[1.1] RLA Stockalike 13.4 [25 Apr]

[nli2work]

awesome! good to see this pack coming back.

[passinglurker]

I didn't feel it was up to scratch with the rest of the parts, and I didn't have much interest in updating it. I'm not super into the aircraft side of KSP, and there's other stockalike aircraft part packs by people who are more interested in those things.

It might benefit an aspiring modder with more coding than modeling skills to put the abandoned jet engine on its own download rather than resigning them to the fate of welding stock parts together.

Well v11 might have something probe-core related, I'll see if my idea works before committing to saying it's guaranteed! You do have to be careful with those electric engines, they will utterly eat your Xenon/Monopropellant if you use them in denser atmospheres. And yes the RV-50 is now basically the same as the Linear 7, the reasoning is that when the parts used to have mass the linear was the same as the RCS block, and that didn't seem right. Since the balancing scheme now has RCS blocks being massless for some silly reason, the RV-50 is mostly just a cosmetic item. While on this train of thought, there's a number of parts that may seem flat out better or worse than stock parts because the stock parts just plain aren't balanced. So in order to have parts that have interesting variation in order to make the player think about what he wants to do, I had to ignore some stock parts when balancing. The best example of this is the 48-7S, which is an utterly ridiculous engine that is so overpowered as to be boring, there is no thought put into deciding if you want it or not.

You could have the RV-50 distinguish itself by retexturing it to be a linear resistojet RCS the stock multifuel RCS module at least works for linear thrusters.

The costs for 0.625m parts are one of those things I'm having to figure out by myself, the stock price scheme for those seems a little strange. For example; the LV-1 costs more than the 48-7S, and the small LFO tanks cost a crazy amount for how little they contain.

I think what they were going for was to discourage stacking a bunch of little tanks together and encourage you to research the larger tanks and use them. I'm not bothered about certain parts being generally and genuinely a better choice over others the thing that bugs mes just that many of the RLA parts just are not even in the same ball park at all when it comes to cost(no stock engine costs anywhere near as low as 80).

The Vernor LFO RCS seems a bit strange to me, a bit useless. And the RCS module doesn't seem to handle multiple resources for multi-nozzle RCS blocks properly, so even if I wanted to add them it wouldn't work! Good point on the name of the ION2, it'll be changed right about nowish.

This doesn't help with LFO but you could make a multi directional resistojet RCS by making it like an ordinary single fuel block with better stats and then adding a generator module to the config that constantly consumes EC like a sort of anti-RTG under the description that the block needs to constantly consume power to hold a charge in order to be ready to fire at a moments notice. Edited August 11, 2014 by passinglurker

[hoojiwana]

It might benefit an aspiring modder with more coding than modeling skills to put the abandoned jet engine on its own download rather than resigning them to the fate of welding stock parts together.

There's a download for older part packs in the OP, you can use the Radial Jet from there if you wish.

You could have the RV-50 distinguish itself by retexturing it to be a linear resistojet RCS the stock multifuel RCS module at least works for linear thrusters.

This doesn't help with LFO but you could make a multi directional resistojet RCS by making it like an ordinary single fuel block with better stats and then adding a generator module to the config that constantly consumes EC like a sort of anti-RTG under the description that the block needs to constantly consume power to hold a charge in order to be ready to fire at a moments notice.

I'm going to wait and see if Squad fixes the RCS module to work properly with bipropellant multi-nozzle set ups before I resign myself to releasing just a single resistojet RCS part. I've always disregarded using a messy solution like the generator option, it makes a total mess of part tooltips and is in general just inelegant.

I'm not bothered about certain parts being generally and genuinely a better choice over others the thing that bugs mes just that many of the RLA parts just are not even in the same ball park at all when it comes to cost(no stock engine costs anywhere near as low as 80).

If it turns out that those parts are too cheap (and they probably are) then there will be an update. I'll give it another day or two for more feedback to roll in first, to get an idea of what people are expecting their costs to actually be. Are the tech tree placements okay? I might move the smaller 0.625m tanks down to Survival with the LV-T5.

[Renegrade]

Sweet! New RLA Stockalike! Thanks hoojiwana!

(I'm a big fan of the previous version's RCS thrusters and engines, can't wait to try out the new ones!)

