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[1.12.5] Bluedog Design Bureau - Stockalike Saturn, Apollo, and more! (v1.13.0 "Забытый" 13/Aug/2023)


CobaltWolf

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1 hour ago, FreeThinker said:

So it basicly comes down to high risk, if anything goes wrong, it might blow up the whole assembly line, killing all nearby engeneers.

Since acccidents are unavoidable, production of large solid rockets unavoidable will lead to dead engeneers and therefore result in the public opinion penalty over time

Perhaps its an idea to add a small reputation penalty whenever a big Solid fuel rocket is build?

Sounds like an idea for the State Funding mod!

BDB solids are hella fun.  I never really used them before other than for Moar Boosters™ but there are some truly bonkers design concepts around.  Just when you think you've come up with something utterly crazy, you'll stumble across an old NASA doc with something even better.

@ZorgUSAF sending up a completely peaceful meteorological observation platform using a Russian probe core?  Delicious irony.

Edited by Friznit
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8 minutes ago, Friznit said:

@ZorgUSAF sending up a completely peaceful meteorological observation platform using a Russian probe core?  Delicious irony

I dont see any Russian probe core. Its just a corona film return capsule :P 

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20 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

But the last release is from  2019-02-09

Should I use a development version instead? :sealed:

Barring the usual caveats, yes absolutely use the Dev branch.  Fire up a Titan and glory in its magnificence.

It'd be pretty cool to see a mix of KSPIE and BDB comes to think of it.  Hmmm, alt history thonk...

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4 minutes ago, Friznit said:

Barring the usual caveats, yes absolutely use the Dev branch.  Fire up a Titan and glory in its magnificence.

It'd be pretty cool to see a mix of KSPIE and BDB comes to think of it.  Hmmm, alt history thonk...

does BDB have any nuclear engines, if so I can write a MM file to augment thr nuclear engine with KSPIE behaviour, this will also make them generate deadly radiation when Kerbalsim is installed

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33 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

But the last release is from  2019-02-09

Should I use a development version instead? :sealed:

11 minutes ago, Friznit said:

Barring the usual caveats, yes absolutely use the Dev branch.  Fire up a Titan and glory in its magnificence.

It'd be pretty cool to see a mix of KSPIE and BDB comes to think of it.  Hmmm, alt history thonk...

4 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

does BDB have any nuclear engines, if so I can write a MM file to augment thr nuclear engine with KSPIE behaviour, this will also make them generate deadly radiation when Kerbalsim is installed

The dev version is still VERY dev - I've been focusing on trying to get all the new parts done and in game, and stuff like trying to balance the tech tree haven't been done yet. I wouldn't use it in anything other than sandbox or a career save you really don't care about.

And no, BDB doesn't have any nuclear engines. The ones in Kerbal Atomics and Restock are all really good and are very close to the IRL designs any BDB nuclear engine would be based on.

Edited by CobaltWolf
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1 hour ago, Friznit said:

During extensive research for the BDB Atlas revamp, the team stumbled across some archive footage showing that things don't always go according to plan

n05Fk9M.png

Images courtesy of @Zorg

I like this Style, More!

Edited by Adam-Kerman
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12 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

So it basicly comes down to high risk, if anything goes wrong, it might blow up the whole assembly line, killing all nearby engeneers.

Since acccidents are unavoidable, production of large solid rockets unavoidable will lead to dead engeneers and therefore result in the public opinion penalty over time

Perhaps its an idea to add a small reputation penalty whenever a big Solid fuel rocket is build?

Actually it is more complex than this.  

1) Solid Rockets are less controllable than Liquid.  

2) Solid Rockets need to be "Formed" for the Correct G-Loading of any mission carrying people.  That means you have to know well before launch within say several 10s of pounds or even 100s of pounds, what the final payload is going to be...  Hard to do with a computer, imagine with a slide-rule and paper.  (Space Shuttle takes advantage of the SSME's performance and limited throttle-ability to reduce/ignore this need)

3) Solid Rockets are much harder to "abort."    You either blow the casing up, or you create blowout holes (like on the new UA-120x Nosecones in the dev!) for the Thrust to cancel itself out.  

4) Segmented solids, have many many failure-points... (Challenger,)  and even with the latest technology are not considered as safe as Liquid boosters.  However Unitary Solids MUST be made at the launch site (AJ-260)  or be of a relatively small size (GEM)

 

All that being said,  On the ground before launch, I would rather be next to a modern Solid Rocket than a fully Fueled Liquid Rocket (in any non-storable form.)    Of  course, a Storable Liquid rocket I want to be the furthest away from....

