CobaltWolf

Its extra bad for us because we are a group of absolute shmucks that are doing a job way out of our league? And every character has side action going on I hope you'll be happy to know that the airlock got mocked up in the car last night. Its supposed to be basically a standalone version of the MOL airlock - check the N-MOL drawings on Mike Jenne's website - so its basically a 0.9375m tube with a hatch on the end. There's still going to be some external greebling but yeah. Probably going to add a porch light to it. Was thinking about if I can whip up a flip-out... Pole? For EVA assistance. I don't think Kerbal is very well suites for trying to conduct EVAs without using the jetpack tho. Also, I've been told that the Making History service bays have detachable shrouds without needing additional parts? I need to experiment with it for stuff like solar panels but idk. Might be more work than its worth, I want to finish this update after all lol and it would be a bunch more work for a lot of these parts to do it right. In response to questions: - kinda. - yes. There is a latch mechanism that secured the ring (I need to work on it more) in addition to the bolts getting done up at the actual merge point. - I am still updating the 'androgynous' ports in this update. They would come later in the tree. - nothing stops you from using this stuff with Skylab. I'm still planning on trying to add some more structural parts like more adapters. (On another note, I need to convert the existing parts to this new end cap style). If you want to use it right away it may require some clipping. - I am planning on making them snap, im not sure the increment yet. I feel like its a QoL thing, not winding up with stuff docked at weird angles all the time. - I would just... Texture them like I normally texture metal? - I am very excited too. Will try to have even more stuff modeled for next week. I should have a couple evenings and part of next weekend to stream texturing stuff so for now I'm just trying to get more models textured and prepped.

I unfortunately did not have time to get stuff in game. My head just wasn't in it and then the pre-session "trying to remember what our plan was" started early. I did get some modeling work done on the new docking systems, since I could sneak bits and pieces of that in while still paying attention to the other characters and the GM. I'm going to bring my laptop on the trip, if I have an hour here or there I'll try and get stuff prepped and I should be able to get a lot of stuff in game next week.

We're actually playing The Sprawl but like, saying D&D is easier

Yeah it'll be nice. I am going out of town from tomorrow to Tuesday so no stream this weekend. I also have D&D tonight... but I'll see if I can sneak time to try to finish this and the stuff from earlier this week so people have at least a couple more new things to play with while I'm gone?

Progress on proper MOL cargo bay after @DiscoSlelge's pictures gave me inspiration. It will default to be open on each end with toggleable endcaps on top and bottom of each. So it can be stacked and split as needed.

I sure hope its parallax maps

Those are simply incredible! Makes me want to finish the cargo bay part.

Everything works in 1.7.3 just make sure the dependencies are updated. I forgot to update the thread title and well... it's a little late now Yeah, I'm pretty excited. People that don't like gendered (wouldn't it be sexed?) docking ports but I think it's awesome.

EDIT: I forgot to actually explain what this is. So from left to right, the structural endcap (which will have a toggle between the 0.625m end and an actual cap), the One Room station module, and of course the MOL lab. On top is a new dipole antenna that I saw a long time ago in some artwork and have wanted to do ever since. I decided that I do want to do a two room station module, it's sort of the one room module split with a barrel section added to the middle. Both of the modules need more greebling still:

Don't have a lot to add to this discussion, but I will point out that there are now two Gemini-compatible docking ports for berthing your spacecraft. ... Actually, no, I do have some stuff to add... First off, if you haven't seen the Github issue for the Gemini stuff, here's pretty much all the stuff I'm at least considering working on if not already modeled. Hopefully that will be enough to help y'all build some more... aesthetic Gemini stations? So, taking a bit of a step back: My goal in making Gemini-sized station parts is to give people something of an alternative, or at least an addition, to making lots of uncrewed landers and probes in the early-mid to mid game. I want to give people the ability to build and grow modular stations, maybe to take and process science retrieved by said uncrewed missions or by crewed flybys/orbiters of nearby moons. I'm deliberately avoiding MORL, since that is essentially an extension of the S-IV/S-IVB upper stages and as has been said their future is a bit in question? So, the next best group of designs after MOL would be the 'classic' "One Room" / "Two Room" / "Four Room" station designs for Gemini. Here's a link to David S.F. Portree's post on the topic: http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/12/space-station-gemini-1962.html So, as just a quick walkthrough of some of the new parts that I want to include: Here we see three of them: The Ring-and-Fork docking system (two parts) and the One Room station module. Here's a couple more. I am at a bit of a loss for whether the "Two Room" module should also be a part, what do people think? The amount of additional work to have both would be minimal, I think. But it's up to y'all. There's also the issue of what do I make these in game? Habs? Labs? One of each? I really don't know. Here you can also see the "trick" of the ring-and-fork docking system. You lose out on being androgynous compared to the other 1.875m port, but the Fork side will be capable of switching from a 1.875m form factor to essentially just the forks and the crew tunnel, making it easier to radially mount without having as much bulk. I'm not planning on having the low-profile fork have differently sized forks as depicted here, I'm probably just going to split the difference. And then the Two Room station could be augmented by sending up a Gemini Supply/Transport to expand it and fill out the equipment: And then sort of the minimal end-goal of this design architecture would be this: Here you see another new part - a large fixed solar array. This would constitute the biggest solar array for the Gemini parts. There's two Two Room station modules essentially bolted together on the ground to form a bigger station, which you'll note seems to match up somewhat with this image @draqsko posted: The endcap on the left side of this image is the inspiration for the 1.875m structural endcap I'm making - I think it will have a toggle between a 0.625m hatch and being fully closed off: Here's a closer look at that Four Room station. The solar panels and some other details appear to be different but you get the idea. Here's a resupply craft that was designed for these stations. In this depiction you can see it's essentially one of those one-room station modules complete with a shrouded fork docking system, so that once the Gemini leaves the cargo module can be left behind and have future craft docked to it. Alternatively, the pressurized segment of the Gemini Ferry would fit well there... There's also a couple things I want to make from Dawn of the Dragon, another timeline by the author of Eyes Turned Skywards, which sort of uses China as a proxy for carrying out these Gemini plans: The big thing I want to have is these smaller fixed solar panels, which hopefully would be nicer to mount/use than the ATM solar panels I showed in my build from Saturday. All that in addition to trying to fix up the remaining parts that haven't been touched up: The MOL structural adapters, docking port, and the current solar panel, for instance. I want to add a 0.9375m crew tunnel which I think would also make a good spot for mounting external equipment without increasing the width of the station too much... If there are more structural parts needed I guess let me know but I think using the Skylab radial attachment port you should be able to add docking ports nicely and stuff like that. But, all this is really contingent on how long it takes me to get through it. There's still a bunch of stuff for the Titan and LDC I need to finish as well, I just REALLY wanted to give the Gemini stuff some love in this update. I fully expect to cut some of this from the release.

I uh, haven't actually gotten around to doing tags names or descriptions for like any of the new parts... Similarly, I haven't (and honestly won't be the one to) gone back and added spool time to all the other engines. Uh. I totally didn't misname that transform and upload a fix after you said something. No-sir.

Rochester, by chance? We should meet up next time I visit home. It's too freaking hot and humid here in Philly

Found the user from Ontario.

Gemini Ferry and some of the MOL parts (lab, equipment section, RCS) are in game!

Booting up the stream now!

Indeed, we are most definitely NOT a secret organization.

I... don't like Saturn II. I'm much more of an INT-20 with a stretched S-1D first stage kind of guy. Re: your edit, and this goes for everyone, I am REALLY awful at keeping tags updated and thinking of things that people would search for. Please feel free, especially as we approach release, to bring up these sort of user experience issues because I am REALLY not tuned into them. The sea level J-2 is a beast, by the way. It sorta makes the sea level LR-87-LH2 irrelevant... Excited to have you back! I am really happy, overall, with the quality of the revamp. The spool up time for the LR-87s is a side effect of needing to let the bwoooOOOOOP play out, but I think all the liquid engines should have it so you have reason to do more realistic launch sequences. I was going to ask what scale you were flying in, nice. I would say that the Restock Hammer is the right thing for Minuteman but it's too short. I am fairly sure the SOLTANs were never more than a rough outline of desired performance. If there was an SRB of that scale that detonated, I'd assume it was for some sort of solid fueled missile. I agree that the most similar sounding one on the list is the OSO detonation. Incidentally Pappy, I know this will interest you - me and some friends were talking about the 156 in. diameter SRM, I'm still not in a rush to make it but we did turn up some info on it including photos of the one that got test fired! http://acgsc.org/Meetings/Meeting_98/Subcommitte B/6.3.pdf http://www.aia-aerospace.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/THE-1967-AEROSPACE-YEAR-BOOK_Part3.pdf There's even a picture of the (boring) remaining 156 in. segment in the rocket garden at ATK's headquarters: BDB has a custom SMURFF patch but I don't think it's been updated in years. Personally, I'd recommend against using SMURFF or the Saturn rescale (Draqsko, that's not the reason why I built it at that scale. THAT is a long story that has been lost to the sands of time...), I'd just use a 2.5x rescale (I think there's still a route to getting a 2.5x SSRSS - type system) Another thing that we finally were able to figure out - I've always been confused by this image on Astronautix: The description had a clue, that I repeatedly missed... Barbarian IRL was more like 5m, not 4.57... but 15 foot IS the size of the other big Titan proposals. And then I finally encountered this line in Ed Kyle's Titan LDC description, that I had apparently glossed over every time I read it... Aha! So this is an image of the mockup of the LDC first stage fuel tank with the four LR-87s! Mystery solved! I am planning on streaming for a bit today, starting at the top of the hour from this post (around 11 AM Eastern) Going to be working on some more new Gemini stuff!

I just checked my copy of Dyna-Soar: Hypersonic Strategic Weapons System and yeah, I can confirm that the final paintings out of Boeing at time of cancellation depict it without fins. EDIT: Well that's a little... overdramatic...

