[WIP] German WWII rockets including never built absurdities

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Yesterday I wrote a reply to this.  But obviously didn't hit Submit or something.  Now my browser brings up a prior message in the new message box everytime I go to reply.  Stupid forum.

Anyway, I've put some work into colours.  I'll tidy up some of the non-engine parts and upload in the next few days.  But the engine is looking better, thanks to Rokker's photos.

 

[VenomousRequiem]

How many polygons does that have..?

[TiktaalikDreaming]

53 minutes ago, VenomousRequiem said:

How many polygons does that have..?

All of them.  :-)

Not sure, at work at the moment.  Many.  Although I discovered that I could leave the pipes as beziers with assigned width etc and Unity would handle that, so less than it looks like (unless unity does the conversion for me).

But, when I was messing about with modelling and seeing what affects draw speed and RAM use, I found that you can make objects a LOT more complex than most KSP models are, without much affect on frame rate.  But texture size will break things, esp with the 32-bit Windows RAM limits.  This might be due to how my PC is set up, but generally the more complex models are OK until they're really daft.

I did wonder about this, but I loaded it up on my cheap laptop and the game still ran fine (although I crashed the rocket plane into the ocean).

[CobaltWolf]

Just now, TiktaalikDreaming said:

All of them.  :-)

Not sure, at work at the moment.  Many.  Although I discovered that I could leave the pipes as beziers with assigned width etc and Unity would handle that, so less than it looks like (unless unity does the conversion for me).

But, when I was messing about with modelling and seeing what affects draw speed and RAM use, I found that you can make objects a LOT more complex than most KSP models are, without much affect on frame rate.  But texture size will break things, esp with the 32-bit Windows RAM limits.  This might be due to how my PC is set up, but generally the more complex models are OK until they're really daft.

I did wonder about this, but I loaded it up on my cheap laptop and the game still ran fine (although I crashed the rocket plane into the ocean).

Everyone knows that the engine can handle more polygons, but the flip side of that is that most KSP things *don't* include that many polygons. So while your model is impressive, it will look strange / stick out like a sore thumb, even compared to other non-stockalike mods. IMO it's sort of a wasted effort, because while it's cool in renders, it looks worse in game. I guess my question is, why bother?

[TiktaalikDreaming]

The polygons per piece isn't excessive, the engine just had a bucket load more complexity than other rocket engines.  I don't happen to think it looks out of place, especially as I'm intending it goes right at the beginning of the tech tree, and wouldn't expect anyone to use it after the initial stages of the game.  I mean we're burning booze and LOX, and occasionally exploding, to achieve a pretty ordinary Isp and almost passable thrust.

"Why bother?"  Why bother with any of this?  I enjoy it.  I like having this old clunker of an engine in my game.  I like the idea that Kerbanauts might steal some fuel to pour over some ice to watch the sunset.  And I like complex non-stockalike models of engines.  I'm seriously in love with the FASA mod.  Those models are f*k*n awesome.  To hell with making things look like the existing KSP parts, Squad will be working on that stuff.  I like my bits to look like real world parts.  And if you happen to like the stock look, then good for you, you don't need my mod.  And your game will probably run smoother, but not look as sexy.

[CobaltWolf]

35 minutes ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

The polygons per piece isn't excessive, the engine just had a bucket load more complexity than other rocket engines.  I don't happen to think it looks out of place, especially as I'm intending it goes right at the beginning of the tech tree, and wouldn't expect anyone to use it after the initial stages of the game.  I mean we're burning booze and LOX, and occasionally exploding, to achieve a pretty ordinary Isp and almost passable thrust.

"Why bother?"  Why bother with any of this?  I enjoy it.  I like having this old clunker of an engine in my game.  I like the idea that Kerbanauts might steal some fuel to pour over some ice to watch the sunset.  And I like complex non-stockalike models of engines.  I'm seriously in love with the FASA mod.  Those models are f*k*n awesome.  To hell with making things look like the existing KSP parts, Squad will be working on that stuff.  I like my bits to look like real world parts.  And if you happen to like the stock look, then good for you, you don't need my mod.  And your game will probably run smoother, but not look as sexy.

