11.3k ThomasRoderick Comments

  • eVTOL Volocity 21 days ago

    @Graingy

    Individual vehicles are specialist, however.

    Define "specialist". Although I guess an autonomous "taxi" service can probably replace individual cars in the (distant) long run. Individual air vehicles are definitely a niche market though if just due to the energy consumption involved in getting things airborne without a runway.

    Additionally, it's better to have a grocery system that doesn't require long distance travel to begin with.

    Arguably yes, but economies of scale that benefits larger shopping malls and supermarkets still exists, and unless everyone enjoys buying groceries everyday from a convince store a block away I doubt large grocery trips is going away any time soon.

    Also, larger (read: wider) rail cars could alleviate much of the space issues to begin with. Additionally, if stations can be made wheelchair accessible I see no reason they couldn't accommodate something akin to a wagon.

    The width of a train car is limited by the rail gauge itself, and unless once again you liver quite close to a station, dollies would not help you that much beyond getting your luggage off the train. (Non-accessible stations are shit for even the first suitcase so it's rather beside the point.)

    Once again, I'm all for more public transport doing what they're good at (getting large amount of lightly-loaded people between pre-planned points), but to assume they're end-all-be-all solutions is somewhere between "unrealistic" and "naïveté" for most use cases. The good thing though, is that as more people have the option of taking public transit for commute and bicycles/scooters for inner-city travel it actually makes the road safer and faster for those who actually need to drive, so it's a win-win situation, no?

  • eVTOL Volocity 21 days ago

    @Graingy
    Trains are pretty much the most efficient form of mass transit (plus bulk cargo transport over land), but they inherently restrict the amount of luggage/cargo a person can carry per trip (unless you're doing checked luggage and have a car waiting for you at the destination) and are terrible at moving people from point A to point B especially when there's more luggage involved, so I really don't think cars are going away any time soon from highways or city streets any time soon. What trains (and public transit in general) are very good at though, is alleviating traffic on highways and city streets during rush hours, as people going to / returning from work/school don't tend to carry much luggage or groceries regardless.
    Remember, there's no such thing as "too many options" when it comes to solving real-life problems, what we can and should though, is to diversify options so the comparative advantages of the various solutions can be maximized while their comparative disadvantages can be minimized. Diversity is strength as far as engineering solutions are concerned.
    .
    TL;DR: Trains and buses for daily commute, cars for visiting friends and bulk grocery trips, bicycles/scooters for leisure + small grocery trips + covering small distances quickly, and VTOLs for luxury transport and urban first responders (plus flood relief if possible). Q.E.D.

  • SIMPLECHEATS II, an updated, comprehensive list of all known XML attributes 21 days ago

    The legacy engines Engine-Prop-1 and Engine-Prop-2 are not affected by the powerMultiplier attribute even though they have the setting in the xml editor.

  • eVTOL Volocity 21 days ago

    @Graingy
    I do agree that aviation and automobile-like numbers wouldn't mix well for now, and until non-networked AIs and LiDARs are advanced enough for near-flawless crash avoidance on an air-gapped craft it would remain a poor combination for the foreseeable future. (Yes, I know Tesla's less-than-stellar safety record but IIRC it's largely down to Elon being an abysmal engineer who refused LiDARs or even binocular vision on his car AIs; turns out automobile and rocketry are two VERY different fields with completely different design requirements and use cases afterall...)
    Autonomous networked vehicles are every-closer to maturity right now, but anything that relies on a central server for crash avoidance is about one dedicated attack / serious bug / power outage away from a mass-casualty event.
    .
    Hey at least those craft are much smaller than a fully-fueled widebody jetliner (~50 metric tons of Jet-A for a 767) so thank the small mercies for that, eh?

  • eVTOL Volocity 21 days ago

    @Graingy
    Personally I'd wait for the aviation industry to give the verdict on the feasibility of EVTOL vehicles in general, but helicopters do have the inherent problem of the large main rotor making it noisy and dangerous for intra-city flying, so I do think EVTOLs with a large combined rotor area might find a market/niche as urban luxury transport or first responder vehicle.
    "Don't reinvent the wheel" argument only works when the purported new product doesn't solve any problems of the existing system, so I'm not really sure whether it would still apply here. EVTOLs do add new problems of lower energy efficiency due to the higher disk loading (unless it's a tiltwing/tiltrotor design then the wings might add some efficiency back in level flight at the trade-off of higher mechanical complexity), lacking true autorotation/gliding capabilities (once again unless they're tiltrotors or tiltwings), and all the additional challenges posed by the low energy density of batteries itself....
    Hmmmm.... hybrid electric VTOLs, anyone?

