Zeppelin on the Brain

* See also Quantum_Particles_Can_Do_Anything
* See also Real Physics
* See also Real Lighter-Than-Air Ships
* See also Floatyshit(tm)
* See also NO_Autopilots_In_Columbia
==Sad== 
Those Infinite BS sad "Zeppelin" ( '3D' game Asset) things look like they were designed for some Chinese company to make cheap ceramic figurines or plushy/plastic game merchandise. 
Zeppelins (rigid airships) were complex and expensive (and terribly hazardous) and proved a Historic Failure. Adopting the airship design was quite illogical for anyone who could 'See The Future'. 
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Infinite Zeppelins :
Assumed - The 'Zeppelin' shape was picked because Columbian people would trust it rather than the devils-magic Quantumz technology ( "THERE'S NOTHING HOLDING IT UP ... AAAAAAHHHH WITCHCRAFT !!!!!!!!! BURRRN ITTTTT !!!! " )? Except that maybe they wouldn't, as "Zeppelins" themselves were at that time NEW, with plenty of reports of crashes and deaths in the Real World for that kind of craft ( and so did everything else that tried to 'fly' at that time ). The first demonstrated (real) Zeppelin was in 1900. So exactly what was used for Columbia before that ?? Simply take a look at how simple/fragile the early airships really were.
Regular airplanes were about the same, so why not use THAT pattern ? Why not a flying Steam Engine shape ( something known to be well proven to most people ) ? Barges/Gondolas with tops/walls/closed-passenger-compartments on them so people WOULDN'T feel like they would fall to their deaths from them ??? ( Oh, that's right, THAT would get in the way of the 'Death From Above' killing leaps you get to do in the game ... )
Angel shaped ? ( Nah, too logical, and wouldn't fit into that story setting - No Way, No How, nope nope nope ... )
Any of *those* there maybe instead of that game-used clunky design, which has significant issues/problems mechanically ( which in hindsight mattered virtually nothing, as too much in Infinite BS is Fantasy. So 'never mind' ... )
"Lets have Zeppelins!!!" ( said at the Denny's design meetings )
"But the whole city is flying and IT doesn't look like a Zeppelin ..."
"But we have to have Zeppelins because people know what they look like."
"Except Zeppelins don't have wings, and are really made of thin cloth and have teeny-tiny passenger cabins underneath, and aren't so small ..."
"Dammit !! Its all powered by Quantum stuff. So Stop DIS'in the idea. We are going to have Zeppelins no matter how stupid they look, "Cuz that cool scene with the rockets streaming out of it."
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Actually, come to think of it - 'Songbird' might've better been of an 'Angel' form ( especially since it was finally reduced largely to non-interactive pre-canned scenes ). The stitched together bat-parrot maybe had less expected connotations and symbolic baggage, AND if they did it poorly then it would clash with what people expected an 'angel' to be. Empathy with Elizabeth ? We didn't see it trying to stuff a giant worm into her mouth...
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Those Horrendous Infinite BS Zeppelins :
You don't need a gasbag anymore ( quantum floaties take care of that function, shouldn't they ?? ). So why is this gasbag shape STILL THERE on those really awful looking things ??
If it was for interior (occupied) spaces, then why no windows and why retain that irregular shape ? Streamlined ? Really ? When those quite oddly placed huge Biplane Wings destroy any/all advantage of the REST of the airship's shaping (( It so easy for 'artists' to lazily just 'glomb-together' existing old-picture things to come up with something "new" for the game setting, but really just results in a rather poor fuster-cluck of a design. ))
Did the Prophet demand that everyone do worship by bouncing on holy trampolines five times a day, and THAT interior volume was REQUIRED to allow that Trampoline use ? ( It might also explain the ridiculous high ceilings EVERYWHERE in Columbia ... )
(( There's Plenty of real stuff on the Internetz from the 1920s/1930s to be intelligently 'retro-futurized', instead of getting 'stuck' on this lame crap 'Zeppelin' idea they unimaginatively perverted into this fantasy stupidity. ))
*Fanboi Head Explosion* Just go and look at the pictures of real world historic stuff to see what I'm talking about.
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Engines/Wings On Those Awful Faux-Zeppelins ? :
REAL Zeppelins needed to be Streamlined to be effective. So seeing huge biplane wings sticking out from the those Infinite BS vehicles set off my *know-nothing-gorp* alarm bells as soon as I saw them. (( It doesn't in the least follow the design practice of the real Airship-maker designs, so the "Going Full Retard" red flag immediately got raised. ))
Because even though they might 'float' (via Quantumz Magic), they still apparently had to be DRIVEN (and controlled) through the air ( wings, rudders, engines with propellers ... ). Real Zeppelins easily seen through those 'Tears' should have shown REAL design solutions ( instead of illogical/impractical 'imaginings' by the image-fixated game developers ).
