Deathsoul097

That's not a bad idea, collaborating with GSI could produce some pretty cool designs, especially for things like specific "armour" sets for pilots, commanders, engineers, troops, spec-ops, etc. As for variations, that was before I came to a solid idea for the Dropship and it's more to avoid unnecessary part bloat, and increasing part count, and just generally to keep RAM usage down. (More parts, more ships, and more textures can exponentially increase RAM usage, and using a large texture sheet for multiple different parts can be problematic, and lowers the amount of detail possible.) As I said before, I want this Dropship to be a jack-of-all-trades, but as I have also said, there will also be a larger, more customizeable variant, which I plan to allow for pretty much anything up to using it to deploy entire artillery units, tanks and troop regiments from an orbiting carrier or supercarrier.

Hmm, possibly, but it's not meant for atmo only use, it's more of a jack-of-all-trades dropship, for use everywhere. Basically, a Kerbal equivalent of the Pelican in Halo. (Though, the dropship does have some relatively teeny stabilizer wings mounted on the sides of the engines, but they arent incredibly obvious.) Also, without (proper) wings the dropship can be justified to have less mass, which makes it more efficient, along with engines that will Rival those from KSPI in efficiency. This is more of a militarised, KSPI endgame tech level i'm going for, so everything will be relatively OP, and possibly even use the Interstellar engine modules. Plus, it's no fun to have to worry about your dropship just dropping out of the sky because of a lack of fuel, at least, not have to worry too much. Foldaway wings arent a bad idea, but they would be pretty limited in size, and mass, because you can only make things so strong. Thanks for the ideas though. I have done a bit more work seperating things off, and UV mapping the Nacelle, etc, but progress is slower due to school coming back. I have been drawing a bit more for plans on the fighter, but any major developments probably arent going to happen until the weekend, when I have some free time.

I think he is referring to kosmos. It also goes by SSPP (Space Station Parts Pack), and he probably just shortened it even further to KSSPP, or Kosmos Space Station Parts Pack.

OOOOOOOO! Could this be made a WetWorkshop!? It would be PERFECT for a kerbalized Skylab!

Yeah, the BlackKnights logo doesnt fit too well on there. It was just a test really. I wasnt thinking of wings, at the most the fighter and dropship would have small strakes that would "double" as radiators and weapon mounts. The only reason I am saying things aregoing to be more blocky is because with more detail comes an exponentialy higher poly count, and I'll have to be very careful about managing things like that if I want to make this playable to any extent. (For me at least. I dont have the best rig. The best thing about my setup is probably the 42" TV I got seperately,and it was half the price of the laptop I have hooked up to it.)

Actually, I've noticed some wierd stuff about the Stage 2 engine cluster for the JV. Turns out it's slightly stretched along one axis. This is pretty evident when a decoupler is attached.

Movie handwavy nonsense to make the average person understand it easier. I for one am looking forward to watching enders game. It seems like a much more realistic depiction of space combat and strategy that the ususal dribble.

Interesting concept. I was talking about haing the engines integrated into the fighter body anyway, so no need for another part there, and the weapons would probably just be syymetrically placed on either side of the cockpit. As for actual ideas around the design, I've been doing some sketching,and I think I'm getting nearer to something I would like to make as a fighter ship thing. I'll take some of the structural layout and design for my own use, but I feel that the Viper as you've shown me it has a few too many curves for my much more blocky style. I wont make a replica, but probably something more along the lines of half viper(Structural layout), half xwing(Blockiness). EDIT: I have separated off the nacelles and mounts, and I am going to pull some trickery to half my workload on that. As for the dropship, what is the general consensus on that? Do people like the overall colour scheme, and texturing? If you don't I would be pretty happy to see what you would be able to come up with. Texturing isn't my strong point, to say the least.

The Dropship is VTOLSSTO, yeah. The DropPod may not even have the TWR to take off again after it hits, and I'm going to shape the collider on the X2 to be more of a wedge on the bottom, so it lands mre like the ODST pod from Halo. As or fighter craft, I think I should make those less modular, and maybe only a couple of parts too, considering the fact that carriers usually have a LOT of fighters with them. I would think maybe 1 for the body, 2 for weapons (Either missile pods or cannons), and another 1 for the docking/klaw unit. Viper MK. VII? I'll have to look into that. I'll probably at least draw some inspiration from it, depending on it's design. (I don't want to make exact replicas of things, I want this to just be at most heavily based on them.)

