CobaltWolf

You could do what I did in BDB, which is copy them but name them stuff like 'CA_mag' etc, write a simple module manager script to switch them over if DMagic is installed. That way it isn't a hard dependency.

Thank you! My point was there is so many other things that really only should go one way, I don't understand what makes that antenna so important. Or rather, is it worth adding a dependency just for that one thing? I'd hope if you do go that route then you'd pass it on to other things that shouldn't be retracted. Firespitter is supported enough that most heavily modded installs would already have it as a dependency, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Either way, using DMSA is not the answer. Also why is normal DMagic listed as a dependency?

I totally understand the gripe with 1.5m. I eventually settled on letting it happen because it is accurate (within acceptable deviation) for a lot of things, such as Gemini, Thor/Delta, etc. There is so much variations within the 1.25m to 2.5m size range for IRL rocket recreations that just one intermediate size (1.875m) isn't enough to handle it all. However 0.9375m a) is in Tantares and b) is an intermediate size between 0.625m and 1.25m. While not tremendously useful for rockets it does have a lot of uses for parts in payloads. That's why I singled out 1.5m as something to complain about, since to my knowledge 1.5m has neither of those things going for it.

The problem is it is identical in dimensions to @Beale's, while being of significantly lower quality. There really isn't a compelling reason to keep it. I'd still finish and add the other parts that were planned to go with it, like the little solar panels etc.

Didn't you lose that when your HDD died? And do we REALLY want to delay Saturn all the more? >> Accepted >> Biggest complaint against BDB @Beale got a lot of flak for his decision to use an off size in the new Gemini. BDB is very far from the average user's palate, and I don't think he'll get good feedback if he does so. With that said 1.875m is already in Tantares, so he should definitely make some more stuff in that size, as well as 0.9375m. Wait, do people hate 1.5m that much?

I didn't realize that Blue Gemini actually got far enough to have different hardware other than sawing a hole in the heatshield. What purpose would it serve? Or is it just an alternate service module, in which case, is there a compelling gameplay reason for having two very similar parts? Though I of all people shouldn't be complaining about having too many parts or parts that are redundant...

Every time you post new screencaps I want to say things that would get me a warning from the moderators. Also, on this note: That *really* isn't how @DMagic intended the plugin to be used, and you'll probably never be able to fix that. Most things in space are only meant to go one way, I don't see why that one antenna is so important that it has to get special treatment, y'know?

