[WIP] Space Opera

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Well, sometimes you just want to cheat.  And, I know there's a cheat menu hiding in the Alt F12 menus, but, it's just not as satisfying as a truly ludicrous set of science fantasy drives.  So, I'm working on a collection of parts to make truly absurd craft.

These won't be exotic ideas from physicists.  There's already mods for salt water reactors and project Orion drives and Alcubierre drives. I'm talking Star trek grade technobabble stuff.  Engines that run of Handwavium and electricity from Eludium reactors.

I've got some other mods to work on, so I'd like to know how much interest there is in this sort of thing.  I'll be honest and say I first created a very early version of this ages back to test other mods on other planets when I didn't want to just hyperedit myself there.  So, I'm unclear how many people might find a use.

So far I'm working on three grades of engine.  Planetary (a few G, deep throttling, short and fat to help with landing leg placement), interplanetary (maybe ten to twenty times the thrust, long and a bit cooler looking), and interstellar (doesn't work yet, but will hopefully be some sort of warp thing).  The planetary and interplanetary engines will work from Handwavium, which can just be a stored amount, or converted in a reactor from Taurusfecallium.  Everything uses a lot of electricity, so there's a reactor that used Eludium and Phlebotium.  The warp drives I'm hoping to make work using Energized Di-Francium-Tri-Absurdium Crystal.  Apart from the word Francium (it's under lithium on the periodic table, a fairly long way under) those are all as meaningful as the others.  I couldn't really fit a crystal structure name in to take the liquid out of "di-"lithium as a crystal. 

No, I'm not serious.

Yes, I am serious about releasing this for download.

In fact, here it is:  http://spacedock.info/mod/1137/Space Opera

(Licensed as CC BY-SA 4.0, aka, steal it but don't pretend it's yours)

And some pics of the parts (engines, and warp core not textured yet, and there's also some RCS that works on Handwavium, but it's VERY early days and may change dramatically);

Inter-planetary Engine

 

Planetary Engine

 

Reactor

and

Eludium Containment

and

 

Warp Core (WIP)

Handwavium Tank

 

Handwavium Generator

and

Phlebotium Tanks

And

and

 

Taurusfecalium Kontainment Unit

 

Warp Drive

Polarity Field Generator

Quantum Entangler

 

Edited January 26, 2017 by TiktaalikDreaming
Updated Part Images

[Li0n]

I like your models and your "rusty style" texture but not sure how they 'll fit with stock (-alike) parts.

As the non realistic behavior of the engines it can't be badder than the Alcubierre one (I know some scientist says it may be build one day but it feels really sci-fi to me )

Anyway I'd like to use those if you balance them for a career game-play, far away in the tech tree along with a very high price.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 minute ago, Li0n said:

I like your models and your "rusty style" texture but not sure how they 'll fit with stock (-alike) parts.

As the non realistic behavior of the engines it can't be badder than the Alcubierre one (I know some scientist says it may be build one day but it feels really sci-fi to me )

Anyway I'd like to use those if you balance them for a career game-play, far away in the tech tree along with a very high price.

The textures are literally semi-random metal textures applied all over the parts.  There's zero effort in them just yet.

[Li0n]

15 minutes ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

The textures are literally semi-random metal textures applied all over the parts.  There's zero effort in them just yet.

What kind of look will you try to achieve ? A rusty style or a more cleaner/shiny one ? Both could look good but a rusty/steampunk look will be harder to fit (visually) with stock part I think.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

11 minutes ago, Li0n said:

What kind of look will you try to achieve ? A rusty style or a more cleaner/shiny one ? Both could look good but a rusty/steampunk look will be harder to fit (visually) with stock part I think.

I'll be aiming at a vaguely stock-like look, albeit with very non-stock-like shapes.

[Climberfx]

This should be on development thread!

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 minute ago, Climberfx said:

This should be on development thread!

Um, you're right.  I thought I did.  derp.

If there's any mods watching, can this be moved to add-on development?  Definitely not add-on releases

[CobaltWolf]

2 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I'll be aiming at a vaguely stock-like look, albeit with very non-stock-like shapes.

I think you've proven that you can do stockalike textures.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Anyone concerned about the placeholder textures can look at this instead.  First part with an actual texture.

 

That's not in KSP yet, so the render has reflections etc, and it's not done yet either.

And, I just noticed my little mini rods have sharp edges instead of rounding.

