Big Ships 0.5 - Big Update!

[Azimech]

Big Ships

"A very short name for things usually pretty large"

 

Big Ships is made on the framework of my other naval mod: WW2 Warships. They're 100% compatible, share most assets & parts and this will stay that way. That's why I've decided to begin the version numbering at the same level as that of WW2W, to reduce the risk of confusion. I've left out the military grade parts because they're essentially meant for wargames.

 

This is a pretty small mod in terms of memory requirement because it uses three custom models and one custom texture. The parts list is huge though, this gives plenty flexibility.

Features:

Future building of docks and ports! I've already included a few parts but you can't leave them in the water because of the stock bug. Largest part: 128 x 512 meter.

Boiler in two sizes, run on heavy fuel oil, create steam.

Electrical generator in two sizes, run on steam.

Ship turbine, three sizes, main propulsion. run on steam.

Bow thruster, currently one size, runs on steam.

Keel. The backbone of every ship. Six sizes.

Hull plating A, This belongs directly attached to the keel. Contains fuel tanks. Multiple sizes.

Hull plating B, the vertical part of the hull. This provides the buoyancy of your outer hull. Attach this to Hull Plating A. Multiple sizes.

Structural plating, for internal and super structure. Numerous sizes. Most of the larger ones have a buoyancy rating for adjusting ship behaviour.

Deck plating. Relatively soft and light but still many times stronger than stock steel plates. Numerous sizes.

Heavy ship strut.

Funnels in three sizes.

Rudders in two sizes.

Energy management will be key, there is a limited amount of power, and the boiler needs to heat up (takes minutes) before giving enough of it, depending on demand.

Old style boilers have a fixed fuel consumption when running at 100%! If you're running at a thrust & speed setting lower than power requirement for a long time, it's best to switch off 1 or more boilers! Also, they don't produce smoke nor sound.

New boilers can be throttled, produce smoke and sound and have a much nicer fuel consumption.

Required mod:

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement .  Without this you would need a lot of struts, keep the wobble and get a lot of kraken attacks.

Suggested mods:

Vesselmover for transporting ships and docks to the water. Is more flexible than Hyperedit for moving and you can set up a fleet easily.

Hyperedit for teleporting ships to the water. Beware! It's best to temporarily hack gravity when doing so. These ships are heavier than the biggest rocket and the splashdown can have nasty side effects.

Hangar extender. Unless you fancy swinging 100+ meter ships back and forth with the editor offset gadget. Needed for building docks.

No Offset Limits Helps with reducing part count, one of the best editor enhancements ever!

KerbPaint If you want some colour on your ships instead of the dull grey, get this.

Physical Time Ratio Viewer Let's you adjust physics delta-t between 0.02 and 0.20. In other words, smooth and slow gameplay or faster gameplay but low fps. If you get a kraken attack after unpacking your ship, set control to 0.02.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a building tutorial! It's based on an old version of WW2 Warships but it shows the basis of ship building with these mods.

FAQ:
Q: I leave my ship in the water and go out of physics range. When I return my ship either explodes, get's launched into the air or just disappears. What's wrong?
A: There is a bug in stock 1.0.5. It has already been patched and will be included in the 1.1 release of KSP.

Q: KerbPaint doesn't work (correctly).
A: Read the KerbPaint topic for tips and tricks. Summary: the package has an old version of ModuleManager in the KerbPaint\Plugins folder. Delete that one and put the most recent version in GameData.

Q: I have strange problems with your mod. Double parts listing or missing parts, strange textures and models.
A: Always make sure you download the latest version from Kerbal Stuff, and delete any old versions of the mod. It has two folders: Big Ships and Shared. They reside in Gamedata\77Industries.

Q: My ships always sink.
A: Did you follow the tutorial? Use Hull Plating A attached to the keel, Use Hull Plating B attached to A and assign an action group to the FLOAT IT function. When physics start you'll see the "water" resource bar filling. Press the action group until it starts to decrease. If water is at 0 and it still sinks, add structural plating with Buoyancy = >0 preferably flat, left and right of the keel until it does.

Q: After physics kick in, I get a Kraken attack!
A: This often happens the first time you try it. Choose refly, it usually works better then. If not there are a number of things you can do. First of all you can add a few ship struts, they're super strong and you only need a few at strategic spots. If possible, use diagonal placement, best at angles close to 45 deg. See the tutorial for more info. Second thing you can do is install Physical Time Ratio Viewer and set it to 0.02. And remember to use the 77I launch clamps only attached to the keel.

 

I always like to see the creations of others, feel free to post them. I'm also open to suggestions.

Newest version of Big Ships:

Download

 

Edited March 14, 2016 by Azimech
Updated with new version.

[mcirish3]

Very cool mate, This Is probably outside the realm of your expertise but you know what would be cool.  A ship dock.   You know some place that makes sense to build these ships and have them spawn in the water.

By they way thanks for continuing on the shipping industry.  I was saddened to see the other ship builder quit just as the water got interesting.