  • Set of 4 Cockpits I stole from the boneyard one month ago

    Viewing from the front/nose, left-to-right:
    not!-Lockheed P-38 Lightning, not!-Junkers Ju 87 Stuka, not!-Mitsubishi A7M Reppū, and not!-de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito?

  • SWL-120 Interior Walkthrough one month ago

    Quick question: where does the stairs in 3:23 lead to?

  • Daebom T-34-57 one month ago

    ... different hairstyle?

  • Simple M2 Browning .50cals (remastered) 2 months ago

    @LegoGuyUAL184 Thanks!

  • ESFS Whimsy 2 months ago

    @Monarchii
    @RB107
    Or the poster.

  • ESFS Whimsy 2 months ago

    @Monarchii
    Whimsy?

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T1 Type-ID Modele.1892 Aerial Mine 3 months ago

    @Monarchii
    I mean, IRL torpedo boats often carried rockets for more close-in "screw you", so.... Why not combine both?
    .
    (Also, the second proposal sounds vaguely similar to the Japanese torpedo cruisers, or conversely the Yank carriers with Regulus missiles. Seriously, in the world of aerostats the difference between missiles and torpedoes might well be whether they rely solely on aerodynamic lift or not.)

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T1 Type-ID Modele.1892 Aerial Mine 3 months ago

    @Monarchii
    Yeah, given the gyro only kicks in at terminal guidance range it really wasn't helping much.... Also, no need for the pitch code to include current pitch angle, the pitch input for gyros means "desired pitch angle" already.
    .
    .
    .
    Vanilla gyros tend to spaz out when they cannot counter the aerodynamic forces, so... most of them don't actually need aerodynamic control surfaces esp. when they're meant to be target drones.
    The Izmails don't have enough aerodynamic control to countermand the gyros either way, and they fly just fine without control surfaces.
    .
    .
    .
    Either way, here's my ten-minute-fix to this mine/torpille aérienne. The gyro strength is actually pretty good for a slow-moving aerostat-torpedo.
    .
    .
    .
    and somehow your screenshot is missing.

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T2 Type-IB Airnien-class Bomber Airship 3 months ago

    Have to say those massive unprotected bombs are the Type-IB's greatest weakness. Somehow a random burst of machinegun fire from more than a mile away is all it takes to detonate the entire squadron.

  • [SOE] Welen-class No.1101 ''Oleg'' - Supply Cruiser 3 months ago

    @Monarchii *meow* :3

  • [SOE] Welen-class No.1101 ''Oleg'' - Supply Cruiser 3 months ago

    which nation again that has the "peel the cat" or something along those lines saying? was it you France? I can't remember who..

    The Brits, "there's more than one way to skin a cat".

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T2 Type-IIB Aerial Destroyer VAN Hursoye 3 months ago

    ffs it has three straight tubular funnels, which nations still has... actually that's stupid, a lot still have them

    The AU equivalent to the interwar/1920-1930s?

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T2 Type-IB Airnien-class Bomber Airship 3 months ago

    ++KIROV REPORTING ! ! ! ++

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T2 Type-IIA Hoshiiya-Class ISNS Hoshiiya 3 months ago

    Calling it a "tender" would be a bit of a stretch, I'd say it's closer to a "scout destroyer" with about 3 recon planes in total.
    Also, looooooooooooooooong mast.... on a platform that absolutely does NOT require masts to be any taller than the bare minimum, that is!

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T2 Type-IID Scrimp-Class Passenger Airship 3 months ago

    Always thought those flying battleships operate on some sort of antigrav or ersatz eezo, but okay...

  • Clip Cannon RARDEN 3 months ago

    @LJh2
    Thanks for the upvotes!
    ... now, any comments on the setup?

  • [TGT_AIRSHIP] T3 Type-IIB Zephyr II-class Giant Seaplane The Zephyr II 4 months ago

    "yo why does it have like too many engines-"

    May I talk to you about our lord and chonker, the Kawanishi KX-03?

