Suggestions & Ideas

It would require a propeller blade diameter of half that. Six blades instead of four. It's like declaring war a bridge. 😁

Is it possible to consider the water surface as a solid surface? To prevent a helicopter from becoming a submarine. 🤪

Can you adjust the flight altitude so that the helicopter doesn't fly over buildings? And if it could, it wouldn't jump over obstacles, but if it could, it would ascend and descend more smoothly? Because it will jump over the bridge like popcorn in a frying pan.

I think that's enough for now. 😇

fixed

Perfektné. Akurát sme sa asi nerozumeli dobre ohľadom veľkosti rotora. Som písal aby bol väčší. Teraz je veľmi drobný. Používam Google translator, ktorý má svoje muchy.

Perfect. We just didn't seem to understand each other well about the size of the rotor. I wrote to make it bigger. Now it's very small. I'm using Google translator, which has its flaws.

1. Excellent work. 😍
2. Need Helipad. Like Train Station, but it must be the only cargo point accessible by Helicopter. 🧐
3. Make 3D model look like transport helicopter, not like attack one. 😅
4. Less agility, acceleration and cargo capacity. Much more fuel consumption and maintenance. Up/Down animation for load/unload. But you already know it. 👌

rgreat wrote:

1. Excellent work. 😍
2. Need Helipad. Like Train Station, but it must be the only cargo point accessible by Helicopter. 🧐
3. Make 3D model look like transport helicopter, not like attack one. 😅
4. Less agility, acceleration and cargo capacity. Much more fuel consumption and maintenance. Up/Down animation for load/unload. But you already know it. 👌

Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback, everyone — this is exactly the kind of input that shapes the mod. 🙏

@Vladovlak — my mistake on the rotor, that was a translation mix-up on my end: you asked for a bigger rotor and I went and shrank it instead. 😅 Next update it'll be larger (keeping the six blades). And thanks for the reference photos — the Skycrane / Mi-26 are exactly the direction I want to head in.

@rgreat — really appreciate the breakdown, and I'm on board with basically all of it:

Thank you! 🙌
Helipad — yes, I want this. I don't want the mod to feel cheaty: flying over mountains, water and buildings should come at a cost. So the plan is that cargo goes through a dedicated helipad (the way trains use stations) instead of the heli landing anywhere it likes. I still need to work out the cleanest way to build it within the game's systems, but it's firmly on the roadmap.
Transport look, not an attack heli — agreed. The current model is a placeholder I reused because I can't model myself. I'm working toward a proper cargo-helicopter silhouette (Skycrane-style, with the load slung underneath).
Balance — fully agreed: less agility, acceleration and capacity, much higher fuel use and maintenance, plus a load/unload up-down animation. That's the "pay for the convenience" side of the design.
One thing you can already do today: the helicopters are their own vehicle group ("Cargo helicopters"), so you can use a storage's truck-group access filter to control which buildings they serve — e.g. make one storage helicopters-only. It's a manual, opt-in version of the helipad idea until the real building exists.

Roadmap, in order:

A proper transport model (plus the bigger rotor)
A balance pass — fuel, maintenance, capacity, speed, and the load/unload animation
The Helipad building and its logistics logic
A couple of honest notes. I'm a solo hobbyist, my modeling skills are basically zero, and the entire budget for this mod is a bag of chips and my own sanity 😄 — so the model is what it is for now. A proper new one will take time and I can't promise a "wow" asset, but it'll at least read as a transport helicopter rather than a gunship. And realistically, some ideas may just not be possible: this is MaFi's engine, not mine, and it won't let me do everything I'd like. Where I hit a wall I'll say so, and keep looking for a way around it.

Thanks again for pushing this in the right direction — keep the feedback coming. 🚁

rgreat wrote:

1. Excellent work. 😍
2. Need Helipad. Like Train Station, but it must be the only cargo point accessible by Helicopter. 🧐
3. Make 3D model look like transport helicopter, not like attack one. 😅
4. Less agility, acceleration and cargo capacity. Much more fuel consumption and maintenance. Up/Down animation for load/unload. But you already know it. 👌

A helipad as they are called. But a Sky crane usually lifts cargo while flying (hovering) not while landed. I like the ability to take any cargo from any location, just like a real sky crane. I just hope he develops heavy lift sky cranes like the Sikorsky S-64 Sky crane and the Boeing CH-47 Chinook. Both are heavy lift helicopters but the Chinook can lift a little more than the Sikorsky. Some Logging companies use Helicopters to lift logs out of the deep forest when ground equipment has problems accessing the logging area without the use of a Helipad.

