[1.12.5] Commonwealth Aeronautics "Blue Steel" [1.3]

[Well]

Commonwealth Aeronautics "Blue Steel"

BlueSteel is a small parts mod which adds several parts inspired by the British Avro Z101 Blue Steel concept, designed in