panzer1b

Updated to V1.6...

had some freetime all of today as im sick, so yeah, spent it playing KSP mostly as i couldnt do much else productively... Parked a dragon class APC thing near a AKS base, and did some weapons testing... basically immune to fireworks shot from the fence turrets, but at least it looks cool exploding (mostly unessential things like some fuel for the jumpjets and like 2 chairs were destroyed. That and the probe so it did loose control as i didnt have any crew onboard during a live fire test... And ofc like an idiot i forgot i was on the wrong save and didnt save b4 i opened fire . So yeah, spent the next hour or so landing new modules after i deleted the destroyed crap from the fight... Still, im really happy with how the base looks, and it is actually possible to land module by module and stack on the bottom piece and not have to be deployed as a single stack (although i did land them that way as i was too lazy to make 10+ landings to the same spot). I also am very happy i have a subassembly generated in 0.90 with x5 symmetry as the game patched out the glitch that let you normally get x5 symmetry (needed for landing legs). And i finished the day by making a brand new version of the BC Warhammer class cruiser. Its not a replica, but it should be stupidly obvious what this is based on in terms of overall layout. part count is an issue, but its no worse then the dimension class cruiser ive had for some time now, and its like 50 more parts then its predecessor but 50 parts isnt gonna make a difference when the total is ~600...

Its beyond the scope of base SciFiVE to actually support other mods, as i dont even have as much time as id like to to... I used to have plenty of time back when i was in school/college, but now that I have a job and a life you guys will have to be happy with what little time i do have for modding. On that regard, i need just a bit more time to finish the newest version of this mod, and while im sorry for the long delays, freetime especially freetime that im willing to spend modding games is very rare for me. Still, provided nothing comes up (as it has a habit of so no promises), i should be able to finalize the most recent updated version of SciFiVE hopefully in a week tops. Took me like 20 iterations, but im finally happy with Vall's revamped looks, not quite 100% like that planet i saw in a dream 2 months ago that was my initial inspiration to redo Vall, but its not far off from it either... Vall looks really nice now imo, only thing i might tweak a teeny bit is the lower layer, but overall very happy with how it came out. Only other thing im not super happy with is the visual bugs around Duna with regards to scatterer, but its something i guess ill have to live with as i dont develop that mod and even if i had the time to get back into KSP programming, its just too much work for a game that will likely be replaced by KSP 2 to a degree not long from now... At least the dust storms look amazing as always (i made the new ones a bit more tall to mask the gap at the bottom when at low elevations and overall made them somewhat thinner so it wasnt quite as blinding and suicidal to land in the storms (its still not a smart idea, but a tad less impossible to see 20m away from your craft). This is with a somewhat tweaked KS3P config, scatterer, modded sunflare as i hate stock scatterer's one, and SciFiVE...

The lag hurts, but its worth it for the desktop worthy screenshots alone... Sunset pictures are so nice with that effect scatterer added a few updates ago that makes the sunlight turn orange as the sun sets on Kerbin... 1460 parts total loaded, Dimension cruiser, Eclipse support ship, and Nebula frigate left->right. I also swapped the last nuclear engine on the Nebula to a aerospike, so its now running on 3 of those and i got the dV up to 2000 by jamming a few aux fuel tanks under the wing sections. About as clippy as im willing to go, but it can take a heavy torpedo and live, is nolonger instantly deengined by fireworks (although its weapons will be evicerated sadly by them as easily as before), and its as of this point my most iconing ship at least with regards to AKS faction styling. That and its got plenty of redundant vernors so even if all its engines are shot off it can still limp somewhere with ~800-1500dV depending on what exactly was shot off by said fireworks. Defenetely like my new ship, its capable of singlehandedly supporting like 5 Nebulas and a cruiser with regards to fuel, and it can even carry a Nebula internally (although its a pain to get it in/out as you need to go it at angle as the opening isnt quite arge enough to fit it in sideways like it should). I ended up shoving it inside backwards as its front tapers down a bit and makes it easier to get past the bend...

