Stranger's Preamble
You know me as The Stranger.
We come now to the artform of the aristocracy. Feather-light gliders made of delicate silk that can catch the slightest breeze.
Your scientists have surpassed the technology of my generation by devising a way to outfit the gliders with smoke trails in a rainbow of color.
A hint of color can be a beautiful thing - a subtle enhancement to the snowy white made by pure gunpowder.
I don't see many masters of subtlty among this generation, and I expect the air to soon be thick with a crayon cacophony of smog.
We shall see.
I give you: The Test of Flight!
Test details
Build a glider port that launches up to 5 bird-shaped gliders out into the landscape. The gliderport can be repeatedly repositioned. The launch angle and delay for each glider is easy to control.
The glider sequence can be launched from a long ways away, about 64 coordinates, once you have made an initial visit that allows the unique flight parameters to be transfered. If you can see the glider base, you can launch the gliders. Gliders can have coloured smoke trails that last for approximately 30 seconds before fading, and the creation of attractive smoke trails is a major element of this Art Test.
Most of the flight characteristics are controlled by the shape of the landscape. Pick a topographically interesting location because the gliders hug the terrain and do loops off of cliffs. Gliders lose altitude when over water and can smack into the ground if the flight angle is too steep, or if an expanding loop is in an unlucky spot.
You can add control pylons that each change one parameter for any glider that flies through the pylon. In edit mode the pylons blink red when this happens, so it's easy to verify. If you pin your menus, launch sequence in particular, you can stand right next to a pylon (the nearest pylon is always the one being edited), and repeatedly launch a glider until you're happy with the pylon influence.
Locations of judgeable Raeli Gliderports.
Bugs and warnings
- If you don't visit the gliderport at the start of a session, you can still remotely Launch the Glider Sequence, but you'll get the default behavior without modified parameters (no smoke trails for instance) or pylon influences.
- If the Gliderport in not in your field of view when you Launch the Glider Sequence (you can use a pinned menu) the first Glider will repeat n times. Likewise, if you rotate out of the field of view in mid-sequence, the last viewed glider in the sequence will repeat until you run out of gliders. If you're right at the limit of the operating distance, you'll also get occasional repeats.
- You can't see a glider after it's left your vision range (about 64 coordinates) even if it returns to your vision range later. Gliders will easily go beyond the horizon if the terrain doesn't constrain them.
- You can pin the various menus and use them in locations where you wouldn't be able to open them. This is particularly important when you're editing pylons. If you get a "The Raeli Gliderport is busy" message, it just means that you're too far away from the base. Move closer to the base and the message will go away.
Costs
Raeli Gliderport requirements (small construction site):
The glider port comes with one free glider. Additional gliders cost --- note the pliable:
Smoke Kit
Colour Kit
Design
(in progress - please add notes)
Once built, the launcher can be pushed around a bit - up to about 5 coords in any direction from the original build location, regardless of terrain. You can also use the regular utility menu and repeatedly relocate the gliderport, or walk it to a new location.
Launch Angle: 0 = north, with the angle increasing anticlockwise to 360 degrees (north again). South is 180, East is 270, West is 90 degrees.
Tweaks
Gliders have a number of parameters that influence how they fly over the landscape:
- Cruising altitude
- Generally, the glider tries to hug the ground. If you lower this slider, the glider will fly very low, if you raise it, the glider will fly a little higher. When the glider if very close to the ground, it has to maneuver to avoid even the smallest bumps and divots. When the glider is higher, it can see farther ahead, and it can respond sooner to looming obstacles. Avoiding obstacles, rather than higher altitude, is the way to sneak past a lake.
- Tendency to dive to cruising altitude
- Rather than flying over a crevice, dropping into it induces a looping response.
- Tendency to roll when upside down
- And therefore how long it will stay in a loop cycle.
- Tendency to turn when flying tilted
- Your primary element of control is to pick a launch angle that targets a terrain feature, so this tweek can be very important.
- Tendency to pull up to avoid obstacles
- For some reason this tweak works pretty well when you're trying to avoid crashing in a lake.
- Tendency to track shape of ground
- Up and down sure, but how readily will the glider turn when it flys across a slope.
- Ability to make tight rolls
- Rolls don't seem to repeat like loops, no barrel rolls. This parameter is more about turning sidewide to avoid crashing into a cliff wall, rather than always looping.
- Ability to make tight loops
- Actually, do the loops get larger or smaller. An expanding loop doesn't work very well right next to a cliff.
- Smoke hue
- Green is on the left, blue is in the middle, red is on the right.
- Smoke lightness
- This has to be in the middle to see colors.
See also: Raeli Gliderport Locations