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Frameshift and FTL Drives– Puffin Technologies

OrbitusII

By OrbitusII
in KSP1 Mod Development

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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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The texture looks good. I think it needs something that kinda sticks out of the drive. Currently it reminds me of a node drive. I think it should look less symetrical.

This is the concept that Mek sent me when we first worked together:

OHkAfv0.jpg

It's been so long since I last viewed it... perhaps I should create a new model that stays truer to this concept; I think it could fit with stock parts a lot better...

The new frameshift drive looks like it is missing a... Single pylon connecting the core to the ring.

Yeah, I'm probably not going to carry through with that model. The old one works quite well and seeing the original concept again gives me some awesome ideas... :cool:

Edit: Here's my start:

qgs559k.png

Still need to do structural pylons and the exhaust vents (if they could even be called that... maybe more like "Energy Flow Directors?") on the bottom for the main details, but I already like it a lot better!

It will look so good that nothing will be able to contain its epicness! :D

Honestly I'm not quite sure what I'll do for the radials... If anyone wants to draw up some concept art then go ahead!

Edited by OrbitusII
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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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Yup. It acted EXACTLY like a normal engine, without the toggle on/off ability, and that time when the craft started spinning out of control.

Good, I was hoping I did that bit correctly. :)

All I need now is to get action groups and context menus working... I'll see if I can copy over all my code tomorrow so I can start writing new stuff this week.

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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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It will NOT have thrust vectoring- the vanes are just to give it some OOMPH. (And to look amazing)

Plus thrust vectoring would be a good chunk of code and lots of trigonometry that I don't want to do.

9ilYHgQ.png

Added the support pylon and some external detailing. Even more detail will be added via textures. :D

gHpD0fK.png

And a semi-complete wireframe view. When I first looked at it like this I thought it resembled a Tokamak reactor. HOWEVER, it will not be a fusion torus (which also isn't the absolute best reactor type) but rather a spacetime manipulating ring of death. And puffins.

Oh, and you can check out my awesome crop skills by comparing the left and top of these two images (I miss Preview from OS X, I want to zoom in when I crop :()

Edit: extruded some detailing. Kinda hard to see right now but texturing will help it stand out (hopefully not too much).

190VYHD.png

Edited by OrbitusII
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Pigbear

Pigbear

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Plus thrust vectoring would be a good chunk of code and lots of trigonometry that I don't want to do.

9ilYHgQ.png

Added the support pylon and some external detailing. Even more detail will be added via textures. :D

gHpD0fK.png

And a semi-complete wireframe view. When I first looked at it like this I thought it resembled a Tokamak reactor. HOWEVER, it will not be a fusion torus (which also isn't the absolute best reactor type) but rather a spacetime manipulating ring of death. And puffins.

Oh, and you can check out my awesome crop skills by comparing the left and top of these two images (I miss Preview from OS X, I want to zoom in when I crop :()

Edit: extruded some detailing. Kinda hard to see right now but texturing will help it stand out (hopefully not too much).

190VYHD.png

I can see the details on it. I think the new model is great. Keep it up!

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Mekan1k

Mekan1k

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Looking good :D And hopefully it will work better than original, because ship fitted with two smallest F-shift drives crashes my game randomly.

....

Sorry. Wait- can you post a picture please? I have not seen anyone else's frameshift drive ships here before.... Except OrbitusII's, but he is on my team.

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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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That's interesting... You're using the old frameshift configs or the smaller model with the new plugin? I suspect it may be the fact that I don't have the plugin accounting for multiple Frameshifts (but all it does is apply a force... strange).

Edit: got the UV mapping for the spaces between the EDVs done. Still a lot to do... D:

Edit 2: put a Sketchfab viewer for the model in its current state in the original post. Yes, I am aware of the face clipping issues, I just haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.

Edit 3: finally transferred my code over to Sierra (the new computer) so I can now program stuff! I'll keep to modeling and texturing for now though.

