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[1.4] SpaceY Heavy-Lifter Parts Pack v1.17.1 (2018-04-02)


NecroBones

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How about 19x? I see some space between the outer engines... :)
Have you considered a 5m to 37x 0.625m adapter? I am sure there are plenty of reasons to use such a part.
:sticktongue::sticktongue::sticktongue::sticktongue::sticktongue:
It'd HAVE to be named Y0-D4W6 :-P

Hah! No, no, I think a line has to be drawn somewhere. Heh. :)

I looked at the 19x option, but it would make the sides stick out even more (6.25m overall diameter), and it would need multiple symmetry-scales. Heh. :)

Truthfully, I'm not sure how useful a 13x really is. But with LV-T30 engines, it would get 2795 thrust, which is actually usable. If I make an engine like the KW Maverick 1D, you could get this up to 4550. Both are horribly low compared to the cluster engines.

But seriously, think it's worth including in the pack? It's uses are somewhat questionable, but some people might want to play with it. Dunno. ;)

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I vote for not including the crazy multi-engine splitter. The strength of your pack is increased part size and reduced part count, and this doesn't fit with that theme. Your pack has enabled me to make workable 5000T rockets with less than 100 parts. :-)

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Honestly not a fan of how those thrust plate adaptors are set up (conical vs cylindrical; seems like it'd have too much point pressure versus spreading out over the entire thrust plate). However I can certainly see the use of them to lower costs of heavier launch vehicles (compare the 5 meter engine cluster to 13 of the 1.25 meter lower stage engines; so long as the costs work out you're fine. As well it makes more sense from a point of failure standpoint [if you use a mod that includes such things as Dang It!]. It's easier to handle an engine-out situation with multiple nozzles and still make it to orbit. Just look at the shuttle launches for [youtube shuttle launch engine failures] a perfect example).

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And by the way, the radial decouplers rock. I'm also running KJR, and can use the biggest radial decoupler as the only connection between a 500-ton asparagus stack and the central stack. No struts. Part count goes way down, rocket mass goes way up, and frame rate remains high. NecroBones, I salute you.

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I vote for not including the crazy multi-engine splitter. The strength of your pack is increased part size and reduced part count, and this doesn't fit with that theme. Your pack has enabled me to make workable 5000T rockets with less than 100 parts. :-)
Honestly not a fan of how those thrust plate adaptors are set up (conical vs cylindrical; seems like it'd have too much point pressure versus spreading out over the entire thrust plate). However I can certainly see the use of them to lower costs of heavier launch vehicles (compare the 5 meter engine cluster to 13 of the 1.25 meter lower stage engines; so long as the costs work out you're fine. As well it makes more sense from a point of failure standpoint [if you use a mod that includes such things as Dang It!]. It's easier to handle an engine-out situation with multiple nozzles and still make it to orbit. Just look at the shuttle launches for [youtube shuttle launch engine failures] a perfect example).

Yeah, my plan right now is not to include it. It was more of an experiment, than anything, just to see what can be packed in. I appreciate the feedback!

And by the way, the radial decouplers rock. I'm also running KJR, and can use the biggest radial decoupler as the only connection between a 500-ton asparagus stack and the central stack. No struts. Part count goes way down, rocket mass goes way up, and frame rate remains high. NecroBones, I salute you.

Awesome! I haven't tried it with KJR, but I'm glad it works well there. That's fantastic.

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Thank you for all that parts, NecrBones! I like your solutions like the 5m-part family and the 5m-engines. And since your 'Sepracouplers' rocketbuilding in my hardcore-sandbox-save is much more safety for my kerbals. Adding sepratrons to big booster-stages was always a lottery. There is just one issue: When I use the F5 engine in combination with a upper 5m-stage the result is a 5m-decoupler with too weak nodes: the upper half of the rocket ontop of the decoupler tips over for just a degree or something. But this is enough gimball effect for the engine-gimball to not handle it. Uncontrolled spinning follows. Ok, 4 Struts and 8 small hardpoints --> issue solved. But... maybe you can correct this in some way. (optimized node or more gimball range maybe).

