WingNuts and Bolts

Player Ships

This section details the player ships creator

Player Ships are the aircraft at your disposal. While WingNuts 2 is an airplane game, there is no reason you can't make your player ships, boats, or jeeps. However, you will have to do some trickery.

Player Ships screen

Your standard player ships window.

To make a new player ship, you will need a few items before hand. Not all items are nessecary, but you may want them. You will need an aircraft image. This is the topdown image of your ship. This can animate (such as a prop spinning, or lights blinking). This image is both required and not required. If you wanted to make an invisible player ship, then you would not assign a graphic. However, it seems that would be rather fusterating and not very fun.

To make a new player ship, click "New" and make your ship.

The view section

This is the first of 4 sections that define a player's ship. Before we dive into the sections, lets take a moment to look at the left part of the editor.

The Viewer side of the editor

The Viewer segment of the Player Ship section.

This is the viewing area of the Player Ship section. This area should look famaliar, it is featured in most sections of the editor. However, the player ship's section has several buttons and controls at the bottom.

Zoom - This lets you zoom into your ship. You can zoom in 2, 3 and 4 times the image.

Normal - This is the standard top down view of your plane. It is flying straight ahead.

Bank - This is your plane playing the banking animation. You can find more information about this in the banking section of player ships under Graphics.

Roll - This is your plane playing the roll animation. You can find more information about this in the rolling section of player ships under Graphics.

Loop - This is your plane playing the loop animation. You can find more information about this in the looping section of player ships under Graphics.

Collision - This displays the collision circles for the ship. This will be detailed in another section.

Shield - This displays the ship with the shield effect.

Weapon - This displays your plane firing it's primary weapon.

Impact - Each time you press this button, your plane will be "hit" by an enemy weapon and play it's impact sequence.

Explode - When you press this button, your plane will explode.

Trail - Pressing this will draw your plane with it's contrails drawn.

Controls - This lets you fly the plane with your keyboard. Arrow keys fly left and right, space bar fires primary weapon.

A Note about making changes.

At the top of the screen to the right of the "New" "Delete" "Rename" and "Duplicate" buttons there is a smaller button named "Save". When you make a change in the player ships screen it is not instant. You need to press the "Save" button before your changes will draw in the view area.

Graphics

Player Ships Graphics screen

Your standard Player Ships Graphics window.

This secstion of Player Ships lets you set the graphics, weapons and particle trails.

Aircraft image - This is the base image for your aircraft. This can animate.

Banking images - When this is checked your plane will have a banking image. Banking images are used when the plan banks to the left or right. This will need to be an animated loop of the plane banking left to right.

Rolling images - When this is checked, the banking image continues into a full roll. This image is dependant on the banking image.

Looping images - This is a loop image (head over heals). It will need to animate.

Has primary - These are weapon slots for the primary weapon. The numbers 1-8 represent the different upgrade levels of the plane. All planes begin wtih weapon 1. When you gather a weapon powerup it increases you to the next level of weapons. These do not have to match. You can start with a bullet and make weapon 2 a laser cannon.

Has secondary - These are the secondary weapons. In WingNuts 2 these are missiles, however they do not have to be. They can be anything you want them to be.

Has bomb - These are your different bombs, or tertiary weapon.

Impact explosion - This is the explosion to be drawn every time your craft takes a hit from a weapon.

Death explosion - This is the explosion drawn when you are destroyed.

Ranking images - You can assign a "Rank" image to each craft. These are the Temporal Airforce's rank insignias. Rank 1 is the lowest rank and 15 is the highest. This is purely just a visual representation of the craft.

Particle trail - When your plane is hit it will leave a particle trail, here you can assign the particle to use.

Particle rate - The rate in seconds that the particles will be drawn.

Primary offsets - These are the X and Y cordinates for where the particle will be drawn.

Secondary - When this is checked a 2nd particle trail will be drawn, you can also map the X and Y cordinates to be used.

Tertiary - When this is checked a 3rd particle trail will be drawn, you can also map the X and Y cordinates to be used.

