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[WIP] [RELEASED] ShadowWorks - Stockalike Space Launch System (SLS) & More


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The ShadowWorks - RELEASED

I had a little trouble deciding what to do for my first solo mod, then I remembered the first time I tried building a Space Shuttle with the new Mk3 spaceplane parts and how the stock 3m tanks and NASA SRBs didn't feel like they were in scale with the shuttle. So I thought that a 5m tanks, and appropriately scaled SRBs could be a welcome addition for some.

kcKxCrY.png

External Tank

vq2t1pF.png

The External tank will be three pieces (Nose Cone, Main Tank, End Cap). The reason for this is to allow the Main Tank to be utilized with other 5m tanks from other mods if desired by the user. I have also considered that as it seems the Jupiter rocket proposals used slightly modified versions of the External Tank this modularity would allow me to more easily incorporate the parts for Jupiter rockets in the future if I so desired.

Solid Rocket Boosters

qrsMlIl.png

Right now the plan is for the boosters to be sized at a rather odd 2.25m. Using the scaling factor from the ET (8.4m down to 5m) the boosters come in at about 2.21m, and I felt that 2.5m might be a bit too big and that 2.25m would be more appropriate. Scaling can be easily fixed if the consensus is that 2.5m would be better. I'm planning for to have the nosecones of the boosters as separate parts with their own solid motors for separation.

Space Launch System

ZsPV0XN.png

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The first definite expansion of my original intention, the Space Launch System in stockalike form with a 5m Core Stage, a 3.125m ICPS and Orion, and a 5m Exploration Upper Stage. The initial full release of the mod will come with the completion of the parts necessary to build a Block 1 SLS. The Exploration Upper Stage, 5m to 3.215m spacecraft adapter, 5m fairing, and advanced SRBs for Block 1A and Block 2 configurations will follow. I am also currently planning to make the F-1B powered liquid fueled boosters that have been proposed.

Those are the plans for now.

Progress:

* External Tank modeled and textured (in-game)

* SRB modeled and textured (in-game)

* SSME and Shuttle Engine Mount and OMS engines (in-game)

* Preliminary Balancing of Shuttle Stack (Completed)

* Modeling SLS (Completed)

* SLS Parts In-Game

* Initial Balancing of SLS Stack (Completed)

* Released

Release Thread

License:

ShadowWorks is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

creativecommons.org.by-nc-sa.4.0.88x31.png

Edited by TheShadow1138
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Could you perhaps give me a modified version to use as an SLS lower stage fuel tank and SRB's? Don't even bother retexturing, I think that the SLS will be orange after the first few flights, like the shuttle did:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_launching.jpg/1280px-Space_Shuttle_Columbia_launching.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c2/STS-109_launch.jpg/1024px-STS-109_launch.jpg

I'll think about it, but I thought shadowmage was doing the SLS for Bacon Labs. The only other thing would be that if I modify the ET and SRBs for SLS use, I feel that I might as well go ahead and do the whole launcher. Then again, there aren't that many SLS mods that have been completed, so having a couple of options may not be a bad thing, but I haven't made any final decisions on that yet.

Edited by TheShadow1138
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I'll think about it, but I thought shadowmage was doing the SLS for Bacon Labs. The only other thing would be that if I modify the ET and SRBs for SLS use, I feel that I might as well go ahead and do the whole launcher. Then again, there aren't that many SLS mods that have been complete, so having a couple of options may not be a bad thing, but I haven't made any final decisions on that yet.

Edit: We have the CHAKA/Bobcat SLS now :P

Edited by _Augustus_
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Nice parts shadow!

Shadowmage is currently focused on the Altair and Morpheus landers, along with the EUS and EDS. He may do an SLS if you don't do one before he's done with all his current stuff.

I thought you were going to take on the morpheus?

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Nice parts shadow!

I thought you were going to take on the morpheus?

I'm going to be doing the SLS Block IA/II boosters, maybe the Pyrios, and an EDS/EUS if Shadowmage doesn't finish one before the landers are done. Edited by _Augustus_
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Nice parts shadow!

