[1.0+] CORE Solutions [19JAN16]

[Absolution]

The First Light has been released!

video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1hvPqQXgMI

 

download: https://kerbalstuff.com/mod/378/CORE%20-%20SOLUTIONS

Along with the First Light I have also made some small fixes to the Anvil and Dune Raider. See first post for details!

Enjoy!

 

---

Side Note: how the heck do you embed youtube videos in this new forum?

Edited January 29, 2016 by Absolution

[hieywiey]

Whoa! I remember using this mod way back in the 0.21-23 days! I'm glad it's back.

[Absolution]

1 hour ago, hieywiey said:

Whoa! I remember using this mod way back in the 0.21-23 days! I'm glad it's back.

I never stopped. I am just REALLY slow.

Thank you for finding CORE again!

[Neutrinovore]

Ooohh, very nice, Absolution!  Thank you very much for the update, my friend, downloading now. 

[CommanderSpock]

 @AbsolutionAny progress on the other Raiders?

[Absolution]

On 2/14/2016 at 3:44 PM, CommanderSpock said:

 @AbsolutionAny progress on the other Raiders?

Wow! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to notice this.

Short answer is, No.

The long answer goes a little something like this: Raider is one piece of a bigger puzzle that I am trying to fit together and it's been tough to wrap my head around. My entire motivation is a "proper" mission to Duna mostly using parts that I engineer. The Raider represents step 4 of 7.

1. Launch Pad to Orbit (Anvil)

2. Orbit of Kerbin to Orbit of Duna (First Light)

3. Orbit of Duna to the ground (Fire Hawk)

4. Do stuff on the ground (Raider)

5. Ground to Orbit of Duna (Fire Hawk)

6. Orbit of Duna to Orbit of Kerbin (First Light)

7. Orbit of Kerbin to the ground (???)

The problem I'm having is each of these steps relate to the other in some way so a change in any one tends to cascade to the others quickly and I've struggled to find a "starting point". The Raider, being firmly in the middle of the problem has compelled me to leave it be for now. Compounding matters is the promise of a very significant revision on how rover wheels work in the next KSP update which has me utterly paralyzed with fear.

---

Since I am here I might as well update everyone else on what's going on at CORE. I've been flying the First Light around and I'm a little disappointed with it. For example, on my first fly-by of Duna I imagined myself riding along in this, relatively, cramped ship for 2 years and immediately began searching for the nearest airlock. Then there's the cargo bay (which is cool) but in hindsight is completely useless for a ship intended to live its entire life in deep space. I suppose one could stow some sensitive equipment in there but the reality hasn't matched up with my imagination. I figured that's where the Fire Hawk would go on round trips between "A" and "B" but the cargo space isn't big enough.

Not that I consider the First Light a failure by any stretch of the imagination but I am now viewing it more as a mobile laboratory for short duration trips like between a host planet and its moons or an orbital command post for ground missions. Anything but a primary means of moving through deep space. For that role I have something else in mind.

---

More information as it becomes available! Good luck and have fun!

[Absolution]

How is it I am just figuring out that KerbalStuff is dead and has been for over a month? Ha, guess I should pay attention to the news more closely.

I really liked the KerbalStuff interface and I am glad to hear that a clone "SpaceDock" is available. Give me a few days to find the time to set up a new account and I'll have CORE Solutions back online.

Of course, nobody seems to have missed it enough to tap me on the shoulder but, hey, I know I'm a very small fish in a very big ocean.

[Neutrinovore]

55 minutes ago, Absolution said:

How is it I am just figuring out that KerbalStuff is dead and has been for over a month? Ha, guess I should pay attention to the news more closely.

I really liked the KerbalStuff interface and I am glad to hear that a clone "SpaceDock" is available. Give me a few days to find the time to set up a new account and I'll have CORE Solutions back online.

Of course, nobody seems to have missed it enough to tap me on the shoulder but, hey, I know I'm a very small fish in a very big ocean.

