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


CobaltWolf

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1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

Atlas II/III are getting actual parts in the next update (well, Atlas III for sure) so don't worry tooooo much about them

Too late, It's already made. :P

2f9sIk8.jpg

Huston, we have descriptions. Yeah, it's official, every single craft now contains a description, I hope....

Updated craft files and some new rockets for testing.

Sub-Assemblies, now with a Daleth II and Muo V launch tower!

Edited by Sgt.Shutesie
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I used some of the craft files yesterday (pre-description), very cool.

I found that some of them were unstable either due to FAR, or MechJeb SmartASS having trouble with sets of engines with fairly different thrust and gimbal. Of course, it could also be that I'm not used to throttling back, is there a maximum dynamic pressure I should try to not to exceed, or any suggestings for successful flight?

I am not very familiar with stock balancing, but the Atlas-alike felt a bit strange. The real Atlas has more thrust in each side booster than the core engine, while that is not true here. Although, the boosters have more thrust when combined, so that might be what brings it into stock balance. Also, the ground TWR was very high, which made flight unstable for me.

Some of the (early?) upper stages seem to have really low ISPs, which make them seem fairly useless to me when the Atlas core engine has a way higher ISP. Perhaps that might be balanced out by a low mass or low cost in career mode. I naturally need to do more experimenting, I am just listing my early impressions.

Are there any craft files that include a fully built Mercury-alike or Gemini-alike? I want to make sure I'm finding all of the applicable parts.

 

Thanks :)

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4 minutes ago, stratochief66 said:

I used some of the craft files yesterday (pre-description), very cool.

I found that some of them were unstable either due to FAR, or MechJeb SmartASS having trouble with sets of engines with fairly different thrust and gimbal. Of course, it could also be that I'm not used to throttling back, is there a maximum dynamic pressure I should try to not to exceed, or any suggestings for successful flight?

I am not very familiar with stock balancing, but the Atlas-alike felt a bit strange. The real Atlas has more thrust in each side booster than the core engine, while that is not true here. Although, the boosters have more thrust when combined, so that might be what brings it into stock balance. Also, the ground TWR was very high, which made flight unstable for me.

Some of the (early?) upper stages seem to have really low ISPs, which make them seem fairly useless to me when the Atlas core engine has a way higher ISP. Perhaps that might be balanced out by a low mass or low cost in career mode. I naturally need to do more experimenting, I am just listing my early impressions.

Are there any craft files that include a fully built Mercury-alike or Gemini-alike? I want to make sure I'm finding all of the applicable parts.

 

Thanks :)

You'd have to talk to cobalt about part balance. The atlas V boosters are just place holders until they are made when cobalt takes another look at atlas. The Hermes sandstone and Hermes muo are the mercury crafts.

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39 minutes ago, stratochief66 said:

I used some of the craft files yesterday (pre-description), very cool.

I found that some of them were unstable either due to FAR, or MechJeb SmartASS having trouble with sets of engines with fairly different thrust and gimbal. Of course, it could also be that I'm not used to throttling back, is there a maximum dynamic pressure I should try to not to exceed, or any suggestings for successful flight?

I am not very familiar with stock balancing, but the Atlas-alike felt a bit strange. The real Atlas has more thrust in each side booster than the core engine, while that is not true here. Although, the boosters have more thrust when combined, so that might be what brings it into stock balance. Also, the ground TWR was very high, which made flight unstable for me.

Some of the (early?) upper stages seem to have really low ISPs, which make them seem fairly useless to me when the Atlas core engine has a way higher ISP. Perhaps that might be balanced out by a low mass or low cost in career mode. I naturally need to do more experimenting, I am just listing my early impressions.

Are there any craft files that include a fully built Mercury-alike or Gemini-alike? I want to make sure I'm finding all of the applicable parts.

 

Thanks :)

The parts are not tested with FAR, and I have received some bug reports concerning the interstage parts that I will have to pursue @ferram4 to resolve. That is the most likely issue you're experiencing.

The ground TWR is very high because you're meant to be able to build longer Atlas stages all the way up to something approximating Atlas II. I suggest limiting the thrust in the VAB to keep the ground TWR reasonable. The ratio of thrust between the sustainer and boosters are indeed incorrect, and will be looked at in BDB 0.11 which among other things will be redoing all the Atlas engines and generally expanding / filling out the family. Bringing the thrust of the sustainer down might help bring it in line with the upper stages discussed below.

The early upper stages (Alpha, Alphastar) have low ISP because they have ridiculous DeltaV otherwise. Their ISP is generally a reflection of their real life values, while their thrust is generally higher to make your burns less unbearably long. The mod is balanced around trying to match real life capabilities, with concessions to balance in a career game. Unfortunately Kerbal is very easy compared to real life, so things have been smacked around with the nerf mallet somewhat. Otherwise the current (realistic-ish) progression parts would allow things like landing on Minmus at tech 0. Personally I think they are plenty capable at the moment. My goal with this mod is to provide a set of parts that provide more granular progression, and is meant to be played in career with the science returns cranked down, in order to make the progression slower. I believe they are also balanced somewhat by being fairly light in the same way that the stock 48-7S is, where you get more DeltaV due to the engine being lighter than you would with an engine that has higher ISP.

