[1.0.4] Maritime Pack - 0.1.4

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

[...]

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.

I think that's a great idea! Have you considered a rocket landing barge part with a "K" inside a bulls-eye, like on the spacex barge?

[Mekan1k]

Um... I liked the jet-like effect the engine had in the alpha.

[Fengist]

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

If you want the honest truth, when I set out to start making mods I intended on a submarine. And that's where the compressed water came from. The reason the blisters were originally in the fuel tank section is that I was attempting to create an extreme low density fluid to counteract balance. It didn't work.

That being said, the compressed water will submerge most anything given enough of it. The problem is, once submerged weight causes massive drag. If you want an example, mount a bitt on the bottom of a boat and fill it with compressed water and see how fast you move.

So, the submerging part isn't a problem. Enough propulsion to overcome the incredible drag is.

The other option is to put wheels on a vehicle and drive along the bottom. You can sorta get decent speeds. But, here's the next issue. Take the bathysphere and drop it in the ocean and dive to 1000+ meters. If you've never done that, you're in for a bit of a surprise.

For now, I'll say I keep thinking about it but no solutions yet.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

It's not really a bug as I would term it, it just offers both buttons at first. Once you click one they start working right. I'll look into it a bit more though. BTW, the bathysphere has them built in. No need for external mounted ones.

And the IVA's are Squad's default IVA's. I've looked at the model for the Bathysphere one and... wow. Dunno if I'll get that far into modelling... IVA's are... scary.

There is Camera Tools which lets you mount external cameras and switch around between them. Works pretty nice actually.

- - - Updated - - -

I think that's a great idea! Have you considered a rocket landing barge part with a "K" inside a bulls-eye, like on the spacex barge?

I shall keep it in mind

- - - Updated - - -

Um... I liked the jet-like effect the engine had in the alpha.

I don't think I removed it... it not there? If not, it will be back in the next patch but of a lesser intensity.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Fengist

[smjjames]

Huh? Squad had a sort of proto-IVA for bathyspheres?

Anyways, you could commission (or at least just ask/request) one of those people who are great at making IVAs to make one for you.

Also, I was just externally mounting them on there because I wanted to show all three at once, plus quick testing in a clean branchoff.

Edited June 18, 2015 by smjjames

[Fengist]

Huh? Squad had a sort of proto-IVA for bathyspheres?

Anyways, you could commission (or at least just ask/request) one of those people who are great at making IVAs to make one for you.

Also, I was just externally mounting them on there because I wanted to show all three at once, plus quick testing in a clean branchoff.

Ok, I did some more checking to make sure I was right. The module used to run the generator is a Squad module. Which means, it's pretty poorly documented. From what I can tell, the options available for that module and the options I have set are the way Squad allows them. There is no way I have found to initially set one button to off.

And if one of these IVA guys wants to jump in and make one. I'll be more than happy to add them to the pack and give credit. If no one steps forward I'm sure I will eventually go hunting for one. Right now, I'm more focused on getting the parts built.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Fengist

[Geschosskopf]

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.

Good .

For a long time, there's been another ship mod, InfiniteDice's Boat Parts, which is all about carriers and subs. Sadly, none of his ships are really amenable to mounting on rockets and shooting off to Laythe, so I'm pulling for you here .

However, I suspect you'll face all the same issues he did in terms of carrier opeations. Being able to taxi on deck, being able to dock planes to the carrier so they don't fall overboard when the ship moves, providing an arrestor system, etc. Might be worth asking his advice.

[Fengist]

Good .

For a long time, there's been another ship mod, InfiniteDice's Boat Parts, which is all about carriers and subs. Sadly, none of his ships are really amenable to mounting on rockets and shooting off to Laythe, so I'm pulling for you here .

However, I suspect you'll face all the same issues he did in terms of carrier opeations. Being able to taxi on deck, being able to dock planes to the carrier so they don't fall overboard when the ship moves, providing an arrestor system, etc. Might be worth asking his advice.

Yea, I loaded up his mod early in my KSP life and I think it lasted an hour before I deleted it. From what I can tell, he might as well have just modded the whole boat. I didn't like that you had to put his jigsaw puzzle together his way.

As for getting to Layte. I've added a flat spot to the rear of the helo deck. You should be able to find a way to stand one on the end of a big rocket. And the helo deck gets an engine with twin screws. I'll let you tell me if you can get it into orbit.

