Spice Launch System [SLS] 0.74

[YANFRET]

It will be attached to the hydrogen tank in the next version, which I'll put out later today. Also making some other minor changes. The engines now produce ground effects, and the staging for the EUS was changed. Now it is the EUS that detaches the interstage so you can decide when to drop it in case the EUS is a bit doing wobbly shenanigans at that moment. Also, all the tanks will now have their respective fuels loaded when you pick the part.
*Oh and the RS25 also got it's thrust bumped up from 109% to 111%

 

Lookin good!

Edited January 10, 2016 by YANFRET

[maccollo]

Tried to make some particle effects for the boosters and engines =)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js2QUDdA99A

 

 

 

[Drakenex]

looking amazing!

 

 

Edited January 15, 2016 by Drakenex

[KerbonautInTraining]

A few questions on this mod and SLS in general:

1. What's the expected payload capacity of the different versions to, say, TLI? 

2. How does the quad F9 booster setup compare to the F-1B boosters?

3. Is there a configuration optimized solely for LEO payloads?

4. Could you show us what RCS setup you use for attitude control/ullage on the EUS?

Edit: Why does it look like the font size is changing?

Edited January 15, 2016 by KerbonautInTraining

[maccollo]

@KerbonautInTraining
With the current performance characteristics* the amount that can be sent to TLI is somewhere around 43 tons with block 1B, about 50 tons with the dark knights and 60 tons with the quad F9 boosters.
If you wanted to haul things to LEO you'd need to remove upper stage. Without it you can get 100 tons to LEO with the Ares boosters, 115 tons with the dark knights and 140 tons with the F9 quads. 
The F9 boosters have fairly similar performance to the F1B boosters, maybe a few tons less to LEO . The F1B boosters are bigger and have more thrust, but they have worse fuel fraction and lower ISP. From the testing I've done the F1-Bs manage a couple more more tons to LEO.

* Masses and other performance characteristics will change as I come by new info/better sources. If anyone has good source with up to date info on these things I'd love to know about it

Edited January 15, 2016 by maccollo

[RoketMan]

This is what happens when I try to use CMES:

http://imgur.com/a/KrN9w

What am I doing wrong?

 

[maccollo]

On ‎1‎/‎18‎/‎2016 at 8:13 PM, RoketMan said:

This is what happens when I try to use CMES:

http://imgur.com/a/KrN9w

What am I doing wrong?

 

The adapter stuff was scaled to fit the CMES orion when rescaled in RO, but now that seems to have changed... You know what? I'll be making my own Orion for this mod.

[Drakenex]

2 hours ago, maccollo said:

The adapter stuff was scaled to fit the CMES orion when rescaled in RO, but now that seems to have changed... You know what? I'll be making my own Orion for this mod.

ohhhhhhhh great decision!!! Can't wait!!

[maccollo]

just getting started on the model

[RoketMan]

wow! That looks awesome! What modeling software are you using?

 Also, I found out why I could not find the SLS tank. Module manager seems to be making it so that it does not show up on the normal menu. I have to go dig around in the filters to find it. Does anyone know how to fix that?

 I found out why it's not showing up, it's because of this: 

Category = propulsion

Subcategory = 1

And it's doing this to a lot of the parts in your mod for me.

Edited January 22, 2016 by RoketMan

[maccollo]

I use maya for the modelling. It's pretty rudimentary stuff so the software doesn't really matter.

Apparently propulsion has been an obsolete category since 0.90. It's seems odd this hasn't caused any problems for me. I'll go through the parts and change that this weekend. It's about time I did this. Thanks for bringing it to my attention

[RoketMan]

OK, I have a question? Will the top part of the capsule, the part is covering the parachute, come off the capsule?

[Drakenex]

sorry for getting in the middle,  but yes, that cover is ejected when the drogue parachutes are deployed (though now orion splashes down on the ocean, only the CST-100 will land on airbags ) :

 

[maccollo]

it's actually 3 sets of parachutes. They use 3 very tiny parachutes to pull off the forward backshell.
https://youtu.be/j1vmVJKqUFE?t=5m24s

[Drakenex]

great video!

Are you going to model the parachutes?

Congratulations on the progress so far, looking awesome!

[RoketMan]

Huh, I didn't know the heat shield jettisoned, or that it had airbags.

[Drakenex]

4 minutes ago, RoketMan said:

Huh, I didn't know the heat shield jettisoned, or that it had airbags.

Nope, as I've said "though now Orion splashes down on the ocean, only the CST-100 will land on airbags", that was in the constellation project early stages, now it will just splash down like the Apollo CM.

[Dr.K Kerbal]

I have a problem with the moD. It is availabe for 1.0.5 but the liquid fuel engines alway glitch the  game.

[tribulex]

Maybe this is a dumb question but how do you connect the first stage to the upper stage? Am I supposed to use a 3rd party fairing? 

[maccollo]

19 minutes ago, tribulex said:

Maybe this is a dumb question but how do you connect the first stage to the upper stage? Am I supposed to use a 3rd party fairing? 

Use the EUS interstage. It should be in the same category as the EUS unless the category thing is messing it up. I will put out an update for that tomorrow btw.

@Dr.K Kerbal You will have to be more specific.

 

[Ipak]

The EUS Interstage is located in the engines tab, next to the Orion fairings.

[tribulex]

1 hour ago, Ipak said:

The EUS Interstage is located in the engines tab, next to the Orion fairings.

Thanks. I eagerly await the orion update to this mod!

[maccollo]

Been trying to  reorganize the part categories, but for some reason I can't move the EUS interstage away from the engine tab. Even with no category line in the config it still puts itself in the engine tab

[RoketMan]

 It's OK. If you find a fix for it, you can go ahead and put it in the mod, otherwise I don't think it's a very big deal. 

[Phineas Freak]

For some reason almost all parts have been defined for placement to the now non - existent "Propulsion". This means KSP will try (and fail) to place the parts according to the type of the first module that it finds inside each part config. To fix it, just replace the "category" fields:

"Aero" category:

SLSnoseCone
SLSF9noseCone
SLS_fairingL
SLS_fairingM
SLS_orionShroud
SLS_orionUSAfairing
SLS_payloadAdapterL (because it is a procedural fairing)

"Engine" category:

SLS_b1_SRB
SLS_DKSSRB
SLS_septratron1x
SLS_septratron3x
SLS_RL10
SLS_RS25

"FuelTank" category:

SLS_EUS
SLS_core_hydrogenTank
SLS_core_oxygenTank

"Structural" category:

SLSdecoupler
SLS_core_engineAdapter
SLS_EUS_interstage
SLS_core_interstage
SLS_core_interTank
SLS_core_engineShroud
SLSF9adapter
SLS_orionUSAadapter
SLS_Oriondecoupler

After making the above changes, all parts where available through the default categories, ready to fly!