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

[DaveyJ576]

8 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

I have often wanted to make AAP-1A, since of the Apollo proposals it's one that came the closest to flying.

My kitbash of the platform obviously has some significant differences from the proposed configuration. It is hard to create triangular truss structures, so I kept it to square ones using Stock parts. The pressurized section is just a Mercury pod with a LM docking port! All in all I think it is a reasonable recreation.

The Saturn IB uses my patches that lower the weight of the S-1 tanks and the engine mount. Even with that it struggled to get the stack to a 85x105 orbit at a 33 deg inclination. I circularized at 105 km using the SM SPS. 

 

[SheepDog2142]

I noticed the new X-15 cockpit is using Warbirds MK1 retro IVA. Love it! Really glad to see it.

[Rodger]

That sounds like a mod is automatically swapping/updating any instance of the default mk1 cockpit IVA - X-15 is just set to use the default one lol. Glad it works though!

[guest10985]

I tried updating from the dev build on the 10th to the most recent dev build, for some reason a fair bit of parts are gone and some of my impotent craft broke. I went back to the older version and everything is fine, but is this gonna be a permanent thing?

[GoldForest]

5 hours ago, guest10985 said:

I tried updating from the dev build on the 10th to the most recent dev build, for some reason a fair bit of parts are gone and some of my impotent craft broke. I went back to the older version and everything is fine, but is this gonna be a permanent thing?

Did you update from dev to dev or 1.13 to dev?

If the former, it shouldn't break anything really, except maybe the Atlas stuff if you haven't updated the dev for a little bit. 

If the latter, then yeah, it will break stuff permanently. You'll have to finish any mission and then update.

Edited September 23 by GoldForest

[Rodger]

12 hours ago, guest10985 said:

I tried updating from the dev build on the 10th to the most recent dev build, for some reason a fair bit of parts are gone and some of my impotent craft broke. I went back to the older version and everything is fine, but is this gonna be a permanent thing?

Shouldn't be any major changes in the last couple of weeks, it sounds like either download or install issues. Try downloading it again, the zip should be about 985MB. Alternately using GitHub Desktop to download it can make it much easier to keep up-to-date without redownloading a GB each time, and it can prevent download errors as it will validate each file after you've downloaded it. I posted about how to download dev branch using GH Desktop here

Also updating from 1.13 to dev should be *relatively* safe, nothing should be destroyed on loading as any depreciations are "soft" ones. I've even tested loading a 1.5 year old long-term career save of mine, just updating BDB to dev, and no craft got destroyed. However some parts may have the active variants change on you mid-flight if they had new variant options added to them, and ideally you'll want to update craft files to remove or update any depreciated parts

Edited September 23 by Rodger

[guest10985]

11 hours ago, Rodger said:

Shouldn't be any major changes in the last couple of weeks, it sounds like either download or install issues. Try downloading it again, the zip should be about 985MB. Alternately using GitHub Desktop to download it can make it much easier to keep up-to-date without redownloading a GB each time, and it can prevent download errors as it will validate each file after you've downloaded it. I posted about how to download dev branch using GH Desktop here

Also updating from 1.13 to dev should be *relatively* safe, nothing should be destroyed on loading as any depreciations are "soft" ones. I've even tested loading a 1.5 year old long-term career save of mine, just updating BDB to dev, and no craft got destroyed. However some parts may have the active variants change on you mid-flight if they had new variant options added to them, and ideally you'll want to update craft files to remove or update any depreciated parts

I think it was a bad download, I re-downloaded it and it works fine, all crafts work.

Thanks for the help! :3

[Pappystein]

On 9/23/2024 at 6:28 PM, guest10985 said:

I think it was a bad download, I re-downloaded it and it works fine, all crafts work.

Thanks for the help! :3

With large mods, that is a somewhat common issue with Github.   Esp if you are not in Western Europe, North America, and especially if you are in a location that is either connected through or in a country that regulates their internet.

[Hank Kerman]

Sorry if I'm a bit nagging, but since BDB has parts from Eyes Turned Skywards, could parts from other space althists be added (such as the Clipper from Ocean of Storms)? Also could we see  enlarged aerospike engines, since I recall seeing several NOVA concepts featuring them?

