Show and Tell - Creating New Parts

[Guest]

At last, kerbals with sustainable power

[Pthigrivi]

8 hours ago, The Aziz said:

And that's the beauty of it. Work your way around it! Who says you have to have one engine at the bottom? Let the thing be surrounded by tanks and engines (pretty sure you'd need a lot anyway, looking at the size of that thing)

Yeah I frequently set up my ISRU and drills this way with 2-4 outrigged engines to keep the mass as low as possible for landing (tanks above that are mostly dry by then.) A lot of configurations are gonna need some big ass legs though. Those will be fun to see 

Edited June 12, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[Spaceman.Spiff]

Will the Geothermal power get a boost in certain regions of a planet?

Will there be science instruments that need to be researched and developed to scan for faults and underground volcanoes? I think that would be very cool. 

[Dfthu]

23 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

-Snip-

So i'm curious, why did you guys go with vertical instead of horizontal?

If i had to guess it looks more "modern' and "sci-fi" compared to regular turbines. Plus I think they're more efficient IRL

 

Edited June 12, 2021 by Dfthu
double post

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Dfthu said:

If i had to guess it looks more "modern' and "sci-fi" compared to regular turbines. Plus I think they're more efficient IRL

 

I don't know about the first part, but horizontals are more efficient. It looks like though verticals are way smaller, horizontal ones are ginormous like a hundred meters. So I think that horizontal wind turbines are unlockable later on in-game

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I really enjoyed this show and tell.  Gives us an appreciation for what the artists ( parts, environment and lighting) can accomplish together. 

 

Thanks for sharing! 

(also - really liked that I get to build roads!) 

[Nirgal]

The wind turbine is giving me serious 'Surviving Duna' vibes

[mcwaffles2003]

On 6/11/2021 at 1:14 PM, The Doodling Astronaut said:

So i'm curious, why did you guys go with vertical instead of horizontal?

I believe these windmills have proven more efficient than the more conventionally thought of ones, but even more so I bet the collision box is much neater and nicer to play with as well, not to mention aesthetics.

On 6/11/2021 at 1:57 PM, TLTay said:

Wind turbine harvests wind energy. Does this confirm atmospheric wind and weather conditions will be a thing? @KSPStar

Hope so too.

[Nate Simpson]

On 6/11/2021 at 10:01 PM, Brikoleur said:

 How is it going to work it the terrain is less level? Everything on stilts? Follow the terrain? Landscaping that lets us level the terrain first?

Everything on stilts, more or less. There are structural foundation parts that can be attached to the bottoms of colony parts - they work similarly to launch clamps in the original KSP, with height automatically adjusting to reach the ground. The player has full control over them - they come in a range of types and sizes.

On 6/11/2021 at 12:59 PM, Pthigrivi said:

Wait and we're meant to understand this badboy can mount to the bottom of lander?

Keep in mind that resource extraction is a big part of colony gameplay, and once you're making stuff at colonies you're not limited to just landers. These are very heavy, but you can side-mount them on wheeled vehicles that you build close to an area of interest. Or, yes, some of the later engines do make the sort of thrust needed to fly these around. We did place a stack attach node at the top so that one of these could be suspended beneath the center of a stack.

[Nate Simpson]

On 6/11/2021 at 6:20 PM, Minmus Taster said:

You know we've been seeing that rocket they showed us in the video A LOT in the promotional material.

Busted! We have a couple of "safe" craft files lying around that don't show off any unannounced parts. I need to find some spare time to make a few more of these!

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Nate Simpson said:

Everything on stilts, more or less. There are structural foundation parts that can be attached to the bottoms of colony parts - they work similarly to launch clamps in the original KSP, with height automatically adjusting to reach the ground. The player has full control over them - they come in a range of types and sizes.

Would it be possible to excavate dirt to flatten areas of land instead of always having to place stuff on stilts over perpetually uneven terrain? I'm certain that excavating equipment will be necessary to mine certain resources, and it would be nice to be able to make things flush with the ground if I find a really cool build site that's a little uneven.

[Nate Simpson]

1 hour ago, cubinator said:

Would it be possible to excavate dirt to flatten areas of land instead of always having to place stuff on stilts over perpetually uneven terrain? I'm certain that excavating equipment will be necessary to mine certain resources, and it would be nice to be able to make things flush with the ground if I find a really cool build site that's a little uneven.

Deformable terrain is beyond scope at release (edge cases abound, especially when you consider multiplayer). This is our best solution at the moment, but could be an interesting area of experimentation going forward. It sure would be cool!

[cubinator]

12 minutes ago, Nate Simpson said:

Deformable terrain is beyond scope at release (edge cases abound, especially when you consider multiplayer). This is our best solution at the moment, but could be an interesting area of experimentation going forward. It sure would be cool!

I'm sure it's tough! One way around this might be to have one type of "stilt" that actually looks like a big flat pile of dirt. Maybe it could just require X amount of dirt to build, and would sit on top of the normal terrain but be flush with the ground and the base.