Afterburner trail - When you hit your after burnerer, you can have a particle drawn. Check this box to assign a particle.

Secondary - When this is checked a 2nd particle trail will be drawn, you can also map the X and Y cordinates to be used.

Tertiary - When this is checked a 3rd particle trail will be drawn, you can also map the X and Y cordinates to be used.

Has engine glow - When this is checked you can assign a glow map to the engine of your craft. Select an image from the list.

Glow offsets - This lets you adjust the X and Y cordinates of the glow.

Glow color - This lets you raise or reduce the percentage of color in the map. 1.00 represents 100% color. 0 represents 0% color.

Properties

Player Ships Properties screen

Your standard Player Ships Properties window.

Here you will setup the individual properties of your aircraft.

Initial shield level - This is how much damage you can take before you die. These numbers corrospond to weapon damage numbers. So if I weapon does 1 damage, and your shield is 1, the weapon will kill you. If the weapon does .5 and your shield is 1 you will be at half shields.

Shield recharge time - This is how long it takes in seconds to recharge shields when your plane is on the carrier.

Ship creates contrails at high speed - When this option is checked your ship will leave contrails when you hit the afterburner. You are given a left and right contrail. Usually these are drawn at the tips of wings, but you can set the X and Y cords to any position you want.

Ship creats colored swoosh when afterburner is on - This effect will draw two afterburner trails when you hit the afterburner.

Left swoosh offsets - Since you get two trails you can define their positions seperately. These are the X and Y cordinates of the left trail.

Right contrail offsets - These are the X and Y cordinates of the right contrail.

Swoosh width - This is the maximum and minimum width of the after burner effect. These valuesa re in pixels.

Swoosh color - Here you can define the color of the swoosh. R is the Red color, G is the Green Color, B is the Blue color, A is the alpha or transparency. A value of 1, is 100% color, a value of 0 is 0% color.

Draw luminous - When this is checked the afterburner effect will draw with a lumonious, or glowing effect.

Fade time - this is how long in seconds it takes for the afterburner effect to fade away once the Afterburner is no longer being used.

Colission detection circles - The following check boxes define the collison of your ship. If your ship has no circles, then it cannot be hit and will fly through objects. It's best to keep the circles constrained to your plane. To make a collision circle, click the check box next to it. You can have 16 different circles. To see the circle, you'll need to click "Collison" on the bottom left of the window. You can position the circle with the following commands:

Collision circles can overlap, and should. To adjust a circlue, use the "Edit Circle" option at the bottom right of the window. Each numbered button corrosponds to that collision circle.

Behavior

Player Ships Behavior screen

Your standard Player Ships Behavior window.

This screen lets you define the different behaviors of your plane.

Flight velocity - This lets you set the Minimum and Maximum speed in pixels per second your plane can fly. The minimum speed is how fast you are normally flying. The maximum speed is how fast you fly when you have the afterburner.

Time to get max velocity - This is how long in seconds you must use the afterburner before you have reached max velocity.

Maximum yaw rate - This is the maximum number of degrees per second you can turn.

Yaw rate acceleration - As you hold a turn your rate can increase. This value lets you set the rate at which the acceleration happens. This value is in degrees per second squared, so it gorws exponentially.

Bank angle rate - This is for your banking effect, this sets the rate of the angle, in degrees per second squared.

Invincibiilty time - This is how long you are invincible when you collect the "Invincibility" goody.

Has invincibility image - This is the image that will be drawn ontop of your ship when you are invincible. Select an image from the list.

Draw luminous - This option will draw the image around the ship with a luminous or glowing effect.

Image fade time - This is how long it takes for the invincible image to fade.

Rotation rate - The invincible image can rotate, this determines how many degrees per second it will rotate. Set this to 0 if you do not want rotation.

Pulsation fraction - The image can also "pulse" this value sets the fraction of the pulse.

Pulsation rate - This is the rate "Cycles per second" of the pulse. Think of this as a wave.

Initial fuel load - This is your initial ammount of fuel. The units are abratury, but they are consumed by the next value.

