totm apr 2024 [1.12.x] Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit | Stockalike Space Shuttle Orbiter! | (Tubes!) | v1.1.8

[Doc Shaftoe]

If I remember right, it's because he doesn't like the mesh-based plumes and the downsides associated with them. IE, visible meshes and a lack of anything inside the engine bell. Nothing wrong with that, visuals are highly subjective after all.

Still, I'm stoked to see this get full Waterfall support!

Also @benjee10 the not-so-sneaky reveal of your planet-side parts was really exciting. I've been looking for an MMSEV mod for a long time, but none of them really fit in with the restock-alike/BDB-alike aesthetic. Now my search is over! The habs look incredible too.

[Barzon]

wait what MMSEV

[Doc Shaftoe]

Check the Github. It's in an early state but it's fantastic.

[SpaceFace545]

6 hours ago, Barzon said:

wait what MMSEV

Search up planetside exploration. that's the mod's name.

[benjee10]

18 hours ago, SpaceX_Boi said:

Also @benjee10 or someone, I have a weird problem with the Spacelab parts. I don't know if this is another problem with my dumb graphics card, but the parts to build Spacelab don't highlight and I don't see any info when I right-click on them  

Edit: exact same thing happening with the OMS engine, no delta-v readouts, doesn't show up in staging, doesn't highlight and can't right click 

Another Edit: Same thing with the Shuttle cockpit too, and it could possibly be any other part 

What KSP version and any other mods installed? Not heard of this before. 

On 3/17/2021 at 8:49 PM, RIP Windows XP said:

Is this compatible with CryoEngines?

There are no hydrolox engines included with this mod, so there wouldn't be any conflicts at all. 

9 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Search up planetside exploration. that's the mod's name.

The mod has not been released here yet for a reason   use at your own risk

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, benjee10 said:

What KSP version and any other mods installed? Not heard of this before. 

I'm in 1.8.1 with reDIRECT, waterfall, 2.5 scale solar system, Tantares, realplume, etc etc etc. 

If you want to know ever mod I have installed, I could tell you.  

Edited March 19, 2021 by SpaceX_Boi
Can't not have any Kerbal Emojis :D

[Cheesecake]

As far as I remind I had the same issue with the OMS. No Dv readout. I use KSP 1.11.1.

[Doc Shaftoe]

3 hours ago, benjee10 said:

use at your own risk

If we're not taking unnecessary risks are we even playing Kerbal Space Program?

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

.

Edited March 20, 2021 by Ollz

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Doc Shaftoe said:

If we're not taking unnecessary risks are we even playing Kerbal Space Program?

Omg lol    

[MonkeyCan'tDock]

@Benjee10 have you seen Boldy Going on AlternateHistory.com?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/boldly-going-a-history-of-an-american-space-station.502152/page-29

The Enterprise Station is brilliant!

http://americanrocketnews.com/Boldly/15_05_station_enterprise_layout_diagram.png

If I wanted to add cupola covers to the shuttle cockpit how hard would it be? (This is the best image I could find).

http://americanrocketnews.com/Boldly/10_02_SolarDeploy.gif

I'm still figuring out how to turn the External Tank into a Wet Workshop.

Edited March 19, 2021 by MonkeyCan'tDock
Forgot a link

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

An Imgur album for STS 1 - The maiden flight of OV-102, Explorer!

https://imgur.com/a/iOZ6Jb6

Edited March 20, 2021 by Ollz

[Kochi]

On 3/19/2021 at 10:09 AM, benjee10 said:

What KSP version and any other mods installed? Not heard of this before. 

There are no hydrolox engines included with this mod, so there wouldn't be any conflicts at all. 

The mod has not been released here yet for a reason   use at your own risk

Having the same problem im on 1.9.1 no mods (besides sock) and dependencys a fresh install
all the parts bellow have ( no hud, variant problem) 

[Kochi]

Found the problem something with the stock inventory thing beacuse i updated from 1.9.1 to 1.11.1 and the problems are gone

 

 

[benjee10]

On 3/19/2021 at 7:19 PM, MonkeyCan'tDock said:

@Benjee10 have you seen Boldy Going on AlternateHistory.com?

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/boldly-going-a-history-of-an-american-space-station.502152/page-29

The Enterprise Station is brilliant!

http://americanrocketnews.com/Boldly/15_05_station_enterprise_layout_diagram.png

If I wanted to add cupola covers to the shuttle cockpit how hard would it be? (This is the best image I could find).

http://americanrocketnews.com/Boldly/10_02_SolarDeploy.gif

I'm still figuring out how to turn the External Tank into a Wet Workshop.

Yup! Big fan.

Best way of doing that would be to import the .mu file for the shuttle cockpit into Blender (there are a few addons for this), then model the shutters so that they line up with that. Then give them an animation & textures and export just the shutters as a .mu, either via Unity PartTools or the blender .mu import/export plugin. Then you could use a ModuleManager patch to add them to the shuttle cockpit part with an additional MODEL {} node and a ModuleAnimateGeneric to control the shutter animation. That way you don't need to directly modify/redistribute the original files at all and all the new assets can be stored in a separate directory. With a bit more work you could add a b9PartSwitch to toggle the shutters on/off. If you have some existing 3D modelling/part modding experience it shouldn't be too difficult.