[TLTay]

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

I'm sure it's tough! One way around this might be to have one type of "stilt" that actually looks like a big flat pile of dirt. Maybe it could just require X amount of dirt to build, and would sit on top of the normal terrain but be flush with the ground and the base.

Honestly, that sounds like a really good idea. Some kind of a "base" for my base that would be completely flat could be a nice option. I'm hoping for some kind of "solid" foundation option like a concrete or dirt or something. 

Maybe there is a way to cut into the terrain without deforming it? Any part of an item placed "below terrain level" could get some kind of a special graphical/gameplay treatment: Around the edge that is below ground level, perhaps they could add a cut-into-the ground visual model, turn terrain clipping off for that area, and make the terrain invisible in that area? That way it would look and feel like you've cut into the ground for a level surface, but ignore the fact that we can't change the terrain height. Basically doing the "cutting and leveling" with a similar kind of functionality as the stilts have. Instead of lifting up via the bottom, you could cut into the terrain just around the part by coding the ground away in the cutout area. It would effectively be a part-based cutting instead of a terrain deformation based cutting. 

Edited June 13, 2021 by TLTay
edit

[adriangm44]

Are those kerbals at the end walking by their own???

Just imagine that kerbals may have like tasks and they could perform them tasks while you're doing something else 

Edited June 13, 2021 by adriangm44

[Anth]

So Wind Turbines. Does that mean there is wind and will it affect crafts in game?

Oh Oh, and would I be able to make more EC if I blast a jet engine into it?

And if there is something disturbing the wind in the area like a rocket or a jet engine or propellers would that disturb the smoke coming off things like the Geothermal Power Generator?

[The Aziz]

18 minutes ago, Anth12 said:

Oh Oh, and would I be able to make more EC if I blast a jet engine into it?

While this is a very kerbal idea, I think that amount of jet fuel used for blasting into the blades would exceed the amount of fuel extracted using the extra energy created by doing so.

[Klapaucius]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

While this is a very kerbal idea, I think that amount of jet fuel used for blasting into the blades would exceed the amount of fuel extracted using the extra energy created by doing so.

Yes, but that does not matter because as you noted, it is a very Kerbal idea and therefore, it must be attempted.

[mattinoz]

3 hours ago, Anth12 said:

So Wind Turbines. Does that mean there is wind and will it affect crafts in game?

Oh Oh, and would I be able to make more EC if I blast a jet engine into it?

And if there is something disturbing the wind in the area like a rocket or a jet engine or propellers would that disturb the smoke coming off things like the Geothermal Power Generator?

Axial turbines don’t give away wind direction. They might have been chosen as they don’t have to react to something not modeled. 

[Minmus Taster]

On 6/13/2021 at 12:15 PM, Nate Simpson said:

Deformable terrain is beyond scope at release (edge cases abound, especially when you consider multiplayer). This is our best solution at the moment, but could be an interesting area of experimentation going forward. It sure would be cool!

Aw so no crater from when I crash my torch ship into Ovin at 10% the speed to light?

Edited June 14, 2021 by Minmus Taster

[Guest]

On 6/13/2021 at 3:38 PM, Nate Simpson said:

Keep in mind that resource extraction is a big part of colony gameplay, and once you're making stuff at colonies you're not limited to just landers. These are very heavy, but you can side-mount them on wheeled vehicles that you build close to an area of interest. Or, yes, some of the later engines do make the sort of thrust needed to fly these around. We did place a stack attach node at the top so that one of these could be suspended beneath the center of a stack.

I'm absolutely reading too much into this but it could mean we won't be mining everything from directly under our buildings with KSP1-like "straw" drills and instead we'll have to spread out in nearby outposts serviced with wheeled vehicles.

Edited June 14, 2021 by Master39
Rephrased

[Anth]

4 hours ago, The Aziz said:

While this is a very kerbal idea, I think that amount of jet fuel used for blasting into the blades would exceed the amount of fuel extracted using the extra energy created by doing so.

 

2 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

Yes, but that does not matter because as you noted, it is a very Kerbal idea and therefore, it must be attempted.

Yes

[cubinator]

5 hours ago, Anth12 said:

Oh Oh, and would I be able to make more EC if I blast a jet engine into it?

Yeah, it would be like a really bad fuel cell.

[Anth]

@cubinator When people used to make helicopters in KSP with jet engines and panels to make them spin, well somethings are worth doing even if they are bad  

Edited June 14, 2021 by Anth12

[Ahres]

On 6/13/2021 at 7:50 AM, Nate Simpson said:

Busted! We have a couple of "safe" craft files lying around that don't show off any unannounced parts. I need to find some spare time to make a few more of these!

Nate, personally I enjoy it always being that same launch vehicle we've seen since the announcement. To me it's become something of an icon for KSP2.