[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]

Started the work on splitting the Atlas V and Delta II towers!

The new single-height Atlas V tower is done and on the AlphaDev branch, while the modular sections (base, top and two core heights) are exported from Unity and just need .cfg files. Oddly enough the single-height tower simply consists of one each of the modular sections.  

It was not just a simple splitting, the Atlas V tower needed some revisions to make it modular, and I also took the time to fix mesh issues and do some textire changes. Also added more detail, like pipes on the back:

 

I also extended the central "channel" all the way to the bottom, so hold-downs can fit inside, allowing the tower to be moved in closer to the rocket without clipping the hold-down. 

I also modified the rainbirds on the small general launch base, moving them closer to the detail cylinder, so the Atlas V tower can sit on the small base without clipping the rainbirds.

The new single-piece tower uses the same part name as the old multi-height one.

[AlphaMensae]

The new modular Atlas V tower parts are now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub!

Also revised the umbilical attach nodes on the single-piece version, as I had forgot to switch the X-axis vectors to -1 after rotaing it 180 degrees to face my standard direction.

There is also a new subcategory in my stock custom category, Special Service Towers (the other one is now General Service Towers). All the now-renamed Special Towers will go here, which includes the Atlas V, Delta II, fallback towers and the Titan II--the former Tier 2 tower, as I'm going to go ahead and make it the Titan II-GLV tower, with added details, which will be toggleable on the modular section version.    There's also going to be an Atlas-Centaur Tower, complete with the special Centaur service "swing" arm.

[Zorg]

3 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

I'm going to go ahead and make it the Titan II-GLV tower

[UnhorsedGoose]

14 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

I'm going to go ahead and make it the Titan II-GLV tower

Hell yeah, the more Titan II stuff, the better! Don't really know why, I just really like the Titan II, the ICBM and the GLV, just a cool ass rocket. Probably because I've seen one IRL at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas, now that I think of it.

[AlphaMensae]

The current Tier 2 Service Tower (located in the Launch Stands tech node) was partially styled after the Titan II-GLV tower. What I meant was that I'm going to now call it the Titan II tower, and put it with the other special towers.

But I think I will remake it from scratch, so I can make it modular, add the extra details and to put it on the GeneralPads textures.

[AlphaMensae]

After several days' worth of work, the new Delta II tower objects are done. The single-piece tower is in game and now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub. The modular sections still need to be exported to Unity and have .cfgs made for them.

The single-piece version has no height variants (which will be a common thing for these versions) or other toggles, only the 8 color options, and is sized for the BDB Delta II. It uses the part name of the old Delta II tower.

The modular sections will have various detail toggles. There's also two kinds of tower sections: Core type, in 5m and 10m heights, with only toggleable side panels (on/off); and detail type, in 1.25m and 2.5m heights, with the toggleable panels and other details as well: the platforms, back structure thing and the front "platform poles" as I call them. The top plate has two kinds of masts and another structure detail thing.

I moved the gaps in the old tower's side panels, as that was not an intentional thing but an error in the modeling. I left it in as I didn't want to bother with fixing it then, but now I did.  

There's also only one umbilical/arm mount rail and set of attach nodes, and these are offset about 0.34m, to prevent the drop umbilicals from falling onto the platforms (and seems like the real ones, which look to be not in the center of the tower). Just move the the tower to center the umbilicals/swing arms on the rocket.  

 

Edited November 24, 2019 by AlphaMensae

[Zorg]

Yay! Keen to try the Delta tower later today.

In the meantime I've been rebuilding my Titan sub-assemblies with the new XL service tower.

[AlphaMensae]

The modular Delta II tower parts are done and now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub!

I also added the "stringers" to the spaces between the platforms, both in the single-piece tower and modular parts.

 

A note on the front pole and platform stringers: They are designed to work between two of the 2.5m detail tower sections stacked atop each other with a max 2x (2x1.25m) spacing between platforms.  What is NOT supported is the lower section set at "Platform Low" and the upper section at "Platform High". That is a 3x (3x1.25m) gap, and is considered a break between two separate platform groups, and the real tower doesn't have that big of a gap between the platforms.

[AlphaMensae]

Oh, I forgot to add that there is only 4 parts like the other towers, as I was able to combine all the detail options into the 2.5m section, and the 10m plain section is for quickly building up the tower core.

[zoaz123]

i dont know if this has been asked before theres alot for me to read through the pages. how do i set clamps to fall back by staging? i currently use the soyuz pad and clamps but i couldnt figure it out for it or the general launch pad parts

[AlphaMensae]

31 minutes ago, zoaz123 said:

i dont know if this has been asked before theres alot for me to read through the pages. how do i set clamps to fall back by staging? i currently use the soyuz pad and clamps but i couldnt figure it out for it or the general launch pad parts

Did you install Animated Decouplers?  That's what allows staging of the hold-downs and arms.

