[1.12.5] Cormorant Aeronology - Mk3 Space Shuttle

[trippytripp]

On ‎12‎/‎17‎/‎2015‎ ‎7‎:‎37‎:‎20‎, tg626 said:

[snip]

Thought this would work....  KaBOOM!!!

What'd you use for the Canadarm imitation? it looks gooooood.

[tg626]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/101710-10x-rke-kanadarm-v0110-may-24/

[Pak]

Updated to 1.0.5

• Updated collision meshes to work with KSP 1.0.5
• Adjusted Aero values to align with KSP 1.0.5 changes. Note the standard shuttles don't feel quite as stable as they used to. Be careful with those S-turns!
• Added central node to engine mount area
• Removed Mini-Shuttle part for now. Will re-introduce later with an additional parts pack

 

Pretty quick fix due to time constraints, but I wanted to get those colliders redone as soon as I found out about it. So there wasn't much refining in this update.

After much aero fiddling I was able to get a good number of landings with a barebones shuttle. It feels a bit more loose than I remember, but I'm also pretty rusty so that could be part of it. High speed S-turns are pretty touchy. The nose wants to flip up, but it's controllable with RCS and limited reaction wheels. Overshooting KSC and turning around works just fine as long as the main turning is done when you're subsonic

 

For the future of 1.1

New models and textures for everything

Continue adding suggested changes

New parts including the bigger lifting body "patches"

Dedicated monoprop OMS engine on par with the LV-909

 

 

 

[ZobrAA]

1 hour ago, Pak said:

New models and textures for everything

Hype for Porkjets style and quality! \(^-^)/

Edited December 20, 2015 by ZobrAA

[tg626]

Yes!!!  Thank you for the update!

[tg626]

Core deployed!  And the update didn't shred my existing craft.  We'll see how she fairs on reentry.

[SpaceBadger007]

This mod is absolutely, amazingly, awesome! but just 1 thing, would you be able to add monopropellant to the rear end?   

_______________________________________________________________________^^^^^^^^^^?

 

[MrMeeb]

Isn't there monoprop in one of the other sections? like the nose or something?

[tg626]

OMS pods and nose default to monoprop.  And I think all can be configured individially via firespitter for fuel/oxidiser, fuel, oxidiser, or monoprop.

[tg626]

Is there a trick to the body flap?  Mine always defects the opposite direction...

[jonrd463]

1 hour ago, tg626 said:

Is there a trick to the body flap?  Mine always defects the opposite direction...

Right click it and click the "inverted" button.

[ComatoseJedi]

3 hours ago, tg626 said:

Is there a trick to the body flap?  Mine always defects the opposite direction...

I generally turn it off until entry into the atmosphere. And only then I set an action group to deploy in one direction. 

[Pak]

4 minutes ago, lynwoodm said:

I generally turn it off until entry into the atmosphere. And only then I set an action group to deploy in one direction. 

Lynwood got it.

Think of it more like an airbrake. While you could use it as a pitch elevon in kerbal, it's designed to add drag to the tail end to help keep the nose down during reentry and protect the engines from entry heating.

For its intended purpose, you'll want to set it up with an action group (or right click) as a brake so it deploys "down"

[SpaceBadger007]

8 hours ago, tg626 said:

OMS pods and nose default to monoprop.  And I think all can be configured individially via firespitter for fuel/oxidiser, fuel, oxidiser, or monoprop.

How do you do that?

[tg626]

59 minutes ago, Pak said:

Lynwood got it.

Think of it more like an airbrake. While you could use it as a pitch elevon in kerbal, it's designed to add drag to the tail end to help keep the nose down during reentry and protect the engines from entry heating.

For its intended purpose, you'll want to set it up with an action group (or right click) as a brake so it deploys "down"

I just read up a bit on that on net.  Thanks tho, it was confusing me.

52 minutes ago, SpaceBadger007 said:

How do you do that?

Right click on the tank in the vab.

[tg626]

Updated design.

- dropped stock mk3 tail.

- added 3rd wheasley engine

- repositioned wings

The 3rd engine allows 100m/s at 6km, which allows me to get clear of the peaks west of KSC if needed.

Edited December 24, 2015 by tg626

[Pak]

Hey guys. Merry Christmas and stuff.

Now that the fire is out I wanted to show some stuff I've been working on

First is the in progress remodel of the OMS pods and the new engine. I'm remaking all the models and textures to take advantage of unity 5 shaders, but I'll do my best to keep everything within the current part's collision mesh so it won't screw up your shuttle designs too bad.

 

 

The Venture II Adventure Plane! Based off of the C-90, this is a longer term personal project of mine that I'd like to get into Kerbal eventually. It's parted out to be more of a model kit as opposed to the multi use Kerbal parts so it likely won't appeal to many folks. It's a little larger than 1.25m and will fit 2 crew and 4 passengers with a detailed interior. Ideally I'd like to mess with Vanguard Technology's mod and make a skydiving version as well.

 

 

And here's a thing you can have!

https://github.com/Pak84/Cormorant-Aeronology

An Apollo CSM thing. This comes with two parts. The fuel tank and a KIS storage box. I was experimenting with stock texture referencing so they're not the prettiest.

