Jump to content

[1.8.1-1.12.x] Modular Launch Pads v2.7.0: Launch clamps evolved: Real-style launch bases and towers [04 July 2024]


AlphaMensae

Recommended Posts

I have a problem with the shuttle pad - the CA SRBs are kinda stuck in the pad and it’s configurated that the tail is stuck in it and the SRB holes are too far away from the shuttle.

edit: And there is no node for the tail mast just two near the wings

Edited by KnedlikMCPE
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, KnedlikMCPE said:

I have a problem with the shuttle pad - the CA SRBs are kinda stuck in the pad and it’s configurated that the tail is stuck in it and the SRB holes are too far away from the shuttle.

edit: And there is no node for the tail mast just two near the wings

The shuttle stack still needs to be moved to align it with the launcher base. The base attaches at the center for easy rotation.

See the assembly guide video, linked in the OP, but I'll post it here too:

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, KnedlikMCPE said:

Also, can you please make support or RO configs to support RN mods + FASA and maybe the shuttle one? Is there a 1.7.3 shuttle mod for RO?

That would be really nice as kinda RO+

Sorry, that's for the RO group or users to do, as I don't make these for RO, and I don't use RO anyway. :) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Ssturn tower parts have now been revised to match the new Shuttle FSS tower ones, minus the side panels and other additions/changes for the black&white color scheme.

The Saturn Hammerhead Crane now has the two styles of lightning mast (original Saturn and new Shuttle) integrated into the crane part itself, so they would move when the crane was rotated (now an animation). The mast can be turned off as well. There are still separate versions of the lightning masts for use with other towers.

I've also added two sets of tower attach nodes to the Flat Launch Bases.

Everything is now on the AlphaDev branch of the GithHub.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also uploaded a revised .mu for the Large General Swing arm to fix some mesh errors; I forgot to update the center side umbilical to the large arm one when I assembled the arm in Unity by copying the Medium arm and switching out the meshes....one just didn't get changed. :D 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, alberro+ said:

A bit odd to ask, but is the Starliner tower included in this mod?

https://m.imgur.com/gallery/hYj1n

Not specifically, there is only the General Crew Elevator and General Crew Access arm, which is the substitute for all gray truss-type crew elevator towers and access arms. In v2.1 it's been revamped, and now includes a snap-on tower side extension section, which allows for something sort of like the Starliner tower to be made.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've started the revamp and expansion of the Launch Stands, and there are some major changes coming for v2.1. The first stand I'm working on is the new Large Round Stand, the replacement for the existing Small Round Stand, and it's now bigger, handling core sizes of 2.5, 1.875m, 1.5m and 1.25m; the smaller sizes are being eliminated from this stand. The core sizes are now handled by turning on appropriate support beams for the hold-down bolts and side clamp arms, and the conical extension, now much taller, is also a fixed size. The hold-down bolts are now non-animated and fixed to 4x symmetry, and the clamp arms will be at the 45-degree positions, also fixed to 4x symmetry. The bolts also have two height options. The service pole will also be removef from this large stand.

The reason for the limited options for the large round stand is that I'm going to be making a whole bunch of new stands, msot of which will be for a single core size:

The 1.875m stand will be the "Titan II Launch Stand", with it being the truss-type "legs" fitting into LR-87's thrust structure.

1.5m size will have two kinds of stands: one for the Jupiter with the petal cover, and one for the Delta II.

1.25m size will be the Redstone Stand, will have a different style from the large round stand and the service pole, but no side clamps.

0.9365m (BDB Vanguard) will probably have it's own size stand, would be named the "Vanguard Launch Stand".

For the smallest sizes there will be a tripod-type launch stand, as well as a surface-attached launch rail clamp, that will be more appropriate for the small sounding rockets.

The smallest sizes will also be covered by a series of mini-milkstool launch stands of various heights that will handle one or two core sizes.

The old rectangular launch stand will be remade into the Atlas Launch Stand and sized just for the BDB Atlas SLV.

I'm also going to be making my own Falcon 9/FH launch plate platform.

As time goes on there will be additional types of specialty launch stands.

WIP pics of the Large Round Launch Stand:

4xkitH2.png

TOXUdAu.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK, I will be able to have the large round stand's clamp arms in switchable symmetry. For some reason I thought I had to have a separate "high" set of arms to sit on top of the conic extension, but that was a needless worry, as I only had to make the arms taller and more angled so they can reach over the top of the conic part. :) So I can have 8 arms as planned, with the switchable arrangements as before.

The Large Round Stand will be the only launch stand to havr these arms, aside from the custom ones for the Atlas stand. They will be available separately, and of course the General Hold-Downs are available to use as well with the launch stands...if they'll fit ;) 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Large (General) Round Launch Stand is now done, but it won't be uploaded just yet as the Redstone Launch Stand needs to be made first, as it will add the the updated service pole. The pole update isn't a full remake, but more of remapping the objects to the new textures I'm making for the launch stands.  Well, it will probably need a reworked mount for the Redstone stand, since that stand is going to a single-size part designed for the BDB Redstone ("Etoh"). The Redstone's hold-down points were on the bottom of the structural part of the fins, right before the moving part, so they are not underneath the tank (or rather the engine housing), but outside of it. I might add a switchable option for hold-down bolts sized for 1.25m tank.

