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Project Serenity (WIP)

Devo

By Devo
in KSP1 Mod Development

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Devo

Devo

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image.php?id=DA2D_52160C9E&jpg

I get requests for all sorts of ships, and besides the Halo ships which keep popping up, this one seems to be a pretty popular one. A few months ago, after many many emails, pm's and random requests I decided to go back and actually watch the TV show Serenity, as I sort of watched a few episodes and never ended up finishing it. Seeing it is only 1 season and a movie I figured I would give it another shot, and now admittedly I have to crumble and make this ship for KSP. For me, it fits the game well, while it looks space worthy and futuristic, it also looks like it is held together with tape.

I lost alot of inspiration for mods I was working on, mainly due to them just not being all that great to put in the game, great in theory but when actually used.. some of them just seemed like way too much effort and would also be too resource consuming (You really need some high res textures for the Sulaco or it looks horrible) but the Firefly, this ship should fly fairly well once I am done with it. As I mentioned in my other thread, I am starting this with the pod and IVA and then will work backwards down the ship. I want to put a fair amount of effort into this one so I will do all the small and annoying things first to get them out of the way so I don't get lazy later on - if I do the IVA first I am sort of compelling myself to do the rest of the craft :) I might have made a few mods, but I've also started about 50 projects and canned them, so I would like to see this one through that's for sure.

I know fair well there are plenty of Serenity fans out there, so please if you think my model is not right, or is incorrect please tell me, I want this to be spot on. I am trying to of course do it as low poly as possible,but still keep reasonable detail. I figure if there are 12 parts in total, at 1k per part thats only 12k for the entire ship which should be quite resource friendly. The half cockpit before mirror is 700 poly's, a tad high (it needs to be 500 before mirroring) but I'm still cleaning it up. I am using obviously the TV show as a reference as that's possibly the best. To keep it neat, i'll finally get my butt into gear and use an imgur album, and will post the progress briefly below it.

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Stage 1 Progress

  1. Create base Command pod (100%)
  2. Reduce polycount to < 1k for full pod (80%)
  3. Clean glass mesh (no verts intersecting in line of sight) (100%)
  4. Test smooth, check faces and edge split test (100%)
  5. Interior before props (20%)
  6. Cameras(0%)
  7. Props(0%)
  8. Lights(0%)
  9. External Texture(0%)
  10. Internal Texture(0%)

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Edited by Supernovy
Fixed album embedding
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Devo

Devo

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Great news! I love firefly/serenity, and I've loved your mods too, was sad to see there hadn't been many from you in a while

Sort of got burnt out to be honest, just needed a decent break from big things. The IR stuff, rotatrons, hinges, legs etc don't really take all that long, you know it's one part and you are done and it's easy to update that stuff when updates happen. KSP still has a pretty long way to go as far as development, and while they are working on it there isn't a huge rush for me personally. The magna-tech pack for example, I wanted to finish that but half of it broke with an update and it relied on alot of other mods to get going (at least for testing for me and 0.21.1) sorta broke that one, so at the moment trying to clean some of those parts up and get them released.

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Vrana

Vrana

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Very cool.

Im not a big fan of the premade ship mods which give you the parts to create one specific ship but this one, this ship, this i will definetly download and have floating around some outer planet.

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Frstwlf

Frstwlf

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Interesting. I've always wanted to see this ship in KSP.

If I may though, are you sure it is necessary to make it 12 parts? With the part modules system it is possible to make it one part isn't it?

I find it better for large ships or designs that are very specific such as this to be one part, this eliminates the wobbly syndrome and helps with performance a lot. It's also easier to balance.

Also, with such specialized parts we're unlikely to ever use them with other designs.

Just a suggestion of course, but after trying the Enterprise in one part and seeing just how wonderful it flies and handles, I thought maybe you would consider making this one part.

Whichever you choose, amazing start anyway, can't wait to see this finished, you always make great quality stuff.

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InfiniteDice

InfiniteDice

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Sort of got burnt out to be honest, just needed a decent break from big things.

We all get that way... Some rather simple issues took me forever to hammer out a solution for, seems to get worse as the more content you have the more each update stings. You get stuck putting things on hold then burning out after the update is finished. At some point I'll need to draw the line on making anything new. (is that possible?) :)

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Devo

Devo

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Interesting. I've always wanted to see this ship in KSP.

If I may though, are you sure it is necessary to make it 12 parts? With the part modules system it is possible to make it one part isn't it?

I find it better for large ships or designs that are very specific such as this to be one part, this eliminates the wobbly syndrome and helps with performance a lot. It's also easier to balance.

Also, with such specialized parts we're unlikely to ever use them with other designs.

Just a suggestion of course, but after trying the Enterprise in one part and seeing just how wonderful it flies and handles, I thought maybe you would consider making this one part.

Whichever you choose, amazing start anyway, can't wait to see this finished, you always make great quality stuff.

