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

[DasVasker]

Hi

How to fix this? It happens when I warp on the ground.

https://i.imgur.com/1c49Vwg.mp4

[AlphaMensae]

6 hours ago, DasVasker said:

Hi

How to fix this? It happens when I warp on the ground.

https://i.imgur.com/1c49Vwg.mp4

Make sure the launch base is not the root part, or weird/bad things happen; that could be one I haven't seen yet.

I've warped at 1000x with whole rockets on a launch base, and nothing abnormal happened, but the base wasn't the root part.

[oniontrain]

Any launch clamps I surface attach seem to be rotating weirdly whenever I go from the VAB to the launch pad. If I launch and then revert they go back to where I put them. What might be causing this?

 

https://imgur.com/0WgDCx2

[AlphaMensae]

On 5/1/2020 at 9:59 PM, oniontrain said:

Any launch clamps I surface attach seem to be rotating weirdly whenever I go from the VAB to the launch pad. If I launch and then revert they go back to where I put them. What might be causing this?

I would have no idea, that has never happened to me nor have I ever gotten reports about that before.

The usual response is make sure the launch base is not the root part when you go to launch, or weird/broken things will happen. Not sure if that's one of them.

========================================

Ok, still needs a few tweaks and the Mercury umbilical mast added, but the Mercury-Atlas Crew Elevator is mostly done:

Note, the new BDB Mercury capsule has a hatch that is not aligned with the Z axis like most pods do, nor even the X axis. Instead it's true to the real one and rotated 45°. I had to rotate the caspule 180° to get it to work with the elevator as seen in pictures.

The walkway can work with stock-like pods, as boarding can be done on the left, right and front.

Of course, the real one was just an emergency egress tower, and I don't think it had an elevator, but mine does so it can be used for boarding.  

[lextacy]

What about adding right-click support so when you are on EVA you can select elevator up/down?  Its so annoying to have to bracket out of craft and switch from craft to kerbal and back to craft again.

[infinite_monkey]

2 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

Of course, the real one was just an emergency egress tower, and I don't think it had an elevator, but mine does so it can be used for boarding.  

So how did the astronaut get in?

[AlphaMensae]

7 hours ago, lextacy said:

What about adding right-click support so when you are on EVA you can select elevator up/down?  Its so annoying to have to bracket out of craft and switch from craft to kerbal and back to craft again.

That's a KSP thing, unfortunately. You can do the "elevator up" from the Kerbal, but not the other way.

6 hours ago, infinite_monkey said:

So how did the astronaut get in?

They used the mobile service gantry (the big A-frame thing), which at the time of boarding would have been in place around the Atlas. Tundra's Space Center TLC-14 pad has one in its stowed position.

[AlphaMensae]

The new Mercury-Atlas Crew Elevator, Walkway and Mercury Umbilical are done and on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub!

The craft file for the demo launch is also in the AlphaDev Ships folder; requires the latest v1.7 dev build of Bluedog Design Bureau (for the remade Mercury)

[dylsh]

The amount of devotion you’ve put into this project is incredible. And the results truly show. Sir, I am quite impressed with your work here. This mod is terrific, and has come such a long way. You should be proud. 

[alberro+]

The Soyuz LV clamps slightly phase into the 4 fins on the boosters. I simply put the clamps at a 45* angle, but it gets a bit annoying sometimes.

[AlphaMensae]

4 minutes ago, alberro+ said:

The Soyuz LV clamps slightly phase into the 4 fins on the boosters. I simply put the clamps at a 45* angle, but it gets a bit annoying sometimes.

The whole bottom of the Soyuz should be down into the hole of the launch base, simulating how the real one sits below the pad level. The top of the clamp arms should then rest just above the tips of the side boosters.

[alberro+]

1 hour ago, AlphaMensae said:

The whole bottom of the Soyuz should be down into the hole of the launch base, simulating how the real one sits below the pad level. The top of the clamp arms should then rest just above the tips of the side boosters.

Oh, that's how it's supposed to be used? My mistake, sorry. 

[AlphaMensae]

1 hour ago, alberro+ said:

Oh, that's how it's supposed to be used? My mistake, sorry. 

YEP   

[noxeeternal]

Hi. I'm testing the large launch stand with several of my stock rockets and it doesn't seem to decouple when I do so. Its just holding the rocket down. Do I need to put some other parts in the launch stand? Am I doing this wrong?

[Cheesecake]

59 minutes ago, noxeeternal said:

Hi. I'm testing the large launch stand with several of my stock rockets and it doesn't seem to decouple when I do so. Its just holding the rocket down. Do I need to put some other parts in the launch stand? Am I doing this wrong?

There is no need for another parts. Do you have all dependencies (Animated Decouplers, B9PartSwitch and CommunityCategoryKit )? Reinstall the mod and download the newest versions of the dependencies separately.

[noxeeternal]

2 minutes ago, Cheesecake said:

There is no need for another parts. Do you have all dependencies (Animated Decouplers, B9PartSwitch and CommunityCategoryKit )? Reinstall the mod and download the newest versions of the dependencies separately.

I have all, although I admit I didn't install the dependencies because it had the same ones with Tundra Exploration. 

Will try reinstalling it w/ the dependencies now.

