[WIP] [PLUGIN] [PART][0.20] Amphibious Hovercraft Parts! V0.2

[zitronen]

Physics based hovercraft parts. Works on water and land, thanks to Tosh's snippet of raycast code posted on the lazor thread.

Currently runs on intake air, but since intake air doesn't require any power/fuel, I will add some kind of air pressure resource generated by a lift fan part in the future.

Add some wheels/landing gears to help prevent hard crashes when landing.

The mod is currently very experimental, please report any bug and suggestions, thanks!

V0.2

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V0.1

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V0.2

Added "CushionPressure" resource, the more pressure the more lift force is produced by the base parts.

The skirts consume pressure depending on their height above ground

Added Lift Fan part with animated fan blades, they produce pressure depending on hover power, currently they consume no resources

Added some basic texture to the skirts and lift fan parts

Some parameters are now adjustable via cfg files

Re-done the lift code to make hovers more stable

Included source code in the download!

Starts reading a text book on hovercraft dynamics to make things more realistic in the future.

V0.1

Initial release: 2 parts, a "end part" and "middle" part that snaps together.

Direct download V0.2:

https://sites.google.com/site/zitronfiles/Hovercraft.zip

License:

There is no license, you can do whatever you want with my parts and code. Since I am fairly new to the unity thing I would probably advise against using my code as an example of how to make plugins!

Edited July 9, 2013 by zitronen

[scottholio]

My hovercraft is full of eels.

Looking good, going to try this out right now

[OopsThatNotWork]

Hmmmm.... sounds like the basis for my next laythe base.....

[Tommygun]

Now I can build my hover tank army!

How well do they go up hills?

[zitronen]

Now I can build my hover tank army!

How well do they go up hills?

Umm, they go up hill like hovercraft going up hill...

Although you can just push them up hill with engines

[Tommygun]

Umm, they go up hill like hovercraft going up hill...

Although you can just push them up hill with engines

That's actually good to hear, I was hoping for realism.

As I understand it, is almost impossible for a hovercraft to go sideways across the face of a hill unless it's pointing nose to the top of the hill and thrusting like crazy.

[HoY]

What's the top-ish speed anyone's got this to across water? Worth switching to this over a water prop and floating contraption?

[Mekan1k]

So... How's it work?

[Tommygun]

What's the top-ish speed anyone's got this to across water? Worth switching to this over a water prop and floating contraption?

I was able to get up to 119m/s over water with four jet engines.

So... How's it work?

It works a lot like Hooligan Lab's balloon mod, just at very very low altitude, maybe less than half a meter.

[togfox]

Shouldn't the fans that fill the skirt run on regular fuel, as in, liquid oxygen?

Nice work.

[Gaius]

Shouldn't the fans that fill the skirt run on regular fuel, as in, liquid oxygen?

Ehrm... most fans don't require liquid oxygen. Just either electric power or gas or the like ("liquid fuel", by KSP parlance).

[Greys]

Why would you run a hovercraft on limited oxydizer? Real hovercraft either run on diesel engines or jet turbines, both of which are aspirated systems so you only have to carry fuel; cuts down on weight and allows you to operate longer.

[Mekan1k]

A suggestion? Make it run on intake air and electricity- that way, there is a resource that can be depleted.

[zitronen]

The current plan is to have the base parts run on a "cushion pressure" resource, which will be generated by lift fan parts, which uses intake air (with or without oxygen) and electricity. The higher you hover, the more pressure you will lose per second, and the less force the cushion generates. So a heavier craft will need more power to hover at the same height (this is already working). I also planning to add turbines that generates electricity, electric thrust fans and a control cockpit/bridge thing later.

Does anyone have any comments on the handling characteristics? Are they controllable? Do the hover height/payload capacity seem reasonable?

[Tommygun]

I found coming in for a beach landing to be a little tricky. If you hit the beach too fast the craft breaks apart and breaking is difficult.

I would strongly suggest that the thrust fans have the ability to quickly reverse thrust for braking as real hovercraft do.

Maybe even set it up so when you hit the "B" key the fans automatically reverse thrust.

[HoY]

Some of the firespitter fans, and I believe one of the b9 turbines has a reverse thrust feature, as well as the vtol air breather engine that can be spun around to face either forward or backwards.

[zitronen]

Yeah slowing down is tricky...

I was planning to have the fans be able to thrust steer, so you can turn 360 in place. Would be fairly simple to add reverse either as brake or an action group thing.

[Mach56]

Where are those wheels from?(The ones on the rover)

[zitronen]

Wheels are from our Rollkage mod here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36786-RollKage-1-1-WIP-Updated-21-06-13

[DYJ]

WIP mods need to follow the pluginposting rules too, please update your thread to comply: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/7529-Plugin-Posting-Rules-And-Official-Documentation

Neat parts by the way.

[zitronen]

Oops, sorry I am in the middle of changing stuff to add a lift fan part, currently code does not work properly with the parts. I don't have the V0.1 code backed up, would it be OK if I will release the code when I get it all working again right now it's a mess?

I reformatted the title and added license info.

[zitronen]

V0.2 Released, see first post.

[Tommygun]

That's looking great with the new additions.

[The Destroyer]

So I was using V 0.1. Is it SUPPOSED to generate a LOT of lift? With a little bump of the slider, im in the air.. like air.

[zitronen]

So I was using V 0.1. Is it SUPPOSED to generate a LOT of lift? With a little bump of the slider, im in the air.. like air.

Hmm... there may be issues with the V0.1 for very light craft with a huge amount of cushions. Have you tried V0.2? The lift code is now significantly different. Stuff like that shouldn't happen any more...