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How To Have Submarines Work Correctly On KSP.


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3 minutes ago, Julian. said:

If Only I Could Rate 0 Stars. Or I Could Hack. Then I Would Just... You Know...  Give Myself A Negative Reputation.

You just need to explain your idea a little clearer.  How about this, what exactly about the physics does not allow you to do submarines?

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I believe there are a number of recent underwater-themed games.  A few that spring to mind are SubNautica, Far Sky, and Depth.  Perhaps the OP could point to parts or features of those games that they would like KSP to emulate as far as the water physics goes?

I have not played any of them, so I can't really offer much of an opinion myself.

Edited by Slam_Jones
Added links to referenced games on Steam
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3 hours ago, Julian. said:

I Want My Reputation To Be So Low That I Get Banned From Society...

2 minutes ago, Julian. said:

If Only I Could Rate 0 Stars. Or I Could Hack. Then I Would Just... You Know...  Give Myself A Negative Reputation.

Dude, if what you really want is to get banned, there are plenty of ways.

On the other hand, if you have a more reasonable request, perhaps you could explain exactly what you would like to see?

Is it just me, or is there a lot of crazy in here right now...

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NASA Funds Titan Submarine, Other Far-Out Space Exploration Ideas by Space.com

To those who will say it's Kerbal "SPACE" Program, not Kerbal Marine Program.

I'd be all for submersibles and engines designed for such.  My limited knowledge tells me other engines should not work under such watery conditions.

Edited by klgraham1013
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15 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

Speaking with 4 years of forum experience, I'm aware of no such consensus. If anything I would say consensus is that KSP is correctly played in whatever way you decide to play it. If someone wants to build landtrains, rail locomotives, walking robots, paddleboats or submarines, they can. All those things fit in KSP just fine. Am I right @Overland?

Also, consensus being based on collective opinion, I would say that making convincing arguments in favour of something is exactly the right way to go about changing consensus. More of a problem is changing the direction of development - some absolutely consensual ideas for improvement have been around longer than I have (stock dV readout) and have yet to make an appearance in the stock game.

Make your case @Julian., but don't expect anything to happen even if everyone does agree.

Indeed @The_Rocketeer 

Trains are fun :)

But a good point to be made is, if someone wants something to do something thats not on the tin..mod it yourself until it does :)

Using this new class of lynx feline rover turned land train for example..

Its not close to stock, the rover does come with joints and couplings but, under KSP physics adding more than one wagon tracks badly.. Wheels also arnt train friendly.. Again down to ksp physics and not the creators skill

So..i modded it..i used infernal robotics free turning docking washer to make steering drawbar couplings that turn the front wheels of the trailing car.. It tracks nicely

But i also modded and re modded the wheels.. The configuration file for the passenger cars are vastly different from the locomotive

The auxillery generator it uses is from my earlier land trains that powered the 44 and 40 class diesel electric locos..itself originally a jet engine turned detriot diesel alternator engine

Eg

 

The reason why im detailing this..is...if you want KSP to do what you want..then its a hard road to success..one thats worth it in the end.. It took me 2 years and thousands of km driven to perfect the 44 class locomotive..then updates killed it...but KSP trains are my thing ive enjoyed all of it..

 

So say the OP wants submarines.. The easiest way i can see is to do what i did with trains

Mod the engine of your choice 

Make the alternator line into Ore

And put a massive ore tank on your submarine.. When you run the engine itll slowly fill the ore tank as its generating ore from fuel (change that to air if you want)

The sub will sink

Mod another engine to burn ore as a fuel and thats the basics of your submarine system crudely

 

Yes submarines dont run on ore

But trains also dont run on monopropellant as mine did turning the wheels like electricity from a diesel generator.. Side effect was they had.nose mounted RCS to keep on course and wheelset mounted to increase traction on hills.. But they were my trains..a very kerbal train

 

Embrace the kerbal..go with what works..youll find happyness :)

 

Edited by Overland
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4 hours ago, Slam_Jones said:

I believe there are a number of recent underwater-themed games.  A few that spring to mind are SubNautica, Far Sky, and Depth.  Perhaps the OP could point to parts or features of those games that they would like KSP to emulate as far as the water physics goes?

