[1.0.4] Maritime Pack - 0.1.4

[smjjames]

Maybe Fengist and Infinite Dice can do some beta testing for NathanKell? After all, they are the ones with the boat and submarine mods.

[Fengist]

To quote NathanKell - "Of course, subs have been around in mods for a while, same with boats. And due to the very changed buoyancy system (which is fully configurable, mind, and uses dragcubes for drag and to help compute volume) those mods may well need updating."

Since all of the other submarine mods are dead, and since I'm the only modder with a working boat mod (there is another guy who's trying to start one) I sent a PM to Nathan because that quote of his points a finger directly at me.

His rather quick response was thus:

"I have merely corrected errors in the existing buoyancy model, and added support for better detection of impact speed and drag and lift. If you have taken advantage of those bugs and other problems, you may have to rework things, but the new system is much more flexible and configurable and it should not take you long to update, if updating is necessary."

Which means, it'll probably affect every single part on Maritime that touches the water. It probably won't affect the sub as it uses Firespitter's code. And... if it torques me off, I've discovered how to completely kill the stock float code and make things sink like a rock. I'll rewrite it myself.

Therefore, all I can say is... we'll have to wait and see. They did not ask me to test anything and I found out when I read this thread.

Either way, my buoyancy modding just got put on hold because whatever I create now, probably won't work in 1.0.5.

[ThatOneBritishGuy...]

To quote NathanKell - "Of course, subs have been around in mods for a while, same with boats. And due to the very changed buoyancy system (which is fully configurable, mind, and uses dragcubes for drag and to help compute volume) those mods may well need updating."

Since all of the other submarine mods are dead, and since I'm the only modder with a working boat mod (there is another guy who's trying to start one) I sent a PM to Nathan because that quote of his points a finger directly at me.

His rather quick response was thus:

"I have merely corrected errors in the existing buoyancy model, and added support for better detection of impact speed and drag and lift. If you have taken advantage of those bugs and other problems, you may have to rework things, but the new system is much more flexible and configurable and it should not take you long to update, if updating is necessary."

Which means, it'll probably affect every single part on Maritime that touches the water. It probably won't affect the sub as it uses Firespitter's code. And... if it torques me off, I've discovered how to completely kill the stock float code and make things sink like a rock. I'll rewrite it myself.

Therefore, all I can say is... we'll have to wait and see. They did not ask me to test anything and I found out when I read this thread.

Either way, my buoyancy modding just got put on hold because whatever I create now, probably won't work in 1.0.5.

Honestly, I'm not sure whether this is good news or bad news. On the positive, it means Squad is at work on the buoyancy code, and mentioned submarines, which might just result in the fixing of the terrain mesh bug (which has been bothering me a lot as you can probably tell) and any other potentially difficult to resolve issues regarding aquatics, as well as the bug spam. The negative is that of course this will mess with the way the mod works, which could result in backwards incompatibility issues, etc.

Double edged sword indeed.

Edited October 28, 2015 by ThatOneBritishGuy...

[Fengist]

Honestly, I'm not sure whether this is good news or bad news. On the positive, it means Squad is at work on the buoyancy code, and mentioned submarines, which might just result in the fixing of the terrain mesh bug (which has been bothering me a lot as you can probably tell) and any other potentially difficult to resolve issues regarding aquatics, as well as the bug spam. The negative is that of course this will mess with the way the mod works, which could result in backwards incompatibility issues, etc.

Double edged sword indeed.

Don't count on it. I specifically asked Nathan about the camera and the mesh bug. He says he's 'fixed' the camera but was totally unaware of the mesh issue. His response was most amusing. -" I can say I've hit the bottom and stopped at a depth of 950m, so unless there's something special about 1km..." - I let him know just how 'magical' 1,000m+ depths really are.

Maritime doesn't use any plugin so I'm hoping it's safe. But it does rely on cheating KSP density calculations. Large volume's, low mass. At the worst, I'm hoping all I have to do is pitch the blisters out the window and rework the mass on all the parts. I'm hoping anyway.

