[1.2 - 1.4] Real Scale Boosters, 0.16 (2018-03-12)

[KerbonautInTraining]

Just read the wiki article. The designer was an absolute madman. In a good way. 

Ony trouble is: what the heck weighs 450t and needs to be launched into orbit all at once??

(Necro pls I need a sea dragon after you've done everything else)

[Jodo42]

I can't immediately find any good info about the Nova/Sea Dragon, but a Nova alternative, the C-8, has a wiki article with some stage specifications. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_C-8

 

Interestingly, the astronautix article for the Saturn V (http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/saturnv.htm#more) says that most of the upgraded versions of the vehicle would've used a liquid fluorine/oxygen fuel. In which case, it's probably a good thing they never got built...

Edited March 13, 2016 by Jodo42

[NathanKell]

Thing is, there wasn't a Nova per se. There was the first generation of Nova designs--the NASA in-house design studies that were the competition for Saturn. That's one whole series of designs. Then there's the second generation of Nova designs, the follow-ons to Saturn V. Look around on astronautix for everything related to Nova--all the major manufactures had like a dozen submissions each for that one.

What is sometimes conflated with Nova is Saturn C-8, as stated above. That is a fairly solid design study.

[NecroBones]

 

Yeah, the Nova wikipedia page says:

 

The image of the Nova C8 is commonly used as a representative of the entire Nova series, and many references to Nova refer specifically to these post-Apollo versions. The two series of designs were essentially separate, but shared their name. Thus, "Nova" does not refer to a specific rocket design, just a rocket larger than the Saturn V in most cases. To add more confusion, the final Saturn V design was larger than some of the early Nova proposals.

 

So it would be a matter of trying to pick one, or just go with the C-8, or something along those lines. The C-8 at least has some numbers available, and mainly replaces the lower stages, still using the S-IVB for the third. So that could be interesting.

 

I think if I were to do the Sea Dragon, I'd probably make it a standalone pack. With a quick google search, it looks like someone made one for KSP 0.24, but his release thread's OP is blanked out. And man, I'm afraid to think about how large the textures need to be to have any kind of decent texel density on that thing. 

 

EDIT: Video of someone flying a sort-of Sea Dragon:

 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2016 by NecroBones

[Phineas Freak]

Pick the Nova design that you like, now only 9.99!

http://www.pdf-archive.com/2013/04/27/ae61-0967-saturn-c-3-c-4-nova/ae61-0967-saturn-c-3-c-4-nova.pdf

 

Edited March 13, 2016 by Phineas Freak

[JT2227]

Wow! This mod is really amazing!!! Thank you so much for making it.

[NecroBones]

1 hour ago, JT2227 said:

Wow! This mod is really amazing!!! Thank you so much for making it.

 

My pleasure! Glad you like it.

 

[Phineas Freak]

Some small issues that i discovered:

•  The GEM-40 has probably a bugged collider. It is possible to pick it from the parts list but upon attaching it you can no longer remove it. Also, a mesh(?) is visible on the exit nozzle.
• The Carrack procedural fairing base model is missing from the pack.

Also, how difficult would be to model an additional vernier engine (LR101) for the Delta series? It would be handy to have it as a separate part.

 

[NecroBones]

4 hours ago, Phineas Freak said:

Some small issues that i discovered:

•  The GEM-40 has probably a bugged collider. It is possible to pick it from the parts list but upon attaching it you can no longer remove it. Also, a mesh(?) is visible on the exit nozzle.
• The Carrack procedural fairing base model is missing from the pack.

Also, how difficult would be to model an additional vernier engine (LR101) for the Delta series? It would be handy to have it as a separate part.

 

 

Drat, double drat! Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that happens when I'm doing too many things at once. I sometimes work on parts during free moments at my job, and then have a pile of things to test later, and it can fall through the cracks.

 

In the case of the Carrack fairing, it was actually intended to use one of the Atlas models, and just rescale it. I probably overwrote the MODEL definition later when trying to "fix" other things. The GEM-40 definitely didn't have the colliders configured correctly. I'll get a patch out for these probably pretty shortly.

 

I think having the LR101 would be pretty cool. But it depends on how we want it to work. KSP's verniers are really just RCS, and not proper engines, so that's why I have it set up as LFO RCS currently. So they would probably just need to be set up as engines with a high gimbal range. One limitation of course is that in the case of the actual LR101 on the Deltas, it's supposed to have wildly different gimbal ranges on each axis, which I don't think we can replicate. They'll probably want to clip the engine at some point unless we set the range a lot smaller.

 

The question also then becomes-- Separate parts? Or build them into the Delta first stages? Separate is the most flexible of course, but also would then need people to update their rockets, which is probably OK since the rocket is new anyway.

[CobaltWolf]

52 minutes ago, NecroBones said:

I think having the LR101 would be pretty cool. But it depends on how we want it to work. KSP's verniers are really just RCS, and not proper engines, so that's why I have it set up as LFO RCS currently. So they would probably just need to be set up as engines with a high gimbal range. One limitation of course is that in the case of the actual LR101 on the Deltas, it's supposed to have wildly different gimbal ranges on each axis, which I don't think we can replicate. They'll probably want to clip the engine at some point unless we set the range a lot smaller.

The question also then becomes-- Separate parts? Or build them into the Delta first stages? Separate is the most flexible of course, but also would then need people to update their rockets, which is probably OK since the rocket is new anyway.