I have not played any of them, so I can't really offer much of an opinion myself.

FarSky somewhat got pushed to released and abandoned by the developer.  Subnautica is an amazing game, but buggy and unoptimized (it's early access).  Never played depth.

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Subs are a thing , you just have to know where to look

Spoiler

LBP

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or here

Spoiler

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and here

Spoiler

KN5T77R.png

Thing is, they aren't easy mode, ie require some intelligence to operate, but in the half dozen mods that have subs or parts for subs they seem to work in a usable manner, for most users. SO yeah you can do the sub thing if you want, without too much difficulty

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I've read some funny things, but for some reason, this was great! :D

Spoiler
8 hours ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Subs are a thing , you just have to know where to look

  Reveal hidden contents

LBP

pUV1AYg.png

or here

  Reveal hidden contents

mNul7Td.png?1

and here

  Reveal hidden contents

KN5T77R.png

Thing is, they aren't easy mode, ie require some intelligence to operate, but in the half dozen mods that have subs or parts for subs they seem to work in a usable manner, for most users. SO yeah you can do the sub thing if you want, without too much difficulty

Then to be followed up by:

8 hours ago, Alshain said:

Underwater, duh!  :sticktongue:

I wish we had the old rep system back. I'd give you both 5 points!

But seriously, i played with submarines for over two years and still do - some. I've kinda held back because each update to KSP causes so much turmoil. For a while, I was using stock parts with a small mod patch that added a second stock part back to use as ballast. It was a start. But there are two mods I would like to recommend that not only provide neat parts ( @Fengist's mod has engines, hull parts, and he wrote a system that uses "compressed water" to change the buoyancy of the models.

This mod doesn't have engines, but has ballast tanks that can be used to fine-tune the trim of your submarine. It also has small nuclear reactors that do not generate as much heat as some of the ones other mods privide. It's by @Redshift OTF. For the most part, it also uses stock parts as a means to reduce memory usage.

But me being me, I have to make my craft look like, well, my craft!

Spoiler

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Squad has improved the buoyancy settings for a lot of parts with the recent updates. Some parts will sink like metal plates, beams, girders, engines.

However there's a big list of parts that are still too buoyant. All wing parts are excessively buoyant, even if they don't have fuel tanks. Batteries float which also seems very unrealistic to me.

The buoyancy of fuel tanks is something different, while I agree they're excessively buoyant, new values should be calculated instead of guesswork.

We could help Squad with adjusting the settings and test the parts, then send a proposal to have them modified with a new update.

How this works:

Check a part config and see if the line buoyancy = x.x exists. If it doesn't the game will automatically give it a value based on volume, mass and density and it will usually float. Batteries for example don't have it. You can give it a negative value and it will always sink.

A very few parts have additional parameters, for example some command pods:

CenterOfBuoyancy = 0.0, 0.8, 0.0
CenterOfDisplacement = 0.0, -0.3, 0.0
buoyancyUseSine = False

I have not experimented with these values, might provide interesting results.
    

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13 minutes ago, qzgy said:

 

 

Now I am interested in that. I guess it wont be choo choo, but blub blub.

Electric :) and since its surrounded by water, we shall make the generator run off "air" which is infact water.. which.. is hydrogen/oxygen ala hydrogen fuel cell

or basicly.. yeah. electric :D 

now to.. find a way how to make the configuration file know its not in water.. I'm sure its possible as some of the boat mods propellers only work in water and do nothing on land or in space

 

Interesting times ahead - fuel cell submarine train. could be very useful for others not obsessed with all things train

 

btw, unrelated, I built a sub.. its only got 1 car.. I don't like it.. its .. singular.. yes we need to fix this promptly

UwpAPPq.png

Edited by Overland
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Suggestion for making the engines work underwater - Make the altitude cutoff at sea level? IDK if this would work, but it imposes a form of an altitude limit as "everything below sea level"

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This really seems like the OP wanted to get banned or at least a warning, looking at the almost intentionally vague answers to simple questions make it seem like there wasnt much thought dedicated to this topic and the insistence of using what some called "annoying" spelling and accusing people of trying to "change their personality" make me think this wasnt a real concern of the OP.