My two cents...

Several islands are designed around accessing resources only after bridging the gap or cutting the mountain, therefore add two helicopter unlocks:

• A mid game unlock, modeled around the Mi-26, but only allowing container to container transport (helipads if/when added), limiting their delivery to locations the captain has access to by truck first.
• A late game unlock, modeled around the Sky-Crane, but allowing access and buildings across the whole island, since by that point the captain will need to access the whole island.

warrenc wrote:

rgreat wrote:

1. Excellent work. 😍
2. Need Helipad. Like Train Station, but it must be the only cargo point accessible by Helicopter. 🧐
3. Make 3D model look like transport helicopter, not like attack one. 😅
4. Less agility, acceleration and cargo capacity. Much more fuel consumption and maintenance. Up/Down animation for load/unload. But you already know it. 👌

A helipad as they are called. But a Sky crane usually lifts cargo while flying (hovering) not while landed. I like the ability to take any cargo from any location, just like a real sky crane. I just hope he develops heavy lift sky cranes like the Sikorsky S-64 Sky crane and the Boeing CH-47 Chinook. Both are heavy lift helicopters but the Chinook can lift a little more than the Sikorsky. Some Logging companies use Helicopters to lift logs out of the deep forest when ground equipment has problems accessing the logging area without the use of a Helipad.

Totally agree with everything and i really love the idea of a dedicated logging helicopter being assigned to a Tree cutter/planter incresing their productivity by lowering downtime.

Gumides wrote:

i really love the idea of a dedicated logging helicopter being assigned to a Tree cutter/planter incresing their productivity by lowering downtime.

logging helicopter - that's rich!

I would imagine the price of these logs being sky high! 😆

rgreat wrote:

Gumides wrote:

i really love the idea of a dedicated logging helicopter being assigned to a Tree cutter/planter incresing their productivity by lowering downtime.

logging helicopter - that's rich!

I would imagine the price of these logs being sky high! 😆

There are indeed helicopters being used to lift logs out of a forest where trucks can't access. Google it.

warrenc wrote:

rgreat wrote:

I would imagine the price of these logs being sky high! 😆

There are indeed helicopters being used to lift logs out of a forest where trucks can't access. Google it.

Heli-logging accounts for a very small fraction—typically less than 5%—of total global timber production. Its usage is primarily restricted to highly valuable tree species and remote or ecologically sensitive terrain. [1, 2, 3]

Because it relies on heavy-lift aircraft (such as the K-Max or Sikorsky S-64) with high hourly operating costs of $800 to $2,500+, it is only economically viable for premium logs and never used for low-value materials like pulpwood. [1]

• New 3D model — (medium poly for performance)
• Cargo containers that are winched down to the ground for loading/unloading — the helicopter hovers while the cable does the work
• Product icon on the container shows what's being carried
• Bulk materials (coal, gravel, etc.) are now visible in transit too
• New flight & cargo physics and animations — realistic banking, pendulum swing on the sling, downwash spray over water
• Lots of bug fixes
  
  
  update pls

Hello Pique.

Great mod and well done on it!

I got asked from a user on my Gameplay++ mod to make a HQ for your helicopters. Is this something you plan to do or if your ok with it i will make one for your helicopters also. ( A place where they can park in idle state when not assigned) same as my truck HQ and excavator HQ.

Moriarty wrote:

Hello Pique.

Great mod and well done on it!

I got asked from a user on my Gameplay++ mod to make a HQ for your helicopters. Is this something you plan to do or if your ok with it i will make one for your helicopters also. ( A place where they can park in idle state when not assigned) same as my truck HQ and excavator HQ.

