It would have been so nice if there was a smaller cockpit I could have used. I’m even considering making a small block cockpit on future designs so the scale of the plane doesn’t have to be quite so big.
Anyway, things are a bit tough right now so I’m focusing on what comes naturally and trying to put the finishing touches on the Cosmo Messer.
The changes I’ve made so far are listed below:
Added 3 additional hydrogen thrusters (Messer can now pretend to be a VTOL in 1.2g gravity)
Increased hydrogen tanks from 6 to 12 (to compensate for the additional thrusters and increase the range)
Added a magnetic plate on a hinge near the cockpit (in case a connector isn’t available or compatible)
Trimmed back and smoothed out the sloped areas around the engines
Finished adding navigation and strobe lights to the ship
The current unmodded build
A lot of other considerations have gotten sidelined for aesthetics, so the Cosmo Messer is heavier than it looks; extra plating to pretty up the default paint scheme and so on. There are some areas inside I left completely empty to try to balance this out, but in order to hover on Pertam I needed nine hydrogen thrusters. That’s not a huge number, but I feel like any less than that and the ship would be dangerously sluggish at low altitudes. Either way she flies. The range still isn’t great, but there are a couple of free programmable blocks left that might be able to hold a ‘fuel management’ script or something.
All bottom thrusters are externally mounted
Originally the Cosmo Messer only had six thrusters in pairs of two. This wasn’t enough. I tried landing on Pertam and wound up crashing. The engine shrouds took the brunt of it, and only because I was trying to point the tail downward to enlist the main thrusters for help. twelve thrusters trumps six. Anyway, the Messer has some strategically placed heavy armor in the form of its nose and winglets, so even after smashing up the tip of the tail and the engine shrouds and falling onto its stomach, there wasn’t much damage.
I couldn’t take off again though, so in a way the ship was completely totaled.
After laughing at myself, I upgrading one of the copies I left up in orbit and tried again.
Success.
I love those engine shrouds~
The Cosmo Messer is based on the Cosmo Falcon, but it was never intended to be a Space Reich copy of the thing. There were going to be some major differences from the get go since the Falcons have actual landing gears and a lot of pointy bits. Without the Plane Parts mod, there was no way to come up with anything decent for a vehicle this small, which is weird because the ship is too big in every other regard. I tried a lot of things and broke a few copies, but in the end, only the modded versions are ever going to have proper landing gears. The base model will just have to make due with that connector and the magnetic plate.
If the cockpit were just a little bit smaller, I’d be a little bit happier
If I can finish this thing up soon I’m planning to upload it to the Steam Workshop. Whether or not that happens, I’ll be writing on PR about it the hour it’s finished.
I shouldn’t get into the details, but suffice to say 2022’s off to a rough start for the family. I’ve also been distracted trying to figure out exactly what moves I need to make over the next few months and what order they need to be made in. It’s not going to be as cut and dry as I thought; there’s a lot I need to do and I’ve got to do it all myself for now.
Anyway, I had to mention something today so it might as well be that. Hopefully better news tomorrow.
I was hesitant to try such a round about way of juking the scene blocker on my PS4, but after testing it a little, remoteplay is good enough for my purposes. I don’t need it for streaming or showcasing videos. It’s mainly for screenshots, so as long as the frame rate stays around 30fps, I can get everything I need for my Code Fairy follow up article.
The resolution is … good enough
Since that’s a go, my Code Fairy follow up will be the first of my articles for this month. I’ll try to get that done over the weekend or early next week. Fleeing Victory should probably take priority, though.
So that was a good way to end the night. I actually wasn’t having too much fun in Yoshino B either, but we won the matches and at the end of the day, it’s mostly the amount of wins, the novel moments, and the general impressions that you remember.
I’m not going to be maining cruisers any time soon though, especially not kite cruisers. I think we just needed to switch up our team composition to come back from the hard counters we were plowing headfirst into.
January Goals
For my monthly goals, things usually don’t start coming into focus until the first weekend, so I wasn’t expecting to get much done this week other than some reading and maybe some mental outlines. So, so far so good. I’d still like to have something marked off by week two, so I’m aiming for both Fleeing Victory chapters. We’ll see how that goes.
I want to put the Prinz Heinrich up on the Steam Workshop, but I’m not going to be able to do that as soon as I’d like. First I need to upload the Cosmo Messer, preferably the modless base model. That’s going to take a bit longer since there’s more testing I need to do.
On the bright side, that thing was built with internal thrusters in mind, and even with the modded thrusters all swapped out for hydrogen thrusters, the propulsion is set up just fine. In fact, I only needed a few sets of thrusters placed outside. I chose the six downward facing thrusters for this since aesthetically that looks good and doesn’t clutter up the frame.
As for what needs testing?
Everything else.
The weapons ‘work’ but I don’t know if the whole conveyor system is set up properly and I won’t until I plop the Cosmo Messer down in survival mode and start blasting.
I also added a connector to the bottom of the ship. I really, really didn’t want to have one of these but in my experience, docked ships are far more stable in transit when using a connector than magnetic plates. Fortunately there was plenty of room for one. This will necessitate some small modifications to the Heinrich’s hangar, since the connector is more toward the rear of the ship and doesn’t protrude.
One weakness of the unmodded Cosmo Messer is its complete reliance on hydrogen engines. Basically it’s a gas guzzler and doesn’t have great range. Ion engines are still a possibility to ease that, but they’re annoying to work with.
Atmospheric thrusters (jet engines) only work in atmosphere and have to have an exposed intake. It’s not that hard to do, but working them into the design for an advantage I’ll only get planet-side isn’t worth it on the base model. What I like so much about the current build is that all the upward and sideways facing thrusters are on the inside, so atmospheric thrusters aren’t likely to make it into the design.
Anyway, I’ll be poking at this on and off for the next few days to try and finish it up, and we’ll see how it turns out.
Post note: This is a modless version of the Cosmo Messer I’m aiming to upload to the Steam Workshop … but Scratch and Edge Be Gone! is still a must.
