Part 22: Gizmos and Gadgets pt 2

It's a glider, an engineless plane.



New tricks this time round - springboards propel us up a level, but let us fall back down, unlike vents. And they make a cool sproing noise.



This puzzle is a bit tricky - balancing the scales requires multiplying each weight by the number it's hanging off of, then reproducing it with a limited number of weights on the other side. Fortunately, trial and error is always a valid choice, and I was a very patient child.



This puzzle, on the other hand, pissed me the hell off when I was a kid. You arrange gears on pegs and rotate the handle such that both red boxes light up. An even number of gears makes both poles go the same way, but an odd number makes them go different ways. Later puzzles get so complicated they actually crash my emulator whenever I attempt to solve them.



... You saw that coming. It's not like that's the second most over-used smiley in LP threads or anything.



Okay these puzzles are really fun. You set how much energy goes into the plunger, and it kicks balls into holes.



You can actually go through some side doors on the big warehouse screens now and find another entire set of doors. This seems like a lot of parts would be present, but by the time you're on the 5th race in a house you'll have almost every single one of them open, as you crawl through vents and springboards, begging for mercy and an enclosed cockpit with a slight angle to the tail.



Time to start building our plane! Airfoils should curve up and down to reduce drag the most.



Retractable wheels create no drag at all! Drag is super important because gliders both start off at the same speed.



This is the worst body possible. The open cockpit (okay I need to get this out of my system right now: COCK COCK COCK BALLS PENIS COCK. Alright. I'm done) creates a shitload of drag; we want something enclosed and small.



These aren't the best controls for our plane; flaperons would help us out more. But they won't screw us over in terms of drag, so we might as well try it out. I sure don't feel like grinding for parts now.



...except I still need 2 parts and a better cockpit, so really I do have to. Putting parts onto the workshop floor means they can't be stolen by Morty's chimps, which means there is a lot of frantic racing and dodging when you finally get that 60-foot pair of wings and there are four chimps between you and the tube back to the shop.



Bingo!



All wings have a 150 square foot wingspan, but the 60-foot ones are longer and thinner (as compared to 40-foot long), which means you catch better air and less drag.



Match up the types of energy with the actions performed, and when you check your answers you get neat little animations if you're right. This puzzle was all I could think of when, 7 years later, I found myself in a physics class needing to define mechanical energy versus chemical energy.



That person has wood teeth and no arms



This instrument isn't as helpful as a variometer, but it won't screw us either so we throw it in.



I didn't pick up any paint so we're flying the Grey Falcon I guess And it's neck to neck! What a race! Who will pull forward and win?



We pump our fists while Morty throws a tantrum. It's really unfair how when we lose, we get to re-race, but when Morty loses he has to take his ball and go to the next race and hope that ball is actually ball bearings so he won't lose again.



Ranks mean nothing in this game, but they're still fun to get! You get points from solving puzzles, but mostly from winning races.



Our next project is an actual plane, propeller and all. Many of the elements will be the same, but a lot will change.



Fowler flaps are the best because I guess they don't interfere with the wing at all, unlike flaps with slots. That means less drag, which isn't quite as important this race but still very important. And yes, the game does take into account all of the different factors (drag, max speed, paint color) when showing you the races. I know this because I've lost an awful lot of races.



This is the best propeller, and not just 'cuz it looks like he's got Saturday Night Fever! 2 blades totally blows.



Medium angle means there is some drag, but it's better than a steep angle. Also, open cockpit on display behind it for lolz.



Retraction!



Flat engines are better than round engines, and I hope an aeronautics engineer is here to tell us why. Fuel injection is a nice extra, but turbocharging is better. I hope we don't need it, because Morty definitely steps up the quality of his racers the higher your rank is.



The watermelon is harder to shoot! It takes more energy, just like in real life!



I found a turbocharger, but the only way to change it out is to get rid of all the parts blocking it so I had to disassemble basically my entire plane just to replace one part. Just like in real life!



GPS is tops, yo. Especially when compared to a plain ol' map Also, that is a tail with a slight angle, and I also found a cockpit with a slight angle. What luck! I am assembling a top-notch plane entirely by accident!



The best wing would be elliptical, but I'll stick with fully tapered; good enough is!



The Red Cobra is ready for launch! And lunch! The lunch is Morty!



HELLZ yeah. Also, despite everything my 7-year-old self believed, the races are entirely under computer control and pressing the right arrow did not make you go any faster. And down-B until the third wiggle didn't catch your pokemons any better



The trophies get nicer as you win more races in a house.



This is why this game is awesome. I am about to build a helicopter, just for the hell of it.



New stuff! The red cushions launch you up two levels, and you have to long-jump to get over them. Also those robots move faster, sleep less, and are angrier then the round happy guys. And they barely look like chimps at all. I'm on to you, Morty; you don't even know what a chimp looks like! (Only a CHUMP :iceburn



Four blades? Awesome! Swept tips? EVEN BETTER. Also check out my sweet tail rotor inside the tail! That baby is next-to-no drag. A no-tail rotor would be even better, but...



All transmission boxes are the same, and also they hella shrink when you add them to your coptor.



Yeah, there are kind of a lot of chimps in this level. That's bad for me.



WELL WHAT DO YOU KNOW, and yes I did make a mad dash for the workshop as soon as I got this. Morty stealing your parts doesn't make his stuff better (again, contrary to what I believed as a child), but it is a huge pain in the ass all the same!



Again, shallow is great. A truss boom would be a nightmare... According to the blueprints. But I didn't get one so I don't actually know what that is



Open means drag. Engine means engine. Bay means lots of explosions, a painful reinterpretation of the original terrorist attack against this country, and a strangely redeeming movie about a children's toy franchise. More than meets the eye indeed.



Covered means no drag. Engine means engine. Bay means a place to store things, or a body of water by which the watermelons grow and mother did say I shall not go.



So some crates contain bananas, which you throw at chimps to make them sleep and drop what they are carrying. They might be carrying a crate they picked up randomly while traveling along, or they might be carrying a crate they stole from you. And they CAN carry more than one crate, but they only drop one when they go to sleep.



In this puzzle, we match simple machines to their everyday uses. This one is obvious.



And then it turns the picture purple! HMM WHERE HAVE I SEEN THAT BEFORE... Wait, I don't think we have seen that yet.



A cabin with a stubby nose would be terrible so I left it on the shelf and took the sleek pointed nose instead! DRAG.



This is the dumbest possible color/decal scheme for a coptor, so I will give it a manly name. How about... AIRWOLF








Another trophy. This one has NUMBER ONE on it.

NEXT TIME: ALLAH ACKBAR