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Post by boomboomf22 on Apr 11, 2019 20:16:51 GMT -6
I have to say this is really, really cool! Awesome project! I'mma second this
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Post by akosjaccik on Apr 12, 2019 12:16:39 GMT -6
I am very grateful and motivated by your support, thank you, honestly. Hope you are faring well, by the way! Yesterday I underwent a wisdom teeth surgery, so I am all kinds of dying, but very bored of the bed, so... RtW! Nothing major, but managed to slap together two "destroyer-versions". I was able to do that because originally, in my first few posts I simply just modeled everyting in one single file - I hadn't got any serious plans at the time with the idea, and I just wanted to see how the entire thing works in practice. Now, however, with more experience at my hand, I managed to model stuff "modularly". As such, I can put the quick-firing gun (modeled separately and in a different file), torpedo tubes etc. on the deck at whatever exact position and in whatever number while not needing to draw the same thing over and over and over again in fixed positions. One big plus is that this also allows to very handily print the different parts out one at a time (while not running too wild with the details), meaning that the turrets will be able (or could be made able) to rotate.
Detailings are largely missing in this stage, but I have to wait with those until the actual in-game designs, as putting boats on the deck in a fixed position might not be a great idea if later it turns out blocks the line of fire for something on the in-game ship. They also got a more "ship-like" hull form, the earlier version was an eyesore but - for now... - I managed to produce a more realistic result. Considering some fairly complicated hull forms in some cases, this might not always be the case, but for now - I am content. (Oh, I should have used plural on the pics. Oh well!)
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Post by akosjaccik on Apr 23, 2019 10:55:09 GMT -6
Well, now that the game's lauch is postponed, I took my time to "check up on the shipyards" how things are going.
First of all, a small "starter" cruiser! Of course - "everything is work in progress" and all that jazz. As you can see, some fluff are missing (boats, fittings, portholes etc.), including the armament which I can only finalize with the game in hand; and the general layout can be modified (number of smokestacks etc), still, she's coming up fairly nicely. This design is inspired by the historical Zenta-class, and to put things in perspective, if I have to design a more outdated cruiser any time during the gameplay, things are going very, very badly. Historically, as far as I am aware, Zenta was the first ship of A-H to be sunk, and she was the first vessel to fire off a naval gun in the Great War in anger. Cruisers will probably be printed in a scale of 1:1000.
In a visibly less developed phase currently, but "construction" of the first pre-dreadnought is also underway. Some odd features of the models (a bit too big details, weird anchor holes etc.) are due to the limitations of the FDM technology, some other features (funky hull form) are due to the limitations of the software and - primarily - the lack of my own skills. Considering however that the vessels will be made in ~1:1000; 1:1500 scales, this will be less of a problem on the actual models. Probably. Hopefully. Oh, almost forgot, since I am about as inept at ship design as for example, catholic liturgy, in this case the historical Habsburg-class is helping me a lot.
Also, no armored cruisers for me, currently. Variations (wing turrets etc.) could be too widespread to begin even a "preliminary template" for them I fear.
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Post by akosjaccik on Apr 29, 2019 13:12:06 GMT -6
Dress my sub up!
'evening, gentlemen! Designing (Well... drawing, to be more precise and definitely more humble) is all fun and games, but manufacturing is indispensable as nice pieces of papers littered with blueprints will probably not win me much wars. So, off to the crafting table with me, and time to assemble the last(?) of the submarines, the first kind of minelaying submarine! The boat is kind-of based on the UC I class, but this time (as an excercise to the times where I will have no domestic historical basis whatsoever to help me) I diverted from the historical parameters far more bravely. A bit of trimming on the fishing lines once the adhesive is dry, and the submersible is ready for painting.
...but - how? And this is where an idea came into my mind: this gives me a great opportunity to be a bit more open with my wannabe-playtrough, and get you guys involved if you feel like doing so. As such, I announce a little "competition": present a paint scheme for this relatively speaking late-tech submarine! Let me give you a template where you can draw with Photoshop, PSP, Paint, doesn't matter the quality.
If you don't wish to draw/color, but just describe your idea in a written form, that's fine too! Currently used examples:
(As seen above on the "factory default" models)
(As seen on the dio)
I really don't want to tie anyone's hands, so there are "no rules", I trust you will come up with something "realistic". I'll choose the best one (and ones I can realistically implement), and I plan to paint the boat according the winning design (given I have the exact color for that or I can mix something close to that), and of course, mention you in the "AAR" if I ever get to that point. Of course, as I have no idea if anyone will be interested in this, the contingency plan is - if I won't get any suitable material, or there will be no interest - to give the boat the "late scheme" grey-and-white scheme. No idea how much time you guys will need, so let's say the deadline is 20th of May. By the way, even if you don't feel like entering the "competition" but see something you really like, do point it out and I'll take it into consideration!
As this is the first time I do anything like this, may it be however simple and silly, I might still screw something up, so if anything happens (can't reply on time or something), do bear with me.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Apr 29, 2019 17:14:54 GMT -6
Bravo Zulu for this Akosjaccik, this looks like great fun. :]
But my question is this- would it lay mines submerged or surfaced?
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Post by akosjaccik on Apr 30, 2019 5:39:37 GMT -6
The funny thing is... I am not entirely certain. To elaborate, after my initial research in order to get to know what exactly I am even looking for, I have a fairly good vision of how the sub carries her armament:
In this case, the fore section encapsulates ten near-vertical flooded tubes in two rows for mines that are "this alternate world's version" of the relatively small UC 120 mines. Either no torpedoes or carried in external mounts. Now, whatever material I could get my hands on (and that's vastly inferior to what I see from most of the forumites' knowledge) seems to indicate (and that is my personal guess as well) that there is no obvious obstacle that prevents laying the mines submerged if the mines are pre-set, but I can't be absolutely positive as nothing I read expressed this explicitely.
