Blocky bow

[Striker]

This is more of a curiosity question. I notice that most of the creation I see do not have a smooth bow, they are sort of blocky with contours. Is there a reason for it, does the front of a boat not have to be smooth in this game? Or were these created before they had pyramid shaped blocks?

[DanDanAttack]

Most creations were before the new wedges update and it would take a lot to go back and redo all the hulls. Ooooor. They did a 3D model to stormworks through blender and it always comes out block and people don’t smoothen it out. That’s at least what I suspect

[Striker]

ah that makes sense.

[Teamkiller]

"Smooth" blocks has much higher drag than small "square" ones, as far as I got it from my experiments. I don't know if it was fixed, but it is exactly the reason why I do not use it in hull construction.

[DanDanAttack]

It’s more of an aesthetics thing. I dislike the blocky bow thing...

[Striker]

Originally posted by DanDanAttack:

It’s more of an aesthetics thing. I dislike the blocky bow thing...

Yeah, I like the smooth look too, but I'd love to know if there's a performance impact. It seems those (inverse) pyramid adds more mass for one.

Not sure about the drag but I get a feeling that drag is calculated by the general general shape (bounds of final model) than each block.

If you press F3 (I think) you can see the debug stuff, it shows encompassing boxes for buoyancy which (forward face of it) could also be what is used for calculating drag. Wish there was a way to know for sure.

[DanDanAttack]

Yeah I’m unsure. I’d imagine if you had the time, take one of your bows, change it to blocky and test it out by measuring fuel consumption in a given period of time. Then put on a smooth bow and try it again. There’s a fuel consumption module on the workshop. Just get that. Slap it on your boat and start testing!!

[Striker]

Yeah who has time for that, I am already working two jobs, doing hustling crude oil and running missions trying to put blocks on the table :)

[DanDanAttack]

Originally posted by Delta wing:

Yeah who has time for that, I am already working two jobs, doing hustling crude oil and running missions trying to put blocks on the table :)

Hahahahaha truth. Lol.

[Unit 744]

I will say that there can be ascetic and practical reasons to use a 'blocky' (e.g., 3 blocks + 1 wedge) bow instead of a smooth (e.g., 1 4x1 wedge) bow.

1, Portholes are much easier to install and make look ascetically pleasing. Installing a 1x1 or 2x2 porthole on a section with 4-long wedge pieces will require the porthole to not be flush with the side.

2, Creating a bow with complex curvature (such as that of the Titanic, a project I am working on now), is made much easier when using 'blocky' bows.

3, Creating a ship's bow that requires a wedge longer than 4x1 means blocks will be necessary anyways. There can be some ascetic gains by using a consistent design method (all blocky) instead of an inconsistent design method (smooth fore half of bow, blocky aft half of bow).

[ElfBossHogg]

For boats I was looking to redo the bows on some of my ORCA builds but I found the newer blocks have higher drag properties. For example I redid the front of my water jet speed boat with the new 1x2 and 1x4 and the max speed dropped close to 20 knots. As a result I'm forgoing style to maintain performance.