Hius Interstellar Ramjet 080528 alpha

[Artlav]

Hius alpha 080528:
http://orbides.1gb.ru/orbf/hius-alpha-080528.zip (5.2 Mb)

Hius is a interplanetary and interstellar space vessel based on the Bussard ramjet concept.

Alpha version means right now there isn't much done. Despite being over a year in development, it got swamped by it's own planned feature list, so i've decided to continue it one thing at a time.

The feature this release is about is the walking camera. The internal camera of the Hius vessel can move around by keyboard commands, and that feature seems to be interesting to some people.
The walking camera system will include interactive items, like doors, and basic collision detection. Right now in the alpha above there is only basic collision detection and one level.
As a result, i decided to make the whole internals of Hius Hab module. And here it all hits the dirt, because i'm as good in modeling as a cow in ice dancing.

Basically, i'm asking for advice on the layout of that roughly parallelepipedal block, as i've only got about 30% fill of ideas.
And i got no idea where to get or how to make textures.

The front is the observation deck. Behind it are some store rooms followed by crew bunks. The ship is designed for crew of 20 right now, 16 small rooms and 2 big ones. The circular corridor around and the bunks with staircases on the far ends. That all is level 0. Above it i thought of making a large space for oxygen garden, below to the left is the airlock chamber. All else is empty space now.

Hius is an interstellar vessel. I guess that should influence the design somehow.

The basic overview of the vessel as well as layouts are provided in the screenshots below.

Overview:

Lights:

Observation deck:

Airlock segment. The airlock is behind the hexagon tunnel:

Basic HAB layout:

Level 0 layout:

Other side of the airlock:

A look of the rooms:

 

[Urwumpe]

As it is an interstellar craft, I would suggest including space for recreation facilities - for example a squash room. A swimming pool would also be nice, but the infrastructure for that is not really spaceflight friendly.

A bar in the hab module would also be cute, maybe integrated with the mess, but otherwise, one quarter per crew would also be smart - people need their personal freedom.

As you have artificial gravity, showers would be a good idea to add. It just adds to the idea of people living for a long time - and as it is a long time, a room with washing machines would be a great detail.

I would add communication terminals into each room for distributing warnings and alerts faster. Into the crossing of two major corridors, you could add an larger information terminal which allows basic spaceflight control (for example, operating bulkheads, enable autopilot).

Need still more input?

As you can never be sure about hostilities in unexplored solar systems, having at least enough guns to fight boardings would be good mass allocation. Of course this is no battleship and will have to get away quickly. But which astronaut would like being captured by formerly unknown aliens?

 

[Woo482]

how about some kind of escape craft for the crew in emergency's

 

[Master of Blades]

Im all for the idea of an escape craft (or several), perhaps small 1-man poddish vessels, or maybe larger, 's up to you

 

[SiberianTiger]

Wow! But since when a Hius is equipped with a Bussard's ramjet enjine? Just kidding, I understand that the design's name is older than the concept.

When opportunity comes, will use this one to skim the Solar System's edge at high speeds to see if the L-Deritrinitation happens!

 

[Imagineer]

Just a few thoughts:

I see a ladder extending from the hab module to the main body of the ship. "Climbing" in an inflated space suit requires considerable exertion. I would suggest a powered trolley or some such instead.

An escape craft would be of little use on an interstellar journey unless it was, itself, interstellar capable. Better to do things to improve the overall reliability of the ship itself (Redundant systems, fire suppression, air-tight doors through bulkheads, etc.).

An excursion craft (for exploring the destination Solar System) is more plausible. It should be capable of landing with or without an atmosphere.

For interior, why not look at what is done for submarines which have similar endurance issues?

 

[Artlav]

...including space for recreation facilities...
...swimming pool... ...bar in the hab module...
...one quarter per crew... ...showers...
...room with washing machines...

...communication terminals into each room... ...information terminal which allows basic spaceflight control...
...enough guns to fight boardings...

It was more of a design question of where to put what...

...what about a spherical swimming pool in a box? When under thrust, it is a box pool, when coasting - a sphere. The room is watertight and solid-walled, so just letting the water fly around could be interesting. Airlock on the entrance, small air tanks to every swimmer, one to look after all the time. Could be fun. Cannot be modeled, unfortunately.

