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Add aircraft carriers/floating pad (in the vicinity of KSC) to sandbox/career mode


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Apollo modules were recovered by aircraft carriers (USS Hornet) so landing close to one could give a recovery bonus (that % thing that gets lower the farther from KSC you land). Besides, having more launch sites is always better and the carrier model could just be copied and pasted in some other places and maybe even used as a movable launch site like Woomerang in the DLC except for planes.

Edited by Wjolcz
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I like the idea for the most part, considering aircraft carriers did play a role in space exploration recovery.

From a game-play stand point it sounds great as well!

However, I'm not sure an actual carrier would be the best fit; maybe it should be a more "search and rescue-plane launching" themed boat? Basically, just git rid of the military look and feel of actual carriers. Given that Kerbals have no military. I guess what I'm saying here is that it'd be weird if said ship had like anti-aircraft guns and such y'know what I mean?

Edited by Rocket In My Pocket
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2 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I like the idea for the most part, considering aircraft carriers did play a role in space exploration recovery.

From a game-play stand point it sounds great as well!

However, I'm not sure an actual carrier would be the best fit; maybe it should be a more "search and rescue-plane launching" themed boat? Basically, just git rid of the military look and feel of actual carriers. Given that Kerbals have no military. I guess what I'm saying here is that it'd be weird if said ship had like anti-aircraft guns and such y'know what I mean?

Maybe they could add boat-related parts (and a boat ramp for the KSC) to better facilitate building our own boat designs rather than some sort of prefab boats, kind of keeping with the creative aspect of the game.

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2 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I like the idea for the most part, considering aircraft carriers did play a role in space exploration recovery.

From a game-play stand point it sounds great as well!

However, I'm not sure an actual carrier would be the best fit; maybe it should be a more "search and rescue-plane launching" themed boat? Basically, just git rid of the military look and feel of actual carriers. Given that Kerbals have no military. I guess what I'm saying here is that it'd be weird if said ship had like anti-aircraft guns and such y'know what I mean?

 

I really don't see why 'an actual carrier' would have a 'military look and feel'. It is in fact just a stretched version of this.

The fact we don't have civilian aircraft carrier in real life[citation needed] have more to do with the lack of civilian uses for such expensive vessel (with all the associated safety problems). But assuming the Kerbals have the Funds and don't need to worry about such trivialities like "Defense" that could be something they consider to expends some hundred millions.

 

The issue I see with the idea is that it being just a static kinda fall short of what I could be. On the other hand it being a fully fledged mobile base (with functionalities like refuel, recovery, construction) would require to deal with a lot of considerations about logistics aspects of the game that are actually abstracted (A.K.A. requires lots of work).

 

Maybe that could be an interesting part of a seafaring mod/expansion.(But I'm not touching it without a boat version of BonVoyage )

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I think the aesthetic of civilian version of aircraft carrier could be just a long runway (for launching plane) with helipad besides it (converted into launch pad) and command bridge strapped on it's side, without any "accessories" that's associated with real life carriers, except maybe just communication towers, radars, etc. that fits civilian usage

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We don't need an aircraft carrier...  we can already build those.

What we need is a nice dock area by the KSC or Island Base where launching and recovering ships would make sense.  People can build whatever aircraft carrier or recovery/research ship they want.  My preference for Kerbals might look something like this:

 

Edited by XLjedi
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From a functional standpoint, I'll bet you could build a carrier already with stock parts. From a gameplay standpoint, I dunno. All the real-life carriers ever recovered was the capsule, and actually driving a boat in-game to some very remote landing site would be awfully tedious. Letting you just put it there OTOH would basically defeat the purpose of giving bonuses for landing close t the KSC.

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6 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I like the idea for the most part, considering aircraft carriers did play a role in space exploration recovery.

From a game-play stand point it sounds great as well!

However, I'm not sure an actual carrier would be the best fit; maybe it should be a more "search and rescue-plane launching" themed boat? Basically, just git rid of the military look and feel of actual carriers. Given that Kerbals have no military. I guess what I'm saying here is that it'd be weird if said ship had like anti-aircraft guns and such y'know what I mean?

Sure. I 100% agree. Demilitarized version of aircraft carrier would be great. There aren't many (actually I'm not sure there are any) things like that IRL. If there were we would be probably calling them military aircraft carriers and civilian aircraft carriers.

22 minutes ago, XLjedi said:

We don't need an aircraft carrier...  we can already build those.

What we need is a nice dock area by the KSC or Island Base where launching and recovering ships would make sense.  People can build whatever aircraft carrier or recovery/research ship they want.  My preference for Kerbals might look something like this:

 

 

7 minutes ago, herbal space program said:

From a functional standpoint, I'll bet you could build a carrier already with stock parts. From a gameplay standpoint, I dunno. All the real-life carriers ever recovered was the capsule, and actually driving a boat in-game to some very remote landing site would be awfully tedious. Letting you just put it there OTOH would basically defeat the purpose of giving bonuses for landing close t the KSC.

I'm not talking about playing with boats and controlling them but having them as launch sites. Simple stationary objects (there are too many problem with moving). They would be nothing more than that. Just like KSC, The Island Runway and Woomerang.