8 hours ago, Kochi said:

Found the problem something with the stock inventory thing beacuse i updated from 1.9.1 to 1.11.1 and the problems are gone

Thanks for flagging this, I will take a look into it. 

[Just John]

everytime the shuttle is about to end its orbit burn SAS pushes the nose forward and spirals it out of control, along when using RCS, will Atmosphere Autopilot  fix it or an i doing something wrong?

[chris-kerbal]

8 hours ago, Just John said:

everytime the shuttle is about to end its orbit burn SAS pushes the nose forward and spirals it out of control, along when using RCS, will Atmosphere Autopilot  fix it or an i doing something wrong?

If you are not orbiting in atmosphere, probably not... ;-D

The Shuttle has an offset in the center of thrust. It is not  targeted through the center of mass throughout a flight (as you lose boosters and the big LH2 tank empties, the COM moves). Hence you need to manually correct it. You can see in the VAB how "bad" the COT is off target towards the COM, if you just add the orange tank and nearly empty it (payload will also play a role). With rotating the engines you might help this a bit, but it will only move the issue to another time in flight. So you always need to steer to balance this.

[SpaceFace545]

2 hours ago, chris-kerbal said:

If you are not orbiting in atmosphere, probably not... ;-D

The Shuttle has an offset in the center of thrust. It is not  targeted through the center of mass throughout a flight (as you lose boosters and the big LH2 tank empties, the COM moves). Hence you need to manually correct it. You can see in the VAB how "bad" the COT is off target towards the COM, if you just add the orange tank and nearly empty it (payload will also play a role). With rotating the engines you might help this a bit, but it will only move the issue to another time in flight. So you always need to steer to balance this.

If you open the cockpit's menu you can change the command orientation to 15 degrees offset. You can use this when using everything including the OMS but turn it off when your are docking or other things/

[SpaceFace545]

Are there any plans to include some of the more modest shuttle variants like the Hammerhead external tank fairing or the stretched orbiter?

[benjee10]

59 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Are there any plans to include some of the more modest shuttle variants like the Hammerhead external tank fairing or the stretched orbiter?

Hammerhead ET should be pretty easily doable with reDIRECT, stretched orbiter would be way too much work unfortunately. Would require pretty much completely retexturing the wings. 

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

Would you Consider a Block II Orbiter after Buran.

I know that Comerant has a Block II Shuttle, but a SOCK Block II Shuttle would be so cool

[Razgriz1]

20 hours ago, Just John said:

everytime the shuttle is about to end its orbit burn SAS pushes the nose forward and spirals it out of control, along when using RCS, will Atmosphere Autopilot  fix it or an i doing something wrong?

 

9 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

If you open the cockpit's menu you can change the command orientation to 15 degrees offset. You can use this when using everything including the OMS but turn it off when your are docking or other things/

For those of you who use Kerbal Operating System, I wrote a function that calculates the angle offset between the ship's center of thrust vector and it's forward facing vector, and then uses that to adjust a steering direction you input so that the thrust vector points through the center of mass in the same direction as your input direction. It should even be able to handle OMS engine out scenarios, though I have not really tested that yet.

//lib_shuttle_mnv.ks
@lazyGlobal off.

function shuttleSteerDir {
    //Returns a direction that aligns the thrust vector through the center of mass toward the input direction
    parameter steerDir.

    local thrustAng is round(vang(ship:facing:forevector,centerOfThrust()),2).
    local rotationAxis is vcrs(ship:facing,centerOfThrust).

    local newDir is angleAxis(thrustAng,rotationAxis)*steerDir.

    return newDir.
}

function centerOfThrust {
    //Calculates the center of thrust for currently active engines. Returns a vector in ship-raw coordinates
    local eList is list().
    local avgPos is V(0,0,0).
    local maxT is 0.
	list engines in eList.
	
	for eng in eList {
		set avgPos to avgPos + -eng:POSITION * eng:MAXTHRUST.
		set maxT to maxT + eng:MAXTHRUST.
	}
	SET avgPos to avgPos / maxT.
	
return avgPos.
}

This is part of an attempt to completely fly a mission with the shuttle autonomously and return. Reentry is proving to be somewhat challenging though 

[Just John]

well everything works amazing on the shuttle what i struggle with is when switching to Target in order to dock i cant seem to somehow put my speed to target on 0 so i can have a perfect orbit, if anyone knows how i can atleast put my speed 0 then my problem is solved.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Just John

[Razgriz1]

12 minutes ago, Just John said:

well everything works amazing on the shuttle what i struggle with is when switching to Target in order to dock i cant seem to somehow put my speed to target on 0 so i can have a perfect orbit, if anyone knows how i can atleast put my speed 0 then my problem is solved.

Use translational RCS to make small velocity changes, just like you would when you are getting close to docking.

Edit: also, unless you're actually getting to the point where you're actually physically docking, or you're attempting to station-keep like some of the Gemini missions did, you don't really need to COMPLETELY zero out your velocity. You just need to get it close enough so that you can plan your next step.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Razgriz1

[lemon cup]

38 minutes ago, Just John said:

well everything works amazing on the shuttle what i struggle with is when switching to Target in order to dock i cant seem to somehow put my speed to target on 0 so i can have a perfect orbit, if anyone knows how i can atleast put my speed 0 then my problem is solved.

MechJeb can help with zeroing relative velocity. It’s also a great set of tools in general for automating some of the more tedious parts of spaceflight.