Don't stack too many servos (usually 6 is the max) and attach the propellers to the body from both the front and the back to make them less wobbly. You can mess with the position and angle of the tailfins to increase speed. At higher speeds it will sometimes roll erratically (specially when accelerating from stand still) and there is no way to completely fix it, but it will usually be somewhat stable. If you do everything right you can reach ~1100km/h while being somewhat controllable

Thanks for the tips. I'm just not sure if my level of wobble is usual or not. My 540 kph flyer is smooth, without any wobble, but anything faster and it happens.

I've noticed that in still frames, the propellers will pop out for a frame before settling back down. So it's almost like centripetal force flings them off for a frame before the engine realizes they are attached and pulls them back in.

That's usually normal when you spin them really fast with a really low angle, I would need to see it and how much it wobbles to tell you if it's normal or not though

Well, if you feel like taking a look at, it'd be much appreciated:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2533469057

Use 5 servos rather than 6 for races, 6 servos are only usuable to achieve the highest possible speed on test zone but make vehicles almost uncontrolable (i said use 6 max previously because i didn't remember exactly how many i used, but after checking all my desings use 5)

When connecting the propellers from behind, you need to do it with the same ammount of servos you used for the front spinning in the oposite direction, using a single free floating servo reduces top speed and acceleration a lot

Having uncentered seats makes it a lot more uncontrolable, having the seat be between the propellers makes it a lot more controllable, it also only increases drag by 2 contact points which is not that much. Since you already have drag in that middle row, making it be made out of spoilers reduces weight with no cost. If you do this you might also want to move the propellers a bit further from the center, from my experience having no empty space between the propellers and structural blocks can sometimes cause weird collisions which result in the vehicle turning really fast in a random direction for a moment

You also don't have any vertical stabilizers, which increases how much it yaws when trying to go in a stright line (if you are willing to deal with a bit of extra unstability, specially at the start of the race as the effect becomes more unoticeable after getting a bit of speed, not having them can increase speed). Aerodynamics can also be improved, you are using 1x3 wedges and cones rather than 1x4 wedges only. The angle of the propellers can also be reduced to increase top speed at the cost of acceleration, and with a bit of logic you can increase top speed without reducing acceleration.

After doing all that, i managed to make your vehicle hit 950-1000km/h while being fairly controllable

:

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

Use 5 servos rather than 6 for races, 6 servos are only usuable to achieve the highest possible speed on test zone but make vehicles almost uncontrolable (i said use 6 max previously because i didn't remember exactly how many i used, but after checking all my desings use 5)

When connecting the propellers from behind, you need to do it with the same ammount of servos you used for the front spinning in the oposite direction, using a single free floating servo reduces top speed and acceleration a lot

Having uncentered seats makes it a lot more uncontrolable, having the seat be between the propellers makes it a lot more controllable, it also only increases drag by 2 contact points which is not that much. Since you already have drag in that middle row, making it be made out of spoilers reduces weight with no cost. If you do this you might also want to move the propellers a bit further from the center, from my experience having no empty space between the propellers and structural blocks can sometimes cause weird collisions which result in the vehicle turning really fast in a random direction for a moment

You also don't have any vertical stabilizers, which increases how much it yaws when trying to go in a stright line (if you are willing to deal with a bit of extra unstability, specially at the start of the race as the effect becomes more unoticeable after getting a bit of speed, not having them can increase speed). Aerodynamics can also be improved, you are using 1x3 wedges and cones rather than 1x4 wedges only. The angle of the propellers can also be reduced to increase top speed at the cost of acceleration, and with a bit of logic you can increase top speed without reducing acceleration.

After doing all that, i managed to make your vehicle hit 950-1000km/h while being fairly controllable

Thanks! I'll give all that a try. To me the race is an afterthought, I'm more interested in the engineering.

A couple things I've been meaning to try:
Use a "thrust controller" to alter the angle of the props.
Rotate or piston away control surfaces when not in use to reduce drag.

I've also noticed I can get four props around each engine if I put blocks in front and behind them and connect them with 1x4 flats. It glitches and explodes in a shower of sparks, but you might be able to get it to work.

Lol, got a sonic boom.

Originally posted by Precache:

A couple things I've been meaning to try:
Use a "thrust controller" to alter the angle of the props.
Rotate or piston away control surfaces when not in use to reduce drag.

If you wre willing to mess with logic (because due to a bug in this case it doesn't work as it should, so trial and error is the only way) you can achieve that with the hinges you already have alone. Just set the angle on the hinges to the max angle you want them to turn and activate them with an output value of 1 to achieve it, then you can activate it with a decimal output value to achieve lower angles (in theory final angle should be output value times max angle but due to the bug i mentioned in the case of hinges it results in angles much lower than that)

Originally posted by alvaroping1:

If you wre willing to mess with logic (because due to a bug in this case it doesn't work as it should, so trial and error is the only way) you can achieve that with the hinges you already have alone. Just set the angle on the hinges to the max angle you want them to turn and activate them with an output value of 1 to achieve it, then you can activate it with a decimal output value to achieve lower angles (in theory final angle should be output value times max angle but due to the bug i mentioned in the case of hinges it results in angles much lower than that)

Good point, I'm running all my controls through logic gates now. I noticed that because it's multiplicative, this let me tweak the angle to a much finer degree. I'm hitting straight line speeds of 1034kph at 13.2 degrees, and have a key binding to drop ramp it up to 15 degrees, which drops the speed to 780ish, but makes flight much more controllable.

Originally posted by Precache:

I've also noticed I can get four props around each engine if I put blocks in front and behind them and connect them with 1x4 flats. It glitches and explodes in a shower of sparks, but you might be able to get it to work.

Can you post an screenshot of that? From what i have tested it doesn't create any sparks (although it makes it more unstable) but it reduces the top speed by 100-150km/h (which also happened all the other times i have tried to use 4 tailfins per propeller), so i think i'm doing something different

I just retested it and it works! 4 attached props no stability issues.
I think spark shower might have been caused by rotating it the wrong way.
Anyway, when I looked it over, it wasn't quite as fast as the 2 prop arrangement, but you might have more luck with it.


https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2535010549