[1.2 - 1.4] Modular Rocket Systems v1.13.2 (2018-03-12) - Stock-alike Parts Pack

[NecroBones]

I have a couple more things in mind to add, but otherwise most of the "gaps" are getting pretty well addressed. After a few more parts, I'll probably be slowing down the pace, since I've been doing nothing but working on this, and I have a feeling my wife would like to see my face again one of these days... lol. I think I'll be able to put the "1.0" stamp on it after letting it sit (and collect feedback) for a couple of weeks.

So, I have a few questions to ask:

1. Any additional things you'd like to see?

If there are parts you've suggested before, and I haven't done them, either I've forgotten (it happens), or it's something I'm putting off, or haven't found a good way to work in yet. For the moment, I'm avoiding larger engines. The only one I'm still thinking of at the moment is a 1.25m monopropellant engine (and, I'm tempted to make an alternate SLS-Quad engine; same stats but different appearance to the KS-25x4, since the stock engine looks goofy to me with such small engine skirts for the amount of thrust, and bi-radial symmetry instead of purely radial symmetry. But this one is a "maybe"). I'm also going to have to wait on command pods, since the IVA thing is going to take some experimenting, and apparently hatches and ladders are very touchy.

I haven't bothered with the 3.75m battery, since I'm not sure it's actually useful. I never see screenshots of people stacking thousands of EC worth of batteries, and I've never needed that kind of power either. And at 3.75m, we're mostly talking about lifter stages.

I've also thought about radial stack mounts, as mentioned previously, but other mods handle that really well. I'd also feel compelled to make one in each diameter. I can certainly do these, as it would be fairly easy to make, but I only want to do this if it's going to be useful.

Since people were talking about VTOLs, I added basic-jets to the turbo-jet parts I did this past week. So I think we're done with jet parts, at least at the small scale.

Any additional ideas? It's OK to repeat yourself here.

2. Sort order of 2.5m tanks in the VAB/SPH.

I gave interesting internal ID names to these parts, but they don't sort well, so they're jumbled up with the other parts in the VAB menus. I can rename them such that they group together and sort properly. How important is this to you? Doing this would break existing saves, since the part names would change internally. I could provide a list of changes to fix your saves though, for those who are comfortable editing the persistence files. Even though I'm calling this a "beta", I'm trying not to break saves.

Click here to see the current order.

3. Feelings on the radial booster tank?

I'm talking about this tank design. It was one of the earlier pieces I made, while I was figuring out Blender. Useful? Not useful? Should I take off the nose cone and allow stacking at the top? Luckily, even though I made it a radial part, the CoM should be right in the center line. My worry would have been with allowing it to stack, and then having an off-center CoM. It has the height and capacity of two FL-T800 tanks, but that's including the nose-cone (that is, the height with the cone included is about the same, since I used that capacity). If I take the cone off, extending the height of the cylinder to compensate might make sense.

Anyway, just looking for some opinions.

Here's the same image:

Edited September 18, 2014 by NecroBones

[Parkaboy]

Hi, just dropping by to say this mod pack is starting to look very good! I particularly like the large NERVA. I've been looking for a stock-like 2.5m nuclear engine for some time, and yours look very nice!

On the other hand, I think there are a few parts that still could use some more work. The Argon tanks, for instance, look like they have their structural supports clipping into the tanks themselves... Maybe it's nitpicking, but they don't look right to me.

[NecroBones]

Hi there! Thanks, yeah, all feedback is helpful and welcome. The supports on the xenon tanks were intentional (they are supports, after all), but it's always possible to improve the angle/shape, etc.

[NecroBones]

On the other hand, I think there are a few parts that still could use some more work. The Argon tanks, for instance, look like they have their structural supports clipping into the tanks themselves... Maybe it's nitpicking, but they don't look right to me.

In tonight's round of adjustments, I added small nodes to the attachment points on the xenon spheres, to make it look less like it just clips through.

Did you have any other nit-picky things in particular? It does help to know where the weaknesses are. Sometimes as the creator, you can be too "close" to the project and not see where the flaws are.

