InsaneDruid

Would be nice if you would switch to github. Its rather easy to do, you benefit from a great versioning tool and ckan integration is also easy. The guys from ckan have a perfect tutorial and are really fast & helpful. I switched two days ago and even host my own netkan in my repository which gives me full control over the ckan integration without the need for making a pull request each time I want a little change. Which helps them and me

Yea, sometimes its a bit tricky to get the right node to snap. Heres a trick I use (this works also on other parts & mods): Connect a smaller part (like one RD-0210) to the center node of stage2. Attach the heatshield to this part. This will usually work much better now. Attach the four engines to the heatshield. Disconnect the heatshield-engine assembly from the stack, but don't delete it. Remove the single part you put on first. The complete assembly of the heatshield + four engines will now attach nicely to the stage2 part.

https://ksp.sarbian.com/jenkins/job/km_Gimbal/

The Mod is back online after the demise of KerbalStuff! I completely switched to GitHub and updated the CKAN entries as well, so everything should be working again. I took this opportunity to update the mod to the latest version, though still, the launch clamps aren't ready yet. I had planned to publish the update when they are done, but now I had to act quickly. So what has changed? Most obvious, the craft is now correctly aligned in the VAB and on the pad regarding the direction of the dorsal side. You have to manually rotate the fairing bases and the payload adapters, though, as there is no possibility to change the split axis of stock procedural fairings. A two-sided fairing will always split into a left-right fashion, but the proton uses a dorsal/ventral split (upper and lower half of the fairing when the rocket is assembled horizontally in the MIK building.) So just press "e" once for these parts. The correct alignment can be checked by the wire tunnel on the third stage, which has it top counterpart located on the fairing bases. If these align, then everything is good. Of course, the pack contains updated .craft files for the complete booster and the upper stage. Also there are some bug fixes and updates to the engines and fairings, mainly. The engine glow animation of the engines is back, though it might need to be toned down now for 1.0.5. Then, I included a file that, when renamed from patch_engines_MASS.renamemetocfg to patch_engines_MASS.cfg will patch the engine stats to be more in line with the stock universe. I am currently rebalancing them, and this file is the first release of these changes. Basically, it changes the dry mass of the engines from a physically correct but out of balance sizeScale^3 (mass is dependent of volume) to be a function of ingameThrust*5. Then, I reduced the ISP to reduce the burn times. In detail, here is how I calculate my stock part data: size is scaled by targetSize / realSize, for the proton, this is 2500mm / 4100mm = 0,60976 from real live fuel and ox masses and their density, real fuel volume is calculated real fuel volume is scaled by sizeScale^3 (0,60976^3) as all the three axis are scaled by 0,60976 based on their density, in game combined fuel/ox units are calculated and split in the usual 1:1.22 KSP ratio of fuel to oxidizer dry mass of the tanks would be sizeScale^3 (mass is dependant of volume) but it was always set to be a function of fuel+ox mass (combinedFuelMass*8,2) Overall, these steps produce tanks that are balanced nicely and are quite equivalent in mass and volume to part assemblies with matching dimensions built from stock parts. engine thrust is sizeScale^3 of real world figures. This is logically sound and seems to match the stock parts and produces nice thrust to weight ratios with the proton tanks. engine dry mass WAS sizeScale^3 of real world figures which would be logically, but it has been changed to be a function of thrust to weight. It is now thrust*5 with factor 5 being in between the stats of the reliant (5.8) and the skipper (4.6). ISP is calculated by thrust, fuel masses, burn time and g. burn time is now 0.7 of real world figures. This is my main set-screw to adjust the balance by now. As we all know the stock payloads are ABOUT 0.65 of the scale of their best matching counterparts in the real world, as well as size and (wrongly) also in mass (had to be sizeScale^3). So I set it in the realm of this scale, and increased it a bit, as 0.65 would give rather low ISP figures. 0.7 gives the vacuum engines ISP figures just shy of 300s. With this changes, the Proton can lift 14.3 tonnes (again, using the "wrong" formula of just using a 0.65 scale for payload masses like the stock capsules) easily and has some kerbal-esque reserves. If I'd scale it so that it could just make it to LKO with these numbers, ISP would be so low that using two reliants for each RD-275 would be the better (though silly looking) alternative. Please give it a try and also it would be nice if you could give me some feedback. I think, for stock the adjusted numbers feel better than the old, completely overpowered ones. It's still overpowered compares to real live, but so are all stock ksp parts due to the different scales of sizes, planet sizes, gravity and densities.