Edited by Wjolcz
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1 minute ago, XLjedi said:

@Wjolcz  If you just want a stationary item...  there's probably a mod to add one already. 

I've added them to other games meself, so putting one in KSP would be no big deal.

cvn_74_2_0RW.jpg

Exactly. Minimal effort is one of the reasons why this would be a good and relatively simple addition.

I remember downloading a mod with carrier in it. The problem was that its textures didn't look good and the game lagged like hell anywhere near it. Might download it again soon (maybe something changed) but wouldn't mind having one in the stock game too.

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@Wjolcz  Well, the Nimitz class model above is 8000 polys (including interior hangar bay) with a 4096x4096 skin, which was fine in RealFlight 8 years ago.  Not sure what it would do to framerate if loaded in KSP though.

I'd still rather have a dock.

 

Edited by XLjedi
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1 hour ago, XLjedi said:

@Wjolcz  If you just want a stationary item...  there's probably a mod to add one already. 

I've added them to other games meself, so putting one in KSP would be no big deal.

cvn_74_2_0RW.jpg

http://www.knifeedge.com/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=14694

sorry for being offtopic
btw is the carrier RC sized or in it's real size?

BonVoyage naval when

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16 hours ago, Wjolcz said:

Apollo modules were recovered by aircraft carriers (USS Hornet) so landing close to one could give a recovery bonus (that % thing that gets lower the farther from KSC you land). Besides, having more launch sites is always better and the carrier model could just be copied and pasted in some other places and maybe even used as a movable launch site like Woomerang in the DLC except for planes.

Hmm... How about this: a carrier-SpaceX barge hybrid?

Appearance wise, it would be the SpaceX barge but with a runway and carrier-style control tower. There would be additional pads for landing vtols/helicopters/rockets etc. with one dedicated for launching rockets. The runway would be slightly longer than a conventional carrier runway would be. Of course, it would be kerbalized.

Gameplay wise, it would function as a runway and launch pad rolled into one. I'd imagine it would also be capable of moving to any position on Kerbin so as long it was a body of water. (Lakes and seas wouldn't count.) The launch pad would be capable of accommodating 3.75m rockets and the runway would be able to squeeze in a Stearwing A300 with a bit of wiggle room to spare. The runway would also have an arrestor wire and catapult to help with the capture and launch of space/aero/airplanes.

This launchsite option I think wouldn't be available in career mode at the start. Once unlocked, it would be upgraded like the other KSC buildings, changing design and increasing in size and capabilities aswell as improving it's speed when moving.

And before you ask, the 3.75m limit is to maintain aesthetics and possibly to prevent clipping issues with larger rockets.

 

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I agree that a full on Carrier would look a little bit out of place in KSP. Maybe you could style it a little bit more civilian. Maybe a mixture out of these vessels:

Liberty-Star.jpeg

By7xEhNCEAI9sIw.jpg

sealaunch-879x485.jpg

 

 

 

Edited by Canopus
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6 hours ago, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

sorry for being offtopic
btw is the carrier RC sized or in it's real size?

BonVoyage naval when

It's a Blender model...  not sure how the Unity engine works, but it was scaled down for RealFlight to be RC size so I could land RC planes on it.  I would imagine it could be scaled to any size.

Edited by XLjedi
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Quoted from the 1.4.3 release announcement:

And that’s not all, we are including a brand new airfield and launchpad, which you’ll be able to use in all game modes as long as you have the expansion installed. And for mission creators, we are also adding the capability to place mobile launchpads on the surface of water bodies. Now you could try out some of those cool SpaceX missions, if  you’re into that kind of thing!

 

Looks like we're getting something of a barge today, maybe you need a VTOL aircraft though :wink: 

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On 17/04/2018 at 1:37 PM, LoSBoL said:

Quoted from the 1.4.3 release announcement:

And that’s not all, we are including a brand new airfield and launchpad, which you’ll be able to use in all game modes as long as you have the expansion installed. And for mission creators, we are also adding the capability to place mobile launchpads on the surface of water bodies. Now you could try out some of those cool SpaceX missions, if  you’re into that kind of thing!

 

Looks like we're getting something of a barge today, maybe you need a VTOL aircraft though :wink: 

Cool. The barge will probably be too short for planes to take off but, as someone once said, "we can make it work".

Edited by Wjolcz
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  • 2 weeks later...

I want to bump this thread because I thought the water pad was going to be added to sandbox/career mode. Instead the only way to have it is to spawn it in the Mission Builder. It would be nice to have one sitting somewhere near KSC (maybe along the equator) so when it comes to SpaceX-like recoveries we're not limited to the Mission Builder.

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On ‎4‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 11:29 AM, XLjedi said:

...only for the Mission Editor, but it's a start.

@Wjolcz  Um...  yeah...  I kinda forewarned about that.

In the meantime however, I have retrofitted the marine turbines on my stock Hurricane Hydrofoil (My Designs in sig below) to now work wonderfully in 1.4.3!

May not be a static landing pad, but it can scoot around at 200+ knots.  I'm maybe gonna do a recovery mission or two with it over the weekend.

 

 

Edited by XLjedi
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