The sub pack though uses Firespitter on all it's parts. I haven't looked at the FS code but I'm thinking he completely kills stock buoyancy to create his own. If that's the case, and if stock buoyancy can still be killed using the same method, it should be safe.

One byproduct I hope to see out of all of this though is the final demise of 'Better' Buoyancy. I swear to god people are amusing. Ferram creates one popular mod and suddenly everyone jumps on his tailcoat thinking he must know everything there is to know about modding. After now understanding C# and looking at his code for BB... it's a joke.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Fengist

[Fengist]

Nathan tells me the log spamming is fixed and now that he's aware of the issues at 1,000m+, he's going to look into it.

[Red Iron Crown]

Fengist, please refrain from posting the content of private messages publicly, in accordance with Rule 2.2f.

[Generalstarwars333]

Hey, do you think you could make some type of clipper ship part that has an opening cargo bay? Then I can have batteries, generators, labs, magazines-err,kerbals on the inside of the ship, hidden from view, so that the deck can be all beautiful and have lots of open space for weapons-err...SCIENCE! Totally not worried about a stray bullet hitting my landship's exposed ammunition or anything! seriously though, look into it. maybe you could have something like the ramp for a truck, except it goes into the ship, not on top of it. sort of like the ramp for the mk4 spaceplane mod. that way the ugly fuel cell arrays and rtgs and batteries and stuff can be stored inside, leaving all the deck space for mpl-g2s and crew stuff and solar panels and science instruments and lights and all that good stuff. it would be cool. also, it would be good if you made a carrier and a fighter or other warplane that can land on it so that you could use KAS/KIS to re-arm it. or re-science it. or to stow it inside so the ship can actually turn out to be space kerbalship kermato and go into space and fly around without the plane sliding of or exploding or both.

[Fengist]

Hey, do you think you could make some type of clipper ship part that has an opening cargo bay? Then I can have batteries, generators, labs, magazines-err,kerbals on the inside of the ship, hidden from view, so that the deck can be all beautiful and have lots of open space for weapons-err...SCIENCE! Totally not worried about a stray bullet hitting my landship's exposed ammunition or anything! seriously though, look into it. maybe you could have something like the ramp for a truck, except it goes into the ship, not on top of it. sort of like the ramp for the mk4 spaceplane mod. that way the ugly fuel cell arrays and rtgs and batteries and stuff can be stored inside, leaving all the deck space for mpl-g2s and crew stuff and solar panels and science instruments and lights and all that good stuff. it would be cool. also, it would be good if you made a carrier and a fighter or other warplane that can land on it so that you could use KAS/KIS to re-arm it. or re-science it. or to stow it inside so the ship can actually turn out to be space kerbalship kermato and go into space and fly around without the plane sliding of or exploding or both.

There's one big problem with most of what you want. Cargo bay's in water don't work the way you'd expect. And neither do hulls. In the real world a hull displaces water. On Kerbin, the water intrudes inside the spaces. That means, if you were to look inside the hull, you'd see it half full of water. How's that a problem? 1. Drag. Anything below the waterline that hasn't been 'tweaked' for this mod will add drag directly proportional to it's mass. 2. Collision. Anytime anything contacts the surface of the water, a collision check is made. Therefore, anything inside the hull at or about the waterline will have a LOT more chances to break and/or explode than things on the deck of the ship.

Hope that explains it.

But, I did once look into putting containers on ships. If I could get them working properly (it's an issue of multiple docking ports on one part) that would solve some of your requests.

[Generalstarwars333]

Hmmm...maybe a part that has a shallow opening bay that has a lot of hull between it and the water...though for me water coming in isn't much of a concern due to me mostly using the parts for landship stuff since the drive from the runway to the water is kind of soul crushingly long.

[minepagan]

So....looking back, I have not seen any request like this, and it does not seem like it won't work....

Any chance of hangar deck parts for the CVE pack? And, more specifically, a flight deck piece with an elevator?

