MKSheppard

Any possibility of a smaller, passenger-only version of the KSOS; with an accordingly smaller wing area (and less mass -- the thermal protection system for the space shuttle was 9 kg/m2) for when you just want to send Kerbals up, and not kerbals + station modules? Hacked together MSPaint photo of a hypothetical KSOS-P attached:

Any chance of seeing this updated for 0.23? Or does it already work?

Roark; be careful with this; I found out some interesting facts -- engines can use more than one method in the same engine -- for example; the F-1 IIRC uses a regeneratively cooled thrust chamber and regeneratively cools the bell nozzle out to expansion ratio 10:1. Below that point -- from 10:1 to 16:1; the engine basically used the turbopump turbine exhaust to film cool the nozzle expansion; which resulted in a lot of propellant theoretical energy being lost, making the F-1 quite inefficient compared to say the H-1, which was fully regenerative.

I actually have been working sort of on something like this for the last month -- but it's all basically C++ code that someone would need to convert to C# for use with KSP. I've been using a simple 1D nozzle modelling routine that was done by Tom Benson of NASA Glenn back in 2005 for a Web Java App -- I converted it to C++ and have been extending it since then. I recently managed to hack together a crude approximation of modelling the performance characteristics of a annular aerospike (aka plug nozzle); and I'm currently engaged in "modularizing" my code; so that I can reuse each module over different programs.

Helldiver, I know you might want to kill me for this... ...but have you considered doing mini shuttle variants? Off the top of my head; I can think of two variants: Extended Cargo Bay -- longer cargo bay with a larger delta wing to maintain the same wingloading as the "normal" version. No Cargo Bay -- Basically just a way to get people into orbit, with a smaller delta wing so the wingloading again remains the same as the "normal" version. Basically, there are schools of thought that say that the Space Shuttle (STS) was too "oversized" for what it was; and that a smaller, passenger-only shuttle with a minimal cargo upmass capability would have been much cheaper to operate -- if you're not carrying 65,000 lbs of cargo down from space; you don't need a huge 250 m2 wing which adds a lot of mass (of the wing itself) plus the thermal protection (approx 9 kg per m2 of wing area). Just a thought that popped into my head. You can disregard.

Kind of a dumb question, but does this provide thrust when fired?

Some suggestions for Stretchy SRB/Tanks: Is it possible to manually type in the parameter you want, e.g. you hit ALT-[x] and you can put in the precise length or diameter you desire?

Any chance of a UA-1202 and UA-1203 SRM? They were real proposals, as this August 1965 document I have from Scott Lowther details the potentialities for the "Titan IIID Standard Space Launch Vehicle". The "Titan IIID" shown in this (2x2 5 Seg) is actually pretty interesting. It's actually FOUR UA-1205 SRMs arranged in a cross pattern around the Titan III core. At liftoff, only two UA-1205s actually ignite -- Motors 1 and 2. They provide ALL the liftoff thrust until T+35 seconds, when Motors 3 and 4 ignite. At around T+75 seconds, Motors 1 and 2 burn out and are staged. At T+140 seconds, Motors 3 and 4 burn out and are staged, with the core igniting. There's a bit more detail in the original document, including thrust/time curves for the SRBs; drawings showing the changes between Motor 1/2 and 3/4 to accomodate the differing thrust profiles. Then there's this image that closes out the document, showing evolutionary paths open to the Titan family circa 1965: Note 156" diameter (UA-156x family) SRBs -- these were later reused/recycled for Saturn V uprating efforts. Also notice the proposed 156" diameter core for Titan as an evolutionary path. Both paths (156" diameter core AND 156" diameter SRBs) were combined into the proposed Titan IIIG. Link.

Is it possible to output this kind of stuff to a second monitor, or even to a touchscreen android tablet?

I know this is kind of late to quote the starting post in a thread but: Actually, for pretty much all liquid rocket engines; you can simply use the real thing's TWR ratio when making the Kerbalized version. I did a lot of looking into this using Glenn Research Center’s RocketThrust Simulator v1.5b and found the following rules of thumb worked sorta: Thrust Scaling Quadruple Thrust: Scale up size by a factor of 2 (200%) Double Thrust: Scale up size by a factor of 1.415 (141.5%). Half Thrust: Scale down size by a factor of 0.71 (71%) Quarter-Thrust: Scale down size by a factor of 0.5 (50%) Dimensional Scaling: Quadruple Size: Scale up thrust by a factor of 16 (1,600%) Double Size: Scale up thrust by a factor of 4 (400%) Half Size: Scale down thrust by a factor of 0.25 (25%) Quarter Size: Scale down thrust by a factor of 0.0625 (6.25%) (A more complete discussion is at my site: Link to Rocket Engine Scaling.) For KSP's 64% scaling; that translates into KSP engines having 0.4096x the thrust of their real life equivalents; e.g. the F-1A puts out 1.8 million pounds of thrust; but if you scaled her down to 64% for Kerbalkind, she'd only put out about 737,280 lbf of thrust and weigh 7,782.96 lb (F-1A's TWR was 94.73 at sea level). The one thing where all this rubber banding doesn't work is...nuclear. Nuclear needs a minimum critical mass for fission, among other things. If you want to maintain realism for nuclear thermal rockets; you need to look for actual NASA nuclear thermal designs in the 30,000 lbf thrust range and use them; instead of simply scaling a 75,000 lbf NERVA down.

Would it be possible to have a text warning flash on the screen? Deaf/hard of hearing here.