This fully makes Elizabeth's BS activity of lifting/guiding of Fontaine's Department Store via "Lunette Hook" and "Quantum Particle" similar Dimtardness(tm)/Wwrongness (( OR is that explained by more convenient 'Pinky god power' again ? Magic superpower or magical particle - a feeble story crutch - makes the DLC in OUR Rapture terribly lame - and actually insulting. ))
This brings up the question : HOW Columbia itself moved - Coulda this been done - been nicely shown/elaborated imaginatively in-game ( to the benefit of the game setting and the Players story ) ?? That might have been *IF* Levine's management hadn't f*cked up the whole project, with the rewriting of the game 3 times, and wasting so many available resources -- Leading to serving Third-Rate Dross in the Released game. 
Did these gamemakers make a model of the "Mayflower" when they were kids or something ??? 
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The Baron von Zeppelin hereby demands that you stop using the word 'Zeppelin' in reference to your ungainly and poorly designed flying vehicles. The Zeppelin company's fine products are the result of careful and dedicated design and superior German knowhow, and their proud name cannot IN ANY WAY be allowed to refer to your cobbled together monstrosities.
Cease and Desist or further strong action will be applied to you.
 - Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH" 
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REALITY : Rigid Dirigibles were Amongst the Biggest Failures In History
They did not 'scale' with technological improvements the way airplanes eventually did.
IF they (Comstock et al) could 'look into the future' ( which the writers made a huge deal about in the story ), THEN they would see airplanes whose shape made alot more sense than fake 'Zeppelins', having non-operating/too-small balloon gasbag features AND wings ( all things which actually would make that aircraft design highly inefficient, slow and hard to dock/maneuver ). 
You have this Quantum Floaty-Shit(tm), so WHY NOT USE IT PROPERLY ? ( Still plenty of decades of RETRO-look 'nostalgia' available for doing that ). 
Since they had to reconstruct that one 'First Lady' -- now MINUS the Hydrogen ( feeble story of the previous craft that went up in flames ) - It would have been huge and unwieldy and terribly expensive === as only Governments could afford to build those large airships. Why did Fink/Comstock ( NOT seeing the Hindenburg's 'future' Disaster ?? Or that of the less known R101 Airship ???https://simpleflying.com/r101-british-airship-story/) even build it with Hydrogen IN THE FIRST place ???? ( Duh, we see thing in future - We make em - yada yada ... ) 
So strangely, there was NO Prophesying of the Hindenburg disaster then, or all the OTHER MANY airship disasters ( and we might wonder what else ).Understand, this deficiency is not Fink/Comstock's stupidity/failure, but of the game writers, who just carelessly 'pull stuff out of their collective asses'. 
FLOATY SHIT == EXIST ALREADY ( the whole fricken city floats from the start ... ) You CANNOT make local supply deliveries with biggish Zeppelins in Columbia. Those Barge thingees ( which should have been made REAL-early to assist the construction or EVEN been proof of concept units ... ) - YOU COULD JUST MAKE A BIG ONE OF THOSE - INSTEAD of a 'Zeppelin', NO ?. Derp-type-logic apparently was at work there.
Look not-too-far into the future and you get whole pretty selections of different airplane designs ( which they MIGHT be willing to try after that Lady Kaboom Disaster ( and SERIOUSLY they DIDN'T hunt down the Vox and exterminate them after that ( and that early ? ) ??? A Lame-Arsed Police State -- WHAT the hell are they paying that army of para-militaries for IF they can't destroy miscreants in a city you can't ESCAPE from nor really can't HIDE in for long ??????????? Seriously Pathetic. )
Why stick to this dead-end weirdness WHEN they are also shown developing all kinds of other advanced things ?? Zeppelins WERE NOT common in those years yet anyway -- So there's no real excuse to be retaining them because "people were used to them" ...
"Zeppelin_on_the_Brain" Hmmm, I bet they already had a bunch of artwork made up from the start ( early as when that initial trailer showed that 'Zeppelin' scene ) and they didn't want to redo it - Trying to make it all SteamPunky iconic for their marketing -- WHEN THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN WORKING ON MAKING A BETTER GAME. Ass-backwards thinking which certainly had its obvious result.
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With Crap like this, the Players would WANT to see the whole pack of Cultist Lame-ohs be destroyed with the entire dimwitted defective/evil city crashing and burning -- *THAT* would have been a great "Awesome" scene. Booker pushing the inevitable (requisite) 'Self-Destruct Button control', etc ... THAT Wouldn't have to interfere with all that Comstock Drowning scene claptrap either (( Though Booker exploding on contact with his other self WOULD have been the obvious cliche )).