[biohazard15]

I think what they were going for was to discourage stacking a bunch of little tanks together and encourage you to research the larger tanks and use them. I'm not bothered about certain parts being generally and genuinely a better choice over others the thing that bugs mes just that many of the RLA parts just are not even in the same ball park at all when it comes to cost(no stock engine costs anywhere near as low as 80)

Actually, fuel tanks is maybe the only well-balanced part type in KSP. They follow a simple formula: "LF price + OX price = 23% overall price". This is true for Rockomax and Kerbodyne, almost true for LF-T (some deviations there), and not true for two "unique" tanks - Oscar-B and Round-8. Regarding them and LV-1s, Squad might had the same balancing idea that I got when I did price patch for NovaPunch - "unique" parts for advanced designs (tiny tanks and engines, or, in case of NP, low-profile engines) cost more than "standard" parts.

RLA-s balancing seems alright with heavy Monoprop engines (they balanced against KW's SPS, as it seems) and RCS blocks. LF engines and fuel tanks looks too cheap for me (but that's me), monoprop tanks is totally off-balance (200 units in FL-R50 cost more than 750 units in FL-R1?). As for monoprop\xenon engines - I don't know. That looks like Near Future stuff, and NF stuff are overwhelmingly expensive.

[Kommitz]

Well aside from grumbles about balance that I can't really comment on due to not playing career at all, nice parts. The rewoked electric and monoprop engines look well nice.

[passinglurker]

If it turns out that those parts are too cheap (and they probably are) then there will be an update. I'll give it another day or two for more feedback to roll in first, to get an idea of what people are expecting their costs to actually be. Are the tech tree placements okay? I might move the smaller 0.625m tanks down to Survival with the LV-T5.

when it comes to the techtree tank wise I'd put one of either the long or the half length tanks, and the early .625 decoupler in basic rocketry to give the lv-t5 something to use should a player go for survival first without putting any tanks or decouplers on nodes where they are normally not found. Also I'm not sure about lumping the kingfisher, the spinnaker, and the boost-o-trons all in the same node I think they should be spread out a bit maybe also put either the kingfisher or a throttleable hybrid version of boost-o-tron I in basic rocketry as your first unwieldy .625 engine(much like how they start you with large unwieldy 1.25 engines)

I haven't really delved much further into the tree yet than that I had started a new game for the sake of this mod ^^

[Streetwind]

Mother of a kitten's belly fluff, one of my favorite parts packs is back!

I am going to take down the archive mirror for the old version that I made on Curse once I get home from work.

EDIT: File's gone.

Edited August 12, 2014 by Streetwind

[ArcFurnace]

Is the FL-R200 monopropellant tank supposed to have a dry mass of 0.08 tons? That's less dry mass than the FL-R15 tank. To me, it looks like you meant to type "0.80" (twice the dry mass of the stock FL-R1) and had a typo.

Also, the monpropellant tank mass ratios and tank cost per resource mass are all over the place. That's not technically your fault, however, as you clearly based them on the stock tanks, and the stock monopropellant tanks are also all over the place in terms of balance. Relevant data (stock tanks, then your tanks):

[TABLE=class: grid, width: 977]

[TR]

[TD]Monopropellant Tanks[/TD]

[TD]Total Cost[/TD]

[TD]Dry Mass[/TD]

[TD]Resource Units[/TD]

[TD]Total Mass[/TD]

[TD]Resource Mass[/TD]

[TD]Resource Cost[/TD]

[TD]Dry Cost[/TD]

[TD]Mass Ratio

(total mass/dry mass)[/TD]

[TD]Tank Cost Ratio

(dry cost/resource mass)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]FL-R10[/TD]

[TD=align: right]400[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.05[/TD]

[TD=align: right]50[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.25[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.2[/TD]

[TD=align: right]60[/TD]

[TD=align: right]340[/TD]

[TD=align: right]5[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1700[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]FL-R25[/TD]

[TD=align: right]800[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.15[/TD]

[TD=align: right]100[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.55[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.4[/TD]

[TD=align: right]120[/TD]

[TD=align: right]680[/TD]

[TD=align: right]3.666666667[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1700[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]FL-R1[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1300[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.4[/TD]

[TD=align: right]750[/TD]

[TD=align: right]3.4[/TD]

[TD=align: right]3[/TD]

[TD=align: right]900[/TD]

[TD=align: right]400[/TD]

[TD=align: right]8.5[/TD]

[TD=align: right]133.3333333[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Stratus-V Sphere[/TD]

[TD=align: right]800[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.075[/TD]

[TD=align: right]40[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.235[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.16[/TD]

[TD=align: right]48[/TD]

[TD=align: right]752[/TD]

[TD=align: right]3.133333333[/TD]

[TD=align: right]4700[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Stratus-V Cylinder[/TD]

[TD=align: right]400[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.15[/TD]

[TD=align: right]150[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.75[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.6[/TD]

[TD=align: right]180[/TD]

[TD=align: right]220[/TD]

[TD=align: right]5[/TD]

