Yes, I know there are other topics touching on gliders, but none of them seem to explore the idea in much depth. This glider concept would be easier than most to implement, straightforward to build, and straightforward to fly. Most importantly of all, it has an overall balance with Minecraft, not being too much better or worse than any other kind of transport. I'll seperate this into 3 categories:
Construction,
Flight Control,
Getting the most out of your glider.
Construction
To build the glider you will need 9 sticks, 9 feathers, and a boat. You need to make three seperate wings. Wing construction looks like this:
You make a boat in the usual way, then put them all together. In the diagram below, pretend the grey blocks are completed wings, and the log is the boat:
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This completes construction of a single glider, that takes up one inventory slot, like the boat or minecart.
Flight Control
To launch the Glider, stand at the edge of any cliff or mountain and release the glider. Much like the boat, it will drop onto the space in front of you and stay there, only instead of floating in water, the glider stays motionless in the air next to you. You can only launch the glider if the launch direction is at least one block lower than where you stand. Attempting a launch on flat ground will not work.
Once you get in, the glider controls exactly like the boat. You can look around where you like, but the glider only changes direction with keyboard input. It turns as sharply as the boat, and maintains the same forward speed.
However, for every 10 blocks the glider moves forward, it drops in altitude by 1 block. So if you fly forward 20 blocks, you will be 2 blocks lower than where you launched, and so on. Once the glider meets the ground again, it stops moving until the player gets out and destroys it. If the glider hits the side of a block rather than the top of a block, it will take damage and bounce away like the boat does. After 2 or three collisions it will disintegrate, and the player will be left wherever the glider was. If in midair, the player will fall.
When the glider is destroyed, it drops itself like a minecart does, rather than vanishing like the boat. Since many early flights will probably not last long, it's only fair that the glider be reusable.
Getting the most out of your glider
One last thing. Under most circumstances, the glider falls through the air as described above. However, there is another element that, if used carefully, can keep the glider aloft indefinitely. In real life gliders stay aloft by riding thermals. The Minecraft Glider works similarly but a bit different. while the glider is above either a sand, water, or ploughed field block, and it is during the day (or above a certain level of light), the glide will be reversed: for every 10 blocks forward, the glider will rise one block in height. In parctice this may not work so well so it might have to rise 1 block every 5 forward or so. Basically enough to stand a chance of staying up.
In this way, skilled glider pilots can 'hop' from one water or sand area to another. Keeping the glider airborne becomes a challenge in itself, and by no means is it a mode of transport that renders all else unimportant.
I briefly thought about adding a redstone to the glider nose to make a powered version, but perhaps this would take away the challenge of keeping it in the air. What are your thoughts?
It's a fantastic idea. But I was thinking that the glider would particularly rise over sources of heat, such as fire and lava. In that sense, you'd have to create a chain of burning logs like this:
[] [] [] [] [] [] [] []
Maybe random drafts of wind would also occur as well.
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The iteration of these lines brings gold;
The framing of this circle on the ground
Brings whirlwinds, tempests, thunder and lightning.
This is actually an amazing idea. Or at least, your take on it.
That's an awfully nice thing for you to say :smile.gif:
I just think it would be such a shame if a glider got put in the game but it couldn't gain height by flying over heat sources. It'd be like a mountain bike that only lets you push the pedals once.
I suppose I should update this to say that flying in weather (rain OR snow) would deactivate any thermal riding abilities, so you could only descend. This would give you more incentive to try and avoid harsh weather.
Agree with the last poster, and overall I like the idea. The thermals are newer.
I do disagree on two points. One, they shouldn't be able to maneuver as sharply as a boat. It's kind of absurd, really, because these are primitive gliders and maneuvering in the air entails a lot more difficulty than otherwise. There's also a "wind" blowing on the East/West line, as seen by TNT flight patterns.
On another point, I agree with that it's too complicated. Coding? No. For the player? Yes. Why? Intermediates.