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The Problem with Balloons is that They Blow All the Hell Around the Place.
We Need a INFINITE-BS_REDO Picture of a twisted and wrecked 'zeppelin' which crashed into Columbia ( at least in the Vox Rebellion scenes ).
One going down in flames with the fleeing Founders ... ( and shrieks of "OH WHY DIDN'T THE FOUNDER FORESEE THIS !!!!" )
Another reason the gasbag shape on the Columbia 'Zeppelins' were so stupid : Their huge unneeded surface area (acting like a sail) WOULD get blown 'All the Fuck Over(tm)' the place ( most critical when taking-off/landing, or when near the ground or navigating ANY tightly constrained space. ) Historic Zeppelins and even the successful Blimps required large ground crews to manage them.
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Combining wings with the Zeppelin Shape - That does not really work so well in real life. 
* Wing Lift is not needed ( with this FloatyShit(tm) ).
* Control 'Flap' Surfaces in the middle of the airframe are ineffective (no leverage)A Zeppelin does not need to 'roll' like airplanes ...
* A simple Strut is good enough for holding the engines in place ( and biplanes all but disappeared in the future Comstock/Fink should have been able to see )
* Wings are a good source of extra unwanted drag. 
* A Cow-Catcher - how quaint Scotty was too polite to say "A Mouse, How Fucking Lame !!!" ... .
That Over-sized cabin structure is too large for gas lift alone to carry - thus Quantumz is employed/required - So it ALL could have a simpler/more-compact/ more-utilitarian shape than this clumsy/ponderous gas-bag-oriented design pattern ( Why keep it with all the examples which SHOULD have been 'Seen in the Future ??????? ). 
The People of Columbia (from the start) did not fly ( nor did anyone who wasn't "crazy" in the public's mind in that era ). So having these vehicles be a 'trusted'/conventional shape would make no sense/purpose. 
But Then ( Logic in this game would probably be pointless ) : We might wonder how early the 'float' stuff was made possible in smaller ( Less-than--city-sized ) things. This WHOLE cockamamie game story makes such all a fool's errand. Your common Steam Punk is far more realistic when it is compared to this Infinite BS tripe. 
They have these weird looking things in the game simply because they didn't want to pay to fix the earlier-created game Assets (with two rewrites), or redo their marketing. That's the biggest reason for this kind of nonsense.
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ZEPPELIN ON THE BRAIN
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WHY Does It Have to Look Like a "Zeppelin" ??
BTW "Zeppelin" is a BRAND NAME of a particular manufacturing company in Germany (most of these type of craft WEREN'T called 'Zeppelins'.
So it is basically a Buzzword ( like "Quantum Physics"/ "Particles" ) to a majority of Players who really just want to Shoot and Blow up Things. Such absurd half-arsed technical nonsense doesn't bode well for a game which at the same time is touting/Hyping itself as "exposing Social Ills of another Era". ( That F$%^ked up Religion weirdness was another stupid/ignorant/contrived aspect. ) If they (the writers) were attempting to portray 'relevancy' to 'American' anything, THEN IT DEFINITELY EARNS THREE FAILZ 
 
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 "Zeppelin" ?? :
These kind of vehicles are actually called "Lighter-Than-Air Ships" and "Dirigibles" ( the real ones, NOT the bastardized quantum floaty-shit ones in the game ).
The "First Lady 1.0 was filled with Hydrogen" and did a 'Hindenburg' ( a story reference about a Vox attack ?? ) 
If so, that's a reference to something with REAL Lighter-Than-Air Ship technology being used IN COLUMBIA ( likely an writer attempt to allude to that famous Disaster - which even the most deepest-basement dwelling Player would recognize ).
IF that (First Lady) earlier hydrogen-filled (realistic) appropriately-sized Airship HAD previously existed, THEN the game's "Aerodrome" would NOT have fit it ( This is what happens when you have writers who don't check/cross reference game story details, and instead just toss things together ).
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Technological Gap Making 'Zeppelins' :
Super lightweight alloys are used for 'Zeppelins' - needed for those (real world) earlier pre-"Quantum Floaty Shit(tm)" airships ( they mention in the Infinite BS game ). Even wood is too heavy for Lighter-Than-Air ships of any real size/capacity/capability). A modern (like by WW1) rigid light-alloy skeleton is required for such a vehicle. Duralumin ( Aluminium-95%, Copper-4%, Magnesium-0.5%, Manganese-0.5% ) was used for REAL Zeppelins. THAT IS Sophisticated Technology that didn't exist yet at Columbia's start ( NOR, like so much else, EVER likely to be developed/produced THERE ).
