Hattivat

I've seen a fair share of overpowered mod parts myself (mostly sci-fi-inspired stuff), but relatively few people use them. For every screenshot I see of someone using a silly star trek drive, I see ten others using mods that actually make the game harder/more immersive, so I'm becoming tired of seeing people complain about boogeyman "overpowered mods" in every other thread. And I don't consider part clipping "cheating", I just find it funny when people act as if using the debug console was somehow morally superior to installing mods. You know, some people are all like "I'm gonna include "NO MODS USED!!!" in my thread title, as if it was something to brag about, even though I had to clip a tank into a tank that was itself clipped into a command pod to make that design work". Edit: Also, I gotta say some of the designs posted above are looking great.

Here, fixed it for ya. Examples of what I mean: 1. Pretty much everything in the ARM update (seriously, I have never seen any conventional rocket engine in any mod that was less balanced than what 0.23.5 brought us) 2. Turbocharged ion and jet engines 3. Magic reaction wheels that make momentum disappear As for the part-clipping question, OP, do whatever floats your boat and disregard people who want to push you into following made-up rules on what is allowed. Just don't act like your debug-console stock designs were somehow superior to modded ones; it's funny when people act like that.

It probably should, but it currently doesn't. You will only get that engine once you unlock the Freedom 7 (Mercury program) node.

The fact that it takes minutes/hours of game time is reasonable. The fact that you cannot timewarp through this process isn't.

I don't know of a fix, but I can confirm that the same happens to me, remotetech seems to ignore time acceleration.

I see. That's a pretty important restriction, I wasn't aware of that, thanks for the explanation. I'll experiment with specificMass, and if I get some interesting results, I'll report them here.

Sure they are, but they usually don't have separate "bases", they are just walls connecting the bottom of one tank to the top of another. The mass calculation for walls is fine, I'd even be okay with them being heavier than they currently are. It's the huge mass of the bases (which are pretty much a "workaround" non-part) that result in weird masses for completed PF interstages. As an illustration: a h=3, r=5 interstage is almost THREE TIMES heavier than a h=5, r=3 interstage, despite having the exact same surface area (3x5 is exactly 3.608t, 5x3 is 9.642t, both have 95.25 square meters of surface area). I do use AIES, but the ability to do the same with any engine makes your part immensely useful. I never said anything should be massless, I'm just saying that the mass of workaround structural parts should be insignificant, like say under 2 tonnes. As it currently stands, a 10 meter thrust plate (10 m is a pretty standard first-stage diameter for large rockets in RSS) weighs over 6 tonnes, which is way too much to just brush off.

Personally, I don't consider interstage bases and thrust plates to be "real parts", but rather workarounds around game-specific problems, and as such, their weight should be close to zero, regardless of their diameter. I mean, in real life there is no limit to the amount of "nodes" on the bottom of the tank, so you can attach as many engines there as you can fit. A part that let's you do what you should be able to do anyway should not add 6 tonnes to the weight of your vehicle. And yes, I need this for RSS purposes. I'll try adjusting specificMass, thanks.

Thanks, that explains why it seems to rise exponentially. That's interesting, I always thought that the reason it was hollow was to make it lighter than the Saturn V's interstages. It's fascinating to hear that it was still heavier nonetheless.

Parts over 6 meters in diameter still have absurdly large masses. As an example, a 10 x 5 interstage constructed with PF weighs 12.95 tonnes. A real-life Saturn V interstage of the same size weighted only 5.2 tonnes. Same with the thrust plate - once over 6 m in diamater, it becomes prohibitively (and implausibly) heavy.

Yes, and it's even RSS-ready: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/76841-%28RSS%29-Constellation-Essentials-v1-1-Copernicus-MTV-Trusses

I think it would be nice if Procedural Fairings or Procedural Parts could provide a dedicated "procedural interstage" as a single part. That would greatly simplify things both for players (faster construction) and for the modders (easier mass calculations).

