[1.12.5] Bluedog Design Bureau - Stockalike Saturn, Apollo, and more! (v1.14.0 "металл" 30/Sep/2024)

[TimothyC]

9 minutes ago, VenomousRequiem said:

Really? Ive only seen a picture of it with single axis. 

Oh yeah:

 

 

 

 

[CobaltWolf]

@Araymwow that's a... a very long post you've got there. I'm going to read it and write down my general thoughts.

The Titan 1 parts shouldn't be 'worse' than the Titan 2 and 4 parts. I actually rather like the stock philosophy of adding more options, rather than making old parts obsolete. I may make some early game parts that would intentionally be replaced, but not yet.
Also, Titan 1 should theoretically have the best ISP of the bunch due to it using kerolox instead of storable propellants.

Also worth pointing out, the LR91 isn't an upper stage - it's a second stage. It is closer to the skipper than it is to the poodle. From your post I gather that you understand this.

I appreciate the suggestion of editing the Thor tanks through the cfgs, but I was thinking I would simply scale them in Maya. I want to grab some new orthographics and make sure the tank lengths match them better this time. That will probably happen tonight.

Remember that the current 1.5m Thor/Delta parts are only meant to represent Thor up until they stopped using the LR-79. Delta-II is not meant to be built by the current parts - the next big update will likely focus on finishing Delta. The long blue tank was meant to be used to build Thorad.

@TimothyC so... what should I do for the transtage tank then? Delete those blocks? I can't think of a way for stock to allow RCS with a detachable cover. I might just add RCS ports to the texture so that they still function.

Anyways, that's it from me for the day. I have to try and buckle down and get some compositing work done. Stream starts at 6PM EST but might start as early as 5PM.

[TimothyC]

I might just remove them at this point or leave them as ullage RCS thrusters (allowing pitch and yaw control). The number of instances where Transtage was to dock with anything else were limited in the first place, which is why after I actually though about it, now say to leave them (I'm finally internalizing the not-exact-copy nature of the mod).

[Araym]

4 hours ago, Jso said:

@Araym Expect a 1.875m Titan II GLV to have excess dv when launched from stock Kerbin. Isp would have to be cut in half to avoid that. That the Thor did not have that problem is why I checked the scale.

... as I said in other post, it's a common thing for a lot of rockets: stock Kerbin is always that...

When I build something like a Saturn V, all the time I end to could do a munar transfer with the second stage, so I'm pretty fine to have "overperforming" rockets all the time.

4 hours ago, Jso said:

After the tank rebalance there was a complaint that Titan II was falling a little short on Kerbin 3x and lowering the second stage engine mass solved that (on paper anyway). 0.7 ton for a 120 kn engine is the same TWR as an LV-T30 so it falls within stockalike range.

I do look for stock performance, as I'm playing in that behaviour.
Waiting a "transtage", I made some rocket more than a Titan II GLV, with an added 3rd stage of comparable masses (or what it could be) to a "transtage", to make a Titan 3-A: 120kN become probably a bit short of needed thrust even in stock, in a comparable configuration.

Pointing out then that on a x3 Kerbin, then, a rocket it's not working, for me, it's the same to look stock parts in an RSS behaviour: Then, at this point, different from mine and yours tweaks, we should follow proportion from real life Titan II first stage/second stage: it was 1:2.44... took a 565 kN in the first stage (i'm still not moving from a value that fall in a TWR 1.2/1.3 for a Titan II) it should be then 235kN for the second stage. With a stock weight/thrust right like a LV-T30 it should have a mass even worse of 1.76 tons........
Then we should consider what we like to be "a replica part": proportion to real life thrust, then stock-comparable masses and ISP? proportion to real life ISP, then stock-comparable thrust and masses? Try to achieve "a stage performance" with fuel depletion during flight as it was in real-life? balancement all around to have good stock engine, good x3 Kerbin engine, and performance like real-life rocket replica? Real life ISP, thrust, masses = using RSS with FAR and DRE, nad real fuel load/tank mass to not make mistake???