[Beetlecat]

(and here I was hoping this was an audio pack for the Soundtrack Editor mod...)

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, Beetlecat said:

(and here I was hoping this was an audio pack for the Soundtrack Editor mod...)

Now I'm going to have to listen to both Lucia Di Lammermoor and Queen's Flash Gordon soundtrack.

[sumghai]

[MOD - Moved to Add-on Development subforum.]

[TiktaalikDreaming]

20 hours ago, sumghai said:

[MOD - Moved to Add-on Development subforum.]

Thanks.  I blame ethanolearly Rocket Fuel.

Edited December 29, 2016 by TiktaalikDreaming
Fixed references

[TiktaalikDreaming]

More texturing is happening:  http://imgur.com/gallery/jtkgx

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Now available for download.

Status:

Manufacturer not created but referenced.

Engines are untextured, as is the warp core.  Ditto for the frame on the small Handwavium unit.

I've done a quick pass through balancing weights, but not costs, or anything else.

All the RCS are untextured and thrown together in about an hour all together, so may change radically.  But yes you can fly craft using just the RCS, even unintentionally.

If you want to use the warp engine you'll need Roverdude's lovely Alcubierre Drive mod

I won't be repackaging the module into this mod unless he says it's OK.  At which time I'll look closer at why my warp bubble animation thingy is absent.  And check what happens if both are installed.  :-)

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Quick note: The Taurusfecalium Kontainment unit, TFK-5m has had it's textures mangled by the DDS tool.  Looks like it decided the regular colour texture was a normal map and it's all gone pink.  Fixing shortly.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Fixed the pinkness, noticed the warp core is all wrong.

[RoverDude]

2 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Now available for download.

Status:

Manufacturer not created but referenced.

Engines are untextured, as is the warp core.  Ditto for the frame on the small Handwavium unit.

I've done a quick pass through balancing weights, but not costs, or anything else.

All the RCS are untextured and thrown together in about an hour all together, so may change radically.  But yes you can fly craft using just the RCS, even unintentionally.

If you want to use the warp engine you'll need Roverdude's lovely Alcubierre Drive mod

I won't be repackaging the module into this mod unless he says it's OK.  At which time I'll look closer at why my warp bubble animation thingy is absent.  And check what happens if both are installed.  :-)

As noted - please don't repackage, just tag it as a dependency.  Saves me headaches.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

34 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

As noted - please don't repackage, just tag it as a dependency.  Saves me headaches.

Consider it done.  Agreed on headaches, saves me quite a few as well.  :-)

[Kombat engineer]

Maybe add modular pods variants of the parts.

[DStaal]

I'm just hoping some of these parts are made with Unobtanium.   

[TiktaalikDreaming]

17 minutes ago, DStaal said:

I'm just hoping some of these parts are made with Unobtanium.   

I've actually made special efforts not to use unobtanium.  It's been a bit over used recently I feel.  Eludium, handwavium and so on have been in use for about as long.  They just don't seem to have made it into big budget movies as often.  Taurusfecalium and the various absurdium compounds are things I came up with, although I really would not be surprised if I was a long way from the first to use the terms.  The only substance referenced that's not a reference to technobabble is Francium, which is aimed at lampooning di-lithium crystals, because Lithium exists, even though di-blah crystals don't.

[DStaal]

13 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I've actually made special efforts not to use unobtanium.  It's been a bit over used recently I feel.  Eludium, handwavium and so on have been in use for about as long.  They just don't seem to have made it into big budget movies as often.  Taurusfecalium and the various absurdium compounds are things I came up with, although I really would not be surprised if I was a long way from the first to use the terms.  The only substance referenced that's not a reference to technobabble is Francium, which is aimed at lampooning di-lithium crystals, because Lithium exists, even though di-blah crystals don't.

Fair enough.     You should make some note someplace about how the technology was only discovered when the scientists moved away from using the ubiquitous unobtanium. 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

5 hours ago, DStaal said:

Fair enough.     You should make some note someplace about how the technology was only discovered when the scientists moved away from using the ubiquitous unobtanium. 

Maybe discovered in their so far unsuccessful attempts to create unobtainium.  :-)

[TiktaalikDreaming]

There's been a delay in updates because I was working on getting the rigging right for the long engine's nozzle.  I didn't want to do too much work on finishing the meshes or texturing before getting that right.  It now seems to work, so I'll add some bits n bobs to it, and update.

Rigging examples;

0 throttle;

Half throttle;

Full throttle;