[1.8.1] Simple Procedural Engines

[soundnfury]

Announcing the 0.1.0 alpha release of Simple Procedural Engines.

Aerobees too small for you?  F-1 slightly too big?  Agena more thrust than you need?  Then have we got solutions for you!  S. P. Engine allows you to create procedural engines from several real-world-inspired families, by setting the thrust and ignition count within the supported range.  After tooling a design, you can follow its upgrade path as you unlock further techs, saving many many funds as compared to a brand new design.

S. P. Engine is built for use with the Realism Overhaul suite of mods, and in particular has a hard requirement for RealFuels.  (That's why I'm releasing for 1.3.1 rather than something more recent; the various Realism mods are still back there.)

Currently supported engine families (with mnemonics):

• A: (Aggregat) Ethanol/LOx booster.
• B: (Bees) Small aniline/furfuryl/nitric acid sustainer.
• D: (Delta) Pressure-fed hydrazine/nitric acid upper stage.
• F: (F-1) Huge kerosene/LOx booster.
• G: (aGena) Pump-fed hydrazine/nitric acid upper stage.
• J: (J-2) Large hydrolox upper stage (and later aerospike sustainer).
• K: Kerosene/LOx booster up to about 1MN thrust.  (Like LR79, H-1 and Merlin1.)
• L: (Lr105) Kerosene/LOx sustainer.  Matches nicely with K-class to make Atlas-style stage-and-a-half.
• M: (M-1) Massive hydrolox upper stage (later also sea-level).
• Q: Small, throttleable hydrolox upper stage engine.  (Like throttling RL10s developed for Lunex.)
• R: (Rl10) Small hydrolox upper stage engine.
• S: Small staged-combustion kerosene/LOx upper stage.  (Like S1.5400/11D33/RD-58 family.)

Several more are planned.

 

Read this far?  Download S.P.Engine 0.1.0 and give it a try!

Edited August 2, 2020 by soundnfury
title - onwards to 1.8.1

[RoboRay]

I haven't tested it yet, but this fills a big hole in the "everything is procedural" approach to craft design.  Thank you!  I'm really interested in pursing non-US/non-Soviet entries in the space race, and this will make it a lot easier to not be limited by the design impacts of using historical US or Soviet engines.

[soundnfury]

46 minutes ago, RoboRay said:

I'm really interested in pursing non-US/non-Soviet entries in the space race, and this will make it a lot easier to not be limited by the design impacts of using historical US or Soviet engines.

There are some interesting cases of this that I'd particularly like to cover, primarily the peroxide/kerosene engines of the brief British space programme.  Realism Overhaul supports the Gamma engines, but to do an SPE family for them I'd really need some idea of what subsequent developments would have looked like.  If anyone has useful sources or can suggest realistic numbers for peroxide engine performance with 1970s, ’80s, ’90s... technology, please get in touch.  (Or, for that matter, if you can find/make me a part model for a single Gamma engine.  RO only has them in clusters with skirts, which aren't all that suitable for proc vehicles as they fix your diameter.)

[Saltshaker]

Here's an idea: C class (for Crewed), throttleable hypergolic manned spacecraft engines like the LMDE/LMAE, AJ-10-137/190, etc

Edited February 3, 2019 by Saltshaker

[soundnfury]

1 minute ago, Saltshaker said:

Here's an idea: C class (for Crewed), throttleable hypergolic manned spacecraft engines like the LMDE/LMAE, AJ-10-137/190, etc

I'm already planning to use C for something else ("CH4", for methane expanders á la RL10-CH₄), but I do intend to add an LMDE-alike class.  I'm struggling to pick a letter for it, though: the only ones not spoken for are I (which I'd like to save for Ion just in case), O, W, X and Z.  Currently I'm leaning towards Z, for no particularly explicable reason.

[Saltshaker]

Also, will there be midrange hypergolic lifter engines such as the LR-87/Proton engines?

[soundnfury]

3 minutes ago, Saltshaker said:

Also, will there be midrange hypergolic lifter engines such as the LR-87/Proton engines?

Yep, LR87 is already in for the next version (T-class, along with the E-class LR91), and Proton's closed-cycle hypergolics are on the roadmap as the P-class.

(It took me a while to get round to them, as I don't tend to use big hypergolic stages when I play.)

[soundnfury]

I've just finished work on the X-class: HTP/Kerosene engines based on the Bristol Siddeley Gamma.  An interesting quirk of the Gamma is that it only has one-axis gimbal: Gamma chambers were clustered in opposed pairs to give roll-and-pitch control (Gamma 2 upper stage) or three-axis control (Gamma 8 booster).

So here's a procedural Black Arrow I've been experimenting with:

I've found, sadly, that neither stock SAS nor RemoteTech can figure out how to control the upper stage; smarter avionics will be required.

The Z-class throttleable hypergolic engine (LMDE) is also in for the next version.

[JPGSP]

Really like this mod, I tested on KSP with RSS and RO (like is intended to ) and is really good, now with this mod I can recreate more accurate rockets.

Edited June 4, 2019 by JPGSP

[soundnfury]

Now out: S. P. Engine 0.1.1.  With six new engine families, and a bunch of quality-of-life bugfixes.