Do you guys really want an all-in-one firefly? It doesn't bother me, if anything it takes a tonne of work out of the actual time involved in getting all the bits to fit nicely and play well together.

When you guys say all in one part, I think you might also not know about certain limitations KSP has. One of which is you can't use more than 1 hatch on an object. meaning if I make this all one ship

then there can only be one native hatch on it, and any others would need to be an addon like my port-o hatch.

How is this for a compromise...

1x command pod

1x main body

1 x engine set (linked)

1 x rotator set

1 x Rear engine.

So thats only 5 pieces you will need to assemble to create the ship. The landing gear of course is embedded in the main body so that's taken care of, but I just feel the need to make the engine a seperate piece, I like ships to break up a bit if they crash, otherwise it's a bit Meh..

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Devo

Devo

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I'll be so happy if you put plastic dinosaurs and palm trees in the command pod. :D

It is going to be as accurate as I possibly can, I intend on spending at least 2-3 weeks on the command pod, we are only 2 days in so far :)

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Frstwlf

Frstwlf

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Do you guys really want an all-in-one firefly? It doesn't bother me, if anything it takes a tonne of work out of the actual time involved in getting all the bits to fit nicely and play well together.

When you guys say all in one part, I think you might also not know about certain limitations KSP has. One of which is you can't use more than 1 hatch on an object. meaning if I make this all one ship

then there can only be one native hatch on it, and any others would need to be an addon like my port-o hatch.

How is this for a compromise...

1x command pod

1x main body

1 x engine set (linked)

1 x rotator set

1 x Rear engine.

So thats only 5 pieces you will need to assemble to create the ship. The landing gear of course is embedded in the main body so that's taken care of, but I just feel the need to make the engine a seperate piece, I like ships to break up a bit if they crash, otherwise it's a bit Meh..

I did not know about the hatches limitation. It is true that it's more fun to see your ship explode in pieces when it crashes, I admit I did not consider this fully.

Personally I'm happy with your compromise, but your project, your rules. Keep on rockin' anyway. :cool:

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Devo

Devo

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I think we should be fine with the 5 or 6 pieces. Nothing on this ship is going to fit another ship, so I don't need to keep it 'stock' friendly I guess. Im at work at the moment (as per usual) but I am down to starting the main body, will get off my lazy butt and post some pics, interior is pretty much done for the cockpit, gooseneck is done, now its time for the hard part.

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brandotherhymer

brandotherhymer

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After looking at your stuff, I like what you have been doing. The pegasis project as well as the eagle, Both are very nice pieces. Build this how you see fit. You've done a great job so far.

Side note, not sure how you feel about Orbiter but someone built a firefly class for it a couple years ago. Just in case you'd like some ideas.

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bobg

bobg

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Your WT-51 Kerban Transport is spectacular !!! It even has some faint firefly class ship resemblance already (just raise the front and move the bay doors to the front). I'm SOOOO looking forward to this model any way you chose make it! but maybe one more model (x2) might be the shuttles, pretty please?

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  • 1 month later...
Devo

Devo

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Is this still allive? I was very exited about this project.

I was really looking forward to re-create the Serenity Re-Entry Scene...

Of course, I just haven't done the whole "HERE I CHANGED A PART" updates every day. The next lot you will see will be a significant update. I'm doing this from scratch from top to bottom, it takes time but it will be worth the wait. We have a loooong way to go before KSP is actually finished and released, I used to hurry stuff but not this one. Put it this way, it's been 8 weeks almost since I started the thread, and I'd done the cockpit on the first few days, so as you can imagine, it's a fair way through by now - also had been waiting for 0.22 as 0.21 was not working so well.

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EatVacuum

EatVacuum

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Now if only we had an in-game Kerbalizer so we could have a properly dressed crew. It will ruin the effect when a space suited and helmeted Kerbal walks down the ramp. And definitely a strong second on having flyable shuttles.

Oooooh. Universe replacer ... think about KSP how much fun it would be to have five suns, dozens of planets dozens more moons!

(Starts furiously doodling with a pencil drawing out orbits. Starts reworking a sabre engine config file for the nacelle engines. How to simulate pulse drive... maybe look at the orion ol' boom boom) drive thingey?)

Edited by EatVacuum
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Devo

Devo

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Well, yes, but it is good to say "Hey, that's what I've got so far" once around two weeks, no? After Two Months, people start thinking if things are still alive.

You know, the same thing's been said about KSP before :)

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TwiggyShip

TwiggyShip

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You know, the same thing's been said about KSP before :)

Very true. As excited as I am about this project (Serenity is my favourite ship of all time), I trust that when you can spare the time you're working hard to deliver us an awesome reveal, hopefully soon :) I'm an enormous Firefly fan and this mod means an awful lot to me, especially knowing how incredible your previous sci-fi works are.

Slightly off-topic, but I hope everybody had a very "shiny" Hallowe'en!

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