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

[Machinique]

Sat relays are fun, and there are still folks that use RT.

 

I personally have a custom RT patch for the new probes, but I am having issues with the pioneer 7 and S45 extending antennas. For some reason, the Pioneer 8 works fine.

[Retro Starship]

34 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Working on some early game communications satellites for establishing early relay nets. Is that still something that's even needed? I haven't played since the RemoteTech days

 

[Zorg]

14 minutes ago, Machinique said:

 

I personally have a custom RT patch for the new probes, 

None of the authors use Remote Tech so if you feel like your patch is worthwhile feel free to make a pull request  

[Morphisor]

During my previous posts here I was just building whatever cool package this mod offered my eyes to feast on next. Earlier this week however, I suddenly realized: hey wasn't there a big historical contract pack that would go swimmingly with these rockets? And oh boy there is.

Enter 'History of Spaceflight': all the major launches in history all together and even with semi-accurate mission parameters that can be applied in a non-RSS game! Of course, it covers far more than just the US space program, so I admit I pruned the non-US contracts out.

The result however, is absolutely fantastic. With BDB being perfectly balanced for the JNSQ scale, the rockets provided by this mod allow an exact reproduction of the historical mission profiles - or at least, as exact as possible considering my primitive, non-engineer abilities and the not-quite-accurate simulation.

This also makes for a perfect run throughout all the variations of the rockets represented, which also means the new 1.7.0 stuff is getting thoroughly tested according to historical specs  (sorry Zorg, without MandatoryRCS and Engine Ignitor - they don't play nice with Gravityturn)

And I am learning huge amounts about the history of all these programs in turn, I never knew before how fun these 'boring' early missions could be!

 

Of course all this ranting means nothing without a little proof, so here's where I am right now, all major launches from 1958 (the year it all really kicked off) completed:

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/a/7OLgtxO

First steps into space: Vanguard standing by for launch at dawn

 

...But Vanguard really was infused with the Kerbal spirit, even then.

 

Explorer 1 then beat the Vanguard program to space, being the first American probe in orbit!

 

Vanguard-1 finally did make it, but beyond that the program continued to suffer problems. Next up was Thor-Able, ready to deliver the Pioneer probe:

 

Pioneer-2 easily managed to get to space..

 

...And even tried to reach for the Mun! Sadly it was not meant to be.

 

Pioneer-3 then went for a similar attempt, but this time using a Juno-II launch vehicle.

 

Finally the Army also had a hand in the space program, launching the new Atlas-B rocket into space in december 1958.

 

Where it delivered the SCORE probe well in time for it to deliver the first radio message from space: President Eisenhower's Christmas speech!

 

At the end of the year, 5 US probes had managed to attain and sustain orbit - although in reality not all 5 managed to stay there for long due to orbital decay.

(the orbits are most likely not exactly the same, but should somewhat approach the correct inclination and eccentricity)

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by Morphisor

[Pappystein]

16 hours ago, Gremillion said:

"Blast off! The crew of Apollo 7 launches from Pad 39A in Cape Canaveral to begin their 4-day journey to the Moon, to fulfill President John F. Kennedy's promise to send men around Earth's nearest neighbor before the end of his second term. Neil Armstrong and Roger Chaffee crew the Apollo capsule, stacked atop the mighty Hercules rocket, "Von Braun's Barbarian", which will send them on their way."

NICE!   I used to live a stones throw away from Roger B. Chaffee Blvd (which was +/-  a mile from where he grew up.)   Nice to see you skipping the Apollo 1 Fire.   Rocket derivative of Kolyma(SP)'s Shadow?

 

[Pappystein]

3 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Working on some early game communications satellites for establishing early relay nets. Is that still something that's even needed? I haven't played since the RemoteTech days

 

So my answer on this is BOTH.

1. With the Tech Tree so compressed we get too many COMM-SAT choices early. (esp if we are using PROBES PLUS! in addition to BDB)
2. BDB antennas that are COMM-SAT worthy are not usable on COMM-SATS (Relay function is not enabled.)  The new MOL dish and Beam/Dish antennas being prime examples as well as the Ranger Big dish
3. Really need a way to space these out in the Tech Tree (and I don't see one without a new tech tree.)
4. This is at least the 2nd set of comm-sats in the last 2 dev cycles?   (Jso's ICPS or whatever it was called, and I think there was something else as well!)    All filling the same basic role.