So this is yet one more material-type thing that Fink/Comstock/whoever would have to invent/obtain/produce to make it happen for the game's story. (( How many hundreds of other Infinite BS game story/plot things are like that ??? Tons of BS was shoveled at the Players. It would have been far simpler ( less stupid-fantasy ) if they had shown the Columbians/Comstock steal all that techno-crap ( ALL the actual too-advanced objects you see in Columbia ) through "Tears", instead of their Bad-Fantasy BS about how they "made it all themselves" AFTER stealing the idea from the Future. ))
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To follow their story : Ideas/developments from the Future (stolen via Tears) unfortunately stopped at some of the most ungainly and clumsy aircraft ever built ( and for 'Airships' WELL BEFORE their furthest development -- Just before they were completely superseded by airplanes ).
Flash Gordon Futurism ( minus the sparkly special-effects exhaust ) would have been a far better advancement on the game's contraptions, which appear to have been designed by a committee of lobotomized idiots.
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Was it all the result of having early ideas shown in Trailers which REQUIRED continuation of an idea that was no longer logical ??? ( The Trailers locked-in certain 'images' they couldn't throw out, but often then minimized from being of any importance : ie- interactions with Songbird replaced with canned cutscenes, or Elizabeth's UNIQUE Tears (player choice) having originally been planned as a much bigger part of the game experience. )
"THEY LOOKED THAT WAY BECAUSE IT WAS WHAT PEOPLE KNEW/UNDERSTOOD AND TRUSTED ????" 
( Oh really ??? Was that the logic ??? Maybe the writers were mistakenly thinking about the 1930s, when Lighter-Than-Air Ships were still giving Heavier-Than-Air-Ships (Airplanes) some serious competition -- When they had actually matured far enough to be useful ) ??
( Why didn't the 'Barges' also look like Zeppelins if it was a matter of people being scared of something new ? OOPS ... )
Zeppelins/Lighter-than-Air ships were well know for their LACK of carrying capacity. When they were improved and actually used for commercial purposes, they were limited to Elite passengers, and mail, and mostly just flown for PRESTIGE -- as their reason for existing).
Since 'Zeppelins' were an anachronism for 1893, and there (apparently) was this "'Tear' Looking into the Future" idea to explain all those other things in Columbia, then WHY NOT look far enuf to get something better for the Floaty vehicle stuff in Columbia ????
* With a 'Quantum BS' floating mechanism you needed no AIRBAG/FLOTATION CELLS any longer
* That Big (vestigial) airbag actually makes moving the craft more inefficient and bothersomely complex and impractically oversized/costly and poor/unwieldy aerodynamically
* Wings ? Who needs wings if you have "Floaty Shit(tm)" to keep the vehicle in the air ( artistic license could have justified something better looking, then )
* Wooden interiors ? How 19th century ...
SO these 'Zeppelins' were the primary transportation used to supply Columbia ??? ( I laugh at THAT idea )
That Unneeded large vehicle size does make them a Nice Big Fat Target for anyone on the ground to shoot at, No ? Covert operations is not a term that can be applied to these things ( and certainly not for routine activity of obtaining/delivering hundreds of tons of supplies to Columbia every week ).
A TINY little capacity to supply a BIG city ? Oops. BUT Then the City sustenance was really magic "Manna" which flowed out of the Great Prophet's Ass ?? Stealing through 'Tears' MIGHT have been a good (and interesting) explanation to solve this issue, and many other things (( But I guess Kenny & Co were more busy perfecting the way the Skyhook weapon bloodily tore a NPC's head off ... ))
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Hell, THIS looked more like A Zeppelin than those Bizarre in-game things.
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Hey, We coulda just had QUANTUMZ TELEPORTATION BOXES in COLUMBIA, and ditched all those pathetic/lame-assed looking transportation vehicles they came up with. ( Sorry, NOT ENOUGH THINKING OUTSIDE OF THE ENVELOPE KENNYBOY ... )
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Around the time of the Columbian Exposition, THIS is the image people had (if they ever saw it) of what 'Lighter Than Air' Craft were. SO Comstock has again tapped into yet ANOTHER universal genius scientist & engineer to bypass decades of effort to actually be able to build something that works ???
