Warcraft II Gnomish Submarine / Giant Turtle

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

So if anyone remembers this old computer game, It has a pair of submarines in it that I am working on building, the Gnomish Submarine and the Giant Turtle. A lot of the work going into this project is just getting 3D models as this was originally a sprite game in 2D. There were 10 ships in total in the game and I have two of them fairly far along in 3D modelling, the Gnomish Submarine and the Human Oil Tanker. My idea is eventually is to equip them with infrared sensors for RC war games.

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

Original game artwork on the left, Current progress on 3D model on the right

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

Some honorable mentions I should make for other folks that have modeled this boat in the past:

https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/gnomish-submarine.66130/

https://www.hiveworkshop.com/threads/gnomish-submarine.339319/

Both of these are trying to rework the boat for Warcraft III's aesthetic style, but I wanted to remain much more faithful to the original game artwork from Warcraft II. Also these models were made for game performance rather than in engineering software so things like polygon count and file size were significantly more limiting as factors to these model developers. If someone in the distant future is reading this though these are some historical artifacts related to Gnomish Submarine 3D model development over the years.

[Subculture]

If you intend to build this as a working boat, I’d keep the centre prop fixed or just free spinning with no drive and use the two outer pods for propulsion. If you make pods able to azimuth for pitch control, and use differential control of the motors for steering then the boat should work very well.

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

If you intend to build this as a working boat, I’d keep the centre prop fixed or just free spinning with no drive and use the two outer pods for propulsion. If you make pods able to azimuth for pitch control, and use differential control of the motors for steering then the boat should work very well.

Yep that is the exact plan. I should have probably made a post outlining the mechanical and electronic systems aboard. I will draw up an outline of the parts once I get finished 3D modelling the electrical layout

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

This design has a lot of interesting and unusual features, for example to get that enormous freeboard in surface trim is currently requiring an enormous 3 liter ballast tank. I'd be curious to hear if anyone has an even bigger ballast tank or if I have the largest. I'm a little different in how I design boats than Nautilus Drydocks in that I have access to engineering software so I can carefully calculate my center of buoyancy and center of mass to see my static stability in the design stage and do a large portion of my trimming before the boat is built. Boat final length will be about 24 inches long and about 23 inches wide. So it has a nearly square profile which I believe will lead to fascinating and unusual performance characteristics, most of them probably undesirable.

[Subculture]

I would go for a much smaller tank and aim for a lower freeboard. For those pods to provide efficient thrust they need to be submerged, the lower the better to avoid ventilation.

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

I would go for a much smaller tank and aim for a lower freeboard. For those pods to provide efficient thrust they need to be submerged, the lower the better to avoid ventilation.

I was going for most realistic to the game. In the game the boat cannot move forward while surfaced, so I suspect that either I will just accept the ventilation or program it to turn off the motors in the surfaced condition. It runs mostly at periscope depth so you will spend very little time in the fully surfaced condition.

[Subculture]

Well you’re the one who has to build it. I consider it impractical to have such a large ballast tank for a boat of the dimensions you have, but proof of the pudding is in the eating, so bon appetit.

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

Well you’re the one who has to build it. I consider it impractical to have such a large ballast tank for a boat of the dimensions you have, but proof of the pudding is in the eating, so bon appetit.

I agree it definitely imposes unusual limitations, but hey it's a fantasy boat so I'm kind of prepared to have features and performance characteristics wildly different than most other folks boats. That's part of what makes the project fun is just no amount of simulation, CAD and engineering is going to really tell you how it feels in the water.

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

So forgive the terrible drawing quality as it is very far from complete and I still have a long way to go with all the mechanics and am still making design decisions on the workings of the boat, but here is a rough internal layout. The entire space in front of the one circuit board I have marked will be filled with circuit boards, I just need to model them all and leave space for wiring. Also the battery is going to get smaller to make more room for hoses and wires. I may remove the dive plane and rudders as I am concerned about having enough space for 2 more servos and the new idea is to use a water pump for dynamic depth keeping anyway similar to the Orange Crush that Nautilus Drydocks built. I may also fuse the support rod to the hull instead of having it pivot to save yet another servo.

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

The plan is to have the whole thing screw together using melt in stainless steel threaded inserts which work very well with the 3D printed plastics. They allow for smooth reliable screwing and unscrewing without the risks of stripping plastic.Still working on exactly where the break lines will be. I wanted to get the aesthetics correct first, then focus on getting the mechanics working so that I could get the final look I wanted and figure out the ballast requirements before I dug into the inner workings and assembly.

https://www.mcmaster.com/products/inserts/threaded-insert-type~heat-set/heat-set-inserts-for-plastic-7/material~18-8-stainless-steel/

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

Oh I should also mention this will be a WTCless design. Instead there will be a box in the forward compartment completely filled with marine dielectric grease for removable waterproofing. I am going to solder or clamp all connections and completely bench test first before filling with grease so that I can minimize post launch work, but I wanted something extremely rugged and so I want to push the boundaries a bit and go WTCless. Exterior and interior to receive marine clear coat as well to make algae and pond scum cleaning easier.

[TuptubBuilder]

Very impressive. What are the overall dimensions?

[NicholasRadzykewycz]

Very impressive. What are the overall dimensions?

About 24 inches long and about 23 inches wide. Weighs around 12 lbs so far. I don't expect I will need to make any more size revisions but will have to see where all my components end up. I still have quite a bit of room available though so not too concerned about size but still have several months worth of additional design work to do including adding the ballast and calculating static stability in surface and submerged trims.