[Minimum KSP: 1.12.2] Heisenberg - Airships Part Pack

[Angelo Kerman]

12 minutes ago, panarchist said:

I am totally going to install the Buffalo and start looking around.  The flight ops writeup I'm working on will talk about the major features of aircraft carriers: the island, flight deck control, Pri-Fly (Primary Flight Control), the LSO platform, the deck itself, and aircraft operations.  Heisenberg-class vessels probably would operate similar to pre-angled deck carriers like the Lexington, the Essex, or the Midway before its conversion.  Basically I want to have a comprehensive writeup on why those things were instituted, what their purpose is, and how they might look in KSP+HL+Heisenberg+Aircraft Plus, from the perspective of someone who actually worked as a deck monkey, moving aircraft around and observing flight operations. I mean, there's no such thing as "real" flight operations in KSP - but I can provide one option for people who want to emulate something that resembles actual USN flight ops. (and I'm sure others who served might have alternate views, and I hope if any of them are around, that they will post something as well - it only makes the hobby of playing KSP richer)

I may have sold short my plane design ability, because I cooked this up last night, and other than a high approach speed (50-60m/s), it seems to work great so far: The F/A-4N Tigerhawk

 

Here's what it looks like on the deck of the AS-02 Lindy Kerman

 

Time for carrier trials! I haven't successfully trapped anything onboard a carrier yet in KSP, so I expect I'll blow up a couple of airships before I get the hang of it.

Looks great! Can't wait to read your writeup, it sounds like it'll be really good. Just like the Heisenberg mod, the Buffalo mod has sample craft, including the developmental Osprey that's ready to fly. Be sure to throttle up slowly, or she'll flip over at full thrust in VTOL mode. The Hover Manager is your friend when it comes to flying it, as are the CompressedAir RCS thrusters. It should make landings easier.

I haven't tried a carrier trap yet, I've been flying VTOL craft like the Aeris 3V that comes with Heisenberg. given size limitations in the SPH, I was thinking along the lines of this:

when I made the flying carrier parts. I'd need larger hulls and flight decks to make something more like a Nimitz-class.

3 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

Is there any way you would be able to make a airship hull peice specificly for hanger bays with a wall on only one side or none at all?

Not yet, that's something I've considered though. If someone can show me how to make a larger SPH that would let me zoom around a really big craft, then I can think on the HL-20 hull line, and airship panels like I described before.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Angel-125

[Benjamin Kerman]

3 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Not yet, that's something I've considered though. If someone can show me how to make a larger SPH that would let me zoom around a really big craft, then I can think on the HL-20 hull line, and airship panels like I described before.

All i can think of for this is Hanger Extender. Thanks for looking into it!

[panarchist]

4 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Looks great! Can't wait to read your writeup, it sounds like it'll be really good. Just like the Heisenberg mod, the Buffalo mod has sample craft, including the developmental Osprey that's ready to fly. Be sure to throttle up slowly, or she'll flip over at full thrust in VTOL mode. The Hover Manager is your friend when it comes to flying it, as are the CompressedAir RCS thrusters. It should make landings easier.

I haven't tried a carrier trap yet, I've been flying VTOL craft like the Aeris 3V that comes with Heisenberg. given size limitations in the SPH, I was thinking along the lines of this:

when I made the flying carrier parts. I'd need larger hulls and flight decks to make something more like a Nimitz-class.

Not yet, that's something I've considered though. If someone can show me how to make a larger SPH that would let me zoom around a really big craft, then I can think on the HL-20 hull line, and airship panels like I described before.

I'd encourage the optional one side on the center elevator and flight deck parts as well. I get the SPH limitations, though. Building the Essex was REALLY hard due to the constant need to scroll around, and the manuevering I needed to do to obtain part snap. The only tips I have there are to zoom all the way out, and to have a center piece as root ao you can drag the entire airship forward or back to work on the ends properly. Practical limit front to back seems to be 9 full length (10.25m) segments plus gyros and end caps. 

[panarchist]

Last pics from me for a bit - it was a real problem building the Essex because of its size.  Here's the whole thing in the SPH:

I put a grabber on the front of the center airship hull in case it ever needed to "dock" with an airship mast. It's a trimaran design like one posted here way upthread, and has two flight decks - port and starboard, each with its own catapult and arresting wires. The central section is used to park aircraft and holds the elevator to the hangar deck. The Essex has a lot of reserve buoyancy, so I could probably expand the hangar decks somewhat and add another 4-8 aircraft to its already impressive 22-26 aircraft capacity.  It's moved by 16 Cyclone engines, and the underside has several gondolas which hold the crew compartments.

