Discussion - Aircraft carriers in 1.0.5 and on

[colmo]

NathanKell's revamped hydrodynamics has done for seagoing craft what new aero did for planes.

Submarines are wildly popular, and with current stock parts, are perfectly capable. However, ship builders, especially those of aircraft carriers, have a much harder time, even with mods. Infinite Dice's carrier is old and needs a lot of work to revamp, and Fengist's Maritime parts mod's future is uncertain. Neither modder can currently spend the time doing the work either.

It might be time to rethink what boat part mods actually need:

- Decent sized hull parts to make large vessels without absurd part counts.

- Negatively buoyant keel parts will both make ship hulls look like the real deal, and prevent topheavy designs. They could fit flush to flat-bottomed, more buoyant hull parts.

- Carrier deck storage should take advantage of cargo bay occlusion, both from air and water. I understand new hydro and new aero obey this.

- A workable ballast system to stop listing without excessive complexity. The simplest method is carrying a dense Ballast resource and manually transferring it around. Some cfg hacks already use this method.

- a range of generators, prop engines and control surfaces to power them.

- a sensible means of docking aircraft to the carrier. I proposed dockable landing gear (like a Klaw) to ID, which he implemented in his ICE mod. This allows planes to reload on the carrier (leaving them loose is catastrophic) and prevents flopping through the deck if docked by other means. This latter problem could alternatively be solved using a custom carrier deck or landing gear that remains unclippable by parts of the same craft, a method I recall Ferram using for cargo bays.

- Launching ships is tricky. The current best way to do it is Bahamuto D's VesselMover mod. Kerbal Konstructs and the Oceania pack are currently incompatible with 1.0.5

I'm no modder; but I can offer a few ideas. I also would like feedback. First, what mods have parts that work right now in 1.0.5 which help address the points above? Second, what modders have WIPs towards the same?

Thanks! Edited November 19, 2015 by colmo

[Zuthal]

One other thing for launching ships could be something which just allows you to spawn a ship in the water, say, 200 m off the coast of KSC, which could probably be set up with the Kerbinside mod. This would also save the hassle of doing stuff like making sure that the carrier stands stably when placed on solid ground.

[Geschosskopf]

This has all been done already. InfiniDice's "Skillful" mod pack was first. It hasn't been updated in a while but maybe you can get a hold of him and talk him into it. More recently, there was Fengist's Maritime Pack which was working in 1.0.4 but he got depressed that 1.0.5 came out and he has to rework it. Send him a PM to cheer him up and get him to update his stuff ;).

[colmo]

I've already commented on the state of previous mods and vehicle launching.

[COLOR="silver"][SIZE=1]- - - Updated - - -[/SIZE][/COLOR]

And I sent Fengist a PM!

[Azimech]

I'm busy with a mod, [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/139625-WW2-Warships-0-1-They-really-sink"]check over here[/URL].

It will be possible to build huge aircraft carriers. Any requests or suggestions, post them over there :-)

[colmo]

[quote name='Azimech']I'm busy with a mod, [URL="http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/139625-WW2-Warships-0-1-They-really-sink"]check over here[/URL].

It will be possible to build huge aircraft carriers. Any requests or suggestions, post them over there :-)[/QUOTE]

It looks like our aquatic ambitions will continue to be sated :)

[manolis]

 dude where i can download this mod i really like it

 

[Stone Blue]

As to launching crafts in water:

Firespitter has a part that you attach that will launch craft in water near KSC...

I was hoping Snnjo had the coords for where it launches, in the part.cfg, so it could maybe be changed...

But all there is is a custom part module, so I guess launch coords are hard-wired:

MODULE
{
    name = FSmoveCraftAtLaunch
    moveAtLaunch = True

    timer = 12.0
}

 

 

[selfish_meme]

You can also launch ships using HyperEdit just launch them normally suspended from launch clamps, go to vessel landing and select the preloaded KSC beach wet and presto.

[Operation Captain Viridian]

On 11/20/2015 at 9:35 PM, Zuthal said:

One other thing for launching ships could be something which just allows you to spawn a ship in the water, say, 200 m off the coast of KSC, which could probably be set up with the Kerbinside mod. This would also save the hassle of doing stuff like making sure that the carrier stands stably when placed on solid ground.

Actually that is already a part of B9 aerospace mod (the root mod for 1.0.5)