Hydrodynamics[]
Hydrodynamics, literally meaning "water motion", is the ability of water to flow around your ship. Imagine an arrow and a flat sheet of wood. Which would be easier to push straight forward? Chances are the sheet of wood will act like a sail and wont move very fast, while the arrow moves with almost no resistance. You want your ship to be like the arrow.
In this game there are three main concepts; speed, armor and firepower. Each is directly affected by a number of things, and speed is affected by how well your ship can cut through the water.
If a 400 meter long ship has no hydrodynamic blocks to help it, it will only go at about 40 knots, however, by using reverse arrow design, it can reach nearly 134 knots.
This is reverse arrow design.
Hydrofoils[]
There is already a section on hydrofoils here. It will show you how to make one, and hope fully help teach you some hydrodynamics as well.
Case study[]
case study ship
On the right we have a ship for case study.
All the blocks are either light 600mm armor and regular 600mm for the bottom ones, and light 400mm 1/2 armour. Note the ship on the right HAS to have floats it increases it's top speed by 11 knots but more importantly it prevents it from capsizing. Also the blocks at the bottom has to be flat or else it only posseses a top speed
of 115, if you add half blocks with or without a rudder. DO NOT add a fourth layer or blocks on the bottom of the propeller for this design it lowers it's speed to about the same speed as a destroyer. If anyone has any tips to improve this ship without any overly drastic changes please post them.
http://battleshipcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Speed_Tweaking
THIS PAGE IS ALOT MORE USEFUL, THE PURPOSE IS THE SAME. It includes an updatedversion of the ship above going the MAXIMUM MOVEMENT SPEED!!!!!!
Physics Engine Notes[]
Because of the game using a physics engine instead of real life physics, there are some loop hole that anyone can jump through to get a speed increase.
To the right, there is an example of a term called Flat Plowing, it occurs when instead of of using faceted angle, one uses rough blocks. When using this technique, it is important to note that the speed rises as the Beam of the ship increases (Example Below).
As seen in the photo above, as the Beam of the ship increases the speed also rises.
It isn't the best photo to use, but it does get the job done.