[Azimech]

I'll consider a dry dock and a wet dock for the future, modeling such a building shouldn't be too hard, it's just a very large model of a hangar. Texturing would be something different though.

Having a functional dry dock where you can assemble a ship using KAS/KIS ... that's a real challenge.

And thanks! Can you imagine ... he only needed to invest a few hours and all his problems would've been gone.

[mcirish3]

3 hours ago, Azimech said:

he only needed to invest a few hours and all his problems would've been gone.

Normally I would be fully understanding of his issues, updating mods is tough work and sometimes the changes to the base program makes things needlessly difficult.  But the changes Nathankell made to KSP were about to make his MOD super attractive to a lot of players, I would have thought he would have been very excited to have a large increase in his fan base.  Base upon what you and others said his changes needed were very minor.  None of his reaction made much sense to me.

[Azimech]

My first complex 3D thingie.

[colmo]

The Kerbinside mod has several nice marina and dock scenery pieces. With the community fix and a big enough offset from the centre line, you could use them to spawn ships in the water (instead of on the static). Offset a rocket far enough, and it spawns on the grass, as I understand it. Same idea for a dock.

[Azimech]

11 hours ago, colmo said:

The Kerbinside mod has several nice marina and dock scenery pieces. With the community fix and a big enough offset from the centre line, you could use them to spawn ships in the water (instead of on the static). Offset a rocket far enough, and it spawns on the grass, as I understand it. Same idea for a dock.

Thanks but I dislike the idea to depend on a mod like Kerbinside. Once the water bug has been solved, this is what a port should look like (or any shape you like)

What you see here is 512 meter wide and 1000 meter long. It's mass is ... I believe 16Mkg but still floats. Best of all: only 5 parts. These slabs are part of the mod.

Edited January 31, 2016 by Azimech

[Azimech]

Next version of Big Ships will have these. They aren't reversible yet though.

[colmo]

53 minutes ago, Azimech said:

Thanks but I dislike the idea to depend on a mod like Kerbinside. Once the water bug has been solved, this is what a port should look like (or any shape you like)

What you see here is 512 meter wide and 1000 meter long. It's mass is ... I believe 16Mkg but still floats. Best of all: only 5 parts. These slabs are part of the mod.

A dock directly in line with the runway. That can only end well....

Such huge parts would be effectively indestructible like static objects, but you could still surface mount other useful objects to them such as robotics, cranes, simple buildings, gantries, storage tanks etc. without having to use KAS (ie. You do it in the SPH). It's possible that if 1.1 does indeed make better use of multiple cores, this won't be a performance issue even if they get quite complex.

[Azimech]

8 minutes ago, colmo said:

A dock directly in line with the runway. That can only end well....

Such huge parts would be effectively indestructible like static objects, but you could still surface mount other useful objects to them such as robotics, cranes, simple buildings, gantries, storage tanks etc. without having to use KAS (ie. You do it in the SPH). It's possible that if 1.1 does indeed make better use of multiple cores, this won't be a performance issue even if they get quite complex.

Indeed, they are virtually indestructible, and surface mountable. And you don't do it in the SPH ... but above

[colmo]

5 minutes ago, Azimech said:

Indeed, they are virtually indestructible, and surface mountable. And you don't do it in the SPH ... but above

Try not to make them too tough. I'd like them, when used with KKS, to acquire 'character' as they accumulate minor damage without ever being in danger of going poof. We can always send out a maintenance crew if the dock gets too tatty.

[Azimech]

7 minutes ago, colmo said:

Try not to make them too tough. I'd like them, when used with KKS, to acquire 'character' as they accumulate minor damage without ever being in danger of going poof. We can always send out a maintenance crew if the dock gets too tatty.

As long as the colliders can deform with potholes and such, I wouldn't like vehicles falling through.

[colmo]

6 hours ago, Azimech said:

As long as the colliders can deform with potholes and such, I wouldn't like vehicles falling through.

As I understand it, damage is to the visual mesh only, not the collider. All KKS does is distort the existing vertices. I'd imagine the KKS mod will add scorch decals down the line, but details like potholes would surely require some extra textures by the part author? Infinite Dice was the only modder to seriously explore a damage mechanic, but Skillful was just too cumbersome to install and required it's own parts. KKS is and has neither.

The most practical parameter change to a floating dock would be to buoyancy - a certain (high) threshold of damage could cause reduced buoyancy and it would sink. That may require a KKS modlet.

[Azimech]

Here are 6 future boilers with the future electrical generators. I might include them as is in the next version because they're functional. Just ugly. Yes/no?

Edited February 1, 2016 by Azimech

[Azimech]

Version 0.5 is very close to being released.

 

[Jimbodiah]

Kerbal Ship Program

[Azimech]

Big Ships is back online. See OP.

[XOC2008]

For whatever reason Spacedock won't let me download this. Is there an alternate download? (It says bad password/bad credentials.)

[Azimech]

1 hour ago, XOC2008 said:

For whatever reason Spacedock won't let me download this. Is there an alternate download? (It says bad password/bad credentials.)

