Bored 3D Modeler looking for a challenge..

[griffin247]

Replicas of real world stuff, like the Space Launch System (SLS) or the Dream Chaser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser)

There are a few of us using other mods to make SLS. Also the dream chaser is so old its the craft that the six million dollor man crashed in before he was made into the bionic man. It crashed cause it wunt glide or fly and he lost crontol of it.

[Cryocasm]

there are a few of us using other mods to make sls. also the dream chaser is so old its the craft that the six million dollor man crashed in before he was made into the bionic man. It crashed cause it wunt glide or fly and he lost crontol of it.

now thats kerbal!

Also the Dream Chaser is a fairly new development, but the reference is quite amusing.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Cryocasm

[griffin247]

now thats kerbal!

Also the Dream Chaser is a fairly new development, but the reference is quite amusing.

well if you look on youtube for the first episode of six million dollar man ( hate think how much that is in todays money) you will see the ship he pilots and crashes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdM64zekOAk

and the real life crash in the same ship here

yes the pilot lived Edited April 21, 2013 by griffin247

[Panichio]

Tall order if you are planning on modelling all of those ideas. I think what KSP needs is just generally larger parts. I don't really like the look of typical lifters in KSP because they end up being very wide with all the radial tanks you need. The 'Jool V Heavy Launcher' is a good example of a very useful set of parts.

[czokletmuss]

I am fairly good with blender, suck terribly at paint.net, but am encouraged to make some really KERBAL parts. The big question is, what should I do first? I'm mainly looking at reducing parts and retaining stats

Maybe this?

VASIMR engine. More info in the addon request thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25354-REQUEST-VASIMR-engine

[iDan122]

Make a decent module like in da movie "The red planet", hope you know how to make airbags!

[ialdabaoth]

I like those ships from Halo, the problem is less getting through copyright and remodeling it, and more how an accurately sized replica (sized to Kerbal proportions) would even get off Kerbin. This ship is fusion powered and has drive technologies well beyond that of KSP, where rockets barely heave some stupendously heavy thing to orbit and have to adjust speed through pro/retrograde burns rather than magically simply stopping acceleration like the Halo ships manage to. I like the idea, but its kind of hard to execute as you can't really turn around the Pillar of Autumn on the dime needed to quickly retroburn to circularize.

Ooo, Biodomes with TREES (not those tall plants outside).

Well the Orion Plate wouldn't be too hard, but I have no idea of how to go about it, and when/how should we start this joint project you proposed?

Well, I'm using KSP to learn Unity modding while I'm out of work, so I'm available any time.

I think the Orion plate would be best done as a single animated 'engine' part plus a magazine drum 'fuel' part; the engine part should have a top attachment point and NO bottom attachment point (unless you want whatever's on the bottom utterly vaporized).

The top of the Orion plate would be a .5m tall, 3m diameter cylinder with a magazine of pellets on the bottom; then below that four very, very large hydraulic shock absorber pistons, with a scaffolding tube in between them that connects to the plate itself, which is a 10m diameter, VERY flattened cone or parabola that looks like it was cast out of a single piece of hardened steel or tungsten. A tiny hole in the center of the plate lines up with the scaffolding tube, which animates to drop a little cylindrical pellet through.

The cfg file will essentially define a solid rocket engine with a burn duration of 0.1s and a thrust of a few billion kiloNewtons, that replenishes its "fuel" supply from the magazine part every time the animation cycles. Once we've got that part working, I'll work on the actual code, which will be pretty simple - we're just adding a new ThrustFX type that renders explosions instead of exhaust particle streams, and finding out exactly how big of an explosion the game will allow us to render.

[griffin247]

so was i right?

[Technical Ben]

Plasma thrusters (similar to Ion thrusters) have generally no power but extreme amounts of Isp, so they aren't cheaty at all considering their lengthy acceleration times. I'll add Plasma thrusters to the list in the .5M (for tiny) and 1M categories, as well as an Ion thruster in the 1M size. The question is if its worth having a whole individual fuel for these thrusters, as Plasma thrusters operate on noble gases similar to Ion thrusters, however instead of electrostatic propulsion, electromagnetic propulsion is performed. I'll have a look

Yeah, I think changing it for aesthetic/practical reasons in the KSP universe is fine. As it's based on real world physics, I know it's not a "cheat" too.

