[WIP][1.8.x] SSTULabs - Low Part Count Solutions (Orbiters, Landers, Lifters) - Dev Thread [11-18-18]

[tater]

Boeing DSG paper from Space 2017 conference:

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2514/6.2017-5147

Lunar lander concept:

 

Mars Sortie vehicle (land, EVA, return):

 

Mars long term habitation lander:

 

 

 

[vossiewulf]

VERY glad I found this. Overall best, most sophisticated parts I've seen. I love the built-in configuration with a zillion options on end caps with all sorts of nosecones and adapters, increases the flexibility and ease of use enormously. 

I just started a new GPP game using the CTT, and I'm very early in the tree. Couple of things I noticed:

1) A couple of seemingly OP parts are available in step one, five science Basic Rocketry. The Magic Fueltank alone would make most early contracts trivial, and we have two SRBs that are quite powerful tweaked to max sizes.

2) In Basic Science, you have the Procedural Probe Core (awesome!) but in the same node you have the Procedural Probe Core Upgrade (1.875m). That seems not intentional.

Thanks again, these are my new go-to parts.

Oh and one QQ - is there documentation on some of the part options? Like there are at least five different nozzles on the intro SRBs and switching between them I can see thrust and burn time changing, but I have no idea why nozzle A has a higher thrust than nozzle B or whether one or more is optimized for higher altitudes.

[tater]

The entire tech tree paradigm is kooky in KSP. It's really hard to balance the game without somehow doing the career mode in a very different way, sadly.

[Pappystein]

23 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

 

I keep thinking big macs and chicken nuggets... stahp!

Nope that would be McDees... Mc-D was the abbreviation often used in the early days of McDonnell Douglas Aircraft/Aerospace company at the time of merger...  With the Onset of McDonnalds on the world they changed theirs to MDC (Circa 1980 IIRC.)

22 hours ago, tater said:

I'd add that the biggest issue for SpaceX stuff in KSP is the utter inability to do what we all want to do with the system. I suppose the KSP way to land a booster would be to build a scale F9 stack, which would be grossly OP, and fly the booster into either a minimal orbit, or suborbital but capable of making one rev back to KSC (periapsis in atmosphere somewhere West of KSC). Put your US into a real orbit, then switch to the booster, and land it. (I've managed to boost S2 really high, then switch for landing, but it's a major PITA).

Or use FRMS (I think I have the letters in the right order.)   Fly to orbit then go BACK and land your stages.   It is.... cantankerous but between that and Staged Recovery I am recovering 80-90% of my un-fueled rocket by mass ever launch with the exception of the few times it has glitched or I screwed up and did too long of an orbital burn.   I tend to loose service modules and obviously (I hope) any fairings I have on the Launch bird.

Incidentally....   MOST rockets are flown by computer and have been since the dawn of space flight.   Why aren't you @tater?   The Pilots are on board if the computer (or for a component) failure.... IE Apollo 13... and even in the movie we can see just how hard it was for a Human to fly in space (mind you the ship wasn't optimized to fly that way but still!)   To my knowledge the only space ship that was "flown" at NASA was actually the Shuttle orbiter.   I am not trying to diminish the importance of Pilots... Because they ARE important.  My example above (Apollo 13) would have never made it back to earth if a computer was the only pilot.  But rather point out that at-least at NASA Space flight is run by computer (mostly).... Not Human (minimally.)   Or to paraphrase a rather poor movie.... the Pilots roll is to be a monkey and flip the switch

[tater]

Dunno why I've never even tried mechjeb. I have nothing against it at all, but I like doing rendezvous and docking manually.

[captainradish]

I'm rather embarrased I've never found this pack in the past. In the short time I've been using this it has become my absolute go-to for engines and fuel tanks and has completely replaced my prior go-to's Tantares and Bluedog for everything except capsules. Honestly there's few things this pack doesn't do well. I'm highly impressed!

2 hours ago, Pappystein said:

Nope that would be McDees... Mc-D was the abbreviation often used in the early days of McDonnell Douglas Aircraft/Aerospace company at the time of merger...  With the Onset of McDonnalds on the world they changed theirs to MDC (Circa 1980 IIRC.)