Yeah, it's not too noticeable, but a kerbal's left eye is slightly larger. (Technically, it would be the right eye to the kerbal, but to us looking at hem it's left.)

Oh, yeah, the tubes will by default be oriented down, and the idea is that the pod will basically drop out, and fire its engines during reorientation, and then use the engines to brake to ~40ms when close to the ground after the deorbit which would occur at the same time as reorientation. The BurnTogether plugin would be useful for this. Overall, firing out of the bottom would work best IMO, because your ship may not always be facing prograde, you may have oriented it in many different ways depending on the situation, and in combat, things would be even more hectic. EDIT: How's this for texturing o the Dropship: Added some greebling here and there, and generally dark texturing (You know, space camo). I don't think it even needs mentioning, but the legs and ramp haven't been textured yet. I think I should darken the windows a bit more, and make them a deeper hue of blue.

Oh, he means that the kerbal has the right eye slightly larger than the left, when it should be the other way around.

Not a bad idea that, though the animated legs and drop ramp are a part of the dropship itself, so i'll have to be careful how I build it out. You know, I've never seen Homeworld, or Battlestar Galactica, maybe I should get around to watching those. Wait, did I forget to mention that? Lol. It will have RCS too for a lower Part count, but the docking unit will have to be separate to allow more conventional use and placement. I do like the idea of using the claw module for that, as that would halve the amount docking port type parts needed, and allow for way more customization/modularity/utility than just having a few set docking points. After I finish of the dropship and frigate class, I was thinking of doing a "Cargo" Dropship. Something that would be able to carry things such as ammo resupply, or possible boarding craft similar to those used by the covenant in Halo 2, a long with actual combat vehicles, etc. (Right now however, I'm focussing on the frigate class and the associated Dropship and DropPod.) You might not have noticed, but to fit in with this mod, I changed my position thing from rocket jokey to warmongererer.

Felt like this would be a post worthy progress report: The "Landing Leg" animation for the Dropship has been done, now I just need to get the ting textured and add a few little things such as a docking node, so you know, you can actually attach it? VIDEO! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4ZR18MlGYU&feature=youtu.be

That's what she said! Giggity! In all seriousness though, I doubt there'll be another space race. This is simply due to the fact that (For the most part) even though everything the Americans (I understand that there are people who do care and do understand, but they are the severe minority.) know and love is built upon space and the technology it has produced, they don't give a damn, and will tear away at the throat of a politician who even proposes such a thing. I think Russia still isn't in a position economically to attempt something of this magnitude, unless it has major military backing, and at that point the rest of the world will try to veto it because they don't want space turning into a battleground or a staging point for WWIII. If anything, Russia's plans are (Unfortunately) going to fall apart, China will soldier on, and America will act like neither of them really exist, and sit in the corner twiddling it's thumbs.

Well, knowing politicians, if it happens because of an aerospace company pulling a **** move, it was going to happen anyway. Frankly, the situation in Crimea could end tomorrow, or start WWIII. Elon Musk and SpaceX simply know how to use a situation for their own advantage. What's done is done, all that we can do now is wait and see, and see if we will regret this worse than it not happening.

Nice, it looks like a Boxy H.O.M.E part.

Well, TBH, I only really got into space stuff after KSP, and only the Delta IV really appealed to me, because I could easily replicate it in-game.

KSP, the Halo franchise, and anything else is just dust in the wind that comes and goes for me.