The spheres, after the tweak:

Also still wasn't happy with ultra-thin support pylons, so these got beefed up a tiny bit more:

[NecroBones]

Tonight's other new updates:

A "guidance nose cone". It's an aerodynamic probe-core, with some battery and some torque. So the mass is appropriate to doing something similar with separate parts:

Small, radially attached Fuel Cell electric generators, and a 1.25m stack model as well. The idea here, is that you can burn a little fuel to recharge your batteries. You have to turn them on, of course, and remember to shut them off so they don't keep draining fuel.

Also, re-painted the small jet-fuel tanks, so they don't look like crayons anymore... heh.

I'll be looking to get v0.5 out soon... Surely in the next day or two.

Edited September 19, 2014 by NecroBones

[Genolution]

Yeah man. It's about time to stop and actually play the game for a bit. And see the wife. But just playing with the new parts and seeing how they work together will give you alot of ideas. Ill give you more on my observations when i get home from work. I hate posting on my phone.

[Red Iron Crown]

Pffft, your wife should approve of being a KSP widow, you could be out gambling, drinking and cavorting with women of ill-repute instead.

New parts look great Necro, looking forward to the next release.

[NecroBones]

Pffft, your wife should approve of being a KSP widow, you could be out gambling, drinking and cavorting with women of ill-repute instead.

You know, that's what *I* say too... heh.

New parts look great Necro, looking forward to the next release.

Thanks, glad you like!

OK, version 0.5 is up. I decided to go ahead and get it out this morning, so we can get some of the new parts out for feedback. Before release, I boosted the electric charge rate on the fuel cells over what was in the screenshots. I increased the output by 50% and left in the fuel consumption the same. I figure with how much mass and space they take up, they should be effective at filling those batteries, but not so effective that they can drive arrays of ion engines by themselves. We'll have to see where the balance lies on that.

Change log:

0.5 (2014-09-19) - Beta Release
 - Cosmetic adjustment: Quad-Nuclear engine:
    - Lightened the grey color of the reactors
    - Increased engine bell's size by 9%.
 - Cosmetic adjustment: 3.75m monopropellant tank: added white stripes 
 - Cosmetic adjustment: Xenon sphere tanks: added nodes to support struts
 - Cosmetic adjustment: 0.625m jet-fuel tanks: Changed around stripes
 - Reduced texture resolution of matching 2.5m and 1.25m nose cones to be more appropriate
 - Added "three-quarter jumbo" fuel tank, with flag decals
 - Added size-2 ASAS module (20% higher torque/mass/cost than stock unit)
 - Added three sizes of aerodynamic structural pylons
 - Added 0.625m (size-0) nose cone
 - Added 0.625m basic jet engine + intake (as a matching set to the turbojets from last update)
 - Added 1.25m "Guidance Nose Cone" probe core + reaction wheels + small battery.
 - Added Fuel-Cell electric generators: Radial, 1.25m.

[The14th]

Very nice indeed! Thanks for the update!

I really like it when a parts pack updates just in time for the weekend!

[Genolution]

Hey Necro, just thought I would show you how I've been rebuilding my space program.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited September 19, 2014 by Genolution
failing@albums

[Red Iron Crown]

Genolution, try [noparse]

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[/noparse] to get your album to show inline.

[Genolution]

Thanks Red. I'm not exactly a forum warrior. This is the most active I have ever been on any forums.

[NecroBones]

Awesome, the screenshots look great!

[Cloakedwand72]

Dos it work with Ferram aerospace research?

[Kolago]

The NBadapter3x7/part.cfg stack symmetry is wrong.

Currently it's "stackSymmetry = 4" but it should be "stackSymmetry = 5"

If it try to connect something add the end of the "Aerodynamic Pylons" it points in a strange direction.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Kolago

[NecroBones]

Dos it work with Ferram aerospace research?

I believe it should. I haven't tested with FAR, but when I looked at the FAR info about compatibility, it didn't seem to mention needing to do anything special to make parts work with it.

The NBadapter3x7/part.cfg stack symmetry is wrong.

