K.S.S Kerbinprise CV-6 (1:1 Yorktown class carrier) + 3 carrier plane replicas.

[kapteenipirk]

 

K.S.S Kerbinprise CV-6.

 

 At 254m in lenght, 43.7m in width and 35.2m tall, this is now officially my biggest creation so far, and will propably stay as my biggest for quite a long time.

It also has 1637 parts and weighs in at about 6,500 tons.

Mods used: Infernal Robotics, BD-armory and KAX.

I'm not putting this up for download since i don't think that anybody in their right minds would use/need something of this size. And that's why it wont have the usual Specks and Picks section.

But anyway, as the title says, i made a 1:1 replica of the U.S.S Enterprise CV-6. I did this project mainly because, i felt like doing something for the KSP history books, and well...I know i can do it, so why not just do it.

 

Info about the craft and the build:

Let's start off by saying, that as awesome as it may look and sound, it's mostly useless, mainly for two reasons:

1. It has a ludicrous part count of over 1600 parts and is way oversized for my current carrier planes (they have a breaking distance of about a 100m or so, same goes for takeoff distance).

2. The elevator doesn't go down low enough for it to work, so the hangar is useless. I only noticed this during my flight tests, whoops .

Well, no matter , this was more of an experiment to see that what is the ideal size for a KSP carrier with a hangar deck and an elevator.

As a conclusion, i think that the ideal carrier to replicate, would be the Bogue class carrier. Not only because it's kinda the ideal size, it's also my current USN carrier in WoWs, so there should be no shortage of reference material.

 

NOTE: As you can see on the picks, its not super accurate, and that's because i didn't intend it to be super accurate cause i wanted to make it more functional. And i wanted to shave off as many parts as possible.

So that's why it has shoddy lighting, no lifeboats and no big number six's on the flight deck. I would have really wanted to do these details tough.

 

To give you an idea of what the inside of the ship looks like, i took some picks of the hull mid build.

The hangar in the middle is just a load of empty space, minus all the struts running mid-ship to prevent the flight deck from collapsing.

I was able to shave off a few parts by removing the hangar deck from the inclosed areas. This also gave me the perfect place for hiding the main engines, batteries, and the main radar (in the bow section).

(the pick was taken during my midnight light's test).

Even tough it has all those engines at the back, the top speed is only about 25 m/s max. But that might also be because of the fact that the ship weighs in at over 6,500 tons.

 

Here a pick of the bridge as well (actually known as the island).

 

The design of the carrier is a bit of a mix of all the different version of the Enterprise (it was refitted twice during the war, so there where 3 versions in total).

 

As i mentioned earlier, i made quite a huge mistake during this build, and that is that i didn't check the full range of the elevator until the flight tests (last phase of testing).

Yeah, that was quite the mistake.

 

But at least i know that just how big the elevator will need to be in order to support aircrafts like the Wildcat. And that what the maximum height for the hangar deck can be. Currently the hangar is 3 MK-3 tanks tall (flat side). So 2,5 tanks tall should be enough to allow small fighter to fit while still allowing the elevator to work.

I also checked that the narrow part of the hangar is wide enough to support the Wildcat.

 

Operating and launching the carrier:

The biggest challenge in a build like this, is trying to get carrier to water.

The veering of the runway trick was a NO GO, it was just impossible to launch it that way.

So, to support big ships like this, i actually made my own naval base. Yes you heard me right, an actual naval base, complete with an airbase for the Fleet Air Arm.

Using the magic known as Kerbal Konstruct, converted a huge runway into a ship ramp.

 

There is some really, REALLY important stuff to remember if you are going to make your own ship ramp.

1. Always remember to keep the angle of the ramp as minimal as possible, or otherwise your nose will have quite a drop and slam.

2. There is quite an important "hidden" feature in KSP witch is essential to a safe launch.

If your rear goes beyond the rear wall of the hangar, it will also go beyond the rear of the runway. So be mindful about where you position your ship in the hangar. You don't want your rear end dangling in mid air, nor do you want it to get possibly clipped inside the terrain or some building right behind the runway. So using hangar extender is quite a good idea at this point, as if it weren't already essential for building these in the first place.

 

Air power of the Kerbinprise.

 

Every carrier needs some aircraft in it. So, since this is a replica project, i made aircraft replicas to go with it. They should be period correct.

There isn't really anything to say about them, other than the usual: has amazing STOL capabilities, amazing manouverability, but a bit slow tough, witch means that stalling is a thing, so don't pull up too hard during takeoff or you know, weee...crash.

