WW2 Warships 0.5.1 - Is there actually something happening? Stay tuned!

[CrisK]

Azimech, could you provide a carrier craft file?

[Azimech]

A carrier? Oh that's easy! Just build a ship with the largest keel like in the tutorial and put a very large deck on it.

In the future I'll adapt some IR parts so you can build elevators and cranes as well.

By the way, I updated the tutorial with some last second info, so it's best to go to Imgur instead of watching the embedded album, because of the delay Imgur has with updating albums.

[AkanoLoki]

Spoiler

 

Okay so I've discussed this amazing mod with my lads, and we came out with the following idea to simulate water-displacement of ship and balance more realistic and "volumetricly". That is, to add a part "watertight compartment" to simulate the compartments inside ships. Hope this idea will help the mod development in some way.

Basically, this part shall be fragile and have minimal weight at normal status, with a water storage capacity slightly less than the size of the compartments. Considered that the NAS cannon shells only have heating capabilities(HE), the compartment will start to obtain water(flooded by water) after being heated to a certain temp(which indicates the damage of the hull). The compartment may have a water pump, but the destruction effects(heat-up) will speed up the rate of water increasing and eventually surpass the rate of pumping out of water. When the compartment is filled up with water, it will stop provide buoyancy, which will lead to the sinking of ship.

To be able to house engines and other stuff, one idea of the shape of compartments is some box-shaped sections consist of an outer shell and empty inner "cabin". It can be pre-filled with fuel, ammo or electricity, etc. or emptied like the service bays. Another idea is to have the part shaped like normal hull plates, but have the ability to provide the buoyancy of a certain volume(may add the capability to adjust). This second design will not need to re-model ,and also provides a clear view of ship internal stuffs and structure.

Also, this part is the only(or main) part that will provide the buoyancy of the ship. It may also provide some drag (or not), in correspondence with the balance of other parts. Due to the fragile(comparing to other hull parts) specifications, it's best placed behind the armor plates and structural plates to ensure its safety. The plates and hulls now can be considered structural panes and armor plates, which only provide minimal buoyancy. Therefore the damage and destruction of buoyancy parts (which is these "compartments") will lead to unbalance, loss of buoyancy and probably the sinking of the ship. This will make the design(or protection of these parts) more important and crucial to the survival of the vessel. Also the change will let the classifications of the ship size be more distinctive: small vessels like frigates and destroyers will be fast but fragile(one salvo of battleship will be enough to shatter them), while large Battleships and Carriers is gonna be heavy, but extremely hard to sink.

Hope my long gossip helps in some way; if there's any need of further explanation or discussion, please PM me. Great thanks of such a amazing mod!

 

[Decided to hide this post]

Edited December 25, 2015 by AkanoLoki

[Gojira]

How exactly do I keep a ship from exploding when it comes into physics range? Just lower the part count, or...?

[Azimech]

22 hours ago, AkanoLoki said:

Okay so I've discussed this amazing mod with my lads, and we came out with the following idea to simulate water-displacement of ship and balance more realistic and "volumetricly". That is, to add a part "watertight compartment" to simulate the compartments inside ships. Hope this idea will help the mod development in some way.

Basically, this part shall be fragile and have minimal weight at normal status, with a water storage capacity slightly less than the size of the compartments. Considered that the NAS cannon shells only have heating capabilities(HE), the compartment will start to obtain water(flooded by water) after being heated to a certain temp(which indicates the damage of the hull). The compartment may have a water pump, but the destruction effects(heat-up) will speed up the rate of water increasing and eventually surpass the rate of pumping out of water. When the compartment is filled up with water, it will stop provide buoyancy, which will lead to the sinking of ship.

To be able to house engines and other stuff, one idea of the shape of compartments is some box-shaped sections consist of an outer shell and empty inner "cabin". It can be pre-filled with fuel, ammo or electricity, etc. or emptied like the service bays. Another idea is to have the part shaped like normal hull plates, but have the ability to provide the buoyancy of a certain volume(may add the capability to adjust). This second design will not need to re-model ,and also provides a clear view of ship internal stuffs and structure.