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Post by ieshima on Apr 30, 2019 6:48:43 GMT -6
Here would be an alterative way for submarines to lay mines:
The mines are carried across the top of the submarine on a track, with a door at the stern that would drop the mines and their weights out of the sub.
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Post by akosjaccik on May 1, 2019 10:51:55 GMT -6
Here would be an alterative way for submarines to lay mines (...)
Much obliged, ieshima! I did come across this method, and although I decided against it for the first type of sub in the playtrough as the K.u.K. Kriegsmarine - or rather the germans operating under A-H flag... - used the UC I class with the alternate system historically if I read it correctly, it is certainly an option for the future where I don't tie my own hand whatsoever, should I decide to draw a more advanced SSM. It does seem like a huge step forward in optimal space usage, not to mention the avability of the fore torpedo tubes.
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Post by akosjaccik on May 1, 2019 11:15:44 GMT -6
...I do have a solid reason for double-posting, I promise! Now, on this lovely day of May, you might feel tired, demotivated, numb. Worry not, I know just the thing you guys need! Which is, of course...
...river monitors.
Okay, you might not needed exactly this, still, close enough! I had some spare time to kick, and one thing was certain, I am not going to work on anything meaningful without screaming, so I put aside my responsibilities (again) and started to model an interesting little ship, even though it does not have much to do with either RtW2 or my playtrough-plans specifically. That ship would be the S.M.S. Leitha monitor, launched in 1871. You can actually visit the ship, as she was restored to her near original configuration featuring a Coles-turret and some (later equipped) Nordenfelt organ guns, you can find a lot of pictures of her just with a simple Google search:
For some time, she was the only warship of the K.u.K. Kriegsmarine still afloat, fortunately Serbia recently restored the ex-S.M.S. Bodrog (also a river monitor, but not a sister to Leitha), now Sava, but Leitha is an extremely unique ship still, a lucky survivor of a bygone era. As Rule the Waves 2's starting date is 1899, I decided to... - Show her in her 1899 pre-war state, and - Do it as a "three hour job", with the necessary simplifications, and most importantly... - do it in the 1:666 scale I use for my destroyers, but really, only kind of in that scale. I had not a lot of resources nor much time, so I put everything roughly in proportion, but noone should use this as a reference.
And so...
Now, that's all great and lovely, however it dawned upon me that if the forumites are using Windows 10, they/you should have access to it's in-built 3D viewer. ...or maybe you have access to a 3D printer as well, so why should I not upload the model as well? Click on the links to (hopefully) download any iteration you please, everything is in STL: I do not mind any usage of the models apart from selling / monetizing it, which case I do mind it rather seriously.
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Post by akosjaccik on May 5, 2019 5:04:05 GMT -6
...so, what can you expect from the "optimized for printing"-model? I cheated a bit, as I deleted the mast from the model and replaced it with wire, but otherwise it's legitimate:
Now, to paint her to her historical scheme (minus the darker-than-should-be-gray) and also to show some of the detailing steps:
Some further images:
...okay, but why the smoke (that by the way was a stopgap solution kind of, I wanted to use cotton balls but turns out, this household does not have any )? Well, I wanted to further experiment with Blue Nutella and landscape modeling, something which I am utterly a beginner in, so the Leitha will probably be a part of a river diorama. This is why the model looks like a waterline model with an oddly high freeboard for a monitor, but that's actually a bit more complex and she's inbetween a full-hull and a waterline approach:
If you have ten minutes and feel like getting to know the monitor a bit better, there is actually a video about her in english, though not without typos, errors and mistakes, but you get the general idea.
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Post by akosjaccik on May 12, 2019 13:43:57 GMT -6
^ I just realized that while updating the webpage, I managed to delete the post's pictures above back in the weekend beforehand. Ouch. Will address this in the weekend probably, although I might have some other stuff to do this weekend. In the meantime the "contest" is still on! (I am from my laptop, so I don't have access to advanced tools other than MS Paint, so that's the best I got)
About a week to go! For details, check this post! And what's the whole point? Well... Your name will be presented under the minelaying submarine and yours will be everlasting* fame**! *time meant by the word "everlasting" may vary ** fame guaranteed in a fairly relative sense
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Post by armstronggrimes on May 12, 2019 17:35:47 GMT -6
Wonderful little models. Good job so far!
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Post by akosjaccik on May 17, 2019 1:29:24 GMT -6
Wonderful little models. Good job so far! I appreciate it! I'm eagerly waiting to start the RtW2 campaign with this "method".
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Post by charybdis on May 17, 2019 15:19:27 GMT -6
These are incredible. Just blown away by the amount of effort this must have taken. Brilliant!
*I also love the "I&I" tagline and the fact that you're going to be playing one of my all time favorite navies, the KuK.
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Post by akosjaccik on May 17, 2019 15:46:52 GMT -6
These are incredible. Just blown away by the amount of effort this must have taken. Brilliant! *I also love the "I&I" tagline and the fact that you're going to be playing one of my all time favorite navies, the KuK. Frankly, the truly hard part is probably the "shelling out the money for the hardware"-part, the rest is just tinkering - although I guess just about anything is "just tinkering" once someone enjoys it. Anyway, I truly appreciate your response and it is honestly motivating! In fact, I am thinking about repaying the viewers'/readers' kindness in some shape or form, and that will probably mean that sometime in the next few weeks, just before I'll start I&I "officially" (I plan to wait a bit for the possible initial patches and additions to the game), I'll devise a method to select someone's RtW2 design and model it as a way of thanksgiving.
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