CobaltWolf

Booting stream - circling back to Nimbus to try and finish up the last of those parts!

Absolutely, I just don't have time to do it myself.

Unrelated to NFEx, but I found the "mini" solar panels I made for BDB (which are smaller than the OX-STAT) seemed to be too big for some of my new probe bodies... Think I need to make some that are even smaller. Just wanted to chime in with another detail that might not be apparent - I don't know what you were picturing, but there's a limitation to the parachute module. You can only have a single "pivot" for the parachute (the point they wobble from once deployed) so if there's multiple chutes, unless they're all connected to a single D-ring or something it wouldn't be doable in a single part. That would be for whoever maintains the RPM configs for Nertea's mods, I don't believe he's the one that does them.

The parts are about as split up as they can be. The way I currently have it listed out: Service module (1.875m silver part, launches exposed... technically called the Satellite Control Section) Launch adapter (small orange ring, not in the pictures... I think it needs to provide space for the solar panels, and the service engine dangles into the instrument truss) Service Engine (it looks neat and would be fun to use elsewhere as a low power monoprop based engine for like, resupply vehicles) Fairing base (that small back ring between the silver SM and the yellow/black camera segment. So this is where you spawn the fairing that covers the rest of the SV ((SV is the term used in documents to refer to the whole vehicle))) Camera System (will need to have like... some built in adapters of its own, or at least a toggle for that "lip" that connects to the adapter truss) Primary RCS (the pods on the outside of the service module) Lifeboat RCS (the small gold RCS that goes on the inside of the base of the service module) Adapter SRV Truss (holds the first return bucket and connects to the unique profile on the front of the camera... like I said the front of the camera will probably have some alternate mesh options) SRV Truss (so you place 3 of them in a row to get the remaining film buckets... I realized afterwards this would actually be necessary anyways so that you can decouple the SRVs individually) Mapping Camera (so would be available separately, and I suppose you could find other solutions for mounting it...) VHF Antenna (or UHF, I can't remember... what's this about it folding Pappy? I don't have a lot of info on it so far) Solar Panels (these might actually kill me. Trying to understand how they work/unfoled is m i s e r a b l e. Worst case, they just don't have the scissor-style and just have little hinges) Mk8 SRV Heatshield (unfortunately, despite my hopes, this won't nicely fit as a "0.9375m SRV" complement to the 0.625m Mk5 SRV. Mk8 SRV Pod (there's enough variation to warrant a second one) Mk8 SRV Parachute (the parachute is really neat looking, actually) Mk8 SRV Retro Pack (this is interesting - the little solid is on a truss extending away from the SRV. Someone suggested it might have to do with the film path but idk. I don't know the order the buckers were returned) So, I ran into a problem since the panels need to be folded as like... mirror images of eachother? So I tried to use the mirrored solar panel module @Jso wrote for the Skylab panels... but I think it breaks on tracking panels. In general my install has been acting *weird* with solar panels so I wasn't sure what was going on. I still need to circle back to Nimbus to finish it so I had planned on addressing it then, but idk what to do about it. Best case might be Jso taking a look at it and seeing if the mirrored panel module can be fixed. EDIT: I thought it would merge replies but I took too long EDIT2: Another great document we found https://www.nro.gov/Portals/65/documents/foia/declass/mapping1.pdf EDIT3: @Pappystein I see what you mean about the antenna, it's on a little arm and when deployed the axis of the helix aims towards the earth. That explains the arm-sans-helix in the one at the NMUSAF

I might change it so that it can simply be built as a stack. The current solution feels hard to build unless the return capsule is your starting/root part.

Nice! I have all the images on that page saved

Did I miss the fun? Dev stream booting up

Further work... stream tomorrow starting early-ish!