Also, this part is the only(or main) part that will provide the buoyancy of the ship. It may also provide some drag (or not), in correspondence with the balance of other parts. Due to the fragile(comparing to other hull parts) specifications, it's best placed behind the armor plates and structural plates to ensure its safety. The plates and hulls now can be considered structural panes and armor plates, which only provide minimal buoyancy. Therefore the damage and destruction of buoyancy parts (which is these "compartments") will lead to unbalance, loss of buoyancy and probably the sinking of the ship. This will make the design(or protection of these parts) more important and crucial to the survival of the vessel. Also the change will let the classifications of the ship size be more distinctive: small vessels like frigates and destroyers will be fast but fragile(one salvo of battleship will be enough to shatter them), while large Battleships and Carriers is gonna be heavy, but extremely hard to sink.

Hope my long gossip helps in some way; if there's any need of further explanation or discussion, please PM me. Great thanks of such a amazing mod!

 

Nice writing! Actually the current system is not far off from what you propose. Every hull plate type A is a flat panel but in my mind provides a box like compartment in it's function. What you propose is essentially a generator and a converter in one, the generator making water with the converter losing efficiency when the temperature rises and shuts down above a fixed threshold. It's easy to adapt but I don't see in what area the system would improve at this time. By the way, have you guys simulated a battle between the frigates? I tested the Yamato gun from the beach, it really takes one or two hits to sink a frigate while the frigates have more trouble trying to sink each other. In my opinion, the stuff is already pretty balanced. Now for building the cruiser classes and test them.

Tip for everyone: land/drive them at/to the beach, park all of them, then drive them into the water. This prevents the stock bug from exploding or catapulting the ships from the water when physics range kicks in.

 

Oh and by now, I'd like to see some designs, people! ;-)

Edited December 23, 2015 by Azimech

[Azimech]

Here's a demo of the scalability of it all: my 77.7 meter example frigate included with the mod, next to a test build of a fictional super carrier, 360 meters long.

[Azimech]

And here's some carrier testing. Note the hangar deck. No elevators yet.

 

[Laughing Man]

Just out of curiosity, what was your fps for the frigate plus carrier? I'm enjoying the mod so far but the high part counts are proving to be troublesome.

[Azimech]

Indeed they are. I'm using a mod from Kerbokatz to adjust the delta time within the game, I don't really look at fps because I can adjust it to my own liking. But above 100 parts I'm in the yellow, and with the carrier and frigate I was usually at around 30% game speed with normal fps. So this mod is really going to bloom after KSP 1.1 has arrived, if all goes well.

[Laughing Man]

One more reason to look forward to 1.1! I've got a wee design to share too - the Fluffy-class Corvette. It's very loosely based on the British Flower-class Corvette and is armed with a 4.5" gun, a Bofors and a couple twin 50 cal mgs. Here she is steaming about by the KSC:-

 

Edited December 25, 2015 by Laughing Man
for the love of god add a preview!!!!

[Azimech]

Nice! Keep them coming!

[Azimech]

I just created my first 3D model, the objective is to replace all current models with my own, giving more flexibility with textures and colliders. It will lead to better looking ships. In the future I might include a texture switcher as well.

 

[Azimech]

So after creating two 3D models I went through the pain of learning the very basics of texture mapping and creating a very minimal texture, setting up Unity & Part Tools, fighting the system with a lot of problems with part rotation until I eventually had a sort of replacement for the original Squad parts. It looks horrible. But at least they're mine.

