[0.21] Hooligan Labs - Airship, Submarines and More

[kodemunkey]

I plan on testing a rocket launched sub on kerbin, for science you know.

[BigFatStupidHead]

So, trying to take my first sub to the water.

Wheels did not work so well. Naturally, what could be better than balloon?

The craft handles surprisingly well as an airship. Better than ones I've deliberately made.

Haven't quite got a handle on this 'ballast' thing yet. Getting there, though!

http://i.imgur.com/v5Bks1B.jpg"]

Like most experiments, this one ended in fire.

[Hooligan Labs]

Test update! Roving into the depths. Lower image quality than usual, this was done on my laptop.

First of all, setting out in a completely full rover.

Bill takes the crow's nest. Jeb is manning the sealed compartment just below.

Stopped before entering the water to save. This rover often lost traction and could not slow, so whenever I could I braked and saved just in case.

Rolling right into that water!

While going down the beach we went so fast we blew a tire. However, driving was actually much easier once underwater! After coming to a stop, one brave kerbonaut goes EVA to replace the tire.

Ladders work underwater!

Soon after this shot, check Jeb's "radar altitude", depth exceeded 700 meters.

Spirits were high among the other passengers!

The episode of Mythbusters ended and so did the journey here.

I was getting out the kerbonauts for a group shot when I went to the tracking station. Upon coming back, the rover exploded. Checking the log, I found that the parts had collided with the ground and each other. Will look into a fix.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Hooligan Labs

[Hooligan Labs]

Quick complete log of issues I found while testing submarines:

- Collides with ground when restarting from tracking station ("lower to surface" issue). May resolve by now allowing landing while underwater, only "splashed".

- Buoyancy control did not start on a rover with no engines whatsoever. Had to add a useless Ant engine to get it to start. May resolve by having ballast tanks with canControl == 1 forceActive() at start.

Here is info for light penetration at depth: http://oceansjsu.com/105d/exped_briny/13.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssal_plain

only 44.5% of the surface light reaches a depth of 1 meter (3.3 feet)

22.2% of the surface light reaches a depth of 10 meters (33 feet)

0.53% of the surface light reaches a depth of 100 meters (330 feet)

0.0062% of the surface light reaches a depth of 200 meters

I'm not finding easy guides to how deep each color goes, but I think blue goes deepest, yellow half as f

Don't want to lose this... found code for making it darker as you go deeper.

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/32007/change-ambient-lighting-over-time.html

Something like this...

LateUpdate () {

// Simple approach
    RenderSettings.ambientLight = Color.Lerp (RenderSettings.ambientLight, Colors.black, depth);

// More complicated (might look wrong as underwater textures are already set to look... underwater?  Also liquids on other planets would have different attenuations)

RenderSettings.ambientLight.b = RenderSettings.ambientLight.b/depth;

RenderSettings.ambientLight.y = RenderSettings.ambientLight.y/(depth * 2);

RenderSettings.ambientLight.r = RenderSettings.ambientLight.r/(depth * 4);
}

Finally, fog. We could implement a linear fog based on the visible range at distance. http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/RenderSettings.html

Unfortunately I'm not finding any data as to how far light travels depending on depth, it seems to be strictly due to sediment. So in theory even in the deepest water you could see far.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Hooligan Labs

[-Velocity-]

Great looking mod, I am planning on installing when I am finally ready to work on an Eve landing and return mission. Yea, I know it's probably possible to do with stock parts, but really, the most sensible (and probably, realistic) way to ascend to orbit from the surface of Eve is a balloon-launched rocket.

The submarines look great too! Has anyone tried a combination of rover, submarine, airship or airplane, and SSTO vehicle? That would be a fun little challenge, and it would be great for exploring Laythe

Two comments:

1) To me, the balloons seem unrealistically small, at least for Duna, Kerbin, and Laythe. Hooligan, has any math been done to ensure that the balloons are a realistic size? By my calculations, on EARTH, you'd need a spherical hydrogen balloon 44 meters in diameter to lift 50 metric tons at sea level. That balloon would have to expand to a diameter of 60 meters to lift 50 metric tons at 10 km, and it would need to expand to nearly 100 meters in diameter to lift 50 metric tons at 30 km. (Using helium, you need a balloon just slightly bigger than those numbers.) That is on Earth. The atmospheric pressure drops off much more quickly on Kerbin.

