NathanKell

Cool! Glad to see this in play!

We can't simulate axial tilt, so moons' inclinations are their inclination to their parent body's equator, not the ecliptic. TL;DR yes.

You need to add the ablative shielding RESOURCE block, and the ModuleHeatShield MODULE block, from, say, the 2.5m heatshield. You might also want to adjust the part's mass, keeping in mind that every unit of ablative shielding you add, adds a mass of 0.001 tons (so wet mass for the 0.12t shield with 1000 units of AblativeShielding will be 1.12t).

CactusLynx: Delete your MFT and your StretchyTanks folders and reinstall MFSC v3.1 RealFuels (or RFRM), and SSRB v5, and try again. Dante80: I would suggest using the procedural interstage adapter (with the top radius set to the minimum) for your SRB nosecones. With the egg fairings you can alter the curvature of the nosecone, too, if you place something on the inner node of the adapter. And you can make textures for the fairings. That said, I'd like to work with e-dog regarding using the procedural interstage as a way to make shaped stretchy tanks. When I'm home I'll post that effect on the PF thread. (that covers 1 and 3) The width and height I can add easily. Thanks for the idea! For decouplers: use procedural interstages. iVG: That sounds really weird. I'll try to replicate it at home. amo28: hey, cool! Not sure what I did to fix it though; I cleaned up some of the code and something there must have done it. Dante (again) that brushed metal is amazing! Do want (for my Atlas clone).

Wow, I leave for a day and there's all sorts of awesome contributions to the thread--thanks everybody! That deltaV info and map look very helpful! CaptainParty: Weird, I don't have issues on manual or MJ. Try removing mods one by one? pina_coladas: MrShifty did a fork for Krag's Planet Factory. I'll do one for this, it shouldn't be bad. mushroomman those are sooo pretty! I plan to work on getting the procedural planet textures to match those before long...

NeilC, thanks! Alas there's no compatibility between KIDS and MFS yet; ferram's been rather busy I think. I added some hooks in v3.1 for easy integration though (two public static multipliers that KIDS can set, and will be applied to all Isps). For now, go into the MFT folder in GameData, then RealFuels, and open RealSettings.cfg. Just replace each Isp with one a third its value (the first is key = 0 275 so change it to key = 0 91.7 ) Also make sure useRealisticMass is set to true, then you don't need to use "adjusted" mode and can use a straight 1/3 multiplier.

asmi: cool! Will verify when I get home, and add for next release (and check the other shields). combat squirrel: try following FlowerChild's suggestion and increasing shockwave exponent. It turns out that Kerbin just isn't that deadly if you use real life heat values on a planet 1/3 the size of the Moon. Holmes: go to GameData/DeadlyReentry and delete custom.cfg. Presto, default values return. drtedastro: shouldn't be hard to add DREC-compliant attributes to those heatshields, just like DREC does for HOME. I trust that legacy parts still generate confignodes that MM can modify.

ferram, regarding the heat shield, asmi noticed that breaking force and torque weren't set. Setting them to 630 fixed the issue for him; I'll confirm on my end when I get home.

Oh hey, one other thing you might like. Just before I left I edited some parts to realistic values (Solar panels based on Medieval Nerd's work). Estimated date is 1964 for the batteries, and 1962-1980 for solar panels. Grab file from this post: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55145-0-22-WIP-Alpha-Real-Solar-System-v5-1-HOTFIX?p=769458&viewfull=1#post769458 Has all batteries and solar panels edited, the RTGs set to real values, the two ballistic pods rescaled to their "real" sizes (and a 4m heatshield and some Mercury parts if FASA is installed), and probes given realistic (i.e. kWHr-class) batteries. Assuming you decrease power usage of all RT2 parts by a factor of ten, then you should get roughly realistic current draw on your probes. (1EC/s = 1kW) Also, you might want to grab the latest Remotech2 from github; Cilph accepted my pull request for semi-realistic max range behavior (where max range of a link = range_weaker + sqrt(weaker*stronger) ) and multiple antenna support. (Set range mode Additive in RT2 settings.cfg) Should probably set the range multiplier to 10x, too.

gunnyfreak: The version of MFS. MFS with RealFuels with Realistic Masses. And--aw, thanks. Chimer4: Yup. It's what I get for developing on a 2560x1600 monitor. If it makes you feel any better I'm in the same boat til I get home--my laptop, at 1280x800, cuts off the GUI too. Really sorry, it'll be fixed ASAP. Malsheck: Thanks! Here is your new best friend: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvHneDAy4k99dHlhdktvZW1NS1lndlhNNnRwd3FEblE&usp=drive_web#gid=7 Save a copy so you can edit it. It's what we use for generating engine configs, Isp configs, etc. I settled on 1 KSP Volume unit = 1/200 m^3, based on comparing KSP tank size to existing rocket stages and their fuel volumes. Go to the Volumes page to see all fuels and their volumes (and have a nice mass ratio to volume ratio calculator). Note that it's not quite up to date, but no fuel stats changed (I just added Methane). MFS v4 will have a bunch of changes.

Yep! sarbian, I'll be swapping over to this on the next releases of all my stuff that uses it. Thanks so much!

Yeah, super sorry about that! It'll be fixed when I get home.

Reboot is up (link in sig). Only the intro; I just barely have enough power on my laptop to launch an Armbrust.

OOC Information: This thread chronicles an alternate space race. It is on an Earth whose history is the same as ours, until the point of divergence during the US Civil War (technically, Wendell Phillips's sickly wife taking a turn for the better in 1862 or so, leading to an even more politically engaged Phillips during and after the Civil War...the butterfly effects mount quickly.) It is a reboot of The KATO Space Race, which was a thinly veiled kerbalification of this same history (Kerbicans, Kritish, Kermans, RAF Boskombe Down, Rothbin Koddard, etc.) This reboot features more realism (including the real solar system, a work in progress) prettier rockets, and somewhat redone material. Please feel free to ask history questions. I gloss over many things, writing "in character," and even noticing some divergences may require a knowledge of historical minutiae. Relevant Mods Used: Everything I've made (obviously): Real Solar System, Real Fuels, Deadly Reentry Continued, StretchySRB, Realism Overhaul. RftSEngines (see below), obviously. Engines and some parts from AIES, NP2, KW Rocketry, RLA Stockalikes, Space Shuttle Engines FASA Firespitter (with some half-size parts) B9 turbojet Visual Enhancements Engine Ignitor Crew Manifest FAR KJR RealChutes Procedural Fairings KSPX SDHI Service Module Procedural Wings RemoteTech2 with my range algorithm and other tweaks ReStock parts Sam Hall's Mk2 Cockpit IVA TAC Fuel Balancer ECLSS Touhou Torpedo's Mk3 parts Taverio's Pizza and Aerospace EVA Parachutes And various support mods like MechJeb, Editor Extensions, RCS Build Aid, etc. ]RftS Pack (current dev release) - Required for any RftS craft. Parts, tweaks, and comes with RftSEngines, so delete your own copy first if you have it. Updated 1/24/14. Note you will need the latest ExsurgentEngineering plugin from careo (HERE--replace any existing ExsurgentEngineering.dll with it, or install it into GameData/ExsurgentEngineering/Plugins [making folders as necessary].)

Craft of Reaching for the Stars Introduction: Armbrust - a German short range ballistic missile of the Second World War. Higher, Faster Part 1: Fat Albert - a USN standoff attack rocket of the Second World War. Wren - JPL sounding rocket, boosted by a Fat Albert. Higher, Faster Part 2: Pfeil - a German tactical ballistic missile: militarization of prewar Repulsor, first large liquid-fueled rocket. Repulsor - postwar sounding rocket, demilitarization of Pfeil. Final development of Repulsor series.

Table of Contents Introduction (above) I: Higher, Faster Part 1: US Sounding Rockets and Their Wartime Roots (US) II: Higher, Faster Part 2: Postwar Sounding Rockets and Their Wartime Roots (Germany) III: Faster than the Sun: Postwar British Jet Research (Britain)

Author's note: For a prequel of sorts, see Jane's All the World's Hunters of the French Civil War. Reaching for the Stars An Alternate Space Race (Roundel of the League of Nations, post-Second Covenant) It was the dawn of a new age on Earth. The three remaining great powers, the victorious allies of the Second World War, had drawn up a permanent treaty of friendship and international governance, turning the League of Nations into a true law of peoples. Beating swords into ploughshares, they now turned their attention to the skies above: this new age would be the age of rockets. The origins of space exploration can be traced to before the two world wars. All the great powers had their pioneers, but perhaps the greatest was Konstanin Tsiolkovsky of Russia, who had worked out most of the fundamental theories before the First World War. Aviation was the big thing however, and Tsiolkovsky’s equations lay unnoticed for some time. In the interwar years, rocketry grew in popularity, as clubs and universities launched sounding rockets to probe the upper atmosphere, much as had the balloonists of the Belle Epoque. In America, Robert Goddard, a keen follower of Tsiolkovsky’s work, launched the first liquid-fueled rocket in 1921. His claims that such a rocket could one day reach the moon were met with mockery by a Times editorial, but some knew better. Tapped to head the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at CalTech, Goddard quickly gathered to him a group of fellow rocket aficionados. A similar situation developed in Germany, with young scientists and engineers like Irene Bredt and Adolf Thiel working with the renowned expatriate aerodynamicist Theodore von Karman at RWTH Aachen; together they founded the Verein für Raumschiffahrt, the Spaceflight Society. They were quickly launching sounding rockets of their own, helped by the philanthropy of the Kaiser and of the Lilienthal-Junkers Foundation (and its close ties to the often-ruling SPD). In Tsiolkovsky’s native Russia, blue-sky research took a backseat to rearmament. Indeed Tsiolkovsky himself was forced into exile as the crackdown on the RSDLP and the SRs (or anyone who sounded the least bit like a socialist) intensified after the First World War. Many later-famous scientists and engineers would share his fate, escaping before the Second World War; an expatriate community of rocketeers formed around Tsiolkovsky in Britain. Across the channel, France, Russia’s First World War ally and partner in defeat, was itself all too busy rebuilding. The other second tier powers--Japan, Italy, the Ottomans--made their own experiments, but they too had their own problems. The British Empire was no second-tier power, but did not claim any firsts in rocketry in the interwar period--indeed British law, dating to 1875, precluded the private launching of liquid-fueled rockets, so the British Interplanetary Society, founded soon after the VfR, and counting both native Britons and expatriate Russians in its number, could only dream, not build. The British made a different contribution to high speed flight: the jet engine. While the invention soon spread, throughout the Second World War British jets would remain the best in the world, a great advantage for the Allied cause. The ground was well-laid for an explosion in rocketry; theory, experiments, technology from other fields. All that was needed was a spark. The Second World War provided that spark. Both continental opponents--the German Empire and the Russian Empire--poured massive sums of money into their rocketry programs. The German goal was simple: develop a missile that could hit Petrograd from launch sites in East Prussia, and later (after its loss) from central Germany. Russian research, given the strength of Russian panzer armies, was focused more narrowly, primarily on smaller tactical military rockets--rocket artillery and SRBMs designed to pierce German and British air defenses. In the United States, rocketry also saw much interest, both for research and for war. Missiles seemed the only hope of staving off the Russian Bear in the early, dark days of the war--if Germany were overrun and metropolitan Britain cowed, only a radical new weapon, the nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile, could give America the chance of victory. If things went better, as they eventually did, then the Army and the Air Force could use shorter-ranged missiles that could overfly and avoid Russian air defenses and provide standoff capability for carrier-launched aircraft. As the Russians were gradually pushed back and eventually forced into surrender, the Allies scrambled to pick over the pieces of Russian technology. The Russians had advanced far with solid fuels--necessary for convenient battlefield usage--and these were quickly tested and copied. But solid fuels alone would not yield the stars. In Russia, the Left SR-RSDLP coalition that took power after the final collapse of the Tsarist regime was far too busy rebuilding to focus on any kind of space race. But a race there was. First, it was just a resumption of the interwar competition to see who could launch the most advanced, highest-and-fastest-flying sounding rocket or aircraft. But soon it intensified. The Americans, British, and Germans had just signed the first attempt at a permanent, empowered international order--the famous Second Covenant of the League of Nations--and had forsworn all war under its auspices. Antagonism was dead, rockets needed new use, but nationalism was still alive. And German SRBMs had kissed the edge of space on their way to Petrograd. German Armbrust (Crossbow) SRBM, range 500km, warload 1 ton. See also: Postwar range test with late-war improvements.

Aw, thanks! KATO is now officially ended; I'm about to post the first post of the reboot, Reaching for the Stars: Earth’s Rocket Age. Same background and [similar, improved] story, but (a) prettier rockets, ( MOAR REALISM, and thus © no more fake names. By the time serious business starts I hope to have an actual earth texture and heightmap, even. You know, the whole making-of-realism mods as my schtick actually grew out of KATO; I gradually got more and more invested in having my KSP as real as possible (and, re ST and PF, having the right textures for my rockets) and I started modding myself... I meant space race as era of tech, not as geopolitical setting. I get that you have a totally different historical background but I took your comments about TL as regarding the kind of rocketpunk feel you wanted. (KATO, and now RFTS is solidly alternate history itself and will eventually see a united world [more or less]; the POD is actually in the US Civil War, these are 90-years-on butterflies)

borisperrons, thanks so very much! And good catch noticing that India remains very much within the Imperial fold. Regrading the HARC: If you surface attach a cubic strut to the wingtip, but use wasd to rotate it so the axis of the nodes are parallel to the wingtip, you can then attach tanks to it using its nodes. You may have to have clipping on for that to work; probably not. Note that the strut is entirely hidden within the tank. You could also surface-attach a 0.625m stretchy tank, of course. As I'm about to reboot this...as I said I would some posts up I'll post my craft files for KATO. A few may be dependent on unreleased mods, but most should work. You'll need everything in the second post in the thread. I'll make a post in Spacecraft Exchange for it. In other news...I'm about to reboot this. Look for Reaching for the Stars: Earth’s Rocket Age coming soon.

Oh I am so following this. Looks awesome! (You had the same thought as me--I'm restarting KATO on Earth...) A tip on GTOs: as long as your perigee is above the atmosphere, you needn't fire your kick stage at first apogee; with an irrational period you'll eventually end up over KSC at apogee, it just may take quite a few orbits. A note on tech levels: at the bottom of the MFS readme I lay out the rough time correspondence for TLs. If you're going for that Space Race feel, I suggest TL2-3, with some early stuff at TL1 and some late stuff at TL4 (aka 1968-1972). TL0 is really World War 2 / postwar level; I really wouldn't like to try to orbit with it (although I was trying to make a TL0 single-stage ICBM once, ouch.) Another tip on techlevels: you might want to keep your hypergolic TL about one behind for orbital stuff, to represent the performance loss in pressure-fed engines. You also might want to look at Engine Ignitor; I'm going to write MFS interoperability for MFS v4, but you can certainly use it now...

FlowerChild: It's the 4m Apollo heatshield I released here (a rescaled 2.5m one, so the stats should work on the 2.5m one too): http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55145-0-22-WIP-Alpha-Real-Solar-System-v5-1-HOTFIX?p=769458&viewfull=1#post769458 848 because the Apollo heatshield massed 848kg and I was going for a 1:1 clone.

With a modular engine added to the vessel, open MJ's DeltaV stats. Click All Stats. A new column will show up, SLT. That shows Sea Level TWR. The other TWR measures are for vacuum. Note that Atmo time and Vac Time are now identical since fuel flow is constant.

Sorry, I interpreted that as 1.2 meter pod, not the Mk1-2 pod. Sounds like the exact same issue I'm having then--the resize is probably immaterial. ferram said he's looking into it. Have you tried without KJR? When I tried the 4m size version without KJR, it worked (even with my gigantic S-IC of ~560 tons).

Kerolox has almost the same impulse per unit volume as stock KSP's LF/Ox. Hypergolic NTO/MMH is denser, but the engines have lower specific impulse; you'll get more impulse per unit volume but it'll be more than proportionally heavier. Hydrolox...I don't have a rule of thumb for that. Haven't played enough with it to know (my personal space race is barely in alt-1960).

For a shield with only 848 units of ablative shielding I used these values and it deorbited fine (peak G around 7): { // loss is based on the shockwave temperature (also based on density) key = 650 0 // start ablating at 650 degrees C key = 2000 480 // peak ablation at 2000 degrees C key = 5000 600 // max ablation at 5000 degrees C } dissipation { // dissipation is based on the part's current temperature key = 300 0 // begin dissipating at 300 degrees C key = 800 170 // maximum dissipation at 800 degrees C } For the 2.5m shield, 240 sounds about right for a lunar return. asmi: Huh. Are you using KJR? As you might have seen from that thread I had an issue with my 4m Mk1-2 and a 4m shield. If not...I'll check. You _do_ know that you don't need a shield for the Mk1 pod, right? It has a built-in shield. It must look awful funny with an extra shield. Or did you need a thicker shield?