles. These are the same triangles that nodes hit during collisions. This could present problems with tilting the parachute between 'back' and 'up' positions, or when dropping out of a plane. These are the collision triangles on a van with a parachute in the 'up' position: ...and these are the collision triangles on a van with a parachute in the 'back' position: Note that the collision area of the chute doesn't extend all the way down to the anchor point of the chute. This is so that the collision triangles don't collide with the nodes of the host vehicle when tilting the chute between 'up' and 'back' positions. The triangles don't present a problem when deploying or retracting the chute because, although the faces of the triangles collide with nodes, the triangle edges do not. The edges slice between the host vehicle's nodes during chute deployment and retraction. If you're using the parachute to aid extraction from a plane by tilting it back, use only 5% - 10% to keep the chute small enough to exit the plane. Extreme Drag The extreme drag settings of the parachute will cause it to be very resistive to movement when tilting the chute while on the ground. This has been known to lift the back of the host vehicle up at an angle, slowly moving back down. A slower tilt rate or spamming the tilt control in a certain way can alleviate this effect. The parachute's extreme drag will also cause it to explode into instability if it touches water. Other objects are also known to not mix well with water, such as the inflatable mat. Spawn an inflatable mat over water and watch it interact with the water. It should explode. The money bag may also likely explode if it contacts water. The parachute should be stable for deployment at speeds of at least 170+ mph. I haven't tested speeds much higher than that. It was designed to be used with objects dropped from the cargo plane, and it seems to be stable in that regard. Have fun with the chute, and tell me what you think. UPDATES: An earlier version of the parachute had broken "Camouflage" and "Union Jack" textures. These have been fixed in the newest version. [Last download count = 43]
nice --- Post updated --- Send help - unit malfunction!! PROBLEM SOLVED!!! so, i was trying to get the barge and phoulkon CIWS working, although there is a small issue... i think i might have done something wrong, as whenever i modify the files with the provided files in post #72, as: -the thumbnails for the mods turn from the ones the mods use to the default "white box on blue background" icon, -the vehicles themself do not appear in the vehicle select menu when i check if they are there. i would appreciate it if someone could either: -provide already modified and functional copies of the files, -give a detailed explanation on how to modify the files properly. any help appreciated, many thanks! problem PROBABLY solved, its fine now!
I replied to your comments on YouTube, but I don't know why those haven't appeared yet. That's odd. Anyway... Don't bother trying to modify the files. Delete any existing flat top barge files and Phoulkon CIWS files that you have and download replacements from below. The flat top barge with mods can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z8bP6WrRxEgW-1YGfaN0688zbhC7KEA6/view?usp=sharing ...and lights and stuff for the barge can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DX5LHJTLJHrRiM6HttY1EAc2a5J4HZZi/view?usp=sharing ...and the Phoulkon CIWS with naval mods can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1E_AuQs0Fn7w7sHFuBpRCPeaZsb84Rj1e/view?usp=sharing The ramp for the barge can be found in the regular BeamNG repository.