2) The balloons shouldn't work on Jool, if we're pretending that Jool is actually a gas giant. Gas giants have atmospheres composed mostly of hydrogen, with the remainder made up of mostly helium. So your balloons would sink (not even able to lift the weight of the gas bag) or, at best, be roughly neutrally buoyant on Jool. They shouldn't provide any real lift. That said, a hot air balloon would of course work on Jool, but you then have to actually provide power to keep the air warm.

Umm... that said, is there actually some way to test the air density on Jool and figure out if it is really hydrogen? It's green, so maybe, we should just throw all real world physics out the window in the case of Jool. Lime green gas giants probably do not exist anywhere in our universe, unless there is a gas giant where somehow photosynthetic life has managed to figure out a way to float around and survive.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and install this mod once I am ready to start working on submersibles (for underwater exploration of Laythe) and an Eve mission.

[Hooligan Labs]

Hooligan, has any math been done to ensure that the balloons are a realistic size?

Much, if you read some of the older pages. If you want realistic lift then change the scale volume in the .cfg file to 1 (it is currently 40 except for the "real" Cirrus).

The material is near-future based as well, graphene aerogel. Not many other things could be as stretch, light and heat proof for interplanetary use.

Gas giants have atmospheres composed mostly of hydrogen, with the remainder made up of mostly helium. So your balloons would sink (not even able to lift the weight of the gas bag) or, at best, be roughly neutrally buoyant on Jool.

The lift of the balloons is calculated by the ambient air pressure given by KSP. As you go deeper into an atmosphere it gets denser. Give the size of Jool, its lower atmosphere is positively soupy... Like the metallic liquid hydrogen hypothesized to surround Jupiter's core. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter

More density info and such for all planets is available on the KSP wiki. Of course, you have to make certain accommodations for scale, since most everything is ~1/10th the size of stuff in our universe.

Still working on graphics improvements for underwater. Failing that, I hope to soon upload some mechanics improvements that will make it more reliable.

[-Velocity-]

Much, if you read some of the older pages. If you want realistic lift then change the scale volume in the .cfg file to 1 (it is currently 40 except for the "real" Cirrus).

The material is near-future based as well, graphene aerogel. Not many other things could be as stretch, light and heat proof for interplanetary use.

Excellent!

The lift of the balloons is calculated by the ambient air pressure given by KSP. As you go deeper into an atmosphere it gets denser. Give the size of Jool, its lower atmosphere is positively soupy... Like the metallic liquid hydrogen hypothesized to surround Jupiter's core. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter

Well, the metalic hydrogen layer on Jupiter is very deep and under extreme pressure and temperature. In KSP, any such layer on Jool would be well below the "surface" of Jool. And realistically, any balloon would be destroyed long before it ever even got close to the metallic hydrogen layer.

Pressure is just half the story. You can have two different gases at the exact same pressure that have completely different densities- the helium inside a helium balloon is at almost the exact same pressure (slightly higher, in fact) than the surrounding air, and yet the density is MUCH lower. The amount of lift you get with a balloon is simply the weight of the air displaced minus the weight of the balloon. Internally, a balloon is at a pressure slightly higher than the pressure surrounding it- otherwise, it wouldn't put the gas bag in tension and hold its shape. But as an approximation, you can say that the two pressures are the same. Anyway, pressure and temperature determines the density of a specific gas. So if the external environment was hydrogen, and your balloon was filled with hydrogen, and they are both at the same temperature and pressure, then you get zero lift no matter what layer of the atmosphere you are in.

More density info and such for all planets is available on the KSP wiki. Of course, you have to make certain accommodations for scale, since most everything is ~1/10th the size of stuff in our universe.