Daddy Nertea one day I hope my parts look as good as yours

Yeah it's been noted and some people are working on it https://github.com/CobaltWolf/Bluedog-Design-Bureau/issues/759

Totally understand the feelings - BDB can feel quite a bit different than stock. To quote the FAQ (apologies if this seems curt, I don't mean it that way it just saves me having to retype it ) (and to reiterate - the parts are exhaustively balanced to be in line with the stock parts in terms of performance) Re: the tech tree balance, the KSP tech tree is simply too small for the number of parts. My best advice is to significantly reduce the science rewards in your difficulty options - I'm not really sure what the best level is nowadays but near the lower end. I know once or twice I tested the start of a career and was able to get it so I had to really make use of all the available parts to get the ball rolling. Having to build lunar flyby probes in the basicRocketry/Engineering101 tech level can be a fun challenge and makes playing through the early stages quite rewarding. If coupled with a system rescale, suddenly you need those upper stages and such to get to orbit much less get anywhere with more science. Another thought I've had during the current dev cycle (which actually greatly expands the early game parts) is this: I don't think I intend players to use all those parts on a given playthrough. Rather, I just like the idea of giving people enough options early on that the beginning of a career isn't the same every time.

I await your pull request In any case, this wouldn't need IVAs since it's not a crewed spacecraft.

@akron already has a (now that I'm looking at it again) fantastic Viking model (along with the orbiters) that as I understand it, still needs to be textured and such. IRL has been kicking his butt pretty hard for the last while but man, I don't think I could top this if I wanted to - and I don't feel a need to overlap with Coatl except for maybe his older work some day. EDIT: Btw if I don't see any of you goobers make a Hexador I'll be sad.

The Europa stuff is on my hard drive somewhere but none of it even got close to being textured.

Of course, making MLI is for suckers... Does it not have interior nodes?

So, something I've run into - you have to be careful and pay attention to the dates for all this NRO stuff. A lot of the documents weren't declassified until AFTER those posts, for example. For what its worth, every since document I've seen says that it was all monopropellant hydrazine (with freon being used for the redundant RCS) 1) I think I figured it out - the gold ring in that Titan IIID pic is the adapter. And I think the rest may have been allowed to hang down into the instrument truss? I agree the separation plane was probably the top of that gold ring. 2) Alright. I haven't looked at the solars too much as I said so I'll definitely do some digging. 3) Yeah I need to look at that. And Pioneer 5 itself probably needs to get redone. Would the MOL cargo bay suffice for that..? I'd be lying if I said I didn't have sleep issues, but usually being tired and post my ADHD medication wearing off is a bad time to try and get work done In all seriousness, you probably would want the base colors underneath all the weathering... or not I suppose, since you might want to match to the colors as-seen. Titan Brown: #7c5645 Titan Gold: #989288 but these areas had like... a light overlay over them.

1) I believe it separated once in orbit, I did model it on before realizing it was separate... the only thing is, that's obviously too short for the adapter? Does that mean it separated at multiple planes? Big if true. There might be a case where it stays attached until the backup RCS (see below) is needed, but that feels unlikely to me. 2) Well, if there were multiple configurations that's doable (I think??) using the same technique we used for the extensions on the Ranger panels. If you can't tell, I haven't gotten very far with the solars. Only problem is modeling and rigging those scissor-style mechanisms suuuuuucks. 2a) The gold RCS you see there is actually the backup "lifeboat" RCS that uses freon. Basically, if the primary attitude control failed, they'd still be able to move all the film into the capsules and orient for their reentry firings. The primary RCS pods and secondary RCS units will both be their own separate parts. 3?) the only problem is I have to bake the ambient occlusion (uh... shadowing, I guess is the simple explanation) onto the texture for those little spherical tanks... I do absolutely need to make some *even smaller* RCS tanks and solar panels though, the current "mini" ones look massive on some of the new probes I noticed...

Off to a good start, thanks to @Invaderchaos and @biohazard15 for acquiring that document for me. It's actually an intensely personal and fascinating read - really get a sense of what it was like for this group of people to spend their entire careers together working on just one project!

