CobaltWolf

2024-04-23T16:38:11Z

We are working the issues with the ventral fin, and many others besides. In the meantime:

Monday at 01:58 PM

On 4/20/2024 at 4:56 PM, zakkpaz said:

there's something up with the X-15 parts, the game freezes when loading a part

Not sure what any of log stuff means, but this looks relevant.

On 4/20/2024 at 5:37 PM, GoldForest said:

Same error on my end. @CobaltWolf My guess is you made a boo boo in the config file.

I have no idea why the ventral isn't loading. I've seen several other people playing with it in game (and not just duplicating the dorsal fin) and have no idea what the difference would be. My guess is it has something to do with drag cubes? But I don't know anything about them besides being named "drag cubes"...

April 16

37 minutes ago, Beale said:

I've been guilty of it myself, I will try to stick to imgur (that will never suffer the same fate hahaha... ha... ha. ...ha)

April 15

On 4/11/2024 at 8:52 AM, DaveyJ576 said:

For those of you interested in the X-15 (who isn’t???), I can highly recommend the book Hypersonic: The Story of the North American X-15 by Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony Landis. It is THE authoritative reference to the aircraft and program, no other book on the subject is necessary, except perhaps for their companion book, the X-15 Photo Scrapbook, a collection of photographs that they weren’t able to fit into the book. Both books are out of print, but copies can be found for reasonable prices. Jenkins is also the author of the three volume magnum opus Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013. The X-15 book has an exhausting amount of detail, but is well written and readable.

Update - My copy of Hypersonic has arrived and it is INCREDIBLE. I only got to flip through it for a moment but I don't think I've ever bought a reference this dense, with this much detail and this many beautiful images.

But that's not all - a friend ( @Sgt.Shutesie) was able to send a copy of the Photo Scrapbook as well and it should be here soon.

April 15

16 hours ago, Richmountain112 said:

Any plans to make the Gemini heatshields more like the stock ones (if they aren't already)? Last time I tried sending a Gemini spacecraft with the BDB heatshield, it exploded during reentry.

As far as I know, there's nothing different from the stock heatshield.

Here's what I've managed to get in game for the X-15 so far. It looks a lot more complete than it is - this is sort of the bare minimum to get this stuff in game and snapped together. A lot of the parts don't have some or all of their functionality, the aerodynamics are a wreck, etc. What I'm saying is, don't expect a GitHub upload in the next few days.

Another variant I think I'm going to do is X-15/SERJ, which is... a fascinating engine. Combine a ramjet and a rocket engine, and then a supercharging fan. It would work like a SABRE/RAPIER engine as a dual-cycle engine.

Modifications to the in-game craft would essentially just be a different ventral fin combined with an air scoop, and a different engine on the back.

April 14

On 4/12/2024 at 10:27 PM, LoadingTimeExpert said:

Regarding the X-15 experiments, are you going to implement entirely new experiments or existing experiments?

I don’t think I’ll need to add new experiments. A lot of these are actually tests of systems that would fly on later missions, so they can use those experiments. There are a couple stock ones, like the atmosphere experiment, that don’t currently have coverage in BDB.

April 12

20 hours ago, The Dressian Exploder said:

Is it likely that you'll be doing other X-Planes in the future or is X-15 going to be a one-off?

I didn't really plan to make X-15, it just... came out of me one day. The thought of making an updated X-1 is kind of appealing, as is the family of cute little lifting bodies, but there's always lots I want to make and each thing takes more time than I'd like. Committing to making something means several months of dedication so I have to prioritize what I choose to work on.

Once X-15 is done, I really think I owe you all a Viking.

17 hours ago, Entr8899 said:

You don't like the «APU Yekhnaust»?

@CobaltWolf If you wanna be really accurate with your Russglish, you could use the obsolete early-Cyrillic letter Ksi Ѯ to represent the English "ks" sound.

At this point my specific process feels like such a tradition I can't change it: I go to this page, type what it should say in english, and copy whatever gets put on the other side. The fact that it results in gibberish is kind of the point - for one, you don't know what kerbal writing looks like! and two, it means any text that's baked into the textures is as meaningless for English readers as it is for everyone else.

