NISSKEPCSIM

I finished my inflatable centrifuge and habitat just in time for a Christmas pre-release! Queue the Christmas music!

STATUS UPDATE: Merry Christmas (Or other holiday you celebrate at this time) and a happy new year! I have released the inflatable habitat and centrifuge as a Christmas gift to all of you. It seems that, when I mod, I always dangle the bait in front of your face without giving it to you. Since NotantaresLV has been slated for release for over a month now, I've decided to let you fiddle around with test versions of the inflatable hab and centrifuge. NOTE: YOU CANNOT STOP THE CENTRIFUGE SPINNING ONCE IT STARTS. ALSO NOTE: THE VIDEO, UP TO AROUND 2:00, IS SPED UP BY 2x. THE DISPLAYED INFLATION SPEEDS ARE NOT THE REAL SPEEDS. Grab it on Github! (Or just politely take it... I don't mind.) Happy holidays everybody!

STATUS UPDATE: A centrifuge is in the woks as well. (Don't worry, the RD-0124 is still being worked on!)

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This new mod, Notantares Station Parts (Don't worry, I'm still working on NotantaresLV), will include the above inflatable hab, a larger, 5m one, a smaller, 2.5m one, a small centrifuge with a 5 - 6 metre diameter, and a larger centrifuge with an 8 - 10 metre diameter.

STATUS UPDATE: IT INFL8. IT LiGHT. But most importantly... IT LAB.

Sadly, nope.

Cool!

Also, some people's computers are potatoes. I could supply some configs for various sizes if you wanted, but really, all you'd need to edit is the "scale =" and "rescaleFactor =" values, plus the names of the parts. Then you're fine.

Well, I'm not uploading each chapter to the same Google Doc -- instead, each chapter is a separate Doc, that way you don't have to deal with a wall of text. Plus, Google Docs seems to squeeze 12 A4 pages of text into half a PC screen, so walls of text wouldn't be a problem there!

Sorry that I haven't uploaded Chapter 2 yet; I hope to upload it by the end of the week. I was planning to stick to a weekly upload schedule, but Real Life gets top priority. And I recently started development on a substantial new mod in my suite, so I have to also slice up my time for that. I haven't found time to finish Chapter 2 yet, as my time is too caught up with RL and modding. However, I have around half of it already done, and I'm confident it will go up by the end of the week. Thanks all of you for your patience!

STATUS UPDATE: Nothing much done today, except for this combined spherical fuel tank bulkhed + N1-style truss decoupler to be used as the decoupler between the core stage booster and the URM-2 upper stage of the Angara rockets: In Unity. On an Angara mockup standing on the launch pad (High upper middle). On an Angara mockup standing on the launch pad (Upper middle). I actually flew this entire test flight, which, apart from the LES and the Poodle (Standing in for my as-of-yet unfinished RD-0124), was made entirely of parts from NotantaresLV and Notantares Big Soyuz! To read about the full mission, including pics, visit this post in What Did You Do In KSP Today:

