Add ground effect

[forest viper]

The latest update proved that the game can easily differentiate ground altitude and sea level altitude. Therefore, I propose a simple ground effect mechanic :

• If a plane or helicopter is within 25 m of the ground, it cannot stall, regardless of its sea level altitude and service ceiling
• Helicopters get a higher clearance (maybe ~60 m ?)
• That's it

This would mostly be to allow ground-effect aircraft (and the Wright flyer ) to clear hills and navigate higher altitude terrain, as long as it is sufficiently flat.

[final token]

It cannot stall

[forest viper]

Feel free to roast me for my poor understanding of in-ground effect

[final token]

Meaning wright flyer psm via ground effect?!?

[forest viper]

no

it means it just doesn't stall

not psm

[final token]

How do you not stall tho

[gusty citrus]

Oh ekranoplan mechanic

I don't think its possible

[shadow comet]

To be fair

The games landing mechanics always pissed me off

[sly kiln]

not stall but also not psm

[shadow comet]

You get your crab set in perfectly, centered ILS, gonna land right on the 1000 footers aaaaand the game has now decided no more wind your going straight into your crab now

[sly kiln]

hu

[gentle ermine]

So an A380 can fly at 10 knots below 25 m

[final token]

I think it would be better to have like

Below 25m you have increased lift

[forest viper]

Basically this :

• terrain is dark green/blue
• light green is where you're allowed to go

[final token]

Or something

[forest viper]

Ok i phrased it poorly

[final token]

I think that would be more accurate to the effect of ground effect

[gentle ermine]

Reduced stall speed would make more sense perhaps

[final token]

Maybe

[forest viper]

Maybe more like "within the low-altitude region, stall speed returns to the hangar (sea level) stat"

[gusty citrus]

Again ekranoplan effect mechanic

[forest viper]

so up in the mountains, you cannot stall because of your altitude, but you can stall due to going slower than your base stall speed

[final token]

But then that doesn't do anything for sea level ground effect

[forest viper]

hmm

idk

maybe the stall speed could go a bit lower than listed ?

but then it kinda lowers the stall speed on every aircraft

[final token]

Maybe

But then helicopters don't really stall in the first place

And idk how you can increase lift in aeronautica stat wise

[gentle ermine]

Can become a problem during takeoff if you liftoff with this lower stall speed and then proceed to stall while climbing past the ground effect level

[shadow comet]

So basically it would handle like in real life….

[final token]

Accurate to real life tho

[gentle ermine]

Might not be so bad

If you pull up too hard it's on you

[final token]

Fr

[shadow comet]

Skill floor increase

[forest viper]

sounds good

[final token]

Can i use ground effect on submarines

[gusty citrus]

No

[shadow comet]

To be fair

Could we also like

Remove the 30foot windshift

I despise it

[forest viper]

the only thing i would add to this is
ground effect should still override the base service ceiling

this way GEVs can climb up small hills

[gray minnow]

what

confused

[final token]

Yesnt

[gentle ermine]

Would be interesting to see

[gray minnow]

oh

[final token]

Due to air density they shouldn't be allowed to just climb indefinitely regardless of altitude as long as there's ground

[gray minnow]

is this for this

[final token]

But yeah they should be able to do that to an extent

[uneven crypt]

Rip to new players who dunno much about what ground effect is

[sly kiln]

make players unable to control pitch, rather if they get fast, they will get off the ground, since the wings are at an angle

[pale jetty]

true

[forest viper]

there was an ekranoplan event a couple days ago

im not gonna make another one

[pale jetty]

how many people crashed immediately

[glass condor]

probably like 3-4

[gray minnow]

wright flyer event????

[forest viper]

i wasn't planning aero for my next one

but that could be a good idea actually

https://tenor.com/view/gato-anotado-noted-noted-gato-noted-cat-gif-15232071836705052766

[glass condor]

tomfoolery > valois in wright flyer

[icy wigeon]

man I wish my plane won't stall while in ground effect, would definitely make landings a lot easier

[gusty citrus]

Is is a no?

[icy wigeon]

but yeah an interesting idea

[gusty citrus]

Nope Nvm

[forest viper]

tbh i'm not even sure the wright flyer can fly in tomfoolery rn

(i didn't check)

[pale jetty]

[forest viper]

but it's possible that the ice cap is too high for the wright flyer to fly above

which this feature would fix

[pale jetty]

this would be amazing for gevs tho

[pale jetty]

true

i dont like going off the runway because i forget to uncrab

[glass condor]

range would also be an issue

so maybe change it to the A-40? especially since thats getting a remodel or something

[forest viper]

the A-40 doesn't really have a service ceiling issue

relating to the suggestion

even if there was a wright flyer race, it wouldn't be valois-tomfoolery

that would be closer to a 24 hr marathon than a regular event

[gleaming notch]

Does the wright even have the range for that

[forest viper]

it doesn't

[gleaming notch]

[forest viper]

and once again

it goes 50 km/h

[gleaming notch]

It's okay we'll just do an airship race :)

[forest viper]

valois-tomfoolery is ~900 km/h IIRC

[gleaming notch]

