[1.8.1-1.12.x] Modular Launch Pads v2.6.1: Launch clamps evolved: Real-style launch bases and towers [03 July 2023]

[AlphaMensae]

3 hours ago, squeaker0704 said:

I need help getting the space shuttle on the space shuttle pad

First, the release does have a subassembly for the shuttle pad (no shuttle) in the Subassemblies folder. It's complete and ready to attach.

Second, there needs to be a free attach node below the bottom (or on the bottom) of the External Tank. All the launch bases have a node in the center for attaching to a rocket. The v2 release has MM patches that adds an extra node to the Cormorant and DECQ External Tanks.  I wad going to make one for benjee10's SOCK, and thought I did, but it seemed to have gotten lost in the release rush.  I'm going to push out some more patches and craft files, but in the meantime, here's a patch for the reDIRECT STS Tank:

@part[DIRECT_STS_tank]:NEEDS[reDIRECT]
{

node_stack_bottom02 = 0.0, -8.0, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, 5

}

Copy the above into a text editor (e.g. Notepad), and save it as a .cfg file somewhere in GameData.

[AlphaMensae]

New OP is done!

Much thanks to @Zorg, @Friznitand @DylanSemrau for providing the screenshots.   

[CobaltWolf]

First... With the new OP

[subyng]

I just installed the updated version and I seem to be missing various parts? No medium or large stands, no towers apart from the Saturn ones, and absolutely nothing for the Soyuz.

[RealKerbal3x]

Congrats on release of 2.0.0, @AlphaMensae! I’ve been considering downloading this mod for a while, and all of this brand spanking new stuff may have swayed me in its direction!

A quick question though, are the Apollo/Gemini/Soyuz pads only compatible with BDB/Tantares parts or will they work with equivalent parts from Making History as well?

[Cheesecake]

10 minutes ago, subyng said:

I just installed the updated version and I seem to be missing various parts? No medium or large stands, no towers apart from the Saturn ones, and absolutely nothing for the Soyuz.

Do you play career? Then you must research them.

[AlphaMensae]

1 hour ago, subyng said:

I just installed the updated version and I seem to be missing various parts? No medium or large stands, no towers apart from the Saturn ones, and absolutely nothing for the Soyuz.

First, is it installed properly? I'll also need to see your ksp.log and what other mods you have, as that makes no sense, it all works fine on my end.

1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Congrats on release of 2.0.0, @AlphaMensae! I’ve been considering downloading this mod for a while, and all of this brand spanking new stuff may have swayed me in its direction!

A quick question though, are the Apollo/Gemini/Soyuz pads only compatible with BDB/Tantares parts or will they work with equivalent parts from Making History as well?

They will work with stock parts and other mod parts, as they are multi-adjustable or configurable for many sizes.

The one exception is the Saturn V-specific S-IC and S-II swing arms for the Saturn tower: it's sized for 5.625m and 6.4m tanks found in BDB and DECQ's Saturn V. For 5m tanks you will need to use for now the general Saturn tower swing arm, until I add a 5m size to the Saturn V arm in v2.1

[AlphaMensae]

And now the v2.0 files are in the master on the Github.

The first update is a revised patch for reDIRECT, adding the STS Tank (the complete tank for the shuttle) to it.

Also put a craft file for the SOCK orbiter and stack on the shuttle pad, plus a subassembly of the pad alone with the SOCK configuration.

Adapting the pad to SOCK wasn't as bad I had expected:

One, the SOCK SRB after skirts are wider than the Cormorant ones, so the SRB hold-downs will be mostly buried within them, except for a small portion if you clip them up a bit. Otherwise the SRBs line up with the exhaust holes, they just need to be a slight bit wider, for SOCK. and I'm going to integrate the SRB hold downs into the base, with deploy limit sliders to adjust them.

Two, the crew arm was more of a problem, but by setting the crew tower section's floor to the Gen C (General Arm Center Mount) option, and then moving the crew arm so the walkway is lined up with the center opening in the railing, the arm can work.

Three, the SOCK ET has a big spike on the top dome, so you can't move the beanie cap too far down or the spike will poke out of the top of the cap. Really just an aesthetic issue.

