Nittany Tiger

Rough draft of the first 41 seconds of the video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v-eY0RjsChG7WGleNodkl9dZWpu0FTNx/view?usp=sharing

Making overlays is easier than it seems, especially when you're going for a 1985 aesthetic.

Small update. Fixed some small bugs and made the rocket roll before pitching in the script. I'm also deciding if I should make the AMM solar panels rotate. Also added Hull Camera and Vapor Vent:

Been practicing Mars landings again and trying to buff out little details. A few new issues popped up, but nothing that was difficult to fix. This is the closest I've come to landing near Mangala Valles. I think I'm almost ready to fly this mission and film it!

I would have never guessed in a million years that my part lighting problems were owing to an inverted blue channel on my normal map. I'm glad I know some 3D artist friends. The stretched MS-IC does lift the stack with the heavier MEM into orbit, though. After texture touch-ups, I can get back to the final flight tests and then mission planning.

Getting there with the S-IC stretch. It's not going to look like a proper stretch since I'm only stretching one tank, but trying to stretch both is more work because I'd have to remap the textures.. I might try it later on. Speaking of textures, I'll have to get those to work properly along with the retro thrusters (which should require setting up the thrustTransform vectors).

There hasn't been much going on with the mission and project that's report-worthy until now. Last month was mostly upgrading visuals and practicing landing on Mars (again). I am going for a landing style that's true to the book this time, so no using the side covers as air brakes like before. That means adding more fuel to the descent stage, which means more mass for the Saturn VB into orbit. Unfortunately, the current Saturn VB configuration I have doesn't have the payload capacity for the heavier MEM. However, after doing some comparison with my LV to the LV in the novel and doing some research and math, I did find out that the Saturn VB in the novel does use a stretched first stage, which turns out to be the proper proposed Saturn VB I did some flight tests with my LV expanded with some procedural tanks and found that the novel's LV would likely lift the heavier MEM and everything else into orbit. Unfortunately, the procedural tanks don't look right on top of the DECQ parts, and they also impede DECQ's decoupling mechanism between the S-IC and S-II. So I need a stretched version of the DECQ S-IC. I have contacted DECQ to see if he'll make one, but I'm also going to try and stretch his S-IC myself.

I'm finally nearing the point in my project I left it off at. In fact, I might be a tad past it. I did the launch to rendezvous test with the command stack and readjusted RCS and OMM fuel loads. Also properly added parachutes to the Venus probe and tested the Mars lander a bit. Going to have to relearn how to land on Mars. Also tried to squish as many visual bugs as I could, but I can't squish them all because it would take way too much time and effort. The only bug I do want to try and resolve is one where my re-entry trails seem too weak. Might be a setting I need to adjust, though. Not going to bother with the sharp limb/atmospheric "box" issue, though. There doesn't seem to be a solution to that problem anyway, and it might just be a feature of RSSVE. Finally, I've started planning out the video. Might be nearing the end of this long project.

Long time, no update. Took a bit of time off of the project, then started back and kept forgetting to update the thread. So I made a custom docking port so I could use the gendered docking ports from the DECQ Saturn V and NAR_MEM pack. Should have been a quick thing to create and test, but I ran into a really mysterious bug where my custom docking port only engaged when oriented in one direction. Enabling surface attach on the docking port fixed the issue, though I'm not 100% sure how it did. Maybe docking ports have to be surface attachable. After that was docking tests and balancing the RCS load on my AMM. Some minor issues, but docking works. I'm getting close to where I was in the project originally, but it is taking a long time to get back to that point.

Update: Good news is that I updated the autopilot program and made my Saturn VB fly a much smoother and more fuel-efficient trajectory into orbit. I even have the MS-II stage shut off and throttle back like the S-II does on the Saturn V. Bad news is that I tried to tackle a graphical bug where the atmosphere of Earth would vanish when my rockets go above 140 km, and I don't know if I can fix it. I'm using RSSVE. I looked up possible solutions to this problem, but nothing has worked so far. It doesn't help that I'm still using KSP 1.3.1 for this, and it may be impossible to get mod support for an old version like that. Update 6/8/20: Good news: Fixed the disappearing atmospheres bug. Just had the wrong version of scatterer.

Worked on the models and textures of the other two parts. Good textures are hard to make, and the ones I have for these parts I feel aren't adequate, but they'll do for now. I went by the descriptions in Voyage for both of these parts as best I could. Venus Miniprobe: "...a sphere of thick metal" with "vanes on the sphere to make it spin, so that it was stabilized during the fall" with "...tough little windows cut into the surface so that the probe's instruments could see out." The vanes' aerodynamics proved hard to make work in the game, especially under FAR, but I did eventually get them to work along with using an offset CoM for the probe. This is the working vane orientation for the probe. A couple of those vanes are slightly rotated. I also don't have the windows created for the probe because I'm not sure how I want those to look. Overall, I'm not sure of this texture because it looks amateurish (but I am a newbie). I did realize that maybe the miniprobe is supposed to be a variant of one of the Pioneer Venus probes, but not after pretty much finishing work on this probe. OMM Fuel Tank: "...a fat doughnut fitted with a modified Apollo Service Module propulsion system." Thankfully, this was much easier to model and texture: I do want to make the texture better and maybe add more to the surface of the OMM tank, but I feel I have the basic tank design down.

Thank you. I hope I can finish this and make an impressive video. Also, the AMM is finished. Big thanks to fellow modders for helping me learn how to port my part from Blender to Unity to KSP.

Sorry for lack of updates. Been learning Blender with @Tokamak and working on the AMM. Tokamak's been a big help. It also helps that Blender is easy to learn. Still need to texture the part and create a collision mesh.

Rebuilt the Ares Propulsion Stack with DECQ parts! Yep, changed the color scheme on the ET again. Also spent time detailing the aft docking port that will probably never see use.

Good news: My old kOS script still works. Bad news: The PID loops may need retuning since I'm running on a better machine. Code definitely needs changes and improvements such as changing the pitch guidance. UPDATE: Further tests show the PID loops might be fine as-is.