5 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Yes please. I'd like to use X-15 like a space shuttle. Or at the bare minimum, a sub-orbital (100+ KM AP) glider

I'm not sure the X-15 is really... up to that task. But I'm sure people will make it happen regardless. I'd rather not make every part have an ablator module though. Among other things that would add... many tons to the weight of the craft. If someone really wanted to make an extras patch they could.

Spoiler

Made... some progress getting things in game? I can't promise anything but I'd hope to have something flyable in a week or two. This weekend is already shot for me unfortunately.

April 11

48 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

@CobaltWolf The X-15 will no doubt have high heat tolerance, but will it have optional ablative shielding? If not, can it be requested?

What, like, on everything?

April 11

23 hours ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

Can this not still be done via the Extras patch?

It's actually a tag applied to the individual collider objects in Unity, and can't be changed from cfg or in game at all.

20 hours ago, Legolas5533 said:

The payload bay behind the cockpit would be very useful for general experiment storage, especially if it's a cargo bay of sorts (satelite deployment comes to mind too). Same goes for the rear. The wingtips would be very good mounting points for ~~missiles~~ weather experiments and are especially easy to access and possibly replace on EVA on the ground (or even maybe in space). Just a thought. You do what you think is best, all of the options are great.

I should clarify - I'm making experiments for each location, I'm just not sure how many or specifically what.

8 hours ago, Taco Salad said:

Oh that looks great. How did you make the tanks and engine mounts all white though? Looks really slick without the markings.

7 hours ago, Entr8899 said:

Yeah I agree, @CobaltWolf pretty please could we have at least a white color variation for Saturn parts?

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh if I have any productive time in the near future it's going to be getting X-15 stuff in game. Which seems like it will be wayyyyy more work than I expected.

6 hours ago, Taco Salad said:

Also, I can't tell if this is just a bug on my end, or if it's an oversight. But the Kane-11-MSM payload bay cover weighs about 700 kg, which is rather substantial in my opinion.
Tested both in the VAB and in the pad, 700kg lost on it being jettisoned.

That's... interesting. I'll have to take a look.

1 hour ago, DaveyJ576 said:

For those of you interested in the X-15 (who isn’t???), I can highly recommend the book Hypersonic: The Story of the North American X-15 by Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony Landis. It is THE authoritative reference to the aircraft and program, no other book on the subject is necessary, except perhaps for their companion book, the X-15 Photo Scrapbook, a collection of photographs that they weren’t able to fit into the book. Both books are out of print, but copies can be found for reasonable prices. Jenkins is also the author of the three volume magnum opus Space Shuttle: Developing an Icon 1972-2013. The X-15 book has an exhausting amount of detail, but is well written and readable.

Thanks for the tip - managed to snag a copy for $16. I also have a copy of The X-15 Rocket Plane: Flying the First Wings into Space by Michelle Evans. I tried reading a few pages in bed before I turned off the lights, next thing I knew it was 1am. It's much more focused on the people involved in the program than the technical details.

April 10

On 4/6/2024 at 8:06 AM, Gupyzer0 said:

@CobaltWolf Any pictures of the "extras" (science experiments) you talked about earlier?, the X-15 sure looks fine!

So, there's three main places for experiments:

1) The payload bay behind the cockpit.

2) The wingtip pods

3) The rear of the plane, above the engine and behind the vertical stabilizer. On X-15A-2 it's a helium tank, but a number of other experiments flew there.

As for what specifically will make the cut? Hard to say quite yet.

April 9

On 4/5/2024 at 9:12 AM, Taco Salad said:

We have the SNAP-29. The S-IVB tank-wrapper RTG.. But could we get a parts-switch for a radiator less version for general use? Rather like the flat form-factor of it.

Super belated answer, but the existing SNAP-29 wouldn't work as a standalone I think? Since it's made to fit to the 4.25m cylinder. I'd have to make a completely separate part I think.

1 hour ago, Entr8899 said:

Is there any progress on SeaSat?

No, Invader is too busy making real rockets in real life

April 5

18 minutes ago, AmateurAstronaut1969 said:

Also, since the shape is very particular, if you weren’t gonna do already, it would be nice to have nodes for all the stuff like gears and wings etc etc

Yeah everything will have attach nodes for ease of assembly

April 5

2 hours ago, The Dressian Exploder said:

Just out of curiosity, how will the parts be split? This is personally how I would've done it, but then again I don't really know how large the parts are or if something like this even works at all

Bearing in mind this isn't really an actual suggestion, how are you splitting them up?

