[WIP] RCS size variants and new options

[TiktaalikDreaming]

This mod will be a collection of RCS and hypergolic engines. I won't limit myself to hypergolic RCS as such though. I just see a lot of cross-over.

Eventually I'll be looking at Realism Overhaul (can't see people wanting much in the line of main hypergolic engines without that), but for the moment I'm just developing using a dual config, one for stock, and one for RealFuels.

So, the plan is basically a bunch of RCS block types. A few inline RCS modules (more on that in a sec). And some main engines of a few sizes, plus some larger side mounted engines (like the "puff", but bigger).

Why? Because turning big craft with stock RCS is tedious, and often results in catastrophic failure due to lack of manoeuvring speed. And because on really small craft, stock RCS massively overcompensates, and looks ridiculous. So, more than one size is needed.  I looked, and there are mods that include different RCS, but along with other stuff.  And I'd have needed one mod to grab small RCS and another to grab big RCS.

So far I'm mostly working with 3 sizes, stock, stock x2, and stock /2. That's double and half measurements in each dimension, so eight times or one eighth mass and thrust.

Inline.
While trying to figure out how to do inset RCS (see space shuttle nose etc), I decided I'd do short fuselage parts with RCS inset into them, and a core of a Monoprop fuel tank. So far I have one design, and it's in two sizes, with a pretty awful texture mapped on. 3.75m and 2.5m. Obviously it needs more options than that, which I'm working on. Including adapters between bulkhead sizes/shapes.

Thrusting hypergolic engines. I'm not super sure how much of this I'll get into. I'll be looking at at least some different sizes of something like the stock “Puff” engine. And probably a basic inline engine. I probably won't make any of them particularly big (aka, no 5m radius monster hypergolics) as it seems unlikely hypergolics would be used when the added complexity of turbopumps etc becomes so much less cumbersome. And there's none of these yet.

Download link

http://spacedock.info/mod/71/TD%20Industries%20RCS%20and%20Hypergolic%20engines

Pretties;

 

Updated to v0.2.  Still the same list of parts, same behaviour.  I've updated textures etc, and made some minor adjustments to placement of nozzles.  Inline parts no longer look awful.

Edited February 19, 2016 by TiktaalikDreaming
Docking

[VenomousRequiem]

Mmm, lots of high detailed RCS ports and engines? Don't mind if I do.

[Kolago]

Inline RCS modules! Instant download. Thanks for the mod.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

9 hours ago, Kolago said:

Inline RCS modules! Instant download. Thanks for the mod.

The inlines are still very much in dev.  The two so far work, but they pretty ugly.  I need to reunwrap them to solve some issues, and then they're going to a dark tile pattern.  Also, the existing pattern just does sideways, there's no fore-aft.  But, yep, they are freakin useful.

[Jimbodiah]

Might I ask for 3.75 and 5m versions as well, or compatibility with TweakScale? Looking nice so far!!!

[TiktaalikDreaming]

12 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Might I ask for 3.75 and 5m versions as well, or compatibility with TweakScale? Looking nice so far!!!

Yep. Although the larger of the two is supposed to be 3.75m already. I didn't actually check yet, I may have scales all wrong. :-) 

---------------------------------

Yep, the one I meant to be 3.75 is definitely 2.5m  Which means the smaller one is 2/3rds of 2.5m, and thus fits nothing.  I'll fix this all up next update.

Edited January 10, 2016 by TiktaalikDreaming

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Updated.

Inline now has three sizes, 1.25m, 2.5m, and 3.75m.  *** UNTESTED ***  I knew the changes I needed, and they were all text cfg changes, so I grabbed the mod and made the changes at work. 

Don't tell anyone. 

But that means I can't test. 

I also changed the folder name to match the (proposed auto) CKAN identifier, even though I also made a request for adding an install stanza where that's specified.

 

[Psycho_zs]

Nice mod!

4-way block with shifted side nozzles may introduce imbalance in some configurations.

Have you any plans on making 3-way blocks, (both T-shaped and corner-shaped)?

[01010101lzy]

What about making some inline hollow RCS modules which you can mount after a tank and having an engine inside it, in order to make manuvers easier(and fuel settling-down easier for RF), and reduce part count as well?

