KSP Loading... Preview: New SRBs

[GrandProtectorDark]

9 minutes ago, Rocket Witch said:

They're rare enough in mods as it is...

Not in historically focused replica mods

[Drakenred65]

So far as I have ever seen theres only been some proposals to use a solid fuel thruster as a way to store most of the fuel needed for a capture burn for a comet interceptor and Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune orbiters.

16 hours ago, wasml said:

You could call the docking port size "Bob" and it would only dock to other Bob ports.

And now i have the imiage of all the other Kerbals looking at Bob and quietly sneekimg away.

[James M]

ETA on when this will be released? I'm already itching to use these new boosters... 

[ZooNamedGames]

Just an idea I had on the subject-

 

Edited September 11, 2019 by ZooNamedGames

[Guest]

15 hours ago, GrandProtectorDark said:

Not in historically focused replica mods

Oh yeah. Any big ones though? Like RT-10 or BACC size at least.

 

14 hours ago, [email protected] said:

So far as I have ever seen theres only been some proposals to use a solid fuel thruster as a way to store most of the fuel needed for a capture burn for a comet interceptor and Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune orbiters.

Have you got any links to info on those? As an OPM user I'm quite keen on the idea for captures around Sarnus and beyond.

Also it should be noted that in KSP vacuum engines get about 98% of their maximum impulse at only 20km altitude on Kerbin, so big vacuum-nozzle SRBs can be nice lifting stages too.

Edited September 11, 2019 by Guest

[GrandProtectorDark]

2 hours ago, Rocket Witch said:

Oh yeah. Any big ones though? Like RT-10 or BACC size at least.

I know BDB has lots of historic Solid fuel kickstages and vacuum solid fuel motors. 

But I don't see why you'd need a BACC sized vacuum srb

[Drakenred65]

4 hours ago, Rocket Witch said:

Oh yeah. Any big ones though? Like RT-10 or BACC size at least.

 

Have you got any links to info on those? As an OPM user I'm quite keen on the idea for captures around Sarnus and beyond.

Also it should be noted that in KSP vacuum engines get about 98% of their maximum impulse at only 20km altitude on Kerbin, so big vacuum-nozzle SRBs can be nice lifting stages too.

No, it was one of the books that popped up after the fall of the Soviet Union about their space program back when they still had people that were trying to top whatever we did. Oh your proposing flybys of Jupiter ? We’re going to orbit!

Seriously the only reason why they even built Buran was because of two reasons, literally “you think Americans are stupid?! They obviously know something we do not! “ And they did not quite get the concept of Plan Inertia and sunk cost Fallacy as applied to Americans at that time.

[sgt_flyer]

I wonder if, alongside the new srb's, squad will add a bigger and more powerful version of the separatron too ? (Maybe more streamlined without those struts the current separatron's have)

[Jestersage]

Anyway, back on topic:

Which diameter should the Space Shuttle Booster be, the 2.5m or 1.8m? This is especially in light of Ares I, which upperstage still tend to be 2.5m...

Edited September 14, 2019 by Jestersage

[T1mo98]

13 hours ago, Jestersage said:

Anyway, back on topic:

Which diameter should the Space Shuttle Booster be, the 2.5m or 1.8m? This is especially in light of Ares I, which upperstage still tend to be 2.5m...

The Shuttle SRB should be 2.5m.
 

The problem is that KSP scale is all out of whack.

[Ol’ Musky Boi]

Yay! Now we can have proper shuttle replicas!

Well, I still wouldn't mind the orange foam option for more tanks...

[Jestersage]

1 hour ago, T1mo98 said:

The problem is that KSP scale is all out of whack.

I knew it...

[Jognt]

On 9/14/2019 at 4:33 PM, T1mo98 said:

The Shuttle SRB should be 2.5m.
 

The problem is that KSP scale is all out of whack.

Is “Kerbal for scale” going to be a thing now?

[RocketSimplicity]

 

On 9/15/2019 at 12:33 AM, T1mo98 said:

The Shuttle SRB should be 2.5m.
 

The problem is that KSP scale is all out of whack.

I was taking a look at a poster I had called Rockets of the World and I got out a ruler and measured the Delta 4 as 2.3cm 1.65cm and the shuttle boosters as about 2cm  1.2cm. We already have Delta styled fuel tanks as the Jumbo 64 so maybe this can help. I’ll add Saturn V here once I get home.

