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[1.0.4] Maritime Pack - 0.1.4


Fengist

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Also, idea that I thought of while typing, what do you think about making azimuth thrusters? They don't have to be double prop like the first pic in wiki.

I came up with a much easier solution than IR. The new rudder will work off of stock physics.

As for Az Thrusters. Very difficult to implement. You're essentially talking about a 90 degree gimballed engine. Not something native to the game. Plus, the exhaust effects would need to rotate with the engine. Again, not something native to the game. Short of writing a plugin, I don't see that as happening.

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Did some testing with v1.0.3 and thus far, no issues. There's no plan to make any major changes to the engines. If anything, their ISP needs to be better, not worse. At full speed it took roughly 50 fuel for a CVE to reach the Island Runway... that's not exactly great. I will be tinkering with them and looking for methods of improvement.

Heat changes to 1.0.3 don't seem to drastically effect ships. I have no plans for a nautical radiator.

Aerodynamic changes to 1.0.3 don't seem to have had an effect of the rudder in testing. It'll still give you whiplash when you hard left.

All in all, 1.0.3 had little effect on this pack.

I did get a chance to look at the pack at 1/4 rez... yuk. I'll be tinkering with the graphics and trying to improve that.

Edited by Fengist
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As for the rudder, it was the same basic concept that I had hit on though, right?

on the azimuth thrusters, you could make a rotating part that you attach an engine to, like a VTOL mount. But yeah, good point, not achievable in stock, or rather, not present in stock. You could do something with IR, but I'm sure you want to minimize the dependencies.

Actually, a rotating engine mount would be right in IRs realm.

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A suggestion for the Azimuth thrusters, what about using The Klockheed Martian gimballing so it only has say, 45 degrees thrust vectoring for its yaw, and using a combination of firespitter's thrust reversing and vtol engine modules to give it four directions of control. If I'm right this could (mostly) simulate an Azimuth thruster without directly giving the engine 360 gimbal range.

If your looking to minimize the dependencies, then we'd only be missing out on the KM gimballing.

Also I'm curious, why don't the bitts use the firespitter Buoyancy module?

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As for the rudder, it was the same basic concept that I had hit on though, right?

Yep, you were in the ballpark. Essentially, the rudder will be a canard on steroids. You theoretically could mount it on an aircraft but one touch of the controls would probably send you flipping.

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A suggestion for the Azimuth thrusters, what about using The Klockheed Martian gimballing so it only has say, 45 degrees thrust vectoring for its yaw, and using a combination of firespitter's thrust reversing and vtol engine modules to give it four directions of control. If I'm right this could (mostly) simulate an Azimuth thruster without directly giving the engine 360 gimbal range.

If your looking to minimize the dependencies, then we'd only be missing out on the KM gimballing.

Also I'm curious, why don't the bitts use the firespitter Buoyancy module?

I honestly haven't looked at KM and am totally unfamiliar with it and while that may work, for now the rudder does a fantastic job of giving steering at speed. At low speeds, the reaction wheels are doing... ok. What I have in mind is to create a small snap-on bow thruster that would use the compressed water as a fuel. It would be extremely low thrust and you'd have to set up an on/off toggle. But it would use the FS reverse thrusting.

I honestly haven't had time to dig into all the niceties of FS yet. The VTOL mods may be able to do exactly that. I don't think, however that spinning props and gimbals work together. I'd have to dig into it a bit when I get time.

As for the bitts, I think you mean the blisters, which are the flotation devices. To be honest, I haven't dug into FS buoyancy either yet. Originally, I set out to make submarines and the blisters were designed to mimic the effect air intakes have, lots of buoyancy. The bitts were originally conceived as submarine ballast.