[Pappystein]

21 hours ago, Hank Kerman said:

Sorry if I'm a bit nagging, but since BDB has parts from Eyes Turned Skywards, could parts from other space althists be added (such as the Clipper from Ocean of Storms)? Also could we see  enlarged aerospike engines, since I recall seeing several NOVA concepts featuring them?

I am not a BDB team member, but I think I can answer some of what you are talking about.

1) ETS parts are really super LOW hanging fruit.   Almost every part in the game from ETS is stuff actually derived/proposed from existing Saturn and Peacekeeper/Athena rockets.    The Clipper would be a whole new part and texture set.    The X-15 has taken 9 months to perfect... Clipper could be multiple years plus.  

About the only part that wasn't planned (but was, I will get back to it in a few lines) for real that is ETS derived is the ETS-IVC Twin engine mount.    There is an IRL S-IVC (which is why I call the ETS one the ETS-IVC)   The ETS one utilizes 2 J-2 engines....    JUST LIKE the S-III stage from real Saturn History.    So again, pretty low hanging fruit (turning the S-IVB engine mount into an ETS-IVC/S-III engine mount took a few hours to do as I remember.)

2) NOVA is a problem.    First off, there were 3 different Programs all named NOVA.  Worse, at various times NOVA was the program to get to the Moon, then Mars, then the program to drive technology development.   The First being the NACA as it was being made into NASA program.   The Second, Latter evolving into a post Apollo program study... that was later cut down / evolved into the Saturn MLV studies.    And the Third being the "what technology can we improve" study.      And you can sort-of group NOVA(2) with NOVA(3).   Oh NOVA(1) was superseded by the further advanced Juno V (Saturn) program almost immediately.

Apollo, Saturn and NOVA are so intertwined that there is an awful lot of false information out there.   I have been writing an article on the supposed Saturn C-8 rocket (also something BDB isn't going to do.)   And it is a royal *bad word* to keep the story straight because the left upper hand didn't know what the left lower hand, let alone either right hand was doing at Marshal Space Flight center (let alone across the rest of NASA.)  This lead to people calling the Direct ascent single rocket stand in from the Saturn C-2 program a "Saturn C-8."   That Stand in was meant to show how much worse a single launcher was vs 36 launches by Saturn C-1 and Saturn C-2 rockets in both time and cost, both important factors in if a rocket is even built.

Suffice to say.   Once economy of scale + ACTUAL rocket performance, and mass per mass unit delivered were all tabulated NOVA evolved into a technology demonstration program for the Saturn MLV program.   Concurrently with the Saturn MLV program, a subset of the program was meant for LEO orbit work only (that is the Saturn INT family.)

To the question about large Aerospikes.  First, there are THREE different aerospike types we are discussing here.
1) PLUG Aerospike (what all the NOVA proposals had)
2) ANNULAR Aerospike
3) Linear Aerospike

It was QUICKLY proven that the plug aerospikes did not confer a benefit over clustered F-1 engines early on in NOVA(2) and they were dropped BEFORE the launch of the Saturn MLV program.   Plug Aerospikes are made by having multiple smaller engines pointing at a central spike to deflect thrust.  This over-complication is hard to design around reliably.    I give you SpaceX Starship and N-1 as examples of why this is not a good idea.    Yes, with modern computer engineering SpaceX seems to have solved most of their problems... after re-designing the Boosters engine bay 3 times!  But in the 1960s that was IMPOSSIBLE.

The problem here, is people look at the drawings from the old NOVA documents and say "Ooh Aerospike"   But, When you compare a plug, and an annular aerospike in small scale drawings, they look the same.    They are anything but. 