Edited September 16, 2019 by RocketSimplicity
Numbers were wrong.

[RocketSimplicity]

On 9/15/2019 at 12:33 AM, T1mo98 said:

The Shuttle SRB should be 2.5m.
 

The problem is that KSP scale is all out of whack.

 

On 9/14/2019 at 11:04 AM, Jestersage said:

Anyway, back on topic:

Which diameter should the Space Shuttle Booster be, the 2.5m or 1.8m? This is especially in light of Ares I, which upperstage still tend to be 2.5m...

Okay, if the Delta 4 in KSP is 2.5 and the one here is 1.65, I can do some math to find a number that can be multiplied with the shuttle SRB to find out what size it should be in KSP, judging by the in-game Delta 4.

2.5 ÷ 1.65 = 1.5151......

=1.52 (2 d.p)

So, now we times it by the SRB's size.

1.51 × 1.2 = 1.824

So, we can see that judging by the Jumbo 64 being a Delta 4, the Shuttle SRB should be 1.875m

Just to back it up, I'll measure by the Saturn V

Saturn V = 3.25

5 ÷ 3.25 = 1.538461538...

=1.54 (2 d.p)

1.2 × 1.54 = 1.848

So, from this we can determine that if KSP was properly scaled, for the shuttle SRBs to fit in with the part sizes the SRBs should be 1.875m.

[T1mo98]

18 minutes ago, RocketSimplicity said:

 

Okay, if the Delta 4 in KSP is 2.5 and the one here is 1.65, I can do some math to find a number that can be multiplied with the shuttle SRB to find out what size it should be in KSP, judging by the in-game Delta 4.

2.5 ÷ 1.65 = 1.5151......

=1.52 (2 d.p)

So, now we times it by the SRB's size.

1.51 × 1.2 = 1.824

So, we can see that judging by the Jumbo 64 being a Delta 4, the Shuttle SRB should be 1.875m

Just to back it up, I'll measure by the Saturn V

Saturn V = 3.25

5 ÷ 3.25 = 1.538461538...

=1.54 (2 d.p)

1.2 × 1.54 = 1.848

So, from this we can determine that if KSP was properly scaled, for the shuttle SRBs to fit in with the part sizes the SRBs should be 1.875m.

The 1.875m size is based on the Titan II family of rockets, with the Mk2 Command Pod being a representation of the Gemini capsule.
If we compare these sizes, the scale is completely different:

Real-life Titan II is 3.05m wide.
So the scale is: 1.875 / 3.05 = 0.615

The Shuttle SRB's are 3.71m in diameter.

0.615 x 3.71 = 2.28
This is closer to the 2.5m size than the 1.875m size.

That's why KSP scale is out of whack, you can measure by multiple real-world analogues and come to different answers. 
 

[RocketSimplicity]

22 minutes ago, T1mo98 said:

The 1.875m size is based on the Titan II family of rockets, with the Mk2 Command Pod being a representation of the Gemini capsule.
If we compare these sizes, the scale is completely different:

Real-life Titan II is 3.05m wide.
So the scale is: 1.875 / 3.05 = 0.615

The Shuttle SRB's are 3.71m in diameter.

0.615 x 3.71 = 2.28
This is closer to the 2.5m size than the 1.875m size.

That's why KSP scale is out of whack, you can measure by multiple real-world analogues and come to different answers. 
 

I hope maybe in KSP2 with their analogues they fix these issues.

[Guest]

On 9/16/2019 at 12:00 PM, RocketSimplicity said:

I hope maybe in KSP2 with their analogues they fix these issues.

I don't think they're flaws. The relative scales of parts in KSP work well together. Making their relative scales realistic just for the sake of realism would not be an improvement.

[Guest]

I don't view these as issues either. Why the desire to have accurate replicas in stock? Like why aren't you already off playing with RSS+RO instead?

There are only direct visual analogues in Kerbal parts because all artists are human, and humans like to recognise and reproduce patterns (ie. memes, per its original definition) and be able to go "hey that looks like the Apollo SME/STS booster/Gemini spacecraft" and feel good about their special knowledge, to "get the reference" as it were. Knowing this I'm not inclined to read any diegetic meaning into the similarities.