Here's how the story goes. I found this old mod called Gaby's Submarine Parts. He used GOBS of monopropellant to sink parts and turn them into submarines. I attempted to duplicate his efforts in a more current version of KSP. While the parts did sink, his method for propulsion (Incredible amounts of thrust) would send any vessel you attached his engines to, on an escape trajectory out of the system... instantly. It was a Kraken moment. So, I began tinkering with things, making an actual resource (Compressed Water) instead of using monopropellant. And another super light resource (designed to mimic intake air) to attempt to act as buoyancy. Then, creating a water compressor mod, etc. While I achieved the same ability to sink parts, I couldn't overcome the drag caused by the mass needed to sink them. But what I did find out was I could float parts really well without air intakes. So, I made boats.

That's a tad of a long story but, to answer your question, the Bitts and Blisters were thought up long before I even knew how to access FS modules. And while I do plan to play with FS buoyancy, everything has been working pretty well without it so I haven't had a good excuse to start tinkering with it.

And since I'm already posting...

I have acquired the secrets of part animation.

Currently in testing

The Clipper RoRo (Roll-on/Roll-off)

[TABLE=width: 900, align: center]

[TR]

[TD]RoRoTest1.jpg[/TD]

[TD]Designed to handle small to mid sized vehicles, the Clipper RoRo Bow will feature a drop deck loading ramp. (It does have a collision mesh on the ramp but here it appears the sand on the beach is so soft, it sunk.[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RoRoTest2.jpg[/TD]

[TD]Like most moving parts, a simple click raises and lowers the ramp.[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RoRoTest3.jpg[/TD]

[TD]Securing your vehicle once on board is your problem. I just give you the method for getting it there easily.[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Edited by Fengist
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The FS Buoyancy module can be slapped onto anything, and the reason I mentioned it is because I use BetterBuoyancy (which doesn't affect the FSB module at all), and getting boats to float all balanced-like is difficult. I haven't changed the density because that borks other things. Anyway Its good for getting more bang for your buck, and balancing the craft without sinking it.

Also Firespitter has this swamp fan thing with ridiculous gimbal (I think its actually 45 degrees), and Quiztech Aero has a VTOL wing fan that has the FS Vtol and propeller modules. I don't expect you to pull wizard magic out of your sleeve or something but at least without the KMG it should be reasonably possible whenever you figure the VTOL module out.

Anywho can't wait for the rudder and RoRo (especially the RoRo, I'm cooking up some less lag-inducing warships and it'll help having a means to transport my 7-part tanks). And in general well done on this pack, its nice-looking and useful.

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I should release an update in the next day or two. One thing I want to do is go back over the outriggers. I kinda goofed up the model and didn't make them round so that any time you mount them and it's not perfectly horizontal the extra parts don't line up. Once I get that fixed, those are the three big changes for the next release. Everything else will be minor tweaks and such.

Thanks for the flowers, glad you're enjoying the pack.

One of the other things I need to mention...

Anything and I mean anything that gets put below the waterline adds drag. The rudder alone, with low drag and weight, easily knocked 5-10 m/s off my top speeds because of it's small volume. Adding a bow thruster or gimballed engines under the waterline, if they're surface mount, will add even more drag. On an aircraft, drag isn't a huge issue. On a ship, it's like an anchor. So, I have to be very careful the number of non-flotation items (small volume) that I add. FS Buoyancy may fix that and FS has been around long enough that I'm pretty sure that someone would pick up the reigns should it's dev drop it. But, I've seen so many mods vanish that I'm hoping to stay pretty independent. That, and when you have no control over the dependencies, you never know if their next release will keep working or bork your parts. Keeping up with Squad borkings will be plenty enough.

For now, FS is optional. Making it mandatory crosses a big line for me.

Edited by Fengist
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There's something I'm curious about ships/boats in the current version of KSP. In 1.0.2 as soon as I enter physics range, my boat instantly gets teleported to the bottom of the ocean, coming up looking like it got eaten by some sea monster and dashing my hopes of recording a vertical replenishment video.

So.... has that been fixed or are there workarounds?

As for what kind of boat it's this stock fishing trawler. I've been told it's some kind of bug making the ship appear as "landed" instead of "splashed down" and not a decoupler re-firing issue as I first suspected.

