[1.12.3] Knes 1.9.9

[Zorg]

Some Hermes images 

[Well]

7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

From my experience, this is not a good idea. Also, engine mount and the water tank were the same between Ariane variants, but the engines themselves were not:

This is Viking 5. Note the conical nozzle. Compare to Viking 5C:

It is better to make a single engine mount, and allow players to add engines as they see fit, including engines from other mods, if they want. Modularity is good for KSP, and saving part count is not important on launch vehicles (it matters mostly for station parts, because stations can grow big).

I understood your point of view, and you don’t need to belabour it. I know all Viking Variant. Now let me decide what works best for me.

7 hours ago, Zorg said:

Some Hermes images 

Oh yes, i'm happy to see Hermes in flight!  Thanks!

Edited April 4, 2019 by Well

[Quoniam Kerman]

I've been using the cosmocat capsule ever since you released it. I bring it with my space ships even if they go further than LKO ( for inhabitated ships only, the cat on a solo trip is for the LKO only) and especially If I have room in a cargo bay, like for example the new Mk2 lander can that has cargo bays on the sides.

The Cosmocat brings a lot of science, along with your own instruments.

Cumulated with stock instruments and DMagic orbital science, the science gains have become slightly OP. Fortunately I have so many part mods that the tech tree is gigantic now. I haven't used a lab for this save yet, oh Boy, how much science it'd bring is properly astronomical... Fortunately you can change science and money gain settings in the game options to lower the gains...

Poor cat though.

I've been trying to imagine what a cat or dog life would be like in a spacecraft or on Mars these days and I don't see anyone bringing one since it doesn't seem really convenient, it'd be a chore to take care of an animal, so many things to attend to when astronauts already have so much work to do during space travel... The absence of "outside" or gravity would be quite stressful for animals. For a few days it could be fun, for a three years mission, I can't imagine... 

Tintin's dog spacewalking on the Moon is not likely to become a reality anytime soon I'm afraid.

 

Viking capsule looks cute.

Looking foreward for the old Arianes family !

 

@Zorg

I know that Hermes was supposed to fly uncovered. But I really hate big wings on the bottom of my rockets. I'd prefer to put Hermes inside a fairing, although IRL, having the shuttle uncovered is much better for abort separation indeed...

Edited April 4, 2019 by Quoniam Kerman

[Zorg]

37 minutes ago, Quoniam Kerman said:

I know that Hermes was supposed to fly uncovered. But I really hate big wings on the bottom of my rockets. I'd prefer to put Hermes inside a fairing, although IRL, having the shuttle uncovered is much better for abort separation indeed...

The wings aren't ideal (though they somewhat evoke some of the Titan concept artwork for the X20) but for me personally I dislike excessively bulbous fairings even more. Plus I wouldn't put a crewed spaceplane inside a fairing for the reason you mentioned above.

[Well]

21 minutes ago, Zorg said:

The wings aren't ideal (though they somewhat evoke some of the Titan concept artwork for the X20) but for me personally I dislike excessively bulbous fairings even more. Plus I wouldn't put a crewed spaceplane inside a fairing for the reason you mentioned above.

I launch hermes without fairing or Wings, just generally don't touch anything during the beginning of the launch, don't try to roll at the beginning, i've added more gimbal on Ariane 5 Booster to help a little, do you still have some difficulties to launch it ?

1 hour ago, Quoniam Kerman said:

I've been using the cosmocat capsule ever since you released it. I bring it with my space ships even if they go further than LKO ( for inhabitated ships only, the cat on a solo trip is for the LKO only) and especially If I have room in a cargo bay, like for example the new Mk2 lander can that has cargo bays on the sides.

The Cosmocat brings a lot of science, along with your own instruments.

Cumulated with stock instruments and DMagic orbital science, the science gains have become slightly OP. Fortunately I have so many part mods that the tech tree is gigantic now. I haven't used a lab for this save yet, oh Boy, how much science it'd bring is properly astronomical... Fortunately you can change science and money gain settings in the game options to lower the gains...

Poor cat though.

I've been trying to imagine what a cat or dog life would be like in a spacecraft or on Mars these days and I don't see anyone bringing one since it doesn't seem really convenient, it'd be a chore to take care of an animal, so many things to attend to when astronauts already have so much work to do during space travel... The absence of "outside" or gravity would be quite stressful for animals. For a few days it could be fun, for a three years mission, I can't imagine... 

Tintin's dog spacewalking on the Moon is not likely to become a reality anytime soon I'm afraid.

 

Viking capsule looks cute.

Looking foreward for the old Arianes family !

 

@Zorg

I know that Hermes was supposed to fly uncovered. But I really hate big wings on the bottom of my rockets. I'd prefer to put Hermes inside a fairing, although IRL, having the shuttle uncovered is much better for abort separation indeed...