Sadly unity seems to have issues with garbage disposal, leading to massive ram buildup. That and for a very long time there has been a persistent memory leak in the game compounding the already inefficient operation of unity (or at least its implementation in KSP). Your best bet imo is to use this util: Ive had very good results over the years with it, and it does cut down the ram useage (you might want to play with the settings in the cfg file to make it more agressive at clearing then default). Scatterer+EVE alone is alot of ram (due to massive res cloud layers i tend to use in my SciFiVE version of EVE) and i just cant play KSP for long without those 2 mods, so i end up using this to help try and counteract the memory leaks (i have 16gigs so its normally fine, but KSP will slowly go from 3gig to 10gig and get extremely sluggish by that point). My only true fix is to restart the game when it becomes unbearable loading times, but the memory fix above will delay that by a considerable amount provided i dont do too many scene changes (reverting constantly will make the game run like dogshat eventually nomatter what mods i have to fix ram use)... Still, if you run alot of mods, nothing is really going to solve your problem. I know the station parts pack (assuming its the one im thinking of with the centrifuges and 3.75m station command bridge among other things)) is HUGE on ram since that pack has some amazing but high poly textures/models. If you dont use every single part in that mod it may be helpful to delete the parts you dont like/use to free up a bit of ram, or even delete the IVAs as i believe those are massive resource use since they are so detailed compared to stock IVAs. Still, try the above momory fix, and see if its enough for you to play the game. There is some hope that KSP2 will fix or at least improve performance, but until that is released we have to deal with KSP's many problems...

Well, ive launched for the first time since the dlc came out ages ago a rocket that truly HAD to be 5m in size (ive messed with 5m rocket parts before on treplicas of some real life stuff and when i was truly lazy and didnt want to make asparagus rockets, but never on anything that couldnt have been made from 3.75m parts with the right engineering). This thing drags 600t into orbit, and the first supercarrier/supertanker hybrid ive ever made that im actually happy with in the asthetics and functionality depts. That bay is large enough to fit a Nebula class frigate and like 6 Nova corvettes beside it (and more starfighters/bombers then i could even consider due to part count lag). I sorta designed it s a mobile shipyard (i know we dont have the means to make ships outside of kerbin in stock, but hey, drag enough ore up here, dump it, and teleport equivalent tonnage ship next to it makes some sense and you could even use the assemble in orbit to make something very simple nearby too). Has 5 heavy torpedoes so its not useless in a fight, and armor is what id call medium grade (far from weak, and basically immune to fireworks, but its based on older style armor from a few years ago and a solid hit on the upper spine with ibeams or any sort of 1.2m torpedoes can split it in half). that and the fuel tanks are very easy to shoot off as well with the right ordinance, but theres enough redundancy there that even if half of the fuel is gomne its still got at least 3000 dV. Yeah, theres still some stuff i plan to change after i try it out and see how well this thing works as a support ship, but it looks decent (sorta took the overall shape from the dimension cruiser, the front from nebula frigate, and the mid section is actually part of a shipyard i made ages ago so it retains the styling im a fan of with the combo of girders and wings covering up the gaps.

Some combat testing today, with my recently rearmed Dimension-VII-S i have decimating a ship with just it's port side batteries, this thing has 3 quad turrets per side and 1 forward cannon (which doesnt look right ever since the update that added spread to the fireworks, but in practice it is more lethal since spread makes it more likely to hit a greater amount of critical systems then a super tight precision beam would have, same reason multiple turrets did more damage then nose weapons provided the target wasnt small enough to make hitting it at all hard).. Speaking of the forward cannon, since beam fire is nolonger asthetically possible, i made it fire 3 round burts which seem to be no less effective and look much cooler imo. And the absolutely final feature i added to the "S" model, a second interior area in the front hull section that houses 6 Kerbals and has a conference table thing at the end where the command staff can argue while stuffing themselves with horribly tasting freeze dried meals (or whatver the heck is eaten in space)... Parts did take a hit, but im willing to sacrifice a bit for what id consider the coolest looking stock warship ive ever made both internally and externally (even though the Nebula is a bit more iconic and sorta normalied the entire AKS asthetic styling). And yeah, its still below my absolute cutoff of 600 per single vessel (i can and will exceed that on purely asthetic craft, but this thing is still supposed to be useable in the game in both combat and carrier role. Its a cruiser class, but ive always considered cruisers a sorta jack of all trades ship that can both carry some starfighters onboard and engage in direct combat on its own, and unlike smaller things, even operate on its own without support ships for a time when carrying droptanks since the dV is a bit pathetic at only 2800 (its useable by all means, but its not quite interplanetary carrier capable without extra tanks, and it goes down below 2000 when anything significant is carried onboard like fighters).