I'm more for a mix of the first two option, aiming for a bit of the 3rd if possible (almost NEVER possible, in stock behaviour). Problem coming for "modded Kerbin behaviour" then has no issue for me, in balance: proportion / issues could be also from problems about "what kind of Gemini" those using x3 Kerbin are developed: Tantares "Spica", in a 2.5m form, is not usable with BD... FASA "Gemini" neither... CobaltWolf give to us just just "a 2x Kerbals" pod, then, if we are looking to build a "Gemini-replica", it should have just some RCS for orbital manouvers (400-500 dV from RCS??? a couple of round surface attacked tanks???) and maybe 200 dV from some "solid srb bottles" to deorbit... are we sure that the "lack of performance" is not coming from an "overengineered" Gemini, with maybe thousand of dV coming from an heavy liquid fueled service module with engines that a Gemini capsule hadn't?

Judging MY Gemini replica, and the MORE THAN OVERNEEDED dV I always ditch, in orbit, from the second stage, I'm sure that even in x3 Kerbin it could reach more than stable orbits with my "heavier" upper stage engine........
... for those that had then "problems", in a x3 Kerbin, they should look on "what they added" as payload. Over some proportions, they probably could have issues NOT coming from "bad balanced rocked", but from "too heavy Gemini". Stock only RCS thrusters are not the awesome thing to use only for space propulsion... any added "system" (rocket fuel-tanks + engines) is NOT a replica and make the spacecraft heavier than it should be... with some sepatrons as "reentry solid rockets", it's just needed a 200 dV to deorbit (not pretendig a pin-pointing land, if you are going "replica" )
I'd like to "look" at some picture and data from not orbiting Titan II + Gemini from x3 Kerbin users, because if they fail to be "strict mass balanced" developing their Gemini, they will need, probably, some "advanced rocket" than a Titan II, in their "game-time line", rather than those needed by NASA. do you wanna play difficoult? Be smart! Or you need to follow the Jeb's motto: "... add more boosters", because you have not developed a Gemini with the strict parameter it should have (in a more likely cross-over with a Gemini and a MOL-Gemini )

 

 Then I point that a mod should be balanced on "stock"... modded behaviour (x64 Kerbin, x3 Kerbin, RSS, anyelse) have their value and problem: I feel sorry for them, but they could discuss "in their 3x Kerbin thread" about light changes to balance "their game". I generally "kill" any engine coming from mods, for "overperformance" in a stock enviroments, just because (multiple choice):

1. modders tend to balance engine to have ALWAYS TWR>1 in ANY STAGE, misured a.s.l., and generally going maybe around 1.5/1.7
   I generally had my best rocket with a global launch a.s.l. TWR of 1.2 and a second stage at TWR (a.s.l measured) at 0.9. It means that ad second stage ignition it has already a TWR>1.2... sometime I launched rockets with a second stage at TWR ~0.8 and they were awesome capable to go "orbital" directly from launch, with just a "puff" of thrust to, maybe, circularize an already orbit at 120x80...
2. modded engines have always "awesome ISP", took generally from real life comparison, in an atmosphere that, even if better than the soup-sphere of old version, it is still a "soup" untill 20/25km, then become "non existent" above (yes... it make drag, but balancing an engine, at that altitude a rocket engine already is perfoming at 90-95% of vacuum ISP)
3. modders that create "replica-ish parts" for "real-ish looking rockets" have to fight with parallel in dimensions and proportion, then fill it with "stock lead-dense fuel" in "stock cast-iron tanks". If they follow "maths proportion" of dimension with stock tanks, the had to generally have engines NOT being stock-alike, generally with strange ISP or too much kN... if they follow stock values for engine first, and add mass and fuel to JUST be like real-life performance (... given a stage, the fuel must deplete in a given moment of the flight), they have "tanks fueled of air", with 30-50% less fuel than a stock one (an example was the "Ariane" in Tantares LV early version: a 3.75m tank that could be considered fueled just with "nothing" :P)
4. modded part are always "unbalanced": maybe in performances, maybe in career kredits cost, maybe placed in too early or too late R&D tech nodes. Neither the "best mod authors" provided a "perfect set of parts". Neither SQUAD has still found perfect balanced parts/behaviours...