Fuel use rate - This is how fast per second your plane will consuem fuel.

Fuel afterburner multiplier - When you hit your afterburner, you can use fuel at a higher (or lower) rate. THis number will be multiplied against your normal use rate.

Total refueling time - This is how long it takes your plane to refuel while parked on the carrier.

Has charging image - When you have the Powercharge goody, you can charge up your gun before you fire. This option will let you assign an image to be drawn while you are charging the gun.

x/y - This lets you position the X and then Y cordinates of the powercharge image.

Evasive aileron roll - You can perform evasive manuvers. This is the roll manuver. You can define how long in seconds it takes to execute and how long you can hold it for.

Evasive loop - like the roll, the loop is another evasion manuver. The loop is head over heals.

Evasive inverted pass - This is a combination of the roll and loop. The plane will pull half a loop then roll out to be right side up.

Evasive knife-edge pass - This is a manuver where the aircraft rolls onto it's side then back onto it's belly.

Evasive aerobraking - This manuver will slow the aircraft down as it pitches it's nose up for a breif period. You can set the speed and turning speed while using this method.

Transverse strafing - This is a more unrealistic manuver, where your plane will face one direction and move in another one. There is no limit to how long you can do this, it just limits your speeds.

Minimum reset time between maneuvers - You have to wait between each manuver above. This sets that time.

TIme to decelerate after destruction - Your craft will continue to fly after you are destroyed as it plummets to the ground. This sets how long that takes in seconds.

Distortion effect when destroyed - This lets you set an OpenGL distortion effect to be played. These are hard coded into the game. Only computers with 32mb of VideoRAM can view these effects. They can also be turned off by players. They are not visible in the editor, only in the final game.

Miscellaneous

Player Ships Miscellaneous screen

Your standard Player Ships Miscellaneous window.

The miscellaneous section contains all that extra info that does not have it's own category.

Has looped engine sound - You can select a sound to play that is looped for the engine.

Has damage received sound - This is the sound that will be played when your ship takes damage.

Has explosion sound - This is the sound that will be played when your ship is destroyed.

Has special roll move sound - This is the sound that will be played when you perform a roll.

Has special loop move sound - This is the sound that will be played when you perform a loop.

Has aerobrake sound - This is the sound that will be played when you perform an aerobrake manuver.

Has falling sound - This is the sound that will be played when your ship is falling to the ground after being destroyed.

Has landing sound - This is the sound that will be played when you land on the carrier.

Has low fuel sound - This is a vocal to be played when you have low fuel.

Has critical fuel sound - This is a vocal to be played when your fuel level is critical.

Has outof fuel sound - This is a vocal to be played when you are out of fuel.

Has low shields sound - This is a vocal to be played when you have low shields.

Has critical shields sound - This is a vocal to be played when your shield level is critical.

Has destroyed sound - This is a vocal to be played when your sheidls are destroyed.

Has bing fuel sound - This is a vocal that can be played when you hit the "Bingo Fuel" event. This is an event when you are in the Escort Phase and you fly over your carrier. You receive free fuel by flying over the carrier.

Has escape unit image - When you are destroyed you can bail out and display an escape image. Choose an image from the list.

Has starting particles - These are particles to be displayed at the beginning of your escape sequence.

Has ending particles - These are particles to be displayed at the end of the escape.

Aircraft Manufacturer - This is an arbituary string. You can fill in who made the aircraft. This will be displayed in the Ship Selection screen in game.

Aircraft model - This is the model of the craft, again used in the Ship Selection screen.

Year - This is the year the aircraft was manufactured.

Credits required to purchase new plane from blueprints - This is a feature not used in WingNuts 2 game, but it stil exists. You can assign money to an aircraft, and you need to have so much money to buy a plane. This is how much this player craft will cost.

Credits obtained when selling the plane for scrap parts - You can also sell a plane for money, this is the value of how much you can sell it for.

Detail image for ship selection - This is an image to be drawn in the Ship Selection screen for this plane. This is also the image used in Super Mecha Mode.