Jump to content

[0.21] Hooligan Labs - Airship, Submarines and More

Hooligan Labs

By Hooligan Labs
in KSP1 Mod Releases

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mihara

Mihara

Posted
Posted
It might seem strange to call the parts "ballast tanks" when they can also help a vessel to float, but that seems to be the appropriate nomenclature based on what I have read about submarines. Any suggestions from self-taught submarine captains are welcome. :)

As far as I know the English terms are correct. An Earth submarine naturally floats, though, it doesn't sink when the ballast tanks are empty -- it typically has at least three different ballast tanks. The main ballast tanks are typically designed to get the submarine down far enough so that only the sail is showing. (Yeah, I was also amused when I found out that in English that part's called a 'sail'.) At that point the boat isn't neutrally buoyant yet, but almost, and one more tank is used for fine adjustment, with typically two extra tanks for pitch control.

And then there's a special extra tank for emergency dive that is kept empty throughout all that, and special tanks to handle what happens when you open torpedo and missile tubes.

Hearing that only crew quarters provide buoyancy gives me an important idea, though, that shouldn't be too hard to code and should make it work both more realistically and more interesting: Gasoline has been used as a flotation device, notably in batyscaphe Trieste. This works because it's lighter than water, but is nowhere as compressible as air, which eliminates lots of engineering problems.

I'm not sure about oxidizer or monopropellant, but LiquidFuel should definitely float, and determining it's displacement is trivial because you know exactly how much volume units the ship has and where.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JewelShisen

JewelShisen

Posted
Posted
As far as I know the English terms are correct. An Earth submarine naturally floats, though, it doesn't sink when the ballast tanks are empty -- it typically has at least three different ballast tanks. The main ballast tanks are typically designed to get the submarine down far enough so that only the sail is showing. (Yeah, I was also amused when I found out that in English that part's called a 'sail'.) At that point the boat isn't neutrally buoyant yet, but almost, and one more tank is used for fine adjustment, with typically two extra tanks for pitch control.

And then there's a special extra tank for emergency dive that is kept empty throughout all that, and special tanks to handle what happens when you open torpedo and missile tubes.

Hearing that only crew quarters provide buoyancy gives me an important idea, though, that shouldn't be too hard to code and should make it work both more realistically and more interesting: Gasoline has been used as a flotation device, notably in batyscaphe Trieste. This works because it's lighter than water, but is nowhere as compressible as air, which eliminates lots of engineering problems.

I'm not sure about oxidizer or monopropellant, but LiquidFuel should definitely float, and determining it's displacement is trivial because you know exactly how much volume units the ship has and where.

Normal water has a density of 1000kg/m^3 and JP-5 (Military Jet Fuel) has a density of just 810Kg/m^3. Oxidizer however, assuming it is LOX, is a SUPER light 1.141g/cm^-3 !! Also monoprop, again assuming the most common one which is Hydrazine, would also float at just 1.021g/cm^-3 . Xenon gas is an obvious one though. So it would appear that, using realistic float math, it would take a LOT of force to pull anything underwater.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hooligan Labs

Hooligan Labs

Posted
  • Author
Posted
Did you guys by chance ever entertain the idea of implementing this fix for walking on airships with Kerbals?

I actually was in a private message conversation with the guy while we was making it! It went something like this.

Him: I am walking my kerbals on your airships! This is awesome! Why aren't you doing this?

Me: I tried but something strange happens when you try to tell a ship that it is "landed" at a high altitude, not exactly sure how high.

Him: Uh oh, my ship is stuck now. I can't get it to move. And it's lagging like crazy.

Me: Yeah, that will happen.

Sorry, but I really recommend that you land your ship first, using an anchor, and then click Make Stationary. Then you can walk your kerbals as much as you like without fear of breaking the game! That is how I did Bungee Jumping on Jool, etc.

I have talked to Mu about this and it sounds like it may be possible in the future when they change how things are saved. No ETA.

As far as I know the English terms are correct. An Earth submarine naturally floats

An Earth submarine is a huge, sealed volume that is mostly filled with air... Unlike a KSP space ship.