Honestly? Great question, I'd love people's input on this - again, bearing in mind, that none of these parts have "standard" cross sections, so interfacing with other part families is a bit off the table unfortunately...

Nose - will have the functionality from the stock Fly-by-Wire part.
- Also includes a switch for the early (spike) and late (Q-ball) model nose.
Cockpit - ~~not sure how to break this part up, or rather, if I should. I could see splitting it at the front of the canopy, which would leave a dedicated gear and RCS part to go between the cockpit and nose.~~
- The cockpit includes the APU generators and a small cargo bay which will have some dedicated experiments made for it
- ~~Here is the current cockpit part on it's own. The question is whether this should have the front 1/3 or so split off.~~
- Alright, already gotten some significant feedback off-forum about this. I'm going to split the gear/RCS and the cockpit. So here's what the cockpit itself looks like now.
Fuselage - the big kahuna. No good way to split this up IMO. It's never going to match other bulkhead profiles.
- Will include at least one length switch to represent the X-15A-2, but I don't think I want to add more.
Engine - One of the only parts that will be normal, since it should have a 1.25m attachment ring.
- I think this will be a dedicated "X-15 engine" part with the early dual XLR-11 config, the XLR-99, and the XLR-99 with extension for the delta wing variant.
As you said, other parts like the wings are fairly self explanatory. The only notable thing is that the control surfaces for the vertical stabilizers will be separate parts, with the bottom one having a decoupler and parachute for recovery like the real thing.

Anyone have thoughts? Particularly any that aren't asking me to rip things apart and do a lot more work, which I kind of figure the reaction to this will be?

April 4

9 hours ago, GoldForest said:

@CobaltWolf Any chance of a metallic white version and/or a "shuttle" like version? Tiles and blankets.

Edit: Also, found this on Astronautix...

wnavx15v.jpg (500×242) (astronautix.com)

I'm doing a white version (what do you mean metallic?) and I'd like to do one in the style of the "modern" Apollo CM but I really don't want to be the one to make it.

April 4

6 hours ago, The Dressian Exploder said:

How 'Lego-able' is the X-15 going to be? Will the airframe be a single monolithic part or will we have, for example, a separate cockpit for kitbashes and such?

Not very legoable, I'm afraid. The parts will be split up but that's mostly to ensure there isn't too much going on with any one part. The problem I quickly ran into with the X-15 is that the cross section changes along the entire length of the craft, so it wasn't something I could make compatible with other bulkhead profiles. However I hope that I'm able to add enough variation that it's still fun to mess around with!

April 3

March 29

7 minutes ago, Pudgemountain said:

Will we have a Navaho or something similar to launch it, or is that something for us to kitbash lol.

Launching it will be up to the user, I'm sure you all will come up with some weird ideas and make me uncomfortable.

March 29

Just now, zakkpaz said:

Sorry if this has already been answered but is there a list of planned parts for the X-15, are you going to make an XLR11 or the external fuel tanks X-15A-2?

Yes, you will be able to fly the flown configurations plus a couple more treats.

March 29

1 hour ago, Adventures said:

Cool! May I ask if you have an ETA for when this & the new Atlas will be on Github?

No, sorry. Once you start seeing screenshots of stuff in game, we'll be close. Both part sets have a lot more left to do than it might seem.

March 28

March 27

12 minutes ago, Shadow Wolf TJC said:

Personally, as much as I enjoy Bluedog Design Bureau for how well-polished and expansive it is in terms of what parts it has to offer, I feel that it's more like an expansion of the same old parts that are on offer in stock KSP + its expansions, and not something really game-changing like the mods that I've mentioned before (besides making use of cryogenic engines, which is also common with many other parts mods out there). Therefore, if I would've had to drop some mods to get the game to load instead of crashing due to running out of memory, I'd much rather drop BDB than any of the other mods that I've mentioned before.