Take a look at my proton blend file, on the second layer from the left in the top row of layers, you will see many colliders named "Stage2_Collider_Top.XXX". Or import the Spaceplane-Cargobays from squad using the .mu importer. This is the (one) way to do it. Basically you have to build a bigger non-convex shape out of smaller, convex colliders.

Its PROBABLY just the "$kref" : "#/ckan/kerbalstuff/791", line that has to be changed. But I am in the situation, too. I have a mod on ckan that was made for kerbalstuff and an already have it on git, too. So shall i change it? Or re-submit a new mod?

Probably not, as tantares doesn't use empties and node{} but coordinates.

Some Progress. Diffuse Textures are done for the Launchpad Parts: TKS is nearing external completion (RCS in th works, some greeble left, like Igla receiver and anti-parallax antenna). And no thats no cool sunshade Its a anti-multipath shield so that no stray signal bounced by the angular shape of the cone can enter the igla antenna.

But its completely wrong in shape. I sent Beale my meshes (my proton has them correct) so he can use mine for guidance.

Nice. Though I am not THAT happy with the fairings between the engines. So many models have them wrong (besides, some have completely wrong diameters of the whole craft even in RSS/RO ;)). The Fairings don't just extend down, they go outwards! They shall redirect the airflow around the engine exhaust wenn the engines gimbal (and thus the exhaust plume tilts outwards into the space between the outrigger tanks. So they have to be visible when looking from above, between the fuel tanks. Also the top should not be inset. Its a smooth heatshield-dome as it has to protect the central ox trank from the flames of the RD-0210/11 Engines and let their exhaust flow nicely away. The Proton uses hot staging like so many older russian designs, so the lower stage has to survive over 3.5 seconds of the stage2 engines already burning. And that exhaust has to flow away, through the open truss interstage. Such a "crown" around the edge of the tank would catch the hot gases. I know its heavily stylized, but.. ;)

Lets take the Proton as a base. Original diameter is 4100mm, mod size is 2500mm, gives a ratio of .60975. Reentry Capsule of a Sojus is 2170mm in real diameter. So actually 1.25m ingame is closer to protons scale than the 1,5m version would be (which would be 0,6912 scale of the real sojus). So speaking of pure size, its rather the gemini that is too big. That said, the sojus rocket is "too small" even for the small sojus capsule (2660m diameter of the third stage shrunk to 1250mm ingame, which is .467, causing the sojus' service module beeing to big for the stage3. Then again, its Stock KSP, not RSS and playability and the "lego factor" where you cant have too many sizes come into play.

Will the DCM-NXL (Alnair-Crew B) aka the TKS double-cone be flipped again? And will there be an adapter to mate it to the proton (like my "TKS Fairing Extender")?

The outrigger Tanks are 12150mm long cylindrical shapes with a 4000mm tapered section on top. Diameter of the outriggers is 1600mm. This shoudl be the same for K and M to my knowledge. I modelled everything i could find based on measurements, not on images. ( i usually start with a set of plane meshes stacked on the different height locations, then I add the cylinders etc etc.

Sent you a link to all my sources and my complete Proton-M blendfile. Looking forward to any new update of tantares, as it's my number one mod for ksp.

@BealeI have a "ton" of references along with sizes down to the mm. If you want, i can also sent you a mesh or two. Just say yay or nay and I'll upload it. PS: how do I get the name in a nice tag like everyone else gets it?

FBX doesn't "change the scale". I always used fbx, and it was always perfectly correct the way you set it up. Default of blenders exporter changed through, from beeing .1 to 1. But as said, thats only the default value pre-selected in the exporter. Main geometry, colliders, nodes, everything works. (No, I'm not saying that fbx is better than any format, but it is not flawed)

They weren't. APAS was only used for ASTP (APAS-75), Buran-Mir (APAS-89), Shuttle-Mir (APAS-95) and some Sojus-based test flights. The TKS-derived modules as well as the 37KE (Kwant) docked with the usual probe-and-drogue port to the DOS. Fun Fact: the TKS double-cone is derived from the third stage of the proton. Its the tank butt of the udmh-compartment, with a docking port where the RD-0213 is located on the Proton. The forward section is derived from the DOS middle section. (Source: Another ship, by I.Afanasev. "News of Cosmonautics")