Hearing that only crew quarters provide buoyancy gives me an important idea, though, that shouldn't be too hard to code and should make it work both more realistically and more interesting: Gasoline has been used as a flotation device, notably in batyscaphe Trieste. This works because it's lighter than water, but is nowhere as compressible as air, which eliminates lots of engineering problems.
Normal water has a density of 1000kg/m^3 and JP-5 (Military Jet Fuel) has a density of just 810Kg/m^3. Oxidizer however, assuming it is LOX, is a SUPER light 1.141g/cm^-3 !! Also monoprop, again assuming the most common one which is Hydrazine, would also float at just 1.021g/cm^-3 . Xenon gas is an obvious one though. So it would appear that, using realistic float math, it would take a LOT of force to pull anything underwater.

I put the buoyancy of resources out of the question because of how they are handled in KSP. Consider this: In KSP, electricity has a density. It's very low, but if you attempted to use the density and amount of all resources in a part to determine if it would sink then batteries would float like crazy.

It gets even harder when you think about what happens when a resource is depleted. Is it being replaced with air? Water? Nothing really, in the case of electricity?

And what are the density units meaning anyway? And what if some mod brings in some new resource with an even stranger property?

The challenge seemed outside of the scope of this mod. If anyone want to take a shot at coding it, go ahead!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mihara

Mihara

Posted
Posted

Actually, you don't have to get so complicated about this.

The amount of resources is known in abstract units, and so is the mass per unit and the volume of an empty tank in the same units -- you just need to know the volume of an actual unit per resource (because it is different per resource) to get a reasonable ballpark estimate. Whether used up resources are replaced with air or vacuum will make relatively little difference, if they are replaced with water the difference will be significant, but in KSP situation this won't normally happen, because none of these parts are intended for use as ballast tanks.

So you make a user changeable config file which assigns a volume for a unit of every known resource, read it at vessel unpack, start it off with good guesses, assume unlisted resources have some reasonable volume unit, and add corrections over time. Electricity might have a density, but it's volume unit would be zero, or very close.

I'd code that myself, but both C# and KSP API are outside my normal expertise, my specialty is obscure dead programming languages like the kind where you say 

[if(setr(4,match(%0,[setr(2,ucstr(%1))]:*)),replace(%0,%q4,%q2:%2),setunion(%0,%q2:%2))]

to even get at the concept of a hash table. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
wakairyu

wakairyu

Posted
Posted
Simple. They either used an old version or they modified to base code for the mod.

do you know how to change the base code? or could you tell me where to go and what to change? or something?

because i am really interested to make a base at the bottom of the ocean, with ICBM's & vessels ready to launch from an under water kerb city!

Cheers, Ryan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JewelShisen

JewelShisen

Posted
Posted
do you know how to change the base code? or could you tell me where to go and what to change? or something?

because i am really interested to make a base at the bottom of the ocean, with ICBM's & vessels ready to launch from an under water kerb city!

Cheers, Ryan.

No clue. I'm not a programmer. I just know that hooligan put the limit into the core of the plugin to deal with KSP having really bad physics issues if you go more than 600m underwater.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hooligan Labs

Hooligan Labs

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Great airship, SA!

Wakariyu has been messaging me about the submarine depth limit. The biggest issue is landing under 600m. When you reload the vessel, like after a save, it will not be able to judge the distance above the ground right and will stick your vessel halfway in the ground. A tremendous explosion results.

I also know that KSP throws a constant stream of render errors under 600m, so who knows what else might go wrong with the code.

It's amazing that KSP works as well as it does while underwater. I coded in the depth limit to give one distinct reason to not go that far down. Otherwise we have to deal with every other problem that KSP might have separately. Truly uncharted waters.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
synik4l

synik4l

Posted
Posted
I actually was in a private message conversation with the guy while we was making it! It went something like this.

Him: I am walking my kerbals on your airships! This is awesome! Why aren't you doing this?

Me: I tried but something strange happens when you try to tell a ship that it is "landed" at a high altitude, not exactly sure how high.

Him: Uh oh, my ship is stuck now. I can't get it to move. And it's lagging like crazy.

Me: Yeah, that will happen.

Sorry, but I really recommend that you land your ship first, using an anchor, and then click Make Stationary. Then you can walk your kerbals as much as you like without fear of breaking the game! That is how I did Bungee Jumping on Jool, etc.