I provided my thought to CobaltWolf for a pure "stock behaviour", balanced for a "forgiving scenario" of not a perfect flight for not "master of space" players (fun first), or variation on payload to have multiple design available, without having out of scale performance (neither undeperformance or overperfomance from stock).

NOT interested (for the moment) for any x3 Kerbin, x2 Kerbin, x64 Kerbin, Real Solar System playstyle, to look further...

Then... I'm done enough for the moment.
Overall, my KSP install is a modded by me of a "modded one": I always change things in every part pack I add, finding always imbalances from a mod to another.
(Basically I add the parts, then i re-write them... Basically at this point of experience, playing KSP, i could just need models and textures... cfg files are always different in my games, ditching unneded features, changing things, balancing there, moving things, at a point that it's more the time passed by me with BlockNotes open, than KSP itself )

--- EDIT ---

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

... I actually rather like the stock philosophy of adding more options, rather than making old parts obsolete....

... Also, Titan 1 should theoretically have the best ISP of the bunch due to it using kerolox instead of storable propellants....

 

 

 

ISP from my "proposal" are directly took from http://www.astronautix.com/ (better tha wikipedia, for me, and generally my "basic knowledge information site" when I search rocket data). I made a bit of compromise for the "mod2" series of engines, as there were little differences from "Titan II" as balistic missile/satellite launcher and "Titan II GLV" for Gemini. But it was just 1 or 2 point max here and there, and almost fallen when I rounded them for easy lifestyle

But if you see "worste Titan 1" ISP, they WERE reported there as they are in my proposal (I basically copied them ).
Actual differences could be just in the LR-91 for the Titan 1, as the combined ISP from vernier could change a bit the "main engine" ISP i took from that site... (I'm not so math addicted to make an equation of both engines combined on paper, to have the "perfect" ISP )

Just only the "thrust" value are a bit of compromise in perforformance (I started trying to balance the Titan II x Gemini first, then added values to "Titan 1" and "Titan 4") not to make them "obsolete" but only "different" from eachother (the comments about "Titan 1 obsolete engine" was made in a kerbalish way to figure some "advancement/changes" in the next version, not a part that is not worth to be used... )

 

Edited January 14, 2016 by Araym

[davidy12]

@CobaltWolf: There are some serious bugs with the centaur. I can't make the interstage attach. Also, it only feeds from the attachment plate not the upper tanks

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, davidy12 said:

@CobaltWolf: There are some serious bugs with the centaur. I can't make the interstage attach. Also, it only feeds from the attachment plate not the upper tanks

It works fine for me. The interstage now attaches via its top node to the hidden node just below the top rim of the mounting plate. The fuel flows normally on my end.

EDIT: @Araym I'll apply your changes to Titan and see how it flies. I'm waiting for renders to finish anyways.

EDIT2: @TimothyC I may put some mono in the transtage fuel tank (it has a very low utilization ratio) and add RCS to the blocks. That makes the fuel tank slightly more useful, and makes it a bit different than the other Titan tanks of a similar length.

Did Transtage have gimbal on its AJ-10s?

EDIT3: Also, @Araym @Jso a thought I had last night: Right now, all the adapters are fuel tanks. Perhaps we should take a look at which ones should be made pure structural adapters? The short / almost flat adapters, the tiny Brun adapter, and the one for the top of Titan 1 come to mind.

Edited January 14, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[TimothyC]

Yes, it had gimbal, but I don't know how much. If I get more downtime I can look.