That's great! I never meant to insult you or anything. My point was that it's so detailed that it sticks out, even compared to FASA models. Sorry if I phrased it somewhat aggressively.

EDIT: To be clear, I was voicing a concern, and my tone was wrong. As a mod author, I understand that you have a vision for your mod and want to see it through.

Edited December 23, 2015 by CobaltWolf

[TiktaalikDreaming]

50 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

That's great! I never meant to insult you or anything. My point was that it's so detailed that it sticks out, even compared to FASA models. Sorry if I phrased it somewhat aggressively.

EDIT: To be clear, I was voicing a concern, and my tone was wrong. As a mod author, I understand that you have a vision for your mod and want to see it through.

No worries, no offence taken.  Although I guess, rereading what I said, it might be a bit confrontational as well.

I think where I was going is that the engine does stick out.  And when you see a real one vs a real modern rocket it sticks out as well.  Reading Operation Backfire (report on the thing in great detail) the whole thing was absurdly complex.  Partly because they didn't realise they could run the turbines from exhaust gases, and partly because when they couldn't stabilize the combustion (they just used 18 combustion chambers from the A-3 feeding into a main chamber).  10 out of 10 to Braun et al for getting a working production rocket during wartimes, with a pretty high production volume, and having it mostly work.  But by modern standards, it's weird.  It looks weird, and, hell, I like it.  :-)
Also, what I forgot to say earlier when discussing load from complexity.  The collider complexity will f*ck you up.  Simple simple colliders are the way to go.  Because (thanks to pretty stuff selling) graphics are easy, physics are hard.

[NathanKell]

It would be somewhat foolish to limit oneself to matching KSP's current parts' detail level when there's a graphics update coming anyway.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

2 hours ago, NathanKell said:

It would be somewhat foolish to limit oneself to matching KSP's current parts' detail level when there's a graphics update coming anyway.

Ha!  True. But when? You've just encouraged me to wait before adding emissive heat animations.  :-) 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Just 'cos I can; comparison shots of the V-2 vs some stock Kerbal rockets.

It's worth noting that the smaller of the KSP stock engines has roughly twice the thrust of the A-4 rocket.  Yes, it's a lot tidier, only one or two pipes leading in, but it probably has a single combustion chamber and less absurb bandaid solutions to issues raised by other bandaid solutions.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again (because it's kinda cool), the A-4 was literally a steam powered rocket.

 

 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Happy Newton's day everyone.  I'm away for a couple of days driving several hundred km around to see various bits of family.  Then I have some spare time.  Or work from home with low expectations anyway.  I have some partly formed pieces to add, including the A-1/A-2 engine (the main difference bwteen the two craft is where in the stack the gyros were), which is tested, but is so damned small, I need to get the fuel tanks etc done before it'll fly.  I can do up a procedural fuel tanks, but every control system is too damned big. 

Be good to each other, fly weird craft, and try not crashing or exploding too much.

[NathanKell]

@TiktaalikDreaming Merry GravMass Currently the rocket overhaul, as the dev notes state, are targeted at 1.2, so...not for a while.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

6 hours ago, NathanKell said:

@TiktaalikDreaming Merry GravMass Currently the rocket overhaul, as the dev notes state, are targeted at 1.2, so...not for a while.

Considering the differences between unity animation versions I was guessing the emissive animation at least would need to change. Not needing to is pretty awesome from a mod point of view. Not sure how much it cripples adopting advantages of unity 5.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Preview of coming parts.  These are all Blender renders, so it won't be as shiny in KSP, although it may end up looking better with textures instead of assigning whole colours to meshes.

The first few shots are the A-10 engine.  This started it's conceptual life as a weird melding of six A-4 engines, but then they ditched the 6 chamber combustion single nozzle plan for a dual chamber thing (that future rocket experts say would never have worked) and is represented as a single, long combustion chamber.

And some of the shell/body parts for all the variants that spawned from the A-4.  There's an A-6 wing (not the A-4b yet), an A-9 wing, one of the cockpits (I forget which, not the A-9), and the beginnings of the underbelly ramjet that would have replaced one of the fins on some of the manned variants.