[Rath]

Can we have an arrestor hook/line of some sort. The old boat mod had one, so I think it will work.

[minepagan]

Can we have an arrestor hook/line of some sort. The old boat mod had one, so I think it will work.

.....he already said no.

[Fengist]

So....looking back, I have not seen any request like this, and it does not seem like it won't work....

Any chance of hangar deck parts for the CVE pack? And, more specifically, a flight deck piece with an elevator?

In order to do this it would require a completely new model for hulls. An elevator implies that there is a hangar deck below the flight deck. The clipper hull was never designed to be a multi-deck ship. In order to make a ship large enough to handle a carrier that has a hangar deck, you'd need an SPH much larger than the current one. Working with Dice's Boat Parts clued me into that. In order to have a larger hangar, you'd either need to use another mod or I'd have to write the code to extend it. Nextly, a whole new collection of proper sized parts would have to be created, like the bridge, sponsons, fantail, hatches, etc.. And then, like the question below, I'd be asked to make arrestor cables, arrestor hooks, catapults, catapult hooks, specialized docking ports to connect the aircraft to, specialized landing gear to connect to the docking ports... etc. And then, I'd be asked to make support vehicles to service and move all the aircraft around. And then, because this thing would be a monstrosity I'd have to completely rewrite the flotation code to make sure the thing didn't tip over because it would be massively top heavy since you can't put any mass below the surface without it creating huge drag. And THEN... just like Dice's Boat Parts (which has all that) you'd be stuck with a ship that you'd pretty much have to build to exact design specifications and I'd end up repeating those instructions over and over again because no one would read them....

Ummm. I think no.

- - - Updated - - -

Can we have an arrestor hook/line of some sort. The old boat mod had one, so I think it will work.

see above. BUT... one thing I may consider that would be fairly easy to do is just the arrestor hook with no cable. What may work is to consider it to be a wheel without all the wheel junk. But, have huge break torque on it so that once it hits the ground, you pretty much stop. I'll consider it. The problem there is, if I make one hook, it won't fit all sizes of landing gear so again, I'm looking at multiple parts with different length hooks.

Edited October 29, 2015 by Fengist

[Generalstarwars333]

Does it make you happy that I find these parts great for mobile research bases for science and maybe eventually once i research it mining?

[scullyl]

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but it seems like the Sidewheeler Starboard part doesn't have an attachment point but the Port side one does! I just thought I'd point this out, although it seems like using two Port side parts and reverting the thrust of one of them works fine. Also, this might not be a mistake but the intake is unlocked separately from most of the other parts, meaning its possible to unlock all the engines without actually being able to use them yet.

[Fengist]

Does it make you happy that I find these parts great for mobile research bases for science and maybe eventually once i research it mining?

That's one of the uses they're intended fore.

[Generalstarwars333]

yay!

[Fengist]

Number adjustments...

Whenever someone clicks on a download button on the op and does a direct download of any of my packs directly from my server, I log a bit of information. Like which pack they're downloading and their IP address and stuff that into a MySQL database. This information collection is to help me get some statistics on how well my mods are doing. Of late, I've noticed a HUGE problem with my server... massive lag at times. I assumed it was my host causing this hiccup that prevented some of my images (like my signature images) from showing up. And it occasionally caused some huge lag downloading the packs.

Well, I found out where the problem is. In the .php file that the download button links to I completely forgot just how asinine certain groups of individuals can be on this planet. I assumed that anyone who clicked on the download button actually wanted my mod. But, I forgot about the Chinese. After reviewing my database of downloads, I found not hundreds, but THOUSANDS of repeat downloads spaced only seconds apart coming from... China. So it would seem that my mod has somehow become either such a source of amusement to the Chinese in that they need thousands of copies of the Maritime Pack, or it's becoming such a threat to their national security that they're trying to do denial of service attacks against me.

Either way, I've made some changes to my download buttons. From now on, if you try to download more than once in a 2 minute period, you get rejected. Nextly, the download count is now significantly reduced so that it only shows unique downloads.

