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

[Doggydog]

14 minutes ago, alberro+ said:

Overkill.

Overkill in JNSQ.

What?

Mostly anything that fits in the fairing while still looking right ends up with me not using the Centaur. I put a SCANsat satellite on it, and could have put it in orbit in RSS.

[Guest]

[alberro+]

[CAPFlyer]

Okay, finally started a new career in 1.10.1 with the Development branch.  This is not a complaint, this is not a bug report, this is simply a question.

I understand that the rockets have been balanced against stock, but are you talking about bone stock or RSS stock?  I ask because I use Gravity Turn continued and I'm easily able to orbit most of the early satellites pretty much with the first stage alone of the Vanguard and Juno.  In fact, with Explorer 1, I had to jettison the 2nd stage (the 12x solid stage) because had I not, I would have been put on an escape trajectory (was the first time).  Did they really fly the first stages with significantly less fuel onboard with much higher lofts to require such powerful SRBs and upper stages or am I just trying to balance against the wrong "stock"?

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Just now, CAPFlyer said:

Okay, finally started a new career in 1.10.1 with the Development branch.  This is not a complaint, this is not a bug report, this is simply a question.

I understand that the rockets have been balanced against stock, but are you talking about bone stock or RSS stock?  I ask because I use Gravity Turn continued and I'm easily able to orbit most of the early satellites pretty much with the first stage alone of the Vanguard and Juno.  In fact, with Explorer 1, I had to jettison the 2nd stage (the 12x solid stage) because had I not, I would have been put on an escape trajectory (was the first time).  Did they really fly the first stages with significantly less fuel onboard with much higher lofts to require such powerful SRBs and upper stages or am I just trying to balance against the wrong "stock"?

This is balanced against 2.5-3.2x scale. Sigma Dimensions and Rescale work, or you could try JNSQ.

[CAPFlyer]

Okay, so it's balanced against a Real Scale-ish world, not against the Kerbin stock.  Only problem I see is Kopernicus hasn't been updated.

Edited August 6, 2020 by CAPFlyer

[AlphaMensae]

Just now, CAPFlyer said:

Okay, so it's balanced against a Real Scale-ish world, not against the Kerbin stock. 

To be more specific, the BDB parts are scaled against the stock parts, which actually are scaled for a 2.5x Kerbin, even though its size is 1/10th scale. Stock parts start to to get OP at the 2.5m size; note how you can do a Mun landing with just 1.25m parts.

[CAPFlyer]

Okay, so now I'm just getting confused.  What do I need to do to make the parts perform more realistically/increase difficulty on stock KSP?  Do I need to rescale KSP using a rescale mod or do I need to reduce fuel/modify the Solid stages to not have quite so much Delta-V?

Edited August 7, 2020 by CAPFlyer

[AlphaMensae]

Well, the easier way is to make Kerbin bigger by resclaling it.

The harder way is to modify the parts for the stock size Kerbin. I have done this with my own parts for my in-hiatus Alternate Overhaul--I made a Saturn V act like the real one at stock scale, with just enough delta-V to do an Apollo Mun landing and return.

It is not as easy as it sounds though. Simply reducing fuel in the tanks makes them weigh less, so TWR goes up. To compensate, you have to also increase the dry mass of the tanks as well as of other parts. But increase too much, ans the tanks will be like they're made out of solid lead. So you could decrease the thrust of the engines, but again, decrease it too much and it will become too much out of scale with the real one it was modeled after. Decreasing ISP of an engine is another technique to use, as it lowers delta-V without changing fuel amounts or mass.  It's a complex balancing act of multiple factors.

[CAPFlyer]

Okay.  So best thing is to deal with as is until R-T-B gets Kopericus working for 1.10.1 then do the Sigma 2.5 Rescale.

Just to be clear - I have no problem with this since I think all the "history-alike" mods I use are likely balanced similarly, just wanting to see what I needed to do.

[AlphaMensae]

Yep, as I said, most rocket part modders balance against the stock parts, which already are balanced for a 2.5x Kerbin.

An example: The stock 1.25 fuel tanks and engines correspond to the BDB Redstone, also 1.25m size. IRL, the Redstone rocket (actually the lengthened version the Jupiter-C/Juno I variant used) could not put the Mercury capsule into orbit, all it could do was a short suborbital hop. But at stock-scale KSP, you can orbit the Mk 1 pod with a very Redstone-like stock rocket.

