Trying to build my personal VTOL - got a bunch of questions

Garry's Mod general
#1

I am trying to build my own heavy lifting VTOL. I have already gotten the frame done. All that left is the propulsion system, but I am running into a few difficulties here.

Easy mode:
Hoverballs. They don’t seem to like advanced duplicators. As soon as I unfreeze the VTOL it tries to shake itself apart. Is this a common issue?

Hard mode:
I have devised a pick up system using forcer, ranger, grabbers and a few logic gates. Right now the system is activated with a button. The forcer pulls the object up, and as soon as the object is in range of the grabbers, the forcer is deactivated while the grabber is activated. Most of the time it works perfectly. However, occasionally when the grabber is activated, the weight of the object drags the grabbers downward, and the range increases so the grabbers deactivate.

So the question is this - is there a way to build a logic system so that the grabbers will activate when the range is <50, but once activated will continue to remain activated until a switch is flipped.

Fun mode:
The VTOL is looking kinda empty in the present. It has wire turrets, wire forcers and grabbers. Any brilliant suggestions will be accepted gratefully.

Thank you very much.

#2

Well really with the weight issue just get out the weight tool and slap on a few digits to make them able to hold heavier objects but don’t make it to heavy seeing as the base prop needs to be heavier than what is attached to it.

If you don’t have it just search for it on gmod.org.

#3

Increasing the weight of the grabbers?

Hmmm. Haven’t thought of that before. Will try.

Btw, it is better to have the thrusters and the hoverballs on the same prop? currently the thrusters are on the wings, and at high speeds the entire plane starts shaking like mad.

#4

Hmm…stopping the grabbers from falling…if you right click on the grabber and then on ther prop it is attatched/welded to, it increases stability.

#5

Did that already. But because I am using a smaller than gate, as soon as the range increase ever slightly the grabbers deactivate, and the forcers can’t seem to pull up object that has a downward velocity.

#6

one way to stop all unwanted movement is to get yourself ECS (punch it in on gmod.org to get it) or somthing and parent the grabbers to the main prop on your plane/vtol thing.
but you might need to look up a few tutorial on how to use ECS first. :stuck_out_tongue:

#7

Er… I have never used ECS, but I do know that if you parent something it loses all constraint, meaning that you can’t even wire it any longer. Plus parenting doesn’t work with advanced duplicator.

#8

Yes it does. It only fails if you did it wrong.
But it’s always good to save a non-parented version before parenting it.

#9

Ah it does? That’s nice to know. That will solve a lot of problem.