One note on the Large Round Stand: The side clamps can only be used with 2.5m rockets when the conical extension is turned on; they can be used with all four core sizes with the extension turned off. It was a side-effect of having only one size of conical extension (to simplify the modeling).

7NIYBLv.png

6sxxmmU.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

so nice to see clamps that encapsulate the engines. The BDB/FASA engine clamps can only attach to the bottom node and are meant to be launched out of a shroud, which is unsightly IMO. Clipping the engine into them produces bad results. Look forward to trying these out

Edited by Drew Kerman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Drew Kerman said:

so nice to see clamps that encapsulate the engines. The BDB/FASA engine clamps can only attach to the bottom node and are meant to be launched out of a shroud, which is unsightly IMO. Clipping the engine into them produces bad results. Look forward to trying these out

I know! :D  The FASA ones actually have a solid collider in them, so they are not hollow. They're also named the "Redstone" launch clamps, and the Redstone's engine actually did sit on top of its stand without any part of it going below the ring, so the FASA ones have to be used the same way...which greatly limits what rockets they can be used with.

Redstone_Missile_on_Launch_Pad-5800669.j

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By a request I had received, the General, Saturn, Shuttle and Rodan crew arms now have a deploy limit slider for the arm retraction. I didn't think it was possible due to the way ModuleAnimateGeneric works, but then I actually did a test, since the arms aren't set up like a cargo bay's doors. I had to reverse the values of the deploy limit lines from "normal", but the slider works, with the animation respecting it.

A little demo:

 

Best thing is that the arm can be attached in the extended position like normal. The arm does have to be retracted first before adjusting the slider, then extended. After that, retraction will be to wherever the slider is set.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/20/2019 at 8:23 AM, AlphaMensae said:

All I did for CKAN was to just check the CKAN box on Spacedock when I first uploaded. I don't use CKAN anyway so I don't care. :P 

Animated Decouplers also is still at KSP 1.6.1, so that could be screwing CKAN up too. It works just fine in 1.8.x, and it is included the download .zip along with B9PS and CCK.

CKAN does not list any dependencies, I'm not sure how that would be fixed.  I never liked using it back in the day because I found it to be unreliable.  But I have been using it exclusively since 1.8 and its really amazing and saves so much time trying out mods and testing things. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Redstone Launch Stand, designed for the new remade Redstone in Bluedog Design Bureau (available now from the 1.7 Development branch on the BDB GitHub), but also with optional hold-down bolt positions for standard 1.25m and 1.5m tanks (think Thor and Delta II).

The service pole still has to be remade, and there's only two colors of the new main launch stand texture done done, but both the new Large Round Stand and Redstone Stand are available now on the AlphaDev branch. The Large Round Stand replaces the old Small Launch Stand (same part name).

Svhk6n7.png

qlM8Dsr.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Breeze said:

This is an awesome mod! Sorry if the question has already been asked. But my hammerhead crane doesnt move. Everything else works.

 

 

If it's the current release crane, it has to be decoupled first (a decoupler is built into it), then rotated with the Q and E keys. :) 

The v2.1 crane is just an animated part with the lightning masts integrated into it, as there were problems with the old crane mount colliders with the now-separated Saturn and Shuttle tower tops.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Redstone Launch Stand now has the remade umbilical pole integrated into it, and is now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub.

The integrated one is a simpler version of the separate pole, with only three height options, but with two positions for 1.25m and 1.5m tanks.

The pole is dropped with the launch clamp release.

HEsvAUD.png

CCV8oGZ.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Next up is the Vanguard Launch Stand, designed for the 0.9375m BDB Vanguard and Scout rockets (Scout was launched from the same pad as Vanguard, the Cape's LC-18,  after Vanguard was retired). It'll be a simplified version of this:

SLV-3_on_pad.jpg?ssl=1

Some of it I'll have to make up myself, based on what I can see, as I can't find a high-res close-up image of the platform. The BDB Vanguard first-stage engine does what appear to be hold-down points on two sides, which seem to go with what I've seen in some images.

And yes, that yellow-ish color will be the default; it replaces the Delta Blue for the new Launch Stands texture series. :) 

The current Tier 1 truss Small Service Tower will be remade as the triangular truss Vanguard tower, with the red&white color scheme still the default. It will be smaller in width, as you can see in the above image--it's about as wide as the Vanguard itself.

I might keep the larger square version, if I don't repurpose it for something else. :) 

Edited by AlphaMensae
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another quick detour to push something I was going to do later: adding optional transfer airlocks (like those on the general crew arms) to the separate Soyuz Gantry, to actually allow boarding of the namesake spacecraft inside its fairing .:)  The new gantry is now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub

They are only in the separate version of the gantry, as I've already removed it from the base, and am not putting it back in. That change is not yet on the AlphaDev branch.

The separate gantry is attached by first turning on either (or both) sets of auxiliary nodes; this will also turn on an aux node in the center of the Soyuz base, which is used for the separate gantry.

PQGV8po.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...