[1.0.4] Maritime Pack - 0.1.4

[Fengist]

I think a MM config would be possible, but I believe it would probably have to change the parts a fair bit, I'd expect it to come after this pack is in a more polished state.

On a different note here are some minor bugs I have noticed: The buoyancy blister and compressed water tanks lack the line that gives them the manufacturer name in the SPH and VAB and the compressed water tank has its description in the manufacturer spot. These are both easily fixed with some simple part.cfg editing, but it can be a bit tedious to redo it every update.

Hotfix 0.0.11 Beta released

Thanks for taking the time to point this out. Fixed. I had to do a quick patch anyway as I had the connection node for the Bathysphere backward. If you downloaded 001.zip, please click the download button again and grab 0011.zip. It has these minor fixes.

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Did you do anything with Better Buoyancy support though? The changelog doesn't say anything on that.

Or is it not possible to do a MM config?

Nope. No support. Reason being, when a 43 meter 2 ton ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean and it's buoyancy is supposedly improved... something is wrong with the improvement. I have a post on his BB thread if he ever gets around to answering it.

I can't lighten these ships any more than they are so even MM won't be of any help to detect if his mod is installed.

Edited June 15, 2015 by Fengist

[smjjames]

Well, I hope you can get a solution figured out for BB.

I wonder about the water simulation in Unity 5, supposed to be better or something.

[Tyren]

Those lightweight bodies sure do extrude enough to swim imho...dunno why this doesnt happen. It feels more like soft stock water with BB whatsoever, i dont think its a real workaround to get realistic water values. For now, if not happened already, just state in the OP that it wont work with BB, thats more then sufficient imho.

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Ah i checked, its already mentioned.

[mike9606]

Just a suggestion I have: It may be a good idea to retexture the foc'sle bow's crew hatch as I had to relaunch my second Fuel Tanker design after mistaking it for a place to put a mast.

[Fengist]

Just a suggestion I have: It may be a good idea to retexture the foc'sle bow's crew hatch as I had to relaunch my second Fuel Tanker design after mistaking it for a place to put a mast.

Lol, That hatch was just copied over from the cargo bridge. As you may have guessed, I'm not a huge texture guy but I'll see what I can do.

[mike9606]

New Suggestion: A part like the Dinghy Davit but for the bathysphere. I think this would help a lot for attempting to build a Ship that would carry around a bathysphere, then lower it into the water to do science. Also, science experiments for the bathysphere.

[Fengist]

New Suggestion: A part like the Dinghy Davit but for the bathysphere. I think this would help a lot for attempting to build a Ship that would carry around a bathysphere, then lower it into the water to do science. Also, science experiments for the bathysphere.

Science! Good idea.

I thought about a hull section with a huge hole in it but that gets into some pretty specific one-use parts. I actually hooked one bathysphere onto a davit and it promptly flipped the boat. When I get around to creating pontoons and catamarans, it'll be a lot easier to launch it. Monohulls are difficult in KSP to keep upright.

[mike9606]

Some other ideas: A flat open deck for use on carriers (or vehicle transporters), as well as a powered Helo Stern.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I succeeded in "Landing" a plane on a boat:

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[Fengist]

Some other ideas: A flat open deck for use on carriers (or vehicle transporters), as well as a powered Helo Stern.

You might just be in luck. I spent a number of years on flat-tops. Just don't ask me to make an elevator. You'll likely get this:

I do see a minor problem tho. The typical modern carrier displaces some 50,000 tons while a modern aircraft weights in at 50 or so tons. You'd need a very heavy boat in KSP to handle even a light aircraft hitting the deck without it capsizing. But I'll toss the idea around.

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I succeeded in "Landing" a plane on a boat:

http://imgur.com/a/a3FxY

The proof I needed. You do NOT need Better Buoyancy to ditch an aircraft in the ocean. Just a large, flat, exploding platform. Excellent work.

Edited June 16, 2015 by Fengist

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

[...]

The proof I needed. You do NOT need Better Buoyancy to ditch an aircraft in the ocean. Just a large, flat, exploding platform. Excellent work.

Thank you! However, I was survive landing just in the water, no Better Buoyancy OR large, flat, exploding platforms.

[smjjames]

You might just be in luck. I spent a number of years on flat-tops. Just don't ask me to make an elevator. You'll likely get this:

http://i1.wp.com/www.histarmar.com.ar/InfGral-2/Merchant-Aircraft-Carriers/MVEmpireMacKendrick.jpg

I do see a minor problem tho. The typical modern carrier displaces some 50,000 tons while a modern aircraft weights in at 50 or so tons. You'd need a very heavy boat in KSP to handle even a light aircraft hitting the deck without it capsizing. But I'll toss the idea around.

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The proof I needed. You do NOT need Better Buoyancy to ditch an aircraft in the ocean. Just a large, flat, exploding platform. Excellent work.