They should all be easy to fly and land, even on small carriers.

And here is a download link for all of them: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kth1q83eh4cbls4/Kerbinprise aircrafts..zip?dl=0

Krumman F4F Wildcat:

Spoiler

 

Top speed: 84 m/s.

Stall speed: 25 m/s.

Armament: 6 Browning machineguns.

Length: 8.1m.

Wingspan: 10.6m.

Height: 4.5m.

Mass: 7.2 tons.

Parts: 94.

 

Fouglas SBD-Dauntless:

Spoiler

(Yes, i blew up a destroyer using two bombs).

 

Top speed: 78 m/s.

Stall speed: 20 m/s.

Armament: 2 Browning machineguns, 2 MK-82 bombs and one 50.cal turret.

Length: 9.5m.

Wingspan: 11.7m.

Height: 5.1m.

Mass: 8.3 tons.

Parts: 125.

 

Fouglas TBD-Devastator:

Spoiler

 

Top speed: 85 m/s.

Stall speed: 16 m/s.

Armament: 1 Browning machinegun.

Length: 9.0m.

Wingspan: 12.5m.

Height: 5.0m.

Mass: 7 tons.

Parts: 115.

That's about it for this project, as useless and laggy as it is, i got very useful information out of that project, that will then help me build the ideal aircraft carrier. So i hope you enjoy it for what it is .

PS. i will be making a separate post of the KNS shipyard naval base soon.

 

Here is a link to the main project:

 

Edited August 26, 2016 by kapteenipirk
just editing.

[MajaeV]

Awesome! I love the planes Good job!

[kapteenipirk]

1 minute ago, MajaeV said:

Awesome! I love the planes Good job!

Thanks .

[Mister Dilsby]

Having built an extremely cheezeball "replica" KV-6 Enterprise myself, I am thoroughly impressed with this much more faithful and staggeringly complex reproduction.  

[kapteenipirk]

3 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Having built an extremely cheezeball "replica" KV-6 Enterprise myself, I am thoroughly impressed with this much more faithful and staggeringly complex reproduction.  

Thanks . Id say it's not really that complex, it's just a huge pile of struts and MK-3 tanks in the shape of a carrier with some essential details included.

Hopefully with the Bogue project, i might be able to put all the details in: walkways, doors, lifeboats, numbers etc.

[Gman_builder]

Super cool!

[kapteenipirk]

11 minutes ago, Gman_builder said:

Super cool!

Thanks .

[Gman_builder]

Just now, kapteenipirk said:

Thanks .

Did you throw this whole thing together in the past few days? That's incredible! This is definitely one of the best looking aircraft carriers i have ever seen and the fact that you built it in such a short time frame is awesome. How long have you been playing KSP?

[kapteenipirk]

Just now, Gman_builder said:

Did you throw this whole thing together in the past few days? That's incredible! This is definitely one of the best looking aircraft carriers i have ever seen and the fact that you built it in such a short time frame is awesome. How long have you been playing KSP?

Yep, less than a week ago. I can't remember exactly how much it took, but I think it was 1-2 days of work.

I have played KSP now for about 1500-1600 hours, so yea, I have a pretty good idea on how to make things work on the first try .

But yea, I try not to take too much pride on my projects, especially not with this one, since it's broken, too big, kinda useless and can't be launched using stock methods.

Im just doing this because I enjoy doing it .

[Gman_builder]

15 hours ago, kapteenipirk said:

Yep, less than a week ago. I can't remember exactly how much it took, but I think it was 1-2 days of work.

I have played KSP now for about 1500-1600 hours, so yea, I have a pretty good idea on how to make things work on the first try .

But yea, I try not to take too much pride on my projects, especially not with this one, since it's broken, too big, kinda useless and can't be launched using stock methods.

Im just doing this because I enjoy doing it .

Well either way it looks great. I have 1438 hours in KSP and it still takes me weeks or longer to finish a project of the magnitude of this one. My Boeing 777-200ER has only a couple more parts than this, and it took me about a month to complete. Albeit i wasn't working on it every day. 

I thought of something crazy. My 777 could fit on the deck of this carrier and maybe even take off from it because it has so many lifting surfaces and massive wings. That would be a crazy experiment.

[Azimech]

Amazing! Almost inspires me to continue work on my mod Real Ships. Ever tried that one?

[kapteenipirk]

8 hours ago, Gman_builder said:

I thought of something crazy. My 777 could fit on the deck of this carrier and maybe even take off from it because it has so many lifting surfaces and massive wings. That would be a crazy experiment.