Well, Im basing my stuff more on the technological prowess of the UNSC in Halo, so Laser weapons are a no go, unfortunately. However, for general weaponry, the parts offered by Skillfull are amazing, and very very suitable, such as a twin 14inch cannon wielding independent turret. Also, with the new SAM functionality that e's working on, it could be wholly possible to get near a target and just have a hailstorm of missiles get launched at you when you get near, providing it works in space. If flak works then that would be very interesting to see. The MAC (Mass Accellerator Cannon) should work hopefully, though I don't think ID has made anything of that (~4850) calibre yet. Well, if you looked at the sketches I posted, you would notice that I have a lot of extra parts planned, including a set for fighters, along with a lot of alternative parts that can be used to change up the design of the Frigate class, such as different command towers, replacing the MAC with more hangar bays and weapon mounts, and I want to make a set of parts to build a dropship SSTO VTOL, yes. Dropships are also planned, and are planned to be customizable as you described, though I never though about using the Klaw in that way. I'll have to keep that in mind... Lazor wont be "Required" but it will certainly be recommended, as these ships are HUGE. The default render range, even when extended with Skillfull, really just doesn't cut it. Lazor can have a 99Km render and physics range, so you will have a much more immersive feeling about doing things, instead of getting within 2.5km of the core of the ship and finding you are really about 500m away from the nose or something as it just pops into existence. I should let you in on something, I have never played homeworld, the ships just look badass as hell when I've been looking at inspiration for modelling, and they seem to fit my style and the halo style of design. Yeah, TheError pretty much summed it up. Most of the parts are going to have default positions that they come in in the craft file, but will be freely moveable and attachable to your hearts content. Go ahead, just build a MAC with engines and a control tower, or even attach a second hangar, and then a MAC in front of that, or hell, add on a million and one engines to it to give it a ridiculous TWR. Anything that I would call a frigate would be built around this core though, and fighters or dropships, or carriers would all have the core a common part among them, but other than that you can go nuts. Go ahead, build a fighter core then put on some frigate engines, or a MAC, or any of the other parts. That's where I want to go with this. EDIT: Well, twelve hours (School hols FTW.), many redesigns, general procrastination and playing the new AoTTG update later, I have a decent looking dropship. The cool thing is that it carries 8 troop kerbals, and has room for two pilots, and I figured all of that out legitimately using a kerbal-ish mesh. There's room for 8 kerbals and their various weapons (including anything between a laser cannon and a rock tied to a stick.) in the back, with a bit of room to spare, and at a not to large poly count. (~ 400 for the whole mesh. 0_0) Due to the various bugs I have had with SFR, I will not use it for this ship, however the IVA should basically just be the external model. (You know, with an extra bit for the pilots) Yay for asset re-use! What you probably wont like is that it will be only 1 or 2 parts, not counting the super OP RCS I plan on putting on. (I want you to still have to deal with fuel, but not enough to be having to constantly micromanaging your fuel meter.) I have yet to do the VTOL or RCS, though the RCS may not even be necessary to model, as the textures could probably manage it pretty well. I'll see what I can do for the rest of tonight, and maybe update again, but for now, this is Deathsoul097, signing off. POST MERGE: (Because Triple posting isn't cool, but double posting is alright, sometimes. It's pushing it though.) Just did some more testing with the dropship, and as it turns out it's the perfect size! That right there is 6 5.8m (Long) by 2.3m(Wide) by 1.105m(Tall) dropships sitting cosily in the bay of the ship, and the secondary bay will allow for even more! Of course, the carrier will need a larger dropship, and one preferably with dedicated weapon mounts, but I'll cross that bridge when it comes to it.

I find I use it quite a bit actually. It allows me to tweak things like my resolution without having to deal with ridiculous button placement and such, as I am often switching between a 42 inch 1080p HD TV screen, and my laptop screen, which is only 780p, and 15.5 inch. Among other things it also allows me to activate the AMD compatibility mode, which improves my framerate some.

I guess a blog may be more appropriate, I'll make it and link in the OP then. I was also kind of doing this to bump the thread semi-legitimately, just cause I want it to stay in the public eye. As a person I am constantly craving feedback from those around me, and I am very dependant on that kind of thing. Also, why did my rating go down to 2 stars? EDIT: Yeah, 5 consecutive posts in 2 days probably isn't a good thing. Definitely should turn it into a blog.

Progress Report: 8:23 PM, 1/5/2014 Planning away, and putting my half decent ability to draw to use in sketching down some ideas. I swear, my handwriting is usually better than this, I was just in a hurry to get all of my ideas drawn down. I also have plans to make a stealth fighter using the reflection plugin, jet black and reflecting the stars should be real hard to see.

Awesome. 10CHAR

Looks awesome man, but the fairings seem almost comically oversized. Still looks badass as hell though.