WIP: Deltaglider XR-1

[CommanderSpock]

Hang on let me test. If all else fails though, reaction wheels are fun. On the topic of hover though, last time I checked it seemed way too op.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, it seemed okay, kinda finicky though. If possible, could you speed up the animations for the parts?

[Redneck]

well that would require me to reanimate the parts. I timed them according to orbiter. So speeding them up is not an option. Plus we are going to have a KSp update soon with unity 5 so lets wait and see what happens there. Thats why I am holding off on the landing gear waiting for the new Update which includes changes to landing gear.

OOps damm I almost forgot the monopropellant...that would of sucked huh? lol

[CommanderSpock]

Ha! Yeah, that makes sense.

[Redneck]

ok so heres what i am going to do. Im going to upload the changes ive made. Id like for you to try them out tell me what you think. If all is well i will update on kerbalstuff and ckan ok? You are a new tester ok? Ill PM you the link sound good?

[CommanderSpock]

Sounds good!

[Redneck]

ok give me a minute to put this all together for you. Its going to have a new .craft file so if youve added anything to Deltaglider XR-1 its going to get over written nows a good time to backup if this is the case...ill pm you shortly

[CommanderSpock]

Okay!

[Redneck]

pm sent. LEt me know if it is good to go

[Odyssey]

Was doing my first flight testing with XR-1 over the weekend. She seems a little sluggish on take-off. More accurately, in a climb. I can get her in the air (using the mains, I haven't tried the hover engines) but, it's a lot easier going forward than going up. Anyone else having similar issues and/or a fix or recommendation on flight profiles?

[Redneck]

I have a whole profile as far as weight and engine isp fuel consumption and capacities ready to go. Only thing I need to figure out is why she is tumbling during reentry if you deviate at all during it. I was told in another thread to look at the coloffset/copoffset in cfg file. Then ill give you guys a fresh update. Thanks to commanderspock for bringing this to my attention and helping to test different changes. Keep the feedback coming guys thanks

[Doc Anderson]

Before I say another word ... LOVE the mod. Can't wait to see how it develops. Nicely done! This was my favorite vehicle in Orbiter. It's a natural for KSP. Thank you.

I'm also having flight issues. It's very sluggish on takeoff (not near as much lift as it needs) so it burns through a LOT of fuel. I'm not even making suborbital altitude and it becomes unstable as it gets low on fuel. This is likely what makes reentry so difficult.

The other difficulty is with the hover engines being unbalanced. Even setting the rear hover engines to 40% thrust, it's pushing the nose down. (BTW, selecting the right rear hover engine in the VAB to assign them to action groups is very difficult.)

And one last question...

How do you get the crew out? Having trouble transferring them to the airlock.

All said, this is a WAY cool piece of work. Once the bugs are worked out, this could be the workhorse for servicing and refueling space stations and colonies.

[Redneck]

Well thank you very much for the kind words. The balancing and weights thrusts and overall profile of the vehicle is being worked on as we speak. CommanderSpock is working on the config files now trying to fix the tumbling during reentry issue. As far as hovering goes these are dependent on Throttle Control avionics and action groups extended mods in order to achieve a good hover balance. I adjusted the RCS power last night and I landed it perfectly controlled on top of VAB building last night. Ill make a video tutorial on how to set the mods up so others can achieve this. So a update is coming real soon....maybe tonight.

[Redneck]

Commander your mailbox is full can not PM you. We need another way of communicating

[Ya_Boi_Assault]

shut up and take my funds these look nice!

[CommanderSpock]

Sorry, didn't notice. Cleared.

[Redneck]

Deltaglider updated to v0.4. details in first post of this thread

Edited October 8, 2015 by Redneck

[plague006]

LICENSE.md in the archive is for GPL-3.0

[Doc Anderson]

I'm getting an error on several files when I unzip the archive in Windows and they won't extract. Using 7-zip I had no problems. Anyone else experiencing this?

[Redneck]

It was compressed with maximum compression using 7zip

The file was corrupted somehow. Should be good to go now

Edited October 4, 2015 by Redneck

[Doc Anderson]

I installed Throttle Control Avionics and took the DX-1 to the surface of the Mun and back. Way cool! Here's my impressions of the craft:

1. For a WIP this is AMAZING! Very fun to fly. The flight rebalancing is much improved. It handles well. It does get a little twitchy in the upper atmosphere. Definitely needs the RCS to fly smoothly. But considering the aerodynamic nature of the craft, this didn't feel out of place.

2. The scramjet seems underpowered. I realize it's thrust increases with velocity, but I really couldn't get much out of it and ended up using the mains entirely to make orbit.

3. Question, did you remove the other (controlled explosion) engine? Also, in the last version, it didn't line up correctly in the SPH.

4. Holy buckets this thing has a metric crap ton of Delta V!!! I smell a grand tour(ism) opportunity. I can see the brochure copy now: "SEE the solar system ... ALL of it! Bring the whole family! Pack extra underwear and snacks!"

5. Retro Engines don't seem to do much better than the RCS. I tried using them to do a short landing. I glided (fell steeply out of the sky) to the end of the runway, flared (which it does REALLY well) and gently touched down. Then I hit the brakes and the retro engines. Not as dramatic as I hoped. The retro engines need more power (they also suck a lot of fuel for as little as they contribute).