As for the carrier, I'm thinking my first one will be more like a CVL or CVE. I'll use the hulls the pack has now. I've made some outriggers to add some stability but they're not working quite right yet. And next will be to create a bolt-on flight deck. Expect something like the pic I showed earlier. Something big enough for one... smallish plane.

As for arresting gear, I won't even try. With air brakes and parachutes now working, well... make a long boat. For taxiing, KAS winches would be my recommendation. Land then winch the plane backward to launch again. An again, for pitching around on the deck, KAS. Add some ground connections to the deck and pipe to the plane. KAS struts to tie it down. Pretty realistic too.

[InfiniteDice]

Yea, I loaded up his mod early in my KSP life and I think it lasted an hour before I deleted it. From what I can tell, he might as well have just modded the whole boat. I didn't like that you had to put his jigsaw puzzle together his way.

There are a lot of issues when putting a solitary part vessel into ksp, it really means all the code needs to be written specifically for that. Boatparts v1 was made to be totally formless, except the bow which is a formed part, if you check some of my older videos you'll see these huge multi-level platform barges. The reason I went more theme oriented (carrier, sub, etc) is from people requesting it so much. Again for no other reason I kept these in part chunks that could each bear their own code and maintain a balance that way without the need for excessively complicated mesh based floatation calculations.

I find your parts interesting, I never really liked texturing much. It's hard doing it all after spending hundreds of hours coding and testing.

Best of wishes out on the water!

ID.

[Mekan1k]

There are a lot of issues when putting a solitary part vessel into ksp, it really means all the code needs to be written specifically for that. Boatparts v1 was made to be totally formless, except the bow which is a formed part, if you check some of my older videos you'll see these huge multi-level platform barges. The reason I went more theme oriented (carrier, sub, etc) is from people requesting it so much. Again for no other reason I kept these in part chunks that could each bear their own code and maintain a balance that way without the need for excessively complicated mesh based floatation calculations.

I find your parts interesting, I never really liked texturing much. It's hard doing it all after spending hundreds of hours coding and testing.

Best of wishes out on the water!

ID.

Hey, is there any chance you could make the IVA for the command decks?

[Fengist]

There are a lot of issues when putting a solitary part vessel into ksp, it really means all the code needs to be written specifically for that. Boatparts v1 was made to be totally formless, except the bow which is a formed part, if you check some of my older videos you'll see these huge multi-level platform barges. The reason I went more theme oriented (carrier, sub, etc) is from people requesting it so much. Again for no other reason I kept these in part chunks that could each bear their own code and maintain a balance that way without the need for excessively complicated mesh based floatation calculations.

I find your parts interesting, I never really liked texturing much. It's hard doing it all after spending hundreds of hours coding and testing.

Best of wishes out on the water!

ID.

Hi Dice, I don't mean to offend. Anyone who creates a mod, I'm learning, deserves honest recognition. It ain't easy. Yours, just wasn't my cup-o-tea. And since I can't even being to code in C#, I'm having to look at alternate solutions to solving the same problems you had to solve. If you look back in this post, you'll see at least one guy already trying to land an aircraft on a ship. So yea, I'm beginning to grasp that modding parts is a fine balance between what you want to do and what everyone else wants. Dunno if I'll succeed but, I'm having a blast making these parts none the less.

And, if you look close, you'll see I'm no texture artist either. I spray some colored pixels around and if it looks somewhat presentable... I'm done. I may go back later and redo all these, but for now... I'm having too much fun making and testing the parts to worry about realism. For now, I'd rather have somewhat presentable parts out in the hands of the players than spend weeks detailing one part down to the last pixel.

Thanks for stopping in, always glad to see an old salt. Fair winds...

And speaking of carriers...

Currently in testing...

The Escort Carrier (CVE)

So, I said something about carriers. Well...

During WWII, the CVA (Attack Carrier) was in huge demand. Unfortunately for most countries, there weren't a lot of them to go around. Plus they were expensive to build and operate and took ages to construct. As a stop-gap, many countries commandeered cargo ships and bolted a flight deck on top of them. Known as Escort Carriers, the US alone built over 180 of them. Though they were slow and small, they still played a vital role in the war.

Ladies and gents, I present the Kerbal Escort Carrier (though I probably should have named it a micro carrier)

In the tradition of the CVE, this carrier too is built atop a standard hull from the Maritime Pack. Using the connection nodes on the deck of the hulls, you simply snap the CVE deck in place.