The way BDB handled it was they were separate parts for the Atlas series, and the Delta engines integrate them because the independent versions already existed.

[NecroBones]

4 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

The way BDB handled it was they were separate parts for the Atlas series, and the Delta engines integrate them because the independent versions already existed.

 

Yeah, that's a pretty cool solution. The more I think about it, I think I should just make them stand-alone engines. It keeps me from having to duplicate and move things around in the tank models, while letting players choose to use them or not, or put more on, or whatever. I could give the delta tanks 4 attachment points, but 2-way symmetry, so people can put two pairs on if they want more steering authority or something.

 

If I can hack it together quickly enough, I'll add it to the 0.8.1 patch.

[NecroBones]

 

Posted:

 

0.8.1 (2016-03-14) - Fixes
 - Altered the ETS Saturns (IC & Multibody) sample rockets to use F-1A engine.
 - Altered the blue engine FX to be slightly more stockalike (particularly, less spread and less saturation).
 - Fixed colliders on the GEM-40 (Delta II) SRM.
 - Fixed missing Carrack procedural fairing base.
 - Removed RCS-Verniers from Delta III first stage tank.
 - Added LR-101 Vernier Engine, and updated Delta III sample rocket to use it.

 

[NecroBones]

 

FYI, I just noticed that the RCS config is still in there for the Delta III first stage tank, even though it's using the external verniers now. I have that fixed for the next update.

 

[MainSailor]

22 hours ago, NecroBones said:

Yeah, that's the kind of stuff that happens when I'm doing too many things at once. I sometimes work on parts during free moments at my job, and then have a pile of things to test later, and it can fall through the cracks.

I am extremely familiar with this. My 'dev' machine is my work laptop with a middling graphics card that I can't run KSP at more than 1280 x 1024 with even a semblance of anti-aliasing. That obviously doesn't help when I'm trying to develop, oh I don't know, textures 

[NecroBones]

3 hours ago, MainSailor said:

I am extremely familiar with this. My 'dev' machine is my work laptop with a middling graphics card that I can't run KSP at more than 1280 x 1024 with even a semblance of anti-aliasing. That obviously doesn't help when I'm trying to develop, oh I don't know, textures 

 

Yeah, I understand. My work laptop is actually pretty good, and can run photoshop and blender well. But anything with Unity, or testing in KSP, etc, I have to do over VNC. That's always "interesting".

 

[NecroBones]

 

So I started with the S-IC, scaled it up, painted the intertank structure black, and moved around attachment nodes, and now I have an approximate S-IC-8. Wowzers, that's a huge first stage... 12.2m diameter. 8x F-1 engines.

 

 

[VenomousRequiem]

Jeez, what is that for? Nova? 

Also, how long have you been a moderator?  

[NathanKell]

@NecroBones hate to poke, but S-IC-8's design, AFAIK, saved stage height by mounting all 8 engines around the rim so the bottom dome of the lower tank could extend down in the center.

i.e.

8\_/8

where the 8s are the engines.

[NecroBones]

1 hour ago, VenomousRequiem said:

Jeez, what is that for? Nova? 

Also, how long have you been a moderator?  

 

Saturn C-8, which kinda gets lumped in with the "Nova" name. And just since yesterday.

 

34 minutes ago, NathanKell said:

@NecroBones hate to poke, but S-IC-8's design, AFAIK, saved stage height by mounting all 8 engines around the rim so the bottom dome of the lower tank could extend down in the center.

i.e.

8\_/8

where the 8s are the engines.

 

No worries! I was basing it on what I remembered from one image, which I can't find now. Most of the others I'm looking at correspond to what you're saying. I can rework it, no problem. It was sort of an experimental first step.

 

EDIT: I might have been thinking of this one, which has them in a cross pattern: (still not like an oversized S-IC like I threw together):

 

 

[JoseEduardo]

4 minutes ago, NecroBones said:

No worries! I was basing it on what I remembered from one image, which I can't find now. Most of the others I'm looking at correspond to what you're saying. I can rework it, no problem. It was sort of an experimental first step.

this one?

[NecroBones]

1 minute ago, JoseEduardo said:

this one?

 

 

LOL yes I had just edited that in above.

[CobaltWolf]

7 minutes ago, NecroBones said:

Saturn C-8, which kinda gets lumped in with the "Nova" name. And just since yesterday.

Look at him, he's gone mad with power.

I for one welcome our new undead moderator.

[NecroBones]

1 hour ago, NathanKell said:

@NecroBones hate to poke, but S-IC-8's design, AFAIK, saved stage height by mounting all 8 engines around the rim so the bottom dome of the lower tank could extend down in the center.

i.e.

8\_/8

where the 8s are the engines.

 

Re-edit:  (how's that for quick?)

 

[NathanKell]

And you get to make a nice pretty tankbutt under that skirt!

(...wait...)

[NecroBones]

7 hours ago, NathanKell said:

And you get to make a nice pretty tankbutt under that skirt!

(...wait...)

 

Hehe. Actually it was there, just not visible at that angle. It's mainly a resized tank butt from the S-IVB, which I'll probably rework a bit.

 

The texel density is getting pretty low on these larger parts, and it's tempting me to add a supplemental texture. It gets harder and harder to re-use the existing texture like that. Being efficient only goes so far. The part that's really bugging me is the flat area with the engine nodes, so it's likely I'll rework the entire bottom, whether it's before I release this, or sometime later.