The Future of FASA

[politas]

@NathanKell, does your team intend to maintain the FASA Launch Clamps and Towers subset mod as well?

Edited December 23, 2015 by politas

[NathanKell]

Yes, we're looking into leveraging CKAN to do that for other subsets as well.

[artwhaley]

Nathan, I'm happy to help with and/or help organize the volunteers for stock balancing!

[NathanKell]

When I come up for air on 1.1 I'll definitely be speaking with you all

[TiktaalikDreaming]

I'm always up for some making 3d assets. Especially for the mod that most inspired me. 

[NathanKell]

@TiktaalikDreaming awesome! Give @saabstory88 a poke and tell him I sent you.

[saabstory88]

10 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I'm always up for some making 3d assets. Especially for the mod that most inspired me. 

What parts of the workflow do you enjoy?

[TiktaalikDreaming]

2 hours ago, saabstory88 said:

What parts of the workflow do you enjoy?

Mostly the blender work.  I'm still wrestling with getting up to speed with unwrappings and texturing, but I'm getting better at that.  I can assist in other aspects as well, I've been building parts pack mods for about a year now.  So I can do the range of stuff.  My IVA-fu is week.  :-)

[saabstory88]

5 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Mostly the blender work.  I'm still wrestling with getting up to speed with unwrappings and texturing, but I'm getting better at that.  I can assist in other aspects as well, I've been building parts pack mods for about a year now.  So I can do the range of stuff.  My IVA-fu is week.  :-)

That's okay. No plans to mess with IVA's at this point. Well, if there is going to be some interest, I'll have to get a battle plan together. 

[Matuchkin]

Is it possible to make a separate FASA engine pack (much like the launch towers)? The engines in the mod are amazing, but the sheer amount of parts is huge.

[Mecripp]

2 hours ago, 073198681 said:

Is it possible to make a separate FASA engine pack (much like the launch towers)? The engines in the mod are amazing, but the sheer amount of parts is huge.

If that is what you just need FASA/FASA_Apollo_Eng      I pretty sure.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

5 hours ago, 073198681 said:

Is it possible to make a separate FASA engine pack (much like the launch towers)? The engines in the mod are amazing, but the sheer amount of parts is huge.

Yes...but....

It's fairly easy to do yourself.  And maintaining a second mod pack of the same parts is slightly annoying, so it comes down to how many people want said engine packs.  EG: effort-A x users might be < effort-B.

On the other hand, IF you put in that effort, you're now free to upload said pack, with appropriate copyright type notices, to a mod repository for other users, and become a mod publisher.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

On 16/11/2015 at 10:02 AM, Brainpop14 said:

Can you add more versions of the Atlas engines? The Booster engines and sustainer engine? That way people can make accurate replicas of all the early Atlas Rockets. From the ICBM to the Atlas II. I tried using the standard engines that come with this mod on a correctly scaled Atlas II and it was too heavy. There was only a .69 TWR ratio. I would like to see more powerful Atlas engines so I could replicate those rockets. Could you please do this for me?

Do you have any good links for info on the Atlas? I'm just being lazy of course, I can google away as needed, but it sounds like you already did some research. 

[NathanKell]

http://b14643.de/ look at the various Atlas pages under the US rocket pages.

http://spacelaunchreport.com/atlas.html

http://heroicrelics.org/

[CobaltWolf]

7 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Do you have any good links for info on the Atlas? I'm just being lazy of course, I can google away as needed, but it sounds like you already did some research. 

I can dig up my references from back when I was working on Atlas. I was mostly concerned with the art though so it was a lot of trawling through google images with slightly different search terms and saving the ones that piqued my interest.

RE: the atlas II not having enough TWR... if I recall, FASA's Atlas is very specifically focused on making Atlas/Mercury. I am not sure if Atlas II's engines differed significantly in appearance from Atlas I's. It may simply be a balance issue IMO.

EDIT:

33 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

http://b14643.de/ look at the various Atlas pages under the US rocket pages.

http://spacelaunchreport.com/atlas.html

http://heroicrelics.org/

Those unflown Atlas variants... I know of some of them, but others are very exciting! Thanks for the links.

Edited January 15, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[TiktaalikDreaming]

2 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

I can dig up my references from back when I was working on Atlas. I was mostly concerned with the art though so it was a lot of trawling through google images with slightly different search terms and saving the ones that piqued my interest.

RE: the atlas II not having enough TWR... if I recall, FASA's Atlas is very specifically focused on making Atlas/Mercury. I am not sure if Atlas II's engines differed significantly in appearance from Atlas I's. It may simply be a balance issue IMO.

EDIT:

Those unflown Atlas variants... I know of some of them, but others are very exciting! Thanks for the links.

 

3 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

I can dig up my references from back when I was working on Atlas. I was mostly concerned with the art though so it was a lot of trawling through google images with slightly different search terms and saving the ones that piqued my interest.

RE: the atlas II not having enough TWR... if I recall, FASA's Atlas is very specifically focused on making Atlas/Mercury. I am not sure if Atlas II's engines differed significantly in appearance from Atlas I's. It may simply be a balance issue IMO.

