"Weasel" Emergency Boat

**Redeye** · 01-23-12

EDIT: This one is released. Get it here.

**Snowracer** · 01-23-12

nice boat! not too many boats being made, so this is gonna be HAWT!!!!!!

**xxlonghaulerxx** · 01-23-12

Looks nice, but will the windows be transparent? All they need is an alpha which is super easy...

**Zanjani13** · 01-23-12

Very nice job, this is first boat made in long time

**lcomotion** · 01-23-12

Nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**700mb700** · 01-24-12

Very nice! I hope this doesn't go dead because it seems like it is going to be an amazing boat. Can't wait till it comes out.

Good luck!

**Redeye** · 01-24-12

Okay, so I did mess with the rig again, as I didn't like the erratic behaviour at full throttle. I played around with the lower hull shape until I found a fair solution. Most of the Weasel's hull will be lifted out of the water at some point in the 40 knot range, but it now remains reasonably stable skipping over the water like that. The downside is that once much of the hull is out of the water, it can reach ludicrous speeds and gets really unstable, but I guess that's the responsibility of the operator to throttle down at the right point and keep her in safe conditions

. (I also realized ROR's water model probably has its limitations if your boat doesn't happen to have the mass of a small town, but I think for now, my attempt turned out quite okay.)

Looks nice, but will the windows be transparent? All they need is an alpha which is super easy...

I considered that, although I'm not quite sure what does look better. This variant or plain view into the ugly, dark interiour of a low-detail build... Oh, and I've also had some more fun with props and flares...

EDIT: I got started on the ropables now, as seen in the second screenshot. Note how it isn't quite pretty how the ropes go through the cab, but that could be avoided by using longer ropes. Also note how my lousy texture compares to Lenni's TGX crane, although I admit it was a bad idea to put that Weasel beside one of the best-looking trucks in ROR ;p.

**MrMechanic** · 01-26-12

looks pretty cool!

**Yezzz** · 01-26-12

Sick

**maurice825** · 01-27-12

So I've seen this thread a couple've days ago and to be honest, I thought it was going to be one of those strange non-fun boats (Strange because getting something non-fun in ror is hard) BUT when you put on the picture with the MAN TGX lifting the boat I began thinking.. And my final conclusion is: Awesome 8/10 in general scale and 11/10 in RP possiblities, and awesomeness as it comes to boats! I've fallen in love with this boat now and to be honest, I only got one question left: Have you thought of making an trailer which you drive into the water to fetch and lift the boat? If you do decide to make one, maybe make an trailer compatable with the Urugan? I think it'll be the right size and color wont it? Anyways, I got an example:

PS: This is only an suggestion, and maybe an nice addition. Not an request.

**Yezzz** · 01-27-12

Originally Posted by maurice825

So I've seen this thread a couple've days ago and to be honest, I thought it was going to be one of those strange non-fun boats (Strange because getting something non-fun in ror is hard) BUT when you put on the picture with the MAN TGX lifting the boat I began thinking.. And my final conclusion is: Awesome 8/10 in general scale and 11/10 in RP possiblities, and awesomeness as it comes to boats! I've fallen in love with this boat now and to be honest, I only got one question left: Have you thought of making an trailer which you drive into the water to fetch and lift the boat? If you do decide to make one, maybe make an trailer compatable with the Urugan? I think it'll be the right size and color wont it? Anyways, I got an example:
PS: This is only an suggestion, and maybe an nice addition. Not an request.

Thats the power of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Reddings Maatschapij or Royal Netherlands Sea Rescue Institution

(no idea why i put that one there but i like it xD)
Also, will the COG (center of gravity) be in the bottom? It makes it very stable and quite realistic. Real ones have it to help it get up when they roll over.

