Spring RTS Engine

So I'm playing with an idea and I'm wondering if anyone has advise on how to implement it and possible short comings of such a system. It would be a lua controlled system for aircraft that would force all aircraft to have a landing pad station (no landing on ground) or base, and any sorties from player commands would be then launched from said base, only for the aircraft to return if aircraft survive. I'm seeing issues with producing of aircraft from a factory which would require either aircraft factory/builder to already have established open pads or some kind of ferry system that would require sending newly produced aircraft to their bases. Either way it looks like build cues in a system like this would be impossible if not difficult. Maybe each pad would be the builder itself, and the factory could just be a build requirement check, that way you don't have to implement such a complicated home checking system, and a simple system like zwzsg tech system could limit 1 unit per pad. Maybe it would not be that complicated after all?

Anyways I have memories of a scrapped s44 aircraft system, that was replaced in favor for an off screen airbase for air sorties and seemed to work decently. But I don't remember how far the old air system got or the details on its workings.

Also there was a drone system for ZK carriers perhaps, (I dont remember its been awhile since I messed with ZK) that might have a similar function. Does any body know the specifics of the ZK drones?

ZK carrier drones gadget currently supports assembly of drones on the carrier (as growing nanoframes) and animations for specific pieces (triggering on drone start and completion), but there's no resource cost to these and no way to decide which drones to build. They're just an interesting weapon rather than an unit production method currently.

That could be somewhat easy to make though.

The carrier drones implement automatic respawning (free) units which hover around a parent unit. The drones can be only be controlled by the fact that the gadget gives them fight commands to follow attack commands of their parent. Otherwise they are not directly selectable. It sounds like you would need more than this system can provide.

Your full system sounds possible. You could deal with queues by skipping over a unit in the queue if it has no free airpad. ZK contains a lua reimplementation of airpads and Movectrl for planes flying in to land on pads. I recommend using Movectrl instead of trying to get the aircraft refueling system to bend to your requirements.

yeah using refueling in the past I've had mixed results. maybe its different now, but I imagine movectrl is the way to do. although I've also had issues with aircraft and movectrl in the past (this was years ago). The que blocking shouldn't be too difficult, altho im leaning toward a pad building system instead of a factor to pad system as I imagine it is easier to check per pad and allow for a rebuild for lost units. I think I will have to use fuel also to limit ranges, but I guess I can avoid fuel entirely and do a distance check from base instead.