At the moment, it consists of 4 parts:

1. The center deck, designed to fit on the Clipper Hull.
   
2. The CVE Bow, designed to fit on the Clipper Bow
   
3. The CVE Stern, designed to fit on the Clipper Powered Stern
   
4. The CVE Bridge, a command pod designed to fit on the Clipper Hull
   

Ok, so it sorta looks like a carrier but can you land a plane on it???

I can tell you this. I now know why all of the carrier pilots I met in my life looked like they had too much caffeine.

At 3km away, it's a speck in the ocean

At half a klick, it's just a big dot

1/4 kilometer, my god that's tiny

BRAKES!!!!!

Ok, KSP rarely gives me an adrenaline rush but... that did it!

And plenty of flight deck for a launch

One of the cool things I discovered is, when you land on this lil CVE with the brakes on, it shoves the ship forward. If you then, release the brakes on your plane, you roll backward. Makes getting more flight deck to launch from pretty easy.

And takeoff.

So there you have it folks. In the next beta release, a carrier.

Oh, and an outtake... that was my third attempt to land on the CVE. Here's a pre-texture test to see if landing a plane on it would sink it. I crashed, but the CVE kept floating along...

Edited June 20, 2015 by Fengist

[Drew Kerman]

that CVE looked way bigger (more like KSCs runway width) until I actually saw the planes barely fit on it. Is it just scaled down for initial testing?

[Fengist]

that CVE looked way bigger (more like KSCs runway width) until I actually saw the planes barely fit on it. Is it just scaled down for initial testing?

LOL yea, it looked a LOT bigger in the SPH... and then I tried to land on it. No, that's actual size.

Keep in mind, this will be the first carrier in the batch. Once I get a few more things done, I'll move on to a wider hull design.

- - - Updated - - -

And if you're anxious to try to land on one, you can practice landing on the VAB roof... it's not as long, but wider

[Fengist]

Beta Pack 0.0.12 is released.

The CVE has arrived.

[B-STRK]

Beta Pack 0.0.12 is released.

The CVE has arrived.

Laythe here we come! (I just need to get to Laythe--or out of the Kerbin system in the first place. )

If I may humbly add: considering how carrier landings go, maybe the stern at the back (literally and littoral-y) could actually read: "If you can read this, you're too low. PS: hope you like the taste of metal. :sticktongue:"

On a more productive note, I believe the CVE is just about perfect for small helicopters and VTOL craft that can fly in associated atmospheric and oceanic worlds (Eve, Laythe, Kerbin). Minimum landing speed won't be an issue with them, and I think VTOLs would be more useful for base ops (e.g., light skycranes, transports, and scouts). (I don't know if I'd have the room to install this in my current playthrough, but I would easily recommend this mod for a Laythe op.)

[mike9606]

For some reason when I hit the download buttons for both packs I just get an empty .zip named the same thing as the previous version's file. If someone could help me with this that'd be nice.

EDIT1: Still waiting for help on this matter.

EDIT2: Starting to get angry at the lack of ANYONE AT ALL helping me with this.

Edited June 20, 2015 by mike9606

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

For some reason when I hit the download buttons for both packs I just get an empty .zip named the same thing as the previous version's file. If someone could help me with this that'd be nice.

EDIT1: Still waiting for help on this matter.

EDIT2: Starting to get angry at the lack of ANYONE AT ALL helping me with this.

I'm having the same problem, I wouldn't worry, the OP is offline, so he isn't intentionally ignoring you.

[Fengist]

For some reason when I hit the download buttons for both packs I just get an empty .zip named the same thing as the previous version's file. If someone could help me with this that'd be nice.

EDIT1: Still waiting for help on this matter.

EDIT2: Starting to get angry at the lack of ANYONE AT ALL helping me with this.

Sorry guys, my fault. I set up the download counter and thot I had it fixed and left for work. Just got back and fixed it... it's working now.

[mike9606]

Well, I made a simple CVE and discovered it seems the new parts are high-power kraken magnets. Whenever I launch at the kerbinside KSC Seaplane buoy the ship disintegrates and launchs into space even with no crash damage and unbreakable joints as well as ignore max temperature on in the debug menu. When I launch at the runway the ship starts with all parts at the hottest temperature they cna be at and ti bounces into the air. Welp, seems the kraken really doesn't want me to use this pack.

