Binho

Hmm, sad news. Personally, I had some suspicions something was going on with Porkjet at least, as he had been unusually quite these past few months. There was so little devnote news about the rocket part update week after week. Too bad too, I was really looking forward to that! I didn't suspect everyone else was leaving too though! I have to say I'm nervous about the future of KSP now. At least Roverdude is still there, but for how long? New devs are fine, but none seem to be well known to the community. That doesn't mean they can't do a good job, but it leaves me fearful about where the game will go in the future.

Umm, @Tweeker it sounds like you aren't quite understanding how the compact versions will work. Take a closer look at the design sheet, especially at the explanations of the part versions on the top right. None of the compact engines are getting cut at the throat, and even the Vector is now getting machinery above the nozzle. Look again. On the compact versions vs the standard versions, the only difference is the size and position of the attachment rings/plates. The rest of the engine model is staying the same. Even in the drawing of the Vector you can still see all the engine machinery above the throat for the compact version, all it is losing is the hydraulic pistons linking to the attachment ring/base plate the standard version has. The attachment ring/plate has just been moved further down. The machinery is simplified, but the basics (pumps, chambers, etc.) are all there!

Regarding the vacuum engines, it really depends though, doesn't it? Comparing Merlin engines isn't wholly fair, since they use 9 engines on the first stage and so they need to be smaller. Ariane 5's single first stage Vulcain 2 engine is much more massive than even their largest upper stage engines. And it's overall capable of lifting much more than the Falcon 9. I'm not a rocket scientist, but from what I understand it's the width to length ratio that determines vacuum engine efficiency, not physical size, as other people have already noted. You don't see massive Apollo CSM sized engines on every satellite that operates in a vacuum, on manned spacecraft like Soyuz (I'm still not even sure where Soyuz's engines are located!), or on the various cargo missions to the ISS. (Sure, these other spacecraft didn't fly around the moon!) Ariane 5 Vulcain-2 main stage vs. Vinci engine in ESC-B upper stage (EDIT: This is a proposed design. The HM7B engine in the current ESC-A upper stage is even smaller): Plus, how it's all packed matters too. As far as I'm aware, the visible part of engine nozzles on the Soyuz second stage are very low profile. EDIT: In fact, if you look at the linked schematics for Porkjet's new designs, you can see that on the LV-909 now you can't even see the whole engine bell, let alone the chamber. The Poodle is now multiple engines, presumably so they could justify the performance while having a more realistic vacuum engine bell and still maintaining a low overall profile.

Hey Blackrack, I haven't gotten to play since I last posted here, but a quick KSP boot up shows that hotfix you released fixed that weird halo issue for me as well. Thank you! I also really wanted to just thank you again for the great work you are doing here. Scatterer is amazing! Keep up the good work! I'm always eagerly checking the thread to see what visual black magic you will conjure up next

Yes please to habitation modules! What's the point of a big inflatable heat shield if you don't have a big base to land? Could we merge Porkjet's new hab module version linked above in to the stock game? Please? Pretty please?? What has Porkjet been up to anyways? I miss the old style Devnotes which said what everyone was up to, even if they were on vacation! Lastly, someone asked this on the last devnotes, but could we get a sneak peak of the new lighting and PBR shading? I'm really curious to see how that looks! Thanks for keeping us updated on the progress of 1.1

Also, another fun bug for you Returning to the space center from the in-flight map mode causes the oceans to disappear at the space center. Entering and exiting the VAB/SPH or the science/admin/mission/astronaut complexes doesn't fix the issue, but entering and exiting the tracking station does. Launching a craft also brings the oceans back.