...A bar could end up in ladder races. Outside. Under thrust...
...16 solo bunks, 2 rooms, 20 capacity. Sounds private enough...
...Showers, terminals and guns are furniture, not bulkheads planning.

Im all for the idea of an escape craft (or several), perhaps small 1-man poddish vessels, or maybe larger, 's up to you

how about some kind of escape craft for the crew in emergency's

It's a relativistic interstellar vessel. With an escape pod/craft, where will you go, and what hopes can you have of being picked up? Hardly anyone want to be dug up out of a stasis pod by aliens a billion years into the future in the galaxy far, far away.

Wow! But since when a Hius is equipped with a Bussard's ramjet enjine? Just kidding, I understand that the design's name is older than the concept.

Right, it was a photon rocket back in 2005/6 - http://www.orbitersim.com/Forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=4140

I see a ladder extending from the hab module to the main body of the ship. "Climbing" in an inflated space suit requires considerable exertion. I would suggest a powered trolley or some such instead.

350 meters one way, 350 meters other way to reach the lander block... I was planning to add an UMMU-compatible climber, attached to the ladder.

An excursion craft (for exploring the destination Solar System) is more plausible. It should be capable of landing with or without an atmosphere.

There are docking ports with 2 deltagliders on the opposite side of the ship from the hab, that was supposed to be excursion crafts.

For interior, why not look at what is done for submarines which have similar endurance issues?

It's more of a design question of where to put what, rather than what to put in.

 

[Urwumpe]

Can you post a png drawing of the deck walls? Then it would be simpler testing layouts. I would make the layout task based - rooms which are required for a task should be close.

Also, you want bulkheads. A micrometeorite strike is pretty common and at the speeds of the Hius, you can consider leaks being common problem (maybe about once per week/month).

 

[Coolhand]

Nice Rug Artlav.

Thats one mean looking ship.

 

[Gadfly]

Ramjet thoughts

Hello Artlav:

Your model looks great; I've been a Bussard Ramjet fan since reading various stories about them, as a kid, in the early seventies. Some may recall that the Microsoft Space Simulator included a ramjet; I made one for Space Combat (still in the download library at the X-Plane forum) with a sub-ramjet-speed Orion-type drive--you have to get the machine up to ram velocity somehow.

As far as your request for input:

If I'm understanding the orientation of the habitat, it looks to me as if it should be rotated 90 degrees, so that the bodies of the crewmembers, when they are walking around, are parallel to the long axis of the ship. The mission of this ship will require long periods of constant thrust, so it makes sense that "down" for the crew will be in the same direction the reaction mass exits the engine. If it is already is oriented that way, never mind.

Additionally, given constant thrust, the habitat unit looks pretty far outboard on a slender structure--if one imagines the ship standing on its tail, on Earth, (or travelling at one gravity), the structure looks a little spindly to me. Plus, you don't want the habitat sticking out into the relativistic "slipstream," although I have no idea how far out would be too far.

Finally, the two curved structures in front of each outboard engine look like shielding of some sort. Would it make sense to have the habitat in the "shadow" of such a shield, screening it from the stuff exiting the rear of the ship?

As far as texturing and the like, I'm pretty clueless. I did get a kind of "Ikarie XB-1" vibe (good movie-Czech, I think-from maybe the early 1960s) from the interior views.

If case you haven't seen it, the Atomic Rockets section at www.projectrho.com has good information about habitats and crew/mission requirements, as well as a brief section about ramjets/scramjets.

I've been hoping for a ship like this for Orbiter for some time--keep up the outstanding work. I look forward to the release!

Richard

 

[Master of Blades]

I am having extreme problems manuevring this one, handling is utterly slow, and i can only notice anything while going under 100x (!) time accelration, wich also makes the ship practicly impossible to autopilot, or kill rot

 

[Gadfly]

Ramjet Development

I couldn't tell from the stills posted, but now that I've seen the model with animation, all of the points I suggested in my previous post were already handled.