(( Just one little side-issue : Fantasy - That of how there can be sudden/unrealistic ability to MAKE things that don't yet existALL the REQUIRED EXISTENCE OF : materials/knowledge/tools/skills/understandings/sources/entire technologies/technical abilities . That seems to happen in this game far too much ( as in constantly, and illogically ). AND worse : Continuing with the same writers-crutch sewage-spill-over into Rapture in BaSx ... employing a now CONVENIENTLY "Great Universal Genius" Dr Suchong. It IS such BS bad writing. ))
In 1901 THIS was what 'Flying' Things stilled looked like to people of that period. There are problems with trying to create objects for a game set in a period. It is easy to make flawed things ( like in Infinite BS ) which just are wrong or 'make no sense'. 
* Some elements are archaic for proposed current period (ie- 1893) - the Neo-Classic theme of the 1893 Exposition already was old, and 'Horse' anything was thought utterly backward.
* Others try to be Futuristic (for that time), but pick things that were utter failures, and then are put together physically bad ( and for 'Looked into the Future' Comstock/Fink, they easily could have looked a few years 'further on' for better choices ).
* In that game there is a 20 year span of World changes that also was not reflected. (???) The game writers might claim "They're Reactionary, Duh!!", But Then how could the same reactionary inhabitants stomach so many hugely new and strange things all around them in Columbia ?? You CANNOT Have it Both Ways (be contradictory) with such opposing extremisms in such a small place.
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Adheres to "The Laws Of Physics" FAR more than Infinite BS and its "Wave of the hand" fantasy ( You See, people by that date had seen the Wright Brothers craft and other real aeroplanes ).
Its windows look odd because they are more typical of those on Railroad Passenger cars of that day - more than ocean liner portholes which other artists used.
I find the one huge propeller in front funny - with passenger windows immediately around it indicating that the artists didn't understand that's where some huge engine should go.
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With FloatyShit(tm), Columbia aircraft DON'T HAVE TO LOOK LIKE ZEPPELINS - SO WHY DO THEY ? :
Despite alleged looking into the future, Columbia had so many designs which were throwbacks -- and WORSE : cobbled-together messes ( were they assets never changed from earlier game development when it was more SteamPunky ?? ). We get a bunch of candy-coated illogical tripe, which showed that the game designers did NOT actually know much about Airships, nor how they are handled, nor how limited they are.
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So, In Summary :
The game's Technical Details were shit ( to go along similarly with the same kind of poor/fake/PC 'historic' and 'religion' and 'American' elements in creating this hack game presentation ). It all was just a poorly done patched together facade to instill some kind of 'nostalgia view' ( a key popular element of the 2 previous BioShock games ). I really can't judge which element in Infinite BS was more Fantasy than the others -- all of which made it a poor reflection of the previous games, which at least attempted to be Science Fiction.
Sequel-itus ... ( an attempt to cheaply Cash In on something previously successful, but most often being a poor/flawed/downright-faulty reflection/regurgitation/copy ).
ALL Those High marks/scores/gradings from the various game mags : You need to take THAT with a grain of salt when those 'mags'/Websites get LOTS of advertising money from Infinite BS's parent game company ( possibly explains WHY half the entire REAL budget went to 'Marketing' and Promotion, rather than to better game development ). Independent Reviewers ( who are NOT required to be commercially biased ass-lickers ) had ALOT to say about the SIGNIFICANT deficiencies of Infinite BS ( and its Burial_at_Sea DLC follow-on ).
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More Clever Contraptions (Artists Concepts) : 
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So was the game's '3D' asset (at the very top) mostly a dumbed-down/simplified object ( It now being just incidental to the Plot/Player experience ?? ) drawn so crudely to appease a limited '3D' Rendering budget ( They have to target Players with as 'low end' a computer/graphics capability as possible - so to be able to maximize the Sales $$$ ). Were Limitations of the "game engine" ( the third party software they chose ) likewise problematic -- Limiting it to an unrealistic Hummel Figurine quality detailed assets ???
Zeppelins gave Airplanes 'a run for their money' in those early days, and there was significant public interest in both. Strange that this restaurant looks more airworthy than those weird-assed things the Infinite BS game designers came up with.
Lakehurst Air Station and a REAL Lighter-Than-Air Ship. See how the landing area is circular to allow the Dirigible to land ANY DIRECTION into the wind ( where it had some control ), to docked at its Mooring Tower. The Infinite BS game designers somehow thought you could park those 'Quantumz' floaty 'Zeppelins' into their dinky dock like a van pulling up next to a building. Too damn Clueless. The Problem with big voluminous things is : The wind blows them every which way, Constantly. Walking the streets in Columbia in a storm would be bad enough. Airship maneuvering is a thousand times harder.