I have talked to Mu about this and it sounds like it may be possible in the future when they change how things are saved. No ETA.

Gotcha...Well thanks for the response. I figured there was a reason that wasnt done. One more question though. How does the anchor actually work on Jool? Doesn't the anchor have to be dug into something to work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Hooligan Labs

Hooligan Labs

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

See my Bungee Jumping on Jool video...

... and my Colonizing Jool album.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Be warned, Jool's surface is very finicky. This colonization effort did eventually lose an airship to the Kraken, but a single vessel at a time should be safe.

Edited by Hooligan Labs
Link to comment
Share on other sites
synik4l

synik4l

Posted
Posted
See my Bungee Jumping on Jool video...

... and my Colonizing Jool album.

Be warned, Jool's surface is very finicky. This colonization effort did eventually lose an airship to the Kraken, but a single vessel at a time should be safe.

hahah thats awesome. Super sketchy entry. lol. I actually saw your picture of that Jool craft, and modeled one after it. To do some bungie jumping on kerbal, because it looked so fun. I'm going to have to try that with jool as well. Thanks for the info

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RuBisCO

RuBisCO

Posted
Posted

Ok so I made hyper long KAS winch set and went down to 2 km of Jool surface with deadly reentry off. I then dropped the "anchor" (which was a pod all its own, UNDOCKED) with parachutes and when it reached 0 altitude I began raising my Jool station via balloon from 2 km up to 50 km (this was a slow process) locked position and saved, then I dropped the hyper long cables and the game still thought I was attached to the surface so it let me save with the station actually floating 50 km above thee surface! I can return to the station but sometimes the game relies it is afloat and won't let me save again, the kraken is clearly circling but it does not try to go in for the kill. I've done this on Kerbin and EVE and been able to even dock other aeroships with it and get them to think they are docking with something attached to the ground (thus can save).

The anchors though have to be disconnect from the anchor pod, they seem to automatically disconnect passed ~2.6 km, best not to have them docked and it best to either retract the cables once reaching the desired altitude or just drop the hyper long KAS winch altogether

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jivaii

Jivaii

Posted
Posted
Introducing my newest Heavy Air Lift Designs!

Heavy Lift Airship with 24m long S2 Cargo Bay

350szds.jpg

Heavy Lift Airship with 6x Half Sphere RocketPart containers

33pbo7o.jpg

Oh wow....Afraid to ask, but any chance of a .craft file?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
mrluckypants96

mrluckypants96

Posted
Posted

I'm having a bit of an issue with the submarine mod: anytime I create a craft with the sub ballast tanks and drive (or fly with the airships mod) it over to the sea, it just sinks immediately at 0% ballast. if using the airship balloons i can get it to float, but the lift is from the balloon and not from the ballast tanks or the craft itself. It is quite hilarious, though, to see my carefully built submarine airship combo fall under the sea as if it isn't there (and subsequently smash into the sea floor at over 100m/s)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
JewelShisen

JewelShisen

Posted
Posted (edited)
Oh wow....Afraid to ask, but any chance of a .craft file?

Sure! You'll need B9, HL (Obviously~),Firespitter, and the Spherical Tanks mods.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ij3vjn7cav1723/Heavy%20Lift%20Airship%20Rocket%20Parts.craft <--- RocketParts (Will need either EL or OC)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0uax1n87o9qybxd/Heavy%20Lift%20Airship%20S2%20Cargo.craft <--- Basic Core

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ddv63ieaawsscxy/JewelShisen.zip <--- The main beams that are on each side of the body, place into a folder of your own in GameData

Edited by JewelShisen
Link to comment
Share on other sites
JewelShisen

JewelShisen

Posted
Posted
I'm having a bit of an issue with the submarine mod: anytime I create a craft with the sub ballast tanks and drive (or fly with the airships mod) it over to the sea, it just sinks immediately at 0% ballast. if using the airship balloons i can get it to float, but the lift is from the balloon and not from the ballast tanks or the craft itself. It is quite hilarious, though, to see my carefully built submarine airship combo fall under the sea as if it isn't there (and subsequently smash into the sea floor at over 100m/s)

You'll need more of the ballast tanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...