Alpha Flyer
Features
- Easy to use, mouse-look flyer.
- Modify & Copy.
- Carry up to two passengers.
- Paint or texture the shell.
- Selection of weapons.
- Ejector seat.
- Ten speeds + afterburner.
- Landing gear & lights.
- Dual flight mode. Air and Sea.
- Customizable tail smoke.
- Infinite copies & GPS system.
- Custom Sound Effects.
- Free updates for life.
Overview
The Alpha Flyer came into existence back in June 2006. After six months and almost five design stages later, Space Bums are happy to release this model to the residents of Second Life. This craft will look equally cool parked outside a supermarket or at a space station hundreds of miles high. Welcome to the Alpha Flyer x6.
Looking at the craft you can see that this is not just your average vehicle. Its smooth shell has been tweaked and aligned to give it ultra cool looks. Coupled with the powerful twin x6 engines at the rear it mixes power with those good looks. Everywhere I fly this thing I get comments like “wow nice ship”. It is a clean, rounded design unlike most of the other cruisers you may have seen on Second Life with weird edges or wasted prims.
Fighter
Weapons can be chosen by pressing the W key on your keyboard while sitting in the craft. You can fire, a weapon by pressing your left mouse button.
Weapons include:
- Bombs Fire, and they will explode on an impact pushing avatars in a 30m radius.
- Rockets Explode on an impact and is deadly accurate.
- Bullets Light armour piercing rounds.
- Lasers fast and effective illuminate their surroundings when fired.
- Mines Will float slowly in water and explode on an impact on land or objects.
- Orb High velocity plasma. It explodes on an impact.
The crafts horn can be selected by using the N key on your keyboard or from the dialogue menu or hud.
When using the weapons it is a good practice to turn the PHANTOM option ON for your ship. This will avoid accidental shooting your ships hull while flying as the projectiles will pass right through the ship as though you are not there. This can also be great to fly through building or escape traps people may put on you during flight.
Phantom Mode
IMPORTANT: If PHANTOM mode is active, ensure you turn it off before you exit the craft or your avatar will bounce and not be able to stand on objects or land as normal. Phantom mode is auto turned off when you craft gear is lowered. Landing gear auto lowers 3 m above the ground but not underwater.
Submersible
Flying about in the air is cool, but people often forget that there are SIMs full of water all around Second Life. The Alpha Flyer is designed to adjust to water when it comes into contact with it. It will change its effects and also its speed to more suitably deal with underwater travel and the unknown obstacles you may encounter. Flying into water at a full throttle, you will notice that the craft automatically throttles down to 20% to avoid you colliding with objects. Surface from the water and the ships throttle changes to 60% to help you climb and enjoy the flight in the air again. The craft will emit bubbles, dust, water spray and also flames or exhaust smoke depending on which environment you are in. Custom sound effects for entry and exiting water bodies is also a feature. You can also use the mines to destroy enemy ships on the sea surface as they will float up to the sea level and explode with objects on contact.
Transport
Travelling about on your own is fun, but taking someone along for the ride is twice the fun. The original Alpha Flyer was only a one-seater, but as time went on, we felt the need to include more space for carrying loved ones or a buddy. The X6 now has two additional seats in order to let you carry your buddies around. You have the option to eject passengers on a command (always handy if you want to fly about without people asking “are we there yet?). You can lock the ship to pilot only and anyone trying to sit on the vehicle will be ejected automatically. This feature makes exploring Second Life both fun for you and your friends and is a cool way to show off your piloting skills.
Auto Landing
If you own our AVpack gadget system, you will be pleased to know that Alpha Flyer can make full use of the Lander decks inside the Builder backpack. Simply have the same active group as the Lander deck you wish to land onto, fly near to within 60 m of a deck and click on where you would like to land, your Alpha Flyer will activate the autopilot lower its landing gear and stop the engines for you to get out.
Controls
Your Alpha Flyer has some basic help notifications. While it not terribly detailed, it will help provide you with the options needed to pilot the craft if you forget them. To access the help, type help into chat. Use mouse look to steer the flyer while in flight.