Or use FRMS (I think I have the letters in the right order.)   Fly to orbit then go BACK and land your stages.   It is.... cantankerous but between that and Staged Recovery I am recovering 80-90% of my un-fueled rocket by mass ever launch with the exception of the few times it has glitched or I screwed up and did too long of an orbital burn.   I tend to loose service modules and obviously (I hope) any fairings I have on the Launch bird.

Incidentally....   MOST rockets are flown by computer and have been since the dawn of space flight.   Why aren't you @tater?   The Pilots are on board if the computer (or for a component) failure.... IE Apollo 13... and even in the movie we can see just how hard it was for a Human to fly in space (mind you the ship wasn't optimized to fly that way but still!)   To my knowledge the only space ship that was "flown" at NASA was actually the Shuttle orbiter.   I am not trying to diminish the importance of Pilots... Because they ARE important.  My example above (Apollo 13) would have never made it back to earth if a computer was the only pilot.  But rather point out that at-least at NASA Space flight is run by computer (mostly).... Not Human (minimally.)   Or to paraphrase a rather poor movie.... the Pilots roll is to be a monkey and flip the switch

If I'm thinking correctly, in the Mercury and possibly even the Gemini programs there were arguments to not include basic flight controls because the pilots weren't supposed to do anything.

[Pappystein]

1 hour ago, captainradish said:

I'm rather embarrased I've never found this pack in the past. In the short time I've been using this it has become my absolute go-to for engines and fuel tanks and has completely replaced my prior go-to's Tantares and Bluedog for everything except capsules. Honestly there's few things this pack doesn't do well. I'm highly impressed!

If I'm thinking correctly, in the Mercury and possibly even the Gemini programs there were arguments to not include basic flight controls because the pilots weren't supposed to do anything.

I still use BluedogDB for a lot...  But SSTU has a lot of things that I use as well....   I would say my mix is 60/40 in favor of Bluedog.  Mostly because I actually like the Stock alike look more than not.   Conversely I absolutely LOVE the DOS style station parts and 100% of the Solar panels in SSTU.  I do not launch a Space station that is not mostly made up of either SSTU COS or SSTU DOS parts.    So I end up launching BDB based ships with SSTU parts on it... And SSTU payloads in the case of tinker-toy ships to other planets or space stations.

 

Right and that is in part why NASA didn't want "Normal" Food to end up in space... so when a sandwich ended up in space on one of the Gemini flights.. weelll NASA and the US Congress went ape because a crumb could have 'destroyed the ship.'  And yes that was an ACTUAL FEAR that a Rocket could be destroyed by a piece of debris caused by FOOD!    I have Psoriasis... back in the early days it would have prevented me from flying with NASA due to the excess skin particles shed by my skin on a daily basis.   Sure, NASA would have told me it was something else much more ominous... 

  One of my EE Professors in College was tasked with designing part of the avionics for Apollo much earlier in his career.   He stated the fear of most of the Electrical/Electronic Engineers in Apollo was a stray hair or other form of Biological contamination caused by but not limited to just Astronauts,  could somehow cripple the entire spaceship and that would require the backup (the Human Pilot) to actually try to fly complex maneuvers and return the Capsule back to earth.  Or worse leave the craft lost in space.....   And that was for Apollo... Now imagine how it was when we hadn't gotten our feet "wet" yet as it were.

[Pappystein]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Dunno why I've never even tried mechjeb. I have nothing against it at all, but I like doing rendezvous and docking manually.

And sorry if my original question to you sounded accusatory I was attempting to showcase the difference in RW vs KSP.   I absolutely HATE docking ships, but I have a blast flying the rendezvous Seat of my pants style.   And that is what is neat about MechJeb... use it as much or as little as you wish. 

Because of the inclination of my launch site in Galileo I almost always use Land at Target function to get me lined up with my KSC.   But once I am in my ballistic flight in my Ship or Spaceplane I take over because I don't like how MJ tends to undershoot.... ever so slightly.   I have a Closer CEP than Mechjeb does by overiding some of the "safety' features of MechJeb....  

 

 

[Kuldaralagh]

On 9/30/2017 at 12:53 AM, Kuldaralagh said:

makes perfect sense.