Now this makes me wonder. Just how accurate are download counts from Curse and Kerbalstuff because I'm seeing on Kerbalstuff on some days even more downloads of 2 releases back than the current release.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Fengist

[Javster]

I really like this mod because I can actually build the ships with parts. The other boat mod had more parts, and more impressive ships (huge aircraft carriers), but I could only use the stock ships included with the mod. I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of size for general ease of use, tbh. This one has a more Kerbal feeling to it as well. The other one felt more like human ships thrown into the Kerbal world.

In retrospect, I should have used the actual names of the mods... I hope what I said makes sense.

[Fengist]

I really like this mod because I can actually build the ships with parts. The other boat mod had more parts, and more impressive ships (huge aircraft carriers), but I could only use the stock ships included with the mod. I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of size for general ease of use, tbh. This one has a more Kerbal feeling to it as well. The other one felt more like human ships thrown into the Kerbal world.

In retrospect, I should have used the actual names of the mods... I hope what I said makes sense.

Yep, you're referring to InfiniteDice's Boat Parts. And thanks.

[GERULA]

hey look bro, I rename a vessel after you and this time it didn't sunk

[Fengist]

hey look bro, I rename a vessel after you and this time it didn't sunk

http://i.imgur.com/e3NuAns.png

Now THAT is one impressive ship. And, I can save you a few parts on your next one AND give you a bigger hull to work with. Here's the link to the current prerelease (I'm waiting for 1.0.5 to come out before I release any new anything). In there, you'll find catamaran decks that you can mount 2 hulls to as well as a conning tower, radar and GPS.

Thanks for posting this. This is exactly the kind of off the wall things I love to wake up to in the morning.

And be sure you show the guys on the NAS thread. I'm betting they'll love this.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Fengist

[GERULA]

Now THAT is one impressive ship. And, I can save you a few parts on your next one AND give you a bigger hull to work with. Here's the link to the current prerelease (I'm waiting for 1.0.5 to come out before I release any new anything). In there, you'll find catamaran decks that you can mount 2 hulls to as well as a conning tower, radar and GPS.

Thanks for posting this. This is exactly the kind of off the wall things I love to wake up to in the morning.

And be sure you show the guys on the NAS thread. I'm betting they'll love this.

downloaded, installed,test it

great stuff man, especially that tower which is so welcome..now with this new parts, I cant wait to build my new modern destroyer filled with rockets

about NAS mod, those cannons are great, they look good, they behave good, but their weight vs the weight of a ship built with your pices from your mod it's insane

this ship I jsut build, without cannons have like 250 tons and it's faster, floats nice, with his cannons have like almost 1000 t.

I tried to use one of his biggest cannons whose weight is more then 1650 tons...and it's impossible for me to build a ship that will float. I try to explain about this to Acea on his thread couple days ago, but because of me romeglish language, I don't think he understand much:(

Edited November 2, 2015 by GERULA

[Fengist]

downloaded, installed,test it

great stuff man, especially that tower which is so welcome..now with this new parts, I cant wait to build my new modern destroyer filled with rockets

about NAS mod, those cannons are great, they look good, they behave good, but their weight vs the weight of a ship built with your pices from your mod it's insane

this ship I jsut build, without cannons have like 250 tons and it's faster, floats nice, with his cannons have like almost 1000 t.

I tried to use one of his biggest cannons whose weight is more then 1650 tons...and it's impossible for me to build a ship that will float. I try to explain about this to Acea on his thread couple days ago, but because of me romeglish language, I don't think he understand much:(

And they're Chinese so I'm sure lots gets lots in the translation. Once 1.0.5 comes out it MAY be a bit better, depending on how they rework the float code. If not, I'll find some way to make it work.

I just posted on his thread as well. I hope I explained it well enough.

Edited November 2, 2015 by Fengist

[Generalstarwars333]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I can't get that to email to myself for later since It's blocked on our school computers!