My only surviving suggestion is checking the crew- and habitat-related sections at Atomic Rockets at projectrho.com, to see if you find anything helpful there.

Maybe a little off-topic, but I found the ship operation interface screens a little hard to read--would it be doable to have toggles for different colors, or maybe to resize the screen? Like Master of Blades, I also have been unable to kill rotation or reorient the ship.

Thanks again, Artlav, for this project.

Richard

 

[Artlav]

Can you post a png drawing of the deck walls? Then it would be simpler testing layouts.

Hm. What exactly "drawing of the deck walls" means?

I am having extreme problems manuevring this one, handling is utterly slow, and i can only notice anything while going under 100x (!) time accelration, wich also makes the ship practicly impossible to autopilot, or kill rot

Naturally enough. It's a big ship, so it is hard to maneuver. Killrot should work, it takes 200 seconds sim-time.
Basically, it's an interstellar craft, so it was intended to point one way for years.

Maybe a little off-topic, but I found the ship operation interface screens a little hard to read--would it be doable to have toggles for different colors, or maybe to resize the screen? Like Master of Blades, I also have been unable to kill rotation or reorient the ship.

You'll have to define "a little hard to read", or i won't be able to make better colors. Resizing the screen bigger is a bit problematic, as it takes a lot of screen space as it is. Why exactly a resize is needed? Is the font too small?

The RCS should be turned on first, from Navigation/NAV panel. Then, press killrot and wait a couple of seconds at 100x. After that, RCS should give fine control at 10x.

Just paste the thing below into the corresponding part of Hius in Earth orbit scenario.
That will give you a grayscale high-contrast screen.

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[Gadfly]

Ramjet Followup

Thanks, Artlav, for posting the datablock changing the readout to grayscale; for me this was a definite improvement.

In the original control panel, I'm finding it difficult to distinguish the red lettering from the blue field--the letters don't "pop" from the background color--maybe my eyes/computer are the issue? Anyway, after seeing the grayscale, I don't think the font needs to be larger--I can distinguish the lettering without trouble in the grayscale screen.

I have,since your last post, been able to stop rotation with the ship at 100X, but I have also had the experience of following the same procedure, as far as I can tell, and the rotation drops to 2.x or so (according to VROT values in the scenario) but never gets to zero. I was zeroing the values in the scenario file in the meantime.

I appreciate grayscale option--

Richard

 

[Woo482]

Sorry for bumping this but are you still developing it ?

 

[Artlav]

Sorry for bumping this but are you still developing it ?

Yes, steadily yet slowly.

Being just back from China and finding the 3dsmax quit into some kind of "activation" bug, along with having precisely little constructive feedback here, i see neither ways nor reasons to keep regular updates on the development.

The grayscale panel color scheme:

 

[Woo482]

what do you mean by activation bug ?

 

[Linguofreak]

I have,since your last post, been able to stop rotation with the ship at 100X, but I have also had the experience of following the same procedure, as far as I can tell, and the rotation drops to 2.x or so (according to VROT values in the scenario) but never gets to zero. I was zeroing the values in the scenario file in the meantime.

I think this is more of a problem with Orbiter. Killrot leaves a very little bit of rotation that can only be removed by editing the scenario. Attitude MFD may help you here.

 

[Ursus]

I think this is more of a problem with Orbiter. Killrot leaves a very little bit of rotation that can only be removed by editing the scenario. Attitude MFD may help you here.

Gettin' a bit off-topic, but Enjo put out an [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2899"]Absolute Killrot[/ame] module a while back that deals with that problem quite nicely.

[Note: Just added Absolute Killrot to Recommended Addons thread, since it didn't seem to be there. Post further comments about Absolute Killrot there or, better yet, on a fresh thread on the addons section of the forums.]

 

[Artlav]

what do you mean by activation bug ?

http://orbides.1gb.ru/orbf/3dsab.png
Changed the main HDD a few weeks before, now it requires re-activation.
Already solved...

Gettin' a bit off-topic, but Enjo put out an Absolute Killrot module a while back that deals with that problem quite nicely.

Nice idea. I hope he would not object if i put the feature internally on Hius? Should be useful on it's scale and purpose.