[TD=align: right]366.6666667[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]FL-R15[/TD]

[TD=align: right]800[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.15[/TD]

[TD=align: right]100[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.55[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.4[/TD]

[TD=align: right]120[/TD]

[TD=align: right]680[/TD]

[TD=align: right]3.666666667[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1700[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]FL-R50[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1600[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.2[/TD]

[TD=align: right]200[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.8[/TD]

[TD=align: right]240[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1360[/TD]

[TD=align: right]5[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1700[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]FL-R200[/TD]

[TD=align: right]2600[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.08[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1500[/TD]

[TD=align: right]6.08[/TD]

[TD=align: right]6[/TD]

[TD=align: right]1800[/TD]

[TD=align: right]800[/TD]

[TD=align: right]76[/TD]

[TD=align: right]133.3333333[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Stratus-V Capsule[/TD]

[TD=align: right]100[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.011[/TD]

[TD=align: right]10[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.051[/TD]

[TD=align: right]0.04[/TD]

[TD=align: right]12[/TD]

[TD=align: right]88[/TD]

[TD=align: right]4.636363636[/TD]

[TD=align: right]2200[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

If you fix the FL-R200's dry mass, all your tanks would be within the stock range. Personally I would recommend picking a mass ratio and cost ratio and balancing things around that, but it's your call (if you want to do that, you really ought to have a MM .cfg to redo the stock tanks as well so they match, and that's not necessarily something you'd want to get into, seeing as how nothing else in the mod uses ModuleManager currently).

[Gryphorim]

Do the engine effects scale with atmospheric pressure? Someone over on the Hotrockets thread figured it out recently, and I've been hoping to see it become something of a standard....

[Streetwind]

That becoming a standard will depend very strongly on whether it's possible with the stock effects nodes, or whether it requires a custom plugin component from HotRockets.

[Gryphorim]

Ah, see, I thought it worked off of the basic Module - EngineFX, but it might be dependant on Smokescreen. In which case I'd have to go over to the guys over at Hotrockets and plead my case there, unless a smokescreen .cfg is in the works here.

[Beale]

Those electric engines are stunning! Just something about them I love...

Inspired me to create my own 1.25m engine of a similar style (Though I can't quite match your modelling or texturing skills )

Thank you also for the 0.625m tanks, finally I can have small launchers .

Some Unity stuff...

In game

Edited August 13, 2014 by Beale

[Nori]

Am I the only one that feels like the monopropellent engines (particularly the larger ones) are too efficient? I mean they are quite sweet and I love the models. But 400+ ISP for several of them compared to all stock monopropellent stuff is in the upper 200s.

Or maybe these engines are meant to compete with LFO engines?

[passinglurker]

I'm fine with the larger engines mono engines efficiency they are pretty late tree and they basically fill the role between chemical and nuclear, and if I remember when I did the math comparing the engines in 0.9.4 correctly the old large mono engines were completely out classed in almost every situation by chemical equivalents so its nice to see them given a niche instead of taking up space. Also they lead up to the the bimode thermal electric engines so their boosted efficiency creates a sense of progression. (The cost on the other hand is still oddly cheap at $80 for an mpr-5 not even solids go that cheep)

[hoojiwana]

v10.3 is out, including alterations for part costs and tech tree placements.

"LF price + OX price = 23% overall price".

RLA-s balancing seems alright with heavy Monoprop engines (they balanced against KW's SPS, as it seems) and RCS blocks. LF engines and fuel tanks looks too cheap for me (but that's me), monoprop tanks is totally off-balance (200 units in FL-R50 cost more than 750 units in FL-R1?). As for monoprop\xenon engines - I don't know. That looks like Near Future stuff, and NF stuff are overwhelmingly expensive.

I've updated the part costs of the 0.625m parts. All the engines have gone up in price except for the SRBs that got slightly cheaper. The LFO tanks have been changed to better fit the 23% rule, and the 2.5m MP engines have been fiddled with. The electric ones are just kinda popped around the stock Ion, no idea if they're really the right cost especially as two of them are bimodal.

Well aside from grumbles about balance that I can't really comment on due to not playing career at all, nice parts. The rewoked electric and monoprop engines look well nice.

Thanks man, that crazy hexagon array you're working on looks fantastic.

when it comes to the techtree tank wise I'd put one of either the long or the half length tanks, and the early .625 decoupler in basic rocketry to give the lv-t5 something to use should a player go for survival first without putting any tanks or decouplers on nodes where they are normally not found. Also I'm not sure about lumping the kingfisher, the spinnaker, and the boost-o-trons all in the same node I think they should be spread out a bit maybe also put either the kingfisher or a throttleable hybrid version of boost-o-tron I in basic rocketry as your first unwieldy .625 engine(much like how they start you with large unwieldy 1.25 engines)

I've moved things around a little, see what you think of it now. Due to the odd way in which KSP remembers what you've unlocked, you may need to start another new save to have a proper look. Luckily the alterations are all in the first few tiers so you won't have to go too far.

