Carrack - Multi-role Hovercraft

The Carrack is a hovercraft built with multi-role capabilities for accomplishing a wide variety of tasks such as: Search & Rescue, mobile medical platform, cargo/vehicle/passenger transportation and much more. It can fly over land and shallow water effortlessly where ships are not able to traverse.



The Carrack can be fully operational with a very small crew size made up of the Pilot, Co-pilot, 1st Engineer, and 2nd Engineer. The pilot can pilot the hovercraft on his/her own but having a co-pilot is recommended to assist the pilot.

• Able to fly over land & water
  
• 360 Degrees Rotatable Bow Thrusters
  
• High top speed (under good weather conditions)
  
• Excellent fuel efficiency
  
• Wide design and low centre of gravity makes it very unlikely to capsize
  
• High pressure stabilized main water cannon & 2 side water cannons
  
• Crane for lifting small cargo
  
• Large Cargo Ramp for loading cargo
  
• Medical bay (3 medical beds)
  
• Passenger bay (10 seats)
  
• Crow’s nest
  
• Advanced map waypoint & autopilot system
  
• Decent in-game Performance
  
• Simulated Skirts
  
• High Cargo Weight Capacity
  
• Engine fire suppression system
  
• Automatic variable generator
  
• Simple start-up procedure
  
• Suitable to use in career mode

• Propulsion: 3 Main Rotors, 2 Bow Thrusters
  
• Lift: 4 Large Ducted Lift Fans
  
• Power: 2, 3x3, 12 Cylinder Modular Diesel Engines
  
• Crew: 1-4 (Pilot, Co-Pilot, 1st Engineer, 2nd Engineer)
  
• 16 Flare Launchers
  
• Fuel Tank: 18703 litres
  
• Water Tank: 4875 litres
  
• Top Speed: 68 knots
  
• Range (at full collective and no wind): 470 km
  
• Fuel Consumption (at max throttle): 1.4 litres/s
  
• Cargo: 2 Cargo Containers Capacity
  
• Cost: $388519

1. Turn on main battery relay (overhead)
   
2. Turn on navigation lights (overhead)
   
3. Turn on HUD (dashboard)
   
4. Start propulsion and hover engines (right dashboard)
   
5. Make sure clutches are engaged
   
6. Increase “air pressure” throttle to 90%
   
7. Once fully lifted and stable, increase throttle to 100% to power bow thrusters
   
8. Increase “collective” throttle to move off

The controls & movement of the Carrack is made to be as realistic as possible as real-life hovercrafts. Movement and steering are overall very smooth and precise. The more important point is the bow thrusters and rear propellers are controlled independently of each other (just like real-life hovercrafts). This can lead to a learning curve when learning to fly the Carrack but with enough practice, you can be sure that you will enjoy flying it.

It is very important to understand that flying hovercrafts is a lot trickier and different from driving ships. Hovercrafts do not experience as much resistance as ships (as they are flying above water). This means that hovercrafts experience much more strafing movement than ships when turning, among other things. This strafing movement will lead to majority of your crashes when learning to fly the Carrack.

In order to pilot the Carrack, you must use the bow thrusters in conjunction with the main propellers while also adjusting the collective to unlock the full manoeuvrability capabilities of this craft. There is no button which magically produces strafing movement for your craft, you have to angle the bow thrusters and main propellers in a certain way in order to produce more/reduce the desired strafing movement. Keep in mind that when moving forward, turning with the main propellers produces more strafing movement than the bow thrusters and vice versa when moving backwards.

How much you are required to turn the bow thrusters depends on how much collective you give the main propellers. How much strafing movement you get also depends on how much collective you give and turn the main propellers.

Strafing at High Speed



Strafing at Low Speed

This part is important for manoeuvring in tight areas or when parking. There are 2 methods for doing this and you can choose whichever method suits you.


Method 1: Bow Thrusters Facing Backwards While Collective is Negative




Method 2: Bow Thrusters Facing Forwards While Collective is Positive





Now that you understand how to strafe with the Carrack, the rest of the movements of the craft should be straightforward.

I do not recommend flying the Carrack in high winds (even though it is stable) as the ride will get bumpy and your top speed will be severely limited.

I might upgrade the waypoint & autopilot system to allow it to have multiple waypoints in the future if I decide to use the system in future creations.

Special thank you to you if you read through all the description of my creation. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort into this one. Feel free to leave feedback and share what you like/dislike about my creation and report any bugs you find.

Do not re-upload my creation even if you have changed parts of it. You are allowed to modify it to your liking but do not re-upload it.



The cargo crane on the Carrack is not designed to lift cargo containers. A dedicated cargo container handler is required to load/unload containers from the hovercraft.

There is an area near the front of the main propellers where you can phase through the roof and fall into the engine room because of wonky Stormworks hitboxes. (I won’t bother fixing this as you are not supposed to be standing in that area in the first place)

The Main propellers’ hinges in rare occasions can get stuck because of wonky Stormworks hitboxes. Wiggling it left & right should fix it.

The Cargo Ramp has been a problem since day one as it can spaz out and get stuck in an unintended position when opening/closing because of wonky Stormworks physics. So far, I have not experienced this issue with my latest configuration of pivot & hinge speeds but if it does happen, you will have to respawn the vehicle.



Microcontrollers:
Customizable Compass Module (Modified)
Modular Map Main Module (Modified)
Modular Map Tracked Object Module
Radar (Modified)
Fuel Consumption Calculator (Modified)
Touchscreen Beacon Locator & Transmitter
Weather Screen 1x1 (with icons) (Modified)
Weather Station (LUA) (Modified)
ZE Modular Engine Controller (Modified)

Vehicles used in screenshots:
MF-550M MedCat
MF-550FS FireCat