Sad factoid in game is the earlier/first "First Lady" "Zeppelin", being Hydrogen filled , and burning during a Vox Terrorist attack -- SEEMS to want a cheapo link to Player known incidents like the Hindenburg Disaster ( BTW shouldn't The Prophet have foreseen the risk ?? ) Also, I though the story had the Vox not being violent at first ... ( a serious need to cross check story there, Kennyboi ). Also A hydrogen filled airship would be just like a real Dirigible ( a really BIG Gas Bag is required for it ), and needing a Aerodrome like *THIS* one to actually work. 
Having "Lady" Comstock climb a ladder to get into a moored dirigible probably wasn't 'ladylike'. Shouldn't they have had Floaty-Shit(tm) vehicles from the very first for Columbia ( You would think the US Government would thoroughly test 'floating' on SMALL things FIRST. THEM 'DOING THAT' LOOOONG before a botched installation of a floaty city block fell-from-the-sky somewhere inconveniently, and the whole project got Canceled when 'Lawyers got Involved', and the scared politicians abandoned the whole FUBAR fiasco ).''
Custer Fluck of Absurdity - apparently the game designers WERE NOT ABLE to break out of their mental trap. They had Zeppelin on the Brain, and floated off into Infinite stupidity. Explained elsewhere : Why there was no reason anything that flew in Columbia had to look like a Dirigible, and many reasons why they shouldn't. (( In so many infinite parallel universes, it was done right and logical, but unfortunately OURs was not one of those. ))
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== NEED TO ADD THE BRICK ZEPPELIN ( here and link from Humor )==
With all my commentaries about building brick flying cities and the weird impractical Dirigible vehicles ( when you have FloatyShit(tm) to do something far niftier ), I see no reason why they couldn't have built the 'zeppelins' out of Brick and Mortar.
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The Soviets seem to also have had Zeppelin on the Brain. This one is ridiculous because there isn't enough volume of that gas stuff which makes it 'Lighter-than-Air' ( a rather strict physical law requirement ). Instead, all that overly heavy stuff is stuffed inside that nice aerodynamic shape ( shape being the thing the Infinite BS artists/designers never figured out as being the main attribute of EVERY DIRIGIBLE ever designed ). That is even with their FloatyShit(tm) magic totally alleviating the need for a gasbag component ( and them keeping it anyway for some reason), and a need for it to have that overall shape to work properly as a traveling air vehicle. 
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Unfortunately for the Players, things seen in those Promotional Trailers (like this) would have been a much better game ( but then you need to realize they couldn't have delivered it anyway. Too much talk, too little production ).
This thing looks Pre-Quantumz, with a reasonable looking mechanism --- Even though the gasbag part of it is still 12 X too small. But then, having realistic 'Zeppelins', they would dwarf much of Columbia, and the gamemakers wanted you to see all those pretty cloud draped vistas.
The stupid thing is : After they could make hunks of land and brick FLOAT via Quantumz, their vehicles STILL retained that "gasbag" element/shaping/profile, when it obviously was then irrelevant. (( That's what happens when you show too much promotional footage, and Later can no longer discard the images you started out with - after you rewrite the game story/plot for the third time. ))
Also compare the art/coloring on this pix, and compare with ones (top of page) used in the game. The creepy garish toy look came in which matched all the buildings and various other props of the delivered game.
Consider that the long-distance vehicles for Infinite BS could have looked MORE like this, retaining the essence of a 'Zeppelin' but becoming more modern looking to reflect those 'stolen technologies'. Aerodynamic/streamline like a REAL Zeppelin, not some throwback that was a clunky clumsy mutated mess. If they still wanted the porcelain toy figurine look and those awful optical effects, then gold plate the thing ( like those ridiculously huge statues already were ). Giant Flying Angels ?? How could they miss that ???
Just another diagram showing what a REAL dirigible/airship is, and its NOT being like that weird crap the game designers thought they were.
If you no longer need the gasbag, why constrain yourself to still HAVING the gasbag ?? At least in old Sci-Fi in the 1930s, the 'zeppelin'-shaped craft used the entire shape for a hull ( evidenced by windows all over ), indicating THEY understood it was the streamlined SHAPE advantageous to an aircraft ( versus Infinite BS who never got past the old mental limitations, and were stuck on the pre-quantum-bullshit promotional images ).
Add a little imagination (and research) and Viola, something that doesn't look instantly idiotic. Seriously wasn't part of the story stealing stuff from the future ???
Very sad that they got stuck on that image and had them be so badly done in the game.
Real Zeppelins are HUGE. And the buildings they are built in, and repaired in, and parked in are even HUGER!!!
America built Zeppelins also ( NOTE HOW HUGE THE HANGAR IS ). As small as the 'zeppelins' were in Infinite BS, their hangars would still have been larger -- IF there were any to be seen. ( Realism wasn't the point .... Oh, then WHY all the handwringing over 'Social Ills' ??? )
Real Zeppelins ( like other flying craft ) were streamlined.