 

[halowraith1]

16 minutes ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Preview of coming parts.  These are all Blender renders, so it won't be as shiny in KSP, although it may end up looking better with textures instead of assigning whole colours to meshes.

The first few shots are the A-10 engine.  This started it's conceptual life as a weird melding of six A-4 engines, but then they ditched the 6 chamber combustion single nozzle plan for a dual chamber thing (that future rocket experts say would never have worked) and is represented as a single, long combustion chamber.

And some of the shell/body parts for all the variants that spawned from the A-4.  There's an A-6 wing (not the A-4b yet), an A-9 wing, one of the cockpits (I forget which, not the A-9), and the beginnings of the underbelly ramjet that would have replaced one of the fins on some of the manned variants.

This is looking awesome, best mod for KSP 11/10.

(Also, on the subject of IRL functionality, would the original 6-chamber engine have worked or was that just another flawed design?)

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, halowraith1 said:

This is looking awesome, best mod for KSP 11/10.

(Also, on the subject of IRL functionality, would the original 6-chamber engine have worked or was that just another flawed design?)

The 6xA-4 motor would have worked, as it really was just a cluster of A-4 motors exhausting into a shared nozzle, but I suspect they had issues making it behave with all the required propellant flows and having all 6 motors not interfering with each other's thrust through the single exhaust.  I'm kinda glad they didn't.  The A-4 is already absurdly complex with it's 18 pre-combustion mixers, 6 sets of that would have me making so many damned pipes I wouldn't finish this side of next century.  Also, test rigs designed for the expected thrust (360tons, as opposed to the A-10's 200) were found after the war, so it's likely the design was tested.
I think the dual chamber idea was a large mixing chamber feeding to the main combustion chamber, but I'm just hazarding guesses.  The reasons for the A-4's complexity was that they had trouble getting even mixing and burning with a single large chamber.  Leading to hot spots, and unburned fuel inefficiencies.  So my premise (read "wild guess") is they decided to premix fuel and oxidizer to create a more evn combustion.  And considering the post war efforts at rocketry, esp in the US, I strongly suspect we know the 2-chamber design (what-ever it was) doesn't work is because it was tested.  The direct successors are the redstone rockets followed by Mercury etc.  At least directly descended through von Braun.  USSR, France, Briton, etc were all working on their own derivatives.

[halowraith1]

Also downloaded the newest release and found a few issues:

1. All parts except for the engine are a blank white. (I think this has actually been an issue since 0.3)

2. The fuel tank is absent from the part selection. (possibly an issue on my end, not sure)

3. Nose cone doesn't rescale for RSS. 

 

EDIT

Loaded it up on a fresh KSP install. The fuel tank's there and has the green colour scheme, but the fins, control core and nose cone are still untextured.

Edited December 27, 2015 by halowraith1

[TiktaalikDreaming]

22 minutes ago, halowraith1 said:

Also downloaded the newest release and found a few issues:

1. All parts except for the engine are a blank white. (I think this has actually been an issue since 0.3)

2. The fuel tank is absent from the part selection. (possibly an issue on my end, not sure)

3. Nose cone doesn't rescale for RSS. 

 

EDIT

Loaded it up on a fresh KSP install. The fuel tank's there and has the green colour scheme, but the fins, control core and nose cone are still untextured.

I can clearly see the issue with the nose cone.  Fixing.  The Fuel tank and engine are the only parts with actual texture maps.  The other parts have a plain green applied, although, clearly not applied reliably.  I'm trying to sort some issues with the control surfaces on the fins, and when I have that, I'll upload a fixed A-4.  In the meantime, the following text should replace everything after the at symbol (stupid forum will not let me type an at symbol without insisting I use it to annoy a user) in the parts/A4Nose/aerodynamicNoseCone.cfg file

@PART[A4noseCone]:NEEDS[RealSolarSystem]
{
    @rescaleFactor = 1.0
    @mass = 0.832
}

The issues are pretty obvious.  I blame copy pasta.

I'll see if I can fix the textures.  It may be related to DDSifying the plain green texture.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Concur.  This is my test redownload mods install, and the textures are missing from the nose, the control, the fin, and the engine frame.  The textures (at least the plain olvie green one) is pretty small, going to try the next upload without DDSifying.  My working install of KSP where I mess around with these things isn't DDSified, and the textures are picked up by the meshes fine.  It may also have to do with reusing the same texture for several parts (it really is a 16x16 blob of olive green), so, it may stay silly until I get the parts textured.