Here's the island:

The main comm antenna is the AE-35 from DSEV.  There's some additional air search radars and antennae - I was mostly looking to replicate a US carrier mast on the island. The catwalk on the upper level is what the US Navy calls "Vulture's Row" - the spot that off-duty crewmen can come up to and stand at to watch flight deck operations.  The gondola cabs at the back are Primary Flight Control (Pri-Fly), the airlock at the front represents Flight Deck Control.  The Essex incorporates parts from Heisenburg, DMagic's Science mod, DESV, HullcamVDS, and Aircraft Carrier Accessories (ACA). You may have also noticed from prior pics that I tend to also have Kerbal Konstructs and Kerbinside installed and in the background of my shots as well.  Most of the Essex shots are near the KKVLA.

Once I get some of my big writeup done, and posted to my website, I'll post the link here, rather than cluttering things up with tons of text and photos.  I tend to get a bit wordy when talking about things I'm really excited about.

Thanks again, @Angel-125 and @JewelShisen for creating/maintaining 2 mods that give me lots of enjoyment.  I got into KSP for spaceships, but I'm thrilled to be able to build flying aircraft carriers and mess around with them!

Edit: two last pics - with 20 aircraft on board, the Essex is 738 parts and still has enough buoyancy to reach 8,100m. (9,200m when no aircraft embarked)

Edited June 7, 2017 by panarchist
2 last pics

[Angelo Kerman]

@panarchist Wow, that is a big ship! I like the island design too. It is pretty neat to see all those aircraft parked on the deck. Framerate must be interesting...

[Astradd]

If you are looking for Really Small Planes,  I suggest you try @Lack's Stock Extension http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/71992-11-sxt-lacks-stock-extension-sxt-25-10apr16-basic-11-compatibilty/

It has a ton of Mk 0 Parts

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=942095136 

 

Sorry,  I can't put down the actual image for some reason.

 

 

Edited June 8, 2017 by Astradd
Link was almost un-seeable

[Astradd]

Also, @Angel-125 I had one Idea about how to maybe fix the problem of the HL-10 Parts being unwieldy. I do not mean to add more things for you to do, but I have a Lazy idea I thought of to fix it. It's a bit obvious, as my solution is Hanger extender. I was thinking you could put on the original forum post that you could suggest hanger extender for more space, along with the other suggested mods, such as Kerbal Snacks, etc, but that also seems like a lousy option. I am not the creator obviously, so you an decide on this option.

 

P.S: If any of my first post didn't have a picture, that might be because I'm on vacation, and Hotel WiFi is literally .90 Mbps upload, so Barely any images on the forum load.

Sincerely, ~ Astradd

[Angelo Kerman]

While I'm on DSEV this month, I always make sure to have extra time for my other mods, and I'm looking at some new toys for Heisenberg. First though, this was a test airship I did some time ago; your Essex class reminded me of it:

Tonight I made these:

Available in standard and wide format. Aircraft elevators on the way...

For truly massive airships, you'd need the Massively Engineered Ginormous Airships (MEGA) pack. I'm still cooking that idea up though, but think of a part set supplement that has flat panels, half-hull shapes for the hulls and cones, brick-like lifting keels, wing sections that provide aerostatic and aerodynamic lift, and stuff like that. It might have some limited procedural part-like options to help cut part count down- so you won't kill your frame rate. The MEGA pack is just an idea I'm tossing around right now, I have a lot of other parts to get to first.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

Last images for the night: KSS Long Beach (ZCVE-1) design concepts:

[Astradd]

Here Are some pictures I took Of my two airships I made specifically for Exploration of Kerbin.

Here is The Lusftschloss, (LTA-1) And Her Identical Sister-Ship, Fernweh, (LTA-2).

Edited June 8, 2017 by Astradd
Needed to add images

[panarchist]

1 hour ago, Angel-125 said:

Last images for the night: KSS Long Beach (ZCVE-1) design concepts:

Nice - that is one giant hangar deck.  I may try to put a gondoffice on the wall in something like that to represent hangar deck control.

Hangar Deck Control is that wall wart with the windows on the right side.

I would also note that your super hangar is 30m wide, which makes it supercarrier-sized.  Nimitz class carriers have a hangar deck 34m wide, and the WWII era classes like the Essex or the Lexington were only 28m wide on the outside - maybe 20m at most inside.

[Angelo Kerman]

Interesting, I didn't know that the older carriers didn't have as wide a hangar deck. Is there any space between the hangar deck and the external sides of the carrier?