When Rocketdyne latter made their Aerospikes as J-2S derived engines, it was to prove/disprove that Aerospikes were viable for Space Shuttle.   The Initial effort the Annular Aerospike (we now know it as the J-2T engine)  is in BDB and has been given probably better than real stats (there is not a lot of FIRM information on these engines available as they were never engineered into fully flight capable.)   Latter, a new way of vectoring the thrust of the rocket engine utilizing the Linear Aerospike concept was derived.   THIS has uses but it was too late for Space Shuttle.   This is the J-2L or Rocketdyne LTBE.   At one point @EStreetRockets had planned to make the LBTE as one of their engines for Rocket Motor Menagerie.  I am pretty certain that is no longer on  Estreet's radar given RMMs mostly RS-25 focus.

J-2L/LBTE was updated into the XRS-2200 test bed engine for the X-30 Aerospace plane.   This is an altered form of the plug aerospike where a single fuel system feeds multiple combustion chambers.  XRS-2200 is literally a refurbished J-2L design to take into account modern materials and construction techniques (and is how Rocketdyne knew how much it would take to put back into production the J-2S and the F-1 back when asked in the late 90s early 2000s.)   An interesting aspect of the annular aerospike (J-2T) is that you can to a point scale thrust just by increasing operating pressures in it's single combustion chamber, which is why there are three different J-2Ts in BDB (if you include the one in BDB Extras.)   You can not do that with Linear Aerospikes or plug aerospikes. 

To get back to your question, Linear Aerospikes were not part of NOVA,  annular aerospikes hadn't even been conceived, and the Plug type Aerospikes actually provided no benefit and a lot of negative aspects.   So neat idea, not viable.  

[Hank Kerman]

1 hour ago, Pappystein said:

ETS parts are really super LOW hanging fruit.   Almost every part in the game from ETS is stuff actually derived/proposed from existing Saturn and Peacekeeper/Athena rockets.    The Clipper would be a whole new part and texture set.    The X-15 has taken 9 months to perfect... Clipper could be multiple years plus.

1 hour ago, Pappystein said:

To get back to your question, Linear Aerospikes were not part of NOVA,  annular aerospikes hadn't even been conceived, and the Plug type Aerospikes actually provided no benefit and a lot of negative aspects.   So neat idea, not viable.  

Fair point. Disregard what I had said earlier.

[CobaltWolf]

Happy 9th Anniversary, babes <3

[GoldForest]

53 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Happy 9th Anniversary, babes <3

Where's the cake in the shape of a Saturn V at?

[ThatGust]

1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

Happy 9th Anniversary, babes <3

9 years already.. time flies

[Zorg]

UPDATE - Bluedog Design Bureau v1.14.0

And to celebrate BDB's 9th anniversary, v1.14.0  "металл" is released!

Its been over a year since the last one and this is a big update. Featuring revamped and expanded Atlas and Atlas V parts, all new parts for X15, Mariner 9, OV1 and plenty more!

Full album here : https://imgur.com/a/bluedog-design-bureau-v1-14-wI3oLrz

Changelog

Spoiler

v1.14
New Content and Features
- Revamp of Atlas including new core tank variants to represent all Atlas versions, extension tank switches that match precise lengths of stretched Atlas variants. Every historical Atlas variant except Atlas Burner II (pending) can now be made accurately!
- Remade LR101, LR105, LR89 and RD180 Engines, added Atlas Centaur retro motor.
- Generic 1.875m and 2.5m engine mounts based on the RD180 shroud and another 1.875m generic mount based on the J1-U concept.
- Two new 1.25m Atlas SAF fairings: Atlas F OV-1 and MSD/SGS
- New nose cones: SCORE satellite and Atlas A instrumentation.
- Redone 2.5m balloon tank Atlas parts for SLV-3X and original XB-65 5 engine concept. New base tanks, extension tanks, adapter tanks, 2.5m 4x booster skirt and aft mount tank. (FAR compatible)
- Atlas 1.875m Tri-coupler
- Revamped 3.125m Atlas CELV parts including new core tank and extension tanks. Multiple tank lengths consolidated in B9PS switch. Sustainer tanks and booster skirt have had their textures refreshed.
- Revamp of Atlas V including remade Common Core Booster with multiple paint variants, new 500 series fairing base and 400 series Centaur adapter, Centaur load reactor, new SRB decoupler, AJ60 SRB and GEM-63 SRB (with GEM 63XL option)
- Dedicated Atlas V Heavy parts including liquid booster decoupler and nosecone.
- OV1-1 and OV1-10 satellites with multiple instruments.
- OV1 propulsion kit for Altair motor, Atlas Retained Structure OV-1 side mount pod and dual ARS nose mount pod.
- Scientific Passenger Pod for piggybacking experiments on Atlas core stage.
- New X-15 part set including XLR11, XLR99, switches for different historical variants, drop tanks, science payloads.
- X-15 delta wing
- X-15 scramjet engine
- TACSAT
- Mariner 9
- Apollo RCML
- Rocketdyne G-1 Flourine-Hydrazine engine and associated plume contributed by RO dev Al2Me6.
- Mariner '69 (nice)
- Support for PBR textures which provides realistic rendering of metal and non metal parts via compatibility with Resurfaced mod. Requires Resurfaced and Shabby. The deferred rendering mod is recommended to complement this. Since this support requires tweaking existing textures and adding a metal map, and since BDB has a lot of parts, this is still a work in progress.
- Resurfaced PBR support is currently provided for Atlas, Atlas V, X15 (placeholder) and some of the probes.

Updates and Enhancements
- Apollo parachute drag rebalance (Thanks SofieBrink)
- Update FreeIVA and CLS configs (Thanks SofieBrink)
- Update USI life spport configs (Thanks PXTSERYU)
- Update RealAntenna configs (Thanks Aebestach)
- Update Hypergolic configs (Thanks Pappystein)
- New optional Fluorine patch configs (Thanks Pappystein)
- Update AJ9 configs, now also includes AJ11A variants (Thanks Pappystein)
- Rocket Sound Enhancement configs (Thanks JacobB094)
- Update Engine Ignitor configs (Thanks mountainparrot)
- New VAB Organizer compatibility configs
- Update upper stage thrust buff optional patch, includes NTR buff
- RealChute compatibility patch for parachutes, allowing use of RC's resizing and auto-calculation systems (requires RealChute v1.4.9.3+)
- Accurate version of Atlas V 400 series fairing, makes the lower boattail section part of the split fairing. Existing fixed boattail still available. (Thanks BobKermanIndustries)
- Stock procedural fairing version of the LDC fairing
- Colour swatches for paint switches.
- New paint variants - white Titan 2 and 4 S1 bottom tanks, white Titan 2 1.5m and 1.25m adapters, white Titan SRB parachute, grey LR87-11 Titan 3 shroud, white AARDV large cargo ferry
- Update Apollo paint switch patching to allow paint folder pruning
- Consolidate Titan tank variants into single parts with mesh switches
- Consolidate Titan engine variants into single parts with engine switches
- Replace Titan engine auto-shrouds with switchable solid interstage parts.
- New UA120 variant - 1206F, a full 6 segment version
- New Titan SRB nosecone without built-in separation motor
- Rescaled the IUS to fit inside a 1.875m fairing, plus new IUS Interstage variants for the Orbus 21 (which also fit inside a 1.875m fairing). Orbus 21 no longer uses autoshrouds, now has an interstage node for the IUS Interstage
- Update engines that were using a 2nd engine module for a vernier to use just a single engine module with transformMultipliers - LR-91, GE-405s, JPL 45K, AJ260 inline
- Various part merges, changing from multiple parts into B9PS variants. Including: Able/Ablestar AJ10s, Delta AJ10s, RL10s, J-2s, H-1C/D, Agena 8096C, RL20s, MB60s, A7s, Gemini/MOL/Transtage/Apollo RCS, redstone extension tanks, Saturn SLA bases and panels
- New optional patch for RS68 super-compact variants for use with smaller shrouds or NFLV engine mounts
- Add inner glow waterfall fx to Apollo family RCS, and fix some misplaced plumes
- Set some more modules to use PAW UI Groups, like node switches, fuel cells, science experiments, scanners etc.
- Update Gemini Lander drop tank nodes to not require use of move tool
- Add nodes to MORL rack and PBG
- Improve stability of Vanguard stack
- Update bundled System Heat to 0.7.5

Bug fixes
- Prevent part mass rescaling if RO is present (thanks Capkirk123)
- Adjust tech placement of Little Joe II, and added to CCK patch
- Fix Mariner 3/4 Cosmic Ray Detector name and description
- Fix minor error with cargo types overlapping with default Kerbalism cargos
- Fix errors relating to Gemini equipment module's fuel cell and TAC-LS
- Fix some errors on the Apollo LES when RSMP is installed
- Removed some duplicate fields
- Fix window light animation on BigG Cylindrical Cargo Module
- Fix nav light animation on BigG Cylindrical Equipment Module
- Fix GooLab goo missing texture
- Fix Clementine solar panel sunCatcher
- Fix Mariner 8/9 solar panels sunCatcher
- Fix Pegasus Deployable solar panel variants sunCatcher
- Update LM Lab Materials Palette to have correct experiments and more cost/mass, and it now glows like the MESA version
- Fix some DDS compression artifacts on Apollo RCS, and fix white variant of Apollo Sideways RCS thruster
- Update some incorrect bulkhead profiles
- Fix Mercury drogue chute canopy model offset
- Stop SAF parts from heating up as much on ascent
- Remove Cube
- Fix UA120 abort mode not cancelling thrust correctly
- Fix textures on Gemini MOL inflatable airlock IVA
- Fix some RealPlume SRB smoke trails having too much smoke, causing gaps in the trail
- Replace missing decouple fx when RealPlume is installed
- Fix Voyager Mars Lander HGA pivot, which caused deployment/retraction errors
- Fix LM Truck control state, had default craft type set as debris preventing control
- Fix drag inside the standard Saturn SLAs
- Fix RCS audio pitch changing between different axies
- Add missing crew hatch and ladder to MORL
- Add missing engine glows to GEM 40-60 boosters
- Fix inverted Carrack Wide SAF faring halves
- Depreciate old SaturnMB optional patch
- Fix Pioneer Magnetometer colliders, update Mariner 10 camera colliders
- Fix Delta Dual Payload Adapter decouple direction, and simplify length switch setup to only need a switch on the top half, not the base as well

Download (github)

Download (Spacedock)

Also available on CKAN

 

Edited October 1 by Zorg

[AdrianDogmeat]

Oh wow, a KSP vs Real Pic Comparison just in time for BDB's Latest Update, How Convenient

[Gupyzer0]

YEAH BABY!

Thank You BDB team for all the hard work!

[Mr. Kerbin]

3 hours ago, Zorg said:

OV-1

 

3 hours ago, Zorg said:

OV-10

Wait- like Orbiter Vehicle 1 and 10? Like how the space shuttles are OV-100?

[KeaKaka]

1 hour ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

Wait- like Orbiter Vehicle 1 and 10? Like how the space shuttles are OV-100?

Not Orbiter Vehicle but Orbiting Vehicle, the program was designed to fly a series of small piggyback scientific satellites on larger missions, however many just ended up getting dedicated launches instead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbiting_Vehicle

[Hank Kerman]

Weirdly 1.14 is showing up as a possible update on CKAN, but I cannot apply the update. Community Categories, Methalox Variants, and Real Names all are fine though.

[Mr. Kerbin]

32 minutes ago, KeaKaka said:

Not Orbiter Vehicle but Orbiting Vehicle, the program was designed to fly a series of small piggyback scientific satellites on larger missions, however many just ended up getting dedicated launches instead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbiting_Vehicle

Thanks. That make more sense.

[Hydragaming]

Happy Ninth to the BDB team! This is definitely one of the must-have mods for me, and it's awesome to see it still growing in light of the trials this community has been through lol

[SofieBrink]

Whoo congrats on the release folks!

[bigyihsuan]

IT'S HERE! 1.14 IS HERE!

Maybe it's time to finally get Skyhawk updated and the ETS parts moved to their proper places.

Edited October 1 by bigyihsuan

[GoldForest]

Congrats on release! I know you're probably already working on 14.1, but take a few days to a week to rest. You deserve it.