You can add colliders in blender. Just add in some (stretched) cubes (colliders have to be convex!) that touch the faces of the original geometry. Colliders for the rings could be just disks with the same thickness as the rings,and same outer diameter. (meybe reduced to 12 sides). You can see the basic workflow of adding collission meshes (aka colliders) in blender and configuring them in unity here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hRJ1qI8uoY

@RaendyLeBeau These are some very nice models! Still, it seems that you are also fighting with some problem areas around the windows (for example: http://i.imgur.com/qH02Cu2.jpg ) where the shading of the mesh gets distorted quite a bit. Luckily, a few guys discussed this sort of problem here and we found a solution! Have a look! It will make your models reaaaly great!

Good news: it was a bug in combination with oldscoolfairings. It is now fixed. Update to fix this will come later today. EDIT: Hotfix is live. I also decided that I am going to release the most current version of my production version on github in the next day(s) as a way to provide more repid builds to the public, for example for tuning the performance or other tweaks without disturbing the more "stable" build on kerbalstuff and ckan. Especially as the new version will be rotated 90 degree on its vertical axis to align its correct dorsal side with the other stock parts. So stay tuned.

The empty is incorrectly aligned. The node thus wants the part that is going to attach to it positioned inside the engine (below the node itself) not above, like you intended. The next screen shows it: on the left, my proton second stage, on the right, your engine, both after importing from .mu into blender. (Note, after importing back from mu the y-axis of a node, should point outwards in blender, where before exporting to fbx it has to point inwards) Personally, I also would use a "proper" model definition: MODEL { model = QuizTech/Parts/Engine/QT-S25/QT_S25 scale = 1.25,1.25,1.25 } rescaleFactor = 1.0 scale = 1.0

With the newer Blender (definite with 2.76b) fbx exports nicely in a 1:1 style, as the fbx exporter got a overhaul and the scale is now 1.0 default. (could be set in older versions, too). Just select all the parts, export to fbx, then in the export fbx panel check the "selectec objects" and "!experimental! Apply Transform" checkboxes (no fear, it works perfectly), make sure scale is set to 1.00 and forward is "-Z forward" and up is "Y up" which should be set by default. I usually export directly into my unity projects \Assets\Models folder so that the moment i export it, it is auto-updated in unity.

Thats not because of the fuel, it was a falsy wired (or installed, cont remember that correctly) attitude sensor. Basically it was "steering the wrong way" and it wobbled itself to desctruction in a very kerbal way. But: no "pad explosion". Just not beeing able to steer. Btw: the fuel, while beeing toxic can be nicely stored and the launchpad is designed so that the fuel lines decouple after the engines ighnite and are tested. So it can be untanked without anyone moving in if the computers sense a malfunction engine. Since 2010 there where only two problems with the booster. The crash shown above and a third stage malfunction. Rest where 4 upper stage problems. Last problem with the booster was in 2007 when s1 and s2 failed to separate. Between 1990 and 2007 where 4 malfunctions on the booster vehicle.So since 1990 7 failures of the actual proton. Especially given the hard economic times back than this is better as the misconception of the "unstable trap". And as for the early launches back in the 60ties: its like the N1 and even the not ultra-reliable sojus: russian rockets where mostly designed and tested "on the go" instead of ultra-hard trials of every part in some test benches. If it works, it works, kinda. Edit: have a look at Appendix.6: FAILURES CAUSES AND CORRECTIVE ACTION of the Proton Launch System Mission Planner’s Guide. Its really intersting.

Yea, apart from surface attach nodes (never tried them) it works like a charm.

Nine Salyut and Almaz space stations, eight TKS spacecraft, three Almaz radar imaging satellites, six modules for the Mir space station and two for the ISS, as well as the Proton 4 astronomical satellite, and the 82-EV test flight. Forty launches, used the Blok D upper stage, all of which were probes to the Moon, Mars and Venus, or tests in support of the manned lunar programme. The Blok D-1 was used carrying six Venera probes to Venus, the two Vega probes to Venus and Halley’s Comet, and the Astron and Granat observatories. The Blok D-2 was used to launch the two Fobos missions to Mars’ moon Phobos in 1988, and the failed Mars 96 mission in 1996. Without this venom-spitting beauty we would miss a bit more than "boring comm sats". (text snippets originated from http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2012/03/russian-proton-k-rocket-launch-us-kmo/ as i am lazy right now^^)