Im just finishing the new fresh install here and if the problem persists Ill post the log

so, I finally got around to it, checked my files and downloaded latest sstu. (actually 140, downloading 141 now)

ran it and presto. it works.

so definitely incompatibility with some other mod I have.

I'll workout which one thru trial and error and let you know.

cheers.

[tater]

I really should try it at some point. Part of my issue was how cluttered it looked, lol.

[vossiewulf]

1 hour ago, tater said:

I really should try it at some point. Part of my issue was how cluttered it looked, lol.

One of the nice things is the flexibility it allows on what it can do vs. what you can do. For example, later in the tech tree, you get the Rendezvous Autopilot - target something accessible, turn on auto warp and hit go and fiddle around with whatever you want to and in a bit you'll be <100m from your target.

On the other hand, each step of that rendezvous is available early on in the Maneuver Planner. It has separate steps for matching planes, creating the Hohmann transfer, tweaking closest approach, and matching velocities at closest approach. This is allows you to have MJ do certain steps whenever you want - like having him set up the Hohmann transfer means that if you execute your velocity match burn correctly, you should be in exactly the right spot.

He is also good at landing things on target on moons, not sure I'd recommend it for high-G but he does very well with the Mun and Minmus and the like. Get yourself in a 20k circular orbit (he doesn't like >.02 eccentricity), pick a spot on the ground, and tell him to land there. Final location will be within 50m. Very useful when for example you're landing 6 or 7 separate parts of a Planetary Bases base at one time.

Edited October 2, 2017 by vossiewulf

[tater]

I can fly rendezvous and docking seat of my pants, and never look away from the nav ball at this point, I don't even turn on the lights, lol.

Landing on airless worlds, I can put landers on precise spots reliably. I used KIS to place pylons with lights at a base, and I treat them like SpaceX landing pads.

Still, I will mess with it at some point.

[captainradish]

25 minutes ago, vossiewulf said:

One of the nice things is the flexibility it allows on what it can do vs. what you can do. For example, later in the tech tree, you get the Rendezvous Autopilot - target something accessible, turn on auto warp and hit go and fiddle around with whatever you want to and in a bit you'll be <100m from your target.

On the other hand, each step of that rendezvous is available early on in the Maneuver Planner. It has separate steps for matching planes, creating the Hohmann transfer, tweaking closest approach, and matching velocities at closest approach. This is allows you to have MJ do certain steps whenever you want - like having him set up the Hohmann transfer means that if you execute your velocity match burn correctly, you should be in exactly the right spot.

He is also good at landing things on target on moons, not sure I'd recommend it for high-G but he does very well with the Mun and Minmus and the like. Get yourself in a 20k circular orbit (he doesn't like >.02 eccentricity), pick a spot on the ground, and tell him to land there. Final location will be within 50m. Very useful when for example you're landing 6 or 7 separate parts of a Planetary Bases base at one time.

I love the versatility of Mechjeb. Personally, I don't like the flying at all and pretty much totally automate everything. I play KSP for the designing/building/planning part and leave all the flying to Mechjeb unless there is some awful problem the AI can't handle (such as if Dang It decides it wants to make an engine shut down on launch).

9 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

VERY glad I found this. Overall best, most sophisticated parts I've seen. I love the built-in configuration with a zillion options on end caps with all sorts of nosecones and adapters, increases the flexibility and ease of use enormously. 

I just started a new GPP game using the CTT, and I'm very early in the tree. Couple of things I noticed:

1) A couple of seemingly OP parts are available in step one, five science Basic Rocketry. The Magic Fueltank alone would make most early contracts trivial, and we have two SRBs that are quite powerful tweaked to max sizes.

2) In Basic Science, you have the Procedural Probe Core (awesome!) but in the same node you have the Procedural Probe Core Upgrade (1.875m). That seems not intentional.

Thanks again, these are my new go-to parts.

Oh and one QQ - is there documentation on some of the part options? Like there are at least five different nozzles on the intro SRBs and switching between them I can see thrust and burn time changing, but I have no idea why nozzle A has a higher thrust than nozzle B or whether one or more is optimized for higher altitudes.

I would debate on OP'ness.