Making more progress on Vall's new atmosphere. Not quite done, and the texture is still a placeholder, but ive finally gotten sorta what i want in terms of overall layout on the atmo. That said, i think ill make the layers feel more like they are made of ice shards then they are now since they are too much like clouds with holes in em instead of a combination of ice crystals and asteroids floating around... And yeah, i added some forward batteries to the pirate ship i made earlier (and gave them the proper fx to make them actually look right)...

Made a new pirate ship, the 3rd generation of the "Annihillator" series... I think ill change the fx to make it look more scary (prolly use classic trails), but those guns are nuts for how few parts they use Took some inspiration from the providence's deck gun battery when i made this thing, but aside from that its almost identical to its predecessor in layout and capability. Went with some assymetry since its supposed to be a pirate craft, hence a base hull, with a thing strapped to the port side where the bridge is lovcated and one of that side's cannons sits. Yeah, doesnt matter how i make modern ships, their internals just get evicerated by the fireworks. The only saving grace of that ship is the fact that it has absurd redundancy and has backup vernor engines so while its dV drops to near uselessness after a barrage from the Annihillator, at least its able to retaliate to some degree. Im also pretty happy with the ship's armor. Its not great against heavy torpedoes (or even the classic ibeam+sepatron weapons in quantity), but its basically unkillable to fireworks. Most of those explosions are the secondary fuel tanks popping, but its primary fuel supply is made of MK-2 tanks which are near indestructible to fireworks (at least when not using KAL to boost the velocity past the standard of 100m/s which i consider too cheaty and unnecessary). Again, with enough fireworks, even this thing will drop, but its pretty solid given that i limited myself to conventional armor layout (pirates wouldnt have pure MK-2 armor in universe or any other advanced tech). Now to finish working on Vall mod for EVE, that atmo isnt easy to make look right...

So yeah, saw someone on here make a few car replicas, didnt feel like space anything so i made this (which happens to be a replica of my all time favorite earth vehicle that was actually produced and used by humans)... Doors are really bad (couldnt do the proper window framing), but its all i could do without going to a larger scale (which wouldnt fit in with any of my other KSP crafts) or eating 200 parts... Turn signals actually work, albeit they dont quite look right (might try and use the robot controller instead of the stock blink interval thing). No bloody clue why the hell i like ex-eastern blok cars so much, and utterly despise everything on the roads made after the year 2000, but yeah, heres my favorite earth car made for KSP...

While i have given up on attempting to recreate black planet atmos, i have restarted work on this and plan to have V1.6 out in the next few weeks. Im actually remaking vall from the ground up based on a planet i saw in a dream (2 layers of ice shards / asteroids as an atmosphere, had to evade crashing which isnt modeled in KSP EVE, but whatever). I have to redo the layers and details (these are temporary placeholders). Textures are placeholders, since i need some time to make new ones, but in general its going to be thick solid layers with holes going through them, so that it looks like 2 layers interlocked. This is what the concept is, white is top layer, grey is mid layer, black is plant surface. Layer up is whiteish, layer mid is bluish. It wont look exactly like this (edges should be more jagged and the top layer had larger sized holes in my dream), but thats sorta what im going for with the new Vall looks in the next update. Again, im very busy irl, and i dont expect to be done with this soon, but likely within the next 2 months if all goes well... Also, ive started touching up the other planets (namely to try and eliminate the artefacting when at certain altitudes that caused the planet glow layer to either be rendered underground or have weird lines in it when within the atmo. I also want to take another look at Duna's dust fx which i feel could be somewhat touched up (maybee slightly less saturated red, different texture, ect), and i also wanna redo laythe somewhat (i like the concept i started with when it comes to rain storm planet and lots of darker grey clouds, but not so much the execution). So theres some work to be done, but ill eventually get there...

