F Drive Mk2

[trekkie_]

This is a faithful re-imagining of the original FTL Mk1 drive by nomad.

leave feedback or suggestions if you like.

Edited October 2, 2013 by trekkie_

[Mekan1k]

Looks great. I like it!

[trekkie_]

[EnhancedCookie]

Yeah i remember that thing ! It was ridiculously OP though , please keep that spirit of it !

[Ryugi]

Looks much better with the silvery-blue tone to it. That said, there's now a "more true" warp mod out there, but, the model itself is freaking gorgeous.

I might suggest you contact Fractal_UK over in the KSP Interstellar mod thread and ask about if he has a use for your model in something. They're always looking for models for stuff, as far as I know.

[Tommygun]

Great looking models. I like the gold better, but I think the silver would blend better with other game parts.

[trekkie_]

Looks great. I like it!

I think you're always the first to say that on my mods

the actual base color is a metal textured med-light gray. it's a 1080x1985 1mb texture, so the details are somewhat high at close up, but still do offer some detail at distances (i.e. actually has some variation to the material than looking like just one color).

the coloring you see is from a reflection map when rendering, which gives it that metallic look. you can't really make textures look metallic like that in the game unless you add reflection maps to the game engine. specularity can help somewhat, but it can only go so far. all the various shades will be adjusted in the end so they're visually distinct, where needed.

this is probably somewhat accurate to what it would look like in the game right now:

you can't really tell, but the very bottom is made of a brushed metal texture, although with ambient occlusion at that setting, the detail gets drowned out. and it is definitely noticeably different shade of a texture, but again in this photo it is difficult to distinguish. in-game the difference would be more noticeable.

I could add stuff like blue staining here or there...but it wouldn't look right because it wouldn't be based on any light source or local reflection, which would just make it look unrealistic at most angles. basically, the blue reflection map works to add realism...because it's based a formula for calculating how light/objects look reflecting off a surface. there is a reflection map mod though, that would probably make them look like a mirror finish shiny metal.

one final detail. the top radiator looking part is its own separate attachable part. I may just designate it as a fuel tank and allow people to stack them. If not then I will probably make it an emissive part, so it'll get hotter and glow the higher the throttle. as for the exhaust, I'd really like to try to get a semi-massive violent roaring trail, bigger than the 909. this is meant to attach to 1.25 meter parts. all in all the whole thing comes in at a generous but modest ~3000 faces, so this baby is going to look as smooth contoured in-game.

I don't know anything about the warp mod.

Edited October 3, 2013 by trekkie_

[Mekan1k]

As soon as a version is ready for testing, I want to test it. Please!

[Kerba Fett]

They look pretty cool. I would suggest a radial mount version as well though. Seems like a shame to hang such a nice model on a stock radial decoupler.

[trekkie_]

They look pretty cool. I would suggest a radial mount version as well though. Seems like a shame to hang such a nice model on a stock radial decoupler.

my last engine release (trek style warp nacelle in depot) was a radial attach type. a lot of people requested the opposite when I made it, so either way I go, someone will want what it doesn't have. there's tons of non-stock radial mount parts out there to hang it from the sides in multiples. this way, you have the freedom to arrange it any way you like.

it's basically done. textures might need a little shade tweaking, and the unity exporting stuff. that's taking longer because last I made a mod, configurations were a bit different with part tools. so I'm getting some small bugs like thrust exhaust always being on, facing the wrong directions no matter what, and no actual thrust being produced, etc.

Edited October 4, 2013 by trekkie_

[trekkie_]

just finished putting the radiator part into the game (the simplest part lol). I know it's a simple part but it looks very aesthetically pleasing with virtually any part, it gives off this nice hazy graphite glow. this is basically what I had in mind for it, to be a stackable standalone part. still not sure if it should hold fuel or just be an emissive heatsink that heats up with the throttle. you still can't see all the detail of the texture. there's hundreds of individual screws in those panels and other finer details.

all I really need for the engine itself is to work the model orientations and configs. for example, the thrust direction is on the Z axis (off to the left or right) by default for some reason. would seem more logical for it to be on the negative Y axis. so I have to export my model into unity, with it on its side with the exhaust facing the Z axis in order for the effect to come out of the right direction....but then the attachment node becomes crooked and only attach when the engine is on its side. on top of that, besides having an engine config, it doesn't produce thrust when activated and throttled up. it's been a while since I've messed around with configs so I'm having to sift through some documents to find the proper config settings.

Edited October 4, 2013 by trekkie_

[Mekan1k]

Recommendation for the heatsink- make it hold a little fuel.

[Railgunner2160]

I remember the your old warp drive nacelles, what ever happened to plans to make them use their own crystal fuel type?? I remember you'd at leastt gotten to the point you had a reactor modeled and were working on the crystal resource.....

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!!!

[gl0ryh0und]

Don't rotate the model to match the Z axis, rotate the thrustTransform so that the Z is pointing in the Y for the model. Then you can have it appear correctly in KSP and the Node will connect properly.