Many thanks to you, i'm happy if my little CosmoCat is a passenger of your flight!  This little boy is a reproduction of a real flight but only suborbital, so this little lucky cat don't make a long flight and come back safe.

I've also some difficulties to think about a animal during long space mission.

[Zorg]

2 minutes ago, Well said:

I launch hermes without fairing or Wings, just generally don't touch anything during the beginning of the launch, don't try to roll at the beginning, i've added more gimbal on Ariane 5 Booster to help a little, do you still have some difficulties to launch it ?

Oh I've only launched it (successfully) once so far. I tried a fairly normal gravity turn only slightly less aggressive than I normally do and I had some instability.

I will see if a lofted trajectory like you suggest works for me in 2.5x scale.

 

[Well]

1 hour ago, Zorg said:

Oh I've only launched it (successfully) once so far. I tried a fairly normal gravity turn only slightly less aggressive than I normally do and I had some instability.

I will see if a lofted trajectory like you suggest works for me in 2.5x scale.

I've never tested my mod in 2.5 scale, so that could be helpful to have your return on that launch, if you have the time to test that one day. 

[Zorg]

8 minutes ago, Well said:

I've never tested my mod in 2.5 scale, so that could be helpful to have your return on that launch, if you have the time to test that one day. 

You know what I also patched the Vulcain engine to run LH2O and reduced the thrust to 720Kn, that could also have something to do with it (could be lower control authority or something). I am doing a bit of unrelated testing on a 2.5x install though, would be no trouble to see how the unmodified craft on LFO runs without wings etc. I'll let you know.

[Well]

1 hour ago, Zorg said:

You know what I also patched the Vulcain engine to run LH2O and reduced the thrust to 720Kn, that could also have something to do with it (could be lower control authority or something). I am doing a bit of unrelated testing on a 2.5x install though, would be no trouble to see how the unmodified craft on LFO runs without wings etc. I'll let you know.

Oh yes that could explain why.

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

For Ariane, my idea is still to have engine integrate to the stage, because in fact L140 and L220 don't have used many different Engine.

L220 have also used Viking 6 ( but nozzle really similar to Viking 5C and only for boosters )

I've remade the Viking 5 Nozzle, Viking 5C Still in progress, i'm going to see if i could make A Viking 5B variant, but the nozzle is not really different.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Well

[Guest]

But what if someone wants to make a custom variant of Ariane 4 with different engines? Or something from Eyes Turned Skywards? Or an Indian rocket using your engines and parts from another mod (a valid approach, early VIKAS is license-built Viking)? Or Europa IIIB? 
 
Integrated, single-purpose parts should be avoided whenever possible. That goes especially for engine clusters, which also cause trouble for part failure mods. You cannot have a single engine failure in an integrated setup. Tantares is a very bad example for this reason. BDB is designed far better, with much more flexibility and realism.

Also, the nozzle on Viking 5B is more like 5C than 5A. Only the "A" version used a conical nozzle.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Guest

[lrd.Helmet]

I think Well should design and make what he wants .

@Well your rockets look awesome! Great stuff!

[Zorg]

@Well I just tested out the Ariane5/Hermes on 2.5x again. Without my personal Lh2 patch it worked just fine without wings, just have to be a little bit more gentle and start the gravity turn a little bit later but you can use a pretty normal flight path and you dont have to do anything silly.

I managed to get it into orbit with my Lh2 patch as well but the trajectory is way too vertical as the TWR goes up to 5:1 due to the low weight of the Lh2, I probably need to rebalance the SRB thrust to work together with the LH2 Vulcain engine but this is all "warranty void" stuff . Anyone flying the craft normally without messing with it shouldnt have issues at 2.5x scale.

Edited April 5, 2019 by Zorg

[Well]

3 minutes ago, Zorg said:

@Well I just tested out the Ariane5/Hermes on 2.5x again. Without my personal Lh2 patch it worked just fine without wings, just have to be a little bit more gentle and start the gravity turn a little bit later but you can use a pretty normal flight path and you dont have to do anything silly.

I managed to get it into orbit with my Lh2 patch as well but the trajectory is way too vertical as the TWR goes up to 5:1 due to the low weight of the Lh2, I probably need to rebalance the SRB thrust to work together with the LH2 Vulcain engine but this is all "warranty void" stuff . Anyone flying the craft normally without messing with it shouldnt have issues at 2.5x scale.

That a really good news! Many thanks to have take the time to test that!

[Quoniam Kerman]

That Vicking cpasule sis so small... why does it have to that high into the tech tree? Is it lighter than the stock Mk1 capsule and could well fit inside it in fact... One could think that your Vicking capsule coule even come at the same tier, aka tier 1...

It is cute nonetheless.

It can make a small and cheap capsule to get stranded astronauts in orbit back to Kerbin or very small landers for tiny moons to spend less fuel overall.