[KerikBalm]

On 9/5/2019 at 12:02 AM, Maxsimal said:

1700kn and 3300kn in vacuum.   They'll rattle some windows.

I hope thats 1700kn for the short 2.5m, and 3300kn for the long 2.5m diameter one, not a 1700 kn sea level thrust, and 3300 kn Vacuum for the long 2.5m diamter ones (the big ones or the big one type) .

That seems to be about 5x a kickback. 

The real shuttle has 82% of its sea level thrust come from the boosters. So the SRBs for a proper mockup would have 5.76x the seal level thrust of 3 vectors. Now since sea level thrust hasn't been specified, and in game vectors are pretty good at sea level like SRBs, I'll just compare vacuum thrusts.

3x vectors: 3,000 kN ... what 2x SRBs should produce for a similar proportion: Just over 17,000 kN. What we get: 6,600 kN.

A 2x large SRB + 3x vector combo has about 69% of its thrust come from SRBs... not bad, but still low. It will be interesting to see if these allow for shuttle style launches in a 3x rescale, because everything else performs reasonable well at 3x (rapiers can SSTO for instance, I can make reasonable saturnV replicas, although I need more mastadon and skiff engines than the counterpart), but shuttle style designs have eluded me so far due to the relatively poor SRB performance. I'm eager to try these new ones.

[sturmhauke]

On 9/9/2019 at 8:38 PM, wasml said:

For nodes the size is an integer but, oddly enough, if you look at the documentation page for ModuleDockingNode you'll see docking node size is a string. You could call the docking port size "Bob" and it would only dock to other Bob ports. @schwank way back 1.3.1? or maybe even earlier they added the ability to list multiple sizes with (I think) a comma separated list - so you could make yourself a MM patch to change the nodeType to "nodeType = size0,size1,size2" and this would be able to dock to all Squad ports.

Near Future Construction has some specialized ports meant for building orbital stations and such. For instance, there are some square ones that only dock with their exact match, meant to attach large girders together.

On 9/11/2019 at 8:21 AM, [email protected] said:

Seriously the only reason why they even built Buran was because of two reasons, literally “you think Americans are stupid?! They obviously know something we do not! “ And they did not quite get the concept of Plan Inertia and sunk cost Fallacy as applied to Americans at that time.

The Soviets were also convinced that the STS was for launching orbital weapons platforms, and wanted their own competing system. Energia's first launch was not to lift the Buran shuttle, but the Polyus laser platform prototype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)

On 9/4/2019 at 2:16 PM, Bill Phil said:

Yes. Yes. Yes!

Now we just need upper stage SRMs and some way of changing the thrust curve...

If you have Breaking Ground, you can use the KAL to create custom thrust curves.

[Bill Phil]

33 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

If you have Breaking Ground, you can use the KAL to create custom thrust curves.

Wait, seriously?

Now this is worth investigating.

[sturmhauke]

3 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

Wait, seriously?

Now this is worth investigating.

I haven't done much with it myself, but there's some discussion here:

 

[Drakenred65]

22 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

Near Future Construction has some specialized ports meant for building orbital stations and such. For instance, there are some square ones that only dock with their exact match, meant to attach large girders together.

The Soviets were also convinced that the STS was for launching orbital weapons platforms, and wanted their own competing system. Energia's first launch was not to lift the Buran shuttle, but the Polyus laser platform prototype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyus_(spacecraft)

If you have Breaking Ground, you can use the KAL to create custom thrust curves.

The Soviets were also aware of the Orion drive, and Were aware that we had reportedly proven that we could build shaped charge nukes, and or had actualy tested them.

Polyus vs buran was where the Soviet system started breaking down. The Soviet Union was large. They did not need the dead weight of the burans wings to let it land almost anywhere in the Soviet Union, and they became increasingly convinced that the shuttle we had was just freaking insain from a safety point of view.

 

[coyotesfrontier]

On 9/13/2019 at 9:04 PM, Jestersage said:

Anyway, back on topic:

Which diameter should the Space Shuttle Booster be, the 2.5m or 1.8m? This is especially in light of Ares I, which upperstage still tend to be 2.5m...

I think half-scale is more logical then the 66% that a lot of others use, so I'd go with 1.875m. Squad seems to be going with 66% scale/2.5m to fit with the twin-boar, but that makes the boosters almost as big as the 3.75 SLS parts they're intended to be attached to.