[[http://imgur.com/a/Sh7Xs]]

WARNING – early WIP.

When I started playing KSP I found Hooligans airships and had fun with those and then Procedural airships. While I really liked both of those mods I wanted to go in a bit different direction with this. I also wanted to learn how to make mods so....

Currently I have models for rigid aerostats (think Hindenburg) and non-rigid aerostats (think Goodyear blimp – technically semi rigid). These consist of three centers and three end caps. Gondola parts include a cockpit that has some extra info display functionality for aerostats, a crew compartment and a gondola tail. Three hydrogen cylinders, one fin with a control surface, a probe core if you want the extra aerostat display info without the gondola and finally a tweakscale MM patch. I'm new to 3D modeling so the models are rather basic.

Operation wise you have a lift cell and the lift cell contains a balloonet or a balloon within a balloon. The balloonet allows you to vary the lift gas volume so you can maintain a set altitude – the bigger the balloonet is inflated, the less room for lift gas, the lower the altitude you stabilize at . Gas cells (lift cells and balloonets) can rupture if subject to too much pressure. If a gas cell is ruptured it doesn't pop like a balloon but will start leaking gas. To prevent disaster the gas cells have an emergency relief valve that will vent gas at a set pressure and while it should prevent a rupture in most circumstances, it won't save you if you ascend too fast.

To control the craft right click on envelopes to control each envelope individually:

• Cell Main/Cell Balloonet to select the part of the envelope to control - lift cell or balloonet.

• Step +/- to change the amount to change

• Lift +/- to change the selected (lift or balloonet) fill by <step> amount.

• Dump to manually dump gas

Or on a areostat controller (cockpit or probe core) part for info/control of all envelopes:

• Pressure Hold on/off to automatically try to keep pressure at 500 Pa

• Venting on/off to allow over pressure venting - also called ERV or Emergency Relief Valve.

When you stabilize at your desired altitude turn pressure hold off.

Working

• Lift calc's – parts will fly. Lift multiplier currently set to 2 by default.

• Cells will randomly spring a leak if over pressure(1500 Pa for now) - probability increases with time over pressure and how far over pressure.

Not working

• Under pressurized non rigid aerostats work just as well as when properly pressurized.

• Max altitude displayed in editor is approximate (±30%).

• Cfg setting for:

• maxPressure (currently hard coded to 1500 Pa).

• Emergency Relief Valve pressure (currently hard coded to 1425 Pa).

To Do List

• Add a GUI

  • Move over burdened right click menu to GUI.

  • Auto trim function. (or maybe just a +/- trim)

  • Auto altitude function.

  • Graphical status for each lift cell.

  • Add configuration window.

• Allow change of lift gasses – currently Hydrogen only.

• Add hot air, and heated gas options.

• Part scaling - needs to independently scale length and diameter so part count can be reduced.

• More envelopes, gondola parts, better models, better textures.

• Balance the pieces.

Required mods: None

Recommended mods: At this point I haven't played with this enough to be able to recommend any mods to go with this but AirPark looks very promising and KAS should be perfect for anchoring to towers or the ground. There is only one size of envelope so TweakScale (MM cfg included) is needed if you want bigger envelopes.

Non aerostat album parts: landing gear is stock and fans are from RoverDude's Exploration pack.

And a final warning – progress is going to be slow.