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

[Zorg]

32 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

My new favorite detail ... Atlas GSE Interface covers.

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We had hoped to automate that but someone will need to write that module for us.

[GoldForest]

37 minutes ago, Zorg said:

We had hoped to automate that but someone will need to write that module for us.

Is that even possible? 

I think an easier option would be make the GSE doors a separate part entirely and make them animate on staging. You can set the GSE covers on the skirt to be visible or invisible depending on whether someone uses the GSE doors part or not. 

[Zorg]

Getting there! Long awaited dedicated HLV parts

GEM 63. Decoupler is shown attached here. This will be a separate part in game but the parts shown attached here will be part of the jettison transform that will be staged with the SRM.

AJ60

Edited May 30 by Zorg

[nasaholic]

On 4/4/2024 at 12:25 PM, CobaltWolf said:

Not very legoable, I'm afraid. The parts will be split up but that's mostly to ensure there isn't too much going on with any one part. The problem I quickly ran into with the X-15 is that the cross section changes along the entire length of the craft, so it wasn't something I could make compatible with other bulkhead profiles. However I hope that I'm able to add enough variation that it's still fun to mess around with!

Might be too late into the modeling/design phase; just wanted to add my 2 cents and point out that if the side "maintenance tunnels" (used for routing pipes, cables, etc.) were to be made into separate part, then, with the exception of cockpit,  the cross section is pretty much a perfect circle all the way to the engine area. See attached blueprint. Potential for Lego-ability would be much increased.

(Scott Crossfield gives an interesting insight in his book,  Always Another Dawn: "North American engineers planned to use tunnels similar to the Bell design, however, during the evolution to the final shape of the X-15 airframe, wind tunnel testing found that “maintenance tunnels” along the top and bottom of the fuselage would destabilize the plane in yaw. North American engineers ran the tunnels along each side of the fuselage instead, and found in wind tunnel tests that the side tunnels not only cured the yaw instability but also increased lift & improved propulsion efficiency. [7, p.229] It was found that at high Mach numbers the side tunnels would provide almost half the aerodynamic lift.")

 

[AlphaMensae]

2 hours ago, Zorg said:

We had hoped to automate that but someone will need to write that module for us.

Staged Animation, the module that Modular Launch Pads uses, should be able to handle it, by adding the animation to the skirt. Of course, that would mean the doors would have to start in the open position for the staged animation to work.

Edited May 30 by AlphaMensae

[BlackDinoShadows]

4 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Staged Animation, the module that Modular Launch Pads uses, should be able to handle it, by adding the animation to the skirt. Of course, that would mean the doors would have to start in the open position for the staged animation to work.

Does Staged Animation add a new staging icon ? Because this part already have a staging action. (skirt separation) I'm not sure that KSP would like to have two staging action on one part

[Zorg]

7 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Staged Animation, the module that Modular Launch Pads uses, should be able to handle it, by adding the animation to the skirt. Of course, that would mean the doors would have to start in the open position for the staged animation to work.

 

1 minute ago, BlackDinoShadows said:

Does Staged Animation add a new staging icon ? Because this part already have a staging action. (skirt separation) I'm not sure that KSP would like to have two staging action on one part

I don't believe two separate events can be staged like that yeah.

[AlphaMensae]

Oh yeah, forgot that the skirt was a decoupler already.  

In that case, you wouldn't need Staged Animation, but a regular animation and use an action group for the launch (launch stand, GSE doors and any tower stuff), something I do frequently and am comfortable with, but which may be too much for a lot of players.

Edited May 30 by AlphaMensae

[Zorg]

13 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Oh yeah, forgot that the skirt was a decoupler already.  

In that case, you wouldn't need Staged Animation, but a regular animation and use an action group for the launch (launch stand, GSE doors and any tower stuff), something I do frequently and am comfortable with, but which may be too much for a lot of players.

Yeah that's the current setup, as you say its not so bad. The hope however was we would have a custom module for this. The to do list for Atlas was put together way back in 2020! Back than JSO was still around ocassionally so we thought we would have this module eventually. JSO did write the auto jettison for the skirt back then though. That was the other item on the Atlas plugin wishlist we put together back then.