The adaptors look very nice and functional. But I don't get the idea of putting 2,5m- and 1,25m engines under a 5m-stage when they produce less thrust than the 5m-engines. If I don't need the lift power I take a 3,75m-rocket. For me the functionality of your adaptors is the stackable upper-stage possibility with a stockalike fairing without any other mods. If this is a "Lifter-Mod", I'd like to see adaptors for just one engine with a diameter below:

5m --> 1 x 3m (for a KR-L 2 engine or your less power higher isp engine in your other pack which would fit in this part pack either)

3m --> 1 x 2m (for a skipper or a mainsail as 2nd stage)

2m --> 1 x 1m (for LV-T or poodle as 2nd stage)

This would save the weight of oversized engines which you take for aestethic reasons. (I know there is a mod for fairings but they don't look stockalike)

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Thank you for all that parts, NecrBones! I like your solutions like the 5m-part family and the 5m-engines. And since your 'Sepracouplers' rocketbuilding in my hardcore-sandbox-save is much more safety for my kerbals. Adding sepratrons to big booster-stages was always a lottery. There is just one issue: When I use the F5 engine in combination with a upper 5m-stage the result is a 5m-decoupler with too weak nodes: the upper half of the rocket ontop of the decoupler tips over for just a degree or something. But this is enough gimball effect for the engine-gimball to not handle it. Uncontrolled spinning follows. Ok, 4 Struts and 8 small hardpoints --> issue solved. But... maybe you can correct this in some way. (optimized node or more gimball range maybe).

The adaptors look very nice and functional. But I don't get the idea of putting 2,5m- and 1,25m engines under a 5m-stage when they produce less thrust than the 5m-engines. If I don't need the lift power I take a 3,75m-rocket. For me the functionality of your adaptors is the stackable upper-stage possibility with a stockalike fairing without any other mods. If this is a "Lifter-Mod", I'd like to see adaptors for just one engine with a diameter below:

5m --> 1 x 3m (for a KR-L 2 engine or your less power higher isp engine in your other pack which would fit in this part pack either)

3m --> 1 x 2m (for a skipper or a mainsail as 2nd stage)

2m --> 1 x 1m (for LV-T or poodle as 2nd stage)

This would save the weight of oversized engines which you take for aestethic reasons. (I know there is a mod for fairings but they don't look stockalike)

Yeah, while the main goal is heavy-lift, I'm also allowing it to have some general "large rocketry" accessories to go along with that.

The F5 engine has both attachment nodes defined as size-4 (5m) in the configs, so it's a question of how well KSP handles the scaling of the joint strength for the diameter. We'll never be completely rid of wobbly-rockets, since they intentionally leave some wobble in the game, but since there are no stock 5m parts, we're at the whim of how their scaling algorithm works. Struts, or KJR are always possible solutions, but my only alternative from the design side is to tell KSP that it's an even bigger diameter (say, size-5 (6.25m)), when it's not. I can certainly take another look at the gimbal range though. It's become pretty standard for the high-thrust engines to have small ranges, but I don't think it necessarily has to be that way, especially for an upper-stage cluster.

I like the adapter suggestions! It'll be really easy to do some scaling of the adapter plates I've already made, to get these sizes together. I'll definitely take a look at this.

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Got some work done these last two nights.

Added a 1.25m lifter engine (currently doesn't stack, lower-stage only) that is roughly comparable to a pair of LV-T45 engines. It's lighter and has 400 thrust, but the ISP is lower, doesn't stack, costs more, and unlocks late in the tech tree. The "guts" of the engine are based on the F1/R1 engines, but I changed the colors and proportions, and gave it a completely different bell.

Also added stackable adapters as suggested above:

- 5m to 3.75m

- 3.75m to 2.5m

- 2.5m to 1.25m

The fairings are long enough to handle the stock engines, and some of the longer ones from my own mods (quad-nuke from MRS, R1, etc). The 5m->3.75m adapter handles both of the stock 3.75m engines quite nicely.

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KSP%202014-12-05%2019-16-16-53.jpg

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It's become pretty standard for the high-thrust engines to have small ranges, but I don't think it necessarily has to be that way, especially for an upper-stage cluster.

I use Tweakable Everything to double the gimbal range of all engines, as KSP's values are way too low. This is one of the few strange cases where KSP, contrary to Squads philosophy, is unrealistic in a way that makes gameplay harder:

[TABLE=width: 300]

[TR]

[TD]Engine[/TD]

[TD]Gimbal range specification[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RD-0146[/TD]

[TD]4°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]F-1[/TD]

[TD]6°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]SSME[/TD]

[TD]10.5°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RD-180[/TD]

[TD]8°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RD-171[/TD]

[TD]6° (10° mechanical limit)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]SS-SRB (!)[/TD]

[TD]8°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]NERVA[/TD]

[TD]3° (4.5° mechanical limit)[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Your shrouded thrust plates are very versatile, but as I have documented before, most really do not have any reasonable use case, other than for LV-N and Aerospikes. Oh, and then I have tried some alternative uses for the insane rockets division, some actually quite nice.

I still would like you to revamp all the stock tanks in competition with Ven.

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Well done, NecroBones. That went very fast and it looks nice. Kerbal Aestethic Program is GO! I'm looking forward for the next update of your mod.
Those are the parts we always needed! Awesome! Will we see 7.5m parts in the future? What are the plans?