No idea if they offer the same ISP as the ion engines, but they do look nice. So it's deciding how to differentiate them from the rest. Perhaps only 1m sizes? That way the ion drives and plasma drives do not make each other redundant?

[Cryocasm]

Maybe this?

VASIMR engine. More info in the addon request thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25354-REQUEST-VASIMR-engine

So more push costing more electrical energy. I'll look into this "Super Ion Thruster" as well. We seriously need 1M high Isp engines.

Tall order if you are planning on modelling all of those ideas. I think what KSP needs is just generally larger parts. I don't really like the look of typical lifters in KSP because they end up being very wide with all the radial tanks you need. The 'Jool V Heavy Launcher' is a good example of a very useful set of parts.

I discovered Soviet Launch vehicles while browsing Wikipedia, so an Analog to the Saturn V will be planned.

--> Adding Saturn V analogous vehicle.

Make a decent module like in da movie "The red planet", hope you know how to make airbags!

I will look into making airbags, I have my own interests in using them for Duna landings.

Yeah, I think changing it for aesthetic/practical reasons in the KSP universe is fine. As it's based on real world physics, I know it's not a "cheat" too.

No idea if they offer the same ISP as the ion engines, but they do look nice. So it's deciding how to differentiate them from the rest. Perhaps only 1m sizes? That way the ion drives and plasma drives do not make each other redundant?

Its impossible for them to make each other redundant. The Plasma Thruster simply offers more puuuuuuush. This costs more power. Meaning when your making your design choices, you must decide between less push and less power required and more push at the cost of more power. As this is an addon pack hopefully introducing these thrusters, I may make a Micro Nuclear Reactor to supply the Plasma Thrusters with power, this comes at the cost of weight for the "Super RTG".

--> adding MNR, basically x100 the output of an RTG, coupled with more weight.

Well, I'm using KSP to learn Unity modding while I'm out of work, so I'm available any time.

I think the Orion plate would be best done as a single animated 'engine' part plus a magazine drum 'fuel' part; the engine part should have a top attachment point and NO bottom attachment point (unless you want whatever's on the bottom utterly vaporized).

The top of the Orion plate would be a .5m tall, 3m diameter cylinder with a magazine of pellets on the bottom; then below that four very, very large hydraulic shock absorber pistons, with a scaffolding tube in between them that connects to the plate itself, which is a 10m diameter, VERY flattened cone or parabola that looks like it was cast out of a single piece of hardened steel or tungsten. A tiny hole in the center of the plate lines up with the scaffolding tube, which animates to drop a little cylindrical pellet through.

The cfg file will essentially define a solid rocket engine with a burn duration of 0.1s and a thrust of a few billion kiloNewtons, that replenishes its "fuel" supply from the magazine part every time the animation cycles. Once we've got that part working, I'll work on the actual code, which will be pretty simple - we're just adding a new ThrustFX type that renders explosions instead of exhaust particle streams, and finding out exactly how big of an explosion the game will allow us to render.

I'm a bit shrouded on the exact limitations of the DevKit and the game itself without a plugin, are you 100% sure its possible to do this without external code? I also have this odd feeling that "1 billion kN" aka 1 Teranewton (currently practically unmatched even in explosive/propulsive power) would utterly rape the rocket apart rather than propel it, this simply because 100 ms is enough to impart the massive multi-G forces on the craft, meaning the shock absorbing code must really work and really defend the craft, otherwise (this requires lots of testing as you mentioned) we'd have to tone down the thrust but up the number of pellets, equaling the same effective delta-V, but more "applicable".

So I'm going to do some math here:

So lets use the Tsar Bomba (a 50 megaton nuclear device in its detonated version), producing 210 Petajoules, following W = N * m, we find that (using the bomb's length here as its the highest value in meters) 8 meters for m and 210 PJ for W (210,000,000,000,000,000 Joules) N = W/m so N = 210PJ / 8 = 26,250,000,000,000,000 Newtons, (aka 26.250 Petanewtons.) Seeing that previously 1 Teranewton was proposed, we overshot by x26250 using the Tsar Bomba, which weighed 27000 Kilograms. Moving onwards:

Newtons: 1 Teranewton

Weight of Charge: 1028.5 Grams. (if we use the raw weight (including shell and non-reaction-fuel components of the Tsar Bomb))