[Jso]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

EDIT3: Also, @Araym @Jso a thought I had last night: Right now, all the adapters are fuel tanks. Perhaps we should take a look at which ones should be made pure structural adapters? The short / almost flat adapters, the tiny Brun adapter, and the one for the top of Titan 1 come to mind.

Umm, other than thor long adapter (it's a tapered tank really), and maybe thor short adapter, all of them. I guess.

[CobaltWolf]

41 minutes ago, Jso said:

Umm, other than thor long adapter (it's a tapered tank really), and maybe thor short adapter, all of them. I guess.

My thought was that the longer adapters are tapered fuel tanks, while the shorter ones are essentially fairings / avionics / structural. The Atlas adapter tank comes to mind - Atlas flew with both straight tanks and tapered tanks, depending on the upper stage.

Also, we cannot balance the engines based on IRL ISP. Engines in KSP have consistently higher ISP - the Mainsail's ISP is 310/285. My bottom line is I want engines to have ballpark IRL performance RELATIVE to eachother - if one engine has a significantly higher ISP than another in real life, I want that reflected. So the ratios should be more or less right. But the actual values should probably be nudged closer to those of the stock parts. We also have to think of the niches that parts should fill -  the Inon/RL-10 should be the most efficient upper stage we have right now, because it runs on hydrolox. What would the downside of that be?

EDIT: Also, I realized that there is a bunch of space left over on the texture sheets for the early rocket parts. I could fit some misc parts, like the fins for Thor, on there, and possibly even a new fuel tank or two. Thoughts?

Edited January 14, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[drekerb42]

Are you streaming at 2?

[CobaltWolf]

5 minutes ago, drekerb42 said:

Are you streaming at 2?

Eastern? No, my streaming software was open in the background and I felt like trolling. I toggled the stream on and off a couple times to see how quickly you (specifically) came.

[drekerb42]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

Eastern? No, my streaming software was open in the background and I felt like trolling. I toggled the stream on and off a couple times to see how quickly you (specifically) came.

I meant PST oops. So when will you stream. Its 2:30 here now, 5:30 for you.

[CobaltWolf]

Stream will start as soon as my desktop finishes restarting. As usual it will be on my Twitch channel. Tonight will be work on Thor parts, then texturing Transtage, then if we have time I'll be UV unwrapping some probe stuff. While I was waiting for renders this afternoon I started tweaking the Thor parts again and before I knew it they're almost completely redone, so... yeah. Might as well finish that up.

[drekerb42]

Sweet ill be there @CobaltWolf

[davidy12]

@CobaltWolf: Good to see the stream going good.

 

Though I got some news.  Unfortunately whenever I couple the Atlas I with a Centaur and decouple the booster it crashes. Apparently I found a bug with 64 bit. Not asking to look at it. I'll take it up with a log file.

Edited January 15, 2016 by davidy12

[CobaltWolf]

Stream is done. Got some work done on Thor, and finished Transtage - didn't have time to get it in game though! Have a dev release, including the new Thor stuff, the Titan fairings, and more balance work.

( @Araym Thor is now built (from bottom up) with the engine, short tank, medium tank, long adapter)

 

[Araym]

12 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

EDIT3: Also, @Araym @Jso a thought I had last night: Right now, all the adapters are fuel tanks. Perhaps we should take a look at which ones should be made pure structural adapters? The short / almost flat adapters, the tiny Brun adapter, and the one for the top of Titan 1 come to mind.

11 hours ago, Jso said:

Umm, other than thor long adapter (it's a tapered tank really), and maybe thor short adapter, all of them. I guess.