Also a cosmetic issue are the tail service masts, they most likely need to moved down into the base a slight bit to get the umbilicals to match up with the connector plates on the orbiter.

The intertank structure and its arms are fine as placed.

Even the RSS can be closed without any glaring issues, other than the not-exact visual appearance. When closed, the RSS clears the crew arm by a good amount

[madindehead]

This is incredible. Thanks for the hard work it has really paid off! The addition of a new basic launch stand and a static test fire rig is incredible  I think the test fire rig made me the most excited. So cool to have that! (Just a note @AlphaMensae the test stand photos don't have the links when you click on them  ). 

Are you saying that the SOCK launch stand is available on GitHub? Or you will be adding it soon in 2.1? 

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by madindehead

[AlphaMensae]

4 hours ago, madindehead said:

This is incredible. Thanks for the hard work it has really paid off! The addition of a new basic launch stand and a static test fire rig is incredible  I think the test fire rig made me the most excited. So cool to have that! (Just a note @AlphaMensae the test stand photos don't have the links when you click on them  ). 

Are you saying that the SOCK launch stand is available on GitHub? Or you will be adding it soon in 2.1? 

 

Ok, thanks for the link issue...thought I did those

The SOCK files (the ET node is added in the reDIRECT-MLP-Patch.cfg) are now on the Github, just wanted to get those out quickly.  Those and some others I have to make will be part of a small v2.0.1 update coming out soon. Any more extensive changes will have to wait til v2.1.

Yep, I liked making the test stand! It was originally made for Twitch streamer Rocketology for a BARIS career he was doing, and he wanted something to for all the static testing you do with BARIS.  So I whipped up that test stand in a few days, using existing components when possible.

There's going to be a large version of the test stand coming as well.  

Edited August 3, 2019 by AlphaMensae

[AlphaMensae]

A new patch file has been added to the Github:

BluedogDB-Solids_MLP_Patches.cfg

It adds bottom nodes to the Titan UA120, Titan SRMU and Saturn AJ260 Inline solid motors. It's a separate file so if you don't want bottom nodes on those solids, then you don't have to put it in.

Soild patches file is courtesy of @Zorg  

 

 

 

[subyng]

20 hours ago, Cheesecake said:

Do you play career? Then you must research them.

 

19 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

First, is it installed properly? I'll also need to see your ksp.log and what other mods you have, as that makes no sense, it all works fine on my end.

They will work with stock parts and other mod parts, as they are multi-adjustable or configurable for many sizes.

The one exception is the Saturn V-specific S-IC and S-II swing arms for the Saturn tower: it's sized for 5.625m and 6.4m tanks found in BDB and DECQ's Saturn V. For 5m tanks you will need to use for now the general Saturn tower swing arm, until I add a 5m size to the Saturn V arm in v2.1

Yep, my mistake, forgot about research !

[madindehead]

One thing I'm noticing, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but when trying to launch with BDB Saturn V MLP rocket, when I trigger the decouple for the first stage (the crane) nothing happens. The crane just ends up being in the way. It's meant to move right?  

[MacGyverNL]

The crane should be controllable using Q & E (or roll keys) as mentioned in its description. A lot of the parts have instructions or hints about their use in their description, be sure to read them.

[AlphaMensae]

16 minutes ago, madindehead said:

One thing I'm noticing, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but when trying to launch with BDB Saturn V MLP rocket, when I trigger the decouple for the first stage (the crane) nothing happens. The crane just ends up being in the way. It's meant to move right?  

Yes, use the Q and E keys to rotate it, which is, as noted above, in the description  

It has a built-in reaction wheel limited to just the roll axis....took some testing before I figured that out, at first I thought it would be the yaw axis...nope  

The alternative would have been to make the crane motion animated, but that wouldn't have been as much fun or flexible. You also can simply rotate it in the VAB and not decouple it at all.  