That would be crazy indeed, and apocalyptically laggy . The only problem is the island tough, it would need to be removed for that. Plus, I don't think that the elevator could support such weight.

 

3 hours ago, Azimech said:

Amazing! Almost inspires me to continue work on my mod Real Ships. Ever tried that one?

Thanks . Nope, I've never tried it, tough I kinda wanted to try it out to help Saturanian blue by making an E-class destroyer and H.M.S Suffolk/Norfolk.

[DMSP]

Woah! Anyway we could get such a base?

[kapteenipirk]

18 minutes ago, DMSP said:

Woah! Anyway we could get such a base?

Unfortunetly it seems that sharing KK bases is not possible. So you'll just have to get Kerbal Konstruct and build a base yourself.

Fortunetly it's very easy to do that.

I'll start taking some nice areal shots of the base, and i'll make a post about it.

 

[DMSP]

2 minutes ago, kapteenipirk said:

Unfortunetly it seems that sharing KK bases is not possible. So you'll just have to get Kerbal Konstruct and build a base yourself.

Fortunetly it's very easy to do that.

I'll start taking some nice areal shots of the base, and i'll make a post about it.

 

Really? I have all Kerbal Konstructs along with KerbinSide and a few other mods like that. 

[pTrevTrevs]

You complain about the ship's top speed, but I would like to point out that 25 m/s amounts to over 48 knots. The Yorktown class's actual top speed was significantly les, approximately 32 knots.

Other than that it's a really cool ship!

Edited August 31, 2016 by pTrevTrevs

[Mister Dilsby]

I got my version up to about 50 m/s, but then again mine was much smaller and I had put two Goliath jet engines under the waterline  

..tagging @Wildcat111 because he needs to see this thread  

Edited August 31, 2016 by Kuzzter

[kapteenipirk]

13 minutes ago, pTrevTrevs said:

You complain about the ship's top speed, but I would like to point out that 25 m/s amounts to over 48 knots. The Yorktown class's actual top speed was significantly les, approximately 32 knots.

Other than that it's a really cool ship!

Thanks . Yep, but i was comparing it to my other ships, witch are all faster by quite a bit (guess i should have expressed that).

 

4 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

I got my version up to about 50 m/s, but then again mine was much smaller and I had put two Goliath jet engines under the waterline  

That's about the same speed as my Klemson class DD, well done.

Hmm , structural panels, wouldn't really advise using those. But you know, whatever makes your boat float .

 

[Mister Dilsby]

Just now, kapteenipirk said:

Hmm , structural panels, wouldn't really advise using those. But you know, whatever makes your boat float .

Honestly, the thing was basically just a prop I needed for a few comics pages and not a serious replica attempt at all. I'm just glad it did float long enough to get the screenshots I needed!

[kapteenipirk]

4 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Honestly, the thing was basically just a prop I needed for a few comics pages and not a serious replica attempt at all. I'm just glad it did float long enough to get the screenshots I needed!

It just reminds me too much of my first serious attempt at creating a stock navy vessel. It was a lookalike of the U.S.S St.Louis (a 1905 cruiser) that i built using lots of panels. It was small (might have been a little over a 100m in length), had a very high part count (something like 500-600 parts), and a top speed of 5 m/s.

It had a full hull, a goliath engine and some firespitter engines powering it.

[Wildcat111]

2 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

I got my version up to about 50 m/s, but then again mine was much smaller and I had put two Goliath jet engines under the waterline

..tagging @Wildcat111 because he needs to see this thread  

Awesome!

EDIT: I noticed that the ship was listing when you launched the plane.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Wildcat111

[Mister Dilsby]

3 minutes ago, Wildcat111 said:

EDIT: I noticed that the ship was listing when you launched the plane.

Oh? Gee, I had not noticed that while I was sailing it, or taking the dozens of screenshots I needed to make the comic, thanks so much for pointing it out.  Balancing that beast was very difficult, especially with the engines running flank speed as was necessary to get the plane into the air. I suppose it just shows what a great job the OP did in making a much larger, truer and better-sailing replica.

[Gman_builder]

7 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Oh? Gee, I had not noticed that while I was sailing it, or taking the dozens of screenshots I needed to make the comic, thanks so much for pointing it out.  Balancing that beast was very difficult, especially with the engines running flank speed as was necessary to get the plane into the air. I suppose it just shows what a great job the OP did in making a much larger, truer and better-sailing replica.

Who has the most rep on the forum? I think it might be you.

[Gman_builder]

You've inspired me

[gui camsky]

but...where is the carrier download link?

Edited September 10, 2016 by gui camsky