Well, the wiki gives the density of the planet itself, not the atmosphere. The densities that are derived for the planets in KSP significantly exceed the densest known substances in real life (at least, at standard temperatures and pressures). However, the rockets we build in KSP are the densities of real-life rockets. So according to the wiki, Kerbals make rockets out of materials that are fundamentally different than those that comprise the physical universe of KSP.

It is important to realize that the wiki only derives the density of the planetary bodies in KSP based off of their gravitational field. It's not possible to break off a piece of the planet, apply a known force, and see how much it accelerates. So the densities of the planets as given in the wiki are determined in a very indirect way that assumes that gravitational constant of the KSP universe is the exact same as our universe, and these densities imply that the Kerbals construct their rockets out of some material that is probably unphysical to their reality.

A far more elegant and realistic explanation is that the gravitational constant simply has a different, larger value in the KSP universe than in our universe. As far as we know, the gravitational constant of our own universe was set somewhat arbitrarily, and it is easy to imagine universes where the gravitational constant has a different value. Anyway, with this explanation, the density of the planets in KSP is unknown, but at least Kerbals now construct rockets out of materials that they could actually exist in their version of reality.

Anyway, I guess my point is that the densities the wiki gives for the planets are probably wrong, as they are using a poor set of assumptions, and are actually simply a measure of gravity and NOT density.

Still working on graphics improvements for underwater. Failing that, I hope to soon upload some mechanics improvements that will make it more reliable.

Excellent. I'll probably be ready to start my Laythe submersible missions in a month or two (I've gotta finish up my initial explorations of all the moons of Jool first).

[-Velocity-]

Hmm.. I guess we could try to measure the drag force of the air on Jool and compare it to the drag force in the atmosphere of Kerbin. We could probably do this with a simple mass suspended by a parachute. Drag force is proportional to the density of the air. Using this information, combined with the temperature and pressure of the air (there IS a temperature sensor in game, right?), we could figure out the rough properties of the atmosphere of Jool. Maybe that would be a fun little science mission

Honestly, in a lack of attention to detail by the part of the game devs, I wouldn't be surprised if the two atmospheres turn out to be the exact same density at the same pressure, which would be highly unrealistic in itself, but would probably mean that, if we take this to be correct, it is not unrealistic to have lighter than air, unheated balloons work on Jool.

(Not trying to criticize the devs or anything, I understand that they are humans who don't have an infinite amount of time to make a perfect game, and that the game isn't even complete yet. I'm just saying that at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't done atmospheric modelling very well yet (especially looking at the example of Duna, whose atmosphere is unrealistically shallow and must be made of some incredibly (and unrealistically) dense gas in order to hug so close to the ground under such a weak gravitational field... but that's a whole different story...))

Edited August 21, 2013 by |Velocity|

[InfiniteDice]

Unfortunately I'm not finding any data as to how far light travels depending on depth, it seems to be strictly due to sediment. So in theory even in the deepest water you could see far.

There is something called the photic layer, I believe this begins around 150m where light from the sun cannot penetrate any further and everything is dark.

I suppose you could assume any man-made light would be useless much before 150m. Except maybe the flash of a nuclear detonation or something similar. lol.

Fun stuff

[Hooligan Labs]

New submarine update! Stable enough to call it "released" by my standards.

Version log:

1.0.0

- Resolved issue with vessels freezing at too much depth by... having them explode!

At 500 meters depth you will receive a warning.

Nothing will survive past 600 meters depth.

- "Control" ballasts (namely the ones included in this pack) will automatically give the vessel proper hydrodynamic qualities without first having to "activate" a stage.

- Parts will now explode when they hit the water at 10x ground impact speed, down from 20.

Let me know if you encounter any bugs!

Well, the metalic hydrogen layer on Jupiter is very deep and under extreme pressure and temperature. In KSP, any such layer on Jool would be well below the "surface" of Jool.

And what you say about temperature and such is true... but it would be all the more awesome to actually have an airship on a gas giant. Especially since KSP does nothing yet to model the 170 m/s thunder storms the size of Earth.

Well, the wiki gives the density of the planet itself, not the atmosphere.

Equations are provided for calculating density.

Anyway, I guess my point is that the densities the wiki gives for the planets are probably wrong, as they are using a poor set of assumptions, and are actually simply a measure of gravity and NOT density.

