Idea Mighty Jack

At the risk of hijacking your thread, I would suggest the VTOL Jet "Beetle" from the 1966 TV series Ultraman. A very cheesy Japanese monster show which I watched incessantly growing up, I always loved this rocketplane. In one episode they used a hydrogen-fueled booster to launch it into orbit as a spaceplane.

ultraman720L.gif


 
It's actually kind of a cool design. So it's a spacecraft that can take off and land in the water? That reminds me of the Bebop from Cowboy Bebop. Being able to land in water certainly gives you a lot of landing site options, at least on Earth.
 
haha, a submarine that goes to space...

Leela: "Five thousand feet!"
Farnsworth: "Dear Lord! That's over one hundred and fifty atmospheres of pressure."
Fry: "How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?"
Farnsworth: "Well, it's a space ship. So I'd say anywhere between zero and one."
 
So was the Yamato from Star Blazers. Actually, it was a WWII battleship converted to a starship which could also swim underwater. Also, it had a wave motion gun which could obliterate a continent. Deslok and the Gamelon Empire paid the price!

---------- Post added at 09:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:55 PM ----------

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=122"]Yamato v.2.1[/ame]

new-yamato.jpg
 
There was also these from the 1970's TV series Project UFO;

http://www.ufoseries.com/photos/hardware.html

The aircraft that looks like a squat F-86 was on the nose of a sub...

And then there was the anime series Agent Aika (1996-ish, and a bit vulgar, I would say), which like the post above, featured a Bismarck type battleship that turned into a spacecraft.
 
me and my bro used to watch old japanese shows just to point out all the inconsistantcies. like in the above movie when the monster falls in the water, the hooks fall off and you can see the guy wearing gloves. they really do look like they are trying too hard. like their compensating for something:rofl:
 
I am just wondering how you could make a submarine vessel in Orbiter. I suppose sort of (pseudocode)...

if vesselaltitude <= 0 && control == down
Change the CG over ground distance negative;

Think this would this be a start, or something along those lines?

The problem would be the visual. You would have to get the view rectangle (after Orbiter draws its own visuals)and fill it deepblue to blot everything out. Then possibly add a routine to blit some bitmaps of fish swimming back and forth (and bubbles going up) to add some interest! :)

Here's the basic idea in VB!!!
http://www.fastgraph.com/help/fishtank_vb.html
And some fish icons to start off with...
http://www.iconarchive.com/category/nature/fish-icons-by-imil.html
 
It may work if Orbiter implemented layered atmosphere.
Water would be a very dense layer, and air would be thinner.
It may be useful to simulate other planet atmospheres.
Of course, liquid makes things tricky, because not all surface would be at the same altitude.
For example a sub in Titicaca lake above sea level.
 
So was the Yamato from Star Blazers. Actually, it was a WWII battleship converted to a starship which could also swim underwater. Also, it had a wave motion gun which could obliterate a continent. Deslok and the Gamelon Empire paid the price!

When I was six, I lived for Starblazers.
 
It may work if Orbiter implemented layered atmosphere.
Water would be a very dense layer, and air would be thinner.
It may be useful to simulate other planet atmospheres.
Of course, liquid makes things tricky, because not all surface would be at the same altitude.
For example a sub in Titicaca lake above sea level.

Hey, that is a good idea....

With Cellbody.API I think you can make a reasonably complex "atmosphere"... like this;

Altitude km........... 0 ........2 .......2.0001 .....4
Temperature Cº..... 2º ......10º ......21º .......-5º
Pressure Mb .......202600 ..1013 ...1013 .....607
Density kgm3 .....1000 .....1000 ...1.23 .....0.85

The high density part being the liquid, and a very small transition layer to simulate the "liquid's surface". This example should make 2 km deep "Waterworld". From what I see in the API Programmer's Guide, this seems possible already (though it still does not solve the Titicaca submarine scenario :)).

Now. How could the reduced visibility underwater issue be addressed.

Edit 24 hours later. Nah, it does not work...

There does not seem to be much you can do with that ATMPARAM structure, really, except set a "normal" sort of gaseous atmosphere. With a density shear like that described above, the DG skipped, off spinning into space the moment it touched the transition layer. Judging by the rate the star dwindled into the distance afterwards, I think the DG was doing LightSpeed 2.5, more or less.

Well, it was worth a try.
 
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Water simulation would require to add buoyancy force to Orbiter.

Visibility is normally addressed by rendering only close polygons.
But in Orbiter it would be just like simulating a foggy day.

Unfortunately, Orbiter 2006 does not simulate that.
 
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