the SeaMercer - a surface staging platform

Sigmalx

We have a mini submersible vehicle, a large submarine, an exosuit and a little torque engine know as the sea glide. But a thing we lack is vehicles on the surface, a good ol' fashion boat. today I will rectify this.
first: pros and cons.
Pros:
-surface vehicle to quickly get around without the worry of the leviathans (mostly)
-can deploy seamoth and the prawn suit
-enough space for living quarters
-no worries, it can use some of the seamoth upgrades
-built in storage (6 lockers)

Cons:
-slowest turning in the game
-without sonar, cannot view beneath waves normally
-if bad weather is implemented: should it be rocked, its screwed.
-potential too much open space.
-Leviathans could have a field day and rock the boat.


anyway. The Sea Mercer would be the largest or second largest vessel in the game, but only limited to above surface transportation; however be a staging ground to other vehicles (other than the cyclops). its shape is box like with a standard front. the staging area would be in the rear, with a large section cut out with gates to keep the ocean out unless a vehicle is leaving or entering. this area acts like a moonpool of sorts, and has a built in customizer. the habitable and areas that cant be wet are located in bulk head sealed rooms higher than the staging area. an alternate thing you can do with the staging area, is submerge it, and let fish role in to act a small grotto to catch fish in.

power requirement: 4 power cells
power uses: 5 floodlights, two spotlights at the front (fixed direction), Mag-locks to hold vehicles, internal lighting. mods to use: Sonar

preferred modifications: reinforced hull, solar charger, and sonar.





I'm thinking the design is reflectant of deep sea fishing vessels or deep sea submersible deployment platforms.

the TODO list:
-sketch/design
-script(almost complete)
-3d model

xencosti

I would like a hatch that can lock onto the Cyclops. This base idea has a lot of potential. A dock for the sub, maybe even something that lifts it out of the water, like a dry dock. The seamoth could enter from underneath, and maybe a hatch for when you just swim in.

Sigmalx

may not for the cyclops, but it could be an interesting combination, to have a place you don't want to worry about getting lost in, so you slap on a 1km cable to it and go ham. this cable would of course be lit up every so often. and currently I'm off and on working on a dialogue.

Sigmalx

Oo, an idea. Could have a built in scanner roon

krystocat

Sigmalx wrote: »

Oo, an idea. Could have a built in scanner roon

That could be useful, maybe it has a sea moth dock and scanner room, so you can sort of scan around for what you need and then deploy with the sea moth.
Or it could have deployable drones that could be controlled to mine some resources?

Sigmalx

Well, I am leaving it open to suggestions. But so far, I've got lines written for entry and deployment. I pla also have a speaker system that is used when you switch biomes. Like
"Koosh zone located, approximately Xm deep from current position"

Sigmalx

added a todo list. I will be working on this constantly.

Sigmalx

lol, I'm thinking it would help for building out of the water, and hopefully they fix the clipping issues inside the base at sea level
(bulkheads are currently broken in experimental mode :P)

9Rarro

That almost sounds like a mobile home vehicle seems a bit too overpowered to me

Sigmalx

Hmm, maybe

ElMonstro

Sounds cool, but.. What for?
Mobile base? Cyclops.
Vehicle Bay? Cyclops.
Driving at the surface avoiding Reapers? Cyclops.

Practically its a Cyclops with a bit more space =D
But: implement vaster Landzones and Landvehicles, redesign it as a landingship to explore islands. THAT would make it special

So the,Front should be a movable Ramp, so am Jeep or Rover can enter and leave the ship.
A Hangar for Parking your vehicle(s ?).
Space for Scanning, living and other stuff.

And if you want to top it all, make it 5 times bigger as the cyclops and add,a docking bay for the cyclops. Makimg it an ultimate, slow but sturdy, movable,Base for both, land exploration with Jeeps and deepsea exploration, with the cyclops.


Edit:

Yeah, it might sound overpowered at first, but make it damn expensive. Like real fucking expensive, as a lomg term goal and its balanced again.

Sigmalx

I was planning on the sea mercer to be a small deployment vehicle about, if slightly smaller, than the cyclops (probably smaller) that has a crane used to spell the sea moth or the exosuit. I large surface vehicle could have its own problem and better suited for transportation across continents

Sigmalx

Good news, I have renewed my 3D modeling software. Bad news, I have no idea what the new alt commands are.

ElMonstro

Sigmalx wrote: »

I was planning on the sea mercer to be a small deployment vehicle about, if slightly smaller, than the cyclops (probably smaller) that has a crane used to spell the sea moth or the exosuit. I large surface vehicle could have its own problem and better suited for transportation across continents

Hm, the Question still keeps the same for me.
Why should I, as a Player, build a smaller Ship than the Cyclops, just for transporting a seamoth or the exo from A to B? I mean, thats exactly whats the Cyclops is meant for. A mobile Base with the Stuff you need onboard.

I dont want to stop you, im just trying to understand why this ship should exist.
We are living under water, so the most benefitable thing there can be is pressureresistance for deepseaexploring. A Boat, just for driving ontop the water? As said, the Cyclops can do this perfectly.
Space to grow something, store some goods, cyclops has it.

only strongpoint i see is the fast movement.
Maybe if you scratch the fishcatchstuff, the lockers and so on and focus it mainly and only on a fast deployment for 1 small vehicle, be it Exo or Seamoth. So it could be alot smaller than a cyclops, adding reality to the fast movement point and more convincing to build it in the first place. I could often cringe while driving the cyclops from Mountain to floating island. With a fast Vessel, thats only there to move fast and deploy, maybe i would use it.

Sigmalx

The big idea for it, is simply to have a reliable and fast surface vehicle to be used in place of the cyclops. The draw back to using the mercer is that it can't go below sea level, and is a medium sized vessel. The cyclops is supposed to be used for deep sea traversal, while the mercer would be use for quick transportation. In reality, I see this used with the sea moth for a quick scouting, and the cyclops with the prawn suit for exploring depths.

Personally I love the surface more than the sea, so this is more of a way to arrange a way to watch the stars while secured by a vehicle.

WSBurns

I still think the game should provide a better "excuse" to keep us humans from our natural desire to live on the surface, like sudden violent storms and hurricanes. It would be nice to see the weather changing rapidly and storms forming on the horizon and the way that could structurally affect bases built on shallow waters.

Sigmalx

I mentioned that if the boat gets rocked its basically useless. The save it from getting too rocked, it'd have to be to either docked on the coast of an island, or anchored securely in the shallower biomes (nothing past 50 meters)

Sigmalx

good and bad news:
Good: i got internet on my laptop and that means i can use dropbox sorting again.
Bad: College is keeping me busier than i would like, and i dont have the time to take make a rough model of the SeaMercer. so you all have to wait until i have enough down time (im not using for sleep) to draw out rough modeling guidelines or low poly assets