Upgraded my favorite lander to modern standards, and enough dV to drag my transporter into orbit around Duna... Its got about 1300dV with the main engines (while carrying the transporter), and about 2000 more with the single nuke (this isnt really useful dV outside of interplanetary, but its there and i just cannot make it any more TWR since its already way too heavy and draggy). I know its not the right thing to land the aliens APC with, but to be honest the dropship from that movie never spoke to me asthetically, so i made my own craft for the job (its also able to be delivered using my SSTO dropship, but that one doesnt look anything like the aliens dropship either)... Also, anyone know what inspired that lander i made? (Its a stupidly niche reference, seen in a single episode of a show i watched as a kid, and ive been unable to find a single picture of it anywhere online either, just remember vaguely from memory)...

Wanted to make a new armored car for AKS to use, after 4 iterations, ended up with something im actually happy with (although i might take a look at cutting parts down later)... Based the front off a panther tank (with a different lower glasis since i had no way to cut the angle that much). The turret is based on the standard AKS pulse cannon turret that i use on most of my newest generation warships, and the rest of teh body should be stupidly obvious what its from... Sliding doors never get old as many times as ive used em... Now all this scene needs is a predator in the tree...

More of the usual... I fully finalized my current iteration of the Nebula as well as the Boradsword. Not that you can see jack with that much pulse cannon and plasma rockets flying everywhere... These 2 are actually suprisingly balanced all things considered once they are in point blank. The Nebula has more guns that shoot faster but is less accurate as the guns are strapped all over, and is just notorious at getting it's pulse cannons shot off somewhat moreso then the Broadsword does. Ofc it has more of them, so the winner of a 1v1 slugfest is usually determined by who gets the first solid hits on target rather then what ship is techically better designed... Still, my favorite part about the nebula is that its turreted, and the fire is actually way more precise when using turrets (forward firing has convergence issues, turrets dont seem to have that solong as you only use one side at a time). Traverse is pretty solid too, can fire up/down at 30deg, and can fire in 360deg to the sides (and it can fire backwards making retreating while fireing a valid tactic). And i ended the day with some SSTO messing around (trying to cram even more fuel inside this overloaded monstrosity that should never be able to fly to begin with (one rapier pushing almost 40t is a bit underpowered)...

Was a bit annoyed with the lagfesty cruisers today, so i spent some time working on smaller lighter and much more compact ships. My newly revamped AKS NG-III Nova-II. Its a much simpler ship to the usual stuff i work with, and 0 lag when flying it anywhere, including teh ascent with the reentry fx. Armor is meh, easily obliterated with a solid hit from a heavy torp, but it can at least take glancing blows and it is suprisingly good against fireworks based weaponry. Not immune, bbut it will take easily 20 salvos from a quad turret and still retain at least fuel/engines, weapons tend to go 1st on this design as its impossible to armor them up properly with such a small ship (and its even comparable offensively to the BC Broadsword, a ship 4 times the parts and 5 times the weight). Had some issues with the rocket launcher, but eventually i fixed it so it stopped overheating the 2nd round and exploding it... And the real reason i like these things, you can actually bring a NG-IV Nebula-V, a LG-II TriFighter-III, and 2 of the Novas into load range right atop each other and the lag is still not really noticeable (slight slowdown to time but nothing like the 600+ part cruisers would be). And the new engine glows, my absolutely favorite part of the newly redesigned ship i made. Those strip lights are so good looking not to mention very low lag (you only need to enable light emmision on 1 strip per engine cluster and it gets the job done).

Updated my Javelin class frigate, a ship i particularly like asthetically (if it wasnt obvious, its vaguely based on the Sulaco in overall layout/looks). Fully decked out interior, even though survivability is rather terrible (the hull is solid, but everything and i mean everything inside it will get shredded, no bulkheads or multilayer armor plate). I noticed the new patch gave fireworks some spread, which makes it much harder to kill stuff outside of point blank range, but hey, ammo capacity on these is so insane i really dont mind wasting even half the shots. Sadly, the patch ruined particle beam weapons entirely, the spread combined with the shortened trails just ruins the looks, but its a minor price to pay, ill just redesign the AKS warships with heavy pulse cannons on the nose instead of beam weapons. Yeah, that happens when BCorp is stupid enough to engage a Nebula headon (you can actually get both ships to fire at each other when using the autoaim at target, then switch to other ship). Now that looks amazing, i gave the medium pulse turrets some more varied FX to make them actually feel like flak which they are supposed to be in universe. Explosions sadly do not do any damage, but hey, it looks super cinematic at least... Retaliating with the last leftover weapon (the controller was shot off so it wont autofire, but i just rebound the thing to action groups. Javelin is kaput....