Thanks tygoo, much appreciated.

I've gotten the ET and SRBs in KSP, but no balancing has been done as of yet, but its progress. Here are some screenshots:

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Next up on the list will be to make an SSME and I think a mounting plate for them would be most helpful. Once they're in-game I'll tackle balancing, then I may undertake a stockalike SLS.

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Thanks tygoo, much appreciated.

I've gotten the ET and SRBs in KSP, but no balancing has been done as of yet, but its progress. Here are some screenshots:

http://imgur.com/a/QLP3S

Next up on the list will be to make an SSME and I think a mounting plate for them would be most helpful. Once they're in-game I'll tackle balancing, then I may undertake a stockalike SLS.

Sweet!
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Looks really good TheShadow1138, keep it up! :) A stockalike SLS would be also very cool, with the core beeing 5m and maybe also with a 3.75m Orion (at least bigger than 2.5m, another good size would be 3.125m maybe)?

Edited by DuoDex
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Looks really good TheShadow1138, keep it up! :) A stockalike SLS would be also very cool, with the core beeing 5m and maybe also with a 3.75m Orion (at least bigger than 2.5m, another good size would be 3.125m maybe)?

(Removed for rudeness)

I actually did calculations, and with his 0.59x scale an Orion would be 3.125m actually. Bacon Labs uses a 3.75m Orion however and it fits on a 5m rocket just fine, even though it scales to a 6.something-meter rocket.

Okay, let's not derail this thread shall we?

Edited by _Augustus_
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Looks really good TheShadow1138, keep it up! :) A stockalike SLS would be also very cool, with the core beeing 5m and maybe also with a 3.75m Orion (at least bigger than 2.5m, another good size would be 3.125m maybe)?

I was leaning towards a 3.75m Orion, but I hadn't really considered an intermediate size like 3.125m. I'll have to look into it, thanks for the idea, and the compliment.

Very nice external tank :)

Is the "ribbed" section achieved by geometry or bump maps? I can't quite tell from here.

Either way, the end result is pretty.

http://puu.sh/idfXI/eece8ee128.jpg

Thanks. It's bump mapped, I was wary about using geometry. Unfortunately it doesn't show up as well in-game as it does in the renders, but you can see them in-game (maybe not in the screenshots I posted though).

Nice work!

Many thanks.

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I've modeled the SSME and a mount for them to be used on a stock MK3 orbiter. I've also made an OMS engine that is really just the SSME model without the coolant pipes that will run on monopropellant. The OMS engines will be 0.625m while the SSMEs are 1.25m. The engine mount has a very basic texture that I'll probably fix up some before I release anything.

No renders yet, but they're ready to get into Unity so I'll post screenshots when I've got them.

Edited by TheShadow1138
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Update: I have completed the SSME mount, SSMEs, and OMS engines and gotten them in-game. I had to modify the SSME scale slightly as the 1.25m size was too small, so I scaled it up to 1.5625m. It's another odd size (1.25 times 1.25m), but I think it looks pretty good I think. The OMS engines are still 0.625m, and I think the engine mount turned out good and seems to go with the Mk3 parts well.

With the currently horribly unbalanced stack it flew surprisingly well, though the tank is currently too heavy and the SSMEs too underpowered to actually lift into orbit, but it didn't misbehave until its velocity dropped to nearly 100 m/s at which point it entered a flat spin. I will start trying to balance the Stack at least to a point where I can fly it to orbit. Once I have it to that point I will release what I have and start work on the SLS parts.

In the mean time, here are some in-game screenshots:

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I've posted a Development release on the OP, and I'll place a link here:

ShadowWorks Development Release - DropBox

I have also included a craft file with the orbiter I built for balancing. With no payload in the bay it is just barely possible to reach orbit, but you have to be extremely careful as the orbiter and tank love to tumble after SRB separation. I tried multiple things to find the cause: redesigning the orbiter, disabling all the control surfaces thinking they were somehow causing it, I even discovered that you can use ModuleControlSurface in place of ModuleGimbal (this allows you to control whether the engines will have pitch and/or roll control just like standard control surfaces, and you can control how fast they move as you may have guessed, but they cannot control yaw), but that provided no real benefit.