Honestly one of the issues I have with this pack is the R7-style engines are too far UP the tree. I mean, the original R7 was developed back in 1956-57 and basically used ever since. By the time I unlock the tier with the R7 stuff, I've already unlocked the Soyuz capsule (which is on the same tier) which was developed a decade AFTER the rocket that carried it.

The tiers are difficult. I understand they need to be balanced that really good rockets don't end up getting unlocked really early (such as the R7s). I personally develop two mirror space programs simultaneously in my games, one based on the US program using the stock capsules and one based on the Soviet program. After I move stuff around the tech tree, my Soviet program has a major advantage over the American program until the Apollo-esque program.

One thing I may recommend is using Dang It! which allows for a certain degree of reliability, which is what's missing in this game. It allows a balance between building large rockets using primitive parts and reliability. The rocket will probably lift a small Death Star with circa 1958 parts, but it also will probably explode thirty seconds after liftoff. Dang It! is actually pretty nasty with this mod because of how it handles engine clusters (single engines rather than multiple) so an entire cluster will fail rather than a single engine.

Edited October 2, 2017 by captainradish

[tater]

I'd not worry about career too much. career in KSP is just awful (and I play career). It is an afterthought, and virtually everything about it is done wrong. I could go on. For pages.

[captainradish]

Just now, tater said:

I'd not worry about career too much. career in KSP is just awful (and I play career). It is an afterthought, and virtually everything about it is done wrong. I could go on. For pages.

I like career a lot with a "budget" mod like "Monthly Budgets:" 

This allows me to more-or-less ignore contracts apart from the ones that I enjoy playing. I like the structure that career mode allows and honestly only really have middling issues with the tech tree.

[blowfish]

If you find yourself wanting a larger solar system and hating the stock career mechanics, it might be an early sign that you're gravitating toward the RP-0 singularity.

Speaking from experience here... 

[Shadowmage]

11 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

VERY glad I found this. Overall best, most sophisticated parts I've seen. I love the built-in configuration with a zillion options on end caps with all sorts of nosecones and adapters, increases the flexibility and ease of use enormously. 

I just started a new GPP game using the CTT, and I'm very early in the tree. Couple of things I noticed:

1) A couple of seemingly OP parts are available in step one, five science Basic Rocketry. The Magic Fueltank alone would make most early contracts trivial, and we have two SRBs that are quite powerful tweaked to max sizes.

2) In Basic Science, you have the Procedural Probe Core (awesome!) but in the same node you have the Procedural Probe Core Upgrade (1.875m). That seems not intentional.

Thanks again, these are my new go-to parts.

Oh and one QQ - is there documentation on some of the part options? Like there are at least five different nozzles on the intro SRBs and switching between them I can see thrust and burn time changing, but I have no idea why nozzle A has a higher thrust than nozzle B or whether one or more is optimized for higher altitudes.

1.) When using the SSTU-Optional Patches setup, all of the stock fuel tanks (and engines, and SRBs) are removed.  So there has to be something in that first node so that you can actually build rockets.  And its not like you can't stack the stock fuel tanks to get longer tanks (though the SRBs are a bit OP being unlocked that early, as there is no stock option to stack srbs).  Should be possible to add 'tech-limited' body-length options... but that would mean more 'part upgrades' to unlock in the tech tree (one upgrade for each additional 'segment' on the SRB).  The upper-stage SRB however, should probably be moved a bit further down the tech-tree, probably tier2 or tier3.

2.) Sounds like an omission; I'll have to check out where the PPC unlocks, and if it needs that upgrade (or if it should start at 1.875m as the max diameter).  Could be that either the upgrade needs moved further down the tree, or simply applied to the part from the get-go.

3.) SRB Nozzle thrusts -- hmm... they really shouldn't change thrust when the nozzle changes.  Thrust should be determined by the diameter and length of the currently selected body.  I'll have to take a look at this.  Basically the nozzle choices are all aesthetic choices (aside from those that have pre-angled nozzles), and should have no impact on actual use (nozzle should not effect ISP, or thrust).

