[1.12.x] Near Future Technologies (September 6)

[Duhya]

On 11/16/2018 at 7:34 PM, Lostinspace100 said:

I'm finding when I use mechjeb and attempt to dock using the shielded clamp-o-tron jr I'm unable to use the docking mode on mechjeb, not sure if anyone else is experiencing this? I tried the stock clamp-o-tron jr and was able to dock using mechjeb. But even without functionality of the covered docking port Nertea has made some amazing spacecraft that make the stock game look very plain.  

I think the covered docking port for the new 1.25m pods isn't working properly. I tried docking one with a docking port jr, and couldn't target the docking port for use with Docking Port Alignment Indicator, and when i tried to dock by eye, they wouldn't connect. Luckily I didn't need it for the mission, and could just EVA transfer crew.

[Nertea]

I'll look into it

[Someone2018]

On 11/12/2018 at 6:00 AM, Nertea said:

I just uploaded the new release of NF Spacecraft. This is the last targeted content update for this mod, we'll be moving into maintenence/minor renos now.

 

Changelog

•  Added 64-8S 'Chickadee' Landing Engine: high thrust small radial monoprop engine for Nereid, Tethys
•  Added 96-8S 'Mockingbird' Landing Engine: higher thrust larger radial monoprop engine for Almathea

The mono-propellant engines you added have a TWR of 70-80, which exceeds the best bi-propellant in the stock game by a factor 3. This is a bit crazy.

Judging by the physical size, I would expect a thrust of a factor 5-10 lower than current.

An engine which is physically larger, yet only has one nozzle: The aerojet MR-80 is a (mars) lander engine with a mass of ~8 kg and a thrust of ~3.8 kN while being 40 centimeters long (see page 17 of https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a545862.pdf).

That gives a TWR of 48, which is higher than a typical RCS thruster, more in line with not-so-high-TWR bi-propellant engines.

KSP stock engines have TWR's that are more than a factor 3 lower than real life (some people claim up-to factor 4). That would put you in the 12-16 TWR range. 

That's usually expressed by engines being far too heavy compared to IRL counterparts. But in this case your combination of 2/4 thrusters might just be output'ing an insane amount of thrust.

My "ballpark" recommendations (despite the current size models being smaller than the 40 cm of the aerojet MR-80):

Chickadee (2  thrusters): 8 kN thrust, 0.056 metric tonnes mass, TWR of 14.6

Mockingbird (4 thrusters): 16 kN thrust, 0.112 metric tonnes mass, TWR of 14.6

A set of 4 chickadees can still land a mk1 pod/can, with a TWR which is high enough for a planet without extreme gravity. (mars/duna being a typical case)

And a set of 4 mockingbirds can do the same for a mk1-3 pod/mk2 can.

Should be enough for propulsive landing of a lander. Although not for getting into orbit again i suspect, unless it's just a moon.

If you wanted them to be some sort of base landers, or large craft landers, or work in very high gravity, maybe make them bigger.

Although at some point moving away from monoprop makes sense.

 

[Saltshaker]

Here's an MM patch that will increase/improve the heat tolerances of the NF Spacecraft command parts and the .625m nosecones. Simply download the .cfg and copy/paste it into your GameData. 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/iegopysu5u00z3v/NFSpacecraftHeatTolerance.cfg?dl=0

[MaximumThrust]

Just curious, why the Mk3B 'Pandora' have this flat part on top? This seems not really aerodynamic. 

And awesome work! I glad I was able to port everything to a 1.3.1 install.

[Rawenwarcrow]

On 11/13/2018 at 5:29 AM, Nertea said:

On 11/12/2018 at 1:47 PM, Raptor9 said:

Question, what are the nose protrusions supposed to be on the nose of the Mk1-X 'Phoebe' and the Mk3B 'Pandora'?

The Phoebe is a comm antenna it can function as a probe control centre so it seemed appropriate. The Pandora, you can look at the original inspiration. 

 

On 11/13/2018 at 7:53 PM, Nertea said:

On 11/13/2018 at 3:46 PM, Tyko said:

 For the game it could be cool to put a couple of forward facing docking lights in that "chin" - or an additional piece containing docking lights that fits that spot.

The first idea is pretty cool. The chin is already rigged up for RPM cameras and has transforms for each of the greebles so they could be used for ranging things, etc. 

 

On 11/16/2018 at 12:35 AM, Nertea said:

Some small fixes for NF Spacecraft 1.0.1:

 

On 11/16/2018 at 12:35 AM, Nertea said:

•  Added toggleable docking spotlight to Pandora chin area
•  Added a collider to the Docking monitor in the Pandora interior, if you click on it, it will change to a external view.