I'm definitely praying that it can be ported without having to start over completely.

Just for reference, here's another look at the "final" MOL configuration in real life. If any MOL design were to fly, this is what it would have looked like: Something I run into a lot, especially with these kinds of long running projects, is they change over time significantly. Additionally, remember that these paintings are done by artists, often who are only working with only part of the story for whatever hardware they're supposed to be depicting. Generally I think it's a bad idea to read too much into this sort of artwork unless there's a definitive source you can link it to (a study or proposal). I think it's telling how many paintings are of this configuration, apparently by multiple artists: I think it's also worth noting that while it doesn't match any MOL configuration I know of, that painting does seem awfully close to the OV4-3 (MOL boilerplate on Titan IIIC) I also have this artwork. I have no idea what it relates to. There's also this contractor model: Hate to burst bubbles, but that's not MOL - indeed, anything NASA related is generally NOT MOL. MOL is a USAF project that NASA was pretty much entirely uninvolved in. That's not to say that there wasn't attempts to sell MOL to NASA - I think even congress critters favorable to the program tried to push for NASA to replace any station projects with MOLs outfitted with experiments NASA would find useful. Indeed, this image which I think is probably the most often shared depiction of MOL, is not MOL at all - it's a design that Douglas proposed to NASA, and actually shows two civilian MOL-derived crafts docked aft-to-aft Pretty much all the MOL material was declassified a couple years ago, but it's not available online for whatever reasons. All the links to the nro.gov pages that hosted them are pretty toast. (Incidentally, Agena lab is something I've thought about doing a bunch of times, just not sure that its worth it) I believe the image that was most influential on the original BDB MOL design was this one. I honestly was really bad about doing proper research up until the last year or two, so I have to assume that at the time my attitude was something like "well this one is the coolest looking to me" God I hate that design. There's a long running issue in space art where people art depicted at like half scale or something in cutaway artwork. Atlas is big, but I don't think it's that big. There's a lot wrong with that design... Of course, depictions of MOL have never been very realistic... CURSE YOU HURRICANES! I'LL SHOOT YOU DEAD!!! Smallest of updates. I've been pretty sick AND busy at work this week, so haven't had much time to work on BDB. But, I did manage to sort out a look for the 3.125m decoupler! I think it's pretty neat looking.

(It's because it's a sucky broken shader)

US GAMERS SHALL NOT BE OPPRESSED

Oh?

Looks great! One comment - there is a Titan 2 type "shroud" for the LR-87. It's not much but it does give you an accurate tank butt, air scoops, etc which I think adds a lot of character to the base of the rocket. Yeah, it was just an attempt to make it more obvious what parts are deprecated, the textures were also scaled down a lot to make them take up less RAM. It was a bit of an experiment, it honestly took too much time and effort for me MOL, like DynaSoar and a lot of other "never flew" projects (and even the ones that did...) changed a lot over its lifetime, so it's really easy to get thrown for a loop. As far as I know Gemini Ferry has nothing to do with MOL. There's a good run down of MOL on TheSpaceReview. Scroll down a little in my post for the "final" internal MOL configuration. I actually just finished reading Blue Darker Than Black last weekend, I need to find time to start Pale Blue. There's great technical diagrams for Blue Gemini on the author's website, you can see the service module of the Gemini-I is more or less unchanged - it doesn't have a pair of liquid engines like in your drawings. (To be clear, I love your drawings and appreciate them. It's just really easy to get lost with how hard it is to research all this space stuff) In that case it would probably make more sense for it to be like... a Klaw module on an animated boom or something. Nice LV! At first I was thinking that a Titan with a Centaur instead of the second stage is a bit weird, but it's not that different than say the EELVs. Yeah yesterday... uh. Frankly sucked a bit for me. Just because, now the future of BDB is pretty up in the air. I don't want to stop working on it (frankly this is like one of the only things I enjoy doing with my time?) but it's really impossible to know right now what will happen. There's a lot of "what-ifs" that will make porting things a lot harder - there certainly won't be B9 functionality, at least at the start, for instance. Even if I can import the models, there's question of if the art style / shaders will change, if the scale will change, if the way stuff is built will change etc etc. As @Machinique pointed out, there's also the matter of focus - the material so far seemed really focused on things like massive sci fi ships and colonies which..... don't interest me whatsoever? So I question if something like BDB is even appropriate. So then maybe it makes sense to keep deving for KSP1, but then will there be anyone to play it anymore? Will, to use an example again, B9PS keep getting updated? There's also a lot else going on. Some of my friends (who I won't name, for obv reasons) have already told me they firmly intend to retire from modding and that's really sad too. Honestly I'm just trying not to think about it right now. Unrelated but I didn't know what to do with myself last night so I made a 1.5m adapter tank for Atlas since I realized it needed one.

I don't believe the part tools works with .dds source files, for whatever reason. I'd just make png copies for export and then delete+replace them with the original dds files in the Gamedata.