Hey Mori — thanks a lot

Yes, please go ahead — I'd love an HQ for the helicopters, and I'm happy for you to build it. Nothing planned on my side that would conflict.

One thing you'll want to know up front: the helicopter is a TruckProto (proto id CargoHelicopter), so your Truck HQ logic should already accept it. The catch is that my mod overrides the vehicle's altitude every frame to keep it flying — so a helicopter sent to an HQ would just hover above the pad instead of landing.

I've already fixed that on my side and shipped a small API in 0.3.0 so your HQ can control it:

namespace CargoHelicopter.Api;

public static class HeliApi
{
public const int ApiVersion = 1;

// GetLandingState: -1 not a helicopter, 0 airborne, 1 descending, 2 landed, 3 taking off
public static bool IsHelicopter(int vehicleId);
public static bool SetLandingClearance(int vehicleId, float padX, float padY, float padZ);
public static bool ClearLandingClearance(int vehicleId);
public static int  GetLandingState(int vehicleId);

}
vehicleId is just vehicle.Id.Value. It's primitives-only on purpose, so you can call it entirely by reflection and keep it a soft dependency — if my mod isn't installed, AccessTools.TypeByName("CargoHelicopter.Api.HeliApi") returns null and you skip helicopters. My mod never references yours in return.

The flow:

Navigate the helicopter to the pad like any truck.
SetLandingClearance(id, padX, padY, padZ) — it reels the slung container up against the hull, descends at ~3.5 m/s, touches down, kicks up downwash dust and spools the rotor down over ~4 seconds.
Wait for GetLandingState(id) == 2 (landed) before opening your doors / refuelling / despawning.
ClearLandingClearance(id) — the rotor spools back up, and only at ~85% RPM does it lift off and climb out. Reports 3 until clear of the pad, then 0.
It all freezes properly on pause and survives save/load.

Two caveats worth flagging: right now it lands on the surface directly beneath itself, so padY is informational — navigate it onto the pad tile first. If you need an exact height for a raised platform, tell me and I'll honour padY properly. And if you'd rather have a different shape entirely — an interface, a touchdown callback, a "reserve pad" call, extra states — just say what fits Gameplay++ and I'll build it. Happy to turn it around in a day or two.

Thanks again for reaching out — let me know how you want to coordinate.

pique wrote:

Moriarty wrote:

Hello Pique.

Great mod and well done on it!

I got asked from a user on my Gameplay++ mod to make a HQ for your helicopters. Is this something you plan to do or if your ok with it i will make one for your helicopters also. ( A place where they can park in idle state when not assigned) same as my truck HQ and excavator HQ.

Hey Mori — thanks a lot

Yes, please go ahead — I'd love an HQ for the helicopters, and I'm happy for you to build it. Nothing planned on my side that would conflict.

One thing you'll want to know up front: the helicopter is a TruckProto (proto id CargoHelicopter), so your Truck HQ logic should already accept it. The catch is that my mod overrides the vehicle's altitude every frame to keep it flying — so a helicopter sent to an HQ would just hover above the pad instead of landing.

I've already fixed that on my side and shipped a small API in 0.3.0 so your HQ can control it:

namespace CargoHelicopter.Api;

public static class HeliApi
{
public const int ApiVersion = 1;

// GetLandingState: -1 not a helicopter, 0 airborne, 1 descending, 2 landed, 3 taking off
public static bool IsHelicopter(int vehicleId);
public static bool SetLandingClearance(int vehicleId, float padX, float padY, float padZ);
public static bool ClearLandingClearance(int vehicleId);
public static int  GetLandingState(int vehicleId);

}
vehicleId is just vehicle.Id.Value. It's primitives-only on purpose, so you can call it entirely by reflection and keep it a soft dependency — if my mod isn't installed, AccessTools.TypeByName("CargoHelicopter.Api.HeliApi") returns null and you skip helicopters. My mod never references yours in return.

