need advice on chess pieces

[klond]

 Instead of standard chess pieces, what Kerbal items would represent those pieces best?  An example would be maybe little Mun landers as rooks.

 What would you imagine each chess piece as being?

Edited September 21, 2018 by klond

[51R50G]

For the pawns it could be Kerbals or just the MK1 command pod.

I like the lander rook idea too. Maybe for the bishop, since they're usually round on the top, a Soyuz model with the orbital, descent, and service mods still attached?

 

EDIT: i guess since its kerbal parts it would be the pea pod or one of the variants with a fuel tank and an engine really, but you know 

Edited September 21, 2018 by 51R50G

[Geonovast]

Are you planning on building a chess board in-game, or physical pieces?

This is really neat idea.  I would probably use Mun landers as pawns.

 

[IncongruousGoat]

I've got a few ideas.

Satellites/probes as pawns

Mun landers as knights

Space stations for rooks

The king and queen are both boosters on the pad ready to launch

As for the bishops... aircraft?

[Dark Lion]

Pawn: Vector, or similarly recognizable engine
Rook: Small, wheeled rover
Knight: Small, winged rocket w/wide enough base to stand
Bishop: Launch Escape System or Kerbin ascent vehicle
Queen: Valentina (Female Kerbal)
King: Jeb (Male Kerbal)

 

[klond]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Are you planning on building a chess board in-game, or physical pieces?

 In-game.  No promises, just trying to mentally prepare for it.  I'd like to stay stock if possible.

[Geonovast]

1 minute ago, klond said:

 In-game.  No promises, just trying to mentally prepare for it.  I'd like to stay stock if possible.

It's gonna be really fun to have 32 ships in physics range at the same time.

[kapteenipirk]

Personally, id propably use:

King and queen: Spacestations (ISS as king and Mir as queen).

Towers (rook): interstellar probes like the voyager

Bishops: Shuttles

Knight: Some crew vehicle like the new dragon or orion.

Pawns: some small basic satellites

 

Or

King and queen: Jeb and val

Towers (rook): launch pad with the launch-tower, or maby a miniature VAB.

Bishops: aircraft of some sort

Knights: some crew shuttle or crew-pod

Pawns: probably just basic Kerbals

 

The second option should be possible to create with very few parts and reasonably well together scaled stuff.

Pad could be something like a coin-cell battery with a girder tower and maby some small details, shuttle and aircraft could be built around MK-0 tanks.

But, those are just some ideas.

 

[klond]

6 hours ago, Geonovast said:

It's gonna be really fun to have 32 ships in physics range at the same time.

 This is a valid concern.  Here's a sample chess board.  It's pretty small, but it has docking ports to reduce # of craft.  I'm hoping we can make representations of what has been mentioned so far, otherwise we'll have to make a bigger board, either with mods or a higher part count.

[Dark Lion]

Oh, an in-game chess board..? I rescind my last suggestion.
Also, colors may be a mod-assisted work-around...
But here's some things I slapped together to put thought to tinker:

Edited September 22, 2018 by Dark Lion

[klond]

22 minutes ago, Dark Lion said:

 It's so beautiful!

 I still wanna get a consensus.  I asked reddit here <--/

[qzgy]

Tried my hand at a set of pieces. Probably a bit too part heavy (about 10 per each piece, with around 25 for the King and queen), so with one side, its already about 150-200 parts.

I think it looks quite okay though. Not so happy with the bishop though....

Edit - Clarification - King is the mini rocket. Queen is the mini plane. Pawn is the tiny little thing infront.

Edited September 22, 2018 by qzgy

[HansonKerman]

Pawn: Modular Girder Segment

King: Kerbal X (stock craft)

Queen: Kerbal 1.5 (stock craft)

Rook: 2 stacked FLT-400 (1.25m medium tank)

Bishop: 2 stacked medium 2.5m tanks (I forget the name)

Knight: Very Heavy Lander (stock craft)

28 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Tried my hand at a set of pieces. Probably a bit too part heavy (about 10 per each piece, with around 25 for the King and queen), so with one side, its already about 150-200 parts.

I think it looks quite okay though. Not so happy with the bishop though....

Edit - Clarification - King is the mini rocket. Queen is the mini plane. Pawn is the tiny little thing infront.