I played some more KSP today... I forgot how fun it could be after not playing it for 4 months. -- Valentina Kerman was the lone and brave test pilot flying my dangerous untested monstrosity extremely well-tested brand-new over-engineered Notngara-5P crewed rocket. I used this flight to test my booster engines, my new fuel tanks, and whether or not they could lift the Big Soyuz payload into a high orbit. I used the stock Poodle engine to stand-in for my RD-0124 engine, since I haven't finished that engine yet. As my rocket are, like BDB and Tantares, designed to be used in a 2 to 3 times scaled Kerbin system, I was expecting it to get me to a way higher orbit then needed with fuel to spare. -- 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... Десять ... девять ... восемь ... семь ... шесть ... пять ... четыре... ...3... 2... 1... ...три ... два ... один... Zero! Liftoff, we have liftoff! ...ноль! Зажигание! Мы запустили! You can see the long, blue flame trail sprouting from the booster engine nozzles. I used this exhaust effect to replicate that of the real Angara-A5 engine trail. The mission: To launch the payload (And the upper stage, if it has enough fuel) on an orbit of to-be-determined height, to prove that my rocket can, in reality, launch something to various orbits. There she goes! You can see all the struts from here. Getting high... Slowly but surely, the Apoapsis gets higher. I begin to turn... ...Then realise that my Apoapsis is now at 80 km and I have to haul ass and turn fast! ~ D A T A S S ~ As soon as the side boosters cut out, I staged them away. Of course, I forgot the tiny separation SRBs, so there was no Korolev cross. Bye, have a beautiful time! When the core ran out of fuel, it, too, was jettisoned. Time to reveal the payload! Oops! I forgot to set the LES engines to burn when I separated it... And now, we coast to Apoapsis... We are getting HIGH! Beginning circularisation burn... How's the view, Val? Now, we're in an almost perfect 600 x 600km orbit... ... With a lot of fuel to spare... Time for Val to perform the obligatory EVA... Are you happy, Val? Are you happy? Yes, she is. She hasn't flown a single mission for... 999 years... 999 days... 999 hours... and 999 minutes, so that's to be expected. ♪ There's a Starman waiting in the sky... ♪ After getting back inside her... ♪ ...tin can... ♪ ,Val takes a few more beauty shots, then begins to align the spacecraft on Retrograde... De-orbiting... Look how much fuel is still left! And I haven't even used any fuel from the Big Soyuz Service Module! I probably could've done a Munar flyby -- hell, maybe even a Munar orbit -- and return mission, if I planned it. Goodbye, upper stage and service module... More beauty shots... Re-entering hot! We've slowed down enough for me to deploy the parachute... Parachute semi-deployed! Fully-deployed! And... ...Touchdown! Val's very happy about her landing, isn't she? Where did you land, Val? *She looks around aimlessly* And what do we have here...? An upper stage that glitched, frozen in the air, is it? It says it's moving at 176 m/s, but in reality, it isn't moving at all... Anyway, goodbye, and have a good day!

Congrats! This looks awesome!

STATUS UPDATE: All of the 2.5m tanks are now finished! Same stats and sizes as the stock tanks... But with hi-res textures and normal maps... And that clean, smart look of modern rocket parts! (With sharp contrast to the stock tanks, the bulky, grungy parts they are) Each tank also has its own distinctive feature... The Jumbo-sized tank has the signature side-pipes, the medium tank has a smooth, clean surface, and the small one has the tiny "flammable" symbol on its side! Time to move on to the RD-0124, and then the Briz-M upper stage!

Some what lol? Soyuz? Solar panels? Descent modules? Orbital modules? Service modules?

For the first time in 4 months, I've done something astonishing -- I've actually turned around and decided to play KSP! What a crazy thought! Brave test pilot Janly Kerman ventured out and boarded a new rocket -- a test platform utilising stock parts for the main rocket -- with one exception. Powering the rocket is a BK-RE1-LM booster engine -- the engine I've created to be used as the main engine for the 1st stage core and boosters for the NotantaresLV Angara rocket family. The engine has a 2.5m base, 4° of gimbal, a maximum of 950 kiloNewtons of thrust, and about the same ISP as the stock Vector SSME engine. The rocket takes off and quickly achieves a speed of approximately 450 m/s. It is at this point -- 13 kilometres up, with only half my tank left -- that I have a lightbulb moment. "Why not test out my engine by using it to make a powered landing in the sea!" So I start to align my rocket along the Retrograde vector... ~ N I C E A S S ~ ...and begin my Retrograde burn. And then I start falling. I reach a speed of around 300 m/s when I realise I won't have any time to slow down if I don't start now... And so I start to throttle up, slowly at first... ... But throttling up more as I get lower and lower... At this moment, I realised I had forgotten to activate the Comfortable Landing mod's "Pre-landing Mode," and I do so. I hover for a bit at around 2 to 3 m/s, then SAS suddenly causes my rocket to veer left... I smack into the water at about 25 m/s, and my engine and fuel tank disappear underwater in a huge splash. Thanks to Comfortable Landing's auto-deploying landing buoys integrated into some of the stock pods, Janly Kerman was saved from an abrupt and painless death. Me: "Having a good day, are we Janly?" Janly: *Smiles a bitter smile*

STATUS UPDATE: The main engine for the Angara boosters is done! You may ask, "How did you create an engine like this so fast?" And you're right. I didn't just create it out of thin air over the course of a day... A close-up of the engine, highlighting the Notantares logo and the soon-to-become signature navy stripe. A comparison shot of my engine, which is highly stylized, and the real one on a rendering of the Angara A5 rocket. There are many minor differences, but my engine still retains the basic shape and functionality. ...It was actually an asset from a top-secret project me and [REDACTED] were working on. However, this engine wasn't up to the same standard as the rest of this parts from this project, so I decided to store it away in case I ever needed it again. "When did I first make it?" you may ask... My engine has fully-functioning emissives, a long, blue flame trail exhaust, and slightly over 4° of gimbal. ...Well... there's no easy way to say this... the part is 4 and a half months old! "What is the secret project?" you may ask...