A charge weight of 1 Kilogram is very low, as well as the fact that nuclear reactions due to their chain-reaction nature are exponential, especially when uncontrolled, meaning we must increase charge weight to 10 Kilograms, while keeping an output of 1 Teranewton. Lets do more math:

Assuming our charge is cylindrical, 50% of it is immediately lost (if it isn't a shape charge) because its facing away from the craft. A further 17% (50/3) are lost because, while pointing at prograde, the blast expands without touching the blast shield. Another 17% are lost because while hitting the blast shield, the angle isn't sufficient to impart acceleration and instead imparts rotary force. Of these lost 17% roughly 66% (meaning 11% of the initial charge power) is recovered, due to the blast being layered by later arriving particles and trapping those particles which were initially to bounce off. This leaves us with 0.27 (27%) of the previous Teranewton, lets apply a final bit of math to find out final imparted prograde force:

0.27 * 1,000,000,000,000 = 270,000,000,000 = 270 Giganewtons of force slamming the blast shield. Due to the shock absorbing assembly and the blast shield, effectively 50% of this is lost, because the force is simply terminated via hydraulics and springs. This leaves us with 135 Giganewtons reaching the tip of the spacecraft. Now these are Earth Proportions, so we must reduce them properly to Kerbal Proportions (aka 1 Real Meter = 10.63 (simplified 10) InGame Kerbal Meters), this means we must divide by 10:

13.5 Giganewtons are imparted on the ship effectively. In Kerbal Proportions the empty ship would have 10,000 Tons, meaning our thrust weight (calculated in KiloNewtons to Tons, like the game does) lies at 13,500,000 / 10,000 = 1,350. This is unrivaled and in the ranges of x1000 to x250 of most KSP craft currently even able to be created. However, 13.5 GN and 10 Kilotons of weight really push the engine to its limits, as these numbers are gigantic.

TL;DR = TWR of 1350, Pushing the game beyond its limits probably.

//Just a brief note, the top of this reply post is so short because half of it got deleted due to a browser crash, if you want a more formulated opinion please request it, as I couldn't be forced into rewriting everything. I'm glad my applied classical physics dissertation was written after the crash.

[czokletmuss]

So more push costing more electrical energy. I'll look into this "Super Ion Thruster" as well. We seriously need 1M high Isp engines.

VASIMR is an electormagnetic, not electrostatic (like ions are) engine but I agree - something between the ion engine and the LV-N woud be cool

[Cryocasm]

VASIMR is an electormagnetic, not electrostatic (like ions are) engine but I agree - something between the ion engine and the LV-N woud be cool

I stand corrected, its a Super Plasma Thruster.

[Camacha]

I would absolutely love inflatable/deflatable lander cushions like on the MER landers. Ideally they would actually bounce and fit on the small structural panel, so one could build pods with those. Their footprint would be square instead of triangular. I've looked into doing this myself, but realistically I don't see that happening.

At the 3:18 mark:

[ialdabaoth]

TL;DR = TWR of 1350, Pushing the game beyond its limits probably.

Heh. Science!

Although increasing the weight of the engine will lower the TWR, while still keeping the system very favorable - since the weight of the rest of the vehicle will be tiny by comparison, no matter WHAT gets piled onto it.

[ummwut]

I have two parts I'm thinking about making, just to dip my toes into plugin programming. However, I can't figure out blender for my life :/

The first is an "instantaneous velocity modifier" - it changes the velocity of the ship in an instant at the cost of a huge amount of electricity. I was thinking that it should be a long tube, gold-bronze in color with silver trimming, and black designs all over, and the black designs should sink in slightly so light reflection off the designs will be interesting. Size identical to a FL-T800 fuel tank, and the mass is planned to be about 50 (to match density of battery parts), but besides that, make it look as weird as you feel it needs to be.

The second is a "warp field generator" - it changes it's own mass, at the cost of a constant draw of electricity. For this one, same color scheme as the previous part, so they match. The shape can be roughly spherical (again, let it get weird if you want) with two round surfaces on the top and bottom, but those round surfaces should match the attachment surfaces of a FL-T400 fuel tank. The mass is planned to be about 6.75.

Am I asking too much?

