Documentation / Controls / Settings

Settings

The settings panel opens on O, and from either menu, and holds the same choices whichever way it was opened. It is the one overlay that clears the screen it was opened from, because the point of picking an environment is seeing the environment, and it holds the simulation clock while it is up, so a setting is changed by looking at the world rather than by flying into it while looking.

The panel is in three parts, each under a heading of its own, and one cursor walks all three as though they were one list - with the keys, or with the mouse. A click does whatever choosing that row does: it picks a world, steps an option along, or turns a box over. An option is drawn with a mark either side of its reading, so which half of the row the click landed in is which way it steps: left steps the setting back and right steps it on, the same way ← and → do. The element editor's ranges read the same way, for the same reason.

Environment

Under ENVIRONMENT is the world being flown: every entry is one of the five assembled environments, the one currently in force is marked, and choosing another regenerates the ground and puts the aircraft back at its starting condition, because a new world under an aircraft mid-flight is a mountain that was not there a moment ago.

The list ends with two rows. LOAD ENVIRONMENT… opens a saved environment file from the computer, and the world it holds joins the list under its own name - its note says what it was built on - chosen and flown, from the pause menu as another world chosen there is. SAVE ENVIRONMENT… writes the world as it would be flown, with whatever was built on it, to a file named for it, as sample-valley.pilot-matter.json: where the browser can ask where to put it, it asks, and elsewhere it is downloaded. Each row says what it came to in place of its note until the next is pressed, and a file that is refused says why in amber, with nothing changed. The browser keeps only the last world loaded, so it is still listed, and still chosen if it was, after a reload; a pilot's worlds are kept as files. A preset chosen over it - even the one it was built on - is that preset as it is. The two rows are not on the panel while a game mode is running, which brings its own world.

Start state

Under START STATE is the condition a flight opens in, which is the same condition RESET FLIGHT and R put it back into.

The first two rows are the condition itself, and only one of them can be in force. Choosing one clears the other, and the one currently set is marked the same way the world being flown is:

Under them is RUNWAY, a box that says whether the generated world carries a landable strip at all. Unchecked, no runway is drawn and the world has nowhere to land. RUNWAY TAKEOFF holds the box on for as long as it is chosen and greys it out, because a start that asked to roll out of a world with no strip in it is not a start anything could honour. Uncheck it, choose RUNWAY TAKEOFF, and it comes back on; go back to START OFF FLYING and it is off again, exactly as it was left.

The rest are read the way a pilot reads them and stepped along a range of their own:

A range stops at its ends rather than wrapping round them, because the ends of a range mean something a list's do not: past the fastest a flight can open at is not the slowest.

A world built with a start point of its own - see Insert Plane - sets where a flight on it opens, so while it is the world flown START HEADING and START ALTITUDE are held, drawn faded with the note set by this environment, and neither a step nor a typed figure moves them. The other start rows are still the settings' own.

A runway takeoff takes none of those six but the camera: an aircraft held on the ground has no airspeed, no altitude, and no climb of its own to set. They are still there to be edited, and they are what the flight opens in the moment START OFF FLYING is chosen again.

Edited from the start screen, a new start takes effect at once - the aircraft is put straight into it, so the world behind the panel shows what was set. Edited mid-flight it waits, because a start is the next flight's condition rather than this one's: carry on flying, and the next reset opens in it.

The throttle is a lever the airspeed converges on rather than the airspeed itself, so a start whose throttle asks for a different speed than it was given is flown exactly as written and then settles toward the lever over the next second or two. The pitch is not a field at all: it is worked out from the climb and the airspeed, as the attitude that holds that climb at that speed, so a start opens in the climb it was set to rather than settling out of it.

Options

Under OPTIONS are the settings that hold whichever world is flown. Each is a value stepped through a list rather than a slider, so no combination of keys can land one between two settings:

Builder

Under BUILDER is one row that holds no value: BUILDER SETTINGS, which opens the interactive builder's own settings in this panel's place - when a draft is kept without being asked about, and how fast the view over a canvas moves. Their BACK brings this panel back, on the row that opened them. The row stays while a game mode is being played, unlike the builder's entry on the pause menu: the builder's settings open no world and change none. The same screen opens from inside the builder, by the gear on its palette or O; see the builder.

Walking the panel

W/S moves the cursor over all four parts as though they were one list, scrolling the panel to keep the cursor in view on a window too short to hold it. A/D steps the option under the cursor, and Enter steps it forward as well, because an option has no single thing to choose. A digit instead of either starts typing a figure into a row that holds one, and the keys that answer a figure then belong to it until it is taken or given up on.

A row holding a number along a range - every row of the start state but the condition, the strip and the view - can also be typed into. Pressing a digit at one starts the figure, the row reads what has been typed with a _ after it, and Enter takes it: a start altitude of 1390 feet is four presses that way and 139 the other, at ten feet a press. Backspace erases a character, Esc gives up and leaves the row on the value it had, and reaching for the mouse, walking the cursor to another row, or stepping the row with A/D gives up as well - the highlight says where a value is being set and the reading says what it is, so a figure never outlives either. A row holding one of a list of settings cannot be typed into, because what a list offers is positions rather than figures - nobody has a number in mind for CLEAR.

A typed figure goes through the validator the stepping goes through, so the two routes cannot disagree about what a range allows. That means a figure between two steps is refused: the panel offers an airspeed every five knots, so 83 is not one of them, and the row says what is allowed where the reading sits - 0 KTS TO 200 KTS BY 5. A refused figure leaves the row taking characters, so the next press carries on from what is there rather than starting again. A character the figure has no room for is turned down the same way and costs nothing: a minus anywhere but the front, or a ninth character on a row that takes eight, leaves what is already typed exactly where it is.

Every choice is stored in localStorage, so the world, the start, and the options a session ends on are the ones the next session opens on. A setting from a version that had one this one does not reads as the default on its own, without costing the others their memory, and a browser that refuses storage costs the choices their memory and nothing else.

O, Esc, or Backspace closes the panel, as does its own BACK entry.