Although new content is always nice, im glad that you guys finally finished and can focus what little time there is for KSP1 now on bugfixes. I know its a longshot, but i really REALLY hope that one day the memory leak will be fixed, its not unplayable, but it sucks having to restart the game every 20 or so scene changes (and i know it isnt mods, the issue is there even in bone stock)... One day... Maybee... Hopefully.......

Had some freetime today (rare during week), didnt feel like making new ships or flying anything, so i dug thru my old files and found this thing... Surpisingly took about 12 salvos to obliterate the Vanguard replica i left in orbit earlier... Main fuel tank pops, and the whole ship just falls apart... And to add insult to injury, i shoot the leftover debri field with the forward batteries. There are 4 double cannons built into the nose, 1 salvo from that will instakill anything that isnt made of armor, and id bet even a Nebula class frigate cant stand up to that many rounds at a time (will have to test that out after i overhaul the ship since its just too laggy to bear right now beside those other ships, and its supposed to carry 4 starfighters too)...

Well did quite a bit of crap today... Landed a dropship on Ike, attempted to get mech out of the back, robotics parts broke and the standing pose ends up looking like this, rendering the whole stupid mech unuseable ... Ill prolly end up just teleporting the same thing to the destination, must be some sort of robotics bug cause i used a klaw to attach the mech to the dropship. Then i got my SSTL back into orbit, preparing to send it to Bop and Pol, since its got plenty of dV left onboard (its hacky, but i have like 30 fuel tanks inside that MK-2 bay, and a missile (it can fit 2, but i didnt want to drag that much weight for no reason). Still, every time i play this game it amazes me how good it looks (with the right mods, that 1st screenie is amazing imo) given the fact that its pretty old by todays standards... Then i finished decking out my Nebula frigate, added some non essential bits but since the ship is uunder 350 parts, its not that big a deal lag wise. I do have a (LP) variant with lowered parts, missing all the glowy bits at the back, the extra fake windows, and half the RCS which isnt 100% essential for functionality, but the fully decked out variant just feels more like an actual frigate and not the barebaones minimalistic parts i need to make it work which is what all the cruiser sized ships are since they are just too many base parts to add some asthetics to em (most arer already 500-600 before adding any extras). And finally upgraded some of my ancient nostalgia replicas to make them nolonger broken in newer versions. Guess the ant engine torps havent changed at all since 0.22 days, they sucked back then and they still suck now. However, it appears that the anti-fighter things are now useless (i hit that shade replica with 4 of them and it didnt do squat, every time smack right into the cockpit, no damage). At least the 6 ant torp salvo somehow took out a RT-10 SRB...

Byfar my number 1 inspiration (and arguably the video series i saw that got me into this game), Macey Dean. Its to this day my favorite KSP series anyone has ever made, despite the fact that the ships were all fodder (i still have replicas from this series somewhere in one of my games, and they are instakilled by the weakest weaponry out there). Best part was the fact that the Spiritwolf series combined interesting darkish story with a balance of combat and behind the scenes stuff, unlike some of the later military focused series i remember from days after), and was 100% stock including no hyperediting ships around (the fact that Macey managed to get these things into orbit in the old souposphere, without 3.75m parts, fairings, or all the things we take for granted these days is impressive to say the least, and even did repairs on the carrier in one episode before claws even existed let alone the current repair feature they added in 1.11). And this is my 2nd main inspiration i found sometime after i started playing the game. Its what got me into SSTOs which was what i used to focus alot on early in my KSP life (when i wasnt making massive warships): So yeah, those are my 2 major inspirations i remember from the good old days and i even keep 0.90 around when i feel like reliving the glory days of airhogging. I dont care how unrealistic it was, getting a 200km apoapsis on jets alone was fun, and the aero back then allowed you to make viable dropships that didnt look stupid due to aero limits (not that the more realistic planes look bad, its just not my asthetic style at all, give me my flying glowy space brick over a sleek plane any day).