Thanks guys! Glad you like it. I haven't thought far enough ahead yet to say if 7.5m is something I want to add or not. It's certainly not out of the question. I would probably skip over 6.25 and go straight to 7.5, with a diameter increase of 50% over the previous, rather than 25%. Of course, the further away we get from stock, the harder it is to maintain a stock-alike balance. We'd also have to think about what makes sense in terms of engine thrust in those scales. A possibility here might be to not have engine clusters at all, but rather adapters to use the other engines in the pack, or the NASA 3.75m stock engines, or something. A 4-way adapter at this scale might still allow for some hefty thrust with the existing engines. Something to think about.

I use Tweakable Everything to double the gimbal range of all engines, as KSP's values are way too low. This is one of the few strange cases where KSP, contrary to Squads philosophy, is unrealistic in a way that makes gameplay harder:

[TABLE=width: 300]

[TR]

[TD]Engine[/TD]

[TD]Gimbal range specification[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RD-0146[/TD]

[TD]4°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]F-1[/TD]

[TD]6°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]SSME[/TD]

[TD]10.5°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RD-180[/TD]

[TD]8°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]RD-171[/TD]

[TD]6° (10° mechanical limit)[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]SS-SRB (!)[/TD]

[TD]8°[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]NERVA[/TD]

[TD]3° (4.5° mechanical limit)[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

Your shrouded thrust plates are very versatile, but as I have documented before, most really do not have any reasonable use case, other than for LV-N and Aerospikes. Oh, and then I have tried some alternative uses for the insane rockets division, some actually quite nice.

I still would like you to revamp all the stock tanks in competition with Ven.

Yeah, the SSMEs needed a large range with the ever-migrating CoM. KSP does make the gimbal ranges rather small. I get the impression that this was to keep some of the shortcomings of the SAS system (in its earlier incarnations) from catastrophically over-compensating.

I could certainly bump up the ranges on my engines, if that's helpful.

It's try that the adapters are limited in use cases, but of course, as you've show, probe storage and the like is another alternative. One thing I was mindful of in sizing it, is that there are other mods people might use them with (for instance, with my other main parts pack, MRS, the "quad nuke" engine). Plus, not everyone takes the time to run the numbers, and they may experiment a bit before figuring out optimal designs. But having said that, I don't necessarily want to go crazy and add every conceivable adapter we can think of, just a handful that people might find useful for some edge cases.

That stock revamp is quite pretty. I've looked at his screenshots before, and he's doing a great job on that. Tough competition! Heh :) It's doable though.

Edited by NecroBones
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Yeah, the SSMEs needed a large range with the ever-migrating CoM. KSP does make the gimbal ranges rather small. I get the impression that this was to keep some of the shortcomings of the SAS system (in its earlier incarnations) from catastrophically over-compensating.

I'm under the impression that's because stock SAS is rather lacking, and doesn't do well for craft with large amounts of control authority. Be cautious when bumping up gimbal ranges.

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I'm under the impression that's because stock SAS is rather lacking, and doesn't do well for craft with large amounts of control authority. Be cautious when bumping up gimbal ranges.

Yeah, I'm bumping them up, but only a little. We can try out numbers in the range of 1.5 - 2 degrees and see how it goes (rather than 0.5 to 1.5). If it's a problem, we can adjust again in the next release, but those numbers should still be pretty reasonable.

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Oh, one question-- Anything else that might be directly useful to add to the pack that you guys can think of?

I thought about radial fuel tanks or ullage motors, but I'm not sure how useful those would actually be.

I am guessing that the pack must focus on "Vertical Rocketry"? Any suggestions along the lines of "landing gears" (wheeled) or "aeronautics" not on the list?

That restricts suggestions as this mod is quite comprehensive! (<---Very good thing). But at first glance:

- Matching SaS (for 3.75m & 5m). Either in-line (structural integrity possibly compromised) or Radial-mounted (i'd refer you back to KW Rocketry, but you must know of them)

- "Strong" Launch Clamps (if that is code-able?) would fit nicely in the "Heavy Lifting" theme. Possibly launch-tower sized (obviously a much larger project - both coding and demanding on Ram if considered)

- fill-out adapter blanks? I had been waiting a while for the 5m-3.75m adapter (KW didn't provide) and also sometime need 5m-1.25m adapters. At the moment i need to go 5m-3.75m-1.25m in succession (KW have a 3.75m-1.25m)

Hope this satiates any idea-hunger :P

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I am guessing that the pack must focus on "Vertical Rocketry"? Any suggestions along the lines of "landing gears" (wheeled) or "aeronautics" not on the list?