And yet they are.

Excellent. I'll probably be ready to start my Laythe submersible missions in a month or two (I've gotta finish up my initial explorations of all the moons of Jool first).

Post screenshots!

Honestly, in a lack of attention to detail by the part of the game devs, I wouldn't be surprised if the two atmospheres turn out to be the exact same density at the same pressure, which would be highly unrealistic in itself, but would probably mean that, if we take this to be correct, it is not unrealistic to have lighter than air, unheated balloons work on Jool.

Nope. Check out my videos. Airships can barely float on Duna, but the tiniest envelope can lift a skyscraper on Jool.

There is something called the photic layer, I believe this begins around 150m where light from the sun cannot penetrate any further and everything is dark.

I suppose you could assume any man-made light would be useless much before 150m. Except maybe the flash of a nuclear detonation or something similar. lol.

Fun stuff

Yeah I would love to model that, but I don't think I'm going to have the time.

[Kimberly]

W-w-w-wait. The KSP debug console keeps track of "blast awesomeness"? XD

[JewelShisen]

Well... Looks like I need to get back to updating the wiki with screenshots.

[Hooligan Labs]

W-w-w-wait. The KSP debug console keeps track of "blast awesomeness"? XD

Indeed it does, I think it is a function of the amount of explosive fuel. I once submitted to Challenging Youtubers that they have a challenge to make the largest explosion an EVA kerbal could survive, using "blast awesomeness" as the metric. Probably too complicated, though.

Well... Looks like I need to get back to updating the wiki with screenshots.

Maybe Submarines should have their own wiki? Or it should be changed to to include all Hooligan Labs mods?

Eventually we want to get the link on this: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Addon

[nhnifong]

I think you should just bundle the airships and subs into one mod now that the sub code is kinda stable. They play well together.

Also, consider making some other hollow-looking stock parts have buoyancy. not 'controllable' boyancy, just buoyancy, like the pods. Perhaps empty fuel tanks should become buoyant, because right now, it's still hard to make anything (with a submersible part) float without a ton of controllable submarine parts, which strictly shouldn't be necessary for a floating craft.

Edited August 22, 2013 by nhnifong

[BlazingAngel665]

I vote 1 wiki just because. Also would be possible to add a module bouyency to add floatiness to a part that is un kerbed? That would be very useful. Maybe have it accept negative values as well. The other useful feature I thought of was a center of bouyency for the VAB to help designing non flippy submarines. Excuse the unintelligible post. I hate my phone keyboard.

[Hooligan Labs]

I think you should just bundle the airships and subs into one mod now that the sub code is kinda stable. They play well together.

Thanks, but I don't want to make a giant mod that contains things people might not want. It makes it easier to update too! Trying to manage too many parts means it's more likely to forget something.

Also, consider making some other hollow-looking stock parts have buoyancy. not 'controllable' boyancy, just buoyancy, like the pods.

The only two parts I could see that could be possibly "upgraded" would be the Mk1 Fuselage and Rockomax Adapter?

Perhaps empty fuel tanks should become buoyant, because right now, it's still hard to make anything (with a submersible part) float without a ton of controllable submarine parts, which strictly shouldn't be necessary for a floating craft.

The question is, why would empty fuel tanks become buoyant? Where would the "air" come from that would make them lighter? Tanks that we drop into the ocean now only float because they catch air on the way down.

Also there is the question of knowing how much air to put in. Even electricity is a resource that has density.

But non-controlled parts could work. No control = less weight?

I vote 1 wiki just because. Also would be possible to add a module bouyency to add floatiness to a part that is un kerbed? That would be very useful. Maybe have it accept negative values as well. The other useful feature I thought of was a center of bouyency for the VAB to help designing non flippy submarines. Excuse the unintelligible post. I hate my phone keyboard.

I think I figured out what you were saying.

1 wiki it is.

Crewable modules that aren't crewed, like the Hitchhiker, are buoyant now. You can copy the module to another part to make it float too. By setting canControl = 0 and specificVolumeFractionBallast = 0 you can make a completely buoyant part, or specificVolumeFractionBallast = 1 will make it start full of water.