Now one big thing I have to say.  I LOVE THESE MODELS they look AWESOME.   

 

[CobaltWolf]

5 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

So my answer on this is BOTH.

1. With the Tech Tree so compressed we get too many COMM-SAT choices early. (esp if we are using PROBES PLUS! in addition to BDB)
2. BDB antennas that are COMM-SAT worthy are not usable on COMM-SATS (Relay function is not enabled.)  The new MOL dish and Beam/Dish antennas being prime examples as well as the Ranger Big dish
3. Really need a way to space these out in the Tech Tree (and I don't see one without a new tech tree.)
4. This is at least the 2nd set of comm-sats in the last 2 dev cycles?   (Jso's ICPS or whatever it was called, and I think there was something else as well!)    All filling the same basic role.

Now one big thing I have to say.  I LOVE THESE MODELS they look AWESOME.  

Honestly, at this point my justification is "I don't expect people to use every part on every playthrough". I'm enjoying making these early game parts, there's a lot of overlap, but hey. Variety is the spice of life

I think IDCSP is going to be pushed back a bit to match the Titan 3. I think.

[Zorg]

@Pappystein we do have an open issue on antenna rebalancing on github and yes we do intend to convert some antennas into relays. At least the tracking antenna if nothing else. We just havent made much progress on that issue just yet. But yeah on the broader point we do out best to balance between function and historical progression with the stock tree. But it will always be limited.

CTT is the best supported alternate tech tree but that leaves the stock nodes as is while extending the late game while most bdb stuff is early to mid game technologically. Perhaps one day some kind of historical progression tech tree will emerge with BDB support but in the meantime I find myself crying a bit when doing tech balancing with the stock nodes

 

[CobaltWolf]

 

[CobaltWolf]

So I just checked my Paypal to move some money around and saw there were a couple donations! Just wanted to give a big thanks to whoever sent them - me and my partner weren't sure about treating ourselves to a nice dinner tonight but it looks like we will!

[Zorg]

Thanks to @Marcelo Silveira for the updated Hullcam configs.

[MashAndBangers]

In the 1.7 dev branch, the LR 105 is missing the RS-56-OSA B9 subtype.  Unless that's on purpose and I'm missing something else somewhere

 

But thank you guys for all your hard work!  Cobalt, get that nice juicy [food item]!

[Gremillion]

5 hours ago, Pappystein said:

NICE!   I used to live a stones throw away from Roger B. Chaffee Blvd (which was +/-  a mile from where he grew up.)   Nice to see you skipping the Apollo 1 Fire.   Rocket derivative of Kolyma(SP)'s Shadow?

I pass Chaffee Blvd every day on my way to work (which is on Armstrong). 

There's not much more to the alt than what I wrote, but it takes some cues from KS for sure. I'll point out that a very close reading of that blurb would imply that Kennedy (described as "president", i.e., still in office) was never assassinated in that AU.

Inspiration was mostly from the nutso Super Jupiter/Juno V/early Saturn proposals, which I've been reading a lot about during my breaks at work, but you'll note the boosters are straight off a KS Minerva. Speaking of Minerva, here's a Kolyma's Shadow splinter-AU mission:

"Gus Grissom's X-20 Betty Lavonne and transtage detach from M1 core stage in preparation for the burn that will send him around the Moon as part of Operation Blackwing"

I'm generally just fascinated by "Barbarian" rockets (i.e., big boosters made out of effectively spare parts, e.g. Saturn I, MM Barbarian, Douglas Barbarian, etc).

Edited February 14, 2020 by Gremillion

[Pappystein]

4 hours ago, Zorg said:

CTT is the best supported alternate tech tree but that leaves the stock nodes as is while extending the late game while most bdb stuff is early to mid game technologically. Perhaps one day some kind of historical progression tech tree will emerge with BDB support but in the meantime I find myself crying a bit when doing tech balancing with the stock nodes

 

I have been toying around with my own tech tree.   Problem is, it can become very easy to get lost between the Trees and the Forrest.

