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

[Hachiro]

@CobaltWolf The VS-11 Module is a 1.5m module, it looks like, with the correct mid-section, it'd fit just right with the design idea drawings/HST based look.(Cacteye solar panels for the look, not what I plan on using since they don't fit in the fairing)

[Invaderchaos]

20 minutes ago, Hachiro said:

@CobaltWolf The VS-11 Module is a 1.5m module, it looks like, with the correct mid-section, it'd fit just right with the design idea drawings/HST based look.(Cacteye solar panels for the look, not what I plan on using since they don't fit in the fairing)

I believe the VS-11 from Scansat is slightly underscaled if you are trying to use it as a straight KH-11 kitbash.  When I do KH-11 I upscale it (with tweakscale) so it is flush with the KH-9 avionics/fairing thing.  But otherwise, I believe that is pretty accurate. Especially considering KH-11's service module is just an upgraded version of KH-9's. I actually made the all texture gray variant for the KH-9 SM to be sort of like KH-11.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Invaderchaos

[Naeth Kerman]

@CobaltWolf

I did some research about the Saturn Family.

There were plans for the 2nd Generation, the 2.5 Generation, and the3rd Generation.

Although, the MLV Saturn III/IV wasn't conceptualized as Katniss put it, but I like that design, and the MLV Saturn V-25-L, MLV Saturn V-27-L, and the MLV Saturn V-29-L also weren't conceptualized.

These ideas can be changed on your will, but please stay close to the idea if you will add it.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Naeth Kerman

[TruthfulGnome]

5 hours ago, Naeth Kerman said:

@CobaltWolf

I did some research about the Saturn Family.

There were plans for the 2nd Generation, the 2.5 Generation, and the3rd Generation.

Although, the MLV Saturn III/IV wasn't conceptualized as Katniss put it, but I like that design, and the MLV Saturn V-25-L, MLV Saturn V-27-L, and the MLV Saturn V-29-L also weren't conceptualized.

These ideas can be changed on your will, but please stay close to the idea if you will add it.

Saturn MLVs would be great  with those SRBs/Liquid Fuel side boosters 

[Pappystein]

1 hour ago, TruthfulGnome said:

Saturn MLVs would be great  with those SRBs/Liquid Fuel side boosters 

You mean the AJ-260s with the fuel tanks on top?

You can do that now.   Just use the Saturn S-IVC booster tank in current release it is a good fit on top of the long Booster version of the AJ-260.   Just make certain you set it to LF/O instead of LH2/O and that you have the fuel transfer set to drain those tanks first.   

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Pappystein

[TruthfulGnome]

4 hours ago, Pappystein said:

You mean the AJ-260s with the fuel tanks on top?

You can do that now.   Just use the Saturn S-IVC booster tank in current release it is a good fit on top of the long Booster version of the AJ-260.   Just make certain you set it to LF/O instead of LH2/O and that you have the fuel transfer set to drain those tanks first.   

 

i mean ones like these

 

[MashAndBangers]

1 hour ago, TruthfulGnome said:

mean ones like these

260 inch motors... AJ-260... HMMMMMMM

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

Am I being an idiot or something, so do I need the agena - Gemini docking system, because I tried to dock two Geminis together and the ‘noses’ didn’t dock.

I would assume that I need the agena, however I’ve seen BDB photos of the Geminis docked nose to nose, and that’s also how they did it in real life so I dunno

How does it work then?

[CobaltWolf]

16 hours ago, Naeth Kerman said:

I did some research about the Saturn Family.

There were plans for the 2nd Generation, the 2.5 Generation, and the3rd Generation.

Although, the MLV Saturn III/IV wasn't conceptualized as Katniss put it, but I like that design, and the MLV Saturn V-25-L, MLV Saturn V-27-L, and the MLV Saturn V-29-L also weren't conceptualized.

These ideas can be changed on your will, but please stay close to the idea if you will add it.

I honestly haven't sat down and really hammered out a list of variants we want to make parts for, but rest assured there will be plenty.   I think the emphasis will be more on parts for legoing, rather than making sure variants X Y and Z can be made.

 

11 hours ago, TruthfulGnome said:

Saturn MLVs would be great  with those SRBs/Liquid Fuel side boosters

9 hours ago, Pappystein said:

You mean the AJ-260s with the fuel tanks on top?

You can do that now.   Just use the Saturn S-IVC booster tank in current release it is a good fit on top of the long Booster version of the AJ-260.   Just make certain you set it to LF/O instead of LH2/O and that you have the fuel transfer set to drain those tanks first.  

5 hours ago, TruthfulGnome said:

i mean ones like these

3 hours ago, MashAndBangers said:

260 inch motors... AJ-260... HMMMMMMM

I think @TruthfulGnomemeans "SRBs and LRBs', not the combo ones. Y'all are talking past each other a little.