[TiktaalikDreaming]

12 hours ago, Psycho_zs said:

Nice mod!

4-way block with shifted side nozzles may introduce imbalance in some configurations.

Have you any plans on making 3-way blocks, (both T-shaped and corner-shaped)?

I have plans for a 5-way, and a 3way, but the 3 way would be one axis in both directions parallel to the surface it's mounted on plus one nozzle firing away from said surface.  I can't honestly think of a good use case for other 3-way blocks.

6 hours ago, 01010101lzy said:

What about making some inline hollow RCS modules which you can mount after a tank and having an engine inside it, in order to make manuvers easier(and fuel settling-down easier for RF), and reduce part count as well?

I'd be inclined to make just the RCS ring, except maybe for some hypergolic main engines, including an RCS ring.  But a hollow RCS ring part does have merit.  Thanks.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

17 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Updated.

Inline now has three sizes, 1.25m, 2.5m, and 3.75m.  *** UNTESTED ***  I knew the changes I needed, and they were all text cfg changes, so I grabbed the mod and made the changes at work. 

Don't tell anyone. 

But that means I can't test. 

I also changed the folder name to match the (proposed auto) CKAN identifier, even though I also made a request for adding an install stanza where that's specified.

 

The uploaded version has the wrong stats for the 3.75m  I daftly copied the 2.5 and doubled sizes, instead of x1.5.  So, it has as much mono as the 5m should have and the thrust power is where the 5m should be as well.  I have a fixed up copy, that I currently can't access, that has corrected sizes 0 through to 4, aka, 0.625m, 1.25m, 2.5m, 3.75m, and 5m.  I will also be doing Mk1 and so on, but clearly with different models.

At the moment, my modding capability has taken a turn for the worse.  My primary HDD with Windows etc, is in a bad way (aka, chirpy noises and more bad sectors than good ones) so I can only boot to Linux.  And I don't have Unity working in Linux (I tried, there's a lot of time while waiting for every HDD tool available in linux to run on a few TB), so all I can do until I've fixed my PC is mess with config files.

That said, I have a replacement HDD.  Day 1 of recovery attempts was to dd the old to new, and see if there was enough data for the easy way out.  Turns out the answer is "no".  So I'll be reinstalling Windows, and Blender, and GiMP, and Unity, and KSP, and ...... trying to remember all the other excrements that sits in the background and makes life just that little bit easier.

Feel free to keep making suggestions, but don't have great expectations of new variants popping up in the next few days.

[01010101lzy]

11 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I'd be inclined to make just the RCS ring, except maybe for some hypergolic main engines, including an RCS ring.  But a hollow RCS ring part does have merit.  Thanks.

Got it.

[Psycho_zs]

17 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I have plans for a 5-way, and a 3way, but the 3 way would be one axis in both directions parallel to the surface it's mounted on plus one nozzle firing away from said surface.  I can't honestly think of a good use case for other 3-way blocks.

That would be a block to place somewhere in the middle of the ship to allow translation, which is a good idea too.

But it needs to  be complemented with something to put near nose and stern. So, a full set of non-4-way blocks would be this:

Bottom left is what you describe, upper ones for placing near the ends of the ship, lower ones for placing along the center of mass, left ones to place at 0,90,180,270 degrees, right ones to place at 45,135,225,315 degrees.

I find top right variant the most useful of all, eight of them in a box around the center of mass give all-symmetric translation and rotation without any axis preference.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Psycho_zs

[TiktaalikDreaming]

7 hours ago, Psycho_zs said:

That would be a block to place somewhere in the middle of the ship to allow translation, which is a good idea too.

But it needs to  be complemented with something to put near nose and stern. So, a full set of non-4-way blocks would be this:

Bottom left is what you describe, upper ones for placing near the ends of the ship, lower ones for placing along the center of mass, left ones to place at 0,90,180,270 degrees, right ones to place at 45,135,225,315 degrees.

I find top right variant the most useful of all, eight of them in a box around the center of mass give all-symmetric translation and rotation without any axis preference.

Ah, yep.  With the angles, they become quite a bit more useful.  Now I'm thinking bottom left, and top right.  Maybe bottom right as well, as it seems odd to do top right without that.  What I was discounting was the top left.  It just seemed to add nothing that wasn't better covered by the regular 4-way.

