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

[E.Nygma]

What I'm trying to decide is if maybe a 1.25m version of the ion engine would be more useful than say, an alternate 0.625 version.

Why not both? Meaning, a bigger one with just one downscaling option via tweakscale?

But that may be because I pair MRS with RLA and, between, the two, I feel like nukes, monoprop, and ions are now plenty.

Well, RLA never seemed to work for me for unknown reasons. My suggestion aimed not at providing a full set of underappreciated engines, just a small and lightweight -memory wise- addition to stock, mainly for optical purposes...but

I find the gap between the biggest size-1 engine and the smallest size-2 to be more distressing

I also second that...

Best of wishes

Edited November 5, 2014 by E.Nygma

[NecroBones]

Personally, I find the gap between the biggest size-1 engine and the smallest size-2 to be more distressing than the lack of ions. Try and make a lifter using your 5 size-1 to size-2 thrust plate and the stock engines and you'll see what I mean. The double-bell size-1 engine is the reason I still keep the KW engines around...even though the texture cache of just the KW engines is 50% bigger than all of ModRocketSys

EDIT: I just realized that's not true. I keep around the KW LFO engines AND the SRBs, because in my opinion, the stock SRB lineup is pretty lacking. Well, and they sound pretty cool too.

But that may be because I pair MRS with RLA and, between, the two, I feel like nukes, monoprop, and ions are now plenty.

EDIT: Crown's assertion about rocket people and plane people certainly holds true for me. Spaceplanes and I have never gotten along. Mk2 parts are a waste of my texture cache and that's why I asked earlier about making sure things were easy to remove. To me, that's part of the allure of MRS - the focus helps it target its audience, IMO. Kinda like the way the plane people I know wouldn't be caught dead without B9, but I've never glanced twice at it...

And that's actually pretty useful for me to hear-- more evidence that rockets and spaceplanes don't always mix with everyone. This is why I love these discussions; it can help weed through these issues and figure out the ideal course of action.

This is also why I try to keep RLA in mind when I work on parts, so that these two mods will work well together.

But going back to your first point above, that's quite true. The 1.25m LFO engines aren't really that useful once you start building larger vehicles, since the "thrust to diameter" ratio isn't very good at that scale. I'd love to fill a gap here, but I'm hesitant since it messes with the stock balance. I could see doing something like that, by placing it late in the tech tree though. As in, now you're building heavy lifters, so here's a new advanced 1.25m engine with some power behind it. It's a maybe.

Why not both? Meaning, a bigger one with just one downscaling option via tweakscale?

Well, RLA never seemed to work for me for unknown reasons. My suggestion aimed not at providing a full set of underappreciated engines, just a small and lightweight -memory wise- addition to stock, mainly for optical purposes...but I also second that...

It's doable, and I have to say, Tweakscale makes things both easier and harder. It makes me think hard about how many parts I want to duplicate in various sizes. lol

[NecroBones]

I suppose. My thought process was "How hard can it be to just stuff random stuff around a probe body", but there are sillier things in the KSP tech tree. I wound up putting a few small, cylindrical procedural batteries in a ring around the bottom, and strutting them to the top, because the interior struts in the fairing weren't enough to prevent wobble.

I had another thought. What would you think of a radially-attachable probe core? No battery or reaction wheel, just the probe core?

I'm thinking along the lines of the MechJeb box, in that it could be an electronics box with a light on it, etc.

[Noio]

Tweakscale makes things both easier and harder. It makes me think hard about how many parts I want to duplicate in various sizes...

There are also the folks like me who feel that tweakscale is a little cheaty and don't use it. If you aren't a tweakscale user there are some big holes in the part set, for instance a size-2 nosecone is crazy hard to come up with until very late in the tech tree. But being forced to use tweakscale would bum me out.