Zeppelin concepts being applied to Trains (in 30s)
Just 20 years later ... Doesn't look like a Zeppelin, and is BIG enuf to have an ARENA BATTLE in !!!!
Hindenburg's lightweight construction - NO quantum bullshit required. What a real floating Columbia could have been built like ( sorry no brick buildings ). Unfortunately it required hanging under a Balloon the size of the Astro-DomeAstro-Dome - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Astrodome per city 'block'.
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What these things COULD have looked like with a 'little bit of' real iImaginations, and less Ignorance. That 'Quantumz' obviated the need for a gasbag, AND THE CLUMSY SHAPE - AS IF IT STILL USED A GASBAG from flying craft.
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Zeppelins NEED Masts/Hangars to "Moor" At :
SO one of the problems of those horribly designed things in Infinite BS, even with a much smaller body ( no gasbags being needed cuz of that magic FloatyShit(tm) Quantum BS ) is that : Wind hits that big broad side and the whole thing wants to travel that direction now, with alot of force in strong wind. Half exposed then it wants to turn and rip itself to shreds on anything it brushes against.
It even was (is) a problem with Ocean Liners (that huge flat side) at dock ( Wind can push the Ship sideways, hence Anchors being REALLY important ).
Unless this quantumz magic can also control the wind gusts, then what the game shows is unworkable and almost certainly a disaster waiting to happen ( You don't have to be filled with flammable hydrogen to be a safety hazard ). (( again - Don't Ever Let Artists Design Anything Your Life Depends On )) 
Imagine those weird anti-gravity/whatever 'zeppelins', the game artists contrived, swinging wildly into adjacent buildings -- even tearing loose their restraints in gusts/high winds ( Why do you think there were those HUGE airship hangars with doors that closed in the FRINKEN REAL WORLD ??? ) and destroying themselves very quickly.
Too bad the game got stuck with those no-longer-logical 'Zeppelins' ( too many Game Promotionals showing them, too early ), and did not instead leverage the ACTUAL STORY'S Sci-Fi Concept to have lots more Modern things ( All those OTHER things, throughout the game, possibly via the Tear Concept Seen/Copied/Mod'd from SEEING the Future ... )
Note -- A 'Mast' is designed to moor the Airship and allows it to swing with the wind direction. More secure stationary mooring requires a huge protective Hangar, with HUGE doors that close and keep winds out.
"Half an Idea is the Territory of the Ignoramus and Dim Minds" - Blaise Pascal
"Any Moron can come up with Half an Idea" - Walt Disney
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Beratement of Stupidity of Infinite BS 'Zeppelins' :
The quite large ground crew being needed ( Real World) to handle these monstrosities( not the flight crew - that took a somewhat smaller but even more well trained crew ) -- just to land the thing ( and tying them down and servicing them in the enormous facilities they required ).
THERE IS ACTUALLY A PARALLEL OF INEFFECTIVENESS/OVERBLOATED IMPRACTICALNESS BETWEEN THESE 'DIRIGIBLES' IN 
COLUMBIA WITH THE BATHYSPHERES IN RAPTURE ( The Aussie Developers at least made THOSE AE Trains in BS2 )
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The game's earlier Steam Punk theme mutated into FloatyShit(tm) Quantum whatever. I suppose the game company had already done the (already abominable) game assets as 'Zeppelins', and didn't care enuf to change them to something better-fitting the new Fantasy game theme (like this picture).
THIS imagined thing obviously uses something else to lift itself ( those umbrella-like things ), and isn't encumbered by a bloated/cumbersome balloon shape any longer.
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Idiocy Added to Laziness - Complex Auto Pilot on a Zeppelin ?? : 
I Guess Quantumz Can Do Anything ...
Just set the autopilot coordinates for Paris ...
Another technical Fantasy which makes the game pretty 'plain dim' ( when the writers assume too much ) - An incredible ignorance of the technological abilities which existed at that time (and even today), and the Players 'Not having a Clue' how wrong it all is ( for a game that loudly touted 'science' in its endless interview 'self-back-patting' ).
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Iconic Fiery Crash Hindenburg ...
So the First "First Lady" Airship was Hydrogen ? Must've been huge. AND such a HUGE bag of hydrogen burning at Columbia would have set a whole section of Columbia on fire ( and scared the population AWAY from wanting any kind of Zeppelins in the future ).
Doesn't make sense if quantumz FloatyShit(tm) was ALREADY in use to make Columbia(1893) float, and be needed for lesser floating craft ( Hmm, A Spy Thriller about one of the floaty barges being stolen by foreign spies - Yet another Alternate Alternate idea for us to reconstitute ).