It also can be used as escape pods for big ships or orbital stations around Kerbin, Duna, Eve or Laythe.

I like that the parachute is a retextured stock Mk16. It doesn't feature the inside bug texture as the stock Mk16 does.

As for puting a Hermes inside a Fairing, Soyouz is inside a fairing and it works well for safety. Apollo as inside a fairing as well as Orion.  And contrary to early fairings that have many defects upon separation, current fairings deploy well (IRL I mean, of course KSP keeps some shenanigans in play, because...  Kraken)

[Well]

8 hours ago, Quoniam Kerman said:

That Vicking cpasule sis so small... why does it have to that high into the tech tree? Is it lighter than the stock Mk1 capsule and could well fit inside it in fact... One could think that your Vicking capsule coule even come at the same tier, aka tier 1...

It is cute nonetheless.

It can make a small and cheap capsule to get stranded astronauts in orbit back to Kerbin or very small landers for tiny moons to spend less fuel overall.

It also can be used as escape pods for big ships or orbital stations around Kerbin, Duna, Eve or Laythe.

I like that the parachute is a retextured stock Mk16. It doesn't feature the inside bug texture as the stock Mk16 does.

As for puting a Hermes inside a Fairing, Soyouz is inside a fairing and it works well for safety. Apollo as inside a fairing as well as Orion.  And contrary to early fairings that have many defects upon separation, current fairings deploy well (IRL I mean, of course KSP keeps some shenanigans in play, because...  Kraken)

I just forgot to check the tech-tree before the release. I am sincerely sorry for the career players, I will correct this in the next update, this capsule is of course planned to be available early in the career. My apologies. Cost Range is also generally a little random i need to check every part

Soon a cargo Variant of this little capsule, to play like the real Minos/Trisat/Solaris french concept. (Automatic Cargo capsule)

Many thanks for your review!

The Early French project Minos / Trisat ( later Solaris) is an automatic space platform to produce Crystals in Orbit for commercial purpose.

Experiment on Spacelab program, show finally the crystal producted on orbit are finally not so good, and finally cut the idea of a commercial buisness .

It's a little more Gameplay concept at this point, so i need to see what is the best option to make these part, that could be a good way on early carreer to make money and maintain a big space program cost.

The Station have be planned to be also manned, with capsule or Hermes visit! So perfect in my roadmap

Edited April 6, 2019 by Well

[Well]

I actually work on a little Engine for Diamant, the Early French Cryogenic Engine H3.

Planned for Diamant Upper Stage (Diamant/Hydrogene = "Diogene") 0.625 scale

Edited April 6, 2019 by Well

[DiscoSlelge]

8 minutes ago, Well said:

I actually work on a little Engine for Diamant, the Early French Cryogenic Engine H3.

Planned for Diamant Upper Stage (Diamant/Hydrogene = "Diogene") 0.625 scale

Lovely engine I love the multiple circle as a base for the engines !

[Well]

2 hours ago, DiscoSlelge said:

Lovely engine I love the multiple circle as a base for the engines !

Thanks, i've finished the texture, need to make the setting for the game now, i love this cute engine, i hope he could be a great last stage for small launcher

 

[Well]

Small but useful

[Well]

I've noticed many problem on the Tech Tree, i don't have really make any settings probably 3 or 4 Update ago.

i'm sorry for career player! Big TechTree revew for the next update

[Well]

Do you want a Fix update 0.9.1 for cost and techTree ? Or that could wait a little for a bigger update ?

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

New test of the new 0.625 engine with small sat launcher diamant derived.

[Guest]

Wait for 1.7 (it will be released in a few days, according to Squad) and see how much you can do in the meantime. You might well be able to wrap up the whole family (most parts are already in the mod), depending on how fast you work.

[Well]

3 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Wait for 1.7 (it will be released in a few days, according to Squad) and see how much you can do in the meantime. You might well be able to wrap up the whole family (most parts are already in the mod), depending on how fast you work.

Yes i think it's better to wait 1.7 update.

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

It's only missing the Cryogenic stage, for Diogene but also for Vulcain family

It's planned, but not enought motivate actually to work on the H2 and HM4 Engines needed for this stage

I could eventually remake an old model, waiting for KSP 1.7

A new little sat for 0.625 launcher interest me also.

[CobaltWolf]

2 hours ago, Well said:

A new little sat for 0.625 launcher interest me also.

I definitely think a detour to actually providing payloads for these would be welcome.

[DiscoSlelge]

8 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

I definitely think a detour to actually providing payloads for these would be welcome.

I agree to this point, giving us the Viking was awesome and as we discussed @Well I think station parts or vehicles we saw together could be a nice addition to those mighty launchers you gave to us <3

Edited April 7, 2019 by DiscoSlelge