I hate intermediate steps. They take up valuable IDs, sprites, and space without contributing anything useful. I also don't like suggestions like "moar arrows" or "moar kinds of wings!", because let's just have the vanilla work pretty well, and be done with it!
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Construction,
Flight Control,
Getting the most out of your glider.
Construction
To build the glider you will need 9 sticks, 9 feathers, and a boat. You need to make three seperate wings. Wing construction looks like this:
[] []
[]
You make a boat in the usual way, then put them all together. In the diagram below, pretend the grey blocks are completed wings, and the log is the boat:
[] [] []
[]
This completes construction of a single glider, that takes up one inventory slot, like the boat or minecart.
Flight Control
To launch the Glider, stand at the edge of any cliff or mountain and release the glider. Much like the boat, it will drop onto the space in front of you and stay there, only instead of floating in water, the glider stays motionless in the air next to you. You can only launch the glider if the launch direction is at least one block lower than where you stand. Attempting a launch on flat ground will not work.
Once you get in, the glider controls exactly like the boat. You can look around where you like, but the glider only changes direction with keyboard input. It turns as sharply as the boat, and maintains the same forward speed.
However, for every 10 blocks the glider moves forward, it drops in altitude by 1 block. So if you fly forward 20 blocks, you will be 2 blocks lower than where you launched, and so on. Once the glider meets the ground again, it stops moving until the player gets out and destroys it. If the glider hits the side of a block rather than the top of a block, it will take damage and bounce away like the boat does. After 2 or three collisions it will disintegrate, and the player will be left wherever the glider was. If in midair, the player will fall.
When the glider is destroyed, it drops itself like a minecart does, rather than vanishing like the boat. Since many early flights will probably not last long, it's only fair that the glider be reusable.
Getting the most out of your glider
One last thing. Under most circumstances, the glider falls through the air as described above. However, there is another element that, if used carefully, can keep the glider aloft indefinitely. In real life gliders stay aloft by riding thermals. The Minecraft Glider works similarly but a bit different. while the glider is above either a sand, water, or ploughed field block, and it is during the day (or above a certain level of light), the glide will be reversed: for every 10 blocks forward, the glider will rise one block in height. In parctice this may not work so well so it might have to rise 1 block every 5 forward or so. Basically enough to stand a chance of staying up.
In this way, skilled glider pilots can 'hop' from one water or sand area to another. Keeping the glider airborne becomes a challenge in itself, and by no means is it a mode of transport that renders all else unimportant.
I briefly thought about adding a redstone to the glider nose to make a powered version, but perhaps this would take away the challenge of keeping it in the air. What are your thoughts?
lol or set you on fire, good ideas!
But Notch is a master coder y'know.
[]
Maybe random drafts of wind would also occur as well.
The framing of this circle on the ground
Brings whirlwinds, tempests, thunder and lightning.
How is it complicated? Glider glides. Gliding over some things makes it rise. Is it really that hard to understand?
Well yeah, that's the idea. That's pretty much exactly what it said in the first posts.
Probably referring to the coding or something.
Incompetence is a plague. I am the cure.
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Stories: A Miner's Chronicle, The Lost Chronicle [Entries 32-2, 33-1, and 33-2 out!]
That's possible, I suppose, though apart from the Y-axis movement it's exactly the same as the code already in place for the boat.
That's an awfully nice thing for you to say :smile.gif:
I just think it would be such a shame if a glider got put in the game but it couldn't gain height by flying over heat sources. It'd be like a mountain bike that only lets you push the pedals once.
I do disagree on two points. One, they shouldn't be able to maneuver as sharply as a boat. It's kind of absurd, really, because these are primitive gliders and maneuvering in the air entails a lot more difficulty than otherwise. There's also a "wind" blowing on the East/West line, as seen by TNT flight patterns.
On another point, I agree with that it's too complicated. Coding? No. For the player? Yes. Why? Intermediates.
I hate intermediate steps. They take up valuable IDs, sprites, and space without contributing anything useful. I also don't like suggestions like "moar arrows" or "moar kinds of wings!", because let's just have the vanilla work pretty well, and be done with it!