 

33 minutes ago, Ollz said:

Am I being an idiot or something, so do I need the agena - Gemini docking system, because I tried to dock two Geminis together and the ‘noses’ didn’t dock.

I would assume that I need the agena, however I’ve seen BDB photos of the Geminis docked nose to nose, and that’s also how they did it in real life so I dunno

How does it work then?

The Gemini nose can only dock with the Agena docking cone (and the low profile docking mechanism). There are 3 J-shaped latches that extend into holes in the docking cone on the Agena. Geminis can't actually dock nose-to-nose - there's no mechanism on the front of the nose to interact with each other. As a result, they also couldn't dock together in real life - you may be thinking of the Gemini 6/7 rendezvous where they flew together, but never docked.

I know there's an old FASA image that shows two Gemini docked nose-to-nose that floats around sometimes. That might be what you're thinking of.

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

The Gemini nose can only dock with the Agena docking cone (and the low profile docking mechanism). There are 3 J-shaped latches that extend into holes in the docking cone on the Agena. Geminis can't actually dock nose-to-nose - there's no mechanism on the front of the nose to interact with each other. As a result, they also couldn't dock together in real life - you may be thinking of the Gemini 6/7 rendezvous where they flew together, but never docked.

I know there's an old FASA image that shows two Gemini docked nose-to-nose that floats around sometimes. That might be what you're thinking of.

Ah ok that’s great thanks 

[Pappystein]

2 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

I think @TruthfulGnomemeans "SRBs and LRBs', not the combo ones. Y'all are talking past each other a little.

 

7 hours ago, TruthfulGnome said:

 

While it is true I probably missunderstood the question.   The nice thing is this picture that was posted by TruthfulGnome has two gems in it.

1) it has the 5 segment Thiokol 260" SRM.   This was a competitor to the AJ-260 and not as "interesting" given it is like any other segmented SRM.

2) it has the 3.5 segment Thiokol 156" (it says 155") SRM... that would latter evolve into the Shuttle SRB 146"er.   Like shuttle SRB each "segment" is actually two parts joined at the factory.

We have a reference

No you do not have to build them

But we have a reference now

Also those MIGHT be Thiokol 120"ers   Thiokol was pushing to get their 120" SRM into production after failing to secure Titan III IIRC.

 

[derega16]

About AJ-260 I remember something I forgot to ask, will it get revamp too? Current one doesn't rescale under Saturn real scale patch, and if rescale manually it's performance will be incorrect.

[DaveyJ576]

THE MISSION OF BLUEDOG 2

I have always wanted to fly an Apollo "Direct Ascent" type mission. So I kitbashed together something that approaches that idea. This will be my last big Apollo mission until the revamp comes out.

The Bluedog 2 spacecraft sits atop a Saturn V Heavy. This vehicle is a mix of BDB and stock parts. First, second and third stages are standard BDB, but with the 1st and 2nd having reduced fuel loads. The boosters are UA 1205 with full thrust and fuel. I had to remove the hammerhead crane from @AlphaMensae's Modular Launch Pads LUT, because it was jammed into the top of the VAB and it also wouldn't clear the LES. Liftoff and the ride uphill was smooth, but slower than usual due to the heavy load. The boosters helped a lot.

The S-II pushing the stack into orbit. I did not fly an actual direct ascent profile, mostly because I use MechJeb and couldn't quite figure out how to do it! I will play with that later.

The stack just after the S-IVB performed the Trans Munar Injection. Conformal Decals add a lot to the look.

Bluedog 2 outbound to the Mun. There is no need for a docking probe, so that was replaced with the Block 1 nose cone. I added extendable ladders to the SM and the descent stage, and a fixed ladder to the interstage. I moved the High Gain antenna to the SIM bay along with some science equipment. Missions Bluedog 0 and Bluedog 1 were test flights, and I found out I was not using a powerful enough engine in the descent stage. I had to find something with enough power, but that wasn't so big that the bell was longer than the landing legs. I started off with the ETS SPS, then went to the LV-909 Terrier. Neither had enough power or control authority to land. Bluedog 2 was upgraded to the LV-T45 Swivel engine, but the length required me to add a skirt (Tweakscaled) to the bottom of the stack to allow the landing gear to clear the engine bell.

 

Bluedog 2 on the Mun! The CG is a bit high so she was tippy on this sloped ground. I was holding my breath as she settled after touchdown.

The EVA underway! It is a long climb down the ladders, but it worked well. 

Munar liftoff went well. I flew it manually to apoapsis, then used MJ to circularize. Once again I skipped the direct ascent profile, and will hold more training on that later.

A lonely Bluedog Base after departure of the CSM.