This morning I did some investigations for a new power generator for the Heisenberg: gas turbine generators. Here I'm just using the Buffalo's GTG-250 to gauge the size of the new part. What I'm thinking of is a 2u part that has a pair of these turbines sticking out, with the idea being that you'd stick them in a cargo bay. What would you need 500+ EC/sec for? You'll see...

The exhaust funnels for these would be something like the funnels for this:

Edited June 8, 2017 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

Gotta run, but this is the other option I'm considering:

Basically, take the existing SAFER, which generates 125 EC/sec, and create an array of them. One part could take their place...

[Angelo Kerman]

Thought up during lunch:

Gas Turbine Gyro Ring - generates 550 EC/sec and lots of CompressedAir.

Nuclear Gyro Ring - 8 SAFER reactors generate 1000 EC/sec. This is very expensive.

[panarchist]

3 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Interesting, I didn't know that the older carriers didn't have as wide a hangar deck. Is there any space between the hangar deck and the external sides of the carrier?

WWII-era carriers (everything before CV-59 Forrestal) had a straight deck, like the pic you posted previously of LHA-6.  Those carriers had a much narrower hangar deck as they were built for prop planes.  Several (Midway, Franklin, Coral Sea, Oriskany, poss. others) were converted to angle deck carriers, but that only changed the flight deck, not the hangar.  The Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes had hangars close to the current size, as did Enterprise and the Nimitz and Ford classes.  The main reasons for the size difference were support for the angle deck, and that prior to the end of WWII, carriers were built to fit through the Panama Canal. CV-41 (commissioned at the end of the war) was the first which was too wide (by about 12').

Most if not all carriers have space between the hangar and the external sides for part or all of the hangar length, to provide space for the stacks (on non-nuclear ships), ladderwells from/to the lower decks, ordnance elevators down to the magazines in the bowels of the ship, fuel lines and other ship's utilities that have to reach the flight deck, etc.  Figure on a 2-3m gap.

Just now, Angel-125 said:

Thought up during lunch:

Gas Turbine Gyro Ring - generates 550 EC/sec and lots of CompressedAir.

Nuclear Gyro Ring - 8 SAFER reactors generate 1000 EC/sec. This is very expensive.

Historically, CVN-65 Enterprise had 8 nuclear reactors.  Every carrier since has 2, because a single reactor is more efficient than 4 smaller ones, and military ships always need a backup in case of battle damage or an engineering casualty.  There were some baby carriers in the 1970s (LPHs) which had a single screw propelling them, which meant the ship couldn't move if it broke.  Ever since, all ships have 2 screws.  Supercarriers have 4 screws - the non-nuke ones had 2 boilers/turbines, because they directly drove the screw, and each screw had a backup.  Enterprise had 8 reactors for the same reason.  Nimitz class carriers are set up so that a single plant drives multiple screws, which allowed for larger reactors and greater efficiency.

It's an airship, though - so don't wed everything to USN carriers.  My point really is that function is sometimes driven by form, and vice-versa.  The things which make sense for an airship should drive the design, unless you're deliberately aiming for a certain feel, in which case you should do that and to heck with the naysayers.  I love what's been built/shared so far.

[Angelo Kerman]

Got the side elevator and central elevator done. Here you can see that you can change up the side elevator and hide or show the elevator rails. That way, you can make some really big elevators.

Once completed, the KSS Long Beach will be a sample aircraft included with the next Heisenberg release. Tomorrow I'll work on the Gas Turbine Gyro Ring and Nuclear Gyro Ring.

[Angelo Kerman]

And now the Long Beach is nuclear powered:

[Angelo Kerman]

This is what you'll need all that power for:

It is using the hidden node in the tail cone. The nose cone has a hidden node as well.

[Benjamin Kerman]

how are you modeling the reactor (plugin?)?

[Angelo Kerman]

30 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

how are you modeling the reactor (plugin?)?

Same as the current S.A.F.E.R.

[Benjamin Kerman]

2 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Same as the current S.A.F.E.R.

Whats the safer? I havent actually played KSP in a while...  

[Angelo Kerman]

15 minutes ago, Benjamin Kerman said:

Whats the safer? I havent actually played KSP in a while...  

If you have any of my mods installed then take a look at the electrical tab in sandbox mode.

[Angelo Kerman]

Perhaps someday, parts for something like this...

[wertyu739]

@Angel-125 Hey! Do you accept pull requests in your Github repo for this mod (and the buffalo one)? I'm writing some module-manager patches for Community Tech Tree support, and I was wondering if you're interested in them.

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, wertyu739 said:

@Angel-125 Hey! Do you accept pull requests in your Github repo for this mod (and the buffalo one)? I'm writing some module-manager patches for Community Tech Tree support, and I was wondering if you're interested in them.

Yup! I do take pull requests.