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

[bigyihsuan]

2 hours ago, stereowired said:

Probably off topic, but I'm having trouble building the mercury atlas, as there's no parts of the atlas that attach to that black mercury interstage. They're all either too small or large. I don't know if I'm missing parts or whatever, but if anyone could help me with it, I'd be very grateful.

The tapered Atlas tank should have a part switch variant for 1.25m.

[SynFuZe]

4 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Oh, if you're talking the A and B series Saturns, yeah we don't have those and have no plans to add them. They'd be... surprisingly difficult to make, unless I textured them very generically (ex, not including the unique Titan stage details in the B-1). They're definitely "wow that would be cool someday" parts but there's definitely no plans for them. I think I'd try and do dedicated C-3 and C-4 parts before I did any of the A/B stages - I could see C-4 stages, with a diameter between the S-IVB and S-1C, being useful to have.

And yes, sadly Astronautix is not what I would consider a reliable source. It's cool, and there's definitely a lot of Soviet stuff that I haven't seen elsewhere. However, the author definitely will do things like making assumptions without denoting them as such, there's a lot of 'placeholder' technical stats that are incorrect, etc. These days we work almost entirely off of primary sources. (Please note that documents being in that folder does not mean there are plans to add it)

 

Hard to say right now. The team certainly isn't done with the mod, not by a long shot, but KSP2 puts a wrench in things. I don't think there's a lot of motivation to continue adding more parts, knowing it's creating more work for bringing things over to the eventual BDB2.

 

I actually have no idea how to disable it now that we use SystemHeat.

My 2c on the matter - cryogenic fuel gives you a lot more performance, and in gameplay terms I like how it is balanced by the boiloff. That means your primary use case for hydrogen will be launch vehicles with short loiter times, and then occasionally using them with radiators for longer term voyages which really only work past a certain scale. If you're launching stuff like Centaur, radiators shouldn't be needed - just don't expect it to be able to do a lunar insertion after days of coasting. That's what the (lower performance) storable fuel stages are for.

 

Isn't Saturn 500F the facilities test article?

The S-IVF was for making Comet HLLV, but it's also useful for anyone wanting to have a constant diameter LV / needs a wider payload fairing than the S-IVB can provide.

 

Would you be willing to add the Nova rockets? They have quite a few very interesting looking designs, and I feel like that would be an awesome way to do the Mun missions

[Blufor878]

I'm working on craft files for the LM variants. I already showcased my early build of the LEM orbital lab. I'm also working on the Taxi and the Shelter. I'm also doing the bigger shelters but that will come later. I wanted to post these so I could get your guys input to see if I'm missing anything.
First, the taxi



And now the shelter



Other than the different LEM modules, I also added batteries and thermoelectric generators to both lander variants. I'm also gonna tag in @Elro2k because this is something he requested awhile back.

4 minutes ago, SynFuZe said:

Would you be willing to add the Nova rockets? They have quite a few very interesting looking designs, and I feel like that would be an awesome way to do the Mun missions

So, this has already been discussed. The answer is no (and their reason is understandable). However, you can make a reasonable facsimile using the 7.5m tanks from @Nertea's Near Future Launch Vehicles. @GoldForest has done this before, and even made a cargo variant (I sadly can't point to the exact post, that was months ago). Also I've made something in the Nova/Direct Ascent Style here:
https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/C7-DI-761-Pad

Failing that there's also Procedural Parts, so...

[CobaltWolf]

4 minutes ago, Blufor878 said:

I'm working on craft files for the LM variants. I already showcased my early build of the LEM orbital lab. I'm also working on the Taxi and the Shelter. I'm also doing the bigger shelters but that will come later. I wanted to post these so I could get your guys input to see if I'm missing anything.

Ooh, I have some notes!

• LM Shelter should be using the Truck descent stage
• Extra batteries should be placed on both the front/rear. 
• The LM deployable radiator should go on the black rectangular feature on the back left quadrant.
• The single deployable RTG should go on the bottom left of the back right quadrant, not the front.
  • There's also the quad surface-mount RTGs, which I liked better for the LM Shelter, but we're already at the point where this is a pastiche of different proposals.
  • Incidentally, that means the MESA can go in its original position.

