DaveyJ576

Excellent! Thank you. After almost three years of playing I am still learning stuff.

With the realization that only the crews of the Gemini missions used parachutes, what setting in the Persistent file do I need to change to stop the personal chutes from showing up in inventory each time? I think I know which one it is, but I want to confirm it prior to potentially gooning up the Persistent file. It is a pain having to remove the chutes from the inventories every time on the Mercury, Apollo, and Big G missions and those inventory slots could be better used for other things. The jet pack is okay to me, because they get used a lot. I would like to be able to give the astronaut a chute when it is needed, but I just don't want to have to remove it all the time. Thanks!

@CobaltWolf, Do you plan on having a 2.5m size retro module for use with the Equipment Module and the Cargo Module? The current Big G retro module is flared on the bottom to match the S-IVB size Equipment Module and does not work with the new modules you are working on. Thanks for the great work!

Please allow me to add: 9. White Sands Missile Range. A lot of early rocketry took place here, including WAC Corporal, V-2/ Bumper, and Viking. 10. Johnston Island Air Force Base. While no actual orbital launches took place from here, quite a bit of testing did, and there are some alt-history scenarios that postulated that JIAFB would make an excellent site for classified military manned orbital launches. 11. Katniss is a great mod and well done, but personally I prefer the look of the Cape Kanaveral mod. Please include compatibility for this one. Thank you!

Hello @Rodger. Thank you for providing this patch. I just downloaded it and tested. I placed the patch in the Parts/Mercury folder. It works very well. It does give you the "warning - no control" prior to leaving the VAB, but this can be safely ignored and my Mercury Atlas flew perfectly. I will be downloading the patch for Apollo next. Gemini and LM to come? Perhaps these can be dropped into the BDB extras folder. Thanks again!

@CobaltWolf, @Zorg and the dev team, please don't cringe when I ask this, but how hard is it to make jettisonable launch shrouds for solar panels and other exterior equipment? Since there are virtually none of them in game I would imagine that it isn't easy. For instance, when I launch the MOL the solar panels are exposed in such a way that if it was real life they would not survive the ride uphill. Are jettisonable shrouds even possible? The LFV is pretty cool, BTW. Thanks!

@CobaltWolf, @Invaderchaos, is there any chance we could see this in game? Would be very interesting. @Pappysteinmakes some great points on how the Saturn IB is modeled in BDB. It seems as if every reasonable buff has been already completed, so then we as users just have to find a way around it. One of my favorites is a four engine E-1 model... To add on to this discussion, I once read in an official NASA document (I apologize, I don't have the link anymore) that during a congressional interview that no less than Werner Von Braun himself admitted that the cluster tank Saturn I/IB was an expedient to get a powerful multi-engine booster flying in the quickest possible time at the most reasonable budget possible. He admitted that it was NOT an optimal design, acknowledging its limitations. Once built, they were stuck with it until they flew out all the units contracted for. I was left with the distinct impression that under different circumstances Marshall would have gone with a mono-tank design of much lighter weight. It also begs the question of what NASA would have done once the IBs were all flown. This part has been discussed to death, but I believe it is likely that the cluster tank IB would have given way to an ETS style S-IC or one of the non-cluster INT designs. Great stuff all!

Great work! Very interesting main probe kitbashing. The parts for the Keyhole film bucket and recovery system are very adaptable. I even use them as warheads… oops, “reentry vehicles” for Atlas and Titan ICBMs.

So I have been tinkering with my Johnston Island patch, and this yields pretty good results: This patch will give you this island in pretty much the correct location: I have a couple of questions: 1). For the grass color values, how do I change them so that the KSC base matches the background better? 2). How can I move the base slightly to the left, so that I can avoid this: This will give me a "secret" base from which to launch all sorts of semi-nefarious missions against those Krussians.

I am in the process of creating a new launch site on Johnston Island in the central Pacific. The file below is what I have so far. This portion will be added to the bottom of the KSRSS LaunchSites.cfg file. I have found through testing that adding this patch will create an island where none exists. My question is, is there a way to make the generated island smaller? It is quite large, much bigger than the real Johnston Island. It doesn't need to be much larger than the KSC base itself. Thanks!

@akron this this a good pairing. Both mods should benefit from the cross-mojo between the teams. I have used Probes Plus for quite a while and have always enjoyed it, and BDB is a staple of my set up. I am looking forward to great things from this team up! Its kind of like the Avengers of the KSP modding world!

After reading the above replies, I went back and tested again with a brand new from scratch build. Still getting the 90 degree wheel turn. Both front and back wheels on the side of the turn will pivot to 90 degrees (perpendicular). The wheels on the opposite side of the turn will pivot to the "normal" amount. Since I am the only one getting this problem it must be related to my install. Log and gamedata folder below.