Hey, sorry, but I was slow to move to SpaceDock too.  It kind of bothers me that Squad never lifted a finger to support KerbalStuff, but now that that's gone defunct, well now, hey, they'll just step in and take over and have their own version of it, isn't that convenient?  As far as I'm concerned, SpaceDock is way better than the old 'Spaceport', and in fact is FAR better than Curse.

Anyway, I have a few suggestions for you about the First Light as well, if you don't mind.    I have it working really well for me now that I've made a few changes.  The main thing is that I simply scaled all the parts up by a factor of 1.25.  That makes all of the docking ports a standard 2.5 meter diameter, AND the cargo bay can now accommodate 2.5 meter parts, with enough extra room to allow for surface attached items, such as space station components, asteroid tugs, etc.  This makes the whole ship much more useful for transporting stuff like you describe, and I'm betting it'll be quite a bit easier to design your Fire Hawk / Raider system to a useful size, rather than trying to cram everything into the currently sized cargo bay.  Oh, here's a thought:    The only other thing that I changed on the current parts is adding a gimbal module to the engine as well as significantly increasing the thrust, but only because I fly the ship from the ground all the way to orbit, playing in sandbox mode with infinite fuel, and the gimbals make the ship maneuverable enough to transition from a horizontal VTOL attitude to a vertical launch-to-orbit trajectory.  On a related note, I'd like to request one additional part, a radially attached VTOL rocket engine that fits the look and shape of the First Light.  I'm using some LLL Radial Rockets right now, mounted to the corners of the middle section, the cargo bay / habitat thingy.  They match pretty well the look of your stuff, but parts designed by YOU would match the look even better, wouldn't they?    Plus, if you play your cards right you could use the same engines for the Fire Hawk lander system.

So, there you go, a few thoughts.  FWIW. 

Later, all! 

 

[Absolution]

On 3/10/2016 at 11:37 PM, Neutrinovore said:

Anyway, I have a few suggestions for you about the First Light as well, if you don't mind...

I absolutely do not mind. Although I don't share your vision I am glad that you managed to tweak the First Light to your liking. You have given me some food for thought, though. The Anvil IX came about as a solution specifically for launching the First Light into orbit as a complete assembly. One of the other concepts was to strap boosters on the sides not unlike the Space Shuttle. Your comments made a little light bulb go off in my head concerning a "self launching" package and I think I will investigate it for the current project I am working on. It will most certainly involve the use of boosters and a non-disposed set of engines, again like the Space Shuttle. For some reason I never connected the dots to reason that if I am going to bother launching a set of engines into orbit they might as well contribute, at least partially, to said launch.

I'll also look into making my docking components visually compatible with stock parts. Maybe not 2.5 parts but I'll take a stab at it and we'll see what I can come up with.

Lastly, not going to lie. I made the mistake of downloading Stardew Valley last week and I have been playing it nearly non-stop. As a result work has ground to a near halt on my KSP projects. I'm getting back to work on it this week, though. Stardew Valley is a very enjoyable game; look it up!

[Neutrinovore]

10 hours ago, Absolution said:

I absolutely do not mind. Although I don't share your vision I am glad that you managed to tweak the First Light to your liking. You have given me some food for thought, though. The Anvil IX came about as a solution specifically for launching the First Light into orbit as a complete assembly. One of the other concepts was to strap boosters on the sides not unlike the Space Shuttle. Your comments made a little light bulb go off in my head concerning a "self launching" package and I think I will investigate it for the current project I am working on. It will most certainly involve the use of boosters and a non-disposed set of engines, again like the Space Shuttle. For some reason I never connected the dots to reason that if I am going to bother launching a set of engines into orbit they might as well contribute, at least partially, to said launch.

I'll also look into making my docking components visually compatible with stock parts. Maybe not 2.5 parts but I'll take a stab at it and we'll see what I can come up with.

