[v0.90/v.25]Transparent Pods v1.2.2 for KSP v0.90

[Shad0wCatcher]

*Walks in* Oh my. Excuse me while I pick up my lower jaw and teeth from off the floor.

[DracovaXIV]

Ah, so you will make a separate version of the Jey-Tew without the engine body? Please say it shall be so I can just picture that engine on the back of something that looks like a Predator drone, it'd look magnificent!

Something crossed my mind - figuring out how to make jet intakes for the gas turbines work is going to take some ingenuity. In essence, a propfan deals with two separate air streams: one that's eaten by the gas turbine, to combust fuel and drive the propeller gear train, and another that impinges on the propeller blades, to drive a massive airstream for propulsion. If I make the engine take only one source of air - from the jet intake - it will need a lot more air than the intake can provide, and if I artificially make it provide thrust out of nothing as a function of the air that goes into the turbine, all of a sudden we've got an engine with all of the advantages of both jets and props, and none of the disadvantages. Basically, all I want to do is just make people stick an extra air intake on their airframe... Well, I'll come up with something.

...I've just had an epiphany. The gear train! In a propfan, it's a step down gear train, not a step up! The propeller is supposed to spin slower than the turbine! That suddenly makes the crazy numbers I was seeing before make so much more sense!

[nli2work]

Ah, so you will make a separate version of the Jey-Tew without the engine body? Please say it shall be so I can just picture that engine on the back of something that looks like a Predator drone, it'd look magnificent!

Not exactly the Jey-Tew, but hopefully just as interesting to look at. I mostly make things because I think they look good. I'm thinking 3 different engine body and blade options, that would give a total of 9 possible combinations. engine body styled after Caudron c561; Macchi M39; and Sharp Nemesis NXT. plus 2x; 3x; 4x blade sets. Generally a high-tech and performance, with retro design looks. Don't expect this soon though, need to turn my attention to some IVA work I've been neglecting.

Something crossed my mind - figuring out how to make jet intakes for the gas turbines work is going to take some ingenuity. In essence, a propfan deals with two separate air streams: one that's eaten by the gas turbine, to combust fuel and drive the propeller gear train, and another that impinges on the propeller blades, to drive a massive airstream for propulsion. If I make the engine take only one source of air - from the jet intake - it will need a lot more air than the intake can provide, and if I artificially make it provide thrust out of nothing as a function of the air that goes into the turbine, all of a sudden we've got an engine with all of the advantages of both jets and props, and none of the disadvantages. Basically, all I want to do is just make people stick an extra air intake on their airframe... Well, I'll come up with something.

...I've just had an epiphany. The gear train! In a propfan, it's a step down gear train, not a step up! The propeller is supposed to spin slower than the turbine! That suddenly makes the crazy numbers I was seeing before make so much more sense!

I kept the intake modules on the engines, otherwise the blade discs generate massive drag in FAR due to how FAR approximates the shape to calculate aerodynamices. parts with ModuleIntake are ignored and generate 0 drag, best compromise for now.. The engines themselves don't have any intake air capacity, and small intake area; so additional intakes are still a good idea to have. I'll test with higher intakeAir ratios so the propfans will need extra intakes to run.

Edited August 15, 2014 by nli2work

[shooty]

Hi these look nice.

I havent taken them for a spin yet but 2 engines didnt show in my career save.

Retro-Future_Atmospheric_Engines-v1.0 (i just got the v1.1 looks like the typo is still in).

The triankaMkD & jeyTew have TechRequired = advancedAerodynamics - it should be -

TechRequired = advAerodynamics

I cant wait to see what's in the v1.1.

Thank you for making this and sharing.

(edited for typo)

Edited August 15, 2014 by shooty

[nli2work]

thanks for the heads up. I will fix it soon.

[shooty]

Hi, I was just installing v1.1 and noticed that all the cfgs in the rectFuel folder have:

TechRequired = aerodynamics

instead of

TechRequired = aerodynamicSystems

Again Thank you for such cool stuff.