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by AlphaMensae

[madindehead]

8 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Yes, use the Q and E keys to rotate it, which is, as noted above, in the description  

It has a built-in reaction wheel limited to just the roll axis....took some testing before I figured that out, at first I thought it would be the yaw axis...nope  

The alternative would have been to make the crane motion animated, but that wouldn't have been as much fun or flexible. You also can simply rotate it in the VAB and not decouple it at all.  

 

Doh. I missed that bit! My bad. Thanks. That does sound way better moving it yourself  

[AlphaMensae]

I do know that many (if not most) KSP players don't read the part descriptions, as the stock parts really are just simple lego blocks and the descriptions are mere fluff (then there's TantaresLV, where the descriptions are basically "A large tank"...gee, that's real helpful  ).  But most of these parts are complex, with many integrated functions and/or variant and adjustment options, so I made the descriptions mini instruction manuals. Many of them have historical info as well, as I desribe what it did IRL.  

[AlphaMensae]

Updated TantaresLV patch file and 1.875m Soyuz+Soyuz Base craft file are now on the Github.

The patch file adds nodes to the new TLV Size_1_Tank_D (the bottom of the core tank), and the Corvus and Chara (Kosmos and Kosmos-2I) lower first-stage tanks.

Craft file has the new 1.875m (called "Size 1.5" in TantaresLV) Soyuz on the Soyuz Launch Base all configured for it.

[madindehead]

1 hour ago, AlphaMensae said:

I do know that many (if not most) KSP players don't read the part descriptions, as the stock parts really are just simple lego blocks and the descriptions are mere fluff (then there's TantaresLV, where the descriptions are basically "A large tank"...gee, that's real helpful  ).  But most of these parts are complex, with many integrated functions and/or variant and adjustment options, so I made the descriptions mini instruction manuals. Many of them have historical info as well, as I desribe what it did IRL.  

Ah that's amazing. I'll be honest with you: I just loaded the BDB Saturn V with the launch pad to take a look at it and have a play. So I didn't even build it myself 

[Starboost88]

6 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Updated TantaresLV patch file and 1.875m Soyuz+Soyuz Base craft file are now on the Github.

The patch file adds nodes to the new TLV Size_1_Tank_D (the bottom of the core tank), and the Corvus and Chara (Kosmos and Kosmos-2I) lower first-stage tanks. 

Craft file has the new 1.875m (called "Size 1.5" in TantaresLV) Soyuz on the Soyuz Launch Base all configured for it.

gr8

[AlphaMensae]

2 minutes ago, madindehead said:

Ah that's amazing. I'll be honest with you: I just loaded the BDB Saturn V with the launch pad to take a look at it and have a play. So I didn't even build it myself 

I didn't build it either with the v2 Saturn base, I used the craft file in the BDB download.

For the Saturn V, Soyuz and the CA shuttle, I used provided craft files. One, because it was far faster for dev work, and two, BDB and Tantares are way too lego-like for me, everything is all broken up, and not the way I made my own versions, which have full stages (just add engines). I have zero experience building shuttles in KSP, so I didn't want to bother trying to put one together. However, I did have to build the SOCK shuttle as the craft files I received or were in the SOCK download had the arm installed, and would not load in KSP 1.6.1; I don't have the BG DLC, and I still use 1.6.1 for final testing and craft file builds.

[AlphaMensae]

I've finally made the patches for Raidernick's US and Soviet Rocket packs, they are now on the Github.

Well, I did have a single patch for the RN R-7 Block A, but I've added the other Sovies rockets to it.

For the Aerobee in US Rockets, the node is added to the liquid stages, well below the bottom...but it may still overlap the solid stage below it. It's a size 2 node, so will stand out.

 

[Cheesecake]

The AM_MLP_LaunchStandSmallUmbilical isn't shown under category 'Modular Laqunch Pads', only under 'structures'.

[AlphaMensae]

2 hours ago, Cheesecake said:

The AM_MLP_LaunchStandSmallUmbilical isn't shown under category 'Modular Laqunch Pads', only under 'structures'.

Thanks for that catch, thought I had the CCK tag in the .cfg.  A fixed version is now on the Github.

Also changed the Craft Files folder to Ships/VAB.

[AlphaMensae]

v2 Saturn Mobile Launcher Assembly Guide video is done!