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USS Lafayette Troop Ship

**** YOU MUST ENABLE INFINITE FUEL AND ELECTRICITY FOR THIS TO WORK!!! YOU SHOULD ALSO DISABLE OVERHEATING ENGINES. READ THE DESCRIPTION IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE GETTING THINGS WORKING, THE ANSWER IS PROBABLY THERE ****

The U.S.S. Lafayette is the troop ship version of the S.S. Normandie. This is what she may have looked like had she survived her conversion to a troop ship in 1942.


I built and run the ship on the rig below. I'm averaging around 40 FPS running this version of the ship.

Intel Core i5-4590 CPU @ 3.30 GHz
32 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 ti

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HOW TO LOAD THE SHIP---------------------------------------------------------------------------

First you have to start a game in "Custom Game Mode" at the "CUSTOM BASE OIL RIG (LARGE)".
Next press escape and click on the "Custom Menu" tab.
Enable "Infinite Electric", "Infinite Fuel" and disable "Engine Overheating". If you don't do this the ship will not work! Next, press escape and click on the "Addon Editor" tab.
Click on "Load" then select the workshop tab.
Select "USS Lafayette Troop Ship" from the list.
Next press the "Test Location" button.

The game will do an autosave and after a while the ship will appear. It will take a little bit to load so be patient.

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HOW TO RUN THE SHIP-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Propulsion and steering:
To start the engines you need to go to the engine room. WATCH THE TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO OPERATE THE ENGINES. You can steer and control propulsion from both the bridge and the engine room. Steer the ship with the 'A' and 'D' keys. She handles pretty good for a big ship, but to steer tighter cut the power to the props on the side you are turning to.

Lights and Sinking:
Behind the bridge there is a room with a control panel that has controls for various lights and a sinking mode. Pressing the sink button will trigger a few flares to simulate fire and smoke and the ship will begin to roll to the port side. It takes approximately 45 minutes for the ship to slip beneath the waves.

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KNOWN BUGS AND QUIRKS

Turning on all the lights will cause a noticeable FPS drop, not much can be done about this.

The ship accelerates to top speed too fast and travels in reverse too fast.

She handles good in winds up to 55% or so, higher than that and the props can lift out of the water causing the ship to lose forward momentum. I've worked very hard to fix this but haven't been able to come up with a solution. I've come to the conclusion that this is due to the way that Stormworks simulates the physics of water and how it interacts with extra large ships such as this. I have similar problems with my other ship, the S.S. William A. Irvin.

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HISTORY OF THE SHIP

This is based on a real ship by the same name. It is not an exact recreation, it's hard to believe but the real ship is much bigger and I had to take some liberties in a few areas to make it work. I did try to make it as accurate as I could working within the limitations of the technology.

The S.S. Normandie is considered by many to be the grandest and most elegant ocean liner of all time. From her extravagant Art Deco interiors to the unique design of her bow, everything about the Normandie was state of the art at the time and set a precedent that many after her would try to follow.

The Normandie unfortunately had a very short career. Her maiden voyage was in 1935 and she was scrapped in 1946. She did enjoy a few good years making the transatlantic crossing. She and the RMS Queen Mary battled it out for the coveted Blue Riband that was awarded to the ship that could make the crossing in the shortest time, the award being passed between the two a couple of times.

With the outbreak of war in Europe the Normandie sailed into New York harbor in 1939 where she was interned by the US government. A French crew stayed on board to maintain the ship until 1941. After the attack on Pearl Harbor she was seized by the US Navy and her French crew was sent home on December 20th 1941. The Navy planned to transform the Normandie into a troop ship and work quickly got underway.

Just two months later on February 9th 1942 sparks from a welding torch ignited a pile of life vests and fire quickly spread throughout the vessel. She capsized in her pier due to massive amounts of water being dumped on her decks in an attempt to douse the inferno. The sad part is the fire could have been put out quickly or prevented entirely as the Normadie had a state of the art fire protection system but it, along with the pumps, had been deactivated during the conversion process. The main designer of the Normandie happened to be in New York at the time and he rushed to the pier in a desperate attempt to save the ship which he considered to be one of his children. He tried gaining entry to the ship to help but was held back by military and fire department officials. Failing this he begged them to open the Normandie's sea valves so she could sink evenly on her keel in the shallow pier. This advice was also ignored which led directly to the ship capsizing in the pier causing much greater damage than would have occurred had his advice been taken.

Attempts were made to salvage the ship, she was righted and the plan at the time was to remove the upper decks and turn her into an aircraft carrier. In preparation for this role her upper superstructure was removed entirely but the work was cut short as saving the ship proved to be too costly and the Navy's priorities shifted elsewhere. After the war ended she was sold and scrapped in 1946.