I like BB because stock water is rather bouncy, though the current stock water is still improved over 0.90 and it may very well be even better in 1.1 with Unity 5.

[Columbia]

MEIN GOTT! This was my dream mod!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going to build a Titanic replica

Repped!

[greydragon70]

Just wait. I have a youtube channel too. Not as popular as Kottabos but I plan on making a nice video with these parts.

Would love to do a highlight video for you to put on your forum post showing how to use this mod. I've done one for

another forum post and it has done well. If you would like me to do that let me know.

Kottabos is very fair on his reviews, that is mostly what he does on youtube. I've found some of the coolest mods from

his channel. Maritime is one of my favorites, I love doing something that wasn't meant to work. Guess it's the rebel in me.

Edited June 16, 2015 by greydragon70

[Fengist]

Just wait. I have a youtube channel too. Not as popular as Kottabos but I plan on making a nice video with these parts.

Would love to do a highlight video for you to put on your forum post showing how to use this mod. I've done one for

another forum post and it has done well. If you would like me to do that let me know.

Kottabos is very fair on his reviews, that is mostly what he does on youtube. I've found some of the coolest mods from

his channel. Maritime is one of my favorites, I love doing something that wasn't meant to work. Guess it's the rebel in me.

By all means, do so. With all the silly ideas I have in my head I haven't even found the time to update the OP images with the new models.

and it spins!

[Tyren]

Way to go thumbsup*

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I managed to land a almost intact plane!

First the carrier was launched a couple 100 meters in to the air, 'cause quicksaves.

Then my purpose built plane landed on the remains!

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[smjjames]

Think you could see about adapting for BB (though Ferram doesn't seem to want to help)? I like BB better over stock as I find stock to be rather bouncy, plus BB is less fatal to things.

Edit: Also, suggestion, maybe a flat spot in the back of the Helipad stern so that things can be angle snapped straight? I was trying to get it smack in the center by using angle snap, but it seems like theres a bulge in the middle there which keeps making it go at odd angles.

Edited June 16, 2015 by smjjames

[Fengist]

Just a quick note on the state of improvements.

I have gotten props mostly working with the pack but there are issues that I'll need to overcome.

Warning: If you want to retain the mystique of how props work with Firespitter and KSP, don't read the spoiler. You have been warned.

So here's how Firespitters prop spinning basically works.

First, you have two meshes on the part, one is the propeller stopped and the other is a representation of the prop rapidly spinning. The way the theory works is, you start the first mesh spinning. Once it reaches a certain point, you switch to the second mesh. The first mesh spins up to a high speed, say 250 revolutions. The second one, which is intended to be a blurry representation of the spinning prop, you spin at much lower speeds, say 30. The whole purpose of this is to have a nice, detailed model of the prop when it's stopped but also have a much less detailed, slower spinning representation of the prop at high speeds. The benefit is, you switch to a prop with a lot fewer polygons and a slower rotation in order to improve performance. Well, as with everything in KSP, it doesn't work in water.

In order to make a realistic representation, the second mesh, the one that represents the prop at high speed, needs to be somewhat transparent. If you look at a real propeller spinning, you see through the area where it is spinning and see the background.

It would appear that water in KSP is also semi-transparent, which makes sense. The problem is, as I am discovering, when you take one transparent object and bury it within another transparent object, one of them vanishes. Here's an image showing the results.

So, you see the problem. Representing the prop spinning at high speed and making it transparent is, from my testing, not going to be possible. That leaves me with two choices.

1. Don't switch to the transparent mesh and just keep the high polygon prop spinning at high speed. This will eat up a lot more processing power but the prop does remain visible under water.
   
2. Make a non-transparent mesh. Attempt, and mind you I say attempt, to make a non-transparent representation of the prop spinning at high speed. This, will not be easy and probably look very unrealistic.
   

So, there's the issues with props and water.

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Think you could see about adapting for BB (though Ferram doesn't seem to want to help)? I like BB better over stock as I find stock to be rather bouncy, plus BB is less fatal to things.

Edit: Also, suggestion, maybe a flat spot in the back of the Helipad stern so that things can be angle snapped straight? I was trying to get it smack in the center by using angle snap, but it seems like theres a bulge in the middle there which keeps making it go at odd angles.

While stock water isn't exactly ideal, at least my boats don't become submarines. After reading Ferram's reply to me bringing up the issue I've been basically told that it's my fault (That or he tells me to try the dev build but doesn't bother to point out where to find it). Therefore, even though Ferram makes a popular atmospheric mod, IMHO he should have kept his paws in the atmosphere. Simply because he can't safely crash land a plane on water is no excuse for changing the physics of the entire universe (as we know it) and claiming it an improvement... and using the popularity of FAR to convince people it's how things should be.