(Sorry, no real documentation; as the mod is still in development, it would be a mostly futile use of time -- would spend more time updating the docs for the changes than doing actual dev work)

[vossiewulf]

3 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

1.) When using the SSTU-Optional Patches setup, all of the stock fuel tanks (and engines, and SRBs) are removed.  So there has to be something in that first node so that you can actually build rockets.  And its not like you can't stack the stock fuel tanks to get longer tanks (though the SRBs are a bit OP being unlocked that early, as there is no stock option to stack srbs).  Should be possible to add 'tech-limited' body-length options... but that would mean more 'part upgrades' to unlock in the tech tree (one upgrade for each additional 'segment' on the SRB).  The upper-stage SRB however, should probably be moved a bit further down the tech-tree, probably tier2 or tier3.

2.) Sounds like an omission; I'll have to check out where the PPC unlocks, and if it needs that upgrade (or if it should start at 1.875m as the max diameter).  Could be that either the upgrade needs moved further down the tree, or simply applied to the part from the get-go.

3.) SRB Nozzle thrusts -- hmm... they really shouldn't change thrust when the nozzle changes.  Thrust should be determined by the diameter and length of the currently selected body.  I'll have to take a look at this.  Basically the nozzle choices are all aesthetic choices (aside from those that have pre-angled nozzles), and should have no impact on actual use (nozzle should not effect ISP, or thrust).

(Sorry, no real documentation; as the mod is still in development, it would be a mostly futile use of time -- would spend more time updating the docs for the changes than doing actual dev work)

My comments about where the early parts are unlocked aren't exactly what you'd call major complaints, they just seemed a bit strong for the same point in rocketry where I'm using the biplane rudder as my rocket fins (silly looking, but they make awesome rocket fins with a relatively large control surface). Particularly the second SRB - the SSTU - SC-ENG - SRB-A - it has a max thrust of 1250, which exceeds everything up to (in the CTT) Heavier Rocketry that is four nodes later at the 160 science level.

I understand about the tank, I didn't realize you had an intentional mode that removes the stock parts, so yes if that's your smallest tank then it needs to be there.

This is what I would do were it mine to do, which it isn't, and again admittedly this is not exactly an issue where lives hang in the balance, so just a suggestion:

1) Like how the Procedural Parts parts limit their diameter/length on their tanks/SRBs, limit the length of the Magic Fuel tank to no more than 1m longer than whatever is the longest stock tank available at that tech level.

2) Leave the SSTU - SC-ENG - SRB-U at the Basic Rocketry intro node but as above, limit its sizes so it's only a bit more powerful than whatever stock has at that point.

3) Move the SSTU - SC-ENG - SRB-A to at least General Rocketry one node later (player already has one very competent SSTU SRB), but preferably to Advanced Rocketry, but limit its sizing to a max thrust of ~750kN. I have most part packs including Contares this time around, and the biggest SRB I see at that node is the Globe X at 614kN, so the SRB-A at that point would supply a reasonable somewhat larger option.

4) As for the Probe Core and its upgrade to 1.875 being in the same node, that looks odd, exactly like you couldn't figure a better plan so just went "fark it" and dumped it there   The simplest solution out of that oddity is to move the 1.875m upgrade to Miniaturization one node later. But I think a more interesting and arguably more logical progression is to make the default part 1.875m and available in the Basic Science node. For miniaturization, you get an upgrade to 1.25m, and in Precision Engineering you get .625m. Remember new designs generally start fairly big, and with lots of experimentation and engineering we make parts that are just as good, only smaller and lighter and therefore cheaper. So starting with a mid-size and having to do engineering to get smaller, lighter versions makes sense.

If I had one request, it would be for something that's a little different from most of your parts, but I'm asking because SSTU parts work better and are better-engineered than any other parts I've seen. I think I've tried every winch + dart, magnet grabber, and the grabber units and claws, and so far I give every one of them maybe 1/5 stars, especially the grabbers, which I have managed to trigger once in eleventy thousand attempts; almost all of the parts they tell me to go get are so light you'd need to be moving fast enough to destroy the part to generate enough impact force to trigger the grabbers.

