sgt_flyer

@cubinator extremely good idea that rubik's cube a few ideas for you to improve it. you should be able to translate your docking ports so their docking section just barely shows above the surface of the structural panels (they will still be able to dock), then you should be able to shrink the seams as a result. (this way, the sections should be able to glide more smoothly, the sunken docking ports should create less jams (as their geometry would be mostly covered by the structural panel geometry.) now, for the bearings like Majorjim, i worked too on bearings , i had to build a few extremely tight bearings, for use on the stock ISS (notably in the canadarm selfish_meme and myself are making , here's a variation of one of the bearings i made for that : (the bearing itself is the decoupler and everything above it) if you need it for your rubik's cube - it can still bend a bit, but it goes back to flat on it's own (under gravity or not) for making those bearings, i tested the various parts that makes the bearings to know where the collision layers are exactly, and translated the elements to be in contact with the geometry (one possibility, is to 'drop' them on each other - and see the separation (the actual collision layer being smaller than the 3d model) the following pictures i moved some elements around to show how it's built the two reaction wheels are directly attached one to the other. the 3 ox-stats visible between the two small reaction wheels are attached to the decoupler - they keep the lower reaction wheel 'pressed' against the decoupler, and prevents bending (as they are sandwiched within the slight gap that exists between the collision layer of the two reaction wheels. those bearings work very well for keeping parts with low RPM things 'flat', centered and contained (even if you give them a nudge in yaw or pitch, it'll stabilize itself) keep in mind though, this bearing is made in 1.1 - the physical collision layers have changed a bit between 1.0x and 1.1, when squad had to reexport the models for unity 5, so what you see here might end up needing a different amount of translation in 1.0x and unity 4 here's the subassembly of the 1.1 bearing, if you want to test it (for your subassembly directory) (it's not backwards compatible though) https://www.dropbox.com/s/zcdsnatef8jeyun/flat hinge.craft?dl=0

yeah, ended up facing similar issues with the stock canadarm i made for the stock iss @selfish_meme and me are working on. as the stock canadarm has even more limitations than the real one, in some cases, i ended up changing the canadarm's targets / payload position for having an easier time

@cubinatorfrom here, now that you built your own bearing, you'll see it's a lot of the following to make it work smoothly : slights adjustment in vab -> test -> back to VAB for new adjustment and so on a slight thing to help stabilise your bearing's tilt with 1 or 2 parts - you can attach an OX-stat to the cage, and position it with the translation tool so it ends up between the two small reaction wheels of the rolling part (of course, there has to be nothing else there ^^) the result is that if the gap between the two RWs is finetuned just to the ox-stat's thickness, if the bearing tries to tilt it'll be stopped by the solar panel. keep in mind though (especially in 1.05) - the physical colliders don't exactly match the visible 3d model. (the colliders are generally slightly smaller) - so don't be afraid to experiment

for lots of undocking, as long as there's no major force trying to push the bearing out of his roll cage during docking events, you should be fine. for controlling it's turn from the center part, if it's meant to turn in only 1 direction, mmh - maybe you can make two sets of landing legs (or landing gearts) - alternating between the two sets of legs/gears to push the other part (ex : legs set 1 deploy and push against a panel) - then retracts, not yet in range of it's second panel). set 2 deploy and push against it's own panel, then retracts) - legs set 1 has now a new panel accessible for pushing then retracting) . jet / rocket engines exhaust pushing against the other part could work too.

for making open ended fairings : place your fairing base, don't make a shape. place a part (or several, to make clearance) on the payload side of the fairing, including a part large enough to close the fairing around it with the needed opening. shape the fairing to your liking, close it around the last part. remove that last part, the fairing disappears. from there, use the Undo command (ctrl+z), the part reappears, but not the fairing. then use the Redo command, the part disappears, and the fairing's shape you made reappears, open ended note, if you pick up directly the fairing base (and not the part before it) and replace it after having built the fairing shape, you will have to use again the undo / redo command to restore the fairing's shape. for copying a fairing shape, you need to save the original as a subassembly, and use the subassembly each time you want a new copy (symmetry don't work on keeping fairing shapes either) works exactly the same in 1.05 or 1.1 note, 1.1 open ended (or interstage) fairings are made of a lot of colliders - these can negatively affect the game (and it's colliders multiplied by the number of placed segments in addition to the rest !) besides, 1.1 1.25m fairings are not really round inside - they have 8 colliders per vertical slice in x2 mode (so, octogonal), 9 colliders in x3, 8 in x4, and x12 in x6 (so that would be the most round). @JZ6 bearing in 1.1 would end up being made of 7 vertical slices, in x6 for most interior roundness, so you end up with 42 individual colliders for this bearing alone - creating a dry bearing instead would drastically reduce the number of colliders afterwards, for smooth low rotation speeds in microgravity, dry bearings can work very well (and can be made really compact ! - ex, a 0.625m part with x6 solar panels around it). just be sure there's no straining on the bearing during docking events . create some test rigs if you want to check the smoothness of parts - place an I-beam or another flat parts, and mount the part you want to test on a decoupler (with additional probe cores, reaction wheels and RTG's attached to the part) above that flat part - then decouple it, switch to it, and observe how it 'rolls' to determine it's shape. in any case (wheeled or dry bearing),to ensure smooth operation, it's important to have the center of mass of the rotated part in the middle of a single bearing (or in the middle of two bearings if you use two)