Here is a quick run down of the Alpha Flyers owner text commands it will respond to in chat,
Chat Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| help | Quick flight controls help. |
| start | Starts the craft. |
| stop | Stops the craft. Exiting the vehicle will also shut it down. |
| [integer] | throttle speeds. (1 = slowest , 0 is fastest). |
| l | Lights Toggle |
| g | Landing gear toggle. |
| taxi | toggle passenger access. |
| e | eject passengers |
| e1 | eject & lock seat behind pilot. |
| e2 | eject & lock seat 2. |
| gps | Toggle ship auto notification of lost pilot on/off. |
| alt | GPS HUD. Shows region and altitude details. |
| x | toggle stealth engines. |
| xxx | self-destruct Alpha Flyer. |
| s | toggle smoke trail on or off. |
| n | select horn to use instead of weapon. Press Left Mouse button while in mouse look to use. |
| dam | toggle weapon damage on/off. |
| w | Weapons cycle. Can also toggle by pressing LEFT & RIGHT together while in flight. |
Dialog menu options.
These control keys allow you to steer the craft in both landing mode and mouse look flight mode. The craft is driven in mouse look mode for general flight.
Control Keys
- Page Up/Page Down : increase/decrease altitude.
- Up Arrow : Forward
- Down Arrow : Backward
- Left Arrow : Bank Left
- Right Arrow : Bank Right
- Up & Down [held] : Afterburner. Get a extra speed boost while in flight. Handy for making a quick break up to the clouds.
- Left & Right [held] : Weapons Cycle.
Dialog menu options
Once you start up the craft and engines are running, go into mouse look (M) and the craft will point its nose in the direction that you look. Press your UP ARROW to move the craft forward. PAGE UP will make the craft climb. PAGE DOWN descends. Use the UP & DOWN arrows pressed at the same time to engage the turboboost. This can be handy to avoid missiles or sudden collisions or to climb faster than your fellow flying partners. Press LEFT & RIGHT arrow keys together to select weapons (optionally press w on the keyboard).
Tail Smoke
Another cool feature for the Alpha Flyer is its ability to produce smoke trails while in flight. You can use this to let a fellow flyer know where you are heading as he can follow your smoke. It also provides some nice effects for the guys on the ground as they watch you paint lines in the sky. By changing the colour of your craft the tail smoke will change to the colour of your craft. Experiment with this for your own custom colours.
Custom Colours
Did you know you can also texture or recolour your craft? Simply drop a texture onto the shell to texture it. If you wish to change the ships colour, sit in your ship, left click it to bring up the options menu and select the COLOR option from the menu. A box will pop out, and when you colour this box, your ship will match the box colour. Painting your ship this way avoids messing it up, should you select the wrong prims.
Gear & Lights
Flying about is fun, but there will be times that you may want to set the craft down in order to check out your surroundings. Simply press “g” on your keyboard to raise or lower the landing gear. Owners of the AVpack and related Sky Base modules will be happy to know that the Alpha Flyer can communicate with these over sub chat and on approach to these modules they will light up directing you on where to land with some cool communication tower like audible sounds too.
Lander lights can be controlled by pressing “l” on your keyboard. The Alpha Flyer will also illuminate its surroundings while the lights are on and this will look really cool when flying at night. The two front headlights use hardware lighting and will light up when they are on.
Custom Sound Effects
The Alpha Flyer has its own custom sounds and none are used from other ships in Second Life. All were created and uploaded by us at Space Bums. You can be assured that you have a custom vehicle with the Alpha Flyer.
Start up the Alpha Flyer and listen to the ignition sounds lead onto the twin turbine x6 engines as they fire up. On board system events let you know that your inputs have been captured and processed. Raise gear and eject all have custom sounds.
Fancy a dip? Fly your Alpha Flyer into the sea and listen as it reacts to the water and changes its effects to its environment. Underwater rocket engines shut off, and you go into silent submersible running. Bubbles now replace the rocket thruster and your speed adapts to assist in underwater control.
GPS
Don’t you hate it when you are flying along and all of a sudden you hit one of those security orbs that send you right home? Maybe you hit a sim corner too fast and end up in the middle of nowhere stuck in a “touch your toes” animation! Another lost craft you’re thinking! Well actually the Alpha Flyer has a GPS that will tell you its last location where you left it, if you stray too far away. This means you can easily go back and retrieve it. Range is 96 meters and notifications are every 900 seconds.