[1.8x - 1.11.x] Stockish Project Orion v1.8.2 [update 12/29/2020]

[SuicidalInsanity]

I won't be providing a full 10m conventional rocket parts lineup, no, since that's out of scope; but I could provide parts for the Project Orion-adjacent launch vehicle developed to get Orions into orbit
While most of the USAF designs involved strapping a bunch of Clydesdale-sized SRBs to the sides, a few used a truly Kerbal 'Moar Boosters!' approach - meet the NEXUS Booster:

Bottom is 20m. For a sense of scale - the 8 small thrusters on the bottom? Each of those is the size of a LV-T30 Reliant. But if it's 10m rockets you're after, the small tank in the upper right and the toridial plug aerospike are both 10m sized.

 

[hemeac]

I can really handle conventional rockets being out of scope if I can blow up the launchpad with the NEXUS booster 

[Guest]

I can't open the two crafts that have (MH) in its name. What mods do I need?

[RealKerbal3x]

4 minutes ago, gabo04 said:

I can't open the two crafts that have (MH) in its name. What mods do I need?

It's not a mod, but you probably need the Making History DLC.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

It's not a mod, but you probably need the Making History DLC.

Ok. Thanks. 

[SuicidalInsanity]

Typical. I can't be bothered to get around to UV mapping ~2k poly structural fairings for the 10m Orion, but I can be bothered to unwrap a pair of  ~12k poly engines? Anyway, here's Project Orion's Nexus booster in all its cyclopean glory:

Ignore the placeholder textures, and have a Banana Bob for scale.

This thing is ruining my ability to make parts - I'm losing all sense of scale when modeling, it's so stupidly huge. I love it.
Now, back to actual Orion bits...

[AntaresMC]

On 8/23/2020 at 6:27 AM, SuicidalInsanity said:

Typical. I can't be bothered to get around to UV mapping ~2k poly structural fairings for the 10m Orion, but I can be bothered to unwrap a pair of  ~12k poly engines? Anyway, here's Project Orion's Nexus booster in all its cyclopean glory:

Ignore the placeholder textures, and have a Banana Bob for scale.

This thing is ruining my ability to make parts - I'm losing all sense of scale when modeling, it's so stupidly huge. I love it.
Now, back to actual Orion bits...

thats the whole sense of both KSP and Orion, right?
BTW, does it work with tweak scale?

[damerell]

After a series of seaplane launches (well, most of the debris landed in the sea) and general failures to go anywhere, I've essentially finished the Behemoth III, a (hopefully) go-anywhere SSTO. The engine pods can detach and redock to a landing module for airless worlds; the nose cone is also a docking port so Behemoth can shove a large habitat and the airless landing module around the Kerbol system.

It is largely dependent on PWB Fuel Balancer to keep the vertical centre of mass directly ahead of the engine pods. It does fly with FAR!

Who says one Orion unit should be enough for anyone?

Edited September 14, 2020 by damerell

[Clamp-o-Tron]

18 minutes ago, damerell said:

After a series of seaplane launches (well, most of the debris landed in the sea) and general failures to go anywhere, I've essentially finished the Behemoth III, a (hopefully) go-anywhere SSTO. The engine pods can detach and redock to a landing module for airless worlds; the nose cone is also a docking port so Behemoth can shove a large habitat and the airless landing module around the Kerbol system.

It is largely dependent on PWB Fuel Balancer to keep the vertical centre of mass directly ahead of the engine pods. It does fly with FAR!

Who says one Orion unit should be enough for anyone?

You are why we can't have nice things.

[damerell]

2 hours ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

You are why we can't have nice things.

Because I already bolted all the nice things to my magnificently dangerous spaceplane... right?

[AntaresMC]

On 9/14/2020 at 6:17 PM, damerell said:

After a series of seaplane launches (well, most of the debris landed in the sea) and general failures to go anywhere, I've essentially finished the Behemoth III, a (hopefully) go-anywhere SSTO. The engine pods can detach and redock to a landing module for airless worlds; the nose cone is also a docking port so Behemoth can shove a large habitat and the airless landing module around the Kerbol system.

It is largely dependent on PWB Fuel Balancer to keep the vertical centre of mass directly ahead of the engine pods. It does fly with FAR!