 

 

6 hours ago, Friznit said:

During extensive research for the BDB Atlas revamp, the team stumbled across some archive footage showing that things don't always go according to plan

Images courtesy of @Zorg

Didn't one of the Atlas SCORE launches do just that?  I know an Atlas took a took a hard right at Albuquerque and was destroyed like 3 seconds off the pad, But I thought one of the SCORE Atlas' did a back flip to crash a mile away.

 

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3 hours ago, Pappystein said:

Didn't one of the Atlas SCORE launches do just that?  I know an Atlas took a took a hard right at Albuquerque and was destroyed like 3 seconds off the pad, But I thought one of the SCORE Atlas' did a back flip to crash a mile away.

IIRC SCORE was a one off flight. It was essentially a tape recorder, a battery, and an omnidirectional antenna. The active payload only weighed 68kg, though the total on orbit mass, including the empty Atlas, was 3969kg. Eisenhower recorded a Christmas message for the satellite.

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14 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

The dev version is still VERY dev - I've been focusing on trying to get all the new parts done and in game, and stuff like trying to balance the tech tree haven't been done yet. I wouldn't use it in anything other than sandbox or a career save you really don't care about.

I guess it comes down to my own responsibility wether I want a old stable version or unfinised improved version. But now I'm confronted with a error message every time I start KSP, knowing it is fixed, I rather have the unfinised version and deal with any problems (which I will report therby helping mod development). Would not recommend this for the causual player but I'm consider myself and seasoned player that can take calculated risks regarding unfinised products.

Perhaps its an idea to formalize it and make a alpha or beta version available on the OP, that way you will have more poeple that test the latest version, potentialy increasing development time.

Edited by FreeThinker
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12 hours ago, Pappystein said:
On 8/5/2019 at 11:41 AM, FreeThinker said:

So it basicly comes down to high risk, if anything goes wrong, it might blow up the whole assembly line, killing all nearby engeneers.

Since acccidents are unavoidable, production of large solid rockets unavoidable will lead to dead engeneers and therefore result in the public opinion penalty over time

Perhaps its an idea to add a small reputation penalty whenever a big Solid fuel rocket is build?

Actually it is more complex than this.  

I would like to add something to that discussion.

  1. Solid fuel motors are substantially easier to manufacture than liquid fuel ones. This doesn't mean they are easy, just less complex. SRMs don't need all the plumbing and specially turbopumps as the liquid fuel ones require. That's why sounding and college level rockets are usually solid fueled ones - see IREC
  2. The design process involving a SRM is simpler than a liquid fuel ones. Sure, SRMs have massive combustion instabilities and some propellant mixes (HTPB) will shoot fragments of burning aluminium with the exhaust gasses, but they don't have to deal with the liquid propellant sloshing in the tanks neither with the really complicated problem of mixing the liquid fuel and the oxidizer in the combustion chamber.
  3. SRMs usually have smaller chamber pressure and temperature than liquid fuel motors. This simplifies the design process and makes possible to use more 'common' materials, so you can use a steel alloy instead of a niobium alloy. However the smaller pressure and temperature makes for a smaller exhaust velocity as well, thus decreasing Isp.
  4. When loaded (or fueled) SRMs are not safe and are prone to explosions for a longer period of time (as it happened with the brazilian VLS in 2003), while liquid fuel ones are only fueled moments before launch (as happened with the R-16 in the 60s). Neither are completely safe, the only types of propulsion that are completely safe cannot produce more than a few newtons of thrust (ion or photonic propulsion for example)

SRMs are used when you A) don't need too much control, B) when you don't have experience with liquid fuel motors or C) when you are on a budget. 

 

TL;DR: rockets are complicated explody machines.

Edited by Marcelo Silveira
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Quote

The 2003 Alcântara VLS accident was an accident involving a Brazilian Space Agency VLS-1 launch vehicle, which was intended to have launched two satellites into orbit. The rocket exploded on its launch pad at the Alcântara Launch Center, killing 21 people. This was the third attempt by the Brazilian Space Agency to launch the VLS rocket into space.

The explosion leveled the rocket's launch pad, reducing a 10-story high structure to a pile of twisted metal. The rocket had been scheduled to launch in just a few days and had two satellites on board when the explosion occurred. After the explosion, the Brazilian Space Agency was criticized for using solid-fuel rockets, which are easier to build and ignite than liquid-fuel rockets, but also dangerous because they lack throttle controls and emergency shut-offs.[4] The incident has caused a significant delay to the Brazilian space program because of government inquiries as well as the fact that many scientists and engineers who worked on the program were killed when the rocket exploded.[5]

As I predicted , SRB blow up killing scientist and engeers causing loss of prestige hit of -200. I guess that was the end of the Brazilian space program.

Edited by FreeThinker
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4 hours ago, birdog357 said:

Is there a way to actively cool the Saturn upper stages so that they become storable? I'd like to build Baxter's Ares, and that requires an S-IVB to be fully fueled for 2 years.