I'm feeling like JSO:

The smallest adapter in your pack should be just "structural adapters". (It comes in mind all those used on the Vanguard-Brun, or the smaller one in the Titan 1 needed to connect the second stage to the nose probe)

Inon and Muo ones should be kept tanks, just to let build actual stages: Obviously the Muo ones are needed for the tapered version of early Atlas, the Inon ones come handly to build the odd shaped Centaur for Titan 4 (401) and Titan 4-B (401B) (in your scale, it started like a 1.875 meter with its O₂ tank, then become a 2.5m H₂ Tank, in a -probably- common bulkead)

Thor bigger tapered tanks (bluedog_thorLongAdapter and bluedog_thorShortAdapter) are definitely tanks... other smaller ones should be Structural pieces (it comes in mand to me that the actual "various rocket" that flew with the basic Thor PGM as first stage, often, had oddly-longer shaped first stage just because it was built a lot of different pieces to adapt it to different upper stages)

11 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

EDIT: Also, I realized that there is a bunch of space left over on the texture sheets for the early rocket parts. I could fit some misc parts, like the fins for Thor, on there, and possibly even a new fuel tank or two. Thoughts?

Small fins for Thor. A lot of them had x4 small triangular fins attached on the engine casing.

 

2 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Stream is done. Got some work done on Thor, and finished Transtage - didn't have time to get it in game though! Have a dev release, including the new Thor stuff, the Titan fairings, and more balance work.

( @Araym Thor is now built (from bottom up) with the engine, short tank, medium tank, long adapter)

Thor rocket feel right in lenght and balance.
Sadly you removed the "blue" XL tank (it was nice as future "Delta 2000" part, even if it was without an RS-27) even if it has a small visual glitch (it seemed built with two blue-ish cilinder, tapered together by the white-ish adapter in the middle: it could be possible to see thru the adapter and the long cilinder making the long upper half of the tank :P).

In meantime, we will building up to the "Delta 1000" serie

Personally, I liked that blue/grey-ish shade, rather to have in the future a more bright blue.

[CobaltWolf]

6 hours ago, Araym said:

I'm feeling like JSO:

The smallest adapter in your pack should be just "structural adapters". (It comes in mind all those used on the Vanguard-Brun, or the smaller one in the Titan 1 needed to connect the second stage to the nose probe)

Inon and Muo ones should be kept tanks, just to let build actual stages: Obviously the Muo ones are needed for the tapered version of early Atlas, the Inon ones come handly to build the odd shaped Centaur for Titan 4 (401) and Titan 4-B (401B) (in your scale, it started like a 1.875 meter with its O₂ tank, then become a 2.5m H₂ Tank, in a -probably- common bulkead)

Thor bigger tapered tanks (bluedog_thorLongAdapter and bluedog_thorShortAdapter) are definitely tanks... other smaller ones should be Structural pieces (it comes in mand to me that the actual "various rocket" that flew with the basic Thor PGM as first stage, often, had oddly-longer shaped first stage just because it was built a lot of different pieces to adapt it to different upper stages)

Small fins for Thor. A lot of them had x4 small triangular fins attached on the engine casing.

 

Thor rocket feel right in lenght and balance.
Sadly you removed the "blue" XL tank (it was nice as future "Delta 2000" part, even if it was without an RS-27) even if it has a small visual glitch (it seemed built with two blue-ish cilinder, tapered together by the white-ish adapter in the middle: it could be possible to see thru the adapter and the long cilinder making the long upper half of the tank :P).

In meantime, we will building up to the "Delta 1000" serie

Personally, I liked that blue/grey-ish shade, rather to have in the future a more bright blue.

I already converted most of the adapters to be structural.

I definitely want to do the fins. I have a couple more misc parts that are going on those texture sheets to round out Thor.

The XL tank is still in, I knew about the visual glitch and fixed it last night. When I originally made it I forgot that the Thor tanks have slight bevels on their rims. I fixed that last night while I was working. It's actually the same texture on both the top and the bottom part of the tank, it's just the top ends before it reaches those black stripes.

I changed the color because I didn't want it to be mistaken for the Delta II/III tank. The Delta II tank will make use of that blue color, I'm fairly partial to it. It's hard to find non-monochrome colors that work well for a stockalike style.

