Capital ship mod

[frizzank]

Capital ships in Kerbal are kind of a hard thing to pull off. The size of large ships makes physics go nuts and most things would not fit in the VAB. So then you have to do crazy things like scale everything else up just to get it to fit somewhere in the game.

Instead what if I just scaled all of the capital ship parts down by say a factor of 10. Now suddenly everything works fine and dandy. The physics system thinks they are normal sized, everything fits in the VAB and you still have a decent level of detail. Only problem is the Kerbals and stock parts are going to look huge.

The point is, it doesn't have to be 45,327 meters across to be fun. I think I can scale them down a bit and still not lose the look and feel of it.

I really like the look and feel of the Homeworld ships and they have a somewhat modular makeup.

[jokamo]

that first one isn't a homeworld ship but yea this sounds like a cool idea

[Taki117]

I like the idea, and I think you should get with Deamoria (spelling?) And his total conversion mod.

[Lack]

This'll be good to see. I found that you really don't need to go as far as you think you might. Even the '4x2' (5m x 2.5m) looked sufficient for decently large ships. Twice that should be more than sufficient for a massive looking ship.

Some of my larger builds for scale, http://imgur.com/a/hBW08

Best of luck, I'd wanted a more homeworld vibe, but given that I'd never really made any models prior to starting LLL, it was a bit beyond my abilities.

[YANFRET]

Yeah this would be cool I'm in

[The Error]

Homeworld? Yes, please!

Plus, the HW and HW2 ships are very modular-looking, so breaking them into parts would probably be fairly easy.

[Deathsoul097]

Lol, says is inspired by homeworld ships, casually makes first pic the UNSC Infinity from Halo 4 / Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.

[AntiMatter001]

isn't the first one infinity from Halo?

[GoldForest]

isn't the first one infinity from Halo?

Yes it is. I would love seeing that in KSP!

[CaptRobau]

I like the thought of pint-sized capital ships à la Lack Luster Labs. Might I suggest not going full-on sci-fi. KSP is still a game where everything works according to realistic physics, so ships without much thought into what does what, such as the concept art ships, don't really work for it in my opinion. Half-way between realistic (such as FASA and KW) and sci-fi would work great I think. The designs of 2001: A Space Odyssey fit this style very well (see below). One thing I am fully onboard with are the crazy color schemes of the Homeworld ships. Maybe make the textures KerbPaint compatible. That way people could still have their white 'realistic' look that fits well with other parts mods, while at the same time allowing for an endless supply of other color options for those want to get crazy with color.

[YANFRET]

I agree what about the Alexei Leonov?

"You are smart man doctor Floyd. You will know what to do!"

Edited April 29, 2014 by YANFRET

[Deathsoul097]

Frizzank, you're awesome. This post was exactly what inspiration I needed to get started on my new modelling project: KSP Warships. I started today, and this is what I have so far:

(I'm going to use this stuff as a showcase of prior experience once I get out of High School and start looking at Uni, so I hope it will all be of a decently high quality.)

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It currently sits on about 3300 faces, so about 5000 tris. Making the collision mesh shouldn't be too hard, but the texturing is what's going to get me. I plan for this stuff to at least be compatible with, if not use a lot of InfiniteDices SkillFull parts (Pending his decision of course.), along with the WarpDrive module from Interstellar. (Need to get permission from FractalUK for that.)

What do you think, having a background in the gaming industry? Is it too detailed? Not enough Detail? Too flat? Too complicated?

[CaptainKipard]

Will this be in any way realistic? Launchable in parts? Orbital assembly?

[GoldForest]

Frizzank, you're awesome. This post was exactly what inspiration I needed to get started on my new modelling project: KSP Warships. I started today, and this is what I have so far:

(I'm going to use this stuff as a showcase of prior experience once I get out of High School and start looking at Uni, so I hope it will all be of a decently high quality.)

http://imgur.com/a/7crUe

It currently sits on about 3300 faces, so about 5000 tris. Making the collision mesh shouldn't be too hard, but the texturing is what's going to get me. I plan for this stuff to at least be compatible with, if not use a lot of InfiniteDices SkillFull parts (Pending his decision of course.), along with the WarpDrive module from Interstellar. (Need to get permission from FractalUK for that.)

What do you think, having a background in the gaming industry? Is it too detailed? Not enough Detail? Too flat? Too complicated?

For the MAC cannon, talk to InfiniteDice about implementation with his Skillful mod.

[Deathsoul097]

For the MAC cannon, talk to InfiniteDice about implementation with his Skillful mod.

Yeah, I wonder if he has anything of that calibre planned. Doubtful, as it can pretty much shred anything it will hit, and its pretty huge. Any further discussion can go on the thread I just posted here, so we don't crowd up frizzank's amazing work.

[frizzank]

I dont mind, it was more of an open discussion for feasibility and if people were interested in it. I got the idea from playing around with 10 m scaled parts from Saturn V.

[Deathsoul097]

Awesome. Will this stuff be launchable, or will it be to large for that, like my stuff?

[YANFRET]

Awesome. Will this stuff be launchable, or will it be to large for that, like my stuff?

I bet you if we used Cpt. Kipard's docking hardware to split up the pieces and our Monkey Launch System it could be

EDIT; but it needs to be near future type stuff for that to mean anything I think

Edited April 29, 2014 by YANFRET

[Deathsoul097]

I bet you if we used Cpt. Kipard's docking hardware to split up the pieces and our Monkey Launch System it could be

EDIT; but it needs to be near future type stuff for that to mean anything I think

True. Unless you can manage to launch the mass of an entire Saturn V in one go without an available node for attaching your launcher, you're going to have a bad time with all but the smallest of my ships.

[CaptainKipard]

I don't really see how my ports can be of any use here. At any rate Frizzank would probably want to make his own docking ports, and if they would be designed to dock with multiple sizes then Toadicus' Adaptive Nodes plugin is available separately for anyone who wants to use and redistribute it.

Anyway, a capital ship sounds nice but I can't think of a need for it.

Edited April 29, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[Space_Kraken]

Hmm, may I recommend you chaps to the fine work of Daemoria.

[The Error]

@Deathsoul, awesome model.

May I suggest adding VTOL (maybe disposable) thrusters to lift off and head to orbit? Wings aren't large enough, and c cap-ship seems to be an in-space only deal to me.

Or maybe it'll go full Voyager and be landing-capable, who knows?

[Deathsoul097]

@Deathsoul, awesome model.

May I suggest adding VTOL (maybe disposable) thrusters to lift off and head to orbit? Wings aren't large enough, and c cap-ship seems to be an in-space only deal to me.

Or maybe it'll go full Voyager and be landing-capable, who knows?

Eh, well, its not meant for landing really, though I guess the more adventurous among us will probably try it. I don't think that KSP would handle landing up to 3000 tonnes in the same craft very well (Read as without significant lag and/or crashing.) They aren't wings BTW, their immobile radiators that could also provide stability during aerobraking and the like. (Most likely, under real aerodynamics, it would make it lawn-dart or flip out.) Plus this is a frigate, not a capital ship. it's there for support and cannon fodder, and minor operations such as small scale orbital bombardment and support with landing craft, or escorting other, more vulnerable ships. When I make a capital ship it will be at least 500m long, probably up to about 700m, or maybe, just maybe, 1km.

[DauntingFlyer]

I already got my capital ship

When KSP gets updates to suck up less RAM memory, I'll get myself a Super Star Destroyer

[TK421d]

i was messing around with the Homeworld 1&2 game meshes last year, i have them all ported to .max format if you want them to mess around with.

just tried one in unity and it seems to work ok-ish, but having trouble getting KSP to load though.