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Unofficial off-size list


IronCretin

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I've noticed that a lot of mods use extra sizes besides the stock ones. This is great, and adds a huge amount of flexibility. However, besides a few like 1.875m and 5m, a lot of them are ill-defined, and other aspects, like node size and bulkhead profiles, are even more poorly standardized, and there is often little consistency.

Size Scale Diameter Real-life Bulkhead Node Size
  0.1 0.125 0.2   0
Size 00 0.25 0.3125 0.5 size00 0
Size 0 0.5 0.625 1 size0 0
Size 0.5 0.75 0.9375 1.5 size0p5 0
Size 1 1 1.25 2 size1 1
Size 1.2 1.2 1.5 2.4 size1p2 1
Size 1.5 1.5 1.875 3 size1p5 2
Size 2 2 2.5 4 size2 2
Size 2.5 2.5 3.125 5 size2p5 3
Size 3 3 3.75 6 size3 3
Size 3.5 3 3.75 6 size3p5 4
Size 4 4 5 8 size4 4
Size 4.5 4.5 5.625 9 size4p5 5
Size 5 5 6.25 10 size5 5
Size 6 6 7.5 12 size6 6
Size 7 7 8.75 14 size7 7
Size 8 8 10 16 size8 8

Google Sheet

Please let me know if I missed anything. I'd like to make this reference list as complete as possible.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

As self-proclaimed 'bulkheadProfiler', I disagree with your larger size categories. :wink:

When I defined the bulkhead profiles for Filter Extension (compact list here), I chose to make the boundaries for the size categories a geometric progression rather than arithmetic.  Consider the 23m Sea Dragon.  Under your system, that would be classified as a size 18 (22.5 m).  Now suppose that I want to launch even bigger payloads than the Sea Dragon could carry.  It wouldn't make sense to go to the trouble of development, testing, and manufacturing a rocket that's only 1.25 m larger (size 19, 23.75 m), because that would only offer a small percentage improvement in performance.  (Obviously, we don't need to do 'real engineering' to make parts in KSP, but there's still non-trivial effort in making new models and such.)  It's only economical to develop a new line of parts if they are substantially larger (or otherwise more capable) than parts already on the market, and an arithmetic progression just runs out of steam.

On the other hand, if each new part size is made 33% or 50% bigger than the size before it, then each step is meaningful, without being negligible or excessive.  This is why I like 1.875m parts, like HGR and MOLE and the new DLC, and also why I had the sizes skip from 5 to 7.5 to 10 meters.  (Obviously, nobody's forcing parts to only be made in those sizes.  I guess it's to their creator's discretion as to whether they'd rather 'round up' or 'round down' in their bulkheadProfiles.)

Of course, the absolute size also matters -- we can follow the geometric scale backwards to negative infinity (size000, size0000...), but pretty soon parts get too small to be viable in the game and the differences between sizes start to get negligible, so I'm okay with skipping the 0.46875 m "size 00p5", and I'd also be okay with skipping 0.9375 m / size0p5 and 1.5 m / size1p2, but I see that parts already exist in those sizes and use those bulkheadProfiles.  (I'll add them to my 'to-do' list for Filter Extension.)

Edited by Kerbas_ad_astra
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Now that I've started playing around with icons, I'm pretty happy with size0p5 and size1p2, but I'm less happy with size2p5, and size4p5 is not going to happen.  There's no room to grow the ring, so the size 4+ icons are all the largest possible ring, plus a number in the middle (have been for years).  One digit works great, two is tight but viable (in case somebody makes a massive 60m part and wants a 'size10' category), but two digits plus a decimal point is just ugly.  Additionally, I don't think 5.625 is different enough from 5 to call out in a discrete category.  As the number of meters grows larger, so does the number of possible viable part sizes; at that point, I don't see the bulkhead profiles as discrete, Platonic sizes so much as 'size classes'.  (I might argue the same for size1p2 vs size1p5, but I'm happy enough with the icon to let that one slide.  If the size2p5 icon tests poorly, I would likewise suggest stuffing those parts into size3.)

Can folks tell at a glance which icon is which size here?  That's pretty much the ultimate test:

bzCEx3R.png

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Most of the sizes I've used are used in mods. a lot of them scale very well to certain historical rockets. 0.9375m, 3.125m and 5.625 are all used in Bluedog Design Bureau for various rockets and stages. For example, the Delta IV, S-IV, and Ares 1 all scale to 3125m, and the Agena stages scale very well to 0.9375m.

Edited by IronCretin
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I went back and tried to make a "size4p2" icon (analogous to size1p2 = 1.5 meters -- since size4 is 5 meters, size5 is 7.5 meters, size4p5 should be 6.25, so 5.625 has to be less than that, and size5p2 is about right -- I guess technically it should be size4p25, but there's no way I'm fitting another digit in the icon).

KFCXeAI.png

I'm still not totally happy with it, because I'm working on optimizing the spacing of the smaller digit (and whether or not to include a decimal point).  Thoughts?

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On 4/3/2017 at 7:04 PM, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

One digit works great, two is tight but viable (in case somebody makes a massive 60m part and wants a 'size10' category)

*pushes up glasses* But clearly 60m would be size11...

Size	Diam    Increase	
00	0.3125		
0	0.6250	0.3125	100%
0p5	0.9375	0.3125	50%
1	1.2500	0.3125	33%
1p5	1.8750	0.6250	50%
2	2.5000	0.6250	33%
3	3.7500	1.2500	50%
4	5.0000	1.2500	33%
5	7.5000	2.5000	50%
6	10.0000	2.5000	33%
7	15.0000	5.0000	50%
8	20.0000	5.0000	33%
9	30.0000	10.0000	50%
10	40.0000	10.0000	33%
11	60.0000	20.0000	50%

On a more serious note, thanks for your bulkheadProfiling work.

It's interesting to see how usage drops off in progressively larger sizes - 3.75m capsules aren't uncommon, which means there are some mods with 5m launchers, but not very many with 7.5m, and @NecroBones is the only person I know of who's working on 10m+ packs. As that's approximately the size of the largest rockets ever successfully flown in the real world, hopefully we won't need to bust out size9+ profiles anytime soon.

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(Yeah, I might have missed a count.)

I don't know of any other 7+ meter parts in active development, but @greystork's Behemoth Aerospace Engineering had 5, 7.5, and 10 meter parts back in the 1.0.x days.  In fact, I believe it was the first mod to define size5 to be 7.5 meters and size6 to be 10 meters.  (The BFE-5000 was comparable in size, but it predated the introduction of bulkheadProfiles, and it was in a class of its own anyway.)

@CobaltWolf, what do you think of labeling 5.625 meters as size4p2 (size5 is 7.5 m, thus size4p5 'should' be 6.25 m...and technically 5.625 meters would be size 4.25, but even squeezing in one extra digit is kinda tight)?  And for the icon, better 1 or better 2?

lWt9EvR.pngKFCXeAI.png

 

 

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On 4/3/2017 at 7:04 PM, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

Can folks tell at a glance which icon is which size here?  That's pretty much the ultimate test:

I can't, but I'm bad with glyphs. And for me if you're putting numbers on the icon that represent something other than the actual diameter it's not really helping. I see "4" and think 4 meter.

The size4p5 for 5.625 comes from size = diameter / 1.25. I think beyond size 4 where that method diverges from the 50%/33% progression it might make more sense to drop the precision and group similarly sized parts together. Are there so many 5m to 7.499m parts out there that lumping them all under size4 would be a problem?

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