Solid Rocket Booster Modules

[GoldForest]

Does anyone know of a mod or could create a mod with SRB segments that you can stack together and they work like in real life? I know there are mods with procedural SRBs, but that's not what I'm looking for. I don't want sliders, I want to actually make my SRBs using segments.

If a mod like this does not exist, could someone take a crack at it?

[Drew Kerman]

maybe possible with a mod like modular fuel tanks, if you create a cfg for a tank like the stock FT-400 that can hold solid fuel and then stack them, maybe add in tweakscale if you want to size them. Dunno, just thinking off the top of my head

[Shadowmage]

Hate to plug my own work here, but I have modular SRBs in my mod:

You don't 'make them from segments' as it were, but you can set the number of segments directly, and there are several body styles with different length segments.  It also comes with the ability to select various nozzle types (shuttle, delta, arianne, titan, etc; some angled, some not), and nose/adapter types.  Its kind of a cross/compromise between procedural and fully individual-part-based.  (the goal of SSTU is vessel part-count reduction; so it is all a single integrated part).

Really though the thing standing in the way of making a multi-part SRB is the fuel flow type and logic that SolidFuel uses; it will not, cannot, does not, flow from one part to another.  Could certainly be doable by substituting a stack-flow-based fuel and engine modules....  heck you can do that with just some part edits and new fuel type definitions; don't even need a plugin for it.  But then you get oddities with the stack-flow mechanics... like having solid fuel in the central stack being burned by engines on radial boosters.

[GoldForest]

8 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Hate to plug my own work here, but I have modular SRBs in my mod:

You don't 'make them from segments' as it were, but you can set the number of segments directly, and there are several body styles with different length segments.  It also comes with the ability to select various nozzle types (shuttle, delta, arianne, titan, etc; some angled, some not), and nose/adapter types.  Its kind of a cross/compromise between procedural and fully individual-part-based.  (the goal of SSTU is vessel part-count reduction; so it is all a single integrated part).

Really though the thing standing in the way of making a multi-part SRB is the fuel flow type and logic that SolidFuel uses; it will not, cannot, does not, flow from one part to another.  Could certainly be doable by substituting a stack-flow-based fuel and engine modules....  heck you can do that with just some part edits and new fuel type definitions; don't even need a plugin for it.  But then you get oddities with the stack-flow mechanics... like having solid fuel in the central stack being burned by engines on radial boosters.

I already use and love your mod, and I can't wait till you update it to 1.1, but I'm looking for stackable segments so I can make srbs as long as I want.

 

12 hours ago, Gaiiden said:

maybe possible with a mod like modular fuel tanks, if you create a cfg for a tank like the stock FT-400 that can hold solid fuel and then stack them, maybe add in tweakscale if you want to size them. Dunno, just thinking off the top of my head

As for messing with a cfg file, I wouldn't know where to start.

[Shadowmage]

10 hours ago, GoldForest said:

I already use and love your mod, and I can't wait till you update it to 1.1, but I'm looking for stackable segments so I can make srbs as long as I want.

 

As for messing with a cfg file, I wouldn't know where to start.

  Well, shoot... LoL

 

As for the idea of actual stackable SRBs...  as I pointed out in my post.... they will not work in KSP due to fuel flow mechanics.  Solid-fuel types are prohibited from flowing across parts.  The only (logical) difference between an SRB and a stack of LFO tanks and an engine is that fuel flow logic.  And as far as I'm aware the fuel-flow logic is non-moddable.

In order to make a stackable SRB, you would need a fuel that used stack-flow logic.  But then you would be able to route the fuel around with fuel lines, pump it around, put empty parts in the middle of the stack, etc... all the crazy stuff you can do with LF/O tanks and engines.  Its just part of the base game design that is not easy to work around.

This -might- be able to be worked around in part by a custom plugin that 'hacked' around the fuel flow logic for SolidFuel by manually removing resource from connected parts; but they would need to basically recreate the existing KSP fuel flow code with some modifications and decompose/figure out how the staging setup works and/or validate that all 'stacked srb' parts really were stacked.  None of those are easy (or smart) to do, and probably why you haven't seen any 'stackable SRB mods'.

 

[GoldForest]

7 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

  Well, shoot... LoL

 

As for the idea of actual stackable SRBs...  as I pointed out in my post.... they will not work in KSP due to fuel flow mechanics.  Solid-fuel types are prohibited from flowing across parts.  The only (logical) difference between an SRB and a stack of LFO tanks and an engine is that fuel flow logic.  And as far as I'm aware the fuel-flow logic is non-moddable.

In order to make a stackable SRB, you would need a fuel that used stack-flow logic.  But then you would be able to route the fuel around with fuel lines, pump it around, put empty parts in the middle of the stack, etc... all the crazy stuff you can do with LF/O tanks and engines.  Its just part of the base game design that is not easy to work around.

This -might- be able to be worked around in part by a custom plugin that 'hacked' around the fuel flow logic for SolidFuel by manually removing resource from connected parts; but they would need to basically recreate the existing KSP fuel flow code with some modifications and decompose/figure out how the staging setup works and/or validate that all 'stacked srb' parts really were stacked.  None of those are easy (or smart) to do, and probably why you haven't seen any 'stackable SRB mods'.

 

Can't someone come up with a new srb fuel which actted like LF/O? Like PBAN or APCP as in the real SRBs? And make it to where PBAN actually gave higher performance than APCP?

[lurkoholic]

It's a bit out of date, but 'Advanced SRB' had stackable SRBs with variable thrust curves: forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/35551-part-advanced-srb-wip-v07-by-kerbal-science-foundation/