[Cryocasm]

I have two parts I'm thinking about making, just to dip my toes into plugin programming. However, I can't figure out blender for my life :/

The first is an "instantaneous velocity modifier" - it changes the velocity of the ship in an instant at the cost of a huge amount of electricity. I was thinking that it should be a long tube, gold-bronze in color with silver trimming, and black designs all over, and the black designs should sink in slightly so light reflection off the designs will be interesting. Size identical to a FL-T800 fuel tank, and the mass is planned to be about 50 (to match density of battery parts), but besides that, make it look as weird as you feel it needs to be.

The second is a "warp field generator" - it changes it's own mass, at the cost of a constant draw of electricity. For this one, same color scheme as the previous part, so they match. The shape can be roughly spherical (again, let it get weird if you want) with two round surfaces on the top and bottom, but those round surfaces should match the attachment surfaces of a FL-T400 fuel tank. The mass is planned to be about 6.75.

Am I asking too much?

Basically you consume tons of electrons in order to abuse quantum mechanics. Sounds very, very interesting, especially the interest in a FLT-800 length engine, really unrivaled currently. However, you propose things pointed a lot at FTL-speeds. I will however take the size ideas and make them a bit more usable:

Instantaneous Velocity Modifier, from hereon IVM, will be rounded down into a lengthy ion thruster, which produces much more thrust than its .5M little cousin, however the Isp doesn't change.

The warp field generator is peculiar, KSP doesn't quite require FTL propulsion yet as I stated, however if you do insist then I will make the WFG. No fears, I'm just expressing my (as later stated) opinion on FTL in KSP, as its currently unneeded.

Heh. Science!

Although increasing the weight of the engine will lower the TWR, while still keeping the system very favorable - since the weight of the rest of the vehicle will be tiny by comparison, no matter WHAT gets piled onto it.

Well, we'll just have to wait and see, but the Kerbol System is still too small (in my eyes) to require these kinds of extreme propulsion. If we count Dres as being a compacted asteroid belt, then we are just only at Jupiter, just like the name of Jool states. Eeloo is simply a nice Pluto analog. I believe the second gas giant (which I will call Kerturn) is rumored, possibly even "confirmed" (implicitly). Currently I'm really looking a bit more towards satellite simplification and spaceplane simplification (through adding big, massive wing parts to reduce part count as well as increase fuel storage by using the wings as tanks). In addition to this, I've seen quite the interest in high Isp propulsion on this thread, pointing me towards lots of cool thruster constructs. The Orion will remain at the back of my head, provided we do enough testing into this region of propulsion, otherwise I will simply make a more...violent..LVN.

I would absolutely love inflatable/deflatable lander cushions like on the MER landers. Ideally they would actually bounce and fit on the small structural panel, so one could build pods with those. Their footprint would be square instead of triangular. I've looked into doing this myself, but realistically I don't see that happening.

/clip

The problem being, how would I do inflatable cushions without a plugin?

[Camacha]

The problem being, how would I do inflatable cushions without a plugin?

I believe the Prometheus Solar Rover does so, although they don't bounce as neatly as I'd hope. They however, are attached to a pod that is only suitable for that specific rover.

To get a proper bounce one might need a plugin, but I am way out of my territory here, so do not take my word for it

[Cryocasm]

I believe the Prometheus Solar Rover does so, although they don't bounce as neatly as I'd hope. They however, are attached to a pod that is only suitable for that specific rover.

To get a proper bounce one might need a plugin, but I am way out of my territory here, so do not take my word for it

Lets do a slinky hack: a parachute which produces tons of drag, however inflates like an airbag. Although lacking the bouncing and rolling around for hours once touched down, it does still manage to land the thing safely. I prefer non-active descent systems, meaning I favor Parachutes, and for Duna I could simply just make a really wide, high-drag parachute. Curiosity was landed by a boost-off system, basically it was only being pulled down due to Curiosity's weight, however the second the rover was released, the lander blasted off.

[Tex_NL]

Here's a nice one for you to consider: Ornithopter wings

Preferably electric. Medium amount of lift when not flapping, thrust and additional lift dependent on throttle (flapping speed)

[griffin247]

ok so heres some craft ideas

battlestar viper

stargate death glider

flash gordon rocket ship old style (my fav)

narn battle curser from babylon 5

[Cryocasm]

Here's a nice one for you to consider: Ornithopter wings

Preferably electric. Medium amount of lift when not flapping, thrust and additional lift dependent on throttle (flapping speed)

This requires C#, and is therefore undoable (for me at least). I could supply a model. The concept is nice, but you looking into spaceplanes, so why not discuss a few more ideas for larger wings so that I know what people are looking for.

