TiktaalikDreaming

Being able to see periapsis and apoapsis without going to the map view would also be nice.

I have the beginnings of the Medium sized Airlock Docking node (I'm going to call them Airdocks). Based of the Squad Docking node, with a touch of NASA universal docking system. I think a Kerbal will fit, but I'm not 100% sure. I'll be taking this into an alpha part before doing anything further with it, to test if a kerbal (with helmet) does fit. That'll give me some idea of whether to bother with the mini-docking node or not. The larger node will clearly fit a kerbal. Probably a small group of them around a picnic table.

Add battery. They need 3.something electrical ooomph to start, and the A-4 control unit only has a max of 10. I've been adding a collection of four to the top of the A-10, so there's spare electricity until I'm back to the A-4

It does seem they're hyping the 1.2 pretty heavily now, I expect the open beta will be very soon. Depending on how much the selected minions manage to break the closed beta.

I've updated the mod with a new version. Mostly it's a Realism Overhaul update. There's been some tweaks to make the realism overhaul function to the A-12 stage as well. It's now taller, and the whole thing is looking more like a Von Braun ferry rocket. The A-6 Ramjet is still not right in AJE/RO. There's a non gimballing edition of the A-10 engine as well, in case you don't feel the need for gimbals on every of the 50 engines on the A-12 stage.

Stages 1 and 2 were supposed to parachute back to earth, but the third stage was supposedly a flying wing.

Oh, yay, someone quoting times in non-US-specific formats. And, so 1500 UTC, that's um... bugger, 1am. Maybe the General Overview instead.

That's Von Braun's Ferry Rocket. Basically the A-12 translated forward into USA purposes. And why I made the first stage's wings so huge. :-)

Managed a reasonably stable launch to orbit vehicle in RSS+RO. With an updated A-12 tank with 2.5 times the capacity as what's been listed at astronautix. http://imgur.com/a/ZSc1U My only remaining issue is Mechjeb deciding to "coast" at inappropriate times. Then it'll be update time.

Not really what I was talking about. And internal spaces don't tweak very well.

Performance was actually OK. Ability to make out which lines were which was minimal, but it seemed to draw it all at a reasonable rate. I really should get in the habit of displaying frame rates etc when testing this sort of thing. But it "seemed" fine. :-) I think you can keep making this more detailed for ever and never get it perfect. But a simple base-line for zero throttle would work fine for most situations. I really should get off my cheeks and learn C#. I have that Orion mod to maintain, and it hasn't worked properly since 0.25, or at all since 1.0.5, and it'd make for some pretty awfully hilarious (or hilariously awful) interactions with this. The fission rate may exceed the norm for NTRs. But then the shielding may exceed the norm as well. It'll be vitally important to get your kerbals into the storm cellar before lighting the engine. But the zero throttle emission should be fairly low.

I've been thinking about the top end of the A-4 for a while. Between the section that houses the control gyros and the nose cone there's a bit of space. The actual space needed by the controls is less than what's available, so a smaller control, with a fairing above could work. The nose itself is pretty much wasted space in KSP. Now, procedural fairing or doored cargo area? Option 1 has obvious advantages in flexibility of use. But option 2 has advantages in being annoying and limited. :-)

Ok. By successively testing different amounts of add on procedural tank for the A-12 stage, I've managed to get the A-12 through A-9 into orbit. It's a hairy ride. But I have an idea how much extra fuel that A-12 stage needs, so I'll be adjusting the tank for the A-12 (which means the wings as well) so it has a bit over double the fuel capacity as suggested by http://www.astronautix.com/a/a9a10a11a12.html This is how it looks with a procedural tank extra (it will have a shorter, more even look when I redesign the tank); And, I may add some prebuilt ullage motors as well, just so I don't have to guess the required sizes. AND so I can use WWII era solid rocket values. 'Cos that should be fun. :-)

OK, just for the purpose of seeing if it would handle lots of sources, I configured RTGs as basic sources with no radiation. Lots of lines. No further radiation, but a lot more interaction. And, I built a fairly daft, short fat craft. And still my kerbanauts were OK. But, not when staging away from the section with the nuclear thermal engine. Line of sight, even at a goodly distance, and my kerbanauts weren't doing so well. To achieve that though, the NTR's throttle was still at max, but the propellant was exhausted. So, it's "running", but not going anywhere.