Sometimes, you just have to go a couple pages back to find the answer  

Edited November 23, 2018 by Rawenwarcrow
bad formulation due to bad english...

[Nertea]

7 hours ago, Someone2018 said:

The mono-propellant engines you added have a TWR of 70-80, which exceeds the best bi-propellant in the stock game by a factor 3. This is a bit crazy.

Judging by the physical size, I would expect a thrust of a factor 5-10 lower than current.

An engine which is physically larger, yet only has one nozzle: The aerojet MR-80 is a (mars) lander engine with a mass of ~8 kg and a thrust of ~3.8 kN while being 40 centimeters long (see page 17 of https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a545862.pdf).

That gives a TWR of 48, which is higher than a typical RCS thruster, more in line with not-so-high-TWR bi-propellant engines.

KSP stock engines have TWR's that are more than a factor 3 lower than real life (some people claim up-to factor 4). That would put you in the 12-16 TWR range. 

That's usually expressed by engines being far too heavy compared to IRL counterparts. But in this case your combination of 2/4 thrusters might just be output'ing an insane amount of thrust.

My "ballpark" recommendations (despite the current size models being smaller than the 40 cm of the aerojet MR-80):

Chickadee (2  thrusters): 8 kN thrust, 0.056 metric tonnes mass, TWR of 14.6

Mockingbird (4 thrusters): 16 kN thrust, 0.112 metric tonnes mass, TWR of 14.6

A set of 4 chickadees can still land a mk1 pod/can, with a TWR which is high enough for a planet without extreme gravity. (mars/duna being a typical case)

And a set of 4 mockingbirds can do the same for a mk1-3 pod/mk2 can.

Should be enough for propulsive landing of a lander. Although not for getting into orbit again i suspect, unless it's just a moon.

If you wanted them to be some sort of base landers, or large craft landers, or work in very high gravity, maybe make them bigger.

Although at some point moving away from monoprop makes sense.

 

So you've heard of the SuperDraco, right? It's tiny and provides 73 kN of thrust per chamber. That's the direct inspiration for these engines. It doesn't seem unreasonable (recall that KSP hardware tends to be some factor, I think 66% of RL is often used).

The balance is configured to provide reasonable capsule aborts, not landings (I agree, if you wanted to handle only landings it could be lower). This means that a craft TWR of ~3 must be achieved for each of the 3 capsules in question including heat shield, capsule, engines, fuel and chutes. That's the number that has been targeted with the thrust levels. Specifically 3 chickadees must be able to handle the 1.25m capsule, 4 must handle the 2.5m capsule and 4 mockingbirds must handle the 3.75m capsule. If you reduce the thrust by a factor of 5, that's not at all possible. 

The balance chain is pretty clear to me. Capsule mass balance is roughly proportional to number of crew transported, with some tweaks for internal fuel tank size. This is relatively invariant. The specific impulse of the engines is designed to be around 230s, any higher and they become too useful. To provide good landing and abort experiences, some playtesting indicated that 300-500 m/s of DV was required for an average player. Combining the capsule mass with the required hardware (again, chutes, heat shield and engines) and the rocket equation, it's possible then to estimate the total system mass that is required. This gives the mass envelope of the engines. From there, the target TWR of the system is set towards 3 and the thrust numbers are established.

Of course, if you disagree, there's always Module Manager.

[Raptor9]

That's a well-articulated explanation of not only how much consideration is needed to go into properly balancing a part in KSP, but craft design in general.

[Someone2018]

@Nertea

Given the use-case you mentioned I understand why you went for these thrust numbers. Out of curiosity, how did you balance engine mass?

EDIT: most rockets are at a factor 3-4 higher TWR in real life, but this has to do with kerbin's orbital velocity of 2300 m/s vs 7800 m/s for earth while having similar gravity, your use-case doesn't really scale with orbital velocity as far as I can tell, which is why you end up with high TWR by KSP standards

Edited November 23, 2018 by Someone2018

[RealKerbal3x]

Hey @Nertea, I have a small suggestion regarding the PPD-24 service module in NF Spacecraft. Would it be possible to add a small amount of KIS storage to it?

I might be being blind and it might have it already, but I think storage would fit for the intended purpose of the part.

[HaydenTheKing]

Are the parts in the plane pack duplicated with the ones in the MKIV pack?

[RealKerbal3x]

53 minutes ago, HaydenTheKing said:

Are the parts in the plane pack duplicated with the ones in the MKIV pack?

No, @Nertea removed them from MkIV and made them into a separate mod.

So they used to be a part of that mod but they were split off and made into NF Aeronautics.

