biohazard15

A couple of QoL suggestions: 1) Toggleable upper "spider" truss for Atlas V adapter - to accomodate stuff you can put into the hole, such as Orbus-21 shown above. 2) Toggleable nose covers on NC-6, if that's even possible with SAF. For those who want a more sensible LES solution (Restock LES fits perfectly, and looks great)

Love that central hole (That's Orbus-21 from BDB)

Delta IV adapter? Guess some do like to live dangerously. ...guess it HAD to have SOME problem with RCS, huh. Anyway, great job as always!

It lives!

"Reliability guaranteed" - that made my day

If you mean B-52, then no, you'll need to build one yourself. If you mean a vertical launch, there's a dedicated adapter to put it onto a rocket and launch it like X-20.

There is a bug with new Centaur arms - the part name in cfg is the same as the old one (AM_MLP_AtlasUmbilicalArmCentaur, instead of AM_MLP_CentaurUmbilicalArms) and the old part is still present, which results in new part not loading.

Physical-based rendering - a technique to create realistic light reflections on surfaces. Metallic surfaces are shiny, etc. You need two aforementioned mods (Resurfaced and Shabby) and the latest BDB dev version from Github.

Nice! Although seeing how much this mod plans to borrow from BDB, I'd say just integrate it into the latter.

Use mini radial decoupler and fiddle with move tool a bit to line up SRM's struts with Thor skirt's respective holes. Editor Extensions mod is highly recommended for 9x symmetry.

You want a honest advice about playing with BDB 1.14 Dev? I mean actually playing, like starting a new save and such, and not just fooling around in sandbox? DON'T. 1.14 is going to be a literal Apocalypse to pretty much all your crafts that include BDB parts. You see, merging parts requires making a new part - a literal new part, with a new ID, cfg and such - which means that you'll have to rebuild all your crafts that use this part. Old parts may be just deprecated and not deleted, but that doesn't free you from the Big Rebuild. Personally, I'm just fooling around and dabbling with rebuilding. Actual rebuilding will come no sooner than BDB team declares that it's safe to do so. Or 1.14 release.

To clarify: default GLV can orbit Gemini with extended tanks, it just means that Gemini would need to do a longer burn. BTW, according to Ed Kyle, early proposal for GLV was a Titan II with stretched 1st stage ("Titan 2.5", as he calls it). I think it was a bit shorter than IIIM, though. The proposal never materialised due to time and budget constrains.

Moving on to Mercury. This is a real quick MA-5 build, without any towers and such (although I did use the updated MLP Atlas stand and skirt doors). Note the G Force setting on skirt. You don't want to jettison it on reaching particular TWR; you want to drop it when sustainer (and verniers) can achieve 1 or more TWR without it. If you jettison it too early, you won't have enough TWR = more fuel needed to leave the atmosphere (if you even can do that at all). On this particular build, the "sweet spot" is at around 3.8. It's unique to every Atlas, so be sure to always set your skirt correctly. PVG settings are same as on Gemini - 50\0.5, 120x120. Note the TWR - it's just a bit above 1, as it should be with Atlas. And here's the result. 680 m/s of dV is definitely "a lot of fuel to spare"! Note that I use Snacks mod, which adds weight to crewed parts. Addendum: How to setup Atlas skirt properly (You WILL need MJ's dV stats info for this): 1) Build your Atlas - a full rocket with payload. 2) Detach the skirt and place it aside. 3) If they're not here, move LR-105 and LR-101s to the lowest stage. Said stage must not include anything else, only these three engines. 4) Remove the same % of LF and OX from every 1st stage tank (adapter, core, upper) until your TWR is a bit above 1 (this is why you need MJ - to display this info). 5) Reattach the skirt. 6) Move LR-89s to the same stage as LR-105 and LR-101s, and check if the said stage is the lowest one (if necessary. Usually it is necessary, since KSP's auto-assigning is *heavily censored Russian Mat*). 7) Note the TWR - this is number you're need. Open skirt's PAW and set the "G Force" slider accordingly. It is recommended to take some extra precautions - just to be safe. (Example: your pre-jettison TWR is 3.73. Move the slider to 3.8. These are numbers from the above MA-5, BTW). 8) REFILL THE TANKS, check the staging one more time, and launch. EDIT: Whoops, forgot the LES. EDIT 2: Did a launch with LES, jettisoned it right after the skirt. Same skirt settings, 504 m/s dV left. Kinda makes you think why LES wasn't used on Gemini... EDIT 3: Note that real Atlas shut down its LR-105 and used only LR-101s for the final circularization\fine tuning. I haven't tried that (yet).

That's what I meant about "a lot of fuel". Note that Gemini SM has two settings for fuel load. Extended tanks aren't supposed to be used with default GLV, you need a somewhat more capable Titan for that (IIIM or IV core generally will do the job). Here's a pic from launch I just did - default Gemini build with default GLV. Note my PVG settings and the fact that I launched to 120x120. Also, I use a patch that removes engine spooling from Titan (and other) engines - while a cool and realistic feature, it doesn't play well with MJ.

KSRSS Reborn is natively 2.6x.

In my experience, both rockets fly absolutely fine and are able to achieve 100x100km orbit from Cape with a lot of fuel to spare (I use MJ with PVG and no coasting).

TYpically I use real name for rocket families if I need the launcher part (Atlas, Titan etc), upper stage real name if I need that upper stage part (Centaur, Star etc), spaceship\probe real name if I need that part... you get the idea. I tend not to use search for generic terms, since it usually gives me too many results (the joy of running most of the main part mods, LOL. Also lag.) - it would be faster to simply find what I need by browsing the category tab. Sometimes I may search for a specific part by its exact name, but that doesn't happen often. And oh yes, the lag is real. I tend to quickly type what I need, and hope for the best.

Nice! BTW: any chance looking at another long-standing bug with Gemini-B retro motor mount? Currently, you can't mount retro motors in 6x symmetry, which throws a wrench into sequential firing. It seems that KSP can't handle the proper 6x symmetry in case of nodes being off-center, so IIRC Cobalt just made it to auto-4x. One CAN fix this by a simple MM patch - and I indeed made said fix for myself - and putting the "initial" motor at the node adjacent to the black box. But I kinda want to see if it's possible to fix it once and for all. Said fix: @PART[bluedog_GeminiB_RetroModule]:AFTER[Bluedog_DB] { stackSymmetry = 5 }

A small QoL\lego request: B9 variant for "generic" propulsion kit - without the OV-1 "bucket", leaving flat top like on Burner 2.

I bet you saw that coming

Yeah, was afraid of possible shenanigans with it being AIO. I remember the heating problems when it was released (and my reports about it). Sad, but understandable.

I did indeed mean solid interstages - or at least an optional B9 switch that would disable stock engine fairing and add an interstage node (if such a thing is even possible in B9, that is). This would allow players to use Transtage with current conical 1.875m interstages without adding extra height to their rockets.

What about Transtage? RCS did get an update, but the stage itself didn't.

Titan II RV (which is in BDB) has a tweakable lead weight, so it's quite useful as a boilerplate for rocket testing. Old Titan set also included Mk4(?) RV, which was configured as a science part (atmo test, IIRC). Mysteriously, it didn't make it into revamp.

Seems somebody forgot to check where are their launch clamps in the staging order. Happens to all of us from time to time.