Who says one Orion unit should be enough for anyone?

Can I question the viability and (less importantly) safety of this thing?

Also, how can you control it?

[damerell]

Well, it takes off without disintegrating into pieces (although you do have to taxi it off the runway using the aerospikes, because the runway immediately explodes if you use it), so I guess it's viable and safe enough, although its stall speed is about Mach 0.7 at ground level. I fly it with Atmosphere Autopilot. It doesn't have much yaw authority, but it doesn't really need any because it flies in a straight line all the way into space. Once it's in space, it's covered in RCS (particularly, eight double-scale Space-Y LF/O ports) to make it point in the right direction. Executing manuevers precisely is a bit tricky because one pair of 5 kilotonne pulse units applies about 15m/s delta-v, so the bomb size for the last pulse of a maneuver has to be carefully judged.

[captinjoehenry]

Oh man!  I'm looking forward to getting my hands on that lovely big Nexus booster

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Awesome mod, just put a multi- megaton Medusa colony ship through the simulator. I really like that the ISRU is all CRP based, it will blend into my MKS save seamlessly.

Now to start strip mining the Mun for resources and beginning global construction of this monstrosity... 

[squeaker0704]

I am having  a texture issue 

[hemeac]

5 hours ago, squeaker0704 said:

I am having  a texture issue 

Are you using ReStock?

[Clamp-o-Tron]

16 minutes ago, hemeac said:

Are you using ReStock?

Works fine for me with restock.

Could @squeaker0704 give us more details? We need to know what KSP version, which other mods you’re using, and where the texture error is.

[hemeac]

8 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Works fine for me with restock.

Could @squeaker0704 give us more details? We need to know what KSP version, which other mods you’re using, and where the texture error is.

It may depend on the mod combination you have as I had noticed that the capsule was using Mk2 command pod textures and they weren't in the Orion restockwhitelist so the capsule was a bit too white.  But if they don't have ReStock, guessing the issue may be something else.

Edited October 21, 2020 by hemeac

[damerell]

10 hours ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Could @squeaker0704 give us more details?

I don't wish to be the voice of cynicism (actually, I do) but if you examine their post history you will find the answer to that is almost certainly "no".

[Clamp-o-Tron]

6 hours ago, damerell said:

I don't wish to be the voice of cynicism (actually, I do) but if you examine their post history you will find the answer to that is almost certainly "no".

Well, optimism is a virtue, especially when it's just instructions to get support that I'm asking for. Anyway, I always kind of expect this too, so whatever.

[eberkain]

I am having strange texture issues with the parts in this mod, but no others, and I have quite a few mods installed.  

Log files

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pdVH2nuCauPheC-HhIN-1d-AiEUPPFEu/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h5vU5kfnl7h1-WHa6ABkxkIxmdHRHSmN/view?usp=sharing

[toric5]

@SuicidalInsanity Is this mod still being worked on?

[SuicidalInsanity]

I'm not dead. This mod is still being worked on, I've just been busy with other stuff lately that's resulted in this getting backburnered.
I'll try to have an update that at least fixes known issues up within a week.

[Mekan1k]

Anyone have a fix for the orion pod? I use a restock mod, and the command pod is pure white. Like, missing-shaders-or-colors white.

 

Oh, and SuicidalInsanity- I love this mod, and have SO MUCH FUN with the Medusa. Also, you may want to recommend KerbalJointReinforcement Continued with this mod- it stops both drives from SHREDDING/CRUSHING a ship, and allows a large vessel to be more easily placed in orbit as it nearly-completely prevents gumbying.

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Has anyone else used the Smelter unit and had runaway thermal problems if it's used for more than a few moments at a time? I built a ISRU unit with a combination of stock, MKS and Project Orion parts and with the rated amount of cooling the whole craft overheated and blew up after ~15 minutes of steady state use. I messed around with it, kept adding radiators, and I finally needed a total of 16!!! large radiators just to keep the smelter from vaporizing the ship. It seems like there might be a misplaced decimal point somewhere, perhaps causing the smelter to output 10x the rated thermal output.  I love the idea of using rocket fuel to smelt metals, but it shouldn't take 1.6 gigawatts of cooling just to run one unit...