What's Needed?

i think most people are happy with the status quo, like me, and although its nice to find things that improve our boats, we dont always have the time, money, or know-how to implement these sort of things. Im sure there are more ideas, but most are just happy to tug along and fire some bbs into other people. And no, its not perfect, but its alot of fun, and its those imperfections that keep away people who may not be really serious or truly interested. Now, im not saying were trying to drive away people, also remember that 1) We are very common, not alot of coverage, 2) History is not alot of people's strong point, 3) Most people dont really care about boats like this, and finally, 4) The people who are interested in history, the battleships, and have seen it are mostly joined up(in my opinion) or at least have thought about it, but are restricted by money/time/ ect.

 

I think the hobby needs above all else is a mass produced almost ready to combat ship. A prebuilt (or nearly prebuilt) ship that comes with most everything needed to combat. An almost ready to float (ARF) ship would bypass two major problems a new captain faces; construction time and lack of building skills. Beginners could buy the ARF ship, fight in some battles, and decide either to (1)move up into a larger conventional ship or (2)decide this hobby isn't for them. Much of the time, given the taste of success with a reliable beginner ship, a new captain will stay in the hobby.

 

maybe each local club could have 2 or 3 of these things, and loan them out.

 

i think the biggest issue at least in aus is the need for parts its hard to get the right bits and pieces ive been looking for a few months and am still after a lot of stuff mainly basic tutorials and stuff the make it easier for noobs to join the hobby.
everyone i have spoken too have wanted to join in the main issue is cost and the amount of time it takes to build a boat from scratch.

 

I really dont think cost of the hobby is that big an issue even if people use that for thier excuse not to join. A whole lot of other hobbies are just as expensive, I think its the amount of effort,skill, and time required that scares people off. We shouldn't make it any harder than it is but at the same time I dont think its good for the hobby to dumb it down to much either.

A lot of clubs have a loaner ship or two for people to use if they are thinking about getting involved, if your club doesn't you should! Doesn't have to be a killer or anything just a simple cruiser or some such thats easy to maintain and lets the person have a taste of combat but not something they will get pounded on in. (if they drive into the middle of a battleship sandwhich they will still get chewed on but thats a different story)

Anyways since this is almost off topic and apperently that irks people the thing that I am on the look out for in the R&D world is something to replace my rudder servo with. Getting rid of that last servo in my boat with something more reliable/easier to waterproof has been a goal of mine for a while. I think a linear actuator might be the way to go but they still have a bit to go before they get to the size/price range that where they would be worth trying it over a servo. Also a pneumatic system could be done but I feel drawing gas away from the guns wouldn't be worth it. If anyone has tried anything besides a servo for a rudder I would be interested in hearing about your experiences.

My current R&D is based around a few things, first we (MWCI Speed Committee) are doing some research on ship thrust trying to come up with a better set of rules for reverse speed. Its slow going but the results are interesting and its nice to have some hard data/specs on our ships to work with, and we have made some progress. Also I have been using a new battery testing device that I got recently and it is showing me all sorts of things about my batteries that I never knew before so its sweet to have some hard data there. My other main thrust is into the BasicStamp world and building some tools using a BasicStamp so I can better quantify how parts of my ship work. Along a similar line I would like to outfit my TX with a BasicStamp and have it display some useful info on a LCD screen so I have more information during battle. Pretty much all of these come down to getting more info about the existing systems so I can decide where/what needs to be tweaked/upgraded and what is good as is.

All that stuff and my other usual projects and playing video games means I have plenty to keep me busy so thats good.

 

That, right there, was the exact reason I asked the question in the 1st place. I'm sure that there are people (I know I'm one) who enjoy solving problems, figuring out solutions, & designing stuff. My hope was that we could smoke out some ideas of what people want, so that people who like to figure out new stuff have some guidance & suggestions as to what to build. Who knows, there might even be enough demand for some things to create a small market for specialty R/C combat equipment beyond what there already is. Availability of certain items might even stimulate growth of the hobby itself.

JM

 

I belonged to a club that owned 2 warships, several cargo ships, & a shore battery. The cargo ships & shore battery were often available for guests to operate on battle day. The idea was that the guests could sail but not shoot, or shoot but not sail. If they wanted to do both, then they'd have to make the commitment to get involved & acquire their own ships. Several did & it was generally a pretty worthwhile program.

The armed ships were bought from/donated by members who got out. They were used as "loaners" to dues-paying members who were either new & didn't have their own ships ready yet, or sometimes as a backup ship for when somebody's regular ship couldn't run for whatever reason. A problem that happened a couple of times was that somebody took custody of a club-owned ship, then disappeared for awhile. There was some concern for awhile about whether member & ship would ever be seen again & sometimes took awhile to hunt down & retrieve a club ship. That's the big problem with letting somebody take possession (even temporarily) of some property that they don't have an actual stake in. Because it cost them nothing, it has no value to them, even though it's very valuable to the club.

