@Kibarreto Spaceship to-blender, airlocks

generalgameplaying

@Kibarreto   (and partly others)

 

I'm happy to see updgraded versions like: https://www.daz3d.com/super-stinger

Now with daz-to-blender support (untested by me, yet), and still with interactive license.

 

So i have two questions/suggestions:

(1)

Will some of the other spaceships, StarJet and what's in the "Flying Vehicle Bundle" (both my priorities) and maybe the Astromaster too, be updated to support the to-blender part? Just for that, it might be over the top for roughly recent items, but maybe there are other upgrades like under (2) and (3) that might make it more interesting. I'm not the market, just yet, though.

(2)

Airlocks. I understand some ships have indications of airlocks, which are not rigged, like the Vanguard, others have a separate cabin (StarJet, AstroMaster). It's not impossible to add airlocks with some of the corridor sets, especially with StarJet and Vanguard, but it would be less clonky-wonky, if there was some space efficient default soltutions. Not so difficult to do would be force-field based airlocks (leaving the exact durability/lore to the story) with mild transparency, for doorways and intersections and just before the cargo doors of said ships for instance. That may not be so difficult to do myself, shaping a transparent thing with some color effect and put/hide it as necessary. However, for pimping up the exits of some ships like the Super Stinger or the ShuttleStar in general, other means would be necessary. One-seated fighters aside, some ships could use an inflatable airlock for connecting to hangar doors on the JetCarrier or for prolonged operation, e.g.

- Super Stinger on the inside, surrounding the stairs. Just an optional for the inside of the entry doors, even if you have to crawl in :). Alternative would be something slightly bigger on the outside, so one or two people with a crate can stand on the outside, but still inside of the inflatable protection, in addition to still leaving space for the stairs to extend. So the inflatable outside and the hatch/door form the airlock. More safe would be an additional thing to seal off the stairs from the inside, maybe a forcefield or thin fluid-shield, or just an emergency cover extending out of the floor, but that's just nice to have.

- ShuttleStar. Think of a vip shuttle, and people (except the pilots) are wearing at most an emergency self-inflating/whatnot device on the breast, while keeping mostly normal clothing otherwise. Maybe the emergency thing is build into the seats or so, anyway. Now, how does the admiral or the ambassador walk into the jetcarrier, without the whole flight deck getting filled with air, and without using a full body suit... An inflatable thing on the outside, covering the cabin door and space to stand at the side of the ship would be really nice to have (alternative would be a provisoric small-ship hangar to interface between doors and ShuttleStar for instance).

- JetCarrier flight deck. In addition to the main gates, i would imagine forcefield based airlocks (in my scenario it would be forcefield first and then a thin fluid-shield filled in, if more durability is needed), on the main intersections and to hold in a ShuttleStar just next to the entry under the bridge, and maybe the parking lot to the sides AND maybe for the elevator.

 

I think the SuperStinger would profit most from some inflatable airlock, while some airlock options would make the StarJet and the Vanguard tougher, allowing for intersections and vip transport. (E.g. sealing off the middle section with the side doors in the StarJet and in addition allowing for an infantry section in the next part of the loading bay, so you only carry like one APC, an air-locked crew compartment and then between that and the cockpit there actually is the airlock for small cargo and humans. Of course a forcefield-based emergency airlock just in front of the loading bay door would also make sense.)

Generic feature request for airlocks in general: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/593301/sci-fi-provisoric-and-emergency-airlocks-tech-scenarios-advanced-but-not-star-trek-to-vintage#latest

 

(3)

Space management and believable longer term flight or missions: i see some of the spaceships are designed very spacey, which on the one hand allows to fill in other stuff, and some also have (textures only) internal doors that make another deck or facilities for sleep/eat/hygienic things believable. Maybe the Super Stinger could use some internal hatch too, as it looks like the better longer range vip transport, if you want a still small-ish ship. A hatch for the floor can certainly be found to just put in there, though design-wise it wouldn't hurt to have a fitting one. So i am not against having space at all, that's good! Maybe some of the crew or even guest or infantry transport facilities for longer flights or missions, as well as means of compartmentizing larger ships with more optional doors/gates forming sections could be add-ons, making optional airlocks more feasible to add. Vanguard could have some freight dump/elevator indication in the floor at the rear, for some standard crate size, for example, to give the loading door a little more leverage, e.g. thinking of an automated cargo crate-deck with lower than human height underneath somewhere  (maybe i overlooked some hatch/door indicators there) and of course securing compartments against an open rear door would make sense too, during operations. A small infantry tank or crawling thing fits in the rear, so the loading door absolutely makes sense, even if you do without stripping away the interior. (Perspective being focused on usefulness and believablity for the moment, rather than cool outside renders.)

There may be more small things to it, e.g. i planned a carrier-like version of the StarJet, making the rear a hangar for up to 4 Pocket Stars. There is some lack of attachments and so on, so in my first version, it would be a cargo-robot doing the lifting, placing two Pocket Star ships upside down to the ceiling at the sides, and then the rest of the cargo bay is sealed off by an airlock (some double sliding door and wall elements). Some cargo tentacles may be nice to have, but for me the Cargo bot totally does, also has multilple other uses. The ships may simply autonomously flip and attach to the ceiling. In my scenario gravity drives exist, but apart from being ridiculously expensive, with a single one still fitting into the bulkier spherical robots, they can not create an outside-bubble, so you have a better and very efficient ion-drive-like experince, but no super light speed. Maybe you have astronomically expensive wormhole-gates somewhere. Something like Ion drives basically became the new fast-propulsion, due to advances with over-dense material folding (near nukes but not quite anti-matter drives). Of course long range ships don't use propulsion for the ordinary case, unless for a few freaks with their cryo-tech AND non-degrading biologics. Propulsion remains for emergency use and of course the military. Thinking of a multi-storey cargo-crate section, some tentacles or a cargo-bot still make sense. If all such and other justify an add-on. i can't say. Many things can be done with bits and pieces from other products, on the other hand, add-ons have been made for less of an addition, in the past.

Any odds/ends/conditions/estimates/plans?

 

Best regards...