Somewhere in the Infinite BS game there is the little detail tossed in : The 'First' "First Lady" (Lady Comstock) Airship being filled with Hydrogen and having a disaster ( alluding to The Hindenburg Disaster ). And the subsequently built ones thus being 'different'.
BUT WHY should that have ever happened ??? Comstock didn't 'Look' into the future ( to see the most Iconic air disaster so far even today ... ) to see such a craft was a very BAD IDEA ??? Wasn't the Floatyshit(tm) Quantum stuff working yet ? It pretty much had to be for Columbia to float, and for any small air vehicles Columbia used to likewise exist to service/supply it when finished.
Another of the 'just toss it in to look clever' thing done by the sloppy writers.
YES, Imagine the picture above happening next to Columbia - setting half the floating asylum on fire...
(Real World) Airships filled with Hydrogen have to be BIG (enormous actually) to have ANY capacity - something probably required if the "First Lady" wasn't to be some pathetic joke. It does not have to be anywhere as large as the Hindenburg, but would still effectively be a LARGE balloon of highly flammible hydrogen gas, just waiting for a mistake/accident to immolate a chunk of Columbia.
Great idea to make Columbia's later 'Zeppelins' look alot like something filled with hydrogen again/still.
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I suppose that 'Lady' idea itself NEVER struck the writers as being quite UN-American - creating a Queen figure ( Americans named their DOGS 'Lady' and 'Queen' ). But with the whole Cult of Comstock stupidity already in the game, what's another total divestiture from reality ????
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"Mooring Mast Much" ? The game designers also seem to have lost that concept - the necessary device for actually operating such vehicles ( along with the huge open field ALL Airships require ).
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None of the Advantages of SteamPunk nor Quantum Tech Capabilities :
One other reason to NOT have the games 'Zeppelins' look that cobbled together mess : Streamlined, they could instead of doing only 50 mph, could be made to go many times that speed. ( Just look forward to 'AIRPLANES' mere decades further along for the WINNER of aircraft design INSTEAD of picking the LOSER. ) 
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Its too bad the Infinite BS game designers got stuck on 'Zeppelin', as we could have had somewhat neater looking things like this ( with the airbag gone because of 'Quantumz', the design is freed up more than a little ). With whole futures of designs to see ( through Tears) it was unimaginative to keep the shape ( AND strangely ADD encumbering/ineffective wings ) as to actually be a throwback to even before 1893.
Nice Art Nouveau curves ... Much more pleasing than those cheap squared models used in the game.
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Cattle Intestine For The New Eden ? :
Early Zeppelins used cattle intestines ( the thin membrane - strong, light, and largely impermeable to hydrogen gas molecules ) to form their internal hydrogen gasbags ( flexible gas-proof plastics did not exist yet ). Germans during WW1 largely stopped eating sausages just to have enough intestine material to make a few dozen War Zeppelins(250,000 cows each). Consider how big (in surface) these REAL airship gasbags needed to be -- to understand : It is actually taking a whole country's output of that material.
So consider that original "The First Lady" ( the airship that blew up in the story ) being made -- Potentially causing a hotdog shortage in the Midwest ... ( Sorry No Magiks allowed THERE apparently ). That is besides the point : that Comstock could have never built one large enough or sophisticated enough, as it took major nations to afford them ( a point about MOST of Columbia as well ).
Remember that weird-ass lighthouse-rocket thing that took you to Columbia ?? Why on earth are they THEN still using something as historically failing as Zeppelins ??? The Promotional Image Baggage Trap
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Rigid Lighter-Than-Air Airships, because of their gasbag size, had serious problems with winds and weather https://www.airships.net/us-navy-rigid-airships/uss-los-angeles/ ( So many were torn apart and/or crashed in bad weather ). Comstock was NOT very good at 'prophesying' if THIS was the design he chose for the flying vehicles WHICH DID NOT NEED TO BE THAT SHAPE'. But "Steampunk" genre WAS part of the sales job done on the Players.
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REALISM :
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==Getting Stuck on Steampunk Dirigibles was more due to Cliche 'Recognition' by Players for Game Advertising Purposes ($$$) ==
It was only one aspect of how the game was hamstrung, and showed the weakness of the gamemaker's innovativeness.
 "Money is the Bain of Good Art" - Monet
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GOOGLE "R101 Disaster" ...
Comstock/Fink WERE Really Lazy About Looking Into The Future.
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The Term "Winging It" implies : Just making Assumptions, Irregardless of any "Way Things Real Work" - Being HACKS ...
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