Mars First Logistics

Mars First Logistics

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How To Build Your Own Flying Scout (WARNING: it's not cheap!)
By Arinyes Cant'ari
Tired of having to navigate yourself through unknown terrain, never able to tell up from down no matter how many lines you get? Or simply not liking to end up bouncing along across terrain JUST to get to those pesky beacon towers? This here is a small and stable (enough) way to make your life a lot easier by taking to the sky (and nab that Heavenly Body achievement in the process)
   
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Introduction
For this to work, you will have to have progressed with some of the main missions. Namely the one that will unlock the Ore Hauler, for the unlocking of rocket engines. After that, you could try to make your own version in any way, but unlocking the spinner will give you joints and weights that I personally feel to help bring stability and control to your flying drone craft.

And in order to control your flight, be ready to dock down 600 credits for the three additional rockets to achieve that. Which means, before you can afford it, you may need to mess around a bit with different kinds of setups.

In the end, all this is simply an idea to share if you haven't gotten any inspiration to mess around with flight on mars. (Personally I haven't really found any indications of being able to generate lift by means of wings)
The Build
Without further ado, here is the humble drone. Mind that types of blocks used and coloring are all up to you, same as the way this one has been set up with the controls.


For the purpose of balance the CPU is surrounded by a block grid to make it 3x3 blocks with a rocket thruster that's on the default [Spacebar] setting. Using 90 degree connectors was done purely for the aesthetics while the legs are solely there in order to have it capable of standing up. Front and back thrusters have the additional blocks with 10kg weights at the end of hinges in order to give it more stability when you take off.

The four thrusters on the side that initially were meant in the earliest design for lateral movement have been changed to the standard aswd directional controls you use for driving.

In all, the most expensive part of it (again) is the rockets that will require you to be in the money to afford it. So be mindful if you create your scout right before you try to do missions that would see you flat broke when you additional things. (YES! It happened to me, when I built this thing!)
The Controls (a.k.a. Crash Course Avionics)
I'm not kidding, it may turn into you doing a lot of crashing with this thing to get the controls down. And even when you do and get a bit confused despite the color coding when you try to make a quick course correction, odds are you'll face plant into the ground plenty. Thankfully stuff won't break on impact (at least your vehicle doesn't).


In order to use this thing, you launch by pressing spacebar (or whatever you put on the main flight thruster). With aswd controls, my experience is that I can easily control this thing with one hand, and use the mouse to move the view.

The key here is to use spacebar and the bottom thruster to keep yourself in flight, while using the directional four thrusters to turn your drone in the direction you want it to go. Not doing so and you'll soon watch that thing spin out of control. So THRUST is key in order to maintain a stable flightpath.


Faceplants [1] needn't be an instant reset, and the reason that the left and right thrusters don't have an additional block or weights. If you end up rocketing into the ground, thrust in one ditection [2] (without main thrust) and then the other direction [3] will generally allow you to spin it over once again, after which you can use main thrust [4] to get back into the air.

Happy flying (or modding this sucker)!
12 Comments
JBJ 24 Mar, 2024 @ 12:35pm 
HOW DO YOU Get water
Blip S. Queak III 18 Feb, 2024 @ 5:54pm 
mannn this ruined the game for me.Granted I had already completed the main missions but now that I have my own hauler drone I can do everything with ease. Well, almost everything. Here's my design https://cs2bus.com/profiles/76561197964310924/screenshot/2528278300322341403/
https://cs2bus.com/profiles/76561197964310924/screenshot/2528278300322341403/
This thing flies great and can haul things like a long steel beam. same flight controls plus I use z x to spin left and right
Arinyes Cant'ari  [author] 26 Aug, 2023 @ 1:17pm 
Your issues would be that you don't have a joint like that in the game, as well as that the weight most likely make a single one inadequate for thrust. Plus, you'd have to keep holding keys for the motors. So, while it would work, at the same time, the game lacks in a number of things to make it feasible.

It's a good thought, however.
AxeRock 26 Aug, 2023 @ 12:21pm 
1 rocket, use high speed motors w/ weights for reaction control, much cheaper higher precision
Arinyes Cant'ari  [author] 15 Aug, 2023 @ 5:48am 
Hekate: That is really a brilliant design. Good thing you admit yourself that it's hella expensive, but I am in awe of its controlability to even be able to make stable low flight. Kudos to you, and happy to help inspire with my budget model.
[Hekate] 14 Aug, 2023 @ 10:44am 
I love this guide. It helped me build my first drone, and inspired some of my later drone builds. After finishing all the main contracts, I had tons of surplus funds, so I decided to try to build my ultimate drone. It took me about two days of trial and error, but I finally made a workable build. It has 28 rockets. I posted the video to show how it handles. It's incredibly nimble, and a delight to fly.

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3020164686
Genesis 31 Jul, 2023 @ 4:19pm 
Worth mentioning is how much easier these thruster drones are when binding directional thrusters do the VJOY. You can modulate thrust using this method and have better control.
Arinyes Cant'ari  [author] 8 Jul, 2023 @ 8:03pm 
Brilliant expansion, but you CAN put wheel and rocket directional controls in separate channels. It's something I've been using for a few of my builds that come with a lot of different moving parts (like boom arms) to operate with WASD and directional keys. How does it balance, though? And can you put it upright without a reset when you face-plant with it? Or do the wheels make it easier to flip?
CamCabbit 8 Jul, 2023 @ 6:23pm 
Built a variation of your build that has wheels for when you want to go overlanding. It also has 2 bottom rocket motors as it's a little heavy for a single rocket motor. Same control scheme as yours though, except I added the wheel direction to the Up, Down, Left, and Right keys instead of the WASD keys.

https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3001341396
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3001341356
https://cs2bus.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3001341304