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Formation System - Flight Follower

Note: This project has been abandoned and will no longer receive updates.

This is the follower script for my formation flight system. These scripts together allow you to set a ship to follow another in a specific position relative to the leader.

For best performance, the follower ships should have the same or more maneuverability than the leader ship.

A remote control block on both the follower ship and the leader ship that points forward.
A radio antenna on both the follower ship and the leader ship.
Thrusters in all directions and enough fuel/power for all the thrusters.
Read the settings in the scripts.

Commands can be run in the follower script argument box or you can transmit a command to the system by using the leader script argument box.

• setoffset;x;y;z - sets the offset variable to this value
  
• addoffset;x;y;z - adds these values to the current offset
  
• stop - stops the script and releases control to you
  
• start - starts the script after a stop command
  
• starthere - starts the script and sets the offset to the current position.
  
• reset - resets the offset and the default configuration to the default offset.
  
• clear - forces the script to forget a previous leader when calculateMissingTicks is true
  
• save(;name) - saves the offset to the specified configuration.
  
• savehere(;name) - saves the current position to the specified configuration.
  
• load;name - loads the offset from the configuration

You can have multiple offsets for your ship. They are manipulated using the save, savehere, and load commands. The offsets for the saved configurations can be directly modified in the CustomData field of the programmable block. By default, the script will have a single 'default' configuration with the default offset. When you make changes to the CustomData directly, you should recompile the script to make the changes appear. CustomData will only be updated by the script when using the save and savehere commands. Warning: Any error in the CustomData will cause the entire script to reset.

This script has collision avoidance, but is disabled by default. Check settings to enable it. This uses the camera raycasting functionality to try to find any obstacles between the ship and where it is supposed to be. The more cameras your ship has, the better the collision avoidance will be. The cameras must be facing away from the ship. This process uses a lot of cpu, so expect lag if you use many followers with many cameras.

( > denotes a command )
> stop
Fly the ship to where you want it
> starthere

OR

( assumes a config has been previously saved using save;name command. )
> load;name

OR

> setoffset;x;y;z


Source Code
https://github.com/austinvaness/FormationSystem/tree/master/FormationFlightFollower