[AlphaMensae]

15 hours ago, noxeeternal said:

Hi. I'm testing the large launch stand with several of my stock rockets and it doesn't seem to decouple when I do so. Its just holding the rocket down. Do I need to put some other parts in the launch stand? Am I doing this wrong?

Make sure the launch base/stand is not the root part, or else it won't work. Commonly happens when you start with the base first, then attach the rocket, and don't reroot.

[noxeeternal]

3 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

Make sure the launch base/stand is not the root part, or else it won't work. Commonly happens when you start with the base first, then attach the rocket, and don't reroot.

Thanks for the tips. After reinstalling w/ right dependencies and the stand root part, it now works!

[AlphaMensae]

I decided to bring back a remade Small Service Tower 3, now part of the the Mini Modular Service Towers, this one also #3. It now is a single 9m high section with three platforms that are all on by default, but can be switched among multiple configurations. Like the other Mini Modular towers, the section can be stacked to create taller towers by turning off the base pad.

The new Mini Modular Service Tower 3 uses the old part name of the former Small Service Tower 3, which the new single-piece Titan II Service Tower had been using. The Titan II tower now has its own new name, which will change craft files using it.  The modular section parts remain the same.

I'm also going to modify the new Titan II tower as well, by making it rectangular in profile rather than square, with a narrower width. Certain details will be removed, and other meshes be optmized to bring the poly count down.  Just felt it was a little too big, and would look better if it was slimmed down a bit.

Then comes the Gemini Crew Elevator remake.  

[OrbitalManeuvers]

This is slightly embarrassing to ask now, after I've been doing this for so long, but ... is this the intended usage of these parts? 

[AlphaMensae]

1 hour ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

This is slightly embarrassing to ask now, after I've been doing this for so long, but ... is this the intended usage of these parts? 

 

Well, that usage wasn't actually intended, but it does work for those flat vert bolt hold-downs    They're meant to be a very low-profile hold-down.

I went through several ideas for how to handle large SRB/LRB hold-downs, and all proved to be complex and impractical. One idea was to make something like the Shuttle SRB hold-down but in a general-use part. Well, with the Shuttle SRB on the Shuttle Base, there were single defined sizes for the exahaust hole and SRB skirt, so just one part was needed. A general version would have to accomodate all kinds of exhaust hole and booster sizes, and so would need a huge number of variants, and I don't want to make the same part a dozen or more times.  I might revisit the idea in the future, as I'm now thinking of alternate ways of doing it.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

15 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Well, that usage wasn't actually intended, but it does work for those flat vert bolt hold-downs  

I was afraid of that! Those flares on the BDB SRBs are placed so conveniently, so I mathed out 2 plus orange and came up with that. Oops. At some point I'm going to have to learn how real rockets can hang there fully fueled. Like somehow there are parts of that rocket that can support the downwards pressure of the weight, and also support the upwards pressure of the engine thrust. Sounds like rocket science to me.

[AlphaMensae]

3 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

I was afraid of that! Those flares on the BDB SRBs are placed so conveniently, so I mathed out 2 plus orange and came up with that. Oops. At some point I'm going to have to learn how real rockets can hang there fully fueled. Like somehow there are parts of that rocket that can support the downwards pressure of the weight, and also support the upwards pressure of the engine thrust. Sounds like rocket science to me.

Those flanges on the BDB Titan II SRBs are the actual hold-down points, much like how the Shuttle was held down at the SRBs only (4 huge bolts per SRB).  Whether the core was held down as well is unclear.

So you can use the flat bolt hold-downs like that, or the side-arm ones.

At some future date I will make a dedicated Titan III/IV launch base.

[AlphaMensae]

New revised Titan II GLV Tower is done and on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub

It's now a little skinnier, but the same length, so the mount rails for the arms are in the same X-axis position. Poly/vert/tru count was greatly reduced, and the .mu size slashed as well.

The Titan II Launch Stand tower nodes were also given switchable Titan II tower and standard tower options. The Titan II tower ones are offset so the umbilical arms will line up with the center of a rocket.

The revised modular section version of the Titan II GLV tower will follow soon.

Edited May 17, 2020 by AlphaMensae

[AlphaMensae]

The revised modular section Titan II Tower parts, matching that of the new single-piece tower, are done and now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub.  

The platforms in the tower core sections (1 for the 3m short, 4 for the 12m tall) are now adjustable over a 2m range in height via deploy limit slider, as well as being switchable on-off. The platforms in the tall section are all separately toggled and adjusted.

The detail pole can now also be adjusted in height.

The new UI Groups feature of the newest B9PS version (v2.16.0) has been used to organize the platform and pole settings:

The UI Groups will be added to more parts for v2.1 (the Titan II Tower Umbilical has one now as well), and eventually every part that can benefit from them will have them added.  Because of this, I have removed the KSP 1.7.3 version of B9PartSwitch from the AlphaDev branch and updated the included version to the latest, v2.16.0.  When MLP v2.1 is officially released, the changes will carry over, and KSP versions before v1.8.x will no longer be officially supported. The MLP parts should still work with older versions of B9PS, I think the new features just get ignored, but I'm now writing the part .cfgs around the new features, so the PAWs may not be as clear with the old B9PS versions.

B9PS also has module switching, and while I can turn off the deploy limit slider animations when they are not needed, unfortunately they won't turn on again when they are needed.  So for now I don't use that feature, but if and when B9PS gets it sorted out, I will add it to MLP parts.