I was just informed that my evening is open, so I suppose I'll throw the stream up if my renders finish while I'm at class today. Going to get Transtage in game then finish the Thor stuff.

[Sgt.Shutesie]

I finally understand the use of the transtage on the titan IV, it goes above the second stage engine and does all the orbital stuff. That makes a lot more sense than it being a second stage engine... Silly me

[CobaltWolf]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Shutesie said:

I finally understand the use of the transtage on the titan IV, it goes above the second stage engine and does all the orbital stuff. That makes a lot more sense than it being a second stage engine... Silly me

Did Transtage ever fly on Titan IV? I thought it was just used on Titan III.

[WALL OF TEXT INCOMING]

Speaking on Transtage, I've decided I will try and make the RCS blocks separate, with detachable aeroshrouds. I feel like that would be a useful part to have. I'll be experimenting with it first thing on stream tonight, since there's no point in putting Transtage in game if I'm going to tear part of it apart and rebuild it.
For anyone that wasn't there: The plan is to essentially make the RCS blocks as radial decouplers. The thrusters will be attached to the part that gets left behind on the rocket, while the aerodynamic covers will jettison off. The parts will then be set so other things cannot be surface attached to them, and crossfeed will be enabled to they can draw mono from the fuel tanks. To be clear, the Transtage engine itself is fine and won't be getting ripped apart. Just possibly the fuel tank.

I was sitting class and decided to write down what needs to get done. Tonight's agenda (as always we'll see how far we get):

1)Titan ToDo:

• Experiment w/ RCS block
• Finish Transtage textures (still too clean)
• Fix Titan IV tank textures (They need a bit more detail, and the color pallet needs adjustment)
• Add Transtage in game

2) Thor ToDo:

• Make changes to 0.9375m decoupler texture
• Finish adjustments to textures on engine, XL tank, etc
• Add additional grunge and rust (I've been doing this on the Titan tanks and like the effect)
• Redo Able stage tanks (end diameter still 0.625m but the main section of the tank will be narrower.
• Thor fin (small triangle fin)
• Long 1.25m > 0.625m adapter (for Thor-Able)
• 1.25m fairing base (shorter/lower profile than stock)
• 1.25m low profile decoupler (same as above, also to match the Thor textures better)
• 1.5m Boattail mount (for mounting 1.25m engines on 1.5m rockets. It'll look sexy trust me)
• Strake fin (long-ish trapezoid fin. Just going to be folded into the Thor stuff there's room on the texture sheet)

3) Delta ToDo:

• Add texture to AJ10 autoshroud
• Color match the interstage (it is too bright compared to other parts)
• Play with color pallet - too much going on I think. Green, yellow, and red - and it's supposed to go with a blue first stage. Thoughts?
• Add grunge / rust

4) Misc ToDo:

• 0.625m fairing base (starting tech, more or less meant to be a nose cone fairing for instruments. But might become more useful if I ever add more tiny probes)
• Fix texture on backside of Ranger solar panels - may require ripping out the broken geometry and rebuilding it
• Fix the solar panel texture on the Suomi core - some white streaks were added on top of the solar panel texture on this probe core, and as a result the solar panels don't match the rest of the mod's solar panels in color.
• Finish unwrapping Ranger probe core
• Finish unwrapping cameras

 

Next order of business - if you haven't noticed, the bros over at Procedural Fairings for Everything (special shoutout to @MeCripp ) have been converting the fairings over to Procedural Fairings. Personally, one of my biggest problems with PFairings is that they lack stockalike textures. I will be making a series of textures for PFairings, and hopefully (if me or Venom can figure it out) custom shapes for the fairings as well. Stay tuned for that.