Edited by OrbitusII
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Scotius

Scotius

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A bit of all :) It does use Talisar's 17 k fuel tank (empty of course), have a Clampy Sr. and two KAS winches. Its main role is long range fuel hauling - for that i specifically wanted to use engines that will not burn the fuel needed elsewhere, and still have decent power to keep burn times reasonable. I figured out 2x1000 setup will be enough to set this ship as a base of operations in Jool system. I plan to build automatic kethane miner/refinery able to land on most of moons and replenish the tanker payload in couple of start/landing cycles. I could even use it as a support ship for my mothership attempting Grand Tour. Unfortunately it crashes badly, and i think there is an issue with radial connection ports i used to connect engines to their respective fuel tanks. I will try to build another version with fuel lines.

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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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OrbitusII, the model looks amazing, although I would recommend only using 1/2 of the total energy-director vanes, to decrease render time.

For comparison, the old model with the hardcore animation had 25 objects in the hierarchy and almost 4500 faces. The new one has one object and only 954 faces, a vast improvement, especially considering the improved look of the new model. I still have to test it but I have no doubt it will perform significantly better than the old model.

The old model started with a torus with about 24 minor segments and 96 major segments, a HUGE amount of faces! The total number of faces for the ring alone is 2592!

The new one was only 4 minor and 32 major segments, which I only extruded once, leaving it with a base total of 160 faces. Comparatively insignificant from a rendering standpoint, especially since there's a lot more texturing potential.

Despite my avatar, I am not just some guy smashing my clutsy fingers into the keyboard. :P

A bit of all :) It does use Talisar's 17 k fuel tank (empty of course), have a Clampy Sr. and two KAS winches. Its main role is long range fuel hauling - for that i specifically wanted to use engines that will not burn the fuel needed elsewhere, and still have decent power to keep burn times reasonable. I figured out 2x1000 setup will be enough to set this ship as a base of operations in Jool system. I plan to build automatic kethane miner/refinery able to land on most of moons and replenish the tanker payload in couple of start/landing cycles. I could even use it as a support ship for my mothership attempting Grand Tour. Unfortunately it crashes badly, and i think there is an issue with radial connection ports i used to connect engines to their respective fuel tanks. I will try to build another version with fuel lines.

So it's a pretty useful ship then! Sorry it crashes your game. :(

Which version of the Frameshift were you using (Spaceport, which is obsolete, or the one from this thread)? That information can help me narrow down the problem.

Edit: Sad day, it looks like I can't prevent the face clipping without a lot of trouble editing the mesh. I'll see what I can do tomorrow, right now I'm watching the Multistream challenge! :D

Edited by OrbitusII
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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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Well played OrbitusII. This might be why my machine keeps crashing as well when building and flying these ships.....

Yeah, the old model was ridiculously overdone (seriously, it was pretty close to movie mesh quality if it wasn't there already) and yet it was totally underdone (no detail! :huh:).

For posterity, what I mean by the old model is this one:

eiGgyJ4.png

The new model is this one:

190VYHD.png

The original one is this one:

XHeIifO.jpg

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Cheebsta

Cheebsta

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Yeah, the torus looks neat, but that new model looks right at home in the KSP world.

Not sure what you might be thinking to fix the clipping, but if you're open to suggestion would selecting all the ones facing one way or the other, and applying a teeny tiny z-rotation to them work? If not, good luck, lol. That doesn't look like fun with so many regardless.

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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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Yeah, the torus looks neat, but that new model looks right at home in the KSP world.

Not sure what you might be thinking to fix the clipping, but if you're open to suggestion would selecting all the ones facing one way or the other, and applying a teeny tiny z-rotation to them work? If not, good luck, lol. That doesn't look like fun with so many regardless.

Actually, that tiny rotation seems to work! I'll apply it to every offender and update the Sketchfab model to make sure it works. :)

Edit: Yep, that did it!

Edited by OrbitusII
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OrbitusII

OrbitusII

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Perfect!

Status of plugin?

Usable as of now, no programming this weekend (we've got the marathon to watch!). If you guys can keep reporting bugs then I can make a list and squash them as soon as I start coding again. :)

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