Happy Easter everyone! And if you don't celebrate Easter, well, take some good vibes anyways. I just got home, and my first day of work is tomorrow. 8 hours a day, 5 days a week for the next 6 months... but that's better than 7 days a week that I deal with for classes. There have been some issues (small ones, none game breaking) with 0.10 that I'd like to hotfix at some point this week. @Beale is almost done with his TRAILS / Gemini reboot, so once that's done I'll immediately take it and get it integrated with BDB. The Hermes textures will be edited to try and match as closely as possible, so the manned pods for the mod have a unified look. I'll also try and get the Agena Target Vehicle parts pushed out. That one is being integrated into Bluedog Design Bureau! Like I said, since it's pretty much the same as the new Gemini Beale made I might as well get rid of it. Personally I dislike working with other people's models. It's easier to do my own models, which are modeled to UV unwrap in my own way, which I then know how to texture easily. Ledenko's model is nice but the textures are a few notches below what I'd go for with BDB. To be fair, I always said that if I DID do Saturn I'd try my best to do all the saturn. I need help. T.T EDIT: My only regret in life is not having more time to work on BDB. Grumble grumble grumble. I love the video but the lack of fairings made me sad (as you saw in comments). I know there's been a lot of confusion re: the parts lately, especially as new people see the mod after the new update. Someone (idk if they want to be named yet) has been working very hard on making a fantastic BDB manual, complete with descriptions and pictures of all the canon launchers, with breakdowns of the assembly. They'd go along with @Sgt.Shutesie's craft files (whom I need to help update, since not even people who contribute to the mod understand my inane rocket assembly schemes) to provide a pretty comprehensive overview and breakdown of the mod. It is even meant to look like some old document that has been scanned into the NTRS database, which should make people like @TimothyC happy. Here's a screencap of part of the cover: (does this count as an official announcement? Also, I have your video open in another tab but I am not paying much attention after the first couple minutes, since I want to make this post and go to bed, and, well, it's a fairly long post. I'll try and reply more tomorrow, but on the topic of the balancing - the probe parts basically are, well, not. If you (or anyone, pls) have specific feedback please let me know. I don't care for fiddling with cfg files. And then as I type this, I am hearing the ending of the video - the smaller tank sizes are actually accurate to KSP scale, which is 62.5% / 64% of real life scale. Despite this, basically all the launchers are insanely overpowered since, well, stock is easy. He can suggest it all he wants. I'm not doing it. I think I quoted this to talk about the manual (I'm typing this post over the course of about 45 minutes and I'm tired and I have other tabs open) but I talked about it above. I think the manual will have to have an 'out of character' appendix explaining it all, perhaps with explanations of how I make up all the weird names in the mod. Also your english is fine. In my experience people that apologize for their english type it better than at least 90% of english speaking forum dwellers. Uh, same as above. I think I was going to plug the manual here. Shutes, send me the deets on the new craft files in the most recent PM chain between you me and venom. The one that also has the manual WIP. Like I said earlier, I will try and sit down and make some of the more confusing craft files, just because Word of God(tm) would be better at this point than letting a certain amount of ambiguity stay. Perhaps, though I think @akron would be covering it in his mod already. Yeah there is some Sputnik 3 stuff. Apart from that, to reiterate what venom said - I'll see what Beale and Akron eventually get around to doing and see if there are any holes I still want filled. Saturn might be a little too far in the future to be talking much about it. I appreciate that everyone is excited for it but, as one can imagine, once I start on it I will be working on it for a long time. I want to get everything else in order before I tackle it. I would love to be 'the mod' everyone recommends (#goals), even though BDB is far from everyone's cup of tea, since a lot of players prefer adding as few parts as possible (weirdos). I love KW, FASA, and many other mods. They are definitely where I find inspiration, and a major motivating factor for BDB work is trying to make things better than other versions I've seen, or in the case of rockets such as Titan 1, Juno II and Diamant, I have never seen in KSP (though I believe they exist in various versions for Realism Overhaul). Indeed, as great as FASA is, I wish it matched better with the stockalike (or rather, porkalike) artstyle which I personally am fond of. So I may as well make it myself. I bring up FASA a lot because it really is the mod closest to BDB, other than perhaps Tantares. I stopped using KW a while before I started working on BDB, mostly because I was too lazy to keep up with the community fixes. The best way to learn texturing is to start. GIMP is free, open source, and basically Photoshop without a few of the fancier features, but definitely capable and I believe what the majority of people here use. I'm in the minority because I have access to professional programs, which while not necessarily making my life easier makes it harder to help people. Most programs do the same thing (all 3d modeling programs generate more or less the same models, etc) but the way they get there is always different. But specifically for texturing, the answer is mostly just lots of layers and time. Also, if you haven't seen @akron has released another dev update for his probes plus pack! It covers a lot (read: a lot) of great probe stuff that won't be covered here.

The new Gemini he is working on or the one currently in Tantares? The Karrot was actually based on the Radish from Home Grown Rockets.

You had an extra face floating above with transparency? It has happened to me too sometimes, specifically with the BDB solar antenna. Never could figure out why.

I'm liking everything about that probe. You're making me feel guilty though - from the writing on your dishes I assume you are unwrapping the whole thing out flat? All of mine are broken into 6 or 8 segments and repeated to save texture space.

