Tugboat and Barges (yes, it's marine trailer hauling)

[Redeye]

The Atlas class tug and barges have been released. Get them at the repo.

Old post:

Good evening, lads. Now that this is beginning to take shape, I thought I'd post a little preview of what to expect. The basic barge is pretty much finished, the 275-ton-tugboat is still at a very early stage of developpment (as the screenshot suggests). I've been fiddling the whole day to come up with a somewhat handy coupling system, and the first few tests look promising. Both the tug and the barge have extendable chords that will recognize and lock on the counterpart at a distance of around 2.5 meters, using the usual "L" key. The tugboat itself also has an additional regular rope (independent of the barge hooks) to tow boats and pretty much whatever you please, but positioning the end of the rope turned out a bit awkward due to the scales invloved. That's why I came up with the specialized solution for the barges, which seems quite handy to use. Other hooks can grab the barge, too, and pretty much anywhere you please (so for example, a "Weasel" boat could pull an unladden barge, although it's a really, really nasty stunt to pull for that lightweight, little boat). On a side-note, 4 by 4 iso containers happen to fit the barge, and the deck is cluttered with ties. For all those who don't want to go through the tedious procedure of loading it, I'm also planning a bulk goods version (although the unladden and ladden one will be just different barges that can't be loaded or unloaded - ROR can't simulate bulk goods, you know ). Stay tuned & peace.

[Eminox]

This looks pretty good, are you basing the tug on any particular one?

[ploom12]

This would be great!

[Redeye]

This looks pretty good, are you basing the tug on any particular one?

Yes and no. I'm doing a sort of blend of various pictures I found on the web. The result is supposed to be a really "generic" tug (which shouldn't be too hard, given most tugs of this size share essentially the same design features).

[VeyronEB]

Looks good so far, what does the barge weigh?

[Redeye]

Looks good so far, what does the barge weigh?

The one in the screenshots above weighs about 50 tons empty, which might be unrealistically low. I think I'm going to settle on 100 tons for the loadable empty version.
It can take a total of 400 tons (including empty mass) before the bottom of the cargo area is below the waterline (which is okay in real life but looks sh*tty in ROR ), so 350 tons are the maximum practical cargo weight for the empty version.
The ladden bulk version weighs a total of 475 tons, and as can be seen in the screenshot below, this is close to the practical maximum the barge can weigh before it just plain sinks. This one, of course, has the advantage that the waterline is covered by gravel, so no weird visuals even at well above 400 tons .

[silvermanblue]

Hopefully you can get some type of vectored props for the tug so she can turn on a dime if you need to.
Good luck

[Redeye]

Hopefully you can get some type of vectored props for the tug so she can turn on a dime if you need to.

I'd love to try my luck at a pair of azimuth thrusters, but the really sobering headscratcher about that currently is: How to keep track of their orientation? You do want to know where your propellers are currently pointing, but plain visual verification is overly user-unfriendly: The FPS water is intransparent, and even with advanced water settings, you neither want to fiddle with the camera until you're sure you're going to drive in a straight line again, nor check it out by trial and error. Some sort of auto-resetting isn't an option either, as that spoils most of the fun & capabilities of vectored propellers.

Suggestions are very welcome there, but unless there's a really smart & sophisticated solution, I'm afraid I'll have to stick to the regular arrow keys for now.

Good luck

That would help, too .

[Miura]

I've used simple submesh thrusters on some of my ships; just two opposing buoyant submesh triangles that cancel each other out when the thruster is not in use. Then you can use commands to turn them so they push in the same direction. I used commands2 with the "o" option so they turn fully with one keypress and also stop in the middle when turning back.

I also tried submesh propellers recently, but only for forward movement. Turning them with commands would work too.

[RangeRover184]

Looks great, Redeye! Like I said, you seem to have a skill when it comes to boats. Maybe you could make a map to go with this, like a mostly water map so it could be designed for boating. Just a suggestion, I know your busy as it is.

[Redeye]

I've used simple submesh thrusters on some of my ships; just two opposing buoyant submesh triangles that cancel each other out when the thruster is not in use. Then you can use commands to turn them so they push in the same direction. I used commands2 with the "o" option so they turn fully with one keypress and also stop in the middle when turning back.

I also tried submesh propellers recently, but only for forward movement. Turning them with commands would work too.

Well, really nifty, but if I get this right, I don't see how it is superiour to suspending regular screwprop nodes from a cleverly-arranged command beam structure and use the "c" auto-centering option. With either solution, they can only be turned in fixed increments (say, ideally -90° - 0° - +90°) with no steady position in between. That's probably okay for most actual maneuvers, but I'd really love to give the player full control over their current orientation (though I admit that may just be a little too much for now).

Maybe you could make a map to go with this, like a mostly water map so it could be designed for boating.

There is nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen . Move on, just move on.