 

18 minutes ago, SynFuZe said:

Would you be willing to add the Nova rockets? They have quite a few very interesting looking designs, and I feel like that would be an awesome way to do the Mun missions

10 minutes ago, Blufor878 said:

So, this has already been discussed. The answer is no (and their reason is understandable). However, you can make a reasonable facsimile using the 7.5m tanks from @Nertea's Near Future Launch Vehicles. @GoldForest has done this before, and even made a cargo variant (I sadly can't point to the exact post, that was months ago). Also I've made something in the Nova/Direct Ascent Style here:
https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/C7-DI-761-Pad

Failing that there's also Procedural Parts, so...

Ha, to be fair, usually that's because they're asking about C-8 and not the broader Nova family. So I'll answer this one.

In terms of the Nova rockets, I think it's probably a lot more work than you realize. That's a lot of new tanks, adapters, decouplers, fairing bases, interstages, engine mounts, etc etc etc... doing it any sort of justice would be as much work as the Saturn parts themselves, and that's without the plethora of photos and documents I had to work from for the Saturn parts. So it's a lot of work with not a lot to go on - and I'll be honest, I'm not particularly good at creating things whole-cloth.

I will say that the Nova parts do feel more appropriate in KSP2, but to be clear we have absolutely no plans to do them.

[Rutabaga22]

6 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

The S-IVF was for making Comet HLLV, but it's also useful for anyone wanting to have a constant diameter LV / needs a wider payload fairing than the S-IVB can provide.

Thank you!

[Entr8899]

1 hour ago, SynFuZe said:

Would you be willing to add the Nova rockets? They have quite a few very interesting looking designs, and I feel like that would be an awesome way to do the Mun missions

The rocket who shall not be named...

[Elro2k]

2 hours ago, Blufor878 said:

I'm also gonna tag in @Elro2k because this is something he requested awhile back.

Thank you so much!! I can't wait to play around with these crafts in-game

[Rutabaga22]

How can I have control on the saturn II? I can't seem to gain control.

[DaveyJ576]

14 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

How can I have control on the saturn II? I can't seem to gain control.

Please be a lot more specific in describing your problem. It is very hard to answer your question without asking a lot of our own. Without specific details of what is happening no one will be able to help you..

[Rutabaga22]

14 minutes ago, DaveyJ576 said:

Please be a lot more specific in describing your problem. It is very hard to answer your question without asking a lot of our own. Without specific details of what is happening no one will be able to help you..

Sorry, I built a Saturn 2 but can't control it. The SRBs and J-2s don't have thrust vector, so I can't control the vehicle. 

[DaveyJ576]

1 hour ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Sorry, I built a Saturn 2 but can't control it. The SRBs and J-2s don't have thrust vector, so I can't control the vehicle. 

It is my experience that both the UA1205 solids and the J-2s have thrust vectoring. I have built and flown a Saturn II and had no problems with it. Please provide more specifics.

[Blufor878]

5 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Ooh, I have some notes!

• LM Shelter should be using the Truck descent stage
• Extra batteries should be placed on both the front/rear. 
• The LM deployable radiator should go on the black rectangular feature on the back left quadrant.
• The single deployable RTG should go on the bottom left of the back right quadrant, not the front.
  • There's also the quad surface-mount RTGs, which I liked better for the LM Shelter, but we're already at the point where this is a pastiche of different proposals.
  • Incidentally, that means the MESA can go in its original position.

 

Thanks for the input. Made the adjustments, here we go:

Second pass on Taxi



Second pass on Shelter

[GoldForest]

I have been summoned to post beauty.

https://imgur.io/a/XVFdmZ3

https://imgur.io/a/rEf99Ro

[kspbutitscursed]

MOAR BOOSTERZ

[Blufor878]

Just playing around in orbit with a glass cockpit.

[BritishRailBlue]

This might be a stupid question, but does anyone know if I can find more information on BDB2? A GitHub info page or even just some obscure comment would help. Thanks!

[bigyihsuan]

34 minutes ago, BritishRailBlue said:

This might be a stupid question, but does anyone know if I can find more information on BDB2? A GitHub info page or even just some obscure comment would help. Thanks!