Now, on to the topic at hand, I do agree that some parts are just absurdly buoyant and that this needs to be changed. 

Fuel tanks can stay buoyant to fit their characteristics as LOX and RP-1/liquid methane are both less dense than water, but most parts should sink or at least be neutrally or at the absolute max slightly buoyant - wings, cockpits, legs, wheels, engines, decouplers, structural parts etc.  

While submarines have been around for a while (ever since 0.90? maybe? I cant remember) it's never been easy to do so - especially with big and high part count crafts

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@EladDv Purely speculative here but I think Squad once thought by themselves... meaning many, lets say 4+ years ago

"we can't have it that parts ever sink below the ocean otherwise people will complain about recovery issues"

SQUAD STAFF: Let's just make the water very dense so nearly nothing will sink below it.

Present day: And now we are debating to get it more realistic :)

Critically speaking I think "realistic" is never going to work. Only if a specialized hydrophysics team is going to join the table at the Squad headquarters is it ever going to be as such. Or close to it.
But obviously I like more then a few parts to float for shipbuilding purposes so it could use some tweaks, theres no doubt about that.

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6 minutes ago, Razorforce7 said:

@EladDv Purely speculative here but I think Squad once thought by themselves... meaning many, lets say 4+ years ago

"we can't have it that parts ever sink below the ocean otherwise people will complain about recovery issues"

SQUAD STAFF: Let's just make the water very dense so nearly nothing will sink below it.

Present day: And now we are debating to get it more realistic :)

Critically speaking I think "realistic" is never going to work. Only if a specialized hydrophysics team is going to join the table at the Squad headquarters is it ever going to be as such. Or close to it.
But obviously I like more then a few parts to float for shipbuilding purposes so it could use some tweaks, theres no doubt about that.

IIRC from talks with NathanKell I've had about this water are actually around 1g/ml so normal density of distilled water (though it might be 1.5g/ml) it's just that some parts are very buoyant, I wasnt thinking about realism just about a general way to make it more viable and easy. I know how hard fluid dynamics can be (I've dealt with it...what a nightmare) just tweak the density of parts

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Parts float mainly because we havent got stock inflatable float rings like on realworld capsules im sure :) once we have we might get a rework

Although..

As a train driver since 0.25 terrain has got more lumpy and reminds me of a green ocean

How about waves on the ocean? Id be into paddlewheelers if it were possible :)

Thats a bit above the topic though

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7 hours ago, Azimech said:

That's new to me. Did you code something, @SpannerMonkey(smce)?

Nope, not from me, I'm still happily using your adapted velocity curves.  They alone prevent the props being used for anything else so effectively  ( massive amounts of power confined to a tiny speed range plus large part mass) it makes writing a bit of code superfluous really (not that I'm anywhere close to being able to do that anyway :) )

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3 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

Nope, not from me, I'm still happily using your adapted velocity curves.  They alone prevent the props being used for anything else so effectively  ( massive amounts of power confined to a tiny speed range plus large part mass) it makes writing a bit of code superfluous really (not that I'm anywhere close to being able to do that anyway :) )

Not sure whos parts they were but they were radial mount propshafts I put on a booster car behind the locomotive, your description seems right though... They did nothing on the runway but happily gave the train a decent 6-12ms speed in water :) not that a train belongs there...but..this one did :)

 

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 @Julian.

As has been mentioned before, Subs DO work with the current physics.  I've had probes down to the deepest point on Kerbin, and I know I'm not the only one.

I do agree that a few 'specialised' parts - Ballast tanks and electric propellers for example - would make sense for subs, and wouldn't be out of scope from an exploration point of view.  Using a Jet engine underwater does seem 'wrong', but it does work.

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