I guess you could put a fairing around it to keep the sunlight away, but that isn’t ZBO. I think the way that @Nertea implements cryogenic fuels allows boiloff management.

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At the risk of embarrassing myself: does "configure unmanned experiments" in the VAB do anything?

I don't think I've run into that part option with any other mod, and I can't find any mention of it. It doesn't seem to bring up any windows or change anything on the part in question, and it only appears in VAB on the various unmanned probes. 

Do I just have something broken on my end? 

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9 minutes ago, Synthesis said:

At the risk of embarrassing myself: does "configure unmanned experiments" in the VAB do anything?

Do you have Kerbalism installed? It adds that button to anything with a probe core, since they redo the science system entirely. That allows you to configure what experiment(s) that probe core has. In sandbox, you can ignore it. On career and science, use it a lot.

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1 minute ago, KerbalKore said:

Do you have Kerbalism installed? It adds that button to anything with a probe core, since they redo the science system entirely. That allows you to configure what experiment(s) that probe core has. In sandbox, you can ignore it. On career and science, use it a lot.

Oh, that certainly makes sense! I have Simplex-Kerbalism installed. 

I'm in career mode, and so far it seems nonfunctional--probably something in my Kerbalism settings, but that's neither here nor there. Thank you!

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Alright, so I got a massive burst of inspiration for the LDC parts the other day. Unfortunately, I only had time to more or less rough in my ideas, but hey, at least I have them together now.

I won't be able to work on this stuff until next week (I will be away from home), and don't have a lot of time, so I'll just try to give a quick narrative of all the screenshots I shared the last 48 hours or so...

 

The second stage model got updated somewhat, a bit more detail, some fuel ports. The current tank is about 4.5m-long, this picture shows it with a 2.5m-long extension tank on top.

In testing we discovered the upper stage was a bit anemic. The extension tank should help performance somewhat.

JpkdYqh.png

 

The first stage tanks got a bunch more greebling. More raceways, Atlas-V style retro mounts, fuel ports etc.

IkqqlIy.png

 

The number of first stage engine mounts is growing. Unfortunately I am very very low on texture space for the engine mounts, so I don't think I can include more than the ones I'm sharing today.

The new one here is the 3x mount on the first stage model - credit for that incredible design goes to @PickledTripod, who also made the RD-180 and some other misc parts for BDB.

ySgog0Z.png

 

The second stage doesn't have as many options. The 2x mount still might need some work - I just cut up the 4x mount and moved everything towards the middle.

I want to add some more greebling to these - stuff like pressurant tanks and the like. Probably just on the 1x and 2x mounts.

I love that the first and second stages of this rocket have so much flexibility, and work with a number of LFO and LH2 engines.

cTd6fKA.png

 

Later on, I realized I was still missing an ESSENTIAL engine mount option, so I bashed this together - the 9x mount for the Whiskeyjack first stage! If you haven't read Morning of the Maple Leaf, you should.

I might have to make sure there is a 'low profile' variant of this, though there might be clipping issues. The outer engines have to be canted I believe 4 degrees.

It occurs to me that the 9x mount might make the LR-87-LH2-SL more useful on this rocket.

I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice by counting all these first stage mounts as one part...

myJwTWe.png

 

Here's a bunch of shots in a row of another second stage mount. This 7x mount is pretty stinking cool I feel, and hopefully lets you cluster enough RL-10s to make a "Big S-IV" stage if you want.

I was able to make sure that RL-10-A4s could be comfortably clustered, I don't think RL-10-B2s would fit unfortunately.

rN0kIAa.png
LA0GfZo.png
u0zVxmY.png

 

I stayed up later than normal last night to try and get a little texturing done, here's the start of the new first stage textures. This is a very early WIP.

You can see I'm still keeping a lot of the original design here, just with more details and probably with a cleaner final look.

The new 3.75m>3.125m adapter is probably a good representation of the look I'm going for. I'm taking inspiration from reDIRECT and Restock for texturing.

In a way, this might also be considered a prototype of the style I eventually would want to texture revamped Saturn parts in...

ZjQNglI.png

 

Know what's better than LDC? LDC with recoverable SRBs, to reduce costs ;)

I was able to make the alternate mesh for the SRB nose cone without using any new texture space, so I think I'll be able to texture the parachute itself using space left over on the engines texture sheet.

I don't know if anyone else is as low key excited for this as I am, hopefully career players will appreciate it.

By the way, speaking of the SRBs - people may have noticed the big circles on the SRB nose cones? Those are blow-out holes for thrust termination, for manned missions if you need to abort.

I'm interested in adding an alternate mode to the SRBs that uses that, if there's sufficient interest. Let me know, everyone! Would make using UA120s in hardcore careers safer for manned missions.

IAmU7cl.png

 

 

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