Mother of a kitten's belly fluff, one of my favorite parts packs is back!

I am going to take down the archive mirror for the old version that I made on Curse once I get home from work.

EDIT: File's gone.

Thanks for rehosting a mirror for people to use in my absence!

Is the FL-R200 monopropellant tank supposed to have a dry mass of 0.08 tons? That's less dry mass than the FL-R15 tank. To me, it looks like you meant to type "0.80" (twice the dry mass of the stock FL-R1) and had a typo.

Yeah the FL-R200 was a typo, annoying really as I was kinda using that part to help balance the big MP engines. With the FL-R200 at the proper dry mass I had to decrease the mass on both the Cormorant and the Albatross, and bumped up the ISP of the Albatross as well to keep it near where it used to be. Unfortunately it's not as good as it was, I didn't want to push the numbers too high.

Do the engine effects scale with atmospheric pressure? Someone over on the Hotrockets thread figured it out recently, and I've been hoping to see it become something of a standard....

That becoming a standard will depend very strongly on whether it's possible with the stock effects nodes, or whether it requires a custom plugin component from HotRockets.

That effect uses something from SmokeScreen, so you'll have to figure something out over in the HotRockets thread to get that working with v10.

Those electric engines are stunning! Just something about them I love...

Inspired me to create my own 1.25m engine of a similar style (Though I can't quite match your modelling or texturing skills )

Looks great in game, is it supposed to be a chunkier resistojet? My rules for making the three electric engines was to match the two-shade yellow paint with the heavy border and icon, and to have a blue and red wire.

Am I the only one that feels like the monopropellent engines (particularly the larger ones) are too efficient? I mean they are quite sweet and I love the models. But 400+ ISP for several of them compared to all stock monopropellent stuff is in the upper 200s.

Or maybe these engines are meant to compete with LFO engines?

I'm fine with the larger engines mono engines efficiency they are pretty late tree and they basically fill the role between chemical and nuclear, and if I remember when I did the math comparing the engines in 0.9.4 correctly the old large mono engines were completely out classed in almost every situation by chemical equivalents so its nice to see them given a niche instead of taking up space. Also they lead up to the the bimode thermal electric engines so their boosted efficiency creates a sense of progression. (The cost on the other hand is still oddly cheap at $80 for an mpr-5 not even solids go that cheep)

The stock implementation of a monopropellant engine is beyond underwhelming (no surprise there though), so I went a different direction. They're meant to compete with LFO engines, but you cannot do a straight ISP comparison to the LFO engines due to differences in wet/dry tank masses. The design intent was to create a family of engines that are basically on-par with the low-TWR/high ISP LFO engines, but with their own pros and cons. Generally speaking the MP engines are all pretty bad in atmosphere and are fairly lengthy, but with the MP tanks come out at lower mass (and thrust) for around the same d/v. The player has to make a decision if he wants to stick to more versatile, slightly higher TWR LFO engines or go with the overall lighter MP engines that are more focused on OMS-style duties. Turns out sticking an MPR-5 or a couple of -5R's on a capsule as back-up thrusters is pretty useful with the command-pod MP stores as well!

Edited August 14, 2014 by hoojiwana

[Jaxx]

I for one I'm glad the new MP engines actually have any use whatsoever, as they were the only part I never bothered using in the original implementation. The costs could use balancing, but that's all in due time. Thank you for the redux.

[passinglurker]

Turns out sticking an MPR-5 or a couple of -5R's on a capsule as back-up thrusters is pretty useful with the command-pod MP stores as well!

I used to do that all the time with the MRP-5's in the old version. I'd use them as an alternative to sep-a-trons for deorbiting. Unfortunately they are pretty late tree now I don't suppose I can bother you for a replacement in my quest for cheap low tech and throttleable retrorockets?

[Nori]

Thanks for the explanation. Makes perfect sense.

[passinglurker]

I've moved things around a little, see what you think of it now. Due to the odd way in which KSP remembers what you've unlocked, you may need to start another new save to have a proper look. Luckily the alterations are all in the first few tiers so you won't have to go too far.

Now that I've had a chance to play with it I do say I like the changes. The parts being spread out more in the early tree and the parts being made more expensive probably don't matter so much in terms of balance when you consider career mode throws you so much money its hard to go bankrupt, and you'd probably unlock all your early nodes on your first pass through R&D, but it does make everything look more thought out and like its part of the stock game. So yes again I like the changes.