[zoaz123]

3 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Did you install Animated Decouplers?  That's what allows staging of the hold-downs and arms.

ill have to check in ckan. if it didnt ill manually install it

[zoaz123]

just manually installed animated decouplers. gonna try again when my game loads in about 30 minutes

[AlphaMensae]

Before starting the splitting and rework of the crew elevators, I'm making what I had mentioned earlier: a series of true launch plates, ultra-low profile clamp rings for when a larger stand or base is too big or not appropriate for the launch pad static (like the Woomerang pad, which is actually a platform and putting one of my launch bases on it looks silly, or rockets which don't use mobile launch platforms, like the Delta II). They're basically just mounts for the hold-downs, to make it look like that's all there is holding the rocket down.

These plates are designed to sit flush with the "ground" (the top of the pad static) by using the offset gizmo to move them down to the VAB floor. The only colliders are in the plate itself, not in the footings, legs or caps, so no problem with moving the plate down that far.  Of course, they are still launch clamps and can sit as high as desired, but there is nothing fancy below the plate, and they are meant to be flush with the floor.  

Four sizes are planned, with size 1 (1m wide opening) done and now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub. Each size has a round, square and rectangle shape, with the rectangle one coming in both normal Z-axis orientation and rotated X-axis orientation, so it cen be used both ways without looking weird.

The plates also do have attach nodes for towers.

 

Oh, and I've updated the stock custom category as well. It now has separate sub-categories for the launch plates and hold-downs; the Saturrn hold-downs are also in that sub-cat in addition to the Saturn Mobile Launcher sub-cat.

Edited November 28, 2019 by AlphaMensae

[AlphaMensae]

Size 2 Launch Plate is done and now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub. 

Also removed the colliders from the extended bases in the general hold-downs so they could be used with the launch plates.

 

[AlphaMensae]

Version 2.0.6 is out!

Changelog:

• Added a drag cube definition (the one from the stock Mk1 Fuselage) to the parts with a deploy-limit adjustable animation to prevent the "Generating procedural drag cube" message spam in the console. Moving the deploy limit slider changes the shape of the part, and without a predefined drag cube, KSP will make, then remake again and again, a new procedural one.

Another interim point release until v2.1 is done, I've fixed the "Generating procedural drag cube" message spam in the console that was caused (not all the time) by the parts with deploy-limit slider animations. It was a simple solution: add a defined drag cube to those parts' .cfgs. Without one, KSP calculates a procedural drag cube, and with parts that have movable pieces via the deploy limit slider, the movement changes the shape of the part, so KSP then recalculates the drag cube...again and again and again. Now with a drag cube defined (I just used the one from the Mk1 Fuselage) KSP doesn't need to create a new one.   The message doesn't even appear if the slider is being moved in the flight scene, which would happen even if there was no message spam.

The drag cube additions have also been done to the v2.1 dev parts on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub

Edited November 29, 2019 by AlphaMensae

[AlphaMensae]

The Size 3 Launch Plate is now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub. 

I've decided for now to cap the sizes to three, not sure how needed a bigger one is, plus I want to move on to other things.  

I've also removed the alternate rotated rectangle shape, it was becoming a lot of wasted space, as you can easily just rotate the rocket (below the controlling probe core/capsule) 90 degrees to fit the single rectangle shape.  

And for some reason the square shape won't sit flush to the top of the pad static...not going to worry about now, though.

[AlphaMensae]

In preparation for the revamp of the Large General Crew Elevator, I did something to the Large Launch Stand--oops, it's now back to the Saturn Launch Stand.  

 

The tower pedestal is now a separate part.

And I'm going to add the Saturn-style truss structure as an alternate style to the large elevator, as there originally was going to be a tower for the Saturn Launch Stand, then I used it as a base for the General Crew Elevator, then I realized it was silly to have two of the same thing, so the General Crew Elevator became the tower for the Saturn Launch Stand. Now it's going to have the Saturn tower style as an option.  

[AlphaMensae]

New modular General Large Crew Elevator and the renamed Saturn Launch Stand with separate tower pedestal are done and now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub.

The crew elevator sections are like the service towers, with a base, 10m core and 2.5m detail sections, and the top plate with toggleable railings and antenna mast.

The elevator car is now on by default, as I used the Icon_Hidden tag in Unity to hide it from the part icon (only found now out how to properly use that tag  ).  Same car max heights as before, and use the deploy limit slider to adjust downward.