Lastly, not going to lie. I made the mistake of downloading Stardew Valley last week and I have been playing it nearly non-stop. As a result work has ground to a near halt on my KSP projects. I'm getting back to work on it this week, though. Stardew Valley is a very enjoyable game; look it up!

Huh, I will check out that game!    Hopefully it's available on Steam, but if not... well, actually, it doesn't matter, I'm currently unemployed, so it's not like I could afford to buy it anyway.    I'm so broke right now that I couldn't get across the street if it cost a dime to go around the world!

Anyway, no worries about not 'sharing my vision', lol, like I said, I figured out what works for me, and I'll probably end up making changes and tweaks to the NEXT version of the ship as well.  That's why I really like KSP, it's one of the few games EVER that lets players, modders, anyone make changes and add stuff so easily.  Another one is Left 4 Dead 2, which is the only other game I'm playing right now. But you keep doin' your thing', Bubba, I LIKE what you've created so far, and it's not like I could do any better, so like I said, keep up the great work.

So, anyhow, back to topic.  Yes, I think that would be an excellent idea, creating a set of conformal boosters or something like that.  I know you specifically designed it to fit INSIDE your Anvil IX rocket, but, again In My Humble Opinion, I feel that the game is already too much about 'Rockets and Capsules and Parachutes' (Oh My!), so that's why I build a lot of horizontally-oriented-and-launched kinds of VTOL ships.  In fact, I don't even have any of your CORE Solutions 'rocket' parts installed, just the First Light components.  Oh, on the docking ports, I kind of like the way they LOOK now, with the inset 'door' and all.    I had just happened to notice that, in game, they're exactly 2 meters in diameter, so I had the thought to scale EVERYTHING up by 25%, both so that, yes, now the docking ports are 2.5m, but also just so that the cargo bay could actually HOLD 2.5m diameter parts with juuuust enough room left over to have a few small things bolted on to, say, a space station component.  In fact, since I scaled it up, the First Light has carried a good 90% plus of my (work in progress) space station modules into orbit, and most of those parts are from FusTek, along with some hubs and trusses from the StockAlike Station Parts Expansion mod as well as DSEV, and they're all 2.5 meters 'plus' just a little bit more.

Well, Abs, enjoy your new game.    There's no real rush from my standpoint for you to get super busy reworking the First Light, but you know a lot of other folks are eagerly awaiting the updated Dune Raider / FireHawk system... well, okay, I'll admit I'm pretty eager to see that get updated too, not so much the 'Ariel Atom' sports-car looking thingy, but a real honest-to-Kerbol UTILITY rover version.  Something with an actual cockpit that can carry stuff and has an IVA and everything.  Again, requests, you understand. 

Later, and again, looking forward to what develops! 

Edit: Wait, what the H-E-double hockey sticks?!? "Stardew Valley is an open-ended country-life RPG..."  LOL, okay, from the name I thought it was at least some sort of space-oriented game!  Heh, okay man, that's not REMOTELY my kind of game, but hey, whatever turns your crank, you know?  I'm glad you're enjoying it, though, I used to know someone who really enjoyed that type of game, so more power to you, my friend!    Later!

Edited March 23, 2016 by Neutrinovore

[Absolution]

Having downloaded KSP 1.1 and tested my rockets a little I am glad I never bothered to upload CORE to SpaceDock because although my rockets appear to be fundamentally compatible with 1.1 they can't fly worth a damn. I need to go back to basics and try to get my rockets flying right. The first thing I need to look into is making my fairings protect their contents from aero forces which I suspect is the root of the issue (rockets are back flipping in flight). The second thing is I need to tweak the gimbals. Currently they are set to about 0.6 which is what KSP used to interpret as "6 degrees" (iirc) but at some point I think they changed the interpretation to now see 0.6 as "0.6 degrees" which would make sense. Lastly, I need to take a hard look at all the other attributes to make sure they still make sense.

Furthermore, it goes without saying that after Harvester rebuilt the wheel mechanics from the ground up that my Dune Raider is now completely broken. I have no idea what it will take to fix it. However, first things first: the rockets.