I also want to talk about the next update for a moment. It's approaching a month since the last release of BDB, and the release of 1.1 is approaching. My general plan moving forward is to get one last release out before 1.1, so that everyone will have stuff to play with once I have to start moving things over to Unity 5. Any time between the release of BDB 0.09 and the release of KSP 1.1 will be spent working on art assets for probe parts (including finishing the cameras and other new science), Not-Gemini/Not-MOL (some of those parts have been half modeled since November) and Delta II/III (yes I'll do the darn Delta III upper stage but that's as far as I go) since there likely won't be much point to getting them pushed through Unity 4.
The 0.09 release is actually going to be the biggest BDB release yet I think. Titan alone has over 30 parts, and a special thanks goes out to @fs10inator and @TimothyC for helping me wrap my head around such an interesting rocket family. Thor will have been completely redone, to match the real rocket's proportions and improve the art. Almost all the other 'Early Rockets' launchers have had their textures tweaked or redone. The Delta K upper stage was modeled by @VenomousRequiem and added into the game, Centaur got sexy new interstages, and Atlas V got a new texture with a resolution appropriate for the size of the parts. Almost every part in the mod got their stats heavily adjusted, thanks to help from @Jso and @Araym. Not only are the parts less hopelessly OP, but they've also helped set up guidelines for balancing parts in the future. 
I guess my point is that I'm crazy excited about BDB. It's been growing exponentially better than last couple updates and I wanted to thank everyone here on the thread for participating in its development and putting up with my general craziness. I didn't mean to get all mushy but there I said it. While my homework has definitely been hurt a bit since I started (I've managed to convince myself that BDB work is an equally productive use of my time) overall I have seen huge gains in my skill as a 3D artist. It's been an incredibly enjoyable and rewarding experience. I've always been a huge flake with personal projects and though I've made attempts at modding other games before, I've never come close to releasing something, let alone still going strong 4 months later with no end in sight.
Who knows, maybe some day I'll even do Saturn.

Speaking of help - I have two things that I need help with. One, I'll need a hand in ensuring that everything that should have TweakScale, does. If anyone wants to list off the parts in the current dev release that should have it but don't, I'd appreciate it. Secondly, if there are any textures that stick out, I'd like to know. For example, the 'black' (dark grey) should be more or less uniform between all the parts, ditto the 'white' (very light grey). If anyone objects to any of the textures in the mod (barring the antennas - they need to get completely redone at some point) I'd like to know so I can take care of it.
I'll actually make this three things instead of two. While there has been a lot of work put into balancing the mod, the Titan engines in particular are still up in the air. Please let me know if you have thoughts as to how to adjust them.

Stream will go online again somewhere between 4 and 6 PM EST. As usual, feel free to stop in and say hi, ask questions, etc. I'll be working on the things in the todo list above, roughly in the order they appear on it.

EDIT: For those that are curious, apparently I took about 45 minutes to write this T.T

EDIT2: Couple more questions, because I'm sitting here in the computer lab on my laptop and I'm trying to avoid being an adult. When should I move from '0.xx' to 'Release 1', 'Release 2', etc? Also, is it possible to have the moderators move the thread to the releases board when that happens? My thought would be it won't happen until, at the very least, the antennas are redone because frankly I want to vomit whenever I see some of them. They're currently the oldest thing in the mod and they were all made when I had no idea what I was doing. To give a rough idea of how I feel about them - I think most of the stuff IN THE LAST RELEASE looks pretty bad now. Its just the allure of adding new things is stronger than going back to fix mistakes... now I understand why the Payday 2 devs jumped the shark.

Edited January 15, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[fs10inator]

2 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Did Transtage ever fly on Titan IV?

Nope. The only upper stages that flew on Titan IV were IUS and Centaur.

[BMot360]

On 05/01/2016 at 9:31 PM, BMot360 said:

I'm having some problems with the Inon Decouplers since the last dev release. The attachment points aren't the same as they used to be/don't work and neither do the engine fairings.

I noticed the problem when trying to attach to the Inon Engine Mounting Plate/Inon-75 engine (either one engine or two). Previously, an engine fairing was generated that lined up correctly with the fuel tank.