[Pappystein]

9 hours ago, bacontornado said:

I recently started a new KSRSS save and I'm having some trouble with the Atlas LV-3B. I used the design from the manual and it can barely get itself to an 85X100 orbit with no payload mass. I know the stage and a half design can be tricky, and I've read Marcelo Silveira's documentation on the wiki, but I still can't seem to reach enough payload mass to get the full Mercury capsule to the orbits it should be able to. Best I have found is setting the booster engines to jettison at about 3.5 Gs. Anyone have any tips? 

I will follow up here,  The Atlas is launching in an "under-thrust" for the bulk of the flight that is high efficiency.   Thus you have to AIM HIGH.   You do not want to seek that 100km AP, you want to go for 250-300km.   You will end up in something akin to a 120-90km orbit.  At least that was my experience.  How did I set myself up to win?   Well, for some reason, my Mechjeb install is NOT WORKING anywhere but the VAB as intended (it is on my list of things to fix after my next interview tomorrow.)    So this is what I did.  In the VAB...  Build the all-up rocket with the booster skirt and everything except ground service equipment that you will attach to hold the rocket upright before launch.   

Now Remove the Skirt (but don't destroy it!)

Now using either MechEngineer or MechJeb's Delta V displays (they both show TWR better than VAB's own stuff)  DE-FUEL the rocket until you get about a 0.8-0.9 TWR showing with just the LR105 and twin LR101s on the rocket.

Now Re-attach skirt,   Notate the TWR with the booster skirt added and the nearly empty fuel tanks that got you that 0.8 TWR!  

Set the G Activation force to, as closely as possible, match the TWR showing in your MechEngineer or MechJeb TWR display...

Don't forget to REFILL All the tanks!

Now attach your ground service equipment.   And you are GO FOR LAUNCH.    

If you are flying manual like I am... I seek to be at a 45 degree inclination after launch when passing through 20Km.   Remember to be gentle with your inputs below 15-17km!  At 60km, I set the rocket parallel to the ground.   My skirt generally ejects between 60 and 80km.     I do not adjust the rocket further... meaning at apoapsis, I am probably nose high by 30-35 degrees.   Once I achieve orbit, I quickly bring the nose back down.    If you are like me and try to keep your space clean, hopefully your rocket has several separation type motors to reverse the thrust of the Atlas rocket hull itself and send it back to a sub-orbital trajectory

 

Hope that helps.   I achieved 2 good orbits after practicing (Failure to orbit) twice with the engines on the NA-3 upgrades.   Not easy but not insurmountable with the above steps

 

Just checking things... Looks like the Imgur interface has changed on my web-browswer... I posted these the other day if any pop up embeded I will be happy!

 

Interesting,  The DirectLink button didn't save DirectLinks last night but rather used the "Link" code....    Or I am an idiot ... (could be both even!)

 

Follow-up

@Zorg  I have to say I was really impressed with the 5 node Atlas XSM-65 skirt.   Once I figured out why my GEMs were striking it it flew very well and lead to that Gemini stack with a transtage being in a useful orbit to perform some rescue missions!   I didn't have all the Titan parts I needed unlocked when I did that launch.

[Pappystein]

3 hours ago, nasaholic said:

Might be too late into the modeling/design phase; just wanted to add my 2 cents and point out that if the side "maintenance tunnels" (used for routing pipes, cables, etc.) were to be made into separate part, then, with the exception of cockpit,  the cross section is pretty much a perfect circle all the way to the engine area. See attached blueprint. Potential for Lego-ability would be much increased.

(Scott Crossfield gives an interesting insight in his book,  Always Another Dawn: "North American engineers planned to use tunnels similar to the Bell design, however, during the evolution to the final shape of the X-15 airframe, wind tunnel testing found that “maintenance tunnels” along the top and bottom of the fuselage would destabilize the plane in yaw. North American engineers ran the tunnels along each side of the fuselage instead, and found in wind tunnel tests that the side tunnels not only cured the yaw instability but also increased lift & improved propulsion efficiency. [7, p.229] It was found that at high Mach numbers the side tunnels would provide almost half the aerodynamic lift.")

 

Sadly, the parts are in the game already.    However, I would point out that the Mk2 Expansion mod did a similar thing and it has never been hugely reliable at staying together even with mods like KJR or Strut Everything.   Parts like that do not work well with KSP stock aeronautics, and from my now very old experience same with FAR.