Agathorn: I'm trying to lift a real-size replica of this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Orion_docked_to_Mars_Transfer_Vehicle.jpg And yeah, to be perfectly realistic I shoudl split this into two parts, but that wouldn't change a thing, since it's the diamater that is giving me problems, not the length. That thing is 7.5 meters in diameter, and that alone is enough to drive PF weight calculations nuts, regardless of the length. Perhaps if you are sending your astronauts to mars in mercury-sized command pods, KW fairings are adequate, but I'm trying to provide mine with a realistic amount of habitable space, so they are not.

Yep, the mass is reasonable up to about 6 meters in diameter, but once you cross that limit, it starts to increase almost exponentially. I would ignore it if they were "a bit too heavy", but they are approximately three times too heavy in my case, and that is far too much. Even after reducing the use of fairings to the absolute minimum I still have about 100 tonnes of them on my rocket (that includes interstages). I'm trying to do a manned mars-venus flyby mission, and I can't afford to lose that much mass to an obvious config failure. So, has anyone tried to solve that problem before? I've seen screenshots of some enormous RO rockets, so I'm assuming one of their authors might have came up with some solution to this bug. Right now the solution seems to be to use a copious amount of side boosters, as side decouplers are far more weight-efficient than interstages, which kinda goes against what this mod (RO) is all about.

Large interstages constructed with procedural fairings are absurdly heavy. A 10 x 6 m one weighs over 13 tonnes, whereas a FASA Saturn V interstage of comparable size (10 x 5) only weighs slightly over 4 tonnes, and engineering courses seem to assume about 10 kilograms per square meter, which would translate to 1.9 t for the fairing part (net of the base part), versus over 6 tonnes that such a part weighs in PF. Actually every PF part (the thrust plate, fairings, etc.) has vastly overestimated weight when in large diameter, but it is most irritating in the case of interstages. Anyone tried writing a config to fix this? And yes, I'm using the latest version of PF, after they supposedly reduced the weight of large parts; they are still way too heavy.

First of all, thank you for this excellent tool. One noobish question: is there a way to set a minimum fly-by distance in the multi-flyby maneuver sequencer? I'm trying to create something like the TMK-MAVR mission in RSS, but as I'm playing career mode, it would be swell if I could get "in space near" for both planets.

Is there some sort of chart on what the boil-off rates of different fuels are? Especially Ammonia and Methane.

That did it, thanks a lot. Such a simple error, I feel silly now. Notepad displayed the config as a wall of text that seemed to be separated with tabs, so I thought that's the ModuleManager format. On a side note, you guys may want to look into the Porkworks config, the OP lists it as supported, but the config doesn't even change the habitat's mass, which is rather implausible.

I'm trying to increase the size and weight of porkwork's inflatable habitats to make them match Transhab's and BA330's stats, but so far it doesn't work. Anyone has an idea why this would freeze the game?

That would be so awesome. Atomic rockets has some more info on that one: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/surfaceorbit.php#id--Super_Nexus

The visuals are courtesy of http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55145-0-23-5-Real-Solar-System-v6-1-4-29-14 with the second config (the one that uses Planet Factory). Be warned though, it's quite memory-intensive.

Here you go: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58135-TechTree-0-23-5-MS19e-Realistic-Progression-LITE-%282014-05-11%29?p=1097429&highlight=procedural#post1097429 BTW, construction is now complete, behold Veles I: Pure hydrolox, comfortably lifts 300 tonnes into LEO (tested with a dummy weight). Mars, here I come!

I recall someone showing screenshots of a workaround for this problem a few pages back. IIRC it was to put a large in-line battery between the habitat and the landing gear, and then attach ladder to the battery. Seemed to work fine, and you'd need plenty of batteries in a planetary base anyway. Also, while habitats other then F.L.A.T. might not be designed for use on the ground, they work just fine there.

Ok, now I have a problem myself. I'm trying to construct a massive 300t to LEO lifter, but procedural fairings and interstages only go up to 6m, which is not enough. Is there any way to make them bigger? I think NathanKell posted a solution somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. EDIT: Nevermind, found it.

So much freedom... If I may suggest something, could you perhaps do this: http://up-ship.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/image18egr.jpg next (teaser: 450 tonnes to LUNAR orbit)?