Some random points: 1.) Thanks for making it 1:1 scale; it makes rescaling it via the CFG parameters easier if you want a specific thrust. 2.) Will you make more historic rocket engines like the RL10?

So my laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 / 2.2 GHz, Mobile Intel GM45 Express, 4GB ram) isn't exactly doing KSP as fast as I'd like it with the latest version -- it now runs slow as heck, even with all the effects turned down. I'd like to get a new laptop to run KSP at an acceptable frame rate -- but I'm not willing to pay premium prices -- this laptop I paid only $600-800 for and it's lasted me since 2008! So what spec sheet would run the latest KSP at a reasonable frame rate with most of the graphic goodies turned on?

The parts are awesome, great modelwork and great texture work. My only niggle is that it appears that the Titan II parts at 2.5m diameter are 81% scale (10 ft/3.05m diameter in real life), compared to the Gemini Capsule which appears to be 64% scale. Reason I ask regarding the scaling is that there were proposals for scaled up Titans which would have been 15 feet (4.572m) and 16 feet (4.8768m) in diameter. These bigger Titans were known by two different designations: Titan IIIG, with a 180" diameter core -- proposed around late 1967 to 1969 as an alternative to the Saturn V/INT-20 by Martin: Selected Comments on Agena and Titan III Family Stages, Case 720; 26 March 1968, Bellcomm The Titan IIIG has a 15 ft. diameter core with a 4 engine first stage, and can use 7-segment 120-inch or 5-segment 156-inch diameter SRM. Low earth orbit payloads up to 100,000 lbs are claimed. Martin has generated a serious sales effort to sell this vehicle in competition to the Saturn derivative intermediate family (e.g., INT-20). (Note: They used two LR-87s and two LR-91s in all the large diameter core Titans, it's just that people kept counting nozzles and not turbopumps). Later, from Mid 1971 onwards, Martin proposed an even larger Titan variant; the Titan IIIL; which would have had a 192" diameter core, with various SRB options: There was even a proposal to use IIIL as a Space Shuttle booster with SIX (!!) UA-1207 SRMs strapped to the sides under the designation Titan IIIL-6:

Sir, you win ONE INTERNETS for actually making the idea I was pushing forth in this thread work: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/23824-Propellant-Plugs-in-for-Fuel-Tanks?highlight=propellant I need some more playing around with this to form a sufficiently informed opinion; but, sir. YOU WIN ONE INTERNETS ONCE MORE!!!!

So here's an improved version of Orson's original image, along with a ZIP file containing a XLS worksheet to convert from Blender Coordinates to KSP coordinates painlessly for you. I have it set up so that you can copy and paste from excel into the CFG file (with some massaging of it using the find/replace function to replace the white space tabs with nothing, then replacing "," with ", " and it ends up formatted correctly for the CFG file. [ATTACH=CONFIG]34908[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]34909[/ATTACH]

Don't forget to convert the coordinates by the scale factor in your CFG file! For example, if your CFG file had scale = 0.1 then Blender's Z 0.37751 would become: Y 3.7751

Is it possible to add a field to the ascent autopilot that lets you set a limit for maximum gee-load encountered? e.g. you put in 4.5 in a field, and during the ascent, MechJeb automatically throttles the engines to stay just a little bit under 4.5 gees. If there's nothing entered in max-g field, it would revert to the current default settings for engine throttling.

I actually did something like this for my own private mod that I'm still working on in bits and pieces -- it's playable on my computer, and I'm still refining the system a bit before I release it. Masses of engines? Check out real world engines, as engines are very "rubber-bandy" that can go up and down a wide range of maximum thrusts and retain their T/W ratios... [the one exception is Nuclear Thermal Rockets, you can't rubber band them] Link to Engines on my Website tl;dr: 1960s Kerosene Engines (H-1/F-1): 95~ 1960s Hydrogen Engines (J-2): 50-65~ 1960s Hypergolic Engines (LEM Descent Engine, etc): 20-30 1970s/80s Kerosene Engines (NK-33): 125~ 1970s/80s Hydrogen Engines (SSME): 70~ So lets say you have a Kerosene engine that puts out 200 kN of thrust. 200 kN is about 20,400~ kilograms-force. With a T/W of about 90, that means your engine would weigh: 20,400 kgf / 90 = 226.66 kg, or 0.226 tonnes. The reason you can't "rubber band" Nuclear Thermal Rockets is because you need a minimum amount of fissionable mass in the reactor to achieve criticality (the amount needed depends on how advanced your nuclear science is), and that's constrained by the laws of physics, which appear to work the same in Kerbalistani land as on Earth. Plus, there's the need for radiation shielding on the NTR, which is a very inflexible parameter. As for dry masses of tanks; NASA actually did the work for us: Link to NASA graphs Basically: ------------ MassTank = 10.41 * (VolumeTank^0.75) Where: MassTank: Mass of the propellant tank in pounds VolumeTank: Volume of the propellant tank in cubic feet (ft3) ----------- Note that this just considers the propellant tanks and their insulation; and propellant tanks are not perfectly cylindrical.

Just what it says. Perhaps there could be a "Debug" mode that lets you click on a specific part in the VAB and reload it's texture/CFG files, so that you don't have to keep reloading the entire game to test out changes. Or is something like this already in the game?

So setting breakingForce breakingTorque has no real effect on how engines or adapter plates (e.g. 3m adapter to have 2 x 1 m parts) behave in game; regarding their "Slipperiness"? I can't count how many times my engines or adapter plates have slid across the bottom of their tanks...