6. Can't wait to get dedicated landing gear with steering.

7. I also did a rendezvous with my orbiting space station. Evidently the docking ports are not compatible. Need to talk to the boffins in R&D about that one. I'm guessing one is imperial and the other is metric or some such thing. So much for that resupply mission.

8. Landing on the Mun using hover engines worked really well. But it was trickier than expected because of lack of a visible velocity vector (due to the spaceplane orientation of the navball). I would love to see a vertical landing window to make this easier. I'm thinking a downward-facing landing cam with horizontal and vertical velocity indicators. That said, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that would be to do because ... SO not my skill set. You guys that do this kind of stuff have my utmost respect.

9. The docking port needs a retractable ladder that will survive reentry so it can be boarded on Kerbin.

All in all, I had a blast joyriding in the Deltaglider. Thank you for all your hard work. I can't tell you how much fun I had.

[Redneck]

Thank you for your kind words and your input is very much appreciated. i will get to balancing everything tomorrow after work and try to address all those things you mentioned and have a update for you ASAP. Its late ,work tomorrow,got to make it short. will post more tomarrow

[JoseEduardo]

an idea for future releases: action group controlled engines (I did this myself though, just thought it would be neat if it came by default )

[Redneck]

an idea for future releases: action group controlled engines (I did this myself though, just thought it would be neat if it came by default )

I agree. I didnt want to do the action groups because everyone has different preferences. What we need is a coder to make an engine module/.Dll plugin. This is beyond my understanding. This would also eliminate the engines working through the animated doors and blowing stuff up. Ie. Open hover doors or retro doors before engaging engines then closing them automatically

Edited October 7, 2015 by Redneck

[Doc Anderson]

One way to do that might be to make each of the engines and the doors that go with them a single assembly (i.e. hover engines and doors as one part and the retro engines and doors as another part). That way the animation could be coded to open the doors when the engine is activated and close them when it is deactivated. This would also reduce the overall part count and make selection of parts for action groups easier.

[Redneck]

One way to do that might be to make each of the engines and the doors that go with them a single assembly (i.e. hover engines and doors as one part and the retro engines and doors as another part). That way the animation could be coded to open the doors when the engine is activated and close them when it is deactivated. This would also reduce the overall part count and make selection of parts for action groups easier.

Well It would require me to remake some parts and thats ok I could do that. But since this is a WIP and I see no coders knocking on my door I guess for now Ill just leave them as is and continue on the functionality like ive been doing.

an idea for future releases: action group controlled engines (I did this myself though, just thought it would be neat if it came by default )

Thanks for the rep JoseEduardo. Youre welcome

I installed Throttle Control Avionics and took the DX-1 to the surface of the Mun and back. Way cool! Here's my impressions of the craft:

1. For a WIP this is AMAZING! Very fun to fly. The flight rebalancing is much improved. It handles well. It does get a little twitchy in the upper atmosphere. Definitely needs the RCS to fly smoothly. But considering the aerodynamic nature of the craft, this didn't feel out of place.

2. The scramjet seems underpowered. I realize it's thrust increases with velocity, but I really couldn't get much out of it and ended up using the mains entirely to make orbit.

3. Question, did you remove the other (controlled explosion) engine? Also, in the last version, it didn't line up correctly in the SPH.

4. Holy buckets this thing has a metric crap ton of Delta V!!! I smell a grand tour(ism) opportunity. I can see the brochure copy now: "SEE the solar system ... ALL of it! Bring the whole family! Pack extra underwear and snacks!"

5. Retro Engines don't seem to do much better than the RCS. I tried using them to do a short landing. I glided (fell steeply out of the sky) to the end of the runway, flared (which it does REALLY well) and gently touched down. Then I hit the brakes and the retro engines. Not as dramatic as I hoped. The retro engines need more power (they also suck a lot of fuel for as little as they contribute).

6. Can't wait to get dedicated landing gear with steering.

7. I also did a rendezvous with my orbiting space station. Evidently the docking ports are not compatible. Need to talk to the boffins in R&D about that one. I'm guessing one is imperial and the other is metric or some such thing. So much for that resupply mission.

8. Landing on the Mun using hover engines worked really well. But it was trickier than expected because of lack of a visible velocity vector (due to the spaceplane orientation of the navball). I would love to see a vertical landing window to make this easier. I'm thinking a downward-facing landing cam with horizontal and vertical velocity indicators. That said, I can't even begin to imagine how difficult that would be to do because ... SO not my skill set. You guys that do this kind of stuff have my utmost respect.

9. The docking port needs a retractable ladder that will survive reentry so it can be boarded on Kerbin.

All in all, I had a blast joyriding in the Deltaglider. Thank you for all your hard work. I can't tell you how much fun I had.

I wasnt aware of the problem with the docking port. I will check this ASAP with a generic rocket. It has been awhile since i last used it. Maybe I goofed something. Retros and scram will get a config update.

On a side note I would like to give a shoutout to CommanderSpock for his help and time testing the config files in this latest update. He got the Deltaglider flying pretty good

Edited October 8, 2015 by Redneck