I have been testing the new LRV. It is simply fantastic! A true work of art and a credit to the BDB Dev Team. The lack of a rover was the major gap that still existed in the BDB Apollo Saturn lineup. I do realize how difficult it must have been to work on it, so that makes the effort all the more appreciated. A couple of observations during my initial test, some of which could admittedly be caused by me being a dolt: DO NOT put any of the rover parts in the rover storage slots while in the VAB. It can cause RUDs to occur once you leave the VAB. I assembled the rover, put the remaining parts in the rover's storage slots, attached the rover to my J-class LM, then launched the LM out to the pad with the intention of doing a Hyperedit to the lunar surface. As soon as the LM touched down on the pad on Earth, the rover would partially explode. After a couple of resets, I went back to the VAB and moved the items out of the rover storage and into the LM storage. No more RUDs. Once on the moon, the deployment went fine, with the initial assembly going well until I got to the aft pallet. Despite me manipulating it around it was still crooked by a small amount, smaller than the fine rotation of 5 deg could fix. This may be me gooning it up. Also, the antenna that attached to the aft pallet was very difficult to orient into the correct position for attachment. It ended up clipping to the main rover plate in a weird position. These two issues may be caused by the limitations of the game's construction mode. I am not sure if the dev team can fix it. Lastly, during the test drive I found that the wheels turned left and right, a lot. If I tapped and held the A or D button the wheels would turn to a 90 deg position, perpendicular to the chassis. This makes for some very sporty turns! Is there an adjustment for this? All in all this is an amazing effort that I am grateful to have. Just a few more tweaks and it should be good to go. Thanks @CobaltWolf!

Taurus-Littrow?

Great idea! I have wanted to do my own Moonlab since I read about it in Voyage. I have a real life question though. Would the deployed solar panels have survived the fairly substantial Delta V maneuvers of TLI and LOI? Once deployed, how did they stay deployed? My layman’s interpretation would be that they would not be deployed until the engine had completed its work, but then you may run into a problem with having enough EC to get all the way to lunar orbit.

This would be excellent info for inclusion in @Friznit’s Wiki guide. I use it all the time. It is an awesome resource!

Excellent work. Your post, and my own runthroughs on KSP really drive home what could have been, if the people of the United States had possessed the will to do so and had not gotten wrapped up in political and social drama. Apollo/Saturn was wonderfully adaptive and it had an incredible amount of unrealized potential. On this 4th of July weekend I look forward to great things to come, but I also look back wistfully at the “future” that didn’t happen. My thanks go to the BDB dev team @CobaltWolf, @Zorg, @Invaderchaos, and the rest for giving us the ability to visualize this different path. Have a fun and safe weekend everyone!

Simply reposition the decal further up on the side of the spacecraft. It winds up being a not accurate placement historically, but it eliminates the annoying nearly transparent rod that sticks out from the roll thruster. Also, on the side of the spacecraft to the right of the window I had to eliminate the U.S. flag that would have normally been positioned directly below the "United States". It proved to be the culprit. I still have the flag on the side to the left of the window, but I had to move it and the United States further up the side than was historically accurate. It was a small price to pay. Even with this adjustment, Conformal Decals look great on this mod.

My kitbash of LC-37. I like it, but I wish we had a proper truss style gantry to use. I also added some buildings in the background to add the Air Force station and industrial area. There are additional pads to the south to recreate LC-3, 18, 26, and 11.

To be honest, until I read this post I never considered the concept of a recoverable Aardvark. It is strange that the ETS creators didn’t include one. I like it and will have to incorporate one into my Integrated Flight Plan I am developing for an upcoming planned historical playthrough. Its a great use for all those Apollo boilerplates I have laying around at Langley, White Sands, and the Cape!

Thank you @Zorgfor doing this. The current airlock design (a fine piece of work by itself) didn’t quite match the majority of the Wet lab conceptual drawings. This one is much closer! (And probably lighter too!)

@Beccab, without any doubt whatsoever, you are the official KSP "King of Kitbashing". My own mojo pales in comparison. Extremely well done!

This is superior, master level work @Zorg. It will make a great addition when done.

I see your LRV, and raise you one MET! (ducks while @CobaltWolfthrows his cards at me )

I have been flight testing a J-class LM with a deployable LRV. After deploying the LRV, I ran into the old problem of surface drift. The LRV just slides all over the surface of the Moon unmanned like it is on ice. I know there is a fix for this because I ran into it before, but I can’t remember what it is. I don’t have this problem with other versions of the LRV or MOLEM, just this new foldable one.