CobaltWolf

Probably doable if we just update the texture. Don't even need to dig up the Unity scene. In other news, more R-4D cluster variants incoming...

The ETS SMs heavily reuse UVs, so there might not be a lot you can do with them. Ehhhhhhhh I really never wanted to do it but the education angle kinda gets me. Maybe some day. If someone else does it. RE: the stripped down SM, I think it's easy to overlook the advantages that are gained from having the SM "chassis" that the subsystems are mounted inside, both for ease of manufacturing and checkout. I legit have no idea what this could be or how to fix it. The Mercury parts have a bunch of weird bugs, I guess. Good thing they're like... usually not main operational vehicle in someone's save. I uploaded this file btw, the part should work now. Wow that's is an incredibly cool set of images. Wish we had the whole document. I've converted what's there to a PDF and added it to the reference drive, tho.

Yeah you need to make sure you're only using 4 or 3 sided faces. That surface needs to be broken up; you might need to add some edge loops to the "flat" side on the left. Something kind of like this, etc.

Looks like you have bad mesh topology. What does the wireframe look like in your modeling software?

lmao did I not upload the .mu?

As far as I know, that's considered fairly outside the capabilities of the Apollo architecture.

For what it's worth, I don't check other places, so I appreciate the BDB screenshots being here Just be mindful and use spoilers for large amounts of images, or link to an external album after a couple teasers.

I don't think so, since it would have to be part of the engine parts, and the insulation is different for each engine. I could do custom ones for each engine but that's a bit more detailed than we usually go with replica stuff. I have someone looking into this. This should be fixed now. Uhhhhh white interstages might be possible. I don't think I could do it for all the tanks though. RE: the second part, I think it actually is! We'd just need to make some changes to the part to split the mesh so it is controlled separately. Blam. That actually might be doable as a part switch, since the SLA already has the payload trusses... could just include that in the switch? Probably worth the effort for all the screenshots people will take Yeah it's on the to-do list. Most of that stuff is planned for the next update after this one, don't worry. I'm more interested in stuff that's missing from the current parts and/or issues people have found that I can try and fix. Regarding Alternate Apollo, I'm not particularly interested in adopting anything. Maybe some day if I get REALLY bored we can try some non-North American CSM stuff. I have some vague interest in making the early LM designs, but idk they lack a lot of the detail that makes the historical one so cool to work on?

I wonder how easily I can bash that out of the Block IV MM... I'm just going to say probably not - none of us are really interested in maintaining two separate sets of parts in that way.

I'll have to see. Since it's half white/half black in the texture, I worry that mirroring it would cause a black line to appear when you zoom out due to the mipmapping.

Yeah I think I made those back when B9 wasn't as capable I think. We could try and combine the non-extending ones. It would be a lot of work to go back and do it though. Feel free to chime in if y'all would prefer we did that. I'm never sure whether players find the B9 variants useful, or confusing for hiding parts. Thanks, I'll fix that. I think the goal is to have one of us touch up all those parts at some point, and hopefully the adapter's texture will fit nicer then. It's definitely from another time, stylistically. Yes, a proper Skylab S-1B scheme is on the to-do. We're actually mostly through the Saturn/Apollo revamp, so if people have QoL feedback like these please keep it coming. It's time to start getting things polished Speaking of which - wide SLA variant. Question: Would people just want this as part switches on the current SLA parts? I think I can do it no problem.

We only do exteriors, any IVAs were taken from long abandoned mods, unfortunately. I don't have any of the assets. To the parts themselves or the engine mount?

Oh, for sure. That's what this whole project was always supposed to lead to, wasn't it?

In other news, a look at some pre-production for the next release after the main Saturn/Apollo update... This is actually a full Twitter thread, so check it out to see some of the sources and info I used to get this far!

AARDV Block II is up on Github.

This looks cool! God I wish I could read.

A classic read In other news...

Couldn't an F-1A be throttled to 70%? Anything after the initial order of Saturns would've used those engines instead.

The four points of the AAP-1a truss would connect to the LM attach points (the top of the legs)

Wasn't quite up to streaming, but I've added a copper texture to the S-1E tank as well as two H-2 versions (250k and 300k thrust) as variants on the H-1D. Enjoy your weekend everyone!

yeah it's pretty aight

I'm given to understanding that changing the entire powerpack of the engine is more likely to make it considered new hardware, as compared to modifications to the injector, combustion chamber or nozzle. Yeah we can look into that. In unrelated news, y'all may have noticed I haven't had anything to share for a couple weeks. It's been a mix of traveling, the new HoI4 update, and the new Minecraft update. I'm planning on doing some work, probably a stream, this weekend. Looking to take care of the Multibody textures and get a start on AARDV Block II.

That appears to be the source for the comment in Stages to Saturn, I think? It occurs to me, one thing somewhat missing from this conversation - there's a VERY big difference between what they could propose in the late 50s, vs what could be proposed in the late 60s. In the study you linked, things are still up in the air, and it's still several years before Kennedy's speech. By the late 60s (which are the docs I referred to), the S-1 had been flying for years. There would be a lot of inertia to overcome if you wanted to substantially redesign the stage at that point. On another note, this reminded me that I *had* put together something like an H-2 engine a while back. Basically just a small edit to the H-1, but it might be digging up and finishing?

Yeah but any engines you add are going to increase your TWR, not lower it. Otherwise they're very bad engines Also worth noting that dry masses/mass ratios in KSP are far higher than they are IRL. My understanding is that was less of an issue with the Saturn 1B, and more that they wanted to cut down on the number of stages (and production facilities) they had to pay to keep open. Being able to fill some of the gap in payload between Saturn 1B and Saturn V was also a prime motivation, as you noted. I'm not a rocket engineer, but I think y'all might be getting a bit too caught up on S-1 being "unoptimized". Lots of things aren't optimized. Everything is a compromise between performance, development cost, time, how easy it is to manufacture, etc. So the S-1's issues, I think, have been blown out of proportion as time has gone on. The S-1 was doing what it was meant to, and trying to switch to something like a monolithic tank would mean essentially starting over from scratch. I've seen a lot of stuff talking about upgrading the S-1 with stretches, boosters, etc. As @DaveyJ576 mentioned the S-1 uprating reports were all done by Chrysler. Fair enough, though as I understand it that's because NASA would have asked them to perform trade studies on their stage, same as they did for the contractors/stages in the Saturn V stack. I have NEVER seen a proposal for replacing it with a monolithic tank, nor giving it an F-1 past the "F-1 + 4xH-1" arrangement mentioned in passing in Stages to Saturn. Remember that ETS is fairly unrealistic in that regard (frankly, the standards of writing and the sources available were just not the same back when it was written). Another thing worth considering - (and this is my understanding) - the Saturns were set to see their prices drop DRAMATICALLY in any subsequent production runs. The facilities are all bought and paid for. The Instrument Unit in particular, originally a substantial fraction of a Saturn 1B's cost, would have been made significantly cheaper to fly. With that said - yes, by the time you reach the "Shuttle Decision" as I call it, the Saturn 1B isn't even in the running anymore. It was basically between the Shuttle, some variant of Titan, or INT-20 for how to move forward. INT-20 would preserve more of the Saturn V manufacturing capability, had far higher payload, and didn't cost thaaaaaat much more.