The 10m core section only has the switchable truss style and side panels (either 3 or 4 sides), while the 2.5m detail section can also be switched between tower core, partial crew access (everything from the front except the top horizontal beam, plus the front of the elevator shaft is removed) and full crew access (the top beam is also removed) types. The full access type is to allow same-type sections to be stacked, creating a taller full-length opening for exiting the elevator.

The crew arm attach node is the size 2 node, while core section types also have a center size 1 node for swing arm/umbilicals. There are also size 1 nodes on the sides of the tower sections.

 

Coming next is a side-mount extension section for the tower with multiple detail toggles for creating side walkways.

[AlphaMensae]

By request, I've made a side extension section for the large crew elevator. It's a multi-configurable 2.5m tower section that has accessible floors, allowing to make side-mounted walkway sections....i.e. something like the Atlas V-Starliner crew access elevator and arm.

The top floor is accessible, and there is also a middle and bottom floor that can be switched on as well, or in combinations. Each of the four walls can be toggled on/off. The bottom floor also has a brace beam option, and a front crew arm mount can be switched on as well.  The section can be rotated as well, allowing to mount the crew arm sideways to the tower.

It's now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub. 

The 2.5m tower detail section also now has a switchable front node type: swing arm attach (for the tower core type), crew arm attach and extension attach.

 

[OrbitalManeuvers]

Hello! Thank you for this mod that I never knew I needed until I tried it ... and now I need a launchpad for everything I do.

Quick question ... I grabbed the Alpha build last night, but I've seen this happen on the released version as well, so I thought I'd ask ... (this is 1.8)

I emptied the tanks in the VAB to see the fueling work, and the launchpad fueled the bottom two tanks, but didn't fill the top one. Any ideas? I did try stopping and restarting the fueling, but no change.

Also, I realize the popup menu for the elevator (on the right) is probably beyond your control in terms of keeping raise/lower commands on there, but do you have any tricks for dealing with the elevators when you're not in the ship? 

Thanks again for all the work you've put into this!

[AlphaMensae]

1 hour ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

Hello! Thank you for this mod that I never knew I needed until I tried it ... and now I need a launchpad for everything I do.

Quick question ... I grabbed the Alpha build last night, but I've seen this happen on the released version as well, so I thought I'd ask ... (this is 1.8)

I emptied the tanks in the VAB to see the fueling work, and the launchpad fueled the bottom two tanks, but didn't fill the top one. Any ideas? I did try stopping and restarting the fueling, but no change.

Also, I realize the popup menu for the elevator (on the right) is probably beyond your control in terms of keeping raise/lower commands on there, but do you have any tricks for dealing with the elevators when you're not in the ship? 

Thanks again for all the work you've put into this!

The fuel generator respects cross-feed rules, so you'll have to temporarily enable cross-feed on all Decouplers to fill upper stages...I think.

As for the elevators, that's a KSP thing, you can usually raise the car when focused on a Kerbal, but for all other actions you have to switch to the base and elevator. You can also try action groups.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

2 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

The fuel generator respects cross-feed rules

I'm an idiot. Will try that.

 

2 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

, but for all other actions you have to switch to the base and elevator.

OK I figured the popup was KSP's doing. I think I can get where I want with Action Groups + SmartParts. Thanks for the feedback! 

[AlphaMensae]

The new new Small Crew Elevator (already a v2.1 thing), now in modular sections, is done and on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub.

The base section has three max elevator height options, with the highest at 32.5m so it can be used with the Tier 2 launch pad in career mode. Same 2.5m detail section and 10m core section as the large elevator, but no side panels or alternate truss options, I left the tower as is, since it wasn't meant to be that fancy.  

 

[AlphaMensae]

I just discovered that by reducing the height of the elevator car with the deploy limit slider, the reported height in the Engineer's Report is also reduced; this lowered height is based on the max height setting of the elevator in question. So I don't actually need to limit the max height of the car to that of the tier 1 or 2 launch pads, just reduce the height of the car with the slider until it's below the pad's limit. Yes, KSP still counts all the meshes in a .mu, even the B9PS disabled ones, when determining the height of a craft.

I've thus added a 62.5m option to the Small Crew Elevator Base, so taller elevator towers can be made, yet still retain the ability to work with the tier 2 or even tier 1 launch pads. The revised base is now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub.

Remember, the Engineer Report's height is based on the highest max height option, which is now 62.5m for the Small Elevator. If using this setting and using the slider to adjust the actual height downward, then the visual height and reported height will match. If using a lower max height setting, then the visual height won't match the reported height.