[Minimum KSP: 1.12.2] Heisenberg - Airships Part Pack

[Deizelpunk]

This is too cool im having a heart attack please help

 

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, Deizelpunk said:

This is too cool im having a heart attack please help

 

It's definitely getting there. I've got five different deck extensions, similar to having different wings, so you can make some truly large flight decks if desired. The parts are modular enough that you could do a catamaran design if desired, and sling the flight deck between the hulls. Meanwhile, I'm working on the passenger gondola, and getting some ideas on how to lay out the interior. It's a bit of work so nothing to show tonight.

[oniontrain]

This is pure madness, I love it. Been playing with HL airships since forever ago, nobody's made anything quite like this  before.

[Angelo Kerman]

3 hours ago, Red Dwarf said:

I didn't know the rescaling thing was an option. I'll keep that in mind! I guess my dream for a zeppelin mod is complete modularity, kind of like how we have with airplane wings, but with airship frames. My ideas for airship designs are a bit broader than the classic cigar profile, but I understand if that's outside your design scope for this mod. If I want to do what I want to do, I'd probably have better luck making a mod myself

 

1 hour ago, oniontrain said:

This is pure madness, I love it. Been playing with HL airships since forever ago, nobody's made anything quite like this  before.

Speaking of pure madness...

The KSNS Massive has a beam of 30 meters. Enough said.

[sirrliv]

Good lord, my man! That is truly the most glorious insanity! Fantastic work, sir.

I feel obligated to ask though, given how much this flying carrier idea has taken off (pun partly intended), are you still considering the option of allowing us to use the hangar deck parts as cargo bays, installing them upside down so that cargo can be loaded or unloaded from beneath, either by KAS winches/Roverdude's Konstruction cranes, or perhaps a system similar to your flight decks, but upside down, allowing players to extend vehicle ramps or lifts from the underside of their airship?

Also, I hope you'll forgive me mentioning it given our earlier spat, but I'm a bit tickled that you're going forward with the passenger gondola idea. You're right that most folks don't even use the interior view all that often, but airships are uniquely suited to long-range cruising with minimal required control input, thus making them ideal for kicking back with a favorite podcast/audiobook/music and just watching the world go by.

[Angelo Kerman]

@sirrliv Already done, actually. Take a look on the last page, you will see that the Hangar Deck is already designed with cargo doors, and because it is a half-cylinder, it can be flipped upside down to become a drop bay. I haven't figured out a cargo ramp system yet though, that would be one big ramp. Likely I'd have a non-lift section that has clamshell doors and an elevator that reaches the ground.

[Sharpy]

9 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

A larger diameter hull would mean I'd have to make whole new parts, including hulls, hangar deck, flight deck/elevator, and accessories. That's just too much work. But nothing's stopping you from taking the existing parts and re-scaling them to suit your needs

Or you could make the mod Tweakscale-friendly. Solves size woes, allows for arbitrary scaling while retaining proper ratios and parameter scaling, doesn't generate clutter of same part in many sizes.

[Stone Blue]

6 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Or you could make the mod Tweakscale-friendly. Solves size woes, allows for arbitrary scaling while retaining proper ratios and parameter scaling, doesn't generate clutter of same part in many sizes.

Yes, Tweakscale is useful in some cases... But in THIS case, do you really want to oversize the hatches, and any other scale-reliant exterior details/greebles?
Which, if you're fine with that, then by all means, Tweakscale away...

However, YOU, or anyone else for that matter, are absolutely free to write your own, independent Tweakscale ModuleManager patch for this mod... Or ust about any other mod...
Its always nice to ASK a mod dev if they would consider adding Tweakscale support; however, there IS a line, where it slips into being rude to demand, or even strongly suggest that the onus of adding Tweakscale support should automatically fall on the mod dev.

I'm NOT saying that you are being rude, not in the least, ust pointing out for you and others that if you want Tweakscale support, its a very easy thing to do yourself, OR if you're not confident enough yourself, to ask politely if someone else could do it; OTHER than the dev mod, if they've stated they are not keen on officially adding it to the mod.

[Shnyrik]

Oh. My. God. This is awesome

[Shnyrik]

17 hours ago, Red Dwarf said:

I just looked up the stats on the Hindenburg, which wasn't even the largest airship ever built, and it was 40 meters in diameter. I think including some different form factors would add a lot of variety to this part pack

Hindenburg was larger, of course. But you should also take into consideration that "1 meter" is a bit relative size in KSP. Because kerbals have different dimensions in comparison to humans

7 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Or you could make the mod Tweakscale-friendly.

What stops you from making a TweakScale patch all by yourself?

Adding something like this is not really difficult.

Spoiler

@PART[hl10GyroRing]
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = free
    }

}

@PART[hl10Large]
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = free
    }

}

@PART[hl10Medium]
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = free
    }

}

@PART[hl10NoseCone]
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = free
    }

}

@PART[hl10Rudder]
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = free
    }

}

@PART[hl10Small]
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = free
    }

}

@PART[hl10TailCone]
{
    %MODULE[TweakScale]
    {
        type = free
    }

}

 

[Sharpy]

@Shnyrik:

- It is easy for anyone who did a bare minimum of modding. It's not easy for people who play with mods but never did any modding themselves. I could easily add tweakscale for myself, but not for these people.

- It IS easy to do - and there are many ways to do so. I might submit the patch to the author, and the author might approve, or not. Or send it back for corrections. And depend on me maintaining the patch as new parts are added.

- Or the author could do it the way he likes. Not depending on me, no back-and-forth arranging details. I'd be quite happy to provide pointers, templates - stuff to easily get started on integrating Tweakscale. But I know myself - I'm not reliable in supporting something long-term, so getting me permanently involved in the development cycle could be detrimental to the mod.