The real head-scratcher for me is why none that I've seen have a manual trigger. Anyway, I'm sure you could make something better, what made me think of it was the fairly long procedural nose-cone with a smooth ogive. What I was thinking was a very large (compared to others) grabber that opens like an umbrella and then when activated to grab a part, tries to close down to its original long ogive. It could have an auto trigger, but I was thinking more along Konstruction lines where you have a UI for control.That big umbrella isn't meant as the final hold, that is just literally to grab and control the part so you can get it oriented correctly for its final hold. Final hold  would be either magnet, or if you want to get creative, could also use linked KAS pipe nodes, but that requires EVA.

[Mike`]

7 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

1) Like how the Procedural Parts parts limit their diameter/length on their tanks/SRBs, limit the length of the Magic Fuel tank to no more than 1m longer than whatever is the longest stock tank available at that tech level.

Well, what's the point though? You could just stack several tanks and your rocket would just be uglier. Oh, well, there's "part limit", but that limit doesn't make much sense anyway, in my opinion. Thus, i wouldn't bother with limiting their lengths, limiting their diameters is enough in my opinion.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Mike`

[hraban]

On 2.10.2017 at 7:05 AM, tater said:

Boeing DSG paper from Space 2017 conference:

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2514/6.2017-5147

Lunar lander concept:

 

 

This Lander is very nice to show so i build a quick model yesterday

[tater]

@hraban Wow. 

Did I say wow?

[hraban]

35 minutes ago, tater said:

@hraban Wow. 

Did I say wow?

Yes you do Thank you. Update here

Excuse the throw-in @Shadowmage

[Mike`]

I recently noticed the bigger docking port's weight is 500kg which is ten times the weight of the stock port, while the small port is just 20kg, same as stock.

Is that 500kg port weight intended, or a typo? Looks a bit heavy to me both compared to stock and compared to the small port.

 

Talking about weights, payload fairings are also about twice the weight of stock - is that intentional/based on real life? I've looked a bit around the internet but sadly couldn't find any documented real fairing weights.

Edited October 3, 2017 by Mike`

[tater]

1 hour ago, Mike` said:

I recently noticed the bigger docking port's weight is 500kg which is ten times the weight of the stock port, while the small port is just 20kg, same as stock.

Is that 500kg port weight intended, or a typo? Looks a bit heavy to me both compared to stock and compared to the small port.

 

Talking about weights, payload fairings are also about twice the weight of stock - is that intentional/based on real life? I've looked a bit around the internet but sadly couldn't find any documented real fairing weights.

The large stock port masses 50kg. The XL parachute masses 300kg. The SSTU docking ports include parachutes.

So it's 150kg heavy vs that combo in stock.

[Shadowmage]

1 hour ago, Mike` said:

I recently noticed the bigger docking port's weight is 500kg which is ten times the weight of the stock port, while the small port is just 20kg, same as stock.

Is that 500kg port weight intended, or a typo? Looks a bit heavy to me both compared to stock and compared to the small port.

 

Talking about weights, payload fairings are also about twice the weight of stock - is that intentional/based on real life? I've looked a bit around the internet but sadly couldn't find any documented real fairing weights.

 

13 minutes ago, tater said:

The large stock port masses 50kg. The XL parachute masses 300kg. The SSTU docking ports include parachutes.

So it's 150kg heavy vs that combo in stock.

Docking Ports -- It is as @tater states -- but you also have to keep in mind that the docking port also includes 'docking lights' and 'docking cameras' functions.  Probably not 150kg worth...but I'm also not sure how the parachutes compare to the stock XL chute.  So could perhaps use a small mass reduction, but nothing coming close to the stock port mass.  (eventually these were supposed to be separate parts; one docking port with chutes, one without)

However -- the small SSTU docking port probably needs its mass increased appropriately.  It also includes parachutes/lights/cameras, though the chutes are quite a bit smaller.  Will need to see where the performance sits for the chutes to see what kind of mass penalty they should carry.

 

Fairings -- those are honestly using placeholder values; I don't remember ever tweaking the balance on those.  Feel free to open an issue ticket on that one, as they really should be at least reasonably close to the stock fairing mass (for roughly equivalent setups).  Please include information on if you are referring to the 'stock-based recolorable fairings' parts, the 'interstage fairing/petal adater' parts, or the 'interstage decoupler' part.  (Node-fairings used on engines/sm/cm/etc have no mass, but the ones used as stand-alone parts do).