[NecroBones]

There are also the folks like me who feel that tweakscale is a little cheaty and don't use it. If you aren't a tweakscale user there are some big holes in the part set, for instance a size-2 nosecone is crazy hard to come up with until very late in the tech tree. But being forced to use tweakscale would bum me out.

Yeah, that's part of why I think it makes things hard on my side. If I make the same part in multiple sizes, it eats up extra space for the TweakScale users, but if I don't then the non-users miss out. My inclination is to favor a non-tweakscale configuration above all else, but also not go crazy with making the same thing in all sizes. It's a tough balance.

--

As an aside, I'm working on 5m parts (not for this mod, as it will be a separate pack), and I think the fuel tanks are turning out to be very pretty:

[Red Iron Crown]

Space Y. You have a real talent for naming, Necro.

[Starman4308]

I had another thought. What would you think of a radially-attachable probe core? No battery or reaction wheel, just the probe core?

I'm thinking along the lines of the MechJeb box, in that it could be an electronics box with a light on it, etc.

That could work. It'd mean separate batteries and reaction wheels/RCS, but that's not a big deal: those parts basically coincide with the probe cores anyways. The big thing I think would be making sure the control still points upwards, despite being placed radially.

If you're feeling humorous, you might try a boxy radial core in Advanced Flight Control, and a "technologically advanced" streamlined (possibly lower-mass for stock players) core in Specialized Flight Control.

As an aside, I'm working on 5m parts (not for this mod, as it will be a separate pack), and I think the fuel tanks are turning out to be very pretty:

Very pretty. But I think those tanks are questioning why one would go to space.

[NecroBones]

That could work. It'd mean separate batteries and reaction wheels/RCS, but that's not a big deal: those parts basically coincide with the probe cores anyways. The big thing I think would be making sure the control still points upwards, despite being placed radially.

If you're feeling humorous, you might try a boxy radial core in Advanced Flight Control, and a "technologically advanced" streamlined (possibly lower-mass for stock players) core in Specialized Flight Control.

I think the control-direction should be pretty straightforward. I'll have to test it, but I think as long as I orient the part the correct way in unity, up will be up. But being a radial part, left/right (etc) could be rotated depending on which side of the rocket it is placed. It'll probably look the most correct putting it on the dorsal side.

Space Y. You have a real talent for naming, Necro.

Very pretty. But I think those tanks are questioning why one would go to space.

It works quite nicely with my sense of humor. Part of the reason that idea came up, was that I was working on a 9-nozzle engine cluster, like what they use on the Falcon-9. I have it working, but I don't think I'll be doing any 9-nozzle engines again. Each engine bell has to be independently set up for gimbal, and have the engine heat animation configured.

[E.Nygma]

I love the new engine, nice addition and I can finally do away with KW (kept it for the 5m engines only...)

Edited November 6, 2014 by E.Nygma

[The Yellow Dart]

Unfortunately on the robotics side, that's not doable with just stock code.

Yeah, I can't say I'm surprised by that, just something I had always wondered about. Modded code makes me nervous, I always worry that a game save I've put so many hours into will get corrupted somehow. I try to keep those mods to a minimum.

I have thought about the need for a radial probe core in the past actually, usually as a means to deorbit spent stages without having to lengthen the stack of the rocket unnessesarily. I have used the flat octo core for this but of course then you have to contend with the directional problems, as well as it being ugly. I think it would be a great idea for you to make one that looks essentially the same as your radial battery, with a matching weight. Then it would look nice an symmetrical, you wouldn't need to worry about your vessel being off balance, or the probe core running out of juice before you have time to get back to it (should you use it for a spent stage). This could also be useful for small probes as well, say ones that need to be short enough to fit in a short space plane cargo bay. As for the pointing direction, it might be a good idea to put a little arrow on the outside, just to make sure people have them facing the right direction.