[HaydenTheKing]

Just now, RealKerbal3x said:

No, @Nertea removed them from MkIV and made them into a separate mod.

So they used to be a part of that mod but they were split off and made into NF Aeronautics.

Thats awesome thanks!!

[tater]

Really nice update on the spacecraft, @Nertea, well done!

I was messing with the capsules that have the integral LES/landing engines. They fit, but I noticed that the attachment nodes never properly snap the engine units provided into the slots. Amy I doing something wrong? (I couldn't fine "how to" documentation, sorry to bug you).

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Scrolling through this thread is really making me miss my Windows machine (curse you, temporary accommodation). The Spacecraft update has definitely cemented Near Future as the best KSP mod collection out there - really looking forward to playing around with this once I've settled in to the new house and have some spare time to mess around with all the updates.

[Swordmaster]

14 hours ago, tater said:

Really nice update on the spacecraft, @Nertea, well done!

I was messing with the capsules that have the integral LES/landing engines. They fit, but I noticed that the attachment nodes never properly snap the engine units provided into the slots. Amy I doing something wrong? (I couldn't fine "how to" documentation, sorry to bug you).

When attaching the landing engines, I just adjusted the part angle for one so it lined up then duplicated it to all 4 attachment nodes. Alternatively you could rotate the pod so that the attachment nodes are at 90 degree angles as opposed to being default offset by 45 degrees and attach the landing engines then.

[HaydenTheKing]

Hey all, where do I put decaying RTG? do I put the patch file in with NF electrical patches or drop the folder into game data?

[Kablob]

On 11/23/2018 at 1:28 AM, MaximumThrust said:

Just curious, why the Mk3B 'Pandora' have this flat part on top? This seems not really aerodynamic. 

Ask the Russians.

[Sokol_323]

In fact, probably few people know what the lander of a real spaceship "Federation" will look like. On the Internet you can find two versions: with "chin" and without it. In the first case, there should be located the engines of the RCS system and the docking equipment. Mk3B "Pandora" just copies this option.

[lordcirth]

3 hours ago, Sufficient Anonymity said:

Scrolling through this thread is really making me miss my Windows machine (curse you, temporary accommodation). The Spacecraft update has definitely cemented Near Future as the best KSP mod collection out there - really looking forward to playing around with this once I've settled in to the new house and have some spare time to mess around with all the updates.

KSP runs on all 3 major OS's - do you just mean that you don't have a fast enough PC available?

[Streetwind]

5 hours ago, HaydenTheKing said:

Hey all, where do I put decaying RTG? do I put the patch file in with NF electrical patches or drop the folder into game data?

Anywhere inside GameData is fine. This patch is simply a Module Manager config which activates the functionality that's included in the NF Electrical plugin. As such, KSP will find it regardless of the exact path.

Personally, I tend to just drop the folder in as-is.

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by Streetwind

[Xurkitree]

Why do we get Argon Tanks before any Argon fueled engine? Also why are my Hall thrusters only using Xenon? I'm playing on 1.4.5

[Streetwind]

3 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

Why do we get Argon Tanks before any Argon fueled engine?

Because there is room in the tech tree at that point. The tree is merely a selection of options for the player to pursue. Whether to unlock the engines or the tanks first - or indeed, whether to even progress along either of those branches at all - is left to each individual player to decide. And from a perspective of believability, constructing a pressure vessel is far easier than constructing a device capable of producing a jet of ionized matter without destroying itself in the process. The tanks are placed in locations where they are within conceptual reach of the engines in terms of overall gameplay progression, but they are not contingent on researching the engines first. We're leaving the eternal chicken-and-egg question of what came first up to the player.

Also, note that there is a big difference in part distribution between using the stock tech tree and using CTT. I don't know which one you have, but, using the stock tree is not recommended. There are not enough high-end nodes to fit all the parts, so they end up crammed together in suboptimal places.

 

3 hours ago, Xurkitree said:

Also why are my Hall thrusters only using Xenon?

Because you installed the optional extra patch that switches hall thrusters to xenon use  

 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Streetwind

[Xurkitree]

4 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

[snip]

Because you installed the optional extra patch that switches hall thrusters to xenon use  

 

whoops

also i do have ctt

how do i fix this

Edited November 27, 2018 by Xurkitree

[Streetwind]

The optional patch is just that, optional. You can add or remove it at any time without breaking your game... unless you already have spacecraft with hall thrusters in flight. Then you will obviously render those vessels incapable of firing their thrusters.

I don't know the contents of your GameData folder, so I don't know where you put the patch. You'll have to find it and remove it. You can see what it looks like by opening the Near Future Propulsion download archive and looking into the Extras folder.