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There's something I'm curious about ships/boats in the current version of KSP. In 1.0.2 as soon as I enter physics range, my boat instantly gets teleported to the bottom of the ocean, coming up looking like it got eaten by some sea monster and dashing my hopes of recording a vertical replenishment video.

So.... has that been fixed or are there workarounds?

As for what kind of boat it's this stock fishing trawler. I've been told it's some kind of bug making the ship appear as "landed" instead of "splashed down" and not a decoupler re-firing issue as I first suspected.

To be honest, I'm not sure I can answer that question. So far, I've only had something similar happen once and that was when I landed a VTOL on a CVE, switched to the space center and back again. But that does raise an interesting question as to the cause. If an aircraft is on a boat that's splashed, is the plane landed or splashed and what happens when you do leave and reenter physics range.

Thus far though, I haven't had that issue with any boat that I've created with it being just the boat.

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Lo guys. The next update to the Maritime Pack will be out sometime tomorrow. Before I release it, here's a brief sketch of what to expect from the RoRo.

I completed testing tonite and I took it to a physical extreme. I built a 16.5 ton rover with a really odd shape. While the weight wasn't a huge issue, trying to get that long nosed thing aboard the RoRo was a challenge all in itself. I kept ramming it into the ramp, flipping it over, shoving the ship around, etc. So, I devised a technique or two that you should take a look at before you attempt to load your first really heavy vehicle.

1. If it weights more than the boat, run the nose aground and put on some compressed water. I'll give you a lower waterline. Any time there's more weight above the water line than below it, you've got to work harder to keep things balanced. Consider adding outriggers or moving the blisters onto the sides of the ship at or just below the planned waterline.

2. Any time two vehicles collide, including driving up a ramp, things start to wobble around. One really helpful trick that works is to convert the davit into a windlass mount. I mounted 4 KAS winches on the nose of the RoRo on the davit. Two with anchors and two with harpoons. Harpoons don't work in water but, when you run the nose of the RoRo aground, harpoon the beach. It'll keep the ship from wanting to move backward when you drive up the ramp.

3. Make sure any docking is done prior to pulling off the beach. Docking on land causes some crazy physics. Also, make sure that whatever docking method you use, (KAS pipes or docking ports) that you have the docking connector on the center of mass of the vehicle you're transporting. If you dock on the end, the other end will sink through the hull of the boat, if it's heavy enough. If you've been playing a while, you already know that.

Here's some pics of the final test, delivering this ugly, heavy vehicle to the island runway.

Check back tomorrow evening US time for the new release.

RoRoTest4.jpg

RoRoTest5.jpg

RoRoTest6.jpg

You'll note I had on some compressed water. I moved most of it to the rear bitts to balance the 16 ton rover on the nose. Worked like a charm. I didn't get there fast, but that's 32+ tons of boat and top-heavy cargo.

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This mod is amazing I really hope you continue it

9ccb33ee69.jpg

I also created a battleship crusier using the hull parts which are really good looking, once you have wider hull pieces I can make a huge battleship

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The RO-RO bow looks useful. I think I may set up a mobile base in the arctic, and surely the RO-RO will be useful for it if not atleast delivering stuff to the island airfield. I attempted to use KAS harpoons to attach a transport rover to the inside of a transport plane made with the KN-225 parts from SXT but it failed miserably (the vehicle got jostled around upon landing, leading to the destruction of most of the plane although the fuselage and landing gear survived). Boats are probably the best and safest option.

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And the RoRo is ReReased.

Links in the OP updated.

The CVE pack has also been updated and the Clipper Rudder is now included in that pack.

For either pack, simply download, unzip and overwrite any existing files.

Enjoy and moar pics. I love em.

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This mod is amazing I really hope you continue it

I also created a battleship crusier using the hull parts which are really good looking, once you have wider hull pieces I can make a huge battleship

I was waiting to see if someone would slap the LLL surface mount bridge on one. That part is what gave me the mounting ideas for the Cargo and Yacht bridges. Looks nice with the LLL parts.