[NecroBones]

Well, it proved to be an interesting evening last night. I wasn't completely sure what sort of look I wanted for the radial probe core, so I started out modeling one after the sensor-pods on UAVs. Once I got it done, I realized it looked stupid on rockets, but would be great on UAVs, so I'm probably going to save that model for a spaceplane pack later. So instead, I made a panel similar to the one on the probe-core nose-cone I made earlier, but with a glowing camera on the end (laser range finder or something? heh). Now it looks little bit like a video projector. But it will do for now.

I placed it in Advanced Flight Control in the tech tree, alongside the Okto, and the RCS thrusters. Since it lacks a reaction wheel, you need control surfaces, RCS, or gimbal engines to steer. I tried slapping it on a tank with just the LV-T45 engine, and it can steer, but has no roll authority in just that configuration. I think this is great, in a way, since I designed it to be a massless radial part (no symmetry issues to worry about), with almost no battery (about 40 seconds of life on its own power), and power consumption is quite minimal. So having it early-ish in the tech tree, cheap to use, and being able to stick on anywhere, I think it should also have some disadvantages.

If you stick it on the dorsal side (a.k.a. the back/top, a.k.a. the side (south) that faces the camera on the launch pad), the nav ball orientation is perfect.

So now that I have that together, and have some other fixes and additions ready, I figured I'd go ahead and release and let everyone start playing with it.

1.1 (2014-11-07) - Parts update
 - Flag decals on cargo bay and 2.5m fuel tank should no longer cast shadows on themselves. 
 - Corrected the cargo bay doors to be non-attachable. Somehow this setting got lost before release.
 - Moved the "radial booster tank" to an earlier node in the tech tree.
 - Added Engine-Ignitor support to the Size-3 (3.75m) Quad Engine. 
 - Added Size-3 (3.75m) Poodle-like "Terrier" engine.
 - Added Size-1 (1.25m) rocket cargo bay.
 - Added radially-attached probe core.

UAV probe core I tried first:

Release version:

[Simes]

New radial probe core is great! I don't have the 2.5m probe cores unlocked yet so the radial one goes really well with a 2.5m SAS unit.

[NecroBones]

New radial probe core is great! I don't have the 2.5m probe cores unlocked yet so the radial one goes really well with a 2.5m SAS unit.

Awesome! Glad it's working out well.

[Noio]

I, too, have had great success with the new radial probe core. It is very nice.

I am a little worried, though, that it's a bit too good. Ever since it showed up in my lineup it's been chosen preferentially to the big inline cores - it's both lighter AND makes the rocket less wobbletastic.

If the addition of new parts makes it so that old parts are no longer valid choices in any circumstance, that's a sign in my mind.

[NecroBones]

I, too, have had great success with the new radial probe core. It is very nice.

I am a little worried, though, that it's a bit too good. Ever since it showed up in my lineup it's been chosen preferentially to the big inline cores - it's both lighter AND makes the rocket less wobbletastic.

If the addition of new parts makes it so that old parts are no longer valid choices in any circumstance, that's a sign in my mind.

That's definitely a valid concern. I don't want to completely replace stock parts, just complement them. Since it's a radial part, I let it function as a massless part (and thus removed the reaction wheel and most of the battery that other cores have). I could always re-add the mass, but then it also becomes a game of balancing the vehicle, when most other parts you'd use as a counter-balance are also massless now, which easily leads to people needing to put two of it on their ships. I don't know what the best solution is.

[Noio]

...removed the reaction wheel...

Aha! That is an excellent point. I think I'm a few sigma from the mean - I don't rely on reaction wheels for much of anything but basic "orientation stationkeeping." It didn't even OCCUR to me to think about the wheels when I was evaluating the parts. I'm probably poorly equipped to evaluate the tradeoff caused by the loss of said wheels to the general population. I will happily concede that.

[Noio]

A small bug:

The Terrier is available in the tech tree *way* before other three-meter parts. I suspect that it really should be moved back to match the other big engines.

[NecroBones]

A small bug:

The Terrier is available in the tech tree *way* before other three-meter parts. I suspect that it really should be moved back to match the other big engines.

