San Andreas has ropes: the Vegas and quarry cranes, the dock crane, the wrecking ball, the helicopter winch magnet, the SWAT rappel line. They are a real solver in the engine, and nothing in MTA could reach them.

Neon exposes them as synchronized rope elements, and lets a resource keep more logical ropes alive than GTA has slots for.

The eight rope types

type selects which native rope GTA runs. They are the game’s own, not styles:

Name	ID	What it is
winchMagnet	1	Helicopter winch magnet
harness	2	Lifting harness
miniMagnet	3	Small magnet
dockCrane	4	Dock crane
wreckingBall	5	Wrecking ball, with GTA’s weighted ball hook
quarryCrane	6	Quarry crane
vegasCrane	7	Vegas crane
swat	8	SWAT rappel line, the default

Types 1 to 7 need a holder

This is the one rule that will crash your server if you ignore it.

GTA’s CRope::Update dereferences the rope holder during its force pass, so every native type except swat requires a valid physical holder element. Neon now refuses a rope that would hit that path, and the harness carries a dedicated missing-holder regression test.

swat is the only type that anchors to the world on its own.

The showcase handles it the practical way: three invisible client-local physical objects act as holders, and moving a holder is what makes a wrecking ball swing.

Creating one

local rope = createRope(x, y, z, {
    type = "wreckingBall",
    length = 14,
    holder = holderObject,      -- required for every type except swat
    holderOffset = { 0, 0, -1 },
    physics = true,
})

createRope(x, y, z [, options]) returns a rope element. Server-created ropes are synchronized; the client can also create local ones.

Controlling a rope

Twenty-six functions exist on both sides, so a rope can be driven from wherever makes sense.

Area	Functions
Type	getRopeType / setRopeType
Lifetime	getRopeDuration / setRopeDuration, getRopeRemainingTime / setRopeRemainingTime
Anchoring	getRopeHolder / setRopeHolder, getRopeHolderOffset / setRopeHolderOffset
Geometry	getRopeLength / setRopeLength, getRopeWinchHeight / setRopeWinchHeight, getRopeFixedNode / setRopeFixedNode
Motion	getRopeTopVelocity / setRopeTopVelocity, isRopePhysicsEnabled / setRopePhysicsEnabled, isRopeOnGround / setRopeOnGround
Cargo	getRopeCarriedElement, attachElementToRope, detachElementFromRope

Two more are client-only, because they read the live solver: getRopePositionAt returns an interpolated point along the rope, and isRopeActive reports whether the rope currently holds a native slot.

Shortening the rope is how you lift. The showcase hoists a crate and a Bobcat by attaching them and then reducing setRopeLength, rather than moving them directly.

More ropes than GTA has slots

GTA has eight native rope slots. Neon does not stop you at eight.

A resource creates as many logical rope elements as it wants, and Neon leases the eight native slots to the ropes that need them. The harness proves this directly: twelve logical ropes running with no more than eight native leases at any moment.

isRopeActive is how a client asks whether a given rope currently holds one of those leases.

Working with cargo

Attach an element and the native solver takes ownership of its motion. Two practical rules come out of the showcase:

Unfreeze before attaching. A frozen element makes the rope solver fight MTA’s frozen state. Keep a payload frozen while it is a static prop, then unfreeze it right before attachElementToRope.

Set the length deliberately. A wrecking ball with a default length can initialise below terrain. The showcase explicitly shortens it so the ball hangs above the runway.

Limits

• A rope holds at most 32 nodes, so fixedNode accepts 0 through 30.
• Eight native slots, leased. Logical ropes beyond that exist but are not natively simulated at that moment.
• Every type except swat requires a physical holder.
• There are no rope events. State is read through the getters.
• The legacy createSWATRope path still works and coexists with managed ropes.

Verification

test-resources/rope-test prints explicit PASS and FAIL lines. /ropetest all covers synchronized creation and destruction, type, duration, remaining time, fixed node, ground, winch height and velocity state, client reception of authoritative rope data, native activation and getRopePositionAt interpolation, holder and local-offset tracking, object and vehicle cargo, client-local ropes, server expiry, twelve logical ropes against no more than eight native leases, and coexistence with createSWATRope.

The missing-holder regression is its own case, added after that path was found to crash.

test-resources/rope-showcase is the cinematic: wrecking ball, mini magnet and harness demonstrated separately on the runway. Neither resource is auto-deployed; copy them into the server resources directory first.

Implementation: 32d6ac731.