(in this case, "type=free" would be pretty bad for career move as cost goes with cube power of size; some deeper tweaks of the Tweakscale module would be better.)

I'm sorry if I sounded rude - it wasn't my intention. I just believe this is the best path to get variable sized parts for this mod, definitely better than making a new set of parts. And I certainly can see the appeal.

I'm not entirely sure which pieces should not be scaleable. I know tweakscale of crew cabins isn't all that bad - the larger hatches are not a problem. It's usually possible to isolate such pieces as separate parts, providing nodes to attach them where they normally belong - if such thing appears necessary. It very rarely is.

[Stone Blue]

31 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

- It is easy for anyone who did a bare minimum of modding. It's not easy for people who play with mods but never did any modding themselves. I could easily add tweakscale for myself, but not for these people.

- It IS easy to do - and there are many ways to do so. I might submit the patch to the author, and the author might approve, or not. Or send it back for corrections. And depend on me maintaining the patch as new parts are added.

- Or the author could do it the way he likes. Not depending on me, no back-and-forth arranging details. I'd be quite happy to provide pointers, templates - stuff to easily get started on integrating Tweakscale. But I know myself - I'm not reliable in supporting something long-term, so getting me permanently involved in the development cycle could be detrimental to the mod.

(in this case, "type=free" would be pretty bad for career move as cost goes with cube power of size; some deeper tweaks of the Tweakscale module would be better.)

I'm sorry if I sounded rude - it wasn't my intention. I just believe this is the best path to get variable sized parts for this mod, definitely better than making a new set of parts. And I certainly can see the appeal.

I'm not entirely sure which pieces should not be scaleable. I know tweakscale of crew cabins isn't all that bad - the larger hatches are not a problem. It's usually possible to isolate such pieces as separate parts, providing nodes to attach them where they normally belong - if such thing appears necessary. It very rarely is.

I dont think you were rude...

And those are all good and valid points...

However, as to you writing a patch, then having to maintain it: not necessarily... People write patches all the time for mods, independently of the mod devs, and post hosted links to said patches in the thread... Theres no implied responsibility or obligation of having to maintain or update the patch if you dont want to...
You can easily make it a one-time-deal, and then, if it needs updating, you've already helped the next person who might decide to take on an update, by already having provided a "base" patch, which could also serve as an example for how to make updates...

Edited December 7, 2016 by Stone Blue

[Angelo Kerman]

For now, I'm not going to do anything with Tweakscale. I'm already finding that 10m diameter hulls is a challenge to work with in the VAB/SPH. @sirrliv @adsii1970 @Shnyrik In the meantime, I've built a cargo ramp:

Hangar bay doors open, cargo lift lowered. Note that you can easily flip the hangar bay over and make it a drop bay. You can vary the deploy height of the lift; its maximum extension is 3m past the bottom of the hull.

The cargo lift is 5m long and nearly about 8.2m wide, enough for a small rover... like the Buffalo! Since it doesn't provide any lift, the cargo lift is kept relatively small.

All aboard!

Parked in the hangar.

Edited December 7, 2016 by Angel-125

[Space Scumbag]

Wow, this mod is getting better every time I visit this thread. Can't wait to have the latest version of it. I have big plans with this mod.

[Angelo Kerman]

3 hours ago, Space Scumbag said:

Wow, this mod is getting better every time I visit this thread. Can't wait to have the latest version of it. I have big plans with this mod.

Thanks! I have to admit that the forklift approach to the cargo lift is kind of ugly, so I'm going to switch to a cable and winch system instead. It'll look a bit nicer that way. But that needs to wait until I get the passenger gondola and gondola fairings done. I'll save the forklift rework as a touch-up.

[Angelo Kerman]

Well now! I had an epiphany today about the cargo lift. If an animation can raise and lower a vessel, then I can manually raise/lower the lift using code. That means I can have a cargo lift with the ability to raise or lower to any height I want! I now have some test code that will lower the cargo lift until it hits the ground, and raise back into place again. Now I just need to refine it...

Edited December 8, 2016 by Angel-125

[Angelo Kerman]

First test of the cargo lift. Here the rover is approaching the test airship

Cargo lift is nearly down. I need to figure out how to draw cables that connect the cargo lift to the airship. I think the old Quantum Struts code might show me how..

Keeping the rover on the platform is quite a challenge! I might need to add some kind of railings since you can't attach parts to the lift. It's a problem with joints..

Almost there...

Whew, made it!

There's a bug in the code that doesn't restore the cargo lift to its original upright position, but I can fix that. So for now the rover is stuck.

[Drew Kerman]

aircraft carriers I think have railings that rise up while the elevator is in motion. Dunno how well that would work in KSP tho. Would be cool

[Angelo Kerman]

6 minutes ago, Drew Kerman said:

aircraft carriers I think have railings that rise up while the elevator is in motion. Dunno how well that would work in KSP tho. Would be cool

Yup, that's what I'm going to do. Roll the cargo onto the lift, raise the railings, then haul it aboard.

[oniontrain]

This is going to have everything except an aluminum piano isn't it?

[Angelo Kerman]

18 hours ago, oniontrain said:

This is going to have everything except an aluminum piano isn't it?

Well if there's enough room in the hab module, I'll add one.

[Angelo Kerman]

 

[Angelo Kerman]

Finished the new RCS thruster quad, powered by CompressedAir:

The Cyclone engine generates compressed air via a compressor, as does the Gyro Ring, which also stores some CompressedAir. Now you can make precision landings with airships.

[adsii1970]

I really want to use this mod... How memory-extensive is it?

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

I really want to use this mod... How memory-extensive is it?

Not sure, actually. The mod takes up 90mb of disk space, and I re-use as many textures as I can, but with KSP x64, memory shouldn't be as much as a problem.