[WIP] Eyes Turned Skywards Vehicle Mod

[Budgie]

MikeNZ and I are proud to present the

Eyes Turned Skywards vehicle mod for KSP!

hiddentexspace

The logo could.... use some work

MikeNZ, of the Space Shuttle Project fame, have been in talks to put give a mod idea that has been lacking on this forum a breath of life. I'm going to run a thread, manage suggestions and a tentative schedule and give general encouragement and Mike will do what he always does best, churn out great models like a KSP mod factory.

We are very happy to release some of the vessels featured in the Eyes Turned Skywards alternate timeline, whose wiki is featured here!

Our goals are to begin with the post lunar Apollo stuff, including Saturn Multibody, Saturn IC and all blocks of the Apollo and AARDV spacecraft, and then turn our attention elsewhere, including Vulkan and TKS, Space Station Freedom and the ETS Mir and the ETS return to the Moon. However, we hope to be flexible and change our approach should you guys have any better ideas.

And now, some of Mike's development pictures!

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Javascript is disabled. View full album

-----------o-----------o-----------o-----------o-----------

ETS, and its combination of history and rocket stuff, is a particular interest of mine and I've been hoping to see a mod like this come up for a while. I hope you guys will get to enjoy this as much as I will, and hope your constructive advice on how to make this better is sent our way!

DOWNLOAD LINK SOON

Requires ModuleRCSFX

CHANGE LOG SOON

Due credit goes to Workable Goblin and e of pi of the Alternate History forums for originally creating the alternate timeline. Credit also goes to Nixonhead for his 3d models available on the wiki. Mike has used these as the base for some of his models, cleaning them up and adapting them for specific use in KSP.

As such, this mod is being released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Budgie

[Sampa]

Oh! so this is a more Stockalike take on the real stuff?

[Budgie]

Oh! so this is a more Stockalike take on the real stuff?

I wouldn't say stock alike. I think we're definitely going for Mike's usual realistic style. But we can't really call it a replica, because ETS does not really exist. As stated, these are WIP models, and the end results are liable to be different, should Mike not be happy with what we have currently

[G'th]

Oh you guys suck I'm just finishing up recreating all of it using other mods and now you guys are just outright making the parts >.<

Anyways, do feel free to hit me up for help on this. Not only am I intimately familiar with pretty much all of the American rockets and spacecraft, I've also figured out some appropriate stats for the F1-A and J2-S engines (as they form the crux of what I think is the coolest part of ETS).

Something I definitely recommend is to work on enhancing the detail in the parts as you go. While nixonheads models were great for the illustrations, gamewise they'll be a bit lacking.

Another thing to consider is the interaction with FASA (as well as the other Apollo era mods), as well as to whether or not to do your own Sky/Spacelab. There's going to be quite a bit of overlap between the Apollo era mods and this and for anyone who wants to go from Apollo all the way through Skylab and Spacelab, Freedom and then Artemis, Orion, and Armstrong (like I do ), they'll end up with a cluttered partlist that has redundant and possibly incompatible parts that reasonably shouldn't be.

Personally I'd say either work on making things interchangeable with FASA, or once the core of this is completed work on developing your own early Apollo architecture (Saturn V/1B, Block II Apollo, LM) and Sky/Spacelab. This way people can either just use this mod or can pair it with FASA and you still end up with the best of both worlds.

[Bev7787]

I found a complete Artermis spacecraft from nixonhead's flickr page.

[Mike-NZ]

Good work. Even I am excited for this.

Will add a banner and link to my page

[saabstory88]

Hey,

E of Pi and I discussed some corrections to the sizes and layout of the tanks. I started working on this, but have been busy with KSP to Mars so haven'y been making much progress. I would be glad to give you the models I have made thus far, and all of my calculation work.

See: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/124827-RO-Saab-s-Alternate-History-DEV-home-of-ALT-STS-and-ETS

I will would be willing to stand-down my independent efforts to help with this.

Let me know.

[Budgie]

I found a complete Artermis spacecraft from nixonhead's flickr page.

Link please?

[_Augustus_]

Are you guys sure this is ok? The models are obviously ripped from the site.

Also the Apollo has no LES...

[Budgie]

The models aren't ripped. The lisence is mentioned in our OP, as the same license mentioned in the wiki (Share-alike). No ripping, just using with proper attribution.

[Mike-NZ]

Hey,

E of Pi and I discussed some corrections to the sizes and layout of the tanks. I started working on this, but have been busy with KSP to Mars so haven'y been making much progress. I would be glad to give you the models I have made thus far, and all of my calculation work.

