[1.8.1-1.12.x] Modular Launch Pads v2.8.0: Launch clamps evolved: Real-style launch bases and towers [24 December 2024]

[AlphaMensae]

14 minutes ago, Nnimrod said:

Amazing! This will be the first mod to add an angled launch rail as far as I know.

Well, it will work like the stock launch clamp, with the rail attaching in the vertical position. Rotating the rocket will then rotate the rail.

I'll make it the simple way, with the rail just surface attaching to a rocket, with a minimal, or even no, collider to prevent collisions.

I may also make a fancier one, which would use actual launch rail lugs that would attach to a rocket, then the rail would attach to the lugs, with colliders keeping them in place. That may be more trouble than it'd be worth, though.  

Edited April 5, 2020 by AlphaMensae

[AlphaMensae]

The Thor/Delta Launch Stand is now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub.

I also put 3 craft files for it into the Ships folder.

Also added the Medium Gray color option; it's just for the Thor stand, all the other new stand and towers will follow, as well as the remaining colors.

The Thor towers are next: a single-piece fallback one and a modular stattionary one (that's the skinny one mostly used at Vandenberg for Thor-Agenas, not the Delta 2 tower, which actually was first used for TAID back in 1965 or so, minus the side panels and other later details).

[lextacy]

Any chance you will do non-mobile or static pads and use KK to code them in our Real Solar System Florida area? I would like a premade Cape Canaveral with all the pads. Then using your modular towers I can just build the mobile parts ?

[AlphaMensae]

32 minutes ago, lextacy said:

Any chance you will do non-mobile or static pads and use KK to code them in our Real Solar System Florida area? I would like a premade Cape Canaveral with all the pads. Then using your modular towers I can just build the mobile parts ?

Sorry, I don't make things for KK, that's for others to do. I don't even use KK, as I have to ensure that everything I make works with the stock statics.

[Marcelo Silveira]

On 4/10/2020 at 11:52 PM, lextacy said:

Any chance you will do non-mobile or static pads and use KK to code them in our Real Solar System Florida area? 

You can use Tundra's Space Center to add the launch towers in this thread

 Tundra Launch Pads and @AlphaMensae Launch towers combine so perfectly! I made a custom Cape Canaveral using KK and Tundra Space Center

[Damon]

48 minutes ago, Marcelo Silveira said:

Tundra Launch Pads and @AlphaMensae Launch towers combine so perfectly! I made a custom Cape Canaveral using KK and Tundra Space Center

I love this!

Edited April 14, 2020 by damonvv

[CaptKordite]

Careful to attach the rocket to the Launch Base and not the Gantry. Good thing I had a Jettisonable Emergency Escape Head Section (OGB SAS).

[AlphaMensae]

New Thor/Delta animated Fallback Tower is done and on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub!

The Fallback Tower has an animated retraction (like the real one, used mostly with the Able-derived upper stages) and three inegrated animated drop umbilicals. The top two umbilicals are adjusted as a single pair, with the the third umbilical being adjusted separately.  Each umbilical has separate color options, or can be turned off.

The combining of the upper two umbilicals into a single pair was done to reduce the number of deploy limit sliders in the part action window, but still allow some configurability for other rocket sizes. The upper two were always connected to the upper stage and were not too far apart, so it made sense to adjust them as a single unit.

[VoidCosmos]

Does MLP contain the Starliner crew arm? I was asking about it as I have released a secret mission:

Sorry for being slightly advertising

Edited April 16, 2020 by VoidCosmos

[AlphaMensae]

54 minutes ago, VoidCosmos said:

Does MLP contain the Starliner crew arm? I was asking about it as I have released a secret mission:

 

Not specifically, no. However, the new v2.1 Large Crew Elevator and Large General Crew Arm can be used to make something approximate to the Starliner tower and arm.

@Lupihas made one for his Atlas V-ish Dyno booster.

[Lupi]

6 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

@Lupihas made one for his Atlas V-ish Dyno booster.

 

 

The elevator extension pieces, whatever they're properly called, were the biggest part of making this work. They're apparently coming soon, I'm on a dev version because I was the one who kept requesting them so I could do this. The rest is a bunch of kitbashing, like i used the small crew elevator pieces to create the sorta "roof" for the arm in the retracted position, the medium uh... i forget what that is, i think it's one of the tall sections of just service tower, to complement the elevator tower and make it thicker, et cetera. it took inspiration from the sheer wonkiness of the starliner tower but I wouldn't begin to know how to recreate the thing proper, as I don't have a starliner. My save is spaceplane based, there's a little lifting body vehicle in the fairing.

 

[VoidCosmos]

3 minutes ago, Lupi said:

 

 

It looks fabulous

6 minutes ago, Lupi said:

as I don't have a starliner.

If you don't have a mod that adds a Starliner you can look up a few posts or wait for @DylanSemrau to complete his Starliner Project

[alberro+]

43 minutes ago, VoidCosmos said:

It looks fabulous

If you don't have a mod that adds a Starliner you can look up a few posts or wait for @DylanSemrau to complete his Starliner Project

Maybe the re-release that @VoidCosmos made of the original starliner mod?

edit: Wait I didn't realize i replied to him lmao

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by alberro+

[Corax]

47 minutes ago, Lupi said:

Spoiler

 

Cute overload : )

[VoidCosmos]

3 minutes ago, alberro+ said:

Maybe the re-release that @VoidCosmos made of the original starliner mod?