CM/SM separation before reentry.

On the mains before a successful splashdown. I landed in Meteor Bay. It was a very successful mission and was fun to fly!

[Minmus Taster]

1 hour ago, DaveyJ576 said:

THE MISSION OF BLUEDOG 2

I have always wanted to fly an Apollo "Direct Ascent" type mission. So I kitbashed together something that approaches that idea. This will be my last big Apollo mission until the revamp comes out.

The Bluedog 2 spacecraft sits atop a Saturn V Heavy. This vehicle is a mix of BDB and stock parts. First, second and third stages are standard BDB, but with the 1st and 2nd having reduced fuel loads. The boosters are UA 1205 with full thrust and fuel. I had to remove the hammerhead crane from @AlphaMensae's Modular Launch Pads LUT, because it was jammed into the top of the VAB and it also wouldn't clear the LES. Liftoff and the ride uphill was smooth, but slower than usual due to the heavy load. The boosters helped a lot.

The S-II pushing the stack into orbit. I did not fly an actual direct ascent profile, mostly because I use MechJeb and couldn't quite figure out how to do it! I will play with that later.

The stack just after the S-IVB performed the Trans Munar Injection. Conformal Decals add a lot to the look.

Bluedog 2 outbound to the Mun. There is no need for a docking probe, so that was replaced with the Block 1 nose cone. I added extendable ladders to the SM and the descent stage, and a fixed ladder to the interstage. I moved the High Gain antenna to the SIM bay along with some science equipment. Missions Bluedog 0 and Bluedog 1 were test flights, and I found out I was not using a powerful enough engine in the descent stage. I had to find something with enough power, but that wasn't so big that the bell was longer than the landing legs. I started off with the ETS SPS, then went to the LV-909 Terrier. Neither had enough power or control authority to land. Bluedog 2 was upgraded to the LV-T45 Swivel engine, but the length required me to add a skirt (Tweakscaled) to the bottom of the stack to allow the landing gear to clear the engine bell.

 

Bluedog 2 on the Mun! The CG is a bit high so she was tippy on this sloped ground. I was holding my breath as she settled after touchdown.

The EVA underway! It is a long climb down the ladders, but it worked well. 

Munar liftoff went well. I flew it manually to apoapsis, then used MJ to circularize. Once again I skipped the direct ascent profile, and will hold more training on that later.

A lonely Bluedog Base after departure of the CSM.

CM/SM separation before reentry.

On the mains before a successful splashdown. I landed in Meteor Bay. It was a very successful mission and was fun to fly!

Darn son!

[DaveyJ576]

One other lesson learned... be very careful how you connect the S-IVB interstage to the descent stage. Adding the skirt to the descent stage also added some hinkiness with the nodes that required using the move tool to properly connect the two. Move it just a tad too far and staging after TMI will get very wild!

 

 

[Kerbal01]

On 3/29/2021 at 12:50 PM, CobaltWolf said:

Yeah. If I'm honest, I'm more interested in stuff that's based on the actual LM descent stage and stuff? That LSAM thing wouldn't fit in an SLA for one thing...

...Crap we forgot the IVAs.

 

Does it not?

 

Isn't that a 2.5m module? I wouldn't expect it to fit, yeah. I don't think Nertea's parts are meant to be scaled properly, they're usually just clearly visually inspired by stuff.

 

I believe those are almost all original designs that Katniss created.

It doesn't. Bounces around trying to attach to the low profile port but doesn't latch and camera switch. 

[Starhelperdude]

@DaveyJ576 you can get the mod hangar extender so you can build bigger bois

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

4 hours ago, DaveyJ576 said:

This will be my last big Apollo mission until the revamp comes out.

Well I’m not sure how far done the Saturn/Apollo revamp is, only Cobalt and the team know that, however from what I’ve seen it doesn’t look near to completion, but it also doesn’t look very far away.

From what I’ve seen, we have a nearly complete ish Saturn, a partially modelled CSM and no LM, so it might be a long time.

All of this to really say, I would love to know how far along we are Cobalt, but if you aren’t sure or don’t want to share, that’s alright - Modding is hard and time consuming 

[golkaidakhaana]

5 hours ago, Kerbal01 said:

It doesn't. Bounces around trying to attach to the low profile port but doesn't latch and camera switch. 

That part was made before the Gemini revamp , perhaps the new Gemini ports are incompatible with the older ports ?

[Kerbal01]

could be.