**Redeye** · 01-28-12

Good morning,

my screenshot with the TGX got me thinking. In particular, I decided I don't like the boat's low level of detail and crappy texture work at all. So, as the experiment was pretty much successful (do a fast boat in the general shape I'd like it to be and get it to move straight & stable), I decided to continue this one as less of a side-project and get a little more ambitious. In particular, I've settled on this to-do/to-try list:

* Highly desirable, roughly in this order:
- Mesh body with meshed details & just "light" skinning work instead of crappy textures (a mesh body also has the neat side-effect that this thing will be able to have multiple skins)
- An actual rudder
- Player-controlled ropes to tow or dock with other boats (my initial attempt at using ties instead of ropes had turned out somewhat... well, you don't want to know).

* Neat, but lower-priority:
- A trailer
- A bit of interiour

Originally Posted by maurice825

Have you thought of making an trailer which you drive into the water to fetch and lift the boat? If you do decide to make one, maybe make an trailer compatable with the Urugan?

See the to-do-list above

. I realized quickly that the Weasel probably won't be compatible with existing trailers due to the prominent vertical stabilizer at the ventral hull. So doing a general-purpose boat trailer is somewhat second my volatile list of vehicle projects.

Originally Posted by Yezzz

Also, will the COG (center of gravity) be in the bottom? It makes it very stable and quite realistic. Real ones have it to help it get up when they roll over.

I currently don't have a clue where its COG is, but it currently is stable even at high speeds, and I haven't managed to roll it over yet (I tried hard).

Stay tuned.

**Redeye** · 01-31-12

Sorry to reply to my own one, but there's significant progress...:
- The Weasel now has a flexbody mesh I'm quite content with. It's not as much about deforming realistically as more about the mesh detail. It does, however, deform if you crash the boat hard enough

.
- She has a working rudder now. This one was a real headbanger, but it works. It raised slight stability issues again, but then again, if you really feel like banking hard when much of your hull is skipping above the water at around 50 knots, what do you expect to happen?
- She has a rotatable searchlight. Yes, a working rotatable searchlight. Not sure if that's really that fancy, but when you just ruined a whole day trying to get that darn thing to work, I think you just have to love the sight of a swiveling light cone.

**bnny** · 01-31-12

wow! its looking great

your one of the few junior members that actually make the forum a great place ;D cant wait to drive this thing.

**Redeye** · 02-01-12

Thanks

. In the meantime, have a piece of cake: I got the Weasel to tow other boats. It works a lot like your average winch, although the lock-on-procedure requires a tad more click-&-drag-precision in the water.

That, and it works smoothly with the *.skin system, as can also be seen in the screenshot...

**RangeRover184** · 02-01-12

Originally Posted by Redeye

Thanks

. In the meantime, have a piece of cake: I got the Weasel to tow other boats. It works a lot like your average winch, although the lock-on-procedure requires a tad more click-&-drag-precision in the water.

That, and it works smoothly with the *.skin system, as can also be seen in the screenshot...

Looks great, you're making great progress!

**Yezzz** · 02-01-12

Originally Posted by Redeye;962498
I currently don't have a clue where its COG is, but it currently [I

is[/I] stable even at high speeds, and I haven't managed to roll it over yet (I tried hard).

Stay tuned.

Maybe you should try and spawn it on land, grab it with a crane on the back, and dump it in the water xD If it flips back on its hull it would be awesome

Its looks better and better!

PS: Maybe make a version with a crane?

EDIT: I have no idea how that quote got messed up xD

**jake1121** · 02-02-12

Nice

09Challenger · 02-03-12

Nice work man, it is looking pretty good

**Redeye** · 02-03-12

Good news - the Weasel is now available in the updated version of the Starling Island map. See it as a sort of exclusive pre-release while I'm getting the stand-alone release ready.

The stand-alone version (expect it within the next few days) won't conflict with this one and will have different (more generic, less map-specific) skins. That, and it will include a civilian variant without emergency beacons for all your recreational, towing or racing needs. Stay tuned and have fun!

Edit: A little glitch had sneaked into the .boat-file, so I had to re-upload. If you downloaded before this edit, please re-download once the new version is up. I'm very sorry for the inconvenience. I guess it's an important lesson to always check my files before I upload even if think I'm 100% sure everything is alright.