 

Yeah

[Lupi]

While i appreciate the recommendations, I would suggest everyone read the words that IMMEDIATELY followed "starliner" in that post of mine.

[AlphaMensae]

And that brings up another change I did to the Large General Crew Arm: it now has crew capacity and an optional "transfer airlock" with a hatch that can be used to board a Kerbal, then transferred to a spacecraft inside a fairing. The current release Soyuz Gantry crew elevator also has this, as it was a simple addition, but the Large General Crew Arm has been changed and will change some more.   

[Lupi]

3 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

And that brings up another change I did to the Large General Crew Arm: it now has crew capacity and an optional "transfer airlock" with a hatch that can be used to board a Kerbal, then transferred to a spacecraft inside a fairing. The current release Soyuz Gantry crew elevator also has this, as it was a simple addition, but the Large General Crew Arm has been changed and will change some more.   

Oh yeah, that was the biggest thing that allowed this to work. That lil spaceplane on the runway in the last pic, Raptor, it launches in the fairing like you saw there. I even made sure to have the crew arm line up with its top hatch (the inline docking port) on the pad even though you cant see that.

[OrbitalManeuvers]

Hello! Two quick questions when you have a moment ...

- Do you have some words or a picture about how to set up for an Atlas (e.g. Agena/Surveyor)? Right now I'm using a General 1 small, rect 2.0m short with some bolts, which works but would love to see how it's intended, if you have something (I'm on your dev branch)

- For parts that have a "Force Percent" slider (e.g. type 7 clamp), does that slider do anything?

Thanks! 

[AlphaMensae]

29 minutes ago, OrbitalManeuvers said:

Hello! Two quick questions when you have a moment ...

- Do you have some words or a picture about how to set up for an Atlas (e.g. Agena/Surveyor)? Right now I'm using a General 1 small, rect 2.0m short with some bolts, which works but would love to see how it's intended, if you have something (I'm on your dev branch)

- For parts that have a "Force Percent" slider (e.g. type 7 clamp), does that slider do anything?

Thanks! 

The current Rectangular Launch Stand was designed for the Atlas, as it was assembled on the pad with just a hold-down assembly, but other bases will work, particularly the Small Flat Launch Base (called Launch Plate in the current v2.0 release, but it's been renamed since). Use the red&yellow side clamp arm with the general bases for the classic look.

That rectangular launch stand is going to be reamade into a proper Atlas SLV/II launch stand for v2.1.

The force percent slider is due to those parts which have a decouple module from Animated Decouplers. It's use to just allow the animations to be staged, and has zero decouple force, so the slider doesn't do anything.  

[lextacy]

Huge BAD with the General crew access elevator. There is no way to select the crew access points (2.5m , 5m, off) so that crew access on the bottom of tower is possible. You can only open a "hole" for the elevator at the top of the tower. The programming is only allowing the access points on the bottoms of any tower height. Also there is a missing stack node where you COULD get around this by stacking another General View Access tower and omitting the base.

[AlphaMensae]

A quick little job to make something that I first learned about not too long ago: the "petal" cover used for the Jupiter IRBM launch sites. They had this cover over the lower part of the missile, which opened up like a 12-petal flower for launching.  It's something to furthur dress up launches.

 

 

It's an add-on for the new Redstone Launch Stand, and I've added an optional node for the cover to that stand. It's sized for 1.5m rockets, namely the Jupiter in BDB (v1.7 dev build).  Cover opening animation can be done either manually or via staging.

[Calvin_Maclure]

I'm actually sort of struggling with proper installation of this mod. Though I've installed hundreds of mods over the years, I'm not completely sure what the folder structure for this one should be. I'd appreciate some help in clarifying what goes where (think the issue is with the following instructions:

• Craft files go into your saves/xxxx/Ships/VAB
• Subassemblies go into your saves/xxxx/Subassemblies folder.

) .

Thanks.

[AlphaMensae]

1 hour ago, Calvin_Maclure said:

I'm actually sort of struggling with proper installation of this mod. Though I've installed hundreds of mods over the years, I'm not completely sure what the folder structure for this one should be. I'd appreciate some help in clarifying what goes where (think the issue is with the following instructions:

• Craft files go into your saves/xxxx/Ships/VAB
• Subassemblies go into your saves/xxxx/Subassemblies folder.

) .

Thanks.

Craft files and subassemblies (kinda the same thing) don't go into GameData, but into your saves folder:

In the KSP/saves folder, you will see folders for rach of your saves. In those folders there will be a Ships folder, and a Subassemblies folder if you have created a subassembly in the game. The Ships folder is divided into VAB and SPH, the MLP craft filed go into the VAB one. The subassemblies go into the Subassemblies folder, but if you do not have one, then just copy the Subassemblies folder from the download over into the save you want.

 

[AlphaMensae]

On 4/18/2020 at 12:35 AM, lextacy said:

Huge BAD with the General crew access elevator. There is no way to select the crew access points (2.5m , 5m, off) so that crew access on the bottom of tower is possible. You can only open a "hole" for the elevator at the top of the tower. The programming is only allowing the access points on the bottoms of any tower height. Also there is a missing stack node where you COULD get around this by stacking another General View Access tower and omitting the base.

Is this the version in the current release? It's pretty complex, and probably doesn't go together properly in certain configurations, and in any case, it's been remade as separate modular components in v2.1 to avoid problems like that.