[Fengist]

Well, I made a simple CVE and discovered it seems the new parts are high-power kraken magnets. Whenever I launch at the kerbinside KSC Seaplane buoy the ship disintegrates and launchs into space even with no crash damage and unbreakable joints as well as ignore max temperature on in the debug menu. When I launch at the runway the ship starts with all parts at the hottest temperature they cna be at and ti bounces into the air. Welp, seems the kraken really doesn't want me to use this pack.

Wold you mind trying to remove various parts and see if you can find the offender? One reason I ask is I only know of two parts in the whole pack that even generate heat and it wold take a lot of work to overheat them.

That and if you would, show me a pic of your design in the SPH

Edited June 21, 2015 by Fengist

[mike9606]

Wold you mind trying to remove various parts and see if you can find the offender? One reason I ask is I only know of two parts in the whole pack that even generate heat and it wold take a lot of work to overheat them.

That and if you would, show me a pic of your design in the SPH

I don't think a part is generating any heat as it starts with that heat from the very start of the launch. Either that or it gains it so fast if I don't have the ignore max temp cheat on the ship destroys itself as soon as it is controllable. I'll get a picture of the design and post it here.

[Fengist]

I don't think a part is generating any heat as it starts with that heat from the very start of the launch. Either that or it gains it so fast if I don't have the ignore max temp cheat on the ship destroys itself as soon as it is controllable. I'll get a picture of the design and post it here.

Thanks. I know this doesn't help but I've built ships in two different copies of KSP and nothing like that. I did have one go flipping around like mad earlier when i landed a VTOL on one then switched to Space Center and back again. Not sure what caused that.

[mike9606]

Here is the picture of the design in the SPH.

Mod Parts include: Mechjeb unit, NFS solar panel truss for power, NFE battery pack for power storage, and a small NFE cpacitor for backup power. Besides that there are no other mod parts aside from the ones this pack has. My tanker ship in the previous unit had these parts (plus a LLL Comms tower) and worked perfectly fine, so I do not believe the mods parts are the culprit. Also, there are no parts on the actual hull and deck aside from the bitts, buoyancy blisters, and vernors for turning. EDIT: Now when launching the ship on runway it is fine, but attempting to launch at the Kerbinside KSC Buoy still summons the kraken. I suspect Kerbinside is messing with the parts. May have something to do with KJR too. I took a screenshot of the F3 window to post here after launching from the buoy.

EDIT: Here's that picture.

Edited June 21, 2015 by mike9606

[Fengist]

Here is the picture of the design in the SPH.

http://i.imgur.com/BXVuNK2.jpg

Mod Parts include: Mechjeb unit, NFS solar panel truss for power, NFE battery pack for power storage, and a small NFE cpacitor for backup power. Besides that there are no other mod parts aside from the ones this pack has. My tanker ship in the previous unit had these parts (plus a LLL Comms tower) and worked perfectly fine, so I do not believe the mods parts are the culprit. Also, there are no parts on the actual hull and deck aside from the bitts, buoyancy blisters, and vernors for turning. EDIT: Now when launching the ship on runway it is fine, but attempting to launch at the Kerbinside KSC Buoy still summons the kraken. I suspect Kerbinside is messing with the parts. May have something to do with KJR too. I took a screenshot of the F3 window to post here after launching from the buoy.

EDIT: Here's that picture.

http://i.imgur.com/deIVjmq.jpg

Ok, just to be on the safe side, strip all the flight decks off, drop a cargo bridge on it and see if you have the same problem.

Wow, that is a kraken. Last time I saw that I had an engine with 200,000 kN of thrust.

And thanks for helping figure this out. There's so many mods out now I can't even begin to test compatibility.

Edited June 21, 2015 by Fengist

[mike9606]

After stripping away the deck and adding a cargo bridge, it is slightly better. It seems the buoy is broken and is spawning my ships underwater. This caused the new ship to fly out of the water, and fall back in destroying the cargo bridge while capsizing. After reverting and loading up the CVE design again, the game lagged so I could see that the exact same happens to it, but the carrier parts freak out when they are submerged causing the issue. Conclusion: Kerbal Konstructs does not like this pack.

EDIT: U Wot M8

New Conclusion: KK is VERY VERY broken. (I spawned 258 meters in the air and landed on the runway. Survived because I still had cheats on for safety).

Edited June 21, 2015 by mike9606

[Fengist]

Ok, I'll add that to the potential compatibility list. As an alternative, I can definitely say Hyperedit has no problem with it.