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Originally Posted by AG124
Concerning the ramp on the stern of the whale factories - Although you cannot add a ramp, you could modify the textures to make the appearance of one (it's better than nothing, in my opinion). I hope you can find out how to move the parts soon.
Another unusual (although probably useless) type of merchant ship I would like to see added are the two bauxite carriers bought by Canada from the US - the Nereus and Proteus. They were WWI era, and were sister ships to the famous SS Cyclops that 'disappeared' in the Bermuda Triangle in 1919 and also the SS Jupiter, which became the US Navy's first CV in the 1920s (USS Langley CV 01). They were 19,000 tons, and had a kind of skeleton structure of cranes along their entire length. The bridge was raised off the deck ("on stilts" as one book put it) and two funnels were located alongside each other, as one the whale factories. Both ships vanished without a trace in 1941 - they probably broke in two near the stern in heavy weather. There are many more important ships to make, but these were still cool looking (or at least different looking).
I was looking through some of my WW2 books, and saw another freighter that could be easy to make - the SS Ocean Vagabond. If someone cloned a Liberty ships, moved the superstructure forward and repositioned the masts, it would be suitable. I believe the ship was one of the Ocean class freighters built for the UK as an equivelent of the US Liberty class, but I'm not sure.
By the way, is there a good site to view WW2 merchant pictures? Someone mentioned a couple earlier, but I don't know where the thread is now. And if someone could link to a picture of the Nereus or Proteus, that would be great (I have never had luck posting pictures on a forum).
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You know, I toyed with the idea of adding a collier or bulk cargo ship, but I have my hands full with several mods already; the whole process of cloning is so time consuming. I'm pretty interested in merchant design, and I always thought the Cyclops looked weird - what with all those spidery cranes sticking up. The bridge seemed to be really sparse, too. I wouldn't call her ugly, though; maybe "unique".
Anyway, the best source for WWI-era merchant pics that I know of is uboat.net's "ships hit by uboats" section. Most of the ships don't have photos but a significant %age do. The pics are a cross section of typical 1910-1940's-era designs - lots of midships-deckhouse freighters and two-superstructure tankers.
http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/