Here are some screenshots.

 

13 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Stream is done. Got some work done on Thor, and finished Transtage - didn't have time to get it in game though! Have a dev release, including the new Thor stuff, the Titan fairings, and more balance work.

 

Hey Cobalt, I don't think the Inon Decouplers are working in the latest release (I don't think it's just me this time).

[CobaltWolf]

4 minutes ago, BMot360 said:

Hey Cobalt, I don't think the Inon Decouplers are working in the latest release (I don't think it's just me this time).

(still avoiding homework)

You are correct - the attachment point is no longer where it used to be. The change is noted in the part descriptions to ease transition. The interstages now attach to a hidden node inside the mounting plate. The top edge of the interstages line up flush with the bottom of the dark grey rim around the top of the mounting plate.

EDIT: To further explain, this change reduced the overall length of the stage and made it more agnostic to which engine you were using. It is theoretically more reliable to assemble as well.

Edited January 15, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[davidy12]

2 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Who knows, maybe some day I'll even do Saturn.

 

Some day, some day I hope  . That. would. be. AWESOME!!! Still, I'm excited for the finishing of titan parts

[CobaltWolf]

35 minutes ago, davidy12 said:

Some day, some day I hope  . That. would. be. AWESOME!!! Still, I'm excited for the finishing of titan parts

Well, if it makes y'all feel any better, Saturn is officially on the roadmap. Specifically, for the LVs it roughly goes:

Titan > Delta (2, 3) > Juno (1,2,3) > Atlas (Several unflown variants, including Vega and SLV-3) > Saturn 1 > Saturn 1B > Saturn V > other Saturn stuff.

Obviously Titan is getting finished right now. Delta comes next because, well, I promised Venom I'd do it and I don't want her to cry. The Juno series involved a revamp of the Explorer parts, including adding the various SRB clusters and some modified Redstone parts. Juno II (AKA Jupiter) is kind of cool - it's going to be an early 1.7m lifter (in generalRocketry, with Thor and Atlas) but its engine is comparable to the LVT-45 or the Odin, so it's not more powerful. In terms of fuel amounts, it has the same as a 1.25m lifter stage. It would just be fatter + shorter. Juno III comes next, which is basically making a storable propellant upper stage for Juno II.
This leads us back into Atlas. I want to redo some of the parts, but I also have been wanting to do Vega for a while. If you don't know, Vega was an interim upper stage that NASA was planning to use while Centaur was being developed. Instead they wound up getting the Agena that was already being used for military launches. Vega was the big part of this phase, but then NathanKell linked to some interesting unflown Atlas designs that I'm dying to use. Some of them include use of the H-1 engine instead of the LR-89/105. (Centaur will probably get updated/expanded at this point, there are some centaur configurations such as the baby Centaur that TimothyC linked to me)
Which leads us into Saturn 1, which I'd basically just have to do the fuel tanks for at that point considering I'd have the first stage engines (H-1) and second stage engines (RL-10) done already. From that point I am planning on more or less following the design increments that the real Saturn design took. Saturn 1 leads to Saturn 1B, which gives us the S-IVB stage as well as the J2 engines, etc. And obviously by this point I would start working on Apollo/LEM/whatever. Skylab. AAP. All that fun stuff.

That's the LV side of things. Hopefully on the way there we'll take some detours to add more probe parts, finish the Karrot / 1 man lander / baby station parts, etc. That's the rough plan at least.

Anyways, I'm home now. I had some things rendering on my desktop that turned out, well, wrong. So I'm going to try and figure out what settings I have to fix and then I'll start working on KSP stuff. I slept awfully last night (turns out drinking coffee at 8PM is bad for someone who already has trouble sleeping) and I feel a headache coming on, so I likely won't run as late as normal. Cheers!
 

Edited January 15, 2016 by CobaltWolf