The icon is about half its old size and is drawn just above the drone's
model, with the distance and name stacked above it, so the marker no
longer covers the model.
Gamepad: the drone flies with a gamepad by default (Xbox or PlayStation,
read directly; with none plugged in, the keyboard and mouse fly it), Mode
2. Its throttle stick springs back and its middle is hover power, so a
resting stick no longer means 50% throttle; the sticks are scaled down
(60%, which in angle mode slows turning only), softened in the middle and
given a round dead zone, and the right stick is inverted by default (up
tips the nose up; padinvert 0 for a radio's way). A arms and disarms, Menu
puts the drone back; while the ReSkate menu is open the pad is the menu's
and the drone holds still. An RC radio is still a choice.
Height hold is a toggle (off by default): the middle of a springing
throttle holds the height, adding throttle as the drone leans; partway it
climbs at the climb speed (20 m/s), and full stick is always full or no
throttle. Angle (self-levelling) mode, leaning 55 degrees, joins acro.
Flight: thrust grows with motor output to the power 1.5, so the hover
throttle sets thrust to weight (22% is about 10:1); the motors spool up
and down and the turn rates catch up with the sticks in about 30 ms.
Drag is quadratic and larger across the props, set by the top speed
setting so flat out settles near it (no more hard cap); inflow, ground
effect and prop wash. Defaults: gravity 9.81, camera tilt 0; the drone
starts level.
Crashes: collisions sweep to the surface met, find its normal with two
more rays, and slide along it; hard hits bounce and tumble the drone,
and one at the crash speed (7 m/s) cuts the motors until it is armed
again, with a warning and a broken-up picture.
- overlay.h: the gamepad reader is declared in the overlay namespace,
where it is defined; nothing could call it before.
- Tests (drone_flight_tests): hover and height hold, full stick past the
hold, thrust, motor and rate lag, top speed, angle mode, wall crash and
re-arm, crashes off, a gentle landing, and the gamepad's sticks.
An FPV drone flown from the free camera: real quad physics (thrust,
gravity, drag, Betaflight "Actual" rates), collisions with the world, and
a goggle-style display. Open it with `dronemenu` (or the drone window's
Start flying).
Flying
- Keyboard and mouse, gamepads, or USB RC radios (EdgeTX etc. in Joystick
mode). "Set up controller" learns each stick and switch by asking for
one at a time, reversed axes and springing gamepad throttles included.
While a controller flies the drone, the game is kept off it, as
freecam's controller mode does.
- Presets (Tinywhoop, Toothpick, 5 inch), arm/disarm, back to takeoff,
and every setting live through `dronetune`, saved in the profile.
- Optional range: the picture breaks up and is lost with distance from
the takeoff point; past it, failsafe cuts the motors.
- OSD, on-screen sticks, an analogue video look, synthesised motor sound.
- Goggles: the pilot's skater wears eyewear from the game's catalog while
flying, and gets their own back on landing (Road Rash aware).
- Start flying hides the game UI, Stop flying brings it back.
Multiplayer
- New packet `drone` (36): where a player's drone is and which way it
faces, 15 times a second, unreliable, relayed like effects. Markers
glide between updates. Protocol version 52.
- FLYING DRONE above the name of a player who is flying.
- Players choose whether to share their drone and whether to see others'.
- Dedicated servers: `sync_drones` (players section) and `drones on|off`.
Off: no drone packets are relayed, and players are told in the roster.
Changes to existing code
- `flyspeed` takes any speed from 0.6 to 1500, not only the seven listed
(the drone's presets and top speed slider use speeds of their own).
- Overlay: begin/end_input_access, so the drone's controller read sees
the device while the game is kept off it.
- Profile: local_surface_hit, the park editor's ray from one point to
another, for the drone's collisions.
Tests: Skater/Test/drone_radio_tests (controller setup), and the drone
packet and roster rule in Multiplayer/Test/protocol_tests.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01MArBL6UbYZPsp9rMnq2Ks5
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