Currently it's "stackSymmetry = 4" but it should be "stackSymmetry = 5"

Huh, it does seem to work properly with "5". My understanding was that the pattern went like this:

1 = 2x

2 = 3x

3 = 4x

4 = 6x

5 = 8x

But I guess it's actually more like "X-1". My bad. I have the change made on my side, so the next update will have it.

If it try to connect something add the end of the "Aerodynamic Pylons" it points in a strange direction.

I didn't see that in my testing, but I'll take another look at it.

Edited September 20, 2014 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

I didn't see that in my testing, but I'll take another look at it.

Yeah, I can't reproduce that. Everything snaps right into place when I use them. Was there something in particular you were attaching that didn't work well?

I've seen that sort of thing happen in general (with any attachment point, such as on fuel tanks) in some of the more complex designs. It's a relatively recent bug in the VAB/SPH, starting around 0.23.5 I think. That might be what you're seeing.

Edited September 20, 2014 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

Dos it work with Ferram aerospace research?

I believe it should. I haven't tested with FAR, but when I looked at the FAR info about compatibility, it didn't seem to mention needing to do anything special to make parts work with it.

Here's the relevant part of the FAR FAQ (which leads me to believe everything's OK):

Does this plugin work properly with other mods / part packs?

Sure; FAR figures out what the properties of the part should be based on its dimensions and some basic aerodynamic assumptions. If you use a mod and suspect that it causes unrealistic behavior, search the thread to see if it has been brought up / addressed by the latest release; if it hasn't, feel free to bring it to my attention. The only exception is with wing parts, which are more complicated and currently must have their properties specified manually.

Does this plugin make payload fairings and cargo bays work properly?

It is set up to identify parts labelled "fairing" or "cargo bay" and apply the proper effects to them and the other parts the affect. Since all of these parts are 3rd party mods, incompatibilities may occur; if you find an issue like this, bringing it to my attention along with the craft file suffering the problem can go a long way to fix it.

[Kolago]

This is how it looks in my VAB:

[Red Iron Crown]

Might be Editor Extensions related, that's one difference I see between the two VABs.

[NecroBones]

Yeah, it has to be some bad interaction with the mods. Typically, the stock VAB aligns everything vertically as long as it's on a vertical surface. The pylons have an extra-wide secondary collision mesh at the ends to give you a nice flat surface to attach things. What happens if you try attaching the tanks to the sides of the pylons instead? And is it behaving that way no matter where on the end you place it? You should have some vertical room to mount the tanks a little higher or lower than center.

Here's what the collision meshes look like:

[NecroBones]

As an additional topic of conversation, I'm working a bit on a "secret project"... lol, no, it's not really secret. Hence my question to all of you...

I'm working on a new payload-fairing set, that's designed to stack inline. That is, you could do something like the Saturn V and have your command-pod on the exterior at the top, but have the lander inside a fairing below that. It'll also have nose-cones so that you can still use the fairings at the top.

If you're familiar with how the fairings work in KY Rocketry, this is a bit different. With KW, the fairings are separate items that you have to place in addition to the base. I'm designing this around the engine-fairing system, so you only place the base (and maybe a nose cone at the top), and just keep building. The fairing panels appear automatically when you stack something at the top. But, in order to have the sizes needed for a variety of missions, they need to be built in different lengths and widths..

So here's the question. It's opinion-time!

How do you feel about this adding about 20-24 parts to the structural tab? I've been trying to keep the mod relatively clean so far. But with fairings, there's no escaping the parts-list explosion. Is this OK with you? Or would you prefer that the fairings be split out to a separate mod/download?

[Red Iron Crown]

My vote would be for a separate download. The structural tab (and aero tab, the other place fairings make sense) is already very cluttered. If a player uses another set of fairings it requires some manual part deletion.

[NecroBones]

My vote would be for a separate download. The structural tab (and aero tab, the other place fairings make sense) is already very cluttered. If a player uses another set of fairings it requires some manual part deletion.

Yeah, I think I was already leaning that way. Thinking some more on it since posting that, I'm pretty sure the best thing is to make it separate. Not everyone will want both sets of parts. In a way that also removes a constraint, of trying to keep the fairing list as small as possible.

[Kolago]

Try to use TweakScale to bring down the part count.