Assemble them into station... In this specific case, i made sorta replica of omega from mass effect... That or just make them into asteroid fields and see if you can navigate them without spontaneously exploding on contact with one...

Made a 3rd version of my AKS "Skytower", with even more size compared to the old one, and with the new legs, its actually suprisingly stableish (given the thing weighs 400 tons)... Its an absolute PITA to land this thing (6 of the shuttle engines and 9 vernors and it still barely moves at all and if you ever exceed like 5 degrees off level it will flip and explode) and its just to bloody heavy its not even funny, but hey, its there, and i can always teleport it to ground if im lazy (that feature is amazing as it saves so much time setting up cities)... Its also the first iteration of this that im 100% happy with the upper level, i managed to give it a more sloped styling rather then the abrupt cap of the older versions with just some fuel tank sticking out and antennas. But yeah screenshots like this truly make this game shine, even if the building has absolutely no purpose besides cinematics (its already 400 parts, and the planned variant with a internal hangar bay will likey exceed 600)...

1st battle finalized, and I started on the next part which is a change of pace since its some ground stuff and not 100% space combat... full album here: https://imgur.com/a/nFcPhyz

LV-N (nuclear thermal rocket)... I play stock generally speaking in terms of engines as i feel there is enough selection, so the only super high ISP engine (that was practical to use, ions eat too many parts) just became useless with firework weapons ...

Now that fireworks are officially a thing, it appears that the entire AKS fleet (besides the DImension class cruiser as its just so massive and redundified that it can take a utter beating regardless of what weapons its shot at with), went from strongest ships i had to utterly pathetic overnight (worse then the competition actually)... Basically NTR engines are out of the picture on anything that doesnt carry 6+ of them spread out all over the ship. A single starfighter unloading a single 32 cannister into a NTR powered ship has a 95% chance of destroying all of its engines now... I ended up swapping all but the central engine to aerospikes, since they are the only engine that is somewhat resistant to the fireworks. It can and will be destroyed, but it takes an insane amount of fire to actually accomplish this in practice, and well i dont expect any warship to continue on after eating 500+ rounds (which is what my 3 largest ships carry, Dimension, Venator, Battleaxe). So yeah, this was after a highly concentrated 120 rounds from a Trifighter, which is way mre accurate then a capital would be (turrets are fun, but they do NOT result in very precise damage at all, and id even say that 120 roiunds from a fighter is more effective then 500 from a turret as you can actually hit every round center of mass consistently). NTR bought it really quickly, but the 2 aerospikes survived just until the very last few shots. I ended up with a single working engine, which i could run at ~40% without spinning out, alongside a battery of 4 rear facing vernor engines (i will probably upgrade it to 8 since the part count with SRMs removed aint bad) that almost never get shot off, so completely immobilizing this thing with fireworks alone is not happening. I also absolutely love the new engine looks, the ship is supposed to be about as advanced as i can get it, and not having any exposed engines really makes the look complete . They are inside the fuel tanks, yeah a bit clippy, but with this ship asthetics come 1st, then functionality. Actually, its a bit hacky since i do have fuel tanks clipped, but i did respect volume limits since i clipped 2 MK-2 tanks together, when volumetrically that should be possible to do since a MK-2 tank is twice the volume of a 800 series FLT, and they have the same fuel capacity. I, ot a fan of clipping, but i just had to get the looks right and there was simply no way to fit everything i needed inside into a ship this small without ruining the look which ive had for years (this is my 1st truly powerful warship, and has been arguably my best for 3 years with minor iterations here and there). Still vulnurable to torps, but hey, loosing a side is not that big a deal since its only a single engine and a torpedo. Theres still quite a lot of work to be done, and this is far from my only ship that needs an overhaul, but im happy with the fact that ive found some method of surviving the fireworks and actually making the fights feel more drawn out and authentic (i dont like to see too many 1 shot kills outside of pirate tech which is supposed to be garbage in universe)...