[Stepanek740]

Can you create a saturn V only version? or like anything only version wich has only the parts of the rocket in the version of the mod? because i always find the editor cluttered with gazilllions of parts i will never use wich is annyoing but its just a suggestion

[OrdinaryKerman]

35 minutes ago, Stepanek740 said:

Can you create a saturn V only version? or like anything only version wich has only the parts of the rocket in the version of the mod? because i always find the editor cluttered with gazilllions of parts i will never use wich is annyoing but its just a suggestion

Delete every folder in BluedogDB/Parts except for the Saturn, Apollo, Shared, and Skylab folders

[CobaltWolf]

19 hours ago, Kerbal01 said:

It doesn't. Bounces around trying to attach to the low profile port but doesn't latch and camera switch.

13 hours ago, golkaidakhaana said:

That part was made before the Gemini revamp , perhaps the new Gemini ports are incompatible with the older ports ?

@Invaderchaos confirmed that the low-profile port for some reason wants to dock 180 degrees. Sounds like I just need to rotate the dockingNode transform. It was probably "right" for the older Gemini parts since I think their dockingNode transform was ALSO messed up.

 

2 hours ago, Stepanek740 said:

Can you create a saturn V only version? or like anything only version wich has only the parts of the rocket in the version of the mod? because i always find the editor cluttered with gazilllions of parts i will never use wich is annyoing but its just a suggestion

Forgive me quoting the OP, just to save time:

Quote

I don't want to download all this, can you split up the mod?

I wish it was that easy! At this point, splitting up the mod would be a good deal of work, as well as additional overhead to maintain. Additionally, despite the frequency this gets asked, nobody seems to agree on how the mod should be split up! However, the mod is easily prunable. Deleting folders inside Gamedata/Bluedog_DB/Parts/ will delete that part family without breaking other parts of the mod. For finer pruning, mods like Janitor's Closet can be used to remove parts from within the game.

 

17 hours ago, Ollz said:

Well I’m not sure how far done the Saturn/Apollo revamp is, only Cobalt and the team know that, however from what I’ve seen it doesn’t look near to completion, but it also doesn’t look very far away.

From what I’ve seen, we have a nearly complete ish Saturn, a partially modelled CSM and no LM, so it might be a long time.

All of this to really say, I would love to know how far along we are Cobalt, but if you aren’t sure or don’t want to share, that’s alright - Modding is hard and time consuming 

I wouldn't expect the Saturn V/Apollo/LM stack for a while. Unfortunately the looks can be deceiving, since when they're stacked you're only looking at the exterior stuff and not all the interior bits which are mostly untouched so far.

I'm a bit further than you thought in places, further behind than others.

Saturn V... yeah a lot of the exterior is done, but like I said that gives a false impression of how far it is. Lot of work left to get it in game. Basically all the endcaps for the parts, the S-II engine mount needs a lot of work... I've also got a mostly modeled Saturn 1.

Apollo CSM... mostly? modeled and I've started texturing the SM (which looks frustratingly like the old one now...). Off the top of my head, big things left would be modeling the service engine, remodeling the aft SM heatshield (that stupid weird plastic looking thing the SPS goes into), endcaps for the SM, interior of the decoupler, the parachutes, docking spotlight... Still no idea how I'm handling the SIM bay.

LM, mostly modeled, haven't even begun to start on the textures. I'm frankly afraid to since I keep feeling like the geometry is off, so any texturing I do will have to be tossed if I change it. I honestly am not even sure what's left to model. If I remember, both of the engines are incomplete, and I need to do the docking target. In general I think I'm mostly missing smaller mesh details, like the tracking lights that need to go on either side of the big beacon light on the "nose" there.

One thing I'm worried about is the docking cone and its colliders. The LM can be designed around it but I'm not sure how well it will work in other places. I was planning on using the DepthMask shader that's used on a couple other parts like the Gemini magnetometer, where they look sunk into the part they're attached to. The problem is I can't do that with colliders, so I don't know how deep I can make the cone...

 

Regarding the LM, I've started throwing together some derivatives. Note that I'm not in any rush to get to these. One of the big problems with the old LM model and textures, they were very much made to only be used in the original configuration. I'm trying to plan out derivatives earlier in the process to make sure I'm accounting for them. Here's the LM-Truck RCS with the start of an Early Lunar Shelter on top.

 

[Spaceman.Spiff]

3 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Here's the LM-Truck RCS with the start of an Early Lunar Shelter on top.

*checks date*

hmmmmmmmmm

[CobaltWolf]

4 minutes ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

*checks date*

hmmmmmmmmm

Oh, right. Well, I can assure that's not what it is. (I just wanted to respond to @Ollz's nice post with pictures and never got around to it last night)

Regarding that pic though, I didn't realize until the other day that basically anything that wasn't crew piloted was considered an LM-Truck (called the LEM/T in some documents I have). So this would be an LM-Truck with an ELS as the payload. I need to figure out an elegant way to provide a control core for the descent stage that won't interfere with additions like this.

Edited April 1, 2021 by CobaltWolf