DX9. I forced DX11 and that solved the atmosphere issue, but created those black artifacts in the ocean (Bumping the ocean quality to 100 fixed them). I tested in Dx9 some more, and that issue was only occurring for Kerbin, not for Laythe or Duna. Also noted a compatibility issue with Distant Objects. The Sun flare is visible through the planet, though I'm not sure if that issue is being caused by EVE or scatterer. Will look in to that some more. EDIT: And this is new to the latest version. Last version I was running of scatterer was v0.0191 and that worked fine on DX9 (Bar some weird flickering issues that don't seem to be in the new version)

Hey Blackrack! Your mod is gorgeous and works well performance wise on my rig. But I'm getting this weird bug in orbit and map mode in the latest version: (Edit: my imgur album isn't embedding for some reason! First post on these new forums. Here is the direct link: http://imgur.com/a/CaT6w ) Has anyone else had this issue? My mods are: EVE Distant Object Chatterer Firespitter/Habitat Pack Stock Bug Fixes Stock Clamshell Fairings Kerbal Alarm Clock

Ah, darn. Could they not have made it toggleable somehow? Maybe for 1.1...

So where did those jet engine internals go? Did they decide to not include them in the update, and I missed it?

I don't know if this is more realistic or not, but the drag is really noticeable now. While it's not impossible to get an SSTO spaceplane in to orbit (Got my 1.0 design in to orbit without any changes), I feel having to dive to build up enough speed is a bit silly. My spaceplane was notably less stable as well - the controls were suddenly much more squirrely. I'll have to add my voice to the crowd who doesn't like the 1.0.2 aero changes. 1.0 felt more like old FAR to fly in. This feels more like 0.9 again.

Hi everyone! First post This post made me curious about KSP 0.9 vs 1.0 ascent profiles compared to the Skylon hypothetical ascent profile provided by Reaction Engines. I felt that Exclipse was actually mistaken, and that 1.0 was actually closer to the Skylon model. So I tested it out! Like the Skylon graph, the last point is roughly where I cut off the main engine, before the orbital insertion burn. Skylon uses OMS engines to circularize it's orbit, and both of these SSTO's carry OMS engines because of that. Probably not the most efficient design, but it works! Here are the results: KSP 0.9 Mass: 18.3t Engines: 2 Rapier engines, 2 OMS engines. 0.9 ascent was fairly traditional. 45 degree climb, leveling off between 10-20k to build up to about 1300m/s before kicking up to 45 degrees again between 20-25k to raise the apoapsis to about 75k. Circularized to a 85x85 km Orbit, with plenty of deltaV to spare. KSP 1.0 Mass: 26.6t Engines: 2 Rapier engines, 4 OMS engines For 1.0 my strategy was to either maintain or increase airspeed. Took off at about a 20 degree angle, lowering my climb to about 10 degrees to maintain airspeed when i hit the drag wall at Mach 1. Stayed at about 10 degrees until I started picking up speed past Mach 1 at about 5km altitude. At about 10km altitude speed started coming on fast and I started pitching up to about 30 degrees off horizon going 540m/s. Slowly pitch down in a gravity turn to about 25 degrees (Velocity vector is at 20 degrees, so 5 degree AoA) at 24km altitude and 915m/s surface speed. At this point Rapier jet mode is dying out, so I switched to rocket mode. I try to stay close to the velocity vector (5-15 degree AoA) to reduce airspeed loss due to drag, until main engine cutoff at about 45km. I forgot to take a point at main engine cut off, so that isn't on the graph below, unfortunately! Ran out of main engine fuel before the end of the circularization burn, but finished it with the OMS engines with about 200m/s deltaV to spare, I'd estimate. A further note, reentry without airbrake spam is actually pretty straightforward with this thing! I aimed for a 40km periapsis, and came down pitched about 45 degrees. At 40-35km I started S-turning like mad while keeping the nose as high as possible, using the control surfaces and the torque wheel. By 20km airspeed was already down to about 600m/s! Then, simply glided it down, landing it at about 65m/s using wing mounted spoilers to slow me down towards the end, and the drogue chute to slow me down faster while on the ground. Conclusion To me at least, 1.0 is much closer to Skylon. But i also think different craft might have different ascent profiles, based on mass, lift, drag, thrust, etc. EDIT: It's also notable how much quicker it is to get in to orbit now. In 0.9 it took nearly twice as long to get to the main engine cutoff point!