The flow:

Navigate the helicopter to the pad like any truck.
SetLandingClearance(id, padX, padY, padZ) — it reels the slung container up against the hull, descends at ~3.5 m/s, touches down, kicks up downwash dust and spools the rotor down over ~4 seconds.
Wait for GetLandingState(id) == 2 (landed) before opening your doors / refuelling / despawning.
ClearLandingClearance(id) — the rotor spools back up, and only at ~85% RPM does it lift off and climb out. Reports 3 until clear of the pad, then 0.
It all freezes properly on pause and survives save/load.

Two caveats worth flagging: right now it lands on the surface directly beneath itself, so padY is informational — navigate it onto the pad tile first. If you need an exact height for a raised platform, tell me and I'll honour padY properly. And if you'd rather have a different shape entirely — an interface, a touchdown callback, a "reserve pad" call, extra states — just say what fits Gameplay++ and I'll build it. Happy to turn it around in a day or two.

Thanks again for reaching out — let me know how you want to coordinate.

Thanks a lot for the info. I will then start on it next week and add a Heli HQ for your nice helicopters.
Great job on the mod and a really nice addition to the game!

Do you have discord and are you on COI server?

Moriarty wrote:

pique wrote:

Moriarty wrote:

Hello Pique.

Great mod and well done on it!

I got asked from a user on my Gameplay++ mod to make a HQ for your helicopters. Is this something you plan to do or if your ok with it i will make one for your helicopters also. ( A place where they can park in idle state when not assigned) same as my truck HQ and excavator HQ.

Hey Mori — thanks a lot

Yes, please go ahead — I'd love an HQ for the helicopters, and I'm happy for you to build it. Nothing planned on my side that would conflict.

One thing you'll want to know up front: the helicopter is a TruckProto (proto id CargoHelicopter), so your Truck HQ logic should already accept it. The catch is that my mod overrides the vehicle's altitude every frame to keep it flying — so a helicopter sent to an HQ would just hover above the pad instead of landing.

I've already fixed that on my side and shipped a small API in 0.3.0 so your HQ can control it:

namespace CargoHelicopter.Api;

public static class HeliApi
{
public const int ApiVersion = 1;

// GetLandingState: -1 not a helicopter, 0 airborne, 1 descending, 2 landed, 3 taking off
public static bool IsHelicopter(int vehicleId);
public static bool SetLandingClearance(int vehicleId, float padX, float padY, float padZ);
public static bool ClearLandingClearance(int vehicleId);
public static int  GetLandingState(int vehicleId);

}
vehicleId is just vehicle.Id.Value. It's primitives-only on purpose, so you can call it entirely by reflection and keep it a soft dependency — if my mod isn't installed, AccessTools.TypeByName("CargoHelicopter.Api.HeliApi") returns null and you skip helicopters. My mod never references yours in return.

The flow:

Navigate the helicopter to the pad like any truck.
SetLandingClearance(id, padX, padY, padZ) — it reels the slung container up against the hull, descends at ~3.5 m/s, touches down, kicks up downwash dust and spools the rotor down over ~4 seconds.
Wait for GetLandingState(id) == 2 (landed) before opening your doors / refuelling / despawning.
ClearLandingClearance(id) — the rotor spools back up, and only at ~85% RPM does it lift off and climb out. Reports 3 until clear of the pad, then 0.
It all freezes properly on pause and survives save/load.

Two caveats worth flagging: right now it lands on the surface directly beneath itself, so padY is informational — navigate it onto the pad tile first. If you need an exact height for a raised platform, tell me and I'll honour padY properly. And if you'd rather have a different shape entirely — an interface, a touchdown callback, a "reserve pad" call, extra states — just say what fits Gameplay++ and I'll build it. Happy to turn it around in a day or two.

Thanks again for reaching out — let me know how you want to coordinate.

Thanks a lot for the info. I will then start on it next week and add a Heli HQ for your nice helicopters.
Great job on the mod and a really nice addition to the game!

Do you have discord and are you on COI server?

Awesome, can't wait to see the Heli HQ — thanks for taking this on! 🙌

The landing API is ready whenever you want it, I'll just send you the doc and a test build so you're not waiting on a release.

I don't really use Discord though. Telegram or email is easiest for me — happy to send you either. And if that's a pain for you, I don't mind spinning up a Discord as a last resort, just let me know what's easiest on your side. 🚁