Just shows how OP the stock parts actually are.  

[Pappystein]

On 8/4/2020 at 10:42 AM, CobaltWolf said:

Try using Janitor's Closet? I think that's how people handle that.

There's a standalone version of the Titan 1 engine mount in the structural tab for exactly that use

I am not touching anything Saturn related until I get to it, but yes I am planning on adding the 4x mount for the E-1s along with others in an LDC type switching mount.

Sorry for the near 4 day old post but @GoldForest  One trick with the E-1 on the Saturn IB mount is to rotate them (I think 180 but it might just be 90 degrees right)  It hides the "bulk" and makes it look "more right"   Yes they are a little long...   I hope when they get redone they end up like the J-2s/RL10s with no 1.25m ring (the ring can show up/through in a lot of different installations I use E-1s on.

BUT as one of the cheerleaders behind the E-1 (I wasn't the only one but I did talk about it A-LOT in forum before it was drawn up in BDB )  I am glad we have what we have.   As Cobalt said.  It is a Saturn Part and deserves it's place in the Saturn build.      While the E-1 started for Titan...   the bulk of it's funding was actually from the Saturn committee I think (I don't have my sources in-front of me ATM.)   E-1 was theoretically developed (and a simple prototype was fired) as a backup in case Aerojet could not deliver a functional LR87 / LR91 combo (I have no idea what Rocketdyne's 2nd stage engine would have been but likely some LR79/LR105 derivative.)   But the actual prototypes were as I remember, ordered for Saturn and not Titan.  

the LR87/E-1 duology kind of happened with the Aerojet AR-1 and BE-4 for Vulcan (well not exactly but it is close enough)

[hemeac]

1 hour ago, CAPFlyer said:

Okay.  So best thing is to deal with as is until R-T-B gets Kopericus working for 1.10.1 then do the Sigma 2.5 Rescale.

Just to be clear - I have no problem with this since I think all the "history-alike" mods I use are likely balanced similarly, just wanting to see what I needed to do.

If you are just rescaling stock Kerbin, I think the 1.10.1 pre-release should be fairly stable as long as you are able to run the the game with the ultra shaders. I think most of the remaining bugs are around cases where planet packs add multiple suns.  But test on a clean install first.

 

[CAPFlyer]

31 minutes ago, hemeac said:

If you are just rescaling stock Kerbin, I think the 1.10.1 pre-release should be fairly stable as long as you are able to run the the game with the ultra shaders. I think most of the remaining bugs are around cases where planet packs add multiple suns.  But test on a clean install first.

 

Thanks for that man!  I missed that thread and I'd only seen the other branch he was working on.  Time to download and install!

[OrbitalManeuvers]

39 minutes ago, CAPFlyer said:

Thanks for that man!  I missed that thread and I'd only seen the other branch he was working on.  Time to download and install!

if you're willing to do Kopernicus and Sigma to rescale stock, I gotta think it makes way more sense to ditch sigma and just get JNSQ? If you have eve and scatterer working, then JNSQ has what you want, and more - you'll get the stock planets scaled, plus new planets, plus better visuals than stock.  hope I'm not over-selling JNSQ, but the combination of BDB dev, MLP dev, and probes plus, on JNSQ is kind of hard to beat. For me it's a good balance between stock and something drastic like RSS. 

[CAPFlyer]

The only reason I'm not on JNSQ is that I'm using the Historic Space Program contract pack which doesn't take advantage of JNSQ's extra planets.  Once I complete that, I might try JNSQ, but that's down the road.  There's a ton of launches for me to complete just with the stock system.

[R-T-B]

4 hours ago, hemeac said:

If you are just rescaling stock Kerbin, I think the 1.10.1 pre-release should be fairly stable as long as you are able to run the the game with the ultra shaders. I think most of the remaining bugs are around cases where planet packs add multiple suns.  But test on a clean install first.

 

Pretty much.  We've got most of the bugs hammered out.  Multistar has been a thorn in Kopernicus's side since day 1, so we're not really struggling in any NEW way there, just the same as ever.   At any rate, that build should work fine for rescales.

