Project UCGO landing pad airlock

[JackJL]

The problem with the internal landing bay is not only the circular shape but the fact the control room must be in the middle.

It can be done with enough space: Below is a plan with a 120m diameter breathable area (the circle).

The 2 triangles are 25m across, roughly a DG. The green is the control room, the blue are inflatable habs (to fill up space). The purple is a cargo storage area or parking area. The brown/beige is a vehicle door.

The floor would have some sort of roadway pattern from the door, past each glider off to empty space by the habs.

 

[the.punk]

I don't think you were a fool. Because your original idea could be something like a landable hangar with pad. I like the original one and the new one.

 

[JackJL]

A compromise between them would be walls that folded down into a runway. For example, in the 120m 2 DG hangar the walls & some of the roof could fold down. You could come in vertically and would have more room for error, or just land on the door and taxi in.

This is getting to be like Thunderbirds - folding walls, modular cargo, interchangeable crew. All that's needed is an automatic camera detector!

---------- Post added at 05:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:50 PM ----------


This is one more iteration - 100m breathable area. 2 Runways - The doors slide off to the side (including the door on the side of the building on the runway). So you can either land straight through the roof, land vertically on the runway & taxi in, or do a really short runway landing (whilst praying to the god of wheelbrakes)

I guess it could be done with the runways crossing each other, which would put the inner buildings/cargo area in a better position for joining to a bigger base

---------- Post added at 06:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:55 PM ----------

I don't like the idea of putting 20 UMMUs worth of location information in the scenario file.

As yet another spin off from UCGO, what about a ground vehicle that can't move and would store 20 or so UMMUs. This could have the mesh of, say a dormitory or bunker. (a bunker could have a rotating light even!)

Also what about a storage rack - a UCGO vehicle which could store & display several cargoes stacked above ground level.

Each of these things I've thought of here takes one part of UCGO functionality and cripples the rest. Well done dan for such a marvellous (future) addon!

 

[JackJL]

And replying to myself yet again!

Here's the bunker fully modelled & textured with a dummy config. (The door is supposed to lead underground so the whole thing is a bit short)

The config will be based on (and be treated as) a UCGO car, with 0 max speed. This allows it to take UMMUs (is 20 a reasonable number?) as a bus would.

Other buildings could be modelled like this, for example a control tower, which would display people (when UMMU's are aboard) high above ground level.

 

[alrik]

That gives me a idea, im preparing a hidden base inside a mountain, but would be nice to allow people add their meshes/addons inside.

That was the main idea a pirate island

Doing my idea...

Late...

But that was the end model. I was thinking in the island idea and why just an island and not a rock that you could put on another planets. The idea of the airlock inside the base fits in this project because there are 4 doors with 2 areas that could be decompressed.

Inside the base you could add your own models or rooms. I think the "lego" base it's better in orbiter because everyone should have a base based on his/her needs

TEST THIS ADDON
=================
http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=11542

 

[JackJL]

That's a good looking mountain. The inside of such a base, with rooms corridors etc. would look like space hulk floor tiles, but would look good from a walkthrough perspective. If buildings were put surrounding the hangar, with just their doors sticking out it would avoid this.

I was thinking more along the lines of a big breathable area (like a dome) with buildings within it. For example a control tower sticking out the top, with a door at the bottom and airlocks at the edge.

I like the idea of the crater landing pad btw.

---------- Post added at 10:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:20 AM ----------


Here's the latest attempt, doors in green. This is it closed.

And open, with XR2 and a UMMU inside (also a control room)

Here's the view from under the surface, showing how much room is left with the doors closed. The blue area is outside. The XR2 and UMMU are in the same places.

Didn't take a picture but there is also a vehicle airlock at the back.

So with very judicious parking 3 DG sized ships can be enclosed, with enough room for cargo storage etc. in the other half of the building.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Is it possible to modify this to work in a manner that's similar to Marsbase Alpha? A DG "lands" on the roof via attachment point, the roof descends into the base, overhead door closes and BAM! you're in a breathable area?
This looks like a really good concept either way...
That Bunker looks cool also BTW :thumbup:, it reminds me of something I read from one of the Ben Bova novels. Completely practical, and probably most realistic way to enter an off-world facility based on current tech-level, but that's just my opinion...

alrik - dude, that looks totally frackin' cool as well, a lot of area to decompress, but still very do-able I think.

I'm looking forward to putting both these into practice. Just waiting for Tuesday.

 

[JackJL]

Is it possible to modify this to work in a manner that's similar to Marsbase Alpha? A DG "lands" on the roof via attachment point, the roof descends into the base, overhead door closes and BAM! you're in a breathable area?

I don't think so without a dedicated dll. One alternative is to have a landing pad with walls lowered into the ground, which then close around a landed ship - like being eaten by some big underground creature. But this also presupposes a lot of heavy industry being available on site to build the thing.

 

[BruceJohnJennerLawso]

Great idea ! congrat !

Of course this cargo could then be grappled by vessel wich would not look so realist but sometime it's user decision wheter to use an addon in realistic or unrealistic manner and a note in doc could inform the user.

I just looked at my code to see if variable breathable area could be done in dll, mean for example and airlock that would be breathable or not depend it's state.

It's a possibility but there is some limit:
For performance concern the cargo breathable area are bounding circle and you can only have one per "vessel" (object, cargo)
In the case of breathable base+variable airlock you could either design the airlock to be outside the circle and just extend the circle when ok, either you spawn the base in two modules with the airlock separated. The airlock could also respond to action area. A keypress near doors button could open/close door and another keypress to Pressure control command panel could switch Fill/unfill pressure.

I can provide the code for "dll" breathable area, it's not complicated, 15 lines, but I think such base would be outside the scope of C++ beginner. I don't know if someone would do such things.

Dan

Could I possibly see this code please