It all started with a slightly crazy idea: what if I tried to make a simple egg fly in FPS2?
No, seriously. Just take a basic object, create a configuration for it, hook it up to JSBSim, and see if I can get it airborne. No programming, no custom code for a specific aircraft. Just the ModKit, configuration files, and a little bit of engineering madness.
The goal was to test something important: how far can I push the FPS2 ModKit already? Can I create a completely new flying vehicle from scratch without opening an IDE or writing a single line of C++?
Well, the egg evolved rather quickly. 😁
Instead, I ended up with a small alien biodrone. Complete with its own aerodynamics, engines, mass, inertia, and all the goodies of a proper JSBSim flight dynamics model.
And that’s where things got interesting.
It turned out that creating the configuration wasn’t quite enough. This new vehicle has completely different geometry, mass, and flight characteristics, so I had to do a little tweaking of the PID controllers and flight control settings to stop it from doing its own thing and actually get it to fly properly.
But eventually, it worked!
It’s flying. Not along some predefined path, not with gameplay tricks or scripted movements, but using the actual JSBSim flight physics.
And the best part? I didn’t have to write any custom code for the aircraft itself.
So, the experiment was a success!
The new drone is already in the main FPS2 build.
I’ll be making it publicly available through the ModKit soon, so anyone can download it, explore the setup, tweak the parameters, and take it for a spin.