It can be filled with LFO or Monoprop and comes with a handy storage area to cram all your junk. It's also just big enough to fit a .625m probe if that's your thing!

Engine is from RLA Stock-alike

[Pak]

Another update peek.

You can see the new payload truss here. I'm not completely set on it's gameplay function yet whether it'll serve as a docking port or just a good set of attach nodes for payloads and doodads. Likely a bit of both

I have a few other shuttle utility bits that I'm considering and working on. I'll post those when they come up

[MrMeeb]

57 minutes ago, Pak said:

Another update peek.

You can see the new payload truss here. I'm not completely set on it's gameplay function yet whether it'll serve as a docking port or just a good set of attach nodes for payloads and doodads. Likely a bit of both

I have a few other shuttle utility bits that I'm considering and working on. I'll post those when they come up

*STRUGGLES TO CONTAIN HYPE*

[m4ti140]

Would be cool to have "wing capacitive shielding" parts that would fit to the lower surface of stock shuttle wing/cs parts, and properly configured for this role (thermal settings, maxtemp etc.)

Also what is the status of the body flap? Is it going to support FAR?

 

EDIT:

@Pak I started to do the configuration myself, and noticed a couple of things:

1. The stock control surface area is way smaller than it should be: It should be around 4.5-5m^2

2. The part model is oriented backwards (relative to how the other control surface models are oriented) - this is actually problematic with FAR, as without some advanced configuration magic the center of lift of the part is located outside of it. SAS, as well as any autopilot mod may also have problems with this part due to that fact. I'm currently playing around with FAR parameters to try to make it work regardless.

 

Also, slightly unrelated: the real shuttle reentered at 40deg AoA. In fact it was the only angle of attack it could reenter at - any deviation from it would destroy the shuttle by either exposing insufficiently shielded parts or causing too high deceleration/loss of control - that's why the shuttle had to bank and do the S-turns to control the rate of descent. It was also, with a help of the flap, stable at that attitude.

Edited February 7, 2016 by m4ti140

[tg626]

They did, last update. 

[MelancholyFlapper]

Idea for the plane - make it 1.875m. That's an extremely common mod part size between 2.5m and 1.25m. That way you can keep it larger than 1.25m, but still compatible with other parts (at least if you have adapters).

[Pak]

Small Update Posted

v 1.04 Changes
 - Changes to Aero. Turning during reentry should feel a bit more stable at higher speeds again. Seems like the 1.0.5 hotfix lifting body fix was conflicting with the parts additional wing lift causing much higher lift.

- Body Flap values adjusted to bring its drag back up.

- Body Flaps of existing shuttles will likely flip around and will need to be re-attached in the assembly building. Don't update if you have a shuttle in orbit!

[Pak]

On 2/5/2016 at 10:14 AM, m4ti140 said:

Is it going to support FAR?

I started to do the configuration myself, and noticed a couple of things:

I know very little about FAR, but still intend on adding support after all the remodeling (the flap will be changing a bit).  I can't say I've run into any of those problems. As far as I could find (at least in stock) the only axis it reads off of a control surface is the X for the pivot point. I messed with the orientation a bit and didn't see any real change, let me know if you see anything different. If you do get it working properly with FAR I'd be happy to post it in the meantime.

 

On 2/10/2016 at 6:42 AM, Mods_o_joy said:

Shuttle Will not Stay Stable and keeps flipping backwards if you Move away from Prograde, That and the Nosecone heats up and explodes if you Aim at prograde to prevent Aforementioned Flipping

Also is the Back of the Long Body piece going to Look like that in the next release?, Because that would look epic.

(Minus the Girder Segment)

Sounds like a shuttle to me! I'm not sure what your general skill level is with shuttles. If you're new there's a lot of great tutorials out there on proper shuttle reentry along with some basics within this thread.

If you're not new to shuttles you're also right. There were some issues since the update and I wasn't too happy with the aero. The 1.0.5 hotfix in Nov. re-added a  stock lifting body feature. This seems to be the culprit along with the new colliders and could have been the cause for some weird lift issues I was seeing. After some testing it's much more stable above Mach 2. Still very touchy in the transition between light and heavy atmosphere, but that's just the nature of shuttles and why we have RCS.

Also yes those are going to be the new models. The girder will be a separate piece. I don't have any plans for things like an ET since there's already a lot of great options out there. The nice bulky lower ET decoupler is tempting though.

On 2/10/2016 at 0:34 PM, MelancholyFlapper said:

Idea for the plane - make it 1.875m. That's an extremely common mod part size between 2.5m and 1.25m. That way you can keep it larger than 1.25m, but still compatible with other parts (at least if you have adapters).

I'll keep that in mind. I haven't done any retuning of the scale relative to Kerbals yet so it may have to size up to that.

 

Edited February 14, 2016 by Pak

[MelancholyFlapper]

This may be out of scope of the mod, but I figured I'd just toss out some suggestions for extras to see if you like any of them:

EDO module

Airlock/docking module

Spacelab

IUS

Shuttle payload pallets

I really like this mod a lot, thanks for making it, Pak. As a shuttle aficionado I appreciate it!