Solved it, the link should work now.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Azimech

[Azimech]

Big Ships has been updated to version 0.5.

Attention!

 Major update 0.5 changes a lot of parts! This breaks most ships built before 0.5. Here are instructions to solve this.
Prior to updating to version 0.5 do the following:
* Make a backup of your ship.
* Remove the following parts from your ship: ship turbine(s), boiler(s), electrical generator(s), funnel(s), rudder(s), turret hardpoint(s) and save it.
* Update your version of WW2 Warships and/or Big Ships to version 0.5
* Add the new parts to your ship.

Notepad++ can be easily used to replace the obsolete LiquidFuel resource with HeavyFuelOil or just reduce it's value to zero.

Changelog:

* Replaced Squad models for ship turbine, boiler, turret hardpoints, electrical generator and funnel with my own. They're not very refined yet and the textures are lacking, but I've only just started in the world of 3D modeling. Textures will not be updated before KSP 1.1 arrives because I then want to use the material based shaders of Unity 5.
* Boiler: added a second type (called Boiler Alternative) with internal mechanic using ModuleEngineFX so they can be throttled. This gives the ability to lower fuel consumption based on power requirement. These boilers produce smoke and sound. Their throttle response is slow. See the note about individual throttles.  
* Boiler: original boiler still uses ModuleResourceConverter for anyone not interested in the ability to throttle them. Fuel consumption is high, they don't produce smoke nor sound. 
* Electrical Generator: added a larger one, increased power requirement but not entirely at the level I want them. The sound is more like a generator.
* Ship turbine: nice three bladed animated propeller using stock FXModuleAnimateThrottle. Small problem: they don't rotate when put in reverse. 
* Ship turbine: added a velocity curve. This means a lot of torque for accelerating from zero speed to overcome the stock mechanic to slow ships down if their speed is lower than 1 knot. I capped it on the other end so sadly no more ships reaching fantasy speeds. They are able to work on land so people who want to drive their ships to the sea are still able to do it without extra engine parts.
* Added a simple bridge model in three sizes (WW2W only) No IVA or kerbal entry/exit yet.
* BDA and NAS have reworked their way of doing damage so I had to adjust a lot of part parameters.
* Lowered mass on most parts, don't be surprised your ship will have half the mass of what it used to ... it's a bit closer to real life. Take care with heavy turrets and your CoM, in some cases it's needed to widen the ship or place more buyoant parts on the inside of the outer hull. Capsizing is a real danger!
* Increased thermalMassModifier for most parts, especially crucial parts like boilers and electrical generators. BDA/NAS weapons work with heat and this heat can easily go right through a ship, so increasing thermalMassModifier can be translated as "increasing armor rating".
* Modified buoyancy rating for most parts because of decreased mass. Check your existing ships, most of them will need to be rebalanced. Warning, ships can now capsize.
* Modified rudder max deflection to be more in line with the decreased mass. If you feel your ship becomes to sluggish, add another one.
* Changed LiquidFuel to HeavyFuelOil. This was needed because of a certain flow rule of the original and it wouldn't let it be bypassed. All hull types A have this new fuel.
* Command center and bridges now have the Davon Trottle Control Systems module embedded in. If you want to have individual control of boilers, electrical generators and turbines, install this mod. It's not needed but I really recommend it.

 

[Azimech]

What you can do with the dock parts. Short story.

 

[mcirish3]

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is soooooo awesome I hope you can get everything working for 1.1.   

[Azimech]

For a next version the dock parts will be expanded and be part of both WW2W and Big Ships! Create docks, runways, roads, floating bases and even cities with only a few parts from within the editor! Be the envy of mad scientists and evil princes!

 

[Azimech]

Together with a new, more realistic way of shipbuilding, I'm thinking of fusing Big Ships and WW2 Warships back together. The difference between the two was merely the mechanic to make them sink, Big Ships just relying on buoyancy while WW2W relies on water management.

The new system will make it far easier to balance a ship, structural plates are no longer needed for this job and their buoyancy will be set to zero. The only parts providing buoyancy are indestructible frame segments, and these are the ones that can flood. In theory one needs less parts to get the job done. Hull Plating B will continue to prevent flooding while Hull Plating A will be reduced to fuel tank/ballast tank. Armoring will be a case of adding more segments. Modern combat ships hardly have armor, WW2 ships had big, heavy belts around the water line.

With the new style it seems only logical to have one mod. Now I'd like to have some help from the community in choosing a new name. Some people don't like WW2, some people don't like combat. Others want modern combat. But the mod is aimed at creating ships as realistic as possible with the current tools we have, even if it suffers from a high part count and large editor inventory. Part count will become less of an issue as people buy more powerful computers over time, the large inventory is just something people get used to.

I understand it might be painful to have another big change and some ships need a partial rebuild. The end result will be much better and more aimed at the future.

[corbett]

when i tried to download off spacedock, i only downloaded a blank file. when i opened the file it said "application not found"