[Psycho_zs]

4-ways and 5-ways have a disadvantage in cases where the middle of the ship is thicker, so one of the thrusters ends up firing into the hull (or along the whole ship which is not nice either). 3-ways is basically an answer to that with problematic ship-facing nozzle removed.

Edited January 12, 2016 by Psycho_zs

[TiktaalikDreaming]

2 hours ago, Psycho_zs said:

4-ways and 5-ways have a disadvantage in cases where the middle of the ship is thicker, so one of the thrusters ends up firing into the hull (or along the whole ship which is not nice either). 3-ways is basically an answer to that with problematic ship-facing nozzle removed.

And that's why we need options.  Nozzles facing the centre of mass are, I think we can agree, significantly less useful than tits on a bull.

I generally think the 5-way would be used in situations where the craft builder cannot be bothered thinking.  Just whack a whole bunch of 5-way nozzles all over the place and cross your fingers.  It's not really the most efficient way of doing things.  Unless the efficiency you're after is "minimum thinking".  But most every mod with "extra RCS" has one, and usually because users want it.

And, I'm going to have to do up a set of names for each arrangement so I can refer to them without extensive descriptions each time.  :-)

Edited January 13, 2016 by TiktaalikDreaming

[Psycho_zs]

5-ways can come handy in flat designs, like spaceplanes, where there is no place along one of the axis sufficiently far away from CoM.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, Psycho_zs said:

5-ways can come handy in flat designs, like spaceplanes, where there is no place along one of the axis sufficiently far away from CoM.

Absolutely.  And I'd like to say there's nothing wrong with being lazy while building craft in KSP either.  Mine are often thrown together pretty darned haphazardly.  With 5 nozzles you're reducing your chances of at least one nozzle not pointing along an axis that intersects the centre of mass, but increasing the chance of having nozzles pointing where you need them.  MOAR NOZZLES!

[Jimbodiah]

Ksp should transform the thrust with all active rcs nozzles available to get moving in the direction you want. If some are pointed at an angle it does not matter much unless you use them without SAS or have a really bad rcs  ballance.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, Jimbodiah said:

Ksp should transform the thrust with all active rcs nozzles available to get moving in the direction you want. If some are pointed at an angle it does not matter much unless you use them without SAS or have a really bad rcs  ballance.

Yep.  The inefficiency is that some nozzles may always be useless, and thus are being lugged around for no benefit.  All couple of kg of them.  As I said, I tend towards the lazy spectrum, but it's certainly not unheard of for people to carefully balance and optimize these things.

[Jimbodiah]

What's a few rcs nozzles going to matter? I always worry about part count more, weight is never an issue.

For rcs, use the rcs balancing aid, super mod for setting up your rcs.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

I has most of my development environment back.  A 5-way and two arrangements of 3-way coming soon.  I've been looking at arrangements for a lower section ring of RCS to go between fuel tanks and the engines.  That's progressing (it's blender work, so I could progress in my Linux boot) but there's a fair bit of work, mostly in choosing how things are.  It's not super complicated modelling, but it does raise many questions to which there are multiple answers.  :-)

 

[Psycho_zs]

I just like cleaner designs, and nozzles firing into something other than space are not part of them.

If you remember Apollo craft, it had only 4 4-way RCS blocks that were placed tangenial to CoM. That is basically the only configuration in which 4-way blocks are suitable. If you place 8 blocks in a box, you get 8 redundant nozzles facing each other (or if ship has a thicker middle part, they face the hull).

2 5-ways provide full translation (1 axis weakened) and 2 axis rotation.

4 straight 4-ways provide full translation (1 axis boosted) and rotation (1 axis boosted)

4 angled 4-ways provide full translation (1 axis boosted) and rotation (1 axis weakened)

8 straight 3-ways provide full unpreferenced translation and rotation (1 axis boosted)

8 angled 3-ways can provide unpreferenced translation and rotation.

[Jimbodiah]

Those look nice!!!

[Psycho_zs]

The last two are just clipped combinations of 1-way and 2-way blocks from RLA mod. Never saw 3-ways in wildlife