Yep, I noticed that after releasing it. I have it fixed on my side already, just awaiting the next release. I'll probably push out a small revision, between this and some visual tweaks on one of the other engines.

Thanks for the bug report in any case!

[NecroBones]

And here we go...

1.2 (2014-11-13) - Minor Tweaks
 - Moved the "Terrier" engine to the "Very Heavy Rocketry" tech node, where the rest of the 3.75m diameter parts are.
 - Tweaked the 3.75m Quad-engine
    - Reduced the external glow on the engine bells
    - Added additional framework on the engine bells
    - Tweaked the red coloring on the turbopumps

[Mekan1k]

Will the engines (in atmos and rockets) have hotrockets added to them?

[NecroBones]

Will the engines (in atmos and rockets) have hotrockets added to them?

That's a good question. The short answer is, I don't know. I see that they have configs for several popular mods, such as RLA, KW, etc. I don't know what their process is for choosing which part mods to support.

[Starman4308]

Hey NecroBones, do you mind if I try writing up a RealFuels config for your fuel tanks and sending it Nathan's way, so it can be incorporated into the next RealFuels version?

Also, if I do get the green light: would you have any preference for tank types? I figure the jet fuel tanks should get the Fuselage type, most tanks the Default type, but that little probe fuel tank, I'm not sure on whether to set it to Default or ServiceModule.

[NecroBones]

Hey NecroBones, do you mind if I try writing up a RealFuels config for your fuel tanks and sending it Nathan's way, so it can be incorporated into the next RealFuels version?

Also, if I do get the green light: would you have any preference for tank types? I figure the jet fuel tanks should get the Fuselage type, most tanks the Default type, but that little probe fuel tank, I'm not sure on whether to set it to Default or ServiceModule.

Please do! That would be awesome. Since I don't use that mod myself, I'm not familiar with what settings will work best for it. Do you know what the Oscar-B tank is set to? Mine was intended to be a larger version of that. But yes, feel free to take a stab at it. Thanks!

[Starman4308]

Please do! That would be awesome. Since I don't use that mod myself, I'm not familiar with what settings will work best for it. Do you know what the Oscar-B tank is set to? Mine was intended to be a larger version of that. But yes, feel free to take a stab at it. Thanks!

Draft 1 with all the easy bits are done: take all the LF tanks, multiply LF+O+MP by 5, give them the appropriate tank type. I almost missed your decoupler/monopropellant/kitchen sink hybrid, but that got turned into a monopropellant tank.

The remaining things:

Determine if RF does anything with intake air

Handle the fuel cells. Determining how to scale it's going to be fun: there are no delta-G values available for the combustion of these "liquid fuel" and "oxidizer" substances, though draft 1 might just be assuming they're equivalent to RP-1/LOX.

Potentially tweak the dry masses and solid-fuel capacities of the launch escape system and Flingatrons to be more in line with other RF SRMs.

EDIT: Xenon tanks scaled, being 110 and 880L capacity (assumed spherical and 86% volume utilization, rounded up a bit). I don't think RF does anything with intake air, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

EDIT #2: Pull request sent to Nathan. You may or may not be able to view the repo (GitHub seems to think I'm a robot); if you're desperate for the tank configs, grab the config from there. The "dev" version also includes a little tweak to bring ion engine electrical consumption back in line with stock. One little thing I did for giggles was to turn the mini-orange tank into a cryogenic tank, much like the default RF config for the Jumbo-64 tank.

EDIT #3: The repo has changed to here due to silliness with GitHub rules (why they prefer me to have a shell organization instead of a second account, I will never know).

Edited November 17, 2014 by Starman4308

[blacsky33]

Hi, your mod is just awesome !

Especially radial probe controler and cargobay. (so usefull).

Can u make cargobay parts for 3.75m and 5m plz.

I tried so many mods, u got the most simple and convenient cargobay parts i found.