[rscaper1070]

Hydrogen is actually really easy to produce. Run electricity through water and you get hydrogen and oxygen. 

[The E]

Yes, of course, but Hydrogen is also rather slippery. In addition, its rather enthusiastic reaction when exposed to oxygen and open flame makes it a rather undesirable fuel.

So, to cover up my earlier mistake, I'd say that the difficulty with hydrogen-filled Zeppelins isn't the Hydrogen, it's storing the stuff so that it doesn't go boom at the first sight of a flame that's the problem.

[swashmebuckle]

I'd imagine that most passenger ships (at least the decent ones) would be using imported Helium in a world economy like this.  Hydrogen would be ideal for minimally crewed freight ships because of its superior lifting capability and the fact that you wouldn't have to worry that someone on board might try to light up a cig or something.

[starlord]

I was actually wondering: is it feasable to actually include a cityscape in the SCP? say new york for the crimson MOD? Is it also possible to include in that destructible environments like buildings? has it been done before?

[The E]

Yes, it's possible. With careful detail boxing etc, I imagine you could recreate a convincing cityscape.

[swashmebuckle]

Sorry, been slacking off on this, but here is a sumptuous German Romantic entry to make up for it:

The Swiss Watch (continued)

Other governments soon adapted this profitable model to their own circumstances, offering similar salvage services and friendly borders to their currently non-hostile neighbors.  Although all countries were technically allies under the League of Nations, the need to prevent any potential rival from dominating the trade routes made for frequently rotating "friends of convenience" among the powers.  This highly competitive environment led to the fat being trimmed out of international operations, with each country tailoring its air force and commercial fleet to press any possible geographical or technological advantage it possessed.  It was during this period that the RAF perfected parasite fighter technology for its then-record overland connections--the lucrative London-Cairo-Delhi route made a round trip in less than half the total distance of the earlier African circuit, but it also carried its convoys within striking distance of almost every major player.  The French were slower to adapt their tactics and technologically, suffering a series of humiliating losses both to Sardinian pirates and American privateers based in neutral Spain.  Their failure to secure critical supply lines contributed to the gradual crumbling of French Africa, a process expedited by sharp devisions within parliament as to France's future as a colonial power.

Death and Transfiguration

The Weimar Republic by this point was teetering on the brink of revolution.  German shipping was preyed upon at a disproportionate rate--a popular joke of the day involved the Zeppelin "Faul Ausfahrt" misconstruing a radio message and being surrendered to some sort of unlikely pirate, most famously a group of Polish nuns.  With the Luftwaffe severely limited under the Treaty of Zurich, there was little to deter this piracy, resulting in the country's business interests failing to gain traction against their international competitors.  With the profits from German manufacturing being funneled off to pay war reparations, Germany had settled, miserably, into the role of Europe's bottomless source for cheap industrial labor.

This situation persisted until 1924, when a daring act of piracy catalyzed major political upheaval.  The United Kingdom had also for some time been frustrated in their efforts to hinder foreign shipping.  Although their Swiss contingent and airship-based privateers had found a measure of success, Britain's lack of high-value borders and the added difficulty of pulling prizes over the channel made them unattractive as allies, a fact which was constantly harped on by British newspapers.  The "frumpy dowager of Europe" was looking for something to cheer for, and James McCudden would give it to them.

On the moonless, overcast night of May 3rd, McCudden led a pair of Gloster Grebes over the German border from Denmark and captured a convoy carrying state-of-the-art Maybach airship engines en route to Berlin from Stuttgart.  Despite the entire Luftwaffe being roused from their beds and put in the air, no trace of the convoy could be found on likely exit vectors to Austria-Hungary, Poland, or even France, though two fighters were lost to friendly fire in an unfortunate incident near the Danish border.  Unbeknownst to the Germans, McCudden's plan involved having the convoy double-back and pass over the heart of Germany on its way to the Swiss border.  Refueling his fighters on shifts from an aged R33 class airship, he reached his destination without incident just before sunrise.

The sheer audacity of the raid set the press ablaze in both nations, and the handsome and gentlemanly McCudden was quickly knighted, officially for "diplomatic efforts in Switzerland".  The German public was incensed with the impotence of their armed forces, and McCudden's disparaging (and well-publicized) remarks about "the Hun" rubbed salt in the wound.  The incident, though of relatively minor impact in economic terms, touched a sore spot in the German psyche that had been festering since the War. 