[nli2work]

Ach! damn Squad and their misleading technode naming LOL. most of the technodes are probably wrong in that case. Will check each of them this weekend.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Those are some smexy airplane parts there! The weathered black colour is just perfect as well; I would colour my entire fleet like that if I could. Just one question; why did you have a forward thrust and reverse thrust of each engine, rather than a single engine with a thrust reverser?

Edited August 15, 2014 by BigFatStupidHead
Hmph. Filters are dumb.

[shooty]

I hope you dont mind - I PM'd you a list of the tech IDs.

It was 161 lines or i would have just pasted it here.

I checked the others files and everything looks Ok. Im going to play now so if I find anything I'll post back.

[nli2work]

Those are some smexy airplane parts there! The weathered black colour is just perfect as well; I would colour my entire fleet like that if I could. Just one question; why did you have a forward thrust and reverse thrust of each engine, rather than a single engine with a thrust reverser?

mostly because the blade shapes. they look odd if thrust was reversed on them. although it probably wouln't matter when the blurred discs are in place. future blade sets would be more direction neutral and would have thrust reverse option..

Edited August 15, 2014 by nli2work

[DracovaXIV]

Momentary digression from the rotary propulsion delights - I've been thinking of how to accurately scale the masses and thrusts of the Eddie engines. There's this page: http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Space_Engines/Rocket_Engine_Scaling.htm

Basically, double the size, quadruple the thrust, triple the mass. So... 0.625m Eddie at a mass of 150kg and a thrust of 30kN, at 1.25m is going to become 450kg and 120kN; at 2.5m, 1.35t and 480kN; at 3.75m, 3.0375t and 1.44mN; and at 5m, 4.05t and 1.92mN. What's particularly interesting is that at these juice outputs, the engines become conspicuously interesting as first-stage engines. They lack the thrust of bell nozzles since I guess the pressure at the plug must be kept low to keep it from disintegrating (yes, I'm aware that the initial figure of 30kn for the 62.5cm one is an intuitive figure, to put it mildly), so that keeps everything at comparative advantages. Did you know that NASA considered using aerospikes to propel the first stage of their Nova rocket, the successor to Saturn V and a potential Venus/Mars mission launcher?

[nli2work]

wow, that's incredible increase scaling up! the 3.75m engine can almost be used as lower stage engines.

This was my basis for the ED engines. I took some liberties with the bell shape to make them low profile. Reading the material again now, seems like I could have set the ISP a little bit higher.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_deflection_nozzle

searching further, the thrust for 0.625m engine should probably be closer to 10~15kN range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_Propulsion_System; 45kN for something roughly the size of 1.25m engine.

and scaling based on your info.

0.625m @ ~15kN

1.25m @ ~60kN

2.5m @ ~240kN

3.75 @ ~960kN

Edited August 15, 2014 by nli2work

[MightyDarkStar]

WOW! I loved Sky Crawlers for the Wii and I could make some interesting planes wi' this. Will there be an IVA for that cockpit?

[Shad0wCatcher]

Sounds about right. Aerospikes are a very solid propulsion system. Also getting a bunch of NREs w/ the props; might be an incompatibility w/ real fuels or some such. Will test further and edit this post with results.

[DracovaXIV]

searching further, the thrust for 0.625m engine should probably be closer to 10~15kN range.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_Propulsion_System

I'm inclined to disagree here. The LM descent engine was a type O (low thrust, high vac efficiency, abysmal atmo efficiency); these are type A (high thrust, superb atmo efficiency, lackluster vac efficiency). Moreover, these already have somewhat lower thrust and slightly lower efficiency than plug-nozzle aerospikes. Besides, the nozzle area is quite huge compared to conventional bell-nozzle designs; compare the 62.5cm Eddie to Frizzank's Agena engine. The Eddie already takes a significant dip in thrust output by comparison. I'd say the surprisingly optimistic numbers are pretty close to reality! I'll have to tweak heat output next, because as it stands, the engines melt at 100% after about ten seconds.