On a somewhat related note, since you bring it up, the Atlas sustainer engine was actually considered as an upper stage engine for some of the Juno V proposals which eventually turned into Saturn 1.

I don't really provide craft files (though several people here, particularly @Sgt.Shutesie do) so I'm generally hands off about that stuff. I will say that Gemini doesn't actually exist in the mod right now, only a two man pod. I may or may not make a set of canon / analogue Gemini parts, depending on how @Beale's remake of his own Gemini turns out. I don't particularly like it as a spacecraft so it's hard to get motivated to finish it. :) I do have a weird not-Gemini thing in the works though.

Anyways, back to writing my essay!

Edited by CobaltWolf
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3 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

But you're saying it works with a negative force setting?

On the Delta K yes. Intuitively you would expect the node orientation to control the direction the decoupler fires, but that doesn't appear to be the case. What I think is happening is a vector is created from the center (position 0,0,0) of the decoupler, to the center (0,0,0) of the part the decoupler is attached to. Then when the parts are separated, thrust equal to ejectionForce is applied to the decoupler along that vector. This is what it normally looks like:

8VqH07i.png

The oval is the engine or whatever, the rectangle the decoupler, and the arrow the direction of thrust. This is what it looks like with an interstage style decoupler:

ks05ykC.png

With the Delta K, simply making the ejectionForce negative gets it moving in the correct direction. With the Centaur interstages I haven't yet got a 100% reproducible test case. I have two theories on that. A: The center (0,0,0) of the decoupler and the center (0,0,0) of the centaur mount are at exactly the same place when attached resulting in a nonsense vector, and a little part clipping is going on between the decoupler and the mount. Or B: I'm outsmarting myself and the above is completely wrong.

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5 hours ago, NotAgain said:

What's an M-V?

A Japanese 3-stage, solid-fueled launcher, and is the final member of the long-standing Mu rocket family. The last of which flew in 2006.
Pictured below is the penultimate M-V rocket.
img_1?1276265828
Note: stage 3 is encapsulated in the payload fairing.

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So I am still working on a Thor pack but it is a bit trickier that I thought at first, mainly due to a lack of a .625 solid rocket for Altair. I will keep at it but not sure how far I will get.

@Sgt.Shutesie I just gave you craft pack a go and it looks great! Two things stand out to me having just put together a massive Titan pack though. Titan IIIA was built to test Trastage and is absent on your Prometheus IIIA. The other thing is that Titan IIIC only ever flew with 5 segment SRMs and your Prometheus IIIC is just the core stack. Those two things aside it is still quite usable and I'm glad to see lots or Atlas/Muo variants, great work!

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No worries about the Gemini, I mostly meant basically a large Mercury, which is how I built mine. The mercury RCS, cone, parachute, etc work just fine with your Gemini. Due to the dissimilarities between the Kerbol system and ours, a full on Gemini with long life support and rcs isn't really necessary and would totally distract you from more important things anyway. Besides, I will probably end up using the Titan Trans-stage as an uber-capable Gemini engine anyway :)

 

I noticed a couple of oddities with the Karrot capsule. One is that I find it hard to get a kerbal back in from an EVA. Perhaps there isn't a hand grip, or whatever governs what lets him/her pop back in is smaller or closer to the core than in the stock capsules, I'm not sure. The image of the two astronauts inside also doesn't show up for me while in flight, I'm not sure if that is a "me" but or not, so I figured it was worth mentioning as well.

It hurts my brain a little bit that the 4 early probes.probe cores all mass 0.1T, but honestly it works fairly well.

It also feels like the balance of everything would scale really well to some of the mods that scale the stock solar system up a notch or two. If I ever try one of those out this is definitely the mod I will use to explore it. I used a Titan I (Prometheus I) and it was able to send out a two manned Karrot Mun orbital mission, which seems overpowered considering the Titan I would have been able to place the Mercury into orbit. But that is just the tinny-tiny scale of the stock solar system.

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54 minutes ago, stratochief66 said:

It also feels like the balance of everything would scale really well to some of the mods that scale the stock solar system up a notch or two. If I ever try one of those out this is definitely the mod I will use to explore it. I used a Titan I (Prometheus I) and it was able to send out a two manned Karrot Mun orbital mission, which seems overpowered considering the Titan I would have been able to place the Mercury into orbit. But that is just the tinny-tiny scale of the stock solar system.

It works really well in X3.

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12 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Also, I think this gif will be reappearing a lot once we get to Apollo...

giphy.gif

 

578a552f95da1310c261ef5d7aa407e553eb1df5

@CobaltWolf: After Gemini and Juno and other Rockets, GIVE ME at LEAST a Saturn I and a Pegasus OR AT LEAST A SATURN I/IB CORE STAGE!!!! :sticktongue: XD

Edited by davidy12
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