Yeah, BDB was never meant to add new functionality to the game - I'm an artist, not a coder, so we've only been able to take advantage of functionality that's in the stock game or comes from one of our few dependencies.

14 minutes ago, Shadow Wolf TJC said:

Like I mentioned before, I'm personally looking out for more science experiments.

The science experiments can't even be broken out into their own mod. Most of them use texture sheets which also contain all the other textures for the associated probes/crafts. You'd still need massive textures for parts that are only using small portions of them.

12 minutes ago, Shadow Wolf TJC said:

How interesting. Were there any thoughts among the dev team about splitting this mod into multiple smaller mods for a more a-la carte style (like with the Near Future Mods)?

Not happening, sorry. The last thing I want to spend my free time doing is repackaging and reuploading and other busywork. I enjoy making stuff, what people do with it after I release it into the wild is up to them.

March 26

1 hour ago, Cheesecake said:

If you only want to keep the experiments, all you have to do is delete all subfolders in the \GameData\Bluedog_DB\Parts folder except the `Science` folder

1 hour ago, Shadow Wolf TJC said:

There also seem to be science experiments within parts located in other folders besides the Science folder. For example, various probe cores also carry various experiments, including some that are unique, and can't be found within the Science folder, like weather or SIGINT, and I think I'd like to keep those as well.

I don't think we've added stuff to the Science folder since... back before BDB was a dedicated historical rocketry mod

March 26

On 3/24/2024 at 8:33 AM, Emperor of Ilve said:

In my work on the RO configs for BDB. I'm having trouble finding sources for many parts. Though the A-7 Quad eludes me, is this a real part or is it just fictional and made for BDB?

If it's a real proposal if anyone could redirect me to sources regarding it that would be much appreciated.

On 3/24/2024 at 10:16 AM, Pappystein said:

I believe it is Fictional but based on real hypothetical discussions on how to increase thrust for Rocket. A road not traveled

It's uh... well, when I was working on the Redstone, around the same time I saw some close up pictures of a Long March 1 rocket? And I really wanted to make an engine like it. Of course, having 4x the power of the normal Redstone was too much, so I just scaled it down to something reasonable for LVs of that diameter. It's an entirely made up part I came up with one evening.

11 hours ago, Shadow Wolf TJC said:

Although I've played around with this mod for a couple months now, after starting to install more mods until I got to the point where the game isn't loading anymore, I've decided that I have no choice but to prune some of my biggest mods in an attempt to save my game.

Unfortunately, at an exceptionally massive 2.0 GB in size when installed, this mod was easily singled out, which is a shame, since it added so many new science experiments to the game. (That, and it's been marked as a dependency for several other mods that I liked, including Skyhawk Science System.)

9 hours ago, Rodger said:

It’s already set up for fairly simple pruning - you should be able to freely remove part family folders inside the parts folder. Eg if you don’t want titans or the probes, you can delete the respective folders.

1 hour ago, Razgriz1 said:

Answered by an easy read through the original post.

I had typed up a reply to this, then went back to the previous page and lost what I'd typed. But the part quoted by @Razgriz1is correct. You can go into Gamedata/Bluedog_DB/Parts/ and delete things there on a folder-by-folder basis. The "ProbesExpansion" folder can also be pruned by subfolder. You can even delete late-game stuff, like Apollo and Saturn, at the beginning of a save and then add it back in later.

March 20

16 hours ago, marxman28 said:

Question about the PEBKAC LES system since I couldn't find an answer in this thread: what's the difference between the regular Abort! mode and Abort Mode 1A in action groups? Presumably Abort Mode 1B is the same as the real Apollo Abort Mode 1B where the LES tower doesn't fire its pitch motor since the stack is high enough.

I honestly have no idea. We inherited it from the PEBKAC mod back in 2016 or so and I've never really understood what it does.

March 19

2 hours ago, DasherJake640 said:

Any new parts in the BDB Github Dev Build? Not gonna lie, I've been checking back onto this forum everyday, and every time I see a new satellite or rocket featured, I get sooo hyped up. Love your work! Also, can't wait for the X-15, loved that plane!

I did get an alpha for the Mariner 8/9 parts up a few weeks ago. Apart from that, nothing much - we have all been on an unplanned hiatus until me and Zorg started picking things up again recently.

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