[nli2work]

WOW! I loved Sky Crawlers for the Wii and I could make some interesting planes wi' this. Will there be an IVA for that cockpit?

Eventually. with emphasis. I've been eyeballs deep in RPM documentation lately for the transparent pod IVA I have in progress, but they are much slower than parts. IVAs are parts that require dozens of parts to look good.

IVA for this is in the stars. just don't know when.

[MangoScout]

Thanks, mate! I can finally build a Tu-95 or an An-22!

[Shad0wCatcher]

I have a question if you're still around nli2work: What version of Firespitter did you compile with? The stable or dev branch? I'm curious as I'm using build 7.0.5320.35444 and getting a boatload of NREs involving intakes

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at FNPlugin.AtmosphericIntake.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

  at Part.ModulesOnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

  at Part.FixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

That's the full NRE. Using 0.24.2 x86 and version 1.1 of the props. Plane is a Mk2 pit w/ spaceplane+ shockcone intake up front; B9 SAS module; RandomParts mod inline intake (really awesome for "air hogging"); B9 5 meter structural fuel tank; your tail-mounted ultra-high-bypass turbine. Two stock delta wings and stock ailerons w/ stock tail-plane. Your landing gear finish the entire plane. 13 parts. Easy enough to rebuild. Running FAR / DRE / RealFuels / Firespitter 7.0-pre / Module Manager 2.2.1. Those are the only mods that would affect this in any way. I believe with the FNPlugin error it's pointing to a funky reference in Firespitter. I'll try re-downloading the mod and see if that changes anything.

EDIT: NREs occur as soon as the game switches from SPH to Flight Scene; the number of errors actually caused a crash just now. Only errors in the log are from that FNPlugin funkiness.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Shad0wCatcher

[nli2work]

I have a question if you're still around nli2work: What version of Firespitter did you compile with? The stable or dev branch? I'm curious as I'm using build 7.0.5320.35444 and getting a boatload of NREs involving intakes

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at FNPlugin.AtmosphericIntake.OnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

  at Part.ModulesOnFixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

  at Part.FixedUpdate () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

That's the full NRE. Using 0.24.2 x86 and version 1.1 of the props. Plane is a Mk2 pit w/ spaceplane+ shockcone intake up front; B9 SAS module; RandomParts mod inline intake (really awesome for "air hogging"); B9 5 meter structural fuel tank; your tail-mounted ultra-high-bypass turbine. Two stock delta wings and stock ailerons w/ stock tail-plane. Your landing gear finish the entire plane. 13 parts. Easy enough to rebuild. Running FAR / DRE / RealFuels / Firespitter 7.0-pre / Module Manager 2.2.1. Those are the only mods that would affect this in any way. I believe with the FNPlugin error it's pointing to a funky reference in Firespitter. I'll try re-downloading the mod and see if that changes anything.

EDIT: NREs occur as soon as the game switches from SPH to Flight Scene; the number of errors actually caused a crash just now. Only errors in the log are from that FNPlugin funkiness.

Firespitter 6.3.4 is the one I'm testing with.

FNPlugin is from KSP Interstellar. Conflict with KSPI experimental and Firespitter; it happens in Karbonite with the Firespitter driven engines as well. I don't know why it would conflict, I don't know if there's a solution. do you have KSPI experimental? Do you get NREs with a different firespitter engine fron Snjo? I'm checking with WaveFunctionP to see if anything I can do to work around this.

Edited August 16, 2014 by nli2work

[nli2work]

Thanks, mate! I can finally build a Tu-95 or an An-22!

share the pics! Tu95 is where I got the engine sounds!

Edited August 16, 2014 by nli2work

[sharpspoonful]

Why am I instantly reminded of Crimson Skies?