That restricts suggestions as this mod is quite comprehensive! (<---Very good thing). But at first glance:

- Matching SaS (for 3.75m & 5m). Either in-line (structural integrity possibly compromised) or Radial-mounted (i'd refer you back to KW Rocketry, but you must know of them)

- "Strong" Launch Clamps (if that is code-able?) would fit nicely in the "Heavy Lifting" theme. Possibly launch-tower sized (obviously a much larger project - both coding and demanding on Ram if considered)

- fill-out adapter blanks? I had been waiting a while for the 5m-3.75m adapter (KW didn't provide) and also sometime need 5m-1.25m adapters. At the moment i need to go 5m-3.75m-1.25m in succession (KW have a 3.75m-1.25m)

Hope this satiates any idea-hunger :P

Oh and that's part of MRS is it not?

Reduce my SAS request to 5m (you've covered 3.75m already), but the other 2 still apply =)

Well, the SAS is already addressed. Yes, MRS has a 3.75m module, but SpaceY also has 5m and 3.75m radial ring-pairs similar to KW's design. Unless you want an inline one specifically for 5m.

I have indeed thought about larger launch clamps. I'm not sure if that's something I want to tackle yet (maybe). The stock clamps define a bunch of transforms in the "LaunchClamp" module, so it's probably possible to emulate what they did, but it's also possible that they've hardcoded some of the functionality. The config has a "radial" attachment node (and I'm not sure if those alter strength based on "node size" like the stack nodes do), and a specified breaking strength, so I'm not sure how well the strength can be altered. I'll have to experiment with it. But I agree, that would be cool.

We're probably good on those adapter parts too, unless there's a specific arrangement that we haven't thought of yet. The next release will have the one-way 5m->3.75m, 3.75m->2.5m, and 2.5m->1.25m sizes as flat adapters with optional fairings.

But yeah, the "aeronautical" stuff I'm thinking needs to be its own pack. We talked about that on the MRS thread too, and it was felt that a spaceplane pack would make sense to be separated, since not everyone who does planes cares about rockets, and vice versa.

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I am guessing that the pack must focus on "Vertical Rocketry"? Any suggestions along the lines of "landing gears" (wheeled) or "aeronautics" not on the list?

Yeah, super heavy duty landing legs like these:

mdw73OQ.jpgSPDrwml.jpgo32VX6M.jpg

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Yeah, the SpaceX legs would be cool. I'll have to do some research/experimentation, I think. It looks like landing gear is one of the most complex types of parts to make. It's certainly something I haven't tried yet.

Having said that, static non-suspension legs would probably be quite easy. With shock absorbers, it's a bit more complicated. It'll take me some time to get the information I need.

10m parts... I'm just sayin...

Heh, well, that would certainly allow for a full scale Saturn V. ;)

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So I'll probably get the next update out pretty soon. I've been waiting on getting this one part to work right, but due to a KSP bug, I think I'm going to have to settle for a slightly simpler option.

I figured a 3.75m to 2.5 conical "petal" payload bay would be useful. Similar to how the LM was stored in the Saturn V. The problem I'm running into, is that when the doors are open, the upper part of the rocket is still technically attached, even though there's no visible support structure. So I was trying to add support struts that would discard (like the LVN's shroud panels, or my 0P-Fairings mod) when the upper node is disconnected. This is really simple, and I'm using the "ModuleJettison" capability for engine shrouds in all sorts of places without a problem.

Well... apparently that doesn't work with an animated part. The support-struts eject as soon as you activate ANY stage (such as starting your engines on the pad). I can't find anything wrong in my configs, so I think I'm hitting a KSP bug.

SO. For the time being, struts are out. This means we just have to deal with invisible attachment between the ends of the rockets while the doors are open, if you haven't detached from above.

The other caveat (like my 0P-Fairings mod), is that you need to use stack separators above the doors, to make sure engine shrouds don't stay stuck in place there either.

Unfortunately there are no perfect solutions for parts like this. And I see KW's probably has similar problems. But I didn't put decoupler nodes in mine, so you have to use your own. I think this is better in the long run, since it gives you the choice to use docking ports instead.

BTW, this payload bay is about 0.8m longer than KW's, which was nice to discover. I made mine before I even realized they had one. ;)

KSP%202014-12-09%2009-06-12-67.jpg

KSP%202014-12-09%2009-06-03-71.jpg

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The other caveat (like my 0P-Fairings mod), is that you need to use stack separators above the doors, to make sure engine shrouds don't stay stuck in place there either.

Unfortunately there are no perfect solutions for parts like this. And I see KW's probably has similar problems. But I didn't put decoupler nodes in mine, so you have to use your own. I think this is better in the long run, since it gives you the choice to use docking ports instead.

Why could I not use an upside-down decoupler like I did with my Babies?

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