[biohazard15]

Somehow I don't think it's right...

[GoldForest]

21 hours ago, biohazard15 said:

Somehow I don't think it's right...

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

@CobaltWolf can't make the probe any smaller, and the rocket parts can't go bigger or they'll look wrong.  The antenna don't have colliders iirc, so you won't get any drag.

Edited August 8, 2020 by GoldForest

[Kunosheru]

I really love the scientific details of this mod! a lot of them! and they are all different! thanks for supporting the development of the mod!

[Zorg]

On 8/7/2020 at 5:13 PM, biohazard15 said:

Somehow I don't think it's right...

 

  Hide contents

 

 

There is an even lower profile 0.125m decoupler, I suggest using that for now, its still clips the antenna into the fairing but not so far that it can be seen outside. I believe the issue is caused by the fact the SRM nozzle should be recessed slightly into the GCU looking at the diagrams. These parts were made before the SAF project was a thing so there weren't allowances for that.

[Pappystein]

2 hours ago, Zorg said:

There is an even lower profile 0.125m decoupler, I suggest using that for now, its still clips the antenna into the fairing but not so far that it can be seen outside. I believe the issue is caused by the fact the SRM nozzle should be recessed slightly into the GCU looking at the diagrams. These parts were made before the SAF project was a thing so there weren't allowances for that.

That is even a little true with some of the Latter (and newer) STAR rockets.  Some of the STAR-37/48 variants have a slight recess of the nozzle Others don't.  And while it is a matter of an inch or 5 it could matter with the SAF.      Easiest solution is to truncate the nozzle to the correct over all length if this becomes an issue (I don't know of any "real" payloads in BDB that need this on those rockets... I am just saying that a STAR-37 is not always the RIGHT STAR-37 )    That being said I think there are 14 distinct STAR-37 engine "hulls" (and a myriad of variants using those 14 "hulls" )  I think STAR-48 is easier at 8 distinct "hulls" but again about 50 variants within those 8 "hulls"    the BDB team (mostly Cobaltwolf himself) has done an amazing job picking the "best" solution.    BUT that does not mean it is always the "RIGHT" solution for your particular needs.   

OH and to be clear I am not asking for more STAR-37/STAR-48 rocket variants.  We have enough already!    Rather Just stating that sometimes it is impossible to build the EXACT Rocket you want as in real life.    This seems to be the case (and Zorg's suggestion of the lower profile Decoupler does help a LOT in this case!)

 

 

[Zorg]

36 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

That is even a little true with some of the Latter (and newer) STAR rockets.  Some of the STAR-37/48 variants have a slight recess of the nozzle Others don't.  And while it is a matter of an inch or 5 it could matter with the SAF.      Easiest solution is to truncate the nozzle to the correct over all length if this becomes an issue (I don't know of any "real" payloads in BDB that need this on those rockets... I am just saying that a STAR-37 is not always the RIGHT STAR-37 )    That being said I think there are 14 distinct STAR-37 engine "hulls" (and a myriad of variants using those 14 "hulls" )  I think STAR-48 is easier at 8 distinct "hulls" but again about 50 variants within those 8 "hulls"    the BDB team (mostly Cobaltwolf himself) has done an amazing job picking the "best" solution.    BUT that does not mean it is always the "RIGHT" solution for your particular needs.   

OH and to be clear I am not asking for more STAR-37/STAR-48 rocket variants.  We have enough already!    Rather Just stating that sometimes it is impossible to build the EXACT Rocket you want as in real life.    This seems to be the case (and Zorg's suggestion of the lower profile Decoupler does help a LOT in this case!)

 

 

I dont quite recall the situation with the Altair but certainly the bigger star motors are all not at their "proper" scale having been rounded up or down to fit KSP bulkhead sizes. That rounding factor may not match up with the rounding factor for a given rocket which would lead to further discrepancies. This is the stuff we have to deal with when not developing for Realism Overhaul  

Edited August 8, 2020 by Zorg

[TranceaddicT]

If we could figure out how to get TweakScale to play nice with BDB's implementation of B9 & MFT ...

[JoshTheKerbal]

What happened to the fairings?

They don't work in 1.10.0

Can you please investigate?