STATUS UPDATE: A wild new logo appears! And because my brain is 10 days behind what's happening right now, it's styled off the old Tantares logo, not the new one.

With which Paraglider lol?

STATUS UPDATE: 3.75m tanks done! Now for the 2.5m tanks and the engines!

Lol, shrouds and gimballing have already been integrated and proven to work in a proof-of-concept model of the 4-nozzle engine pictured in the post announcing NotantaresLV, so they're definitely on the list for the Cormorant revamp. Even the 3 identical modular SM engines in the Big Soyuz pack have gimballing!

Lol, that thing's the first part I ever made, before I even knew how to make coupling shrouds! It doesn't have one. The nozzle also doesn't rotate during gimballing, which is why its gimbal range is a measly 1.5.

STATUS UPDATE: No, this isn't for Big Soyuz... (WIP Placeholder Texture) Coming soon... Notantares LV: Notantares Launch Vehicles. This new mod, reminiscent of TantaresLV, shall contain all the parts needed to build various launch vehicles, and more! The current rockets that I plan to make are: All Angara variants (As the fuel tanks and engines will be modular, allowing for the creation of multiple Angara versions) under the name Notangara. This will provide a launch vehicle to the Big Khleb and Bigger Khleb crafts, as well as a modular and reliable rocket platform to launch payloads of various sizes from. A plan to revamp the LV-T33 "Cormorant" cryogenic engine with my new modelling and texturing techniques also fits in there somewhere! I'm also open to suggestions as to other rockets that I should make.

"DARKEST FEARS" 1 Hundreds of metres away, shrouded by a thick blanket of forest, and a tall electrified fence surrounding the complex, within the Hawkins National Laboratory, the Department Of Energy laboratory native to the small town of Hawkins, Indiana, a small, red light began to flicker on one of the huge banks of buttons, lights, and screens that composed the control room of the laboratory's central test and observation chamber. A beep began to sound as the light flickering became more intense. The little sensor was calling for someone, beckoning for someone -- anyone -- to acknowledge its existence and the danger it posed -- not the danger of the light, but the danger that the light signaled. However, the halls of the laboratory were utterly deserted, not a soul in sight, the entire facility devoid of any signs of life, each and every single door under lock and key. The red light now became constant, not just a flicker, and the beeping was now a constant, ear-piercing drone. Other lights on the console -- green, yellow, and orange -- began to flash, more alarms joining in with the screech that the red light was now constantly emitting -- beeps, whines, clangs, and whirs. A loud and deafening klaxon began to blare over the PA system, alerting everyone to prepare for something -- something big. (...as the two bubbles touched for the first time -- boom.) The klaxon and other alarms now merged into one long, continuous, high-pitched blare, as a huge boom shook the building, dust and plaster falling from the ceiling, the walls shaking violently, the entire facility subject to what felt like an earthquake. And a crack began to run down the side of the wall of the control room. It was a tiny crack, no bigger than one foot long, but it had the potential to have devastating effects. A blinding red light emanated from the crack, and a thick, viscous, green goo began to ooze from it, plastering the walls surrounding it. Tiny plant tendrils -- vines -- began to reach out from the crack, rooting themselves in the wall. A tear in space-time that led to The Upside Down had been opened once again. The constant blaring of the alarms stopped -- the sheer noise had overloaded the PA system -- but the lights still flashed, lighting up and flickering like a Christmas tree with bad wiring. And there was not a soul in sight to notice the potentially fatal and deadly event which was now occurring at the Hawkins National Laboratory. Read the Prologue Read Chapter 1 Note: The full story was removed from the forums due to the references to blood and violence it contained. That's why I'm hosting it on Google Docs. So, you have been warned.