See: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/124827-RO-Saab-s-Alternate-History-DEV-home-of-ALT-STS-and-ETS

I will would be willing to stand-down my independent efforts to help with this.

Let me know.

just saw this thread, good job so far with the models! I wasn't aware there was some ETS development already, maybe a joint effort?

also, I believe that 'ModuleRCSFX' patch is required for this mod, due to all the inbuilt rcs ports (30 for the Minotaur) stock ksp wont manage it

link HERE

[Chris P. Bacon]

I like this a lot.

[saabstory88]

just saw this thread, good job so far with the models! I wasn't aware there was some ETS development already, maybe a joint effort?

also, I believe that 'ModuleRCSFX' patch is required for this mod, due to all the inbuilt rcs ports (30 for the Minotaur) stock ksp wont manage it

link HERE

I have already messaged Budgie. I'm on board, let's do this.

[VenomousRequiem]

Mmm... The textures look a little... bland...

I haven't read ETS myself, but these do look pretty cool.

As someone who knows what they're talking about, would you recommend I read it?

[Budgie]

Mmm... The textures look a little... bland...

I haven't read ETS myself, but these do look pretty cool.

As someone who knows what they're talking about, would you recommend I read it?

If you have any interest in history, it's definitely worth a read. The guys that write this have put a lot of effort into fleshing out an alternate timeline that I would even buy, if I didn't know what actually occurred.

[regex]

Really want that ESA pod... Subscribing.

[Mike-NZ]

Mmm... The textures look a little... bland...

I haven't read ETS myself, but these do look pretty cool.

As someone who knows what they're talking about, would you recommend I read it?

everything was run through the processes and put into the game in a day (first days work), including fixing backface culling, normals, separating mesh, detailing, creating colliders, animating,making configs, testing some texturing.

this includes making new models and extra details as not everything is provided)

they will look better in time to come. (these are largely untextured as you can see its mostly shading HERE)

[Bev7787]

Link please?

A couple of them are not ETS but most of them are https://www.flickr.com/photos/94853275@N08/11760139784/in/album-72157643596572453/. This is just one of the pics

[Voidryder]

Awesome! Glad to see this come to life.

[VenomousRequiem]

everything was run through the processes and put into the game in a day (first days work), including fixing backface culling, normals, separating mesh, detailing, creating colliders, animating,making configs, testing some texturing.

this includes making new models and extra details as not everything is provided)

they will look better in time to come. (these are largely untextured as you can see its mostly shading HERE)

Just my observations, I'm sure it'll come to be very nice!

Just looked at that that entire page you posted... oh man would most of that stuff be nice! This mod may just become a must have!

[SuperWeegee4000]

Yes.

YES.

[Budgie]

Just to raise some hype up, and to see what you guys have come up with, I want to see some screenshots of your Eyes Turned Skywards canon or inspired crafts and missions on this thread, while Mike keeps working on his models. I know G'th has some somewhere, and maybe others have attempted to use FASA or Tantares parts and the like to replicate vehicles from the ETS timeline. Mine will be up eventually!

[Bev7787]

Saturn IC

[G'th]

Mmm... The textures look a little... bland...

I haven't read ETS myself, but these do look pretty cool.

As someone who knows what they're talking about, would you recommend I read it?

It truly is an extraordinary read. You will weep at how plausible it is when you realize just how much of it could have been real.

Anywhoo, here's a catalog of my current ETS recreations:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Looks wise a lot of it is still being tweaked, but performance wise they are working as perfectly as I can get.

Eventually I should stop being stubborn and do the Russian and ESA rockets too. But for the Russian stuff I've been hesitant because all the decent Russian mods are all disconnected and I'm not even sure what all could go together or not. (I know Tantares, but I'd still need to sit down and see if I could actually make the Russian rockets using nothing but the pack. And theres also the fact that I'm bigger on replica parts rather than stockalike stuff). I'm also not ashamed to just say that Russian spacecraft are just freaking weird looking to me

ESA wouldn't be too terribly difficult, but because they're not manned rockets (and because my only unmanned launches wouldn't look right not being flown on an American rocket anyway) I would hardly ever use them beyond a screenshot to say "i did it!"

But, if this mod carries out the entire ETS catalog, then I won't have to!

Saturn IC

http://i.imgur.com/7rJWk2k.jpg

Dat crawler tho

[Bev7787]

It's Mike's.