Mudwig

@Beale I honestly kind of like that one and it also give a great visual cue for where the wings and canards are supposed to go.

@Beale That blue and gold scheme gives off some major "Vault Tech" vibes, or maybe Sweden... I guess... if you're into that sort of thing. Is the Blue Steel intended for use with the Gamma 2, or is Stentor planned? It would probably have to be either a dual mode setup or multiple parts in order to work correctly, so I can understand if it's not in the works. It's looking great regardless!

Ooh! That launch escape tower looks like it's ready to go whaling on the moon. @CobaltWolf Has the KSP2 delay changed your outlook on future updates for BDB? I think I remember you mentioning before that Mercury, Gemini and Saturn/Apollo would likely be held off until KSP2, but that's a somewhat more indeterminate window now.

@Jim DiGriz Thanks for the link. I tried to use some of the suggestions on that page - including severely limiting pitch rate and QA limit, which helps with the initial ascent - but it still turns towards the horizon at ~20km no matter what I do. If I use a shorter fairing and a transfer-orbit payload simulator, rather than a low-orbit payload simulator, it flies fine, so I still don't know what the problem is, but I can at least use the Atlas V for the sort of launches it's actually used for. Edit: Turns out that pressing the button labelled "Reset Guidance (DO NOT PRESS)" right when things go awry makes them go un-awry almost immediately. So I would say do press... when necessary.

No. It's just a regular Centaur with 1.25m ore tanks as a payload mass simulator under the fairing.

Can anyone explain how to stop this from happening? Any help would be appreciated.

I'm just coming back to KSP after not playing it for a while and the progress with this mod is just mind blowing since I last played it; which was right after the Thor revamp, I think. Kudos to all involved!

25% is a reasonable approximation, but it's not exact and it's further complicated by the fact that sometimes different modders have used different scaling methods and most round to KSP friendly diameters. That means nearly every part would ideally be scaled by a slightly different amount. To get the correct mass for a scaled item in KSP, simply multiply by the scale factor cubed. Lets say you have a rocket stage, with a mass of 200,000 kg, that has a 4m diameter in real life and you're scaling by 0.625. 0.625x4.0=2.5 This is a nice, KSP friendly diameter, so no rounding is necessary. So, the formula in Excel ( or similar programs, like Open Office Calc or even the Windows calculator app ) would be: "=200,000*(2.5/4.0)^3" - using the part specific specific scaling factor. or "200,000*0.625^3" - using the general scaling factor. This gives you a KSP scaled mass of 48,828.125 kg. It would be about 24.4% of real scale, rather than 25%.

I just set an action group to activate the spin motors shortly before depletion of the upper stage and then stage the decoupler when they burn out.

@Carni35 The Agena upper stage itself was the spacecraft bus. Thor-Agena A was not a very capable launch vehicle, so there were significant limits in terms of what they could stack on top. the Agena is part of the spacecraft, so it's mass is part, well... the majority, of the spacecraft's mass. The Corona C satellites varied in terms of components and objectives, so there is no single "official" payload mass. The one used on Discoverer 13 didn't even have cameras or film on it. According to this site... http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_2/United_States_4/Thor-Agena/Description/Frame.htm ...Thor-Agena A had a capacity to LEO of 860kg ( not sure if that's calculated for a highly inclined orbit or not ). That, plus the dry mass of the Agena A - 890kg by the numbers given = 1.75t, so that gives you an idea about how heavy the KH-1 satellites could possibly be. These numbers probably aren't exact, so there is a little bit of wiggle room, but likely not very much.

Yeah. I just tried it with the avionics part floating above and it had no heating issues. It looks dumb, but it works. I guess I could just edit the max temperature of the avionics parts to match the fairing bases. I think that would fix it, more-or-less.

Is anyone else having trouble with the Centaur and Vega avionics parts overheating within the fairing when used with the 2.5m Atlas V and Commercial Titan III PF fairing bases? This does not seem to happen with the 1.875m Centaur PF fairing base. I made a monstrosity with all of the affected parts to demonstrate the problem: Only the avionics parts - inside the fairings - are overheating. Everything else is fine. I'm at a loss as to why this is happening or how to prevent it. I have to use the nudge tool to lower the avionics into the fairing base where it's supposed to be, so maybe that's part of the problem? I don't know. I'm also not sure if this also happens with the normal BDB fairings, or just the PF ones, I'll check in a bit. Edit: I only have this problem with the PF versions of BDB fairings and not the standard ones.

The ~6t mass of the Corona satellites includes the Agena service module, which is also the 2nd stage of the launch vehicle. They didn't stick a Corona on top of a different Agena stage. The actual mass of the payload ( subtracting the service module ) was less than 2t.

How does that compare to Atlas LV-3C? It seems outwardly like it would be very similar, although the Centaur D would be quite a difference maker compared to HOSS.

Will that work with the long Centaur interstage, or would it need it's own? I've been playing around with the dev version the last few days and the new Thor/Delta stuff really looks incredible. I never used to use the Thor parts because they were oddly proportioned and kind of ugly ( no offense ), but the jump in quality to the new parts is absolutely transformative. I know it can be rough to look at some of the older models compared to the newer ones, but at the same time: it really underscores just how far the mod has come and how much the art style has grown and developed over time. I remember when the Saturn parts were a monumental leap forward and even they are showing their age now. Great work, and thanks to you and your contributors for keeping this up all this time.