CobaltWolf

I didn't understand why people kept asking for a belly mount but that makes sense.

We never developed anything with KSP2 in mind tbh. We never got any info on any sorts of standards or other specifics like that. We just kept going, assuming that if nothing else the models would be good enough with some slight adjustments. Yeah it's a channel wall style nozzle and... well, you found the pic I was using for reference. Personally I think it makes sense - the dark channel wall look is something I associate more with cryogenic engines, while the established IRL design language of high-performance kerolox engines is all russian. Need to put something new here... uh... I started working on the pylon for X-15?

I hope you realize that was a long way of just asking us to still make everything And if there's already a BDB quality version of something, what's the incentive for someone else to make it? And what's the incentive for us to make parts we're not interested in, if the goal is... to hope some day someone else makes a slightly better one?

We'd talked with Akron about any ProbesPlus revamps being integrated into BDB, so that we could help keep them moving along. But it seems that Akron doesn't have as much free time to return to modding as he'd hoped. As an aside, the desire to draw a line on BDB's scope, somewhere, is at least partially because this stuff takes a lot of time. I've definitely been working on X-15... for a couple more months than planned, for example. We're just a couple people and can't be tasked with recreating every real-life rocket, probe, and spacecraft. Drawing a line on BDB's scope (hopefully) leaves space open for other people to come and contribute their own work to filling out the 'real-ish' universe in KSP. I feel like that's been debatably successful, but... In other news, finally got around to a small side project I've been wanting to do for a while now. When I made the F-1B, I was... disappointed when I looked up the performance numbers and found it wasn't an upgrade from the F-1A, more of a sidegrade. I really wanted to have an "ultimate" or "modernized" F-1A. @Katniss218 has an awesome, speculative, modernized F-1A variant (which I refer to as the F-1CW) that they gave me permission to recreate in BDB. Here is the mesh with an initial texture - still a bit of detailing work to do.

Oh we finished that months ago and just don't feel like uploading it. /s

It's scary to think about working on Especially since if I went back to it, I think I'd have to start the lander from scratch. Ha, he works on the terrestrial side not the satellite side. And I have a humble art degree, so it definitely wasn't passed on.

I wouldn't install it to play with an existing career. Just sandbox for stuff you don't care if you lose.

Funnily enough, the Atlas V was the first "realistic" set of parts I added. The impetus being, my father works at L3Harris in their radio communications division, and helped work on the MUOS satellite radio system. That's also where the BDB Atlas V gets it's name. In terms of them fitting in the mod, Atlas V and Delta IV feel appropriate in that they're the end of the line for the development heritage covered by BDB. Vulcan feels too much like a fresh build rocket without the same legacy attached. I realize that it has as much in common with Atlas V as Atlas V or Delta IV do with their predecessors, but... One of the things on my mind has been doing some touch up work on Titan. The models are all fine, but there are some aspects of the textures that I think could be improved. Those parts sit in a middle area, where they're better than a lot of what came before, but didn't benefit from all the lessons I learned while doing them. When the Titan revamp finished, I went straight to work on the 'Early Rockets Revamp' which included Thor, Redstone, Agena, etc and those parts all came out wayyyy better since I was able to apply some new lessons and learned from mistakes with previous part sets. So as you said, the Titan parts weren't designed with the "butt-engine-interstage" philosophy, nor were they designed for making length variants in the way later parts were. I'm not sure how much can be done for either, but some amount of cleanup wouldn't go amiss. We started using B9PS partway through that development cycle as well, so a lot of the switches were last minute additions. But yeah, Titan is on my radar as something worth spending some time on. I'm not even comfortable giving a general guesstimate. Once we reach a good stopping point with the current WIP part sets like Atlas and X-15, we'll start having an idea.

'Slipper' tanks are now available. They provide another small boost to fuel, and are integrated into the mesh switch for the fuselage. So now you have both historical lengths, with and without slipper tanks. @Rodger and myself are still making improvements to the SERJ, both on the art side and for in game capability. Let us know if you've flown it and what you think! EDIT: See below - SERJ accelerating under Rocket-Augmented mode. Look at the little glowing circles of the annular rocket engine inside the engine! And now when it's running in low-power jet mode (aka superfan mode), the effects are limited mostly to heat. The flames and mach diamonds are now contained to the higher end of the power range, which represents running on full ejector ramjet cycle.

Challenger is S-IVB diameter lol. And I believe the other modules are a mix of 2.5m (4m IRL) and 3.125m (5m IRL).

If you replace the fuel tanks with a cargo bay where does the fuel go? In all seriousness, I understand the appeal of an “X-15 Shuttle”. But it’s so far outside the capabilities of the real thing. It couldn’t even stand up to a short duration Mach 4.5 run without being coated in ablator. It doesn’t have as much Delta V as you think, and even the SERJ engine would be overly reliant on the limited oxidizer to provide the thrust. Capability-wise, it gets compared to a Mercury with wings, but even that’s generous. So there’s very limited attitude control, let alone translating RCS. And X-15 is small - I think it comes in at under 0.9375m in game, so there isn’t much you can even fit inside it. So orbital X-15 by itself is a pipe dream, let alone doing anything useful. There is the small payload bay behind the cockpit, but that’s really just for science payloads. I realize that I’ve effectively made an in-game dead end, but if you really want then make up a successor that uses the hypothetical X-15 tech advancements to create something at a useful scale.

Thanks to Rodger's Waterfall-fu, we now have gorgeous plumes on the SERJ engine. This thing is an absolute blast to fly - I easily hit Mach 5 in level flight, though you have to be careful about your altitude. The Delta Wing variant needed some love too - I already nearly forgot I'd added these! There is already a custom tank type that changes the Liquid Fuel and Oxidizer ratio, for more flight time in air breathing mode. I am also working on these proposed "slipper" tanks that go on top of the side tunnels, on either side of the dorsal fin. They will also include supplementary aviation fuel.

Nyet

Preliminary Waterfall FX for the SERJ engine. Already looking much much better! A pity, that's actually a good idea Sadly we have to prioritize and make calls about scope, at least for a given work-cycle. This guy gets it! So cool that we can actually build ETS Freedom now!

It's beautiful, isn't it?