Aircraft Daemon System

Aircraft Daemon System

The Aircraft Daemon is a complete replacement for the vanilla AircraftDaemon. It supports custom crash durations, actions triggered on repair or crash, and provides a global altimeter overlay for story design.
Core implementation contributed by April_Crystal — special thanks.

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Overview

• Daemon name: FlightDaemon
• Registration: add <FlightDaemon .../> directly in the target computer's XML.
• Key enhancements:
  • Configurable crash duration (FallDuration in seconds, default 135)
  • Trigger OnFailed / OnSaved actions on crash or repair respectively
  • Dedicated attack, repair, and overlay actions
  • Automatic cleanup of static dictionaries to avoid memory leaks

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Basic Configuration

Declare the daemon directly in the computer configuration file:

<Computer id="dair_crash" ... >
  ...
  <FlightDaemon FallDuration="90" OnFailed="Actions/plane_failed.xml" OnSaved="Actions/plane_saved.xml" />
  ...
</Computer>

FlightDaemon Configurable Attributes

Attribute	Default	Description
FallDuration	135	Total seconds for the aircraft to fall from 38,000 feet to the ground (in immediate fall mode).
OnFailed	null	Action file executed when the aircraft crashes (altitude reaches 0).
OnSaved	null	Action file executed when the aircraft is repaired (firmware reload succeeds and the DLL is restored).

Note: FallDuration only takes effect in immediate fall mode (AircraftFallStartsImmediately = true), which is enabled by default. The daemon initialises the runtime variable H from FallDuration on start‑up.

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Related Actions

Attack Aircraft: AttackAircraft

Triggers a critical firmware failure on the target computer's FlightDaemon and starts the fall.

<AttackAircraft NodeID="dair_crash" FallDuration="60" />

• NodeID: the idName of the target computer (must already have a FlightDaemon configured).
• FallDuration (optional): specifies the total crash duration in seconds; overrides the daemon's own FallDuration.
  Special values:
  • -1 (or omitted): use the daemon's current fall duration (determined by its own configuration)
  • 0: crash instantly (skip the descent, directly trigger OnFailed and node removal)
  • positive number: override the daemon's FallDuration.

Attack flow: generates a firmware DLL and deletes it immediately → 6 seconds later firmware reload fails → enters critical failure → the aircraft falls for the specified duration.

Repair Aircraft: UploadAircraftSysFile

Writes a valid 747FlightOps.dll into the target computer's FlightSystems folder.

<UploadAircraftSysFile NodeID="dair_crash" />

• If the target computer is already running FlightDaemon, the file is written directly into FlightSystems/747FlightOps.dll.
• Otherwise, the file is written to the path specified by the Path attribute.
• The player still needs to connect to that computer and manually click the Reload Firmware button to complete the repair (triggers OnSaved).

Global Altimeter Overlay

Allows the aircraft's altimeter to be permanently displayed on the left side of the screen even without connecting to the target computer.

<!-- Show overlay -->
<ShowAircraftOverlay NodeID="dair_crash" />

<!-- Hide overlay -->
<HideAircraftOverlay />

• The overlay is automatically hidden when the aircraft crashes (if it was being displayed).
• The overlay is implemented via OverlayPatches (Harmony patch) and does not interfere with normal gameplay.

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Interface & Interaction

After connecting to a computer with FlightDaemon, the flight instrument panel is shown:

• Disconnect button: disconnects from the current aircraft (hides the panel).
• Pilot Alert button: sends an alert to the pilot (sets the PilotAlerted flag, changing the interface colors).
• Reload Firmware button: starts the firmware reload process. If a valid 747FlightOps.dll exists in FlightSystems, the fault is cleared after 6 seconds and OnSaved is triggered.

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Fall Logic Explanation

• Immediate fall mode (default): altitude decreases linearly according to FallDuration (or the action‑overridden H):
  CurrentAltitude = 38000 * (1 - timeFallingFor / H)
  The descent rate is fixed at -876.9231 ft/s, but the altitude is calculated directly by the formula to ensure the total duration equals H seconds.

• Non‑immediate fall mode (AircraftFallStartsImmediately = false): the first 15 seconds accelerate to maximum rate via a quadratic ease‑out, then the fall continues at constant speed. In this mode FallDuration does not control the total time.

Typically, only the immediate fall mode needs attention; its crash duration is completely determined by FallDuration or the value specified by the action. The non‑immediate fall mode is not currently in use.

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Multi‑language Support

Button labels (e.g., "Disconnect", "Pilot Alert", "Reload Firmware") use the game's built‑in locale terms and automatically switch language (Chinese, English, etc.).

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See Also

• Home – Return to main index
• 飞机Daemon系统 (中文) – Chinese version
• Misc – Other things not covered in the major system pages
• Actions – Full list of custom actions

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Special thanks to April_Crystal for providing the core implementation of this system.