When I placed a 27 t payload in the bay, however, it was easier to control after SRB separation and I was able to get the orbiter into a 278km x 235km orbit with the OMS engines. I was also able to de-orbit with about 500 MonoPropellant remaining to help control the orbiter during the descent. There was a descent amount of fuel remaining in the ET when I jettisoned it (I forget exactly but maybe an eighth of the tank), so there is room for more tweaking, and I am open to suggestions and/or advice.

For now, I will move on to modeling the SLS, so I hope you enjoy the Dev Release, and if you have any questions or suggestions please let me know.

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Very nice work man, jus a little question, are the SSME's auto-gimbaling? Also it would be cool a dedicated decoupler for the big tank.

Much appreciated. I'm not sure what you mean by "auto-gimbaling", they have the stock ModuleGimbal and so should behave like all the other stock engines. The second version I included "Shuttle Engine Mk2" uses the stock ModuleControlSurface and should behave like the stock control surfaces except they will not affect life or drag only the thrust vector.

As for the decoupler, do you mean one to decouple the tank from the orbiter, or to decouple the SRBs from the tank? The stock decoupler I used in the craft file I supplied in the download works well in my opinion, but if people would prefer some kind of special decouplers I'm open to suggestions.

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I meant if your engines auto-adjust their position to align the center of thrust with the center of mass, i was thinking to something like the old mod from Dtobi, the "klocheed martian SSE", his engines have high range gimbal and they help a lot into designing something that don't flip over like a crazy horse, after you jettisoned the boosters and burned some fuel the Com shifts a lot, that's why it's very difficult to build a shuttle with stock parts, their gimbal is not enough.

For the decoupler i meant the one that holds the orbiter and the tank together, it's not totally needed, something like the stock TT-70 but more proportionate to the scale of the tank, just for aesthetics :)

I hope i explained myself despite my difficulty with english :D

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I meant if your engines auto-adjust their position to align the center of thrust with the center of mass, i was thinking to something like the old mod from Dtobi, the "klocheed martian SSE", his engines have high range gimbal and they help a lot into designing something that don't flip over like a crazy horse, after you jettisoned the boosters and burned some fuel the Com shifts a lot, that's why it's very difficult to build a shuttle with stock parts, their gimbal is not enough.

The engines have a gimbal range of 10.5º just like in real life, so with SAS turned on the engines stay fairly well in-line with the center of mass. It does work a lot better with a payload in the bay. In my tests I could that if the orbiter had no payload it tended to want to tumble after the boosters separated, but with a 27 t payload in the bay it flew much more controllably. So there are no plugins included in this like Dtobi's, but I don't think it's a definite necessity. I could always increase the gimbal range if people feel it's necessary.

For the decoupler i meant the one that holds the orbiter and the tank together, it's not totally needed, something like the stock TT-70 but more proportionate to the scale of the tank, just for aesthetics :)

I hope i explained myself despite my difficulty with english :D

I understand, just a larger decoupler for the orbiter. Like you said, it's not really necessary just aesthetic, so I don't have plans to do a special decoupler, but if more people want one, then I might make one.

I think you explained quite well, and I'd say your English is better than some native speakers I've heard in my life. Grazie.

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Here are some development renders of the SLS core stage and ICPS. The core stage is 5m just like the External Tank for obvious reasons. The ICPS main diameter is 3.125m. Using the image I am to model from, 3.125 happened to fit quite nicely. This also solidified the decision to make the Orion 3.125m as opposed to 3.75m.

Renders:

Core Stage, Interstage, ICPS

UkOD8tD.png

Close-up of the ICPS and Interstage

re5c68u.png

Im planning to make the three-part fairing covering the Service Module like engine fairings, if only to simplify the building process for everyone and avoid any hassle with the procedural fairings.

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