My current plan for spaceplane expansion is along the lines of (still) flat wings, however much larger to reduce part count, as well as fatter, thicker wings which can host in, under, or overwing nacelles (for gear/engines/higher density fuel storage/probes/orbital payload/think yourself) that have fuel storage, just like real aircraft. I also found, a very, very intriguing spacecraft:

as well as a Russian Dream Chaser analog:

[Camacha]

Lets do a slinky hack: a parachute which produces tons of drag, however inflates like an airbag. Although lacking the bouncing and rolling around for hours once touched down, it does still manage to land the thing safely. I prefer non-active descent systems, meaning I favor Parachutes, and for Duna I could simply just make a really wide, high-drag parachute. Curiosity was landed by a boost-off system, basically it was only being pulled down due to Curiosity's weight, however the second the rover was released, the lander blasted off.

I would really love something that enables me to do MER style landings, and I am sure a lot more people would like that too. The parachute hack would probably work, but then you'd be pairing parachutes (inflatable airbags) with true parachutes (pre bounce stage). It feels a bit... off, though it is an improvement over the current situation. I am not sure what it would take to make it all work. This type of modding is quite new to me

The Curiosity system is buildable with stock and mod parts, most notably KAS. I am fine with the way that works as it is, we are just missing the bouncy bits for MER.

as well as a Russian Dream Chaser analog:

I think this has been built or is being built by the ISS project

[Moon Goddess]

I'd love to see a Command pod in the 3.75m size, with a cool IVA.

Not like futuristic or anything styling as the core, just like something big enough you could move around in for a long duration flight.

Probably not even for more than 3 crew, just more empty space like someone was actually living in there.

[ummwut]

Basically you consume tons of electrons in order to abuse quantum mechanics. Sounds very, very interesting, especially the interest in a FLT-800 length engine, really unrivaled currently. However, you propose things pointed a lot at FTL-speeds. I will however take the size ideas and make them a bit more usable:

Instantaneous Velocity Modifier, from hereon IVM, will be rounded down into a lengthy ion thruster, which produces much more thrust than its .5M little cousin, however the Isp doesn't change.

The warp field generator is peculiar, KSP doesn't quite require FTL propulsion yet as I stated, however if you do insist then I will make the WFG. No fears, I'm just expressing my (as later stated) opinion on FTL in KSP, as its currently unneeded.

Well, I suppose the size can be anything, but it's not an engine. It's that large because it stores the electricity it uses, and even speeding up a mass of 15 by 800m/s would cost over 20k units of electric energy. It quite literally changes the speed at that instant, at the cost of energy, so there's no thrust in the sense of an engine shooting exhaust. In that sense, it could be put anywhere, even at the core of a ship. It will never be capable of FTL, because the energy cost is far too prohibitive, scaling with ship mass and the requested delta-V.

The warp field generator simply changes it's own mass at a constant draw to electric energy. Also a somewhat prohibitive cost, which scales with ship mass.

The only way to use either of these is with a pile of batteries and solar panels, which would probably be torn off if used in atmosphere.

Ah, seeing as how I actually thought of official names after I posted, I'll share those:

The IVM will be called a Ship-Wide Inertial Field Transformer, SWIFT. The energy cost for a change in velocity (either positive or negative) is at least abs( shipmass * requested dV).

The warp field generator will be called a Higgs Field Gradient Generator, HFGG, since it is directly changing it's own mass. The energy cost per second of doing this will probably be (|new mass| + 1) ^ ln(|shipmass| + 1).

I could also make an absurdly powerful Ion thruster that works on it's own (sans-plugin file), if you'd like, but it looks like someone else above has already started on one. Once again, I'm just dipping my toes into plugin programming, and changing velocity and a part's mass is easy enough, but also has interesting consequences on play.

Edited April 23, 2013 by ummwut

[Cooly568]

Hmm, what about a O'Neil cylinder?

It's a huge (15 miles long) cylinder that rotates slowly to generate gravity.