EDIT:

Those unflown Atlas variants... I know of some of them, but others are very exciting! Thanks for the links.

The hints above and @NathanKell's links should keep me busy for some time.  :-)  Between rebuilding my PC anyway.  Stupid HDDs without infinite lifespans.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Well, I'm wondering how much of the early US rocketry should go into my Aggregate rocket pack (Wernher's Old Stuff), and at what point it becomes a FASA thing.
@saabstory88's work on some of the early engines is pretty damn good (IMHO), but I noticed when looking up the Atlas details, there are rocket motors bridging the gaps from the A-4 all the way through, and some great photo resources on http://www.b14643.de  Especially the shot of a Rocketdyne A-7 with an A-4 motor in the foreground.  I'm thinking all the US built engines are FASA jobs (maybe we need a UKAF bridging mod for the early USAF stuff) rather than Aggregates.

There is a Redstone in the existing FASA pack, but it's not naked.  I think having it naked with an attachable shroud would make the engine evolution clearer.

And I has a Unity editor install again!  I felt wrong not having a working Unity.  :-)

[NathanKell]

Yes, a nice naked A-series engine would be great! ( @DangerouslyDave is setting a high bar there, too! )

There's even more bridging stuff though--all the Navaho-related engines. They go all the way from the US copy of the A-4 engine, through the spinoff NAA75-110 (A-series) engines, through the last ethalox engine (early mark of XLR43) to the first kerolox, and right up to the Atlas booster and sustainer, and the Thor / Jupiter booster.

Few pics, but much info: http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Space_Engines/Rocketdyne_Engines.htm

[TiktaalikDreaming]

42 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

Yes, a nice naked A-series engine would be great! ( @DangerouslyDave is setting a high bar there, too! )

There's even more bridging stuff though--all the Navaho-related engines. They go all the way from the US copy of the A-4 engine, through the spinoff NAA75-110 (A-series) engines, through the last ethalox engine (early mark of XLR43) to the first kerolox, and right up to the Atlas booster and sustainer, and the Thor / Jupiter booster.

Few pics, but much info: http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Space_Engines/Rocketdyne_Engines.htm

Wow, @DangerouslyDave really is setting a high bar.  :-)  Those bridging engines will give me material to work with to try catching up a bit.  :-)

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Started working on the A-6.  It wasn't used much before progressing to the A-7, but once I have the A-6, the A-7 is pretty similar.

 

So, not complete with even the shape yet.  Damned hard figuring out how some of the tubings went.  There's just not a huge amount of detail available, and so much of the early rockets where the bits that weren't nozzle.  At least with later engines, the combustion chamber and associated pumps, tanks, turbines, pipes, etc were relatively smaller.  Getting there though.

Edited January 22, 2016 by TiktaalikDreaming

[Pappystein]

I have a Set of Atlas Engine CFGs that while stock like in performance are more real world like in Rocket flight profile.   That is to say the Boosters are used to about 50% fuel load is consumed and the rocket runs out of fuel just after entering a circular orbit.    The LR-89 Booster engines can lift the Atlas without the LR-105 running (So an Atlas A/B/C can be simulate as they were IRBM test articles that did not have the full intercontinental range.)

They are just evolution of Frizzank's original CFGs, adjusted to fly like the real.

For the later Atlas Space Launch Vehicles they had a different engine/lower housing assembly than the earlier Atlas's Frizzank modeled.   All three engines were of nearly uniform performance.  

If you want Titan II/III/IV CFGs I have the entire E-1/LR-87/LR-91 family calculated out again following the principals outlined above.  I am routinely launching Titan IVB with a Simulated SMRU (utilizing the UA-1207 Model Frizzank already created, it would be nicer if there was a real model to go with the CFGs .)  The E-1, since it was never actually completely designed, is an estimation in performance and basically a Scaled down FASA F-1 engine (the F-1 was an evolutionary descendant of the E-1.)

I have to agree with Frizzank's original statements when I chatted with him about the profuse number of Titan engine CFGs.  A way to compile them in a user configurable single entry is almost a must.   Place the model, Select the engine variant from a slider/push button.  

[Starwaster]

Reflection plugin is updated for KSP 1.0.5 and is working pretty well. Unfortunately in the process I've broken it for KSP 1.1.2 and am still working on that.

(anyone actually still PLAYING KSP 1.0.5 can pick up the update here: https://github.com/Starwaster/Reflection-Plugin-Continued/releases/tag/v2.0)

[Daelkyr]

Okay. Odd question. I'm working on Eyes Turned Skyward parts for personal enjoyment. However, I can't get the color ingof my Block III CSM to match FASA. Is there some way to find out the base color and specular settings FASA uses?

[Adam Kerman]

I got a bug with the lunar module the leg's contact sensors don't penetrate the surface and I slip across the surface

[Galileo]

31 minutes ago, Adam Kerman said:

I got a bug with the lunar module the leg's contact sensors don't penetrate the surface and I slip across the surface

This is not the thread to post bugs for FASA.  Also,  FASA is not updated last I checked so it does not have the fixes to the legs yet.