The biggest problem with club ownership of ships (or any other equipment, for that matter) is keeping them repaired, maintained, ready to use, & available on battle days. It really takes a commitment from the club membership to make it happen. At the same time, it presents an opportunity to involve more people through organizing work days to maintain the club ships. Invite a couple of prospects over to somebody's garage on a Saturday; let them participate in repairing a ship, & then let them run the ship in the next battle. Let them find out 1st-hand what it takes to build, repair, & run a ship while at the same time pulling them in a little at a time, with escalating levels of commitment that start with a couple of hours'-worth of time only. It takes a club that's very active to be able to make it work.

JM

 

OK, now we're getting somewhere, maybe.

If it doesn't mean revealing any secrets, what sort of things do you want to accomplish with a Basic Stamp? I mean, outfit your TX with a Basic Stamp to do what, exactly? On the ship side, what sort of things would you like to quantify?

JM

 

1) An ARF model ship is a nice idea but not a practical concept unless the buyer has a lot of spare $$ or the builder makes the model for material costs only.

I enjoy building RCNC ship models but even a cruiser requires many hours of labour. My current rebuild of a friend's light cruiser (HMS Uganda) will have taken over 30 hours, and that's without having to first make the hull, decks, superstructure and install the shafts and motors.

I doubt that many of us are altruistic enough to spend hundreds of hours mass producing ARF models without charging anything for our time, which is irreplacable.

When I'm too busy to make my own molds I commission Ralph Coles to do it for $10/hr, which is a fair price. If he was building ARF models, which he once considered, the cost for labour alone would be hundreds of dollars.

2) Loaner ships are a great way to entice people into the hobby and have been used in NABS since the club's beginning, several captains having first operated my Class 2 monitor HMS Terror. I have 3 loaners for our new Treaty club (NATCF)and other captains have a few as well.

I agree it's not a good idea to let new/potential members take the models home, but it should be a requirement that the temporary captains repair any combat or other damage under supervision so they learn something about the models too.

Bob

 

I'd like to see some in depth, dummed down so I can understand tutorials on essentially making your own controller, based on canabalized stuff available off the shelf. Like the guy who made one out of a playstation controller.

 

hmm things I would like to quantify, here are a few examples.

turning ability
acceleration
motor efficiency (drive and pumps)
gun preformance
gas usage
balance
battery preformance
rudder servo requirements

Now I'm probably not going to do all those but it would be nice to have data on how making changes to a system messes with those numbers. For instance having a table with different motor/prop/gearing/voltage combos and what thrust/current draw each requires could be a nice set of data to have when designing a ship. Am I going to do something like that? probably not in the near future but it would still be nice to have.

If we have data gathered by a standard set of tests we can use that data to both compare existing ships and to help build better new/refit ships. I don't really have any expectation that someone is going to come along and do this on a large scale but I'm trying to make more of an effort to collect data so hopefully I'll be able to make use of it later.

 

When mentioning a mass produced ship, I was thinking outside of conventional ship construction techniques. The way we build ships now takes lots of time and labor which would not work for a mass produced ship.

Instead, I was thinking of plastic injection molded hull with the windows already molded in. The deck would be plastic and snaps into place. All of the internal componants would snap into place. The electrical system would be a pre-wired harness with connectors that only needs putting into the hull and plugging it in.
The most time consuming part would be the sheeting, and even then perhaps a thin foam such as Depron that doesn't require waterproofing or silkspan might work well.

I think it is doable. I simply don't have the skills nor know where to start to get the hulls designed and made via injection molding. I suspect it won't be cheap to start up either since the minimum parts run is something like 500 units.

 

I think that would flood our hobby with a bunch of ding dongs I like it just the way it is if you have the passion we will see you on the pond []

 

You will get people like that. You will also bring in people that are serious about trying the hobby. If they are passionate enough, they will eventually move up into a larger conventionally constructed ship and stay awhile. The same thing happens in the model airplane community right now.

There is no way a home grown mold injection system will be able to make a hull. Like already mentioned, there is a lot of variables to sucessful molding that will take a professional company to pull off consistant quality hulls. Professional manufacturers don't work cheap. That, in my opinion, is why we will never see mass produced ships in our hobby (unless a lotto winner happens to have money to dump into the project).

But hey, it doesn't hurt to wish.

 

i dont think hulls are too much of an issue at least here we have a few members who build fiberglass molds they can produce them every few days and with the number of people joining the hobby it is a minimal number per year. and the cost is still very minimal only 200 for a full battleship hull with deleviry. i like the idea of a wiring harness and could convert to c02 harnesses basically plug and play generic system for beguinners. also a pump manufacturer for big gun would be nice

 

How about instead of molded plastic hull, mass produced keel and rib set? You could offer the deck/subdeck as another assembly and the bottom could be a third. It would take some wood working skills and basic tools but might be doable. if you are worried about durability, seal the wood after, You would want to anyway, If it rots out, buy another kit to replace it.

 

I think what is needed more than enything else is good ponds! 3 foot deep, clear, sandy bottom. Enough islands, etc. to make it interesting.

Marty Hayes