[WIP] Valkerbie

[blackhuey]

First mod, it had to be my favourite 40K ship.

Thanks to anyone who's ever posted a howto or edited the dev wiki or built a mod tool: I've probably read/watched/used it over the past few days.

Next steps: tidy up the mesh a bit, add engines and landing gear, a basic texture and get down and dirty with the .cfg. A bit worried about how to implement VTOL. Cross that when I come to it.

If this goes well I might do some more 40K inspired stuff.

Edited October 19, 2015 by blackhuey
fixed images

[blackhuey]

Many of you I assume were waiting for me to realise that a single-piece ship wasn't really going to work given all the different modules it would need etc. So I've broken it up into:

- Cockpit

- Fuselage

- Wings (left and right as they are asymmetric)

- Main Engine

- VTOL engine

- Main landing gear

- Nose landing gear

early testflight prior to main engine development

She weighs just over 13T wet and hovers on VTOL at just over 50% throttle, which should give her a power margin for hauling cargo. I don't want it to be a super ship that can effortlessly haul stations into orbit, but if it can haul say 10T of smaller parts, I'll be happy. Tuning the engines for that. I just have a UVW grid texture on the parts for now - I am the worst at it and I'm putting it off.

KIS containers

CoG/thrust/lift vector problem

Clearly Games Workshop doesn't have to worry about physics, because the thrust vector is way off where I expect the CoG would be. I tweaked a couple of things including moving a lot of mass into the engines and angling the thrustTransform 10' down to point it through the CoG. It flies much nicer now. I still need to fix the wing CoL and bring it forward. It's centred on the mesh, but the CoL is too far aft.

She doesn't rocket into orbit, but she's orbit-capable. A lot of drag and no control surfaces (yet) on the stock airframe give it a characterful dead-man's curve at somewhere over 30m/s in the lower atmo.

so happy

Really enjoying the process of building this.

[rabidninjawombat]

Looking Really good! good job on unwrapping her too (thats my least favorite part )

Looking foward to seeing the final version!

[blackhuey]

Looking Really good! good job on unwrapping her too (thats my least favorite part )

Thanks, but I can't even claim credit for unwrapping. I just put UVW box maps on each part

[xxhansonmaxx]

Wow, that looks good man!

[RoverDude]

Pretty!

[blackhuey]

So after hours relearning UVW unwrapping and texturing, I've got v1 of the cockpit texture done.

Then it was on to learning ladders and hatches. omg. Got it working though.

Weird bug of the day: There are 2 cockpit seats in the SPH, Jeb and Bob are seated in it. In flight I can access both Jeb's and Bob's inventories, so it's recognising they are in the cockpit. However I only get one portrait! Jeb can EVA and re-board, but I can never EVA/IVA the back seater, as their portrait doesn't show. Any ideas?

[blackhuey]

Temporarily fixed the portrait issue by using an IVA that has 2 seats rather than the Mk1 Cockpit. Obvious in hindsight Working on lights now while I watch RoverDude's stream.

[blackhuey]

Working lights that even turn on and off!

Final texture for now:

Edited October 20, 2015 by blackhuey

[blackhuey]

Bit of work texturing the fuselage...

[blackhuey]

Today's WIPs: Fuselage and engine.

[rabidninjawombat]

Whoa! Nice, absolutely loving the jaws on the cockpit

[blackhuey]

Wings and gear basic textures done.

[bazz]

Nice will there be a rear ramp / cargo bay?

[blackhuey]

I will have a look at implementing a ramp when 1.0.5 hits.

Edited October 25, 2015 by blackhuey

[blackhuey]

So that's 0.1. Testing is going well on my career save, it's very useful for resupply missions (I'm using USI LS) in the Kerbin/Mun/Minmus SOI and having 10x seats in the back is brilliant for tourist contracts.

My current list of improvements is:

0.2:

* Integrated comms and MechJeb in the cockpit, maybe thermometer as well

* Implement hatch on the fuselage

* Standard RCS kit with mountpoints for docking ops

* Separate fuselage tail fins into animated aero kit

* FlagDecals

Roadmap:

* Build alternative fuselage with zero passenger seats but operating ramp for cargo

* 3rd alternative "skycrane" fuselage for bulky cargoes

* Overall texture improvements

* FFAR pods (special request from my son)

* chin mounted flamethrower (my son again, so proud)

[bazz]

Awesome thanks for the reply!

[TrainEngie]

Nice! Very angular...

As you know, most of our battle brothers are stationed in SPESS...

...allowing for multiple simm-utaneous and devastating deep strikes!