For now, I'll be testing some of Firespitter's buoyancy routines and see if that improves the flotation in Better Buoyancy. But, I'm not going to go out of my way to support it. If it works, good, if it doesn't, choose between having ships and BB. My intent will be to use FS to improve STOCK flotation.

As for the helo stern, once I get props sorted out I'll need to rework that part anyway and add engines as requested. I can't promise a completely flat stern as aesthetics will still need it to angle inward. But I can probably give you a horizontally flat area to mount things.

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I managed to land a almost intact plane!

First the carrier was launched a couple 100 meters in to the air, 'cause quicksaves.

Then my purpose built plane landed on the remains!

Your posts have got me to thinking. Specifically about landing aircraft on ships. Since KSP is mostly a sandbox game about aviation and rocketry, it only seems prudent that a maritime pack support both of these. What I am bouncing around in the brain is a series of 'add-on' packs that add a collection of new parts.

I shall explain. Early in my KSP experience I fell in love with the B9 pack. It was great. At some point, B9 became hugely popular and it's dev's just kept adding more and more parts to the pack. IMHO, B9 is now to the point that it's so bloated with things I'd never use (like the HX parts) that I uninstalled it many months ago.

I've come to the conclusion that the ultimate solution would be a basic part pack, much like what Maritime is now. You get everything you need to have ships. Then, create add-on's, which also remain independent, like a carrier pack.

In this idea, you'd have a Maritime Pack folder under GameData with the basic parts. If you added on the Carrier Pack, for example, it would duplicate some parts in the Maritime Pack folder, but not all, and add it's own CarrierPack folder. That way, each could remain independent, yet, if the user chose to install both, they wouldn't end up with duplicate parts.

By doing this, if you, the end user decided they wanted carriers but not yachts, you wouldn't have to install the entire collection of parts. But, if you did want yachts, you could install both. This is what I think B9 should have done a long time ago. Let me choose what to install and not just dump hundreds of parts on me.

That's the theory. So, reverting back to this being an aviation and rocketry game, I think carriers and... floating landing pads (ala SpaceX's barge) should be pretty high on the priority list.

Since I have conveniently created a connection node on top of the basic hull, the current theory is to first, create a wide-body ship design and second, to create snap-on carrier decks that essentially bolt to the top of wide body deck. You'd end up with something much like the old carriers, which did just that... bolted a flight deck to a normal ship hull.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

MEIN GOTT! This was my dream mod!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going to build a Titanic replica

Repped!

Oh, and thanks for the Rep! It always helps when I speak my mind on the forums and aggravate the mods, which I've been known to do on occasion.

[smjjames]

On BB: I guess he meant https://github.com/ferram4/BetterBuoyancy ? I don't know if that's the dev version though. I'll take a quick look at it.

On the helo stern: The sides are actually fine, it's just that spot in the center there that is a bit wierd. Also, it looked totally flat to me, just saying.

Also, I actually made (mostly) functional rudders using IR. At low speeds, they don't work real well and when I tried to use them at high speeds (was using the medium ducted fans from FTT), they got ripped off.

An idea though, maybe an outrigger type part like in the screenshot? I was experimenting around with trying to do propulsion with a tail fin, but it's hard to do it smoothly with the IR sequencer. Not sure if I was doing the motions correctly anyway and besides (most) fish swim with their whole bodies, not just the tail.

Test with that BB dev version complete.

First test. I had the same issue with that attempt at a hydrocanard in stock, except a little less buoyant.

Test 2.

Excellent!

Edit: This is with the bitts empty btw.

Edit2: Total dry mass, just over 17 tons.

Edited June 17, 2015 by smjjames

[Fengist]

Ok, I'll download that version and give it a go. I'm really interested to see if things float without the blisters.

I briefly looked at the helo's mesh and it looks flat. I shall investigate further when I work on it.

And you just gave me a great idea for mounting the catamaran/trimaran. Rather than creating an entire hull or something like the FS pontoons that surface connect, I can create a part that bolts onto the hull's top connection node and extends over both sides. Excellent design idea! Thanks.

[Spacepetscompany]

Any chance we'll ever get submarines from this pack through usage of a plugin?

[smjjames]

Any chance we'll ever get submarines from this pack through usage of a plugin?

We do have bathyspheres, which are, well, primitive submarines, sortof.

Anyways, heres a bug that I've been noticing, the compressor and decompressor have both of their buttons active at first.

output log: http://sta.sh/01r4zsy57ox1 No exceptions in there. Did spot an error with the internal model though.

I realize that the IVAs are very much incomplete, but just wondering if the viewport requires RasterPropMonitor or is it simply incomplete.

Edited June 17, 2015 by smjjames
bathySPHERE, not bathyscape

[mike9606]

I believe the IVAs are still incomplete and thus the bathysphere has no viewport ATM, but I believe these parts use the old old Mk3 IVA. I think RPM may still have configs for it though, so you can just put a camera part in the viewport.