In what was ostensibly an effort to prevent mass rioting, the well liked (and known monarchist) president Paul von Hindenburg accepted full responsibility for the failure and stepped down.  In reality, this was a shrewd political maneuver designed to force Europe to accept Germany's remilitarization.  The German public became fixated on the parallels between Hindenburg's resignation and Wilhelm's exile, both noble acts of sacrifice undertaken to preserve the Fatherland against its duplicitous foreign enemies.  Unwilling to accept further defeat and humiliation, the entire country was soon, for all intents and purposes, on strike; the Weimar Republic had ground to a halt.

Hoping to contain Germany and prevent a violent revolution, the powers offered to support the German aristocracy in reforming the government as a constitutional monarchy.  The great fear was that an unsupervised transformation could result in a Marxist government which would nationalize foreign assets and cut off Europe from her cash cow, leaving other nations similarly vulnerable.  The terms of the proposal allowed for a gradual enlargement of the Luftwaffe under the new regime, but they also made it clear that Wilhelm was never to return from exile to lead the new state.  Wilhelm presented a problem for Europe--he was so revered in his native land that killing him would almost certainly start a war, but he was also totally disinterested in the new economy, somewhat mentally unstable, and entirely uncontrollable by any means other than physical separation from the mechanisms of power.  By adopting this new strategy of appeasement while favoring the remaining aristocracy, the powers hoped that they would be able to both hold off Wilhelm and prevent the looming disaster.

The elite jumped at their offer, effectively accepting on behalf of all of Germany.  Less than three months after the "raid of the century", the aristocrats reentered the Reichstag in a peaceful transferal of power.  Still burdened with many years of reparations to pay off, the people were nonetheless placated by the gradual rebuilding of the Luftwaffe and the consequent success of German ventures abroad.  Though lagging far behind her neighbors militarily and economically, Germany was getting back on her feet.

Good/bad/ok?

[Iss Mneur]

Good/bad/ok?

IIRC, the war reparations for Gemany were paid for (in full?) by the giving flugstien and/or the technology to use it to the other powers.

[swashmebuckle]

The flugstein technology isn't revealed until 1927 (next installment), so Germany would still have to have been making reparations for over a decade before that.

[The E]

Ship design inspiration:



EDIT: More:

[Scourge of Ages]

OK, I was only cautiously hopeful about this at first, but now I absolutely must play this mod. NOW. Get crackin'.

[The E]

More inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdV5AiFqWSI

[Ravenholme]

More inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdV5AiFqWSI

Some of those designs are almost straight of Crimson Skies

[starlord]

Funny how, while only a prototype, the shinden always makes a comeback in those universes...

I was actually thinking MOD physics like one of those would be interesting to get more kids interested in FSSCP... Imagine for instance featuring a shipset for one of their cartoon series like stormhawks (I think it's called that way...)

[The E]

A bit of progress, and the first opportunity for a modeller to Do Something!

mura kindly pointed me towards this address, where there were two Crimson Skies models ready for download, the Fury and the Devastator.

At the moment, they are untextured, unLODed, and un-lots-of-things, so I would like to ask any interested modeller for help in converting these into FS2.
The model files here are in .blend and max format.

http://blueplanet.fsmods.net/E/CrimsonSkiesPlanes.zip

On another note, does anyone know if it's possible to import models from something like IL-2?

[spyderrock48]

they also apear to have quite inneficcient meshes and are not very wise in tehir polycount usage, this was the modelers first attempt at 3d modeling, thus he has likeley made many new modeler mistakes ( like the innificient polycount )

[The E]

Yes, well, can that be fixed?

[Angelus]

i took a look at them, and they need a ton of work. It's faster to create them from scratch, then tryin' to convert those models.

[The E]

*sigh*

Back to the google, then......

[swashmebuckle]

I love the bladed prow design from that first picture with the decorated area where the figurehead would be on an old sailboat.

This place seems to have a good variety of free models (pretty decent number of them for unrestricted or non-commercial use), though I have no idea from looking at them if they could be acceptable in terms of poly or texture count as they might be more directed towards just producing renders:

http://www.sharecg.com/v/38612/browse/3D-Model/Spitfires

I'll get back to the writing soon.

[lostllama]

Had a quick look at the site below. Note that there's a "low-poly" board that might have some suitable models available - might be worth a look, but as I said earlier, I know little about this subject.

http://www.military-meshes.com/forums/

This one in particular has some Crimson Skies styling, but the thread is over 2 years old.

http://www.military-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2736&highlight=iron+devil