• E-class: Large hypergolic vacuum engine.  (Like LR91, Titan II and later.)
• N-class: Large staged-combustion kerolox engine.  (Like NK-15 family.)
• T-class: Large hypergolic atmospheric engine.  (Like LR87, Titan II and later.)
• X-class: Kerosene/peroxide pump-fed engine.  (Like the British Gamma and Stentor.)
• Y-class: Large staged-combustion kerolox vacuum engine.  (Like NK-15V family.)
• Z-class: Throttleable hypergolic vacuum engine.  (Like LMDE.)
• Supports TestLite ≥ 0.2.1.

For KSP 1.3.1 with RealFuels 12.6.

Download Simple Proc Engine 0.1.1.

[KAO]

can you post screenshots of the interface when building with them?

[soundnfury]

Interface screenshots

Spoiler

 

 

The SPEngine browser; examine families, and designs within each family.  Note the tooltip showing I_sp, mass and cost.

 

Spoiler

Configuring an engine with a specific design.

[New Horizons]

Can this mod used with stock real fuels? Or is it overpowered then?

[soundnfury]

Now out: S. P. Engine 0.2.0.  Adds another four engine families, and retargets to newer versions of KSP and RO.

• O-class: Staged-combustion hypergolic vacuum engine.  (Like RD-0210 — Proton upper stage.)
• P-class: Staged-combustion hypergolic engine.  (Like RD-253 — Proton lower stage.)
• V-class: Kerolox vacuum engine.  (Like LR91 (Titan I) and Merlin1Vac.)
• W-class: Kerosene/peroxide pump-fed vacuum engine.  (Like the British Gamma 2.)  This has been split out from the X-class sea-level version (Gamma 8), the configs of which have also been overhauled.

For KSP 1.6.1 with RealFuels 12.6.

Download Simple Proc Engine 0.2.0.

[JPGSP]

Wanted to say that this mod is great as it allows to have more custom engines, but one question, will there be an option to change the ISP because thrust is changeable, size is changeable with tweakscale and shape dosent really matter(to me at least, with size of it im fine about looks) and the isp not being changeable is a bit of an issue to me as I sometimes recreate rockets and some times for the not so famous there are no engiens so I need to chose soem that are similar to those I need.

Thanks.

 

[soundnfury]

5 hours ago, JPGSP said:

will there be an option to change the ISP

Nope, if you're trying to recreate an existing rocket just whomp up a .cfg (clone a part / engineConfig and give it the stats you want).  SPE is aimed at the career game and thus needs to be balanced, and I haven't been able to come up with a decent balance formula for changing Isp.  Merely calculating Isp vs Pc curves for all the propellant combinations would be a major project in itself, never mind coming up with cost and mass formulae.  Given that @ferram4 tried it and burnt out, and he knows more about the relevant physics than I ever will, I think it's a bridge too far.

tl;dr: "the S stands for Simple".

[JPGSP]

@soundnfury Oh ok. Thanks anyway.

On 8/5/2019 at 2:03 AM, New Horizons said:

Can this mod used with stock real fuels?

I have it in stock (with real fuels) and It works, not sure if its overpowered though.

[The Dressian Exploder]

This looks like it could be an awesome mod! I don't really use any RO-like mods (RO, RSS, RealFuels, Etc.) but this looks amazing. I've been searching for a mod like this for a loooong time. *Wonders how difficult it'd be to make an MM patch so the engines use stock LiquidFuel and Oxidiser, but then dismisses the idea, because that'd just be annoying*

[Krishnan Kerman]

I am having a problem with procedural fairings and this mod. there are gaps.

 

[soundnfury]

Now out: S. P. Engine 0.3.1.  Adds scaling of part models, and many fixes to plumes etc., particularly ROEngines compatibility.

For KSP 1.8.1.

Download Simple Proc Engine 0.3.1.

[Krishnan Kerman]

9 hours ago, soundnfury said:

Now out: S. P. Engine 0.3.1.  Adds scaling of part models, and many fixes to plumes etc., particularly ROEngines compatibility.

For KSP 1.8.1.

Download Simple Proc Engine 0.3.1.

Wow, I just saw this right after I started up KSP.

Thanks for maintaining this awesome mod

[Ciko]

So for example I can took model of F1 RO Real engine mod and make clone with custom properties?

[Krishnan Kerman]

23 hours ago, Ciko said:

So for example I can took model of F1 RO Real engine mod and make clone with custom properties?

Yes I think so

 

[New Horizons]

How can this mod be downloaded? I only see source files.

[Stone Blue]

46 minutes ago, New Horizons said:

How can this mod be downloaded? I only see source files.

The listed zip contains *both* the source, AND the release. So just grab the Source.zip (for Windows, .tar.gz for Linux), but ONLY extract the GameData folder to your KSP folder

the OP doesnt seem to be updated for the latest version, tho...
Can grab from here:
https://github.com/ec429/SPEngine/releases

Quite a few mods put the release files in the master repo with the source. That way, the source can be bundled with each release. The way github works, if the release isnt in the repo, then the dev has to take the extra step of creating a seperate release package (usually a seperate .zip), and upload it *as* a release, to github.

On the releases page, it will have this seperate versioned release package, as well as having automaticlly generated Source.zip and Source.tar.gz, which are both automatically generated packages of a snapshot of the current master branch.
So some devs, instead of having to do that extra step of creating and pushing a release .zip, just include the release in the master branch.

Edited August 28, 2020 by Stone Blue