[jcb]

Well, really nifty, but if I get this right, I don't see how it is superiour to suspending regular screwprop nodes from a cleverly-arranged command beam structure and use the "c" auto-centering option. With either solution, they can only be turned in fixed increments (say, ideally -90° - 0° - +90°) with no steady position in between. That's probably okay for most actual maneuvers, but I'd really love to give the player full control over their current orientation (though I admit that may just be a little too much for now).



There is nothing to see here, ladies and gentlemen . Move on, just move on.

very nice work on those models

[Miura]

Well, really nifty, but if I get this right, I don't see how it is superiour to suspending regular screwprop nodes from a cleverly-arranged command beam structure and use the "c" auto-centering option. With either solution, they can only be turned in fixed increments (say, ideally -90° - 0° - +90°) with no steady position in between. That's probably okay for most actual maneuvers, but I'd really love to give the player full control over their current orientation (though I admit that may just be a little too much for now)

Commands with the "o" option can be stopped manually by pressing the same key again, so it would be possible to stop them at any angle and still have them center easily.

I use the submeshes for bow thrusters because they are not affected by the screwprop throttle and steering angle.

[Redeye]

Commands with the "o" option can be stopped manually by pressing the same key again, so it would be possible to stop them at any angle and still have them center easily.

Oh, I see. That's sounds a lot like it's worth a shot, thanks a lot for pointing that out .

I use the submeshes for bow thrusters because they are not affected by the screwprop throttle and steering angle.

On a mostly unrelated side-note, it occurred to me that your way of cheating physics with one-sided submeshes sounds suspiciously like a bias drive.

[RangeRover184]

Is the barge sinkable? Because if it is, I know of a fun little game we can play

[Redeye]

Is the barge sinkable? Because if it is, I know of a fun little game we can play

No worries there, they are sinkable . They're tough though, as I felt moderate collisions with the rear of the tug (which has also been sort of collision-proofed) shouldn't be punished with the entire load sinking immediately (wouldn't be realistic either).

If nothing else arises, I think I'm almost finished on the barge now (I'm still going to tweak the skin a bit and give each variant a propper guid). It took a bit longer than expected to get it right (mostly because of a self-inflicted N/B mess-up I had to fix), but I assume I can now focus on the real tugboat fun...

Oh, and is there any demand for a kind of beta release of the barges once I have it all packed up? I realize you can't do an awful lot with them without a propper tugboat, but at least they provide some loading fun.

[silvermanblue]

No worries there, they are sinkable . They're tough though, as I felt moderate collisions with the rear of the tug (which has also been sort of collision-proofed) shouldn't be punished with the entire load sinking immediately (wouldn't be realistic either).

If nothing else arises, I think I'm almost finished on the barge now (I'm still going to tweak the skin a bit and give each variant a propper guid). It took a bit longer than expected to get it right (mostly because of a self-inflicted N/B mess-up I had to fix), but I assume I can now focus on the real tugboat fun...

Oh, and is there any demand for a kind of beta release of the barges once I have it all packed up? I realize you can't do an awful lot with them without a propper tugboat, but at least they provide some loading fun.

I wouldnt mind a chance to bug test the barges, I could always tow one with two weasels in tandem. I did it with the nordia express.

[Redeye]

Well then, here's a hands-on preview of the barge. Please don't modify (or rather, don't release modifications), as this is still a beta.
Note that the niftiest gadget (the pairs of ropes) is still pretty much unusable without the matching tug. But with a bit of luck, you can use a Weasel to pull empty or lightly-loaded barges around. Locking the Weasel's rope onto a barge at the right place is a bit tricky, so please don't complain about that - I'm working on a suitable system for the tug.

Oh, and even though they're unpropelled, you can enter the barges like any other boat. That's useful for securing loads, checking damage, manually pulling the barge around, that sort of thing.

Have fun.

[Miura]

Can two or more barges be linked together? I tried it, but looks like the ropes attach to the barge itself, not the next barge.

I think I'll try making a tugboat too. Probably just a scaled down version of one of my larger propeller-driven ships at first, but this would be interesting to try too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller

[Redeye]

Can two or more barges be linked together? I tried it, but looks like the ropes attach to the barge itself, not the next barge.

Right now, they don't attach themselves to anything at all if I'm not mistaken. Anyhow, I'm considering a linkable variant (see the attachment). Their pairs of ropes will auto-link together if closer than 2.5 metres. The idea here is to separate individual barge linking from the "L" key so the tug can dock und undock individually and leave trains of barges coupled. I didn't include it in the preliminary version as I'm not yet sure whether that solution "feels right".

I think I'll try making a tugboat too. Probably just a scaled down version of one of my larger propeller-driven ships at first, but this would be interesting to try too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller

Sounds like there's something interesting to come. Curious .

Linkable barges: