RyanRising

Oooh, that does look as nice as I was imagining! It is less unique I suppose, I’ll miss the old paint job in time, but for now I just think that’s some really pleasant rocket livery.

I like the way that sounds, as pointless a change as it might be. Would be neat to see some pictures, as my imagination might be making that look better than it does.

I wonder why we don't get to see the inside of the tank more often, especially during the second stage burn. It'd make a nice addition to looking at the engine bell, anyway.

I have tried it, and I understand what you’re talking about. But I don’t think it’s a bug - as far as I’m aware, this is functioning completely as intended. The engines always play a sound on startup, but this mod, as did RealPlume before it, changes that sound to be more inline with the sound you’d get from igniting a rocket engine. This is likely due to an expectation on the author’s part that the engine will mostly be started with some nonzero amount of throttle, and so they thought the tradeoff of it sounding out of place when the throttle was at zero was worth it. But it’s not a malfunction, it’s a limitation on the audio system that you can’t play different sounds for different amounts of throttle on engine ignition. So it really does come down to either being a fan of that choice or not. Clearly you’re not, so modifying the configurations would be a good choice. Or installing Rocket Sound Enhancement. That’s a good mod, and should produce sounds more in line with what you’d expect.

Oh, yeah, it is possible WaterfallRestock modifies what that sound is - I know Waterfall has sounds from KW rocketry amongst others in there. But it’s still the same behaviour you’d see in stock. If you’re not a fan of it, you could try deleting the part of the Vector configuration that deals with audio, or just editing it to replace the sound with the stock sound-vent-soft.

Isn’t that the case with all engines that have an ignition sound? Definitely not unintended behaviour due to this mod.

Assuming the first stage has a dry mass similar to that of the Falcon 9 v1.0 first stage at ~14 tons, you'll need 137.2 kN of thrust to hover, meaning you'd need at least six 25-kN Rutherfords, and with that number you'll probably incur pretty rough gravity losses (~1.09 TWR). While the main engines would obviously be too big for this application, Rutherfords are really too small. I do like the idea of using electric-pumped landing engines, they lend themselves well to that if I understand their characteristics right, but they'd need to have a scaled-up version to do that effectively.

That's amazing! I've wanted to see heat refraction effects ever since I saw this: Never was released unfortunately, but finally we can play around with something a little like it.

I think my favourite achievement in KSP was an interplanetary return. I’d spent years fooling around with just stations, planes, bases, what-have-you in Kerbin space. I’d managed to avoid going interplanetary at all during that time. I can barely remember getting something to orbit, I can remember some of landing on Minmus. But I couldn’t say I was good at the game until I’d managed to get a crew to Duna and back.

If I understand you correctly, the patches you’re looking for have been released and are under development here: Stock Waterfall Effects.

I had no idea they could land the thing on two Raptors. Either they’ve gotten the Raptors to throttle lower already, or the ship even in this state is a lot heavier than I thought it was. >160t, for two 200t-f raptors at 40%? Yikes. No wonder they’re trying to make the thing even more of a balloon tank than it already is it that’s the case. EDIT: or does that mean they’ll attempt a suicide burn?

With four legs, if there's a problem with one of them you most likely tip. It's a little more avoidable with active levelling, since you can try to tip it over onto the three remaining, but still less redundant. With six legs there are scenarios in which one just fails to deploy entirely yet you'd be fine on landing, while pointing straight up. It also allows for sixfold or trifold symmetry again, allowing the same three vacuum raptors they've planned for the normal Starship (yeah, not great for pulling the ship off the top in case of an abort, but that's not exactly a confidence-inspiring abort mode anyway), and probably six vacuum raptors for the upgraded refuelling Starship that may or may not come to pass.

Splitting the skirt would require a lot of reinforcement, but if there’s anything to be learned from all the shots people have been giving the landing legs, something’s probably got to give. Splitting the skirt in this way doesn’t necessitate a heatshield seam and provides an alternative path (around the covers) for the load to take. All the moving parts does make me a little nervous, but overall I just wish I had the sort of imagination you do. Would it be feasible to have six of these, with two coming out from under the rear flaps and the appropriate modifications made to those flaps’ and aerocovers’ shapes? Or does that mean you’ve got a severe gap in the heatshield again? Maybe it would be desirable to have them clocked so that one faces directly windward and leeward?

Nice! I know it’s not gameplay-critical, but the plumes in stock KSP always bothered me a bit. Not just how samey and consistently expanded (or over expanded?) they were, but how the particles got few and far between as the game slowed down. With what appears to be a mesh-based solution, I’m guessing we won’t see those issues in KSP2, as well as getting some nice eye candy!

I think it was up there to pull the centre of mass towards the nose a bit, so if that's right then you'd still want it for at least cargo and refuelling Starships that land empty. But I don't have any sources for that. Ooooh, I love that. Quick, someone tell me why it's unworkable!

So I should start playing with TUFX, huh?

Even if the legs were perfectly deployed I don't think the landing would've been soft enough to stop the kablooie. She came down too fast for that. I wonder if that was just the landing software not being quite tuned right (understandable, given the changes since the last successful landing), or if a Raptor was acting up yet again.

That was possibly the most exciting flight you could have. Was watching it with a roommate when it landed, and was in a discord server when it blew up. Both of those events were loud.

Nice, apparently you were exactly correct. Raptors continue to be difficult to work with. I'm getting a "hell or high water" feeling about this launch attempt what with the decision to recycle. Betcha they'll be watching that engine very closely during the flight.

Well, clearly someone with experience developing a partially-reusable medium launch vehicle thinks this was a good move: Maybe I was a bit too eager to think this was a move made of desperation, a sort of “Hail Mary.” Maybe it’s going to be just fine, and everything will work out. Hope so.

Thanks! I wasn’t ware they’d only plumbed the intended landing engines for restart capability, thought it was universal and they could light up whatever they liked. Makes a lot more sense to try restarting the failed engine in that case.

Yeah, SpaceX’s “Make humans multiplanetary” goal is not something that’s going to show great returns on investment any time soon. Rocket Lab, on the other hand, seems much more willing to cater to the market rather than what’s necessary for The Mission, which makes them a better fit for going public. Even if I have my doubts about this particular announcement, I still think I wanna buy a few RKLB shares when they start selling, just to have them.

Sounds like the engine failed on ascent, not descent, yet they still tried to use it for the landing burn. I'd have thought you'd switch to a different set of three, but hey, maybe they thought the issue had passed. Clearly it had not.

I really like Rocket Lab. I hope they know what they're doing here. It would seem dangerous to throw down their hat (after taking a bite from it) and challenge SpaceX, but I guess they had to after SpaceX was gobbling up their lunch with the rideshares. It'll be really sad if it doesn't pay off, and really wonderful if it does.

Hydrolox, huh? I'd have thought you'd use methane for it, though I guess in real life the only full-scale testing has been with hydrogen/oxygen ones. More references to work off of this way, yeah? EDIT: Also, since I didn't show the appropriate amount of appreciation, Yes! The aerospike!