ACK! alright so I was gone last night taking care of my sick partner and had not one but two people purchase copies of the PDF and now I feel SO BAD. Please nobody buy it any more!

As far as I know the UA1208 existed only in one or two early Shuttle studies. It's hard to tell how much the "LDC" name was actually used at the time. I know of one design for sure that used the "Titan LDC" name ... or rather, only one study I suppose, which was related to MOL. Granted, there were several designs for it (different combinations of tankage, engines, solids). If I remember I have seen the study for this first-hand but I don't recall saving it... I think I was frantically digging for something else at the time. Other names I've seen over the years include "Titan IIIG", which I'd only ever seen very vague references to in other documents - a number of which pertain to Big G. Titan 3L2 / 3L4 is referred to as a Titan LDC by Ed Kyle but again, idk if LDC was ever used in relation to those designs at the time or if that's something that Ed Kyle used to refer to the series of proposals MM made over decades... It's hard to be conclusive just because so many of the sources he uses are from like, old editions of magazines that I have no idea how to get. I've simply ran into so many issues over the years where something that I thought was authoritative turned out to not be. There's also something that Scott Lowther refers to as "heavy lift titan" that is a fat core with 3 Shuttle SRMs on it... no idea what that is or where it came from apart from that one painting. I think back when LDC was under active development here, I shared something I'd learned, but I'll share it again: This 'classic' picture from Astronautix, claiming to be a Barbarian first stage mockup. If you've been following these LDC/Barbarian discussions, two things might immediately jump out to you: 1) that's far too small a diameter judging by the engines, and 2) that's quite an old photo for something that would be from the late 80s. What's going on? Well, to quote Ed Kyle's description of the LDC Titan study (and I'm fairly certain I confirmed this somehow from a primary source last time we had this discussion): So yeah... that's the fuel tank and engines of a real-life Titan LDC! If anyone hasn't thumbed through the various pages in Ed Kyle's library, I can't recommend them enough. Well considering KH-12s don't officially exist... But yes, very much resembles something derived from a KH-9 service module. As for extending the Keyhole series in BDB (which was the original question and idk if I answered it before) uh... KH-9 is a big maybe leaning towards no? And KH-11 is a definite no, I think. But who knows. EDIT: So, maybe a deal? From what I've seen this book seems like it would be an excellent source for some of the harder-to-find information on the Hexagon, but... it's close to $40 which is a bit more than I'm usually willing to shell out for reference materials. If people wanted to donate to help crowdfund a purchase of the PDF, well... I think I'd have to finish the KH-9, wouldn't I..?

Yeah, uh, as far as I'm aware there were only ever two rockets called Barbarian. The Martin Marietta one and the McDonnell Douglas one. Just for the sake of having something visually interesting in my response, have a pic of the MM Barbarian model.

I don't think so? I think I just have to find it in Unity and double check the node positions... basically same thing you did but the benefit of being able to snap a transform to the bottom+top and see exactly what the offsets need to be. Neat! Always love a nice clean design.

Well... what you've done there is make the top node face down and make the bottom node... 1) above the top node and b) face upwards. KSP made "strict part attachment" standard... man, many updates ago. So that shouldn't be a problem. Moreover I'm just sort of annoyed if this has been in the mod for that long, as I said it the model hasn't been edited for over two years. You can't fix the SR-120 because for some reason making it so an engine can be shut down, and not restarted, breaks the BDB deployable engine module. I think by the time the bug was confirmed @Jso was already on leave and hasn't had a chance to look into it.

Ha! I was just about to ask about that folder. My second guess was ThrottleLimitExtended. Glad you sorted it out! That's super annoying too - I just poured through your output log and, since I guess it wasn't actually triggering a plugin error, it wasn't reporting anything. I'm glad you figured it out since yeah, it was definitely going to be a "remove mods until it works" type thing. EDIT: Now that things are working, I'd love to see what the rocket you were building with them looks like