[Shad0wCatcher]

Ugh; sorry for the confusion there then! KSP-I is installed; Wave's latest release. Loading up to check now for issues between FS / KSP-I-E(totally using that acronym from now on). Really funky because your turbine models for Karbonite work flawlessly

EDIT: Ah yes, I think I still have that game lying around somewhere. Always enjoyed the long center tailplane / twin rear ailerons (elevons? Yaw-control-surfaces, damnable aircraft terms and the engineers that came up with them! Descriptions work much better for laymen! lol) w/ pusher motor. (I think it was painted all red)

Edited August 16, 2014 by Shad0wCatcher

[Neutrinovore]

This post is intended to be just a 'heads-up' deal.

Fwiw, as soon as I installed the retro-future airplane parts, their textures took over all of the menu background areas when in the SPH/VAB. As soon as I removed the pack, everything was fine again.

I have a lot of mods installed, including ATM, TweakableEverything and TweakScale, to mention just a few that may be interfering with this particular mod, and yes, I have the most up-to-date Firespitter plugin that's available.

Btw, I'm NOT implicating NohArk'sPnP as the CAUSE of this issue, merely saying that it seems to be affected by my particular combination of mods.

I was checking out the parts mainly out of curiosity, I don't really feel the need to build airplanes in KSP. Mainly because the 'S' in KSP stands for SPACE. Besides, I spend way too much time farting around with rovers on Kerbin as it is now, the last thing I need is to start getting distracted by building airplanes, lol!

Now, SPACEplanes, that's another story... and a subject not relevant to this post.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention. Later, all!

[nli2work]

This post is intended to be just a 'heads-up' deal.

Fwiw, as soon as I installed the retro-future airplane parts, their textures took over all of the menu background areas when in the SPH/VAB. As soon as I removed the pack, everything was fine again.

I have a lot of mods installed, including ATM, TweakableEverything and TweakScale, to mention just a few that may be interfering with this particular mod, and yes, I have the most up-to-date Firespitter plugin that's available.

Btw, I'm NOT implicating NohArk'sPnP as the CAUSE of this issue, merely saying that it seems to be affected by my particular combination of mods.

I was checking out the parts mainly out of curiosity, I don't really feel the need to build airplanes in KSP. Mainly because the 'S' in KSP stands for SPACE. Besides, I spend way too much time farting around with rovers on Kerbin as it is now, the last thing I need is to start getting distracted by building airplanes, lol!

Now, SPACEplanes, that's another story... and a subject not relevant to this post.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention. Later, all!

running x64 client by any chance? Had similar issue on x64 before Squad's official release on a heavy modded 23.5. There're plenty of good packs for Spaceplanes, I don't feel up to it challenging their turf. Speaking of space though... I have some engines for that too.

actually something you can try:

delete the MODEL{} blocks in the configs, and replace with mesh = part.mu; then copy the actual textures into every part folder. this way the configs are loading the textures directly from the part folder.

This won't work for the fuselage parts, you'll have to create individual folders for each piece and duplicating the textures.

if this solves the textures taking over SPH/VAB, then MODEL{} is the issue. It also means you'll have to live with a memory footprint that's a dozen times larger. but if you have 64bit and/or ATM it's probably not as much a pressing issue.

Edited August 16, 2014 by nli2work

[nli2work]

Ugh; sorry for the confusion there then! KSP-I is installed; Wave's latest release. Loading up to check now for issues between FS / KSP-I-E(totally using that acronym from now on). Really funky because your turbine models for Karbonite work flawlessly

EDIT: Ah yes, I think I still have that game lying around somewhere. Always enjoyed the long center tailplane / twin rear ailerons (elevons? Yaw-control-surfaces, damnable aircraft terms and the engineers that came up with them! Descriptions work much better for laymen! lol) w/ pusher motor. (I think it was painted all red)

Huh... I wouldn't have guessed that... Those engines are identical twins to these. very strange.