I was flying about with heaps of extra power for running my radiators when the engine was stopped and thought "RTG". I just need to get some numbers on KSP scale RTGs to feed into the "are my kerbals cooked?" simulation.... Or not. Radiation dosage from the average RTG pretty much requires vapourizing them (which is extremely difficult) and then inhaling the plutonium. Pretty much all alpha decay, which you can stop with a decent sheet of paper. Stupid, someone should be locked up for it, design it is then. :-) Also, mobile browsers plus posting on the ksp forums sucks mules.

The masses, fuels and efficiencies (although scaled down) are based on real world values. KSP is full of midget planets that are very easy to get into orbit from. Once I have a functioning RSS_RO config, I'll probably nerf the aggregate stock values though. But at the moment they're just scaled real values.

Well, the "main" phantom force is gone. As far as I know there's still some loopy logic around faking a differential type relative speed that means if you have a wide wheel track, and are turning, you can accelerate faster than straight ahead. It's like, instead of selective braking for turning, there's some sort of turbo boost based turning. It's most noticeable on the extra large rugged wheels (I forget what they're called).

Updated https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwa1oynl7b1sbol/RealismOverhaulWernhers.cfg?dl=0 Some small issues. Because of my spreadsheet and the A-10 fins not being control surfaces (they're fixed aero surfaces), the RO config got a scaling up of the surface entered referring to the wrong column, and thus set to zero. Solves a lot of the stupid issues I was having with the A-10. Still messing about with ullage to try to get the A-4 to fire after separation with the A-10. Pretty sure it was working when that separation was at higher altitude due to being part of the A-11 stack. So it's probably just tweaking ullage. Ramjet still self explody.

And all (apparently) working. :-) http://imgur.com/a/p24ZP

Realism Overhaul fuel tank question (for anyone that knows). Should tanks like the A-4's be structural or default? It never seems to survive a gravity turn as default. Also, more work to be done on the ramjet I think :-)

I'm not expecting wonders either. But being able to use wheels for well... rover type use, would be nice.

Squad stated (somewhere, can't find it now) about a month or more ago that they'd "fixed wheels". I assume they mean, stopped them doing weird excrements. They've stated they no longer need the workaround (blocked) to stop the weird excrements. However, I wouldn't expect them to have a wonderfully realistic friction model, and I assume the wheels will still only drive from the bottom point of the wheel. But, in many situations the updated wheel systems should be OK in the sense of not seeming horribly weird. So, "fixed" is likely to simply mean, playable again. Unlikely to be the sort of wheel mechanism you'd want in a driving game, but they have to cater to larger variety than a driving game. It'll be interesting to test it

I'll just leave this here for now; https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwa1oynl7b1sbol/RealismOverhaulWernhers.cfg?dl=0 Beta edition of Realism Overhaul config for Wernher's old bits. As expected, I'd added the A-12 fuel tank config to a different part, in this case the fairing for between the A-12 and A-11. If I'd right clicked in game I would have noticed a disturbing amount of potential fuel tank. I'm not sure about how the ramjet will operate in RO just yet. I'm completely new to AJE, so at the moment it's mostly just scaled and using avgas. I haven't tested in RSS yet, as I accidentally installed into the wrong KSP.

That reminds me, I should really test in a bar bones install.

I messed around with RO config last night and this morning before work. Some basic tests show the A-4 fuel tank has a tendency to fall apart during gravity turns when part of the larger A-10. And I completely forgot to configure the A-12 fuel tank (or possibly added a large fuel capacity to some other part). I'm not sure yet how to start an RO config for the ramjet. And I'm undecided on whether to make some crazy low tech ullage solutions. I'd also like to add peroxide and permanganate tanks and system for the engines. I won't go as far as pushing people into tuning the steam system to the nozzle. But I'm getting pretty close to a first cut of a realism overhaul release.