How do I build boats?

[Tigermisu]

Do I need a mod that adds a boat hangar+buoyancy or can I just haul something to the sea?

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Well, the water is VERY VERY DENSE. So anything will float

[M4ck]

Floating platforms are quite easy, almost anything floats nicely. But boats... That's something different. The water is extremely thick, so they usually fall apart. I've read somewhere that one of the functions of "submarines to other planets"(if I remember correctly) by Hooligan Labs is changing the behavior of the water to let boats move as intended.

By the way, the Firespitter pack has a small part that makes your ship spawn in the water nearby, not on the launch pad.

[Dispatcher]

I've used the SPH for building. You need to either drive or fly it from the runway to the water. Enter the water v e r y slowly. KSP physics will break your boat otherwise.

[elind21]

try using the Carrier parts mod. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/24845-Boat-Parts-Carrier-Parts-R3-UPDATED!

[Giggleplex777]

If you play around with wings panels a bit, you should get something that works.

[Geschosskopf]

If you want to avoid having to make it amphibious, you can get either of 2 mods that have a part that lets the boat spawn in the water just off KSC. One of these is Firespitter, the other is Hooligan's Submarines. Otherwise, you have to make your boat able to drive from the runway or Launchpad into the water.

Apart from this, there are 4 ways I know of to make boats that move much at all.

1. Stock:

You want as little touching the water as possible. The best things to have in the water are structural panels cocked up at an angle at the end of vertical I-beams. Then you have a hydrofoil that can get up to very respectable speeds. It's a VERY good idea to make it 3-legged to prevent it from rolling over. I here there's another option that uses long I-beams for pontoons with the hull above but I've never tried that myself. But either way, you can't turn if you're moving more than about 10m/s no matter how many control surfaces you stick in the air or in the water. In fact, you don't really turn at lower speeds, just rotate so you can go in another direction. All in all, not very satisfactory.

2. Firespitter Mod:

Besides the "spawn in water" part, this also comes with pontoons for seaplanes. But a seaplane without wings is a boat. The pontoons have rudders on them that somehow actually work when moving at speed, and can also be equipped with retractable, steerable, powered wheels to make a fully amphibious vehicle. The pontoons aren't too buoyant so they need to be pretty big to float anything, and they seem to fail at about 125m/s. Here's an example of such a boat powered by 2 jets from B9.

This one crossed the ocean heading 090 from KSC in 54 minutes at an average speed of 107m/s with enough fuel to return.

3. R3 Boat Parts Mod:

This allows you to build ENORMOUS aircraft carriers that move pretty well under their own power, plus are big enough to land airplanes one. And it also has parts to dock the planes, an arrestor system, and working flightdeck elevators. Besides this, it comes with a small motorboat hull but if you get this going too fast, it will shoot up about 3000m into the air so it's a good idea to equip it with a parachute so it doesn't splatter when it comes back down.

4. Hooligan Labs Submarines Mod:

Totally redoes how "water" works, allowing not only boats but submarines. Also allows Kerbals to sink and be able to walk on the bottom, and tweaks the camera so it works underwater, too.

[Skorpychan]

I've used the SPH for building. You need to either drive or fly it from the runway to the water. Enter the water v e r y slowly. KSP physics will break your boat otherwise.

This means spaceplanes landing on the water without using chutes are right out, sadly. I had grand visions of coming screaming down from Eve orbit, and landing a flying boat on the oceans of purple.

[Hooligan Labs]

Good answers! Stock KSP water is very dense and dangerous. It will destroy your parts as if you are hitting it as hard as ground. That is, a part with impact tolerance 30 can survive hitting land or water at speeds up to 30 meters per second.

I think the Firespitter mod lets the pontoons hit the water at speeds up to 125 meters per second. My submarine mod changes the whole vessel. Any part can survive water impact at speeds up to 10 times ground impact tolerance. So the above example can enter the water at up to 300 meters per second. However, it also makes it so water has normal buoyancy and most parts sink.

[Geschosskopf]

This means spaceplanes landing on the water without using chutes are right out, sadly. I had grand visions of coming screaming down from Eve orbit, and landing a flying boat on the oceans of purple.

Eve's oceans are bright metallic silver because they're supposed to be molten lead or something like that . But anyway, if you use the Firespitter pontoons, this might work. I've come down from orbit to safe landings in the oceans of both Kerbin and Laythe so there is hope for your project. Just make sure you can slow down below the horizontal fail speed of the pontoons and your vertical speed is very low so your pontoons stay on the surface--otherwise parts of the main plane will break off. While Eve's dense atmosphere should solve both these speed problems (in fact, you'll probably have to work hard to get any speed at all there), I don't know if that molten metal might lower the fail speed of the pontoons.

I think the Firespitter mod lets the pontoons hit the water at speeds up to 125 meters per second. My submarine mod changes the whole vessel. Any part can survive water impact at speeds up to 10 times ground impact tolerance. So the above example can enter the water at up to 300 meters per second. However, it also makes it so water has normal buoyancy and most parts sink.

Your submarine mod does for liquids what FAR does for air. It's an incredible effort .

[Richmountain112]

On 9/4/2013 at 1:21 PM, Geschosskopf said:

This means spaceplanes landing on the water without using chutes are right out, sadly. I had grand visions of coming screaming down from Eve orbit, and landing a flying boat on the oceans of purple.

Well, I did land a few space shuttles in the ocean because I'm bad at precise landings. Usually the OMS engines (Coswaxin from the MK3 Expansion) can't handle the impact but everything else is fine. Even the landing gear is okay in most cases

Edited December 26, 2022 by Richmountain112
Fixed quote