Hot air balloon only

[forest viper]

so such a wright flyer flight would last at least 18 hours

noone is gonna do that

[gleaming notch]

Boat players

[forest viper]

boat players but your boat has 40 km range

[opal bough]

then just introduce MCAS

since that literally exists to prevent pulling up too hard

[gentle ermine]

Can't wait for my Spectrum Beaver SS to have MCAS

[glass condor]

Pegasus Quantum with MCAS

[gleaming notch]

thats called seat clench

[gentle ermine]

Mk II Buttcheeks

[forest viper]

or

have a line of text during takeoff during the tutorial

something like

Ground effect

Your aircraft has more lift when closer to the ground ! Make sure to climb smoothly to avoid stalling.

also i feel like the new HUD (with rough stall speed areas on the speed bar) would help there as well

[gleaming notch]

bold of you to assume people read the tutorial

that said having stall visible on the hud is so useful

[uneven crypt]

Talking about landing

is it possible to make landings more smoother?

As every time you land and go below the plane's stall speed while the plane is not leveled, you just slam its gears to the ground like the lift from the plane just suddenly stopped

[obsidian raft]

ground effect is tied to the particular wingspan of the aircraft

it is a cushion effect

the easiest way to calculate the individual ground effect height of an aircraft is half the wingspan of the aircraft (that is where ground effect BEGINS, not where it's effect is at maximum strength)

just so we don't get all aircraft leaving ground effect at 25m regardless of their size

[uneven crypt]

sir, this Mc Aeronautica's, not real life

How this game works is different

[obsidian raft]

if the devs have already logged the dimensions of aircraft in game then they could use those dimensions such as wingspan to create individual heights for ground effect

I doubt anyone would like a one size fits all where the all in question is a cessna or AN225

[uneven crypt]

as I think it would mean they would have to manually adjust every GE on every aircraft which is 200+

[obsidian raft]

that feels like speculation

[uneven crypt]

if it's possible, Im not against it

[uneven crypt]

it is speculation, im no dev

[obsidian raft]

okay.

wait

wind speeds dying down near the ground is unique to the aircraft as long as it's not a heli

at least I think it is so we already have the mechanic in game it could just be repurposed

[uneven crypt]

I think it's their hitbox

[obsidian raft]

I mean it's better than a one size fits all

[gilded mirage]

cobra time

[gentle ermine]

[gentle ermine]

It's possible that aircraft width / wingspan can be automatically calculated with some coding magic, hyper would know better than I do

In that case it would be nice to have a ground effect custom to esch vehicle

[forest viper]

i feel like that's a bit too small

depending on the aircraft

[lunar fog]

Chat does he know about rotation speed

[lunar fog]

Yeah could just pull dimensions of the model

[lunar fog]

this guys failing his checkride

it’s 1 wingspan over the ground

[forest viper]

yea that sounds much better

with half a wingspan general aviation/ultralights would definitely not have enough clearance

combined with floating point error

it would be a pain to fly

[lunar fog]

It’s a gradient really

[forest viper]

yea

[lunar fog]

ground effect may already exist in aero

behold

(skip to around halfway)

[forest viper]

that's just taxiing at a sketchy angle

[lunar fog]

nuh uh

peep that acceleration

[signal grove]

Makes the ground effect vehicles better

[final token]

Maybe the real ground effect was from the friends we made along the way

[pale jetty]

💀

[pale jetty]

LOL

[lunar fog]

Savoia particle accelerator

[gilded mirage]

737 making a cobra

after stalling after take off

[gleaming notch]

You'd probably be able to grab the width of the model or collision box, then just use that

Or just go to the pain of measuring every vehicle wingspan. Just put a tape measure at one of the airports

[obsidian raft]

It apparently starts at one wingspan above the ground but it's only noticeable well within half a wingspan so to not make it feel goofy it's neither

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/43026/how-high-does-the-ground-effect-last

[gentle ermine]

Manually is not an option considering ~700 planes

Width can probably be found from the mesh size ig

[final token]

Watch as it inevitably just increases the overall hitbox of the plane and we end up not being able to land at all and crashing into objects 20 meters below us

[forest viper]

the problem is

if you fly a smaller aircraft in the corners of the map (avalon/alavega)

floating point will screw you over

the plane will have next to no margin to fly near terrain

[final token]

Well it's a non issue for smaller aircraft to hit the dirt usually because they're slower and don't crash i think

[pale jetty]

nah they do crash

its just harder to crash them

[obsidian raft]

from what I know about floating point vertical floating point is not the same as lateral floating point in 3D space it's three seperate numbers

think of it as X, Y, Z at the ground even at map edge you're still at X = big number, Y = big number, Z = 0

or I could be wrong and one floating point error value/direction affects all three's accuracy which is kind of weird

that all being said I haven't experienced floating point inaccuracies/latency in the vertical in places like tomfoolery so I think we're good on that front

[final token]

^

I've only slid around on the 2d plane

Z axis hasn't been any issue at all

[forest viper]

yea but it still impedes movement

[forest viper]

theoretically it would be possible for a game to use spherical coordinates

but it's a lot more complicated for basically no benefit