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The RO-RO bow looks useful. I think I may set up a mobile base in the arctic, and surely the RO-RO will be useful for it if not atleast delivering stuff to the island airfield. I attempted to use KAS harpoons to attach a transport rover to the inside of a transport plane made with the KN-225 parts from SXT but it failed miserably (the vehicle got jostled around upon landing, leading to the destruction of most of the plane although the fuselage and landing gear survived). Boats are probably the best and safest option.

If you're using KAS, here's the trick. Mount a port on the bottom of what you're transporting near the center of mass. Mount another port on the transport vessel directly under it. Then, link the two. The worst part about this is, you'll need an engineer to both mount all the hardware and to un-link them, you can't simply undock. But, if you look closely in the first image of the RoRo in my last post, you'll see the 'pipe' connecting the rover to the RoRo. That was my trick for keeping it from sinking below the deck. And there's a couple KAS struts to keep it balanced on the pipe.

As for safety, I'm trying hard not to make these parts too easy. I still want using them to be a challenge, if nothing else, in the design and flotation balancing side of things. Just like a rocket or aircraft, you'll need to experiment to find out what works best for any situation. But, once you have the design down, it should be pretty smooth sailing.

So whether it's safer or not will be a subject of debate. Whether it's a singularly unique method of transportation... no debate.

Edited by Fengist
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checking now... thanks

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SGT_RIZZO300 said:
Not sure if it is just me but when I download this it gives me a file named "KSP" with no extension. Putting .zip on the end let me open it fine so no real issue but you might want to check that.

I just downloaded from the links and got the .zip extension on both. I suspect, something in your downloading is getting the name wrong. There are spaces in the file name that may be causing issues.

Next patch, I'll be sure to remove all spaces from the .zip downloads. Thanks.

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Now available on [Moderator removed defunct website]

The Maritime pack is now available for download from [Moderator removed defunct website]. If you'd like to get e-mail updates when new versions are available, join Kerbalstuff.com and become a follower. The link in the OP will take you directly to the Maritime Pack page on [Moderator removed defunct website].

Once the CKAN API pull from Kerbalstuff takes place, the Maritime Pack will also be on CKAN.

NOTE: The CVE pack is still only available for direct download from this forum post.

Edited by James Kerman
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Man this is a fantastic little mod and im having a blast with it, but ive just updated for the ramp and I cant see it in the folder.

It's in the same area as all the other hull parts, in structural. Looks grey/blue - ish.

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You mentioned incompatibility with KK. How so?

I had some issues using it. I don't know if it was a bad install but attempting to launch my carrier at the Oceania KSC buoy summoned the kraken. after removing the CVE parts I discovered I Was spawning underwater but not freaking out. After attempting to launch from runway Kerbin's terrain went weird. Either way, I'm not using it again considering it seems AlphaAsh didn't even fully read the posts I put here (Page 160 of the kerbinside thread, he didn't even bother to research how to use the mod it looks like considering his boat is missing some important things, and the fact it contains no CVE parts despite me mentioning in one of my posts it only really happens with the CVE parts). I don't know if my install was bad or not though. That was with an old version of KK. Though the buoy did tend to spawn the ship a little above water, which caused issues with destroying stuff that was supposed to sit below or slightly above the waterline. I recommend using hyperedit for launching ships. It's much more gentle with its teleport then land function (ship lander). Another thing to note here is DON'T SUBMERGE THE CVE PARTS. If anyone wants to check KK and Kerbsinside compatibility nwo go ahead. I'm not sure ymself why KK was intent on spawning my ship underwater during my experiments but maybe someone else will have different results.

Edited by mike9606
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Thanks it was my fault I had to re download it. Now its all working, im off to build a landing craft and maybe a double hulled carrier.

Thanks again for this, its a great addition to KSP.