Who told you you could speak for me. I was actually considering removing it. I was going to keep it along with a full set of parts but it seems pointless to keep the pod. I think I'd rather just keep the SM and stuff that was shown a page or two back. Also why is everyone bringing this up to me now? I haven't touched the part since December and I know that the thing causing the issue (poor colliders setup in Unity) hasn't changed. Typically I have been splitting tankage so that it can be stacked. For example, the Titan 2 first stage is split into a long and medium segment, and the second stage is a medium-short and a short segment. That is likely what I'd do for Barbarian. For Saturn, my goal would be not to split the parts up but to make parts for every proposed Saturn variant ever. All of them. So hopefully there would be a good variety for those size tanks. Though more realistically, I will lose interest in the family before I run out of designs. Especially the more extreme end of the scale... I've been putting off doing larger rockets because generally they don't have the same appeal for me. I've never been one to go straight for the biggest / most powerful thing in any game. I tend to try and see how far I can stretch and optimize limited resources. Which is strangely at odds with the fact that I can never, ever, ever have a big enough bin of parts to choose from. With that said,the more I research Saturn (as has been slowly increasing in recent weeks) the more I'm starting to see the appeal. It's still a long way off though - minimum of three or four months. Re: Texturing, it's not that hard. I made a post over in the megathread a while back, and if you're seriously interesting I can send PSD files of some of my textures. Personally texturing is always a relaxing process for me because it means that the UV unwrapping is mostly done.

I think that's definitely a problem with a lot of things in this release. They're more interim parts rather than ones to make a primary launcher family out of. With that said, they're all fairly interesting parts as well as somewhat under represented when it comes to KSP, so I was happy to make them. Didn't get a ton done today - mostly bounced between various projects. UV unwrapping was the big focus - some more got done for some SEP stuff, the Malhena parts, and some of the new probe parts. I also started modeling my part of the Europa upper stages for @Beale's Blue Streak, though I don't want to show any of it yet. What I do have are partially textured renditions of the new(ish) Lunar Orbiter dish and antenna, and the Ranger dish as it appears in Unity (since Maya's shaders don't work the same).

With that said, despite my personal feelings on the issue, I still think you should keep a legacy download of the old Spica pod @Beale

Perfect! That is both functional and adorable. Also, I started modeling Coralie this afternoon but it is an unbelievable pain trying to get reference images over what amounts to a dialup connection. It took my 3 tries to get those screenshots to load.

I already have some unique antenna designs in my notebook by my opinion is you can never have to many of the things. I think the IRL version of the indexing key is perhaps too complicated, considering that it includes two pyrotechnic charges just to extend and then detach the darn thing. I feel like just having a animateGeneric module accessible from the right click menu would be fine.

Didn't find photos but I found a page with a ton of other good stuff.

Why a separate part? If you're using the docking nose cone I'd assume you'd want to, y'know dock with it. My thinking was to just have it be a generic animated mesh+collider in the nose part, that way the Agena passive docking port would be modeled to use that exact placement of the indexing key.

Looks great! There wasn't 64 pixels to spare somewhere in the main texture? I think the only thing would be to move it forward a touch. Would it extend?

I don't have a full ATV yet. I'm waiting for this to get finished so I can make sure all the models and textures play nice. Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to BDB's ATV being included in this.

It's just a little yellow stick that flips up to ride in the slot in the Agena docking cone, to guide mating surfaces together. I'd like to have it like FASA's, where you can actually extend it and use it to guide the docking nose in to the cone.

I'm a fan of the current Soyuz 2.1v, all it'd need is a new engine.

Awesome! @Beale pretty pretty please add the indexing key to the wishlist? Otherwise I can do it in Unity I suppose.

Yeah except mine is considerably smaller. It's Barbarian inspired, I suppose. No, I just forgot to move my finger from V to B.

Well, yeah, Saturn Ullage would get made when Saturn is made... re: Prometheus-Barbarian, it's Titan at 2.5m with a cluster of 4 LR-87s instead of 2, with appropriate tankage, second stage, etc. With SRMs it would be an alternative to Juno V or S1B. Yeah I don't see a need for any more until we get to Saturn. The KW ones are based on those anyways aren't they?