[tater]

Very cool. An obvious extension/follow-on would be the Von Braun concept rockets never built.

 

 

 

 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

@tater, yep, that's the sort of direction I'm aiming at.  A lot hinges on the A-10 engine, which was used for most of von Braun's future plans.  9 in a cluster for an A11, 60+12 for the A12, with the Marsprojekt Ferry rocket being basically an A12 with variant upper stages.  Other aspects of the rocket plans varried wildly, but they all used some simple engine concepts.

But, although I think I have a working A-10 engine, I'm mostly working on some technical issues with winged control surfaces (I find myself doing it for the first time), and trying to decide how many parts to have for the A-1,2,3&5.  It's tempting to just make them single units, they'll never launch much, and they're really just there as oddities.  I'll include the A-10 engine in the next update, but as yet, it has no fuel tanks, so it's usefulness is limited.

[Pappystein]

7 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

@tater, yep, that's the sort of direction I'm aiming at.  A lot hinges on the A-10 engine, which was used for most of von Braun's future plans.  9 in a cluster for an A11, 60+12 for the A12, with the Marsprojekt Ferry rocket being basically an A12 with variant upper stages.  Other aspects of the rocket plans varried wildly, but they all used some simple engine concepts.

But, although I think I have a working A-10 engine, I'm mostly working on some technical issues with winged control surfaces (I find myself doing it for the first time), and trying to decide how many parts to have for the A-1,2,3&5.  It's tempting to just make them single units, they'll never launch much, and they're really just there as oddities.  I'll include the A-10 engine in the next update, but as yet, it has no fuel tanks, so it's usefulness is limited.

I wouldn't call anything in KSP as "Limited Usefulness"   I am still routinely launching Rockets with the Redstone (A-10?) engine from the FASA mod and I am established with an orbital station and routine flights to the mun and minims in my current campaign.    I am sure this engine could also find uses later on in the game, even if it is just to run some new science experiment when a new science part is unlocked.

[NathanKell]

For FAR (and thus RSS) compatibility, all wing surfaces need to be their own parts, i.e. the class A-3/4/5 design needs 4x (err, 1 part placed in 4x symmetry) fin parts, though the core can be one piece. You can't combine multiple wing surfaces with each other, or with non-wing parts.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, NathanKell said:

For FAR (and thus RSS) compatibility, all wing surfaces need to be their own parts, i.e. the class A-3/4/5 design needs 4x (err, 1 part placed in 4x symmetry) fin parts, though the core can be one piece. You can't combine multiple wing surfaces with each other, or with non-wing parts.

The wings are all independant, although they include a quarter of the shell each, not sure if that causes any issues with FAR.  My problem is that now I have the control surface moving on the right axis, it seems to move the wrong way.  I need to check which directions my axis are in and which directions they should be in.  I *think* they're controlling in the right direction, but with visuals of them flapping the wrong way.  I could be wrong (about them controlling correctly) though, the control surfaces on the base A-4 are pretty small.  The A-9 surfaces are bigger, and it wasn't until I was testing that that I noticed they bend the wrong way.  Anyway, more messing about with changing stuff in Blender, reimport into Unity, resave out, etc etc.  And using Taniwha's mu import to look at other wings again.

16 hours ago, Pappystein said:

I wouldn't call anything in KSP as "Limited Usefulness"   I am still routinely launching Rockets with the Redstone (A-10?) engine from the FASA mod and I am established with an orbital station and routine flights to the mun and minims in my current campaign.    I am sure this engine could also find uses later on in the game, even if it is just to run some new science experiment when a new science part is unlocked.

"limited usefulness" isn't the same as useless.  :-)  But the Isp etc on these is (and should be) fairly low, so, most of the time, other rockets should be a better choice.  Mostly.

[NathanKell]

Ah, k. I think that's ok but @ferram4 will know for sure. As for reversed--yes, @Ven had that issue as well where the physics were correct but the visual activation direction was flipped.