After all Stock and BDB and Real Life... weelllll   none one of them have anything to do with the other...  Timeline wise

I have been postulating a "Fuel" based Tech tree.    Each branch of the tree is based on fuel type.   The problem is I see need for a DLL to run it all and I may be many things but I am NOT a coder.       The goal would be that at a certain point, other branches become cheaper as you progress down the initial branch you try.   So lets say I choose LF/GOX (airplane) after 3 or 4 nodes LF/LOX (LFO) would become x% cheaper to unlock, with each further progression down the LF/GOX branch further reducing the LF/LOX branch.... 

So if anyone has an idea how to put science rebates into Tech Tree nodes (ones that can be turned on and off...)   I can build a cool tech tree.    If not... welll....  

[Gremillion]

Saturn I derived storable propellant super-heavy ICBM:

[MashAndBangers]

Once again, I must go to Mun.  But this time...

I hope the snacks inside the Munlab survived chilling and thawing.

[Machinique]

12 hours ago, Zorg said:

None of the authors use Remote Tech so if you feel like your patch is worthwhile feel free to make a pull request  

 

Well, right now the probe patch apparently causes my rockets to lose control after they hit 1500m, zero out their acceleration, and proceed unabated into space, so it clearly needs some work.

 

EDIT: Looks like it was my misinterpretation of %MaxQ.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Machinique

[CobaltWolf]

Ignore the out of date Telstar textures, see the Twitter video above for what it properly looks like...

[Rodger]

Time to DISCO!

[Zorg]

6 hours ago, MashAndBangers said:

In the 1.7 dev branch, the LR 105 is missing the RS-56-OSA B9 subtype.  Unless that's on purpose and I'm missing something else somewhere

 

But thank you guys for all your hard work!  Cobalt, get that nice juicy [food item]!

Yeah the RS56-OSA is just a renamed LR105-7 as far as we can tell. It has the exact same stats.

[Morphisor]

Re: tech trees, the Unkerballed Start tech tree seems to work well with BDB and is less unforgiving than with stock.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

Been away for a minute. Hate asking stupid questions, but here goes!

1. The branch called "1.7.0-Development" is clearly getting updated, but is that branch only for KSP 1.7? Am I just confused about the naming? Can I use the bleeding edge updates in 1.8/1.9?

2. I see JNSQ mentioned a  lot, which I haven't dove into yet. At stock scale, all the balancing for JNSQ just means that there's too much power and too much fuel, correct?

Thanks!

 

[MashAndBangers]

6 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

Been away for a minute. Hate asking stupid questions, but here goes!

1. The branch called "1.7.0-Development" is clearly getting updated, but is that branch only for KSP 1.7? Am I just confused about the naming? Can I use the bleeding edge updates in 1.8/1.9?

2. I see JNSQ mentioned a  lot, which I haven't dove into yet. At stock scale, all the balancing for JNSQ just means that there's too much power and too much fuel, correct?

Thanks!

 

1.  it's for 1.8/1.9.  1.7.0 refers to the version of BDB, not KSP

2.  Yep.

[CobaltWolf]

15 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

Been away for a minute. Hate asking stupid questions, but here goes!

1. The branch called "1.7.0-Development" is clearly getting updated, but is that branch only for KSP 1.7? Am I just confused about the naming? Can I use the bleeding edge updates in 1.8/1.9?

2. I see JNSQ mentioned a  lot, which I haven't dove into yet. At stock scale, all the balancing for JNSQ just means that there's too much power and too much fuel, correct?

Thanks!

 

1. it's BDB 1.7 not KSP 1.7.

2. No. (@mash ) The parts are balanced in line with stock parts, but the stock system is underscaled for the performance of stock parts. Normally that just means rockets built for stock look kinda dumb... but when you're building kerbal scale (and balance) parts, then IRL rocket builds significantly overperform. It's not a simple matter of too much power and fuel but that stock's lower delta V requirements mean your payload ratio can be way higher than IRL. We balance in line with stock parts for people who like that, and people want rockets to perform realistically, they need to install a rescale - 2.5 to 2.7x is considered the sweet spot. That, in turn, is why JNSQ was natively made to be a 2.7x scale system. My point is the parts aren't "balanced for JNSQ", they're balanced against the stock parts, which themselves are fine but the system is underscaled, and to correct this JNSQ was made at 2.7x scale.

Edited February 15, 2020 by CobaltWolf

[CobaltWolf]

BDB dev stream starting now - jumping back to OGO since I *really* want to get these parts done!