The bishop is a good skeleton though! And a very nice thing! (checkmate should be Kerbal falls off King)

[qzgy]

3 hours ago, HansonKerman said:

The bishop is a good skeleton though! And a very nice thing! (checkmate should be Kerbal falls off King)

Thank you! It wasn't supposed to be a skeleton, I just tried to emulate a normal bishop chess piece. I agree totally on the checkmate idea though

[HansonKerman]

@qzgy You could maybe rotate the top a bit to simulate a better bishop.

Also if you make enough of those you could post a full-on chess game in Mission Reports

[klond]

 @qzgy, the toroidal tanks are an elegant touch.  Sputniks as pawns make sense.

 Here's a bigger board loaded with test parts.

Edited September 22, 2018 by klond

[Dark Lion]

18 minutes ago, klond said:

Here's a bigger board loaded with test parts.

Are the different bases your means to coordinate teams?? I thought for sure a mod would save the part count... I guess, unless that's not a problem for you.

[klond]

2 minutes ago, Dark Lion said:

Are the different bases your means to coordinate teams??

 Yes, but I'm open to suggestions.  Parts count does affect me, yes.

 I'm still leaning toward the smaller board posted further up, but it limits options - it's almost too small to have like any tiny model space stations, etc.

[Dark Lion]

5 hours ago, klond said:

it's almost too small to have like any tiny model space stations, etc.

I play KSP on a laptop, so I understand a low part-count mindset... I even try to stray from using many physics-altering or parts mods, so it's strange of me to keep thinking "well, there's a mod for that too..."
A mod to change part colors to coordinate teams is optional, but would make things much easier to visualize in play. But if you're talking mini space stations the part count will be way higher. My laptop would surely melt.  Sure, there's always Tweakscale, I guess, but that only helps to shrink it down physically. You'd need that welding mod (sorry, I forgot the name) that makes many parts into a single one. If it's even still alive...

I also noticed that I'd forgotten the pawns in my earlier suggestion: kerbals. Doesn't matter though, because then you still need another mod (Texture Replacer) just to designate the kerbals' team. 

You sure picked a tough project! LOL
 

[Kernel Kraken]

The base are the ring fuel tanks, with whatever decor on top. A king could be the ring, an engine, and a command seat. Just make it look vaguely like a chess peice and it should be fine.

[klond]

 I have been made aware that a couple pretty epic sets have been done in the past.  Creators imgur handles are on their respective pages below.

https://imgur.com/a/BY66H#yh8w1cQ

and

https://imgur.com/a/cYsIh#0

 Lights to color the parts was inventive.

 'Gonna go hit up google and see what a star wars chess set looks like.

[kapteenipirk]

This project really sparked my curiosity, and i really wanted to do what others have apparently already done here.

So, here are some of the pieces i suggested in built form.

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

While making these, i got an idea for a chess set, it would be called something like the "Space race set", basically the other pieces (white) would from the US program and the others (black) would be their Russian equivalents.

List of stuff here:

Apollo era launchpad with Saturn V (launch pad with N-1). Rook.

VAB. Alt choise for Rook.

ISS (MIR). King, queen could be Skylab (Salyut).

Some probe/satellite. I dunno.

Orbiter (Buran). Knight.

747 SCA (AN-225). Bishop.

Cubesat (Sputnik). Pawn.

 

16 hours ago, klond said:

'Gonna go hit up google and see what a star wars chess set looks like.

Damn, i wish i would have continued my StarWars mini fleet project, it could have made for a pretty epic chess set...tough with an even more legendary part-count.

Spoiler

 

 

[DualDesertEagle]

17 hours ago, klond said:

 'Gonna go hit up google and see what a star wars chess set looks like.

I remember the last one I've seen to use X-wings / TIEs as pawns but I don't remember what the rest was. Found the TIEs and X-wings pretty fitting tho.

[sturmhauke]

This is a cool idea. Here's what I'm thinking:

king: space station

queen: large, multistage rocket

bishop: sounding rocket

knight: spaceplane

rook: lander

pawn: small probes

[klond]

7 hours ago, kapteenipirk said:

Cutest jumbo ever  

4 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

knight: spaceplane

 I also thought knight=plane made sense cuz of the knights weird movement.