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I had some issues using it. I don't know if it was a bad install but attempting to launch my carrier at the Oceania KSC buoy summoned the kraken. after removing the CVE parts I discovered I Was spawning underwater but not freaking out. After attempting to launch from runway Kerbin's terrain went weird. Either way, I'm not using it again considering it seems AlphaAsh didn't even fully read the posts I put here (Page 160 of the kerbinside thread, he didn't even bother to research how to use the mod it looks like considering his boat is missing some important things, and the fact it contains no CVE parts despite me mentioning in one of my posts it only really happens with the CVE parts). I don't know if my install was bad or not though. That was with an old version of KK. Though the buoy did tend to spawn the ship a little above water, which caused issues with destroying stuff that was supposed to sit below or slightly above the waterline. I recommend using hyperedit for launching ships. It's much more gentle with its teleport then land function (ship lander). Another thing to note here is DON'T SUBMERGE THE CVE PARTS. If anyone wants to check KK and Kerbsinside compatibility nwo go ahead. I'm not sure ymself why KK was intent on spawning my ship underwater during my experiments but maybe someone else will have different results.

Hi Mike, I decided that since Alpha attempted to test my pack with his mod and found no issues, that perhaps I should do the same since you reported an issue. I can confirm that the results you experienced, I experienced as well. Some ships seem to launch at the buoy without issue. Others are submerged. I can confirm that the CVE parts don't seem to be the cause. I launched one vessel with just 5 parts and it appeared several hundred meters under the surface at launch. Here's my post on his thread to confirm your findings. I did provide him with some craft files of ships that are causing the issue. Perhaps that will help him track down the cause.

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Thanks it was my fault I had to re download it. Now its all working, im off to build a landing craft and maybe a double hulled carrier.

Thanks again for this, its a great addition to KSP.

Glad you're enjoying it.

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I'm just letting you know that your first download link (the one from your own hosting thing) is broken as it gives me a file named 'KSP' instead of the zip. Kerbalstuff download works ok.

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I'm just letting you know that your first download link (the one from your own hosting thing) is broken as it gives me a file named 'KSP' instead of the zip. Kerbalstuff download works ok.

Thanks james, that's the second report of that. Apparently some browsers have issues with the space in the .zip file name. Spaces removed. Should work for everyone now.

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Ladies and gents (mostly gents), I have discovered the secret of... illumination.

If you wanna know how challenging this was, it required manually editing the animation files. Seems I'm using a copy of Unity not designed to work with the current KSP engine... so, I made it work.

Therefore, all bridges get lights next update.

Also, I added some 3D example ships, the same ones I've used in testing, to the OP. They're fairly large images so I put them in a spoiler. Enjoy.

Oh, and you'll note a minor rework to the Yacht Superstructure. The last 'rework' the texture didn't unwrap correctly and I was too tired/lazy to fix it before the release. So, the Yacht gets a minor texture update, which I'm still not overjoyed with, but it works.

lights.jpg

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How do you get the boats into the water though without having to build something to move it to the water? Other than hyperedit anyway.

In Testing

I can now, many days later, answer your question... with a better answer.

Since becoming a modder I've found tools like hyperedit to be indispensable. If I had to drive every test boat to the water, this mod probably wouldn't even be released yet and I may have even given up in frustration before getting started. Before I became a modder, I did a lot of challenges. I participated and I created and almost without fail, hyperedit was considered cheating. When playing the game for fun, I'd have to agree. When using the game to create mods, it's a huge time saver. So I'm guessing, one of the big things that will keep a lot of people from using this mod is getting the boat to water. Now sure, there's been some creative ways of accomplishing this task, all of them unique but a little on the wonky side. So, I decided to learn more about modding and solve the problem.

To be included in the next release: The Clipper Cradle

Painted bright orange so that you know it's not really yours, rent this amazing ship cradle from Fengist's Shipyard and stop trying to drag or fly your boats to water. Just pay the rental fee and we'll slap some glue on it and you adhere it to the bottom of your Clipper. And don't worry about picking them up when you're done. We're sure some tree-hugging Kerbal will complain about all the trash on the beach and when we promptly ignore them, they'll form a community action group and clean them all up. Note: These will get you to the beach and easily detach. Getting them out from under your boat is YOUR problem.

clippercradle.jpg

Edited by Fengist
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