the R7 booster visibility is also stated on wikipedia further down the sputnik 1 article they explain that too (in the launch and mission section) some info though - you can use a square cage around a rounded part to create a joint (or a structural girder inside a structural fuselage should work too) to limit partcount - you don't need to have both elements of the joint rounded - counterweights can also work too instead of separatrons (the physics engine is accurate enough for that)

a note on the Sputnik history it's not the satellite that was visible from the ground it was the much bigger R7 Core stage that was visible from the ground, which was also in orbit (as sputnik had no propulsion, the core stage had to accelerate to orbital speeds before separation ) - they even installed deployable reflective panels on the stage to help tracking it

mmh. Be careful on physical collider count - the game performance in Unity 5 is affected by the number of colliders more than the number of parts now. (the more colliders present, the longer the 'freezes' will happen upon vessel loading) so even welding parts won't help much in those cases - parts with complex physical collider shapes (like the hollow structural fuselage) are made of lots of simple colliders instead of 1 complex. (that's one of unity 5 changes) still, good luck with the modded ISS

texture remap on the fairings of the soyuz booster? nice

the version assembled in editor then hyperedited into orbit is not meant for anything else than pictures it's very shaky - even with SAS disabled ! I Don't really know if it's because of cpu usage or something else though - the version assembled up to P6 is not shaky at all, even under SAS, so it's hard to compare

sorry there's going to be some delays for the follow up started an IT learning course, and it's taking quite a big chunk of my time at the moment (for the next 9 months !) so i won't be able to push up so many vids like i did before i started the course.

mmh - looking again at the graphic, there's also the launch angle to take into consideration. any other launch angles than the one stated in the images will allow less maximum payload (as they'll have to spend delta-V for changing the inclination of the orbit during the launch). that also could make a customer going with one launch provider or another Kourou / baikonour / vostochny / the cape / vandenberg have an easier access to some orbits than flights from boca chica (as spaceX will have to avoid the landmasses from boca chica, or they'll need to use the cape or vandenberg with all the red tape it implies for other orbits)

@KerbalOmmex heh i had to make them fit within 1.35m, so yes, i clipped 3 MK-1 command pods inside that now, the real soyuz descent module is also extremely cramped ^^ (especially with all the packages !) there's a reason soyuz has an orbital module to give additionnal living space to give an idea of how much cramped is soyuz, the real Soyuz descent module is 2,17m in diameter for a crew of 3. The Mercury capsule for one astronaut had a diameter of 1,89m

it'll depend on the size you work with, but the Thud engine (MK-55) can be easily combined to create an engine array (especially if you apply the scale of KSP to R7 booster dimensions - KSP parts are scaled at around 64% of the parts they are inspired from ;)) afterwards, fairings can be used to create nice custom boosters

heh that's the shortest fairing of the chaos star series ^^' the other ones have the same fairing diameter, but are longer with moar boosters i built these series trying to maximise tons per part (though, there's a good chunk of the partcount coming from the array of struts designed to even the load across the rocket) the series was created to allow to put huge fuel depots or huge drive pods for motherships in orbit in a single launch

@Benji13 mmh - can your payload fit within one of the stock fairings diameter wise ? if yes, then it's feasible to use a premade launcher if your payload cannot fit within a fairing, then it'll need a custom built launcher to take into account it's aerodynamics if your payload can fit within a stock fairing (maximum diameter avaible with the 3,75m fairing), i can update my Chaos Star 500 for 1.1 (and reupload it) it's able to carry 500 tons to a 80x80 orbit, so it'll have no problem to bring a 250ton payload to a 400x400 (i have two other version capable of launching 1200 and 1500 tons, but those would be wayyy overkill ^^) part count - 278 without payload.

i've seen figures for 10000 lb-f - or 45kN for the gau-8A recoil, vs the TF34's 40kN (~9000lb-f) of thrust for each of the A-10's engines (don't mix kg-f and lb-f ;)) in practice, the recoil only slows the plane for a few km/h when firing, because you also have to take inertia into account http://www.gd-ots.com/armament_systems/ags_A-10.html i prefer the gsh-6-30 though with a rate of fire up to 50% faster than the GAU-8, while it's lighter relevant xkcd ^^ http://what-if.xkcd.com/21/

a new preview of the fully assembled ISS, with all modules (pre BEAM) - 1246 parts !

And here's the video for P6 truss assembly and solar array deployement a few infos about what was done in the video : the video is made of 3 joined clips, because i had to timewarp through the night before deploying each section of the solar arrays. i've sped up to x8 the solar array deployement sequences, as it's a bit repetitive past adding the first element. the small RCS drone used for assembly is disabled by default, so don't forget to enable the 4 quad RCS thrusters, the reaction wheels and to activate the monoprop fuel tank before using the drone. i've rotated the station for the solar array assembly, in order to have the sideways docking ports lined up with the east-west line on the navball for having a much easier time adjusting the rotation of the various solar array segments before docking them in place. i also check if the solar arrays are on the good side by deploying one of them, and turning them 180° if needed. The files for the mission : here's the prepared shuttle .craft file with the P6 truss as a payload, ready to take off : https://www.dropbox.com/s/9024nm4iw1bjf2z/STS-97.craft?dl=0 (you can use the 5 module ISS save released earlier as a starting point, if you want to fly STS-97 to the station) here's the save file with the shuttle docked to ISS, after ascent and rendez-vous : (the P6 truss is still in the cargo bay) https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ggfsevkimd8o62/STS-97%20Assembly.sfs?dl=0 and here's the 5 modules ISS save file (the picture of this state is visible in the previous post) : https://www.dropbox.com/s/r92zj4k4pq8z4hg/ISS%205%20modules.sfs?dl=0 list of modules composing the station in this save file : - Unity (+ PMA 1, 2 and 3) - Zarya - Zvezda (with Progress docked on Aft end of Zvezda) - Z1 truss - P6 truss with deployed solar array wings Next mission will be the installation of the Destiny lab (STS-98)

well, body lift is supported by the current aero system so spinning things can generate some amount of lift like a propeller does stock propellers have been made before from SAS units - but they are still quite weak for anything heavy

ok, i just attached the P6 truss on ISS, and deployed the solar array wings (mission STS-97 :)) i'll finish the video edit & upload later this weekend

you should change your file hosting site this particular file hosting site is banned on this forum, any links towards it are automatically moderated. (because the ads they serve are not always appropriate) you should check on dropbox / onedrive / googledrive etc as potential alternatives . it's also usually useful to post some pictures alongside with the .craft files (you can use imgur for example to host images / create image albums that can be embedded)

Z1 Truss and PMA-3 installed (STS-92) - video and .craft files to follow edit ok, the assembly video of Z1 truss and PMA-3 is up here's the shuttle .craft file with the integrated payload : https://www.dropbox.com/s/mrotr30ko7b9fpk/STS-92.craft?dl=0 here's the save with the shuttle docked to ISS, with the Z1 truss and PMA-3 still inside the cargo bay, ready for assembly : https://www.dropbox.com/s/j119n1xypwsc2uv/STS%2092%20assembly.sfs?dl=0 quick notes on this mission : like in the video, be sure to rotate the canadarm's ARM by 180° - this offsets the whole canadarm in the correct direction for allowing to place the elements. note, don't forget to try to disable the SAS on the arm and the forearm elements just before docking the modules to ISS (else, they will rip off the arm - especially the PMA-3 is a bit nasty to place) don't forget to quicksave before attempts you can eventually redock the canadarm between elements, if you want to quicksave between the installation of the two elements here's save for ISS after the mission : https://www.dropbox.com/s/3a1orrtiqbttccw/ISS%204%20modules.sfs?dl=0 Modules for this save : Zvezda Zarya Unity (+ PMA 1, 2 and now 3) Z1 truss Docked spacecraft : Progress on the aft end of Zvezda

you can reduce the gimbal range with the slider if you need but i'd prefer they keep their current maximum gimbal range very useful for assymetric rockets like shuttles still, yes, too much control authority (either from SAS or gimbal range) can be dangerous with the current PID controllers on my soyuz cluster pic, the thud's gimbals are disabled, only the 24-77s are providing thrust vectoring ,

testing up Z1 / PMA-3 installation (STS-92)