 

Now I've got to learn a lot about texturing & shaders. Don't worry, I won't update the mod with this. But if anyone has tips on how to improve my texturing skills and to get the strange artifacts removed ... I'm all ears.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Azimech

[Azimech]

Solved this problem, onto the next :-)

[Azimech]

Because it would be prudent to reduce part count and because the sinking of ships is something you do with damaging the hull anyway, I'm taking a first step in the world of 3D modeling beyond a simple rectangle or triangle. Don't expect a level of detail like pro's, and it will not be possible to destroy it, but since it will have command chairs the Kerbals can be killed, and in theory in a multiplayer game if one brings a chair, an enemy ship can be commandeered once it's crew is neutralized.

A few simple shapes of what eventually will become a frigate bridge, with a conning tower that reaches below the upper deck.

[Acea]

Remember to delete all blocked polygons or it'll lag seriously with too many parts

[Azimech]

Yes, I started early with that. Getting to know 3D modeling surely is a lot of work though, it will only start to get fun when I understand all commands.

[viceguy]

i finally made a ship that doesnt sink

now i just need to try and make something that doesnt look like a kitchen sink

 

[Azimech]

Nice! I'd like to see it!

[viceguy]

actually i made two ships now

the first one is somewhat a replica of the one in the turotial:

 

 

the other one i dont really know what i was trying to do.. it ended up looking like the nosei of a ship with all the remaining of the body missing.. or maybe kinda like those triangle cheese things

 

 

here is a link to the album with both ships:

http://imgur.com/a/2fKTg

Edited January 9, 2016 by viceguy

[General Rarity]

Loving this mod... here's my try at a US themed cruiser, the KSS Cloveland. A mix of the Des Moines class and the Cleveland class cruisers. Still working on it, hoping to add railings, a better bow curve, better mast, etc. Might also try to make the seaplane catapults functional.

Edited January 10, 2016 by General Rarity

[viceguy]

so i now made a new ship..

I Present to you the Trimaran Frigate

i should have made it bigger to get a bridge in middle but ended up with waaay too many parts so had to just use the stock cockpit on the fuel tanks on each side

i did a flyby and a landing in the gull for size comparison...

sadly i put the wings from the main hull out to the two sides a bit low so they are right at the water line

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by viceguy

[Azimech]

I love your builds people, keep 'm coming!

That trimaran is really something new! I love that design! I wonder how it wil perform during combat. It seems a bit large for a frigate ... if you have both a 20cm and a 38cm it's almost like a cruiser ;-) ... what's it's mass?

[viceguy]

yeah the guns is a bit big for it...

it was more or less based on different trimarans but i sort ran out of parts to get the correct shape.. if i had to redo it i would most likely use a bigger keel as this was the smallest one. problem then would be that i would defo end up with a part count of 20000 or something

thing is i have a tendency to overdo things so usually i end up in one big lagfest

 

it counts 403 parts weighing in at 26,666.3 Tons according to the game

its 29.7 meters heigh, 53.4m wide and 58.2 meters long

this is what it looks like before i launch it

 

I can try and sail the stock ship out towards it and shoot a little at it

 

aaaand a video is up.. sry about the slowness.. but its around 650 parts in close proximity

the only thing that got destroyed by those shots were the fuel tanks up on top of the ship.

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by viceguy

[Acea]

1 hour ago, viceguy said:

yeah the guns is a bit big for it...

it was more or less based on different trimarans but i sort ran out of parts to get the correct shape.. if i had to redo it i would most likely use a bigger keel as this was the smallest one. problem then would be that i would defo end up with a part count of 20000 or something

thing is i have a tendency to overdo things so usually i end up in one big lagfest

 

it counts 403 parts weighing in at 26,666.3 Tons according to the game

its 29.7 meters heigh, 53.4m wide and 58.2 meters long

this is what it looks like before i launch it

 

I can try and sail the stock ship out towards it and shoot a little at it

 

aaaand a video is up.. sry about the slowness.. but its around 650 parts in close proximity

the only thing that got destroyed by those shots were the fuel tanks up on top of the ship.

 

Your NAS seems too old