  • Lastkraftwagen M1908,15k 4 months ago

    Which map(s) did you use for those screenshots?

  • Clip Cannon 4 months ago

    Idle musings:
    Older battleships oftentimes have multiple guns sharing the same elevation mechanism, so... perhaps this setup can be used to represent the individual turrets on those ships?

  • Clip Cannon RARDEN 4 months ago

    @TRS051
    Thanks! Any comments on the setup?

  • Clip Cannon RARDEN 4 months ago

    @Bogey Nah, that'd be my THIRD variation of the same concept - turns out the clip code really doesn't like one-round "clips"... but recoil spring works wonders esp. for high-caliber guns.

  • Clip Cannon RARDEN 4 months ago

    @Seeras
    Could you please make this the successor to this? Thank in advance.

  • Clip Cannon 4 months ago

    @VTPADELTA
    Sorry for my late reply. Yup it's a lot simpler compared to the autoloader, and also yes, feel free to incorporate it into your next build as long as you give credit.
    (Also make sure to have at least 0.05s delay between your cannons for the counter to work properly)
    .
    ..
    ...
    .... And thanks for the upvotes either way.

  • STU-g 4 months ago

    ZOGGIN' BOOTIFUL ME FELINE FRIEND !

  • Strive 51 5 months ago

    Lemme guess, inspired by the F-302 from Stargate, only with a canard configuration?

  • SimplePlanes 2 | Wings & Fuselages Part 1 5 months ago

    Necro'ing, but... any chance to change the damage model on control surfaces that they don't get stuck the second someone sneezed on them? Control surfaces disintegrating when damaged enough would've made sense, them getting stuck at the angle they were hit in not so much esp. when the incoming damage is miniscule compared to the health of the wings they're attached to.

  • Drag Coefficient 5 months ago

    @Subsere

    THANKS

  • AMA DDV SQ-14 Mosquito (EM6) 6 months ago

    @AtlasMilitaryIndustries
    YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN >_< !
    Jokes aside, I'm assuming the craft is controlled pitch-and-roll only?

  • Morane-Saulnier L 6 months ago

    Right, the 3-view diagram of the Aviatik B.I:
    here

  • Pratt & Whitney JT3D 6 months ago

    @Halcyon215 @Michiganstatepolicethe2nd
    Eh, given the JT3D is a derivative of the JT3C (aka the J57) it's probably possible... just not recommended.

  • 20MNT-AA 6 months ago

    2×20mm and 2×12.7mm?

  • Drag Coefficient 7 months ago

    @Subsere
    Yurp! Actually b/c I can't find the legacy pic on the SP site I had to get a low-res pic from google then use every tool under the sun to enhance it back into what it should look like...

  • XA-21 "Longbow" 7 months ago

    ... right, quick question, I'm pretty sure I've seen a plat called WizNick before...

    .... nvm, found the thread.

  • What is a fork? 7 months ago

    @Rob119
    Given I have the tendency to use a pair of toothpicks (of all things) as both makeshift forks and makeshift chopsticks, who am I to judge...
    Yup, I'm pretty sure we're gonna get burned on the same pyre... made of chopsticks.

  • How to convert explosion scale to kilograms? 7 months ago

    Found a chart specifically meanr for this job: @ReinMcDeer's WEAPONS BALANCING DATABASE.

  • What is a fork? 7 months ago

    @Rob119

    then.... what's a spear? A onek?

    It's a skewer.

  • Engines, Thrust, and Fuel Flow rates 7 months ago

    @32
    I just used the engine's innate "Thrust" output.

  • Engines, Thrust, and Fuel Flow rates 7 months ago

    @Graingy

    Large legacy prop engine
    Wait what

    Refer to SIMPLECHEATS II.

    Did you use FT to find the fuel use rate?

    Yes. a label with {-rate(Fuel) * your total amount of fuel} .

  • Drag Coefficient 7 months ago

    @Ku

    At 100%, the spring constant of Shocks is approximately 49603

    ... N/m, right?

  • Drag Coefficient 7 months ago

    @Subsere The area of the aircraft exposed to the airstream. Or, basically, the total external area of the aircraft.

  • SU-85 8 months ago

    @Jaspy190
    Keks, any later I'd be congratulating you on plat!

  • (5.000 Points special) Thundermax MP-2A 8 months ago

    Grats on Gold me pal!