Have you considered placing the resistojet and arcjet earlier in the tree? They technically are not ion they are electrothermal So there is no rule saying you need to research the node named ion propulsion first (Something that has bugged me about the other electric propulsion mod Near Future Propulsion was that is was awkward to tightly cram all those high tech engines at the end of the tree. They do have an alternate tree, but treeloader is barely maintained, and they don't want to put any engines before ion propulsion cause that's the most primitive kind of engine they got. Fortunately since you implemented electrothermal instead you don't have to follow that rule to look stockalike ) of course on the flip side of the coin there are not a lot of generator options powerful enough earlier in the tree so I could just be rambling nonsense. I'll have to get around to flying them and see what it takes to run them in practice.

[Beale]

Looks great in game, is it supposed to be a chunkier resistojet? My rules for making the three electric engines was to match the two-shade yellow paint with the heavy border and icon, and to have a blue and red wire.

Thanks

It is another resistojet, bi-modal thingie. 7KN of thrust, but with slightly worse ISP and TWR

Thanks for the tips with the wires and stuff, improves it quite a bit

[Shania_L]

Hey great to see this mod updated, I always liked the love RLA gave to mono-prop and the smaller scale engines.

I have a quick question though, in the last version of RLA the LV-T5 and the LV-Nc had alternate part models which I used in preferance to the default (mainly the longer engine bell IIRC) you have updated the models in the new release based upon the default is there any chance of the alternate model returning? I tried dropping the old model file in, but the effects positions were all wrong, and thats beyond my editing abilities.

[passinglurker]

Thanks

It is another resistojet, bi-modal thingie. 7KN of thrust, but with slightly worse ISP and TWR

Thanks for the tips with the wires and stuff, improves it quite a bit

http://puu.sh/aS1cQ/57bf978d8c.jpg

So its twice-quadruple the size but only one and three quarters times the stats?

[hoojiwana]

I used to do that all the time with the MRP-5's in the old version. I'd use them as an alternative to sep-a-trons for deorbiting. Unfortunately they are pretty late tree now I don't suppose I can bother you for a replacement in my quest for cheap low tech and throttleable retrorockets?

The MPR-1 is pretty bad right now (useless even), and that's in the same "tier" as the MPR-5 used to be. When I do another update and change the MPR-1 that would probably be pretty good, albeit at a lower thrust.

Thanks for the explanation. Makes perfect sense.

No problem! Explanations for the balance will hopefully get people to question those decisions, point out possible flaws in implementation of those decisions, and cause everything to be made better overall.

Have you considered placing the resistojet and arcjet earlier in the tree? They technically are not ion they are electrothermal of course on the flip side of the coin there are not a lot of generator options powerful enough earlier in the tree so I could just be rambling nonsense.

Since they both use Monopropellant I considered placing them a bit earlier, as they don't need to be in the same node as the Xenon tanks to function, unlike the Ions. As you said though, there isn't much in the way of power generation so I decided against it.

Thanks

It is another resistojet, bi-modal thingie. 7KN of thrust, but with slightly worse ISP and TWR

Thanks for the tips with the wires and stuff, improves it quite a bit

It looks a lot better! How much power does it chug down?

Hey great to see this mod updated, I always liked the love RLA gave to mono-prop and the smaller scale engines.

I have a quick question though, in the last version of RLA the LV-T5 and the LV-Nc had alternate part models which I used in preferance to the default (mainly the longer engine bell IIRC) you have updated the models in the new release based upon the default is there any chance of the alternate model returning? I tried dropping the old model file in, but the effects positions were all wrong, and thats beyond my editing abilities.

The folder structure for alternative models is entirely standalone, you should be able to drop the whole thing in just like it was a separate mod and it'll work. If you drop in only the modelalt.mu files that won't work.

[dzikakulka]

I think I've found a bug, got contract to test Bi-Modal Resistojet landed at kerbin (real challenge lol) and while all the circumstances are met, staging does not complete it, there is no "run test" button at all. I also couldn't get this thruster to actually work, it says "XenonGas deprived" with two tanks almost in its nozzle.

But I run a lot of mods so I'm not sure if it isn't my fault. Here is craft file (it's real tiny contract probe, like 10 parts), I would be happy if you'd take a look. I tried disabling all mods but it didn't help. Still, could be something with savegame (yeah, a LOT of mods were running, kraken is my regular guest here).

Ant thanks again for this wonderful pack

.craft: http://www.speedyshare.com/Nm5eB/Billy.craft

Edited August 15, 2014 by dzikakulka