 

Also a fun followup... You are correct about the Interaction between the "Tunnels" and improved high AOE and High speed aerodynamics.  This accident is what lead to the wing glove shape of the F-14 and F-15 as well as the initial Concept of the LERX on the F-5E, the F-16 and F-17/AF-18

 

Edited May 30 by Pappystein

[Just John]

Okay this feels silly but i literally have nowhere else to turn and im gonna keep it short so it doesn't clutter the forum much more. im trying to build Hokulani (Skylab) but i cant seem to find the structure that holds the telescope. (name from the unofficial wiki and instructions im using: Hokulani RT90 Truss Structure) i looked everywhere but i cant seem to find this crucial part to the space station. was it moved or renamed to something else? my guess is that the download failed to get everything when i downloaded this mod but im not 100% sure since i dont get any errors when starting the game. what else might i might be missing? any help appreciated

[Zorg]

31 minutes ago, Just John said:

Okay this feels silly but i literally have nowhere else to turn and im gonna keep it short so it doesn't clutter the forum much more. im trying to build Hokulani (Skylab) but i cant seem to find the structure that holds the telescope. (name from the unofficial wiki and instructions im using: Hokulani RT90 Truss Structure) i looked everywhere but i cant seem to find this crucial part to the space station. was it moved or renamed to something else? my guess is that the download failed to get everything when i downloaded this mod but im not 100% sure since i dont get any errors when starting the game. what else might i might be missing? any help appreciated

It requires breaking ground since it’s a robotic part. 

[Just John]

1 hour ago, Zorg said:

It requires breaking ground since it’s a robotic part. 

Gotcha very good to know. it was driving me crazy trying to find it lol

[GoldForest]

11 hours ago, Zorg said:

Getting there! Long awaited dedicated HLV parts

GEM 63. Decoupler is shown attached here. This will be a separate part in game but the parts shown attached here will be part of the jettison transform that will be staged with the SRM.

AJ60

Very nice! Though, I would have expected the HLV to use the existing SRB connection points. Like, SRB joint to SRB joint, not just one joint used.  And I would expect them to use the middle joints to reinforce structural integrity as well. 

[GoldForest]

If ya'll didn't know, Benjee is back! And they're making new parts for Habtech! These include 3.75m and 5m station parts! Decided to make ETS Freedom thanks to the 3.75 parts! 

Challenger goes up first of course!

Full album: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Jim Carrey: "Sssssssmokin!"

Edited May 31 by GoldForest

[GoldForest]

Apollo Blk V docks with Challenger

Full album: Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Edited May 31 by GoldForest

[Zorg]

4 hours ago, GoldForest said:

Very nice! Though, I would have expected the HLV to use the existing SRB connection points. Like, SRB joint to SRB joint, not just one joint used.  And I would expect them to use the middle joints to reinforce structural integrity as well. 

It can’t do that since it’s not symmetrical. The strap on boosters are rotated so the outer struts can connect to the same points but on the center core side that would require a different decoupler variant for each side which seemed an unnecessary amount of work to represent something that isn’t detailed well.  

Edited May 31 by Zorg

[GoldForest]

12 minutes ago, Zorg said:

It can’t do that since it’s not symmetrical. The strap on boosters are rotated so the outer struts can connect to the same points but on the center core side that would require a different decoupler variant for each side which seemed an unnecessary amount of work to represent something that isn’t detailed well.  

Ah yeah, I forgot the Atlas V is asymmetrical. And yeah, I see your point. 

[Invaderchaos]

Working on the long overdue Atlas V 4xx adapters. These are super WIP, not finished texturing yet. Hopefully I'll finish them this weekend.

[kspbutitscursed]

woah

[Zorg]

Thanks to BobKermanIndustries, we now have a more accurate version of the Atlas 400 series fairing that takes the fixed boattail from the centaur folder and adds it to the split fairing on a new part. The existing fixed boattail still remains and this is not on the generic 1.875m base either as it uses the centaur assets for the lower ring.

[CobaltWolf]

On 5/29/2024 at 12:35 AM, SLS is cool said:

hello

suh

[GoldForest]

45 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

suh

How was your break/vacation?

[CobaltWolf]

3 hours ago, GoldForest said:

How was your break/vacation?

I caught them. I caught all the fish.