Agathorn

@specs Look at it mounted on the Delta 2 first stage though, and you see none of that. When looking at it on a test platform, you obviously have everything exposed, and additional support structures as well. And yeah reference isn't so good. It is making it tough @m00f Thanks for the compliments! In my case I work in the VFX industry and went to school for this stuff. Though i'm rather rusty as I don't do a lot of modelling anymore these days.

I'm still curious about all the bits above the combustion chamber. In every picture I can find of the engine on an actual rocket, not a test stand, none of that is visible.

Album in OP updated with WIP2 on the RS37A. I think the profile looks a lot better now. Yes the armature is in the wrong spot now. I forgot to re-position it after changing things

I've cleaned up the profile a lot, and matched my rings to Specs' second picture there. At least as best I can. I've matched position, but the individual ring sizes will still be a bit inconsistent without me ripping the model apart and redoing the whole nozzle. I can do that but I think with the better profile and positioning on the rings, it won't be such an issue. In redoing these though I noticed a major problem with the throat so i'm trying to rework that now.

Ok I think I see what you are talking about. I assure you it isn't a straight line, but I think there is some small jump going on there. I'll see if I can smooth it out without adding too many more faces.

The illustration I used had a very short section at the very bottom that was pretty straight. Not much, maybe the bottom 5% or so. I can tweak the profile a bit, but unfortunately I can't make major changes without undoing a lot of work. Any chance you guys could identify the section of the profile that is bothering you?

Ok i'll see about tweaking it.

Are the hoops supposed to be evenly spaced? I was pretty much just going from the pictures I had for reference and they weren't really consistent. Spacing was different and sizing was all over the chart. EDIT: On the curve, I assume you mean the nozzle. I used a schematic of a typical Bell curved nozzle, and then tweaked it to match the RS27A. It is pretty darned close to the references I have, with the exception of it being low poly so the curve isn't quite as smooth as it should be. I can make it better but the poly count goes through the room to do it unfortunately

Thanks! I edited the first post now that I figured out how to embed the Imgur album. No more fugly thumbnail.

I've posted a new thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66501-WIP-Real-Engine-Models

Hey all, This work spawned out of my time spent playing with the Realism Overhaul mod and the associated collected mods that go with it. While the aim of all those mods is to make KSP as real as possible, they are working with whatever part models they can, and just changing stats. While I certainly applaud the effort, I wondered if maybe we could do better. So this is my attempt to start providing models for real world engines. I will be making them as close to the real thing as possible, within reason. They will NOT have the "engine plate" on the top of the engines like most KSP engines do, but will instead mimic the real world counterpart and at most have a thrust plate or thrust frame. I've only just started so there isn't much to see yet. I'm posting one early WIP of an unfinished RS27a, untextured. I'm doing this in my very limited free time so I make no promises on progress, but if you want to join the ride please do. Constructive criticism and feedback are welcomed at any time.

Thanks for the info. I don't want to hijack your thread, just needed some starting direction. I promise once I have something to actually show I will start a new thread

So i'm curious what everyone's thoughts are on the detail vs performance trade off as I model these real engines. As an example, the RS27a that i'm working on right now: The "plumbing" so to speak up top is quite complex and difficult to figure out. But even if I could, it wouldn't be much more than a rat's nest of widgets inside KSP. Now obviously the larger pieces should be there. Like the gimbal armature, the pipes, and whatever those two tank looking things are on the top right (sorry I don't know the right terminology). But obviously the more detail I put in, the longer they take to make, and the more polygons they will have and thus you will need a stronger computer to handle them. Just getting a decent looking Bell nozzle and combustion chamber, i'm closing in on 2k polygons.

Verniers were attached to the base of the stage though, not the engine right? So are they in KSP as an actual part that you attach to the side of the tank bottom?

Is this to SIMULATE the existence of vernier thrusters? Or are the actual thrusters somehow added as a new part?

Yes please, or at least point to the documentation you found that helped you. Just saying you figured it out doesn't help the rest of us struggling with the same problems

Yes you are right. If its any consolation, i'm working on modeling engines that don't have the base plate.

They are supposed to disappear inside the tank.

I'm not sure all the mods' licenses allow that. It isn't very hard. Just download gthe latest version of all the mods listed as required in the first page. They are all linked, except the ones that Nathan made and those have links in his signature.

So, for now, i've restarted RO in the sandbox rather than in career mode. I like career mode, and I like doing the science, but I found it too hard to design viable launch vehicles. So after my restart, I managed to design a very solid launch vehicle for putting light comsats into GEO. Just last night I put a fourth one up into a 36km orbit completing my initial relay network. It is pretty stable, though they drift a little. Getting a precise geostationary orbit seems to be impossible in KSP, or if not impossible, very very very very hard. For fun i'll post some pics/videos tonight. Having a lot of fun with this so far though so a big huge thanks to Nathan, Faeram, and everyone else who has contributed to the realism revolution. This weekend i'm going to read up on building custom parts and see if I can maybe get some new engine models for making things a bit more real!

And that is a perfectly fair point. The only reason I even brought it up was that if you are going to release it for the realism crowd, then there is a good chance they are using ECLSS. At least us newcomers since its the currently recommended LifeSupport mod for RO.

When I get home tonight i'll see if I can do a video to show you.

1) I'm using asmi's that is recommended for RO 2) I simply loaded the craft file and launched. Used a pretty standard ascent profile like I sue on most of my other rockets. Started my turn around 120m/s, about a 5 degree pitch to start the indicator drifting. But as I pitched over to about 15 degrees I started losing all control and the rocket kept going over to nearly 90 degrees, at which point nothing I did would fix the profile. I fought it as best I could from there on. It wanted to roll a lot, but I could control that if I stayed on the controls. However at that point while roll responded well,l yaw and pitch did not.

@Scripto23 I tried out the Falcon 9 for a brief period last night but ran into two problems with your supplied craft file. 1) My Kerbals died due to lack of oxygen, before even obtaining orbit (though strangely I Still had control afterwards) 2) The rocket was INCREDIBLY unstable from first stage on up. It tended to pitch over way too much and for some reason the gimbals didn't have the ability to really control it much.

We should just model some engines without the caps.