Nittany Tiger

I would have never guessed in a million years that my part lighting problems were owing to an inverted blue channel on my normal map. I'm glad I know some 3D artist friends. The stretched MS-IC does lift the stack with the heavier MEM into orbit, though. After texture touch-ups, I can get back to the final flight tests and then mission planning.

Getting there with the S-IC stretch. It's not going to look like a proper stretch since I'm only stretching one tank, but trying to stretch both is more work because I'd have to remap the textures.. I might try it later on. Speaking of textures, I'll have to get those to work properly along with the retro thrusters (which should require setting up the thrustTransform vectors).

There hasn't been much going on with the mission and project that's report-worthy until now. Last month was mostly upgrading visuals and practicing landing on Mars (again). I am going for a landing style that's true to the book this time, so no using the side covers as air brakes like before. That means adding more fuel to the descent stage, which means more mass for the Saturn VB into orbit. Unfortunately, the current Saturn VB configuration I have doesn't have the payload capacity for the heavier MEM. However, after doing some comparison with my LV to the LV in the novel and doi

I'm finally nearing the point in my project I left it off at. In fact, I might be a tad past it. I did the launch to rendezvous test with the command stack and readjusted RCS and OMM fuel loads. Also properly added parachutes to the Venus probe and tested the Mars lander a bit. Going to have to relearn how to land on Mars. Also tried to squish as many visual bugs as I could, but I can't squish them all because it would take way too much time and effort. The only bug I do want to try and resolve is one where my re-entry trails seem too weak. Might be a setting I nee

Long time, no update. Took a bit of time off of the project, then started back and kept forgetting to update the thread. So I made a custom docking port so I could use the gendered docking ports from the DECQ Saturn V and NAR_MEM pack. Should have been a quick thing to create and test, but I ran into a really mysterious bug where my custom docking port only engaged when oriented in one direction. Enabling surface attach on the docking port fixed the issue, though I'm not 100% sure how it did. Maybe docking ports have to be surface attachable. After that was docking tests and

Update: Good news is that I updated the autopilot program and made my Saturn VB fly a much smoother and more fuel-efficient trajectory into orbit. I even have the MS-II stage shut off and throttle back like the S-II does on the Saturn V. Bad news is that I tried to tackle a graphical bug where the atmosphere of Earth would vanish when my rockets go above 140 km, and I don't know if I can fix it. I'm using RSSVE. I looked up possible solutions to this problem, but nothing has worked so far. It doesn't help that I'm still using KSP 1.3.1 for this, and it may be impossible to get mo

Worked on the models and textures of the other two parts. Good textures are hard to make, and the ones I have for these parts I feel aren't adequate, but they'll do for now. I went by the descriptions in Voyage for both of these parts as best I could. Venus Miniprobe: "...a sphere of thick metal" with "vanes on the sphere to make it spin, so that it was stabilized during the fall" with "...tough little windows cut into the surface so that the probe's instruments could see out." The vanes' aerodynamics proved hard to make work in the game, especially under FAR, but I did ev

Thank you. I hope I can finish this and make an impressive video. Also, the AMM is finished. Big thanks to fellow modders for helping me learn how to port my part from Blender to Unity to KSP.

Sorry for lack of updates. Been learning Blender with @Tokamak and working on the AMM. Tokamak's been a big help. It also helps that Blender is easy to learn. Still need to texture the part and create a collision mesh.

Rebuilt the Ares Propulsion Stack with DECQ parts! Yep, changed the color scheme on the ET again. Also spent time detailing the aft docking port that will probably never see use.

Good news: My old kOS script still works. Bad news: The PID loops may need retuning since I'm running on a better machine. Code definitely needs changes and improvements such as changing the pitch guidance. UPDATE: Further tests show the PID loops might be fine as-is.

Just a small update. Created a diagram for the AMM, which I plan on creating in Blender. Also had to fix the plumes for the DECQ Saturn V. They either had no RealPlume configs or improper configs. Thankfully, an easy fix. EDIT: I forgot to mention that I might have to edit the launchpad since there are issues with SRBs clipping into parts of the launchpad and causing RUD upon launch. I also want to lower the SRBs so their nozzles are flush with the F-1A engines. Right now, I tend to get an SRB colliding with an F-1A during SRB sep.

Is anyone else getting odd plumes with the RSS/RO version of the F1 engines, J2 engines, and sep/LES motors? Like, for some reason, RealPlume would put a Hypergolic-Upper plume on the DECQ F1. If so, I did write my own RealPlume patch for the F1, and it should work for the insulated F1. I just don't know what config file is tagging the DECQ F1 as "hypergolic." I'll correct the issues with the J2 engine and the sep motors/LES later.

This version works in 1.3.1. EDIT: The RealPlume configs are bugged in RSS/RO, but the rocket flies.

Yeah, I got very technical with this project initially trying to make a near-perfect recreation of it in KSP. I taught myself new things while doing this project, such as what PID controllers were and how you tune them. That stuff was fun, but it took a lot of time, and I started to fear that the project was taking too much time compared to other KSP videos. It's why I started wanting to rush it, which then created a problem of overwhelming myself and worrying about working at a pace faster than what I can do. I also did burn myself out working hard on some of the past stuff. Fun or n