[Pleborian]

my latest vid showing off this awesome mod

[RoboRay]

I don't want to make a giant mod that contains things people might not want.

I appreciate that, at least. There are really nice mods I avoid because I don't want the effects of all the plug-in code that comes from their other mods that I'm not using.

[Hooligan Labs]

my latest vid showing off this awesome mod

Thanks a lot! I'm glad to know this mod is already worth showing off. I can tell you didn't use the latest "release" version because your ship did not implode at a depth of 600 meters.

I've put the link to this on the front page and added your video to the official wiki! I put in a request to Wikia to change the URL from hlairship.wikia.com to hlmods.wikia.com. Once that is done I will get stuff more organized.

[-Velocity-]

And what you say about temperature and such is true... but it would be all the more awesome to actually have an airship on a gas giant. Especially since KSP does nothing yet to model the 170 m/s thunder storms the size of Earth.

If they ever get proper weather on Jool... it will be really, really awesome having an airship on it, huh? Honestly, I think that weather is the future feature I am looking forward to the most. The most spectacular pictures of Earth taken from space are those of weather systems, IMO.

Equations are provided for calculating density.

Can you provide a link? I only see an equation for pressure.

And yet they are.

Sorry, I'm struggling to understand. What do you mean by "they", and whatever "they" are, what do you mean by "they are"??? "they are--" They are what?

Post screenshots!

Aye aye!

I am actually going to be piggy-backing eight atmospheric probes along on the side of my next big resupply/equipment delivery/crew replacement spaceship I am sending to Jool. The probes will jettison all fuel tanks (in other words, they will drop anything that has variable mass) before they begin their descents. The full list of components on each probe is just the probe core, four parachutes, two RTGs, a gravity sensor, a pressure sensor, a temperature sensor, and an accellerometer.

Anyway, if I remember correctly (I will be checking this shortly), the drag model used in KSP has drag proportional to velocity squared. Once the probes reach terminal velocity, I will measure the descent rate, the atmospheric pressure, the temperature, and the acceleration due to gravity. Combining all this information, and comparing it to information collected from Kerbin's atmosphere, I can apply ideal gas assumptions and determine some of the properties of Jool's atmosphere- such as, the molar mass (relative to the atmosphere of Kerbin, at least). I should be able to tell definitively whether or not a hydrogen or helium balloon should truly float in the atmosphere of Jool.

I will probably also drop a couple of probes in on Laythe, and if I can find a way to use a Duna gravitational assist to get out to Jool, I'll drop a probe or two there too.

Nope. Check out my videos. Airships can barely float on Duna, but the tiniest envelope can lift a skyscraper on Jool.

That would be the correct behavior if the atmosphere of Jool is made out of a gas significantly heavier than hydrogen or helium.

Anyway, let's say that it turns out that Jool's atmosphere REALLY IS made out of light gases, or, in some future patch, they make it so. Obviously, what you do is up to you, but as someone who favors realism over gameplay, I would not want to use a balloon in the atmosphere of Jool unless it was a hot air balloon. I do not believe that it would be a good idea for you to suddenly make it so that your balloons did not work in Jool's atmosphere either. I believe a better route would be to make a hot air balloon model, so that people who are anal about realism, like me, could use balloons on Jool with a clear conscience.

Edited August 23, 2013 by |Velocity|

[Bigred2989]

Anyone else see this at the top of the page when they open this thread?:

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It's only this thread. Sorry if beating a dead horse.

[-Velocity-]

No. Are you using Internet Exploder?

[Bigred2989]

I'm using Firefox.

[joedude69]

Its ok happens from time to time, also with chrome. Would not worry unless a unmarked step van is parked outside your door.

[Mihara]

Its ok happens from time to time, also with chrome. Would not worry unless a unmarked step van is parked outside your door.

It's one of the last echoes of the Great Forum Crash. Something regarding this particular thread is still borked in the database, it takes admin powers to fix.

Since it didn't blow up yet, it's probably harmless. (Which is famous last words, I suppose..)