I'm pretty sure BDB2 hasn't even begun yet. (KSP2 doesn't even have its modding API set up and specc'ed, the BDB devs are probably waiting on that for BDB2 to even start)

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, BritishRailBlue said:

This might be a stupid question, but does anyone know if I can find more information on BDB2? A GitHub info page or even just some obscure comment would help. Thanks!

54 minutes ago, bigyihsuan said:

I'm pretty sure BDB2 hasn't even begun yet. (KSP2 doesn't even have its modding API set up and specc'ed, the BDB devs are probably waiting on that for BDB2 to even start)

Correct, we haven't started any work on it. We don't even have enough specifications to start converting the art assets.

[Entr8899]

27 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Correct, we haven't started any work on it. We don't even have enough specifications to start converting the art assets.

Will you be abandoning all work in KSP1 when you move over to KSP2? I sincerely hope you do not, and if you've already decided to, I very much hope you reconsider. Bugs and lack of content aside, KSP2 requires prohibitively expensive hardware that I, and I'm sure many other people, can't afford, all for a game experience only marginally better than that which is already offered in KSP1.

[CobaltWolf]

1 minute ago, Entr8899 said:

Will you be abandoning all work in KSP1 when you move over to KSP2? I sincerely hope you do not, and if you've already decided to, I very much hope you reconsider. Bugs and lack of content aside, KSP2 requires prohibitively expensive hardware that I, and I'm sure many other people, can't afford, all for a game experience only marginally better than that which is already offered in KSP1.

No plans to continue BDB1 once we start BDB2. Time unfortunately moves forward - I'm thinking in terms of the long game of what will be possible 5 years from now. But KSP2 is obviously in a bad place right now. Nothing to do but be patient.

[Entr8899]

1 minute ago, CobaltWolf said:

No plans to continue BDB1 once we start BDB2. Time unfortunately moves forward - I'm thinking in terms of the long game of what will be possible 5 years from now. But KSP2 is obviously in a bad place right now. Nothing to do but be patient.

But it can't move forward for a lot of people. Is there any chance you could arrange for someone to do the work of porting assets over to KSP1 for you? I would be happy to do it myself if I knew anything about KSP modding.

[CobaltWolf]

Just now, Entr8899 said:

But it can't move forward for a lot of people. Is there any chance you could arrange for someone to do the work of porting assets over to KSP1 for you? I would be happy to do it myself if I knew anything about KSP modding.

I understand (based on past conversations) why this is an issue for you and I'm certainly sympathetic, but this is also not something up for debate since it's a personal choice by myself and the other devs. In any case, the first several years of BDB2 would be taken up by porting over the existing assets anyways, so there wouldn't be anything new to try and port back anyways.

[Elro2k]

So @CobaltWolf, is there a reason the MESA on the Taxi and normal LM is on the right quadrant instead of the left? Am I right in thinking that it was on the left quadrant for the Apollo missions? Additionally, is the LM taxi meant to be an SSTO version of the LM, or just an uprated LM with higher crew capacity?

[CobaltWolf]

20 minutes ago, Elro2k said:

So @CobaltWolf, is there a reason the MESA on the Taxi and normal LM is on the right quadrant instead of the left? Am I right in thinking that it was on the left quadrant for the Apollo missions? Additionally, is the LM taxi meant to be an SSTO version of the LM, or just an uprated LM with higher crew capacity?

If you're standing in front of the ladder, facing back towards the LM, the MESA should be on the left side. It's wrong in both sets of blufor's screenshots (Love ya tho!)

The LM Taxi is basically just a modified (2-stage) LM. I don't know if I'd even say it was uprated - the modifications mostly revolve around making sure it can survive at least one lunar night and still reliably get the crew back to orbit.

Something to remember is there's no single LM Taxi, Shelter, etc. I have a bunch of different docs and made something of a pastiche of my favorite elements from each. Most LM Taxis still assumed a 2-member crew (and only one would do surface EVAs at a time! Sounds scary), but I gave it 3 capacity since I wanted people to be able to take full advantage of the larger habs.

Edited May 2, 2023 by CobaltWolf

[Zorg]

Just merged the new IVAs into the 1.11 dev branch. Some might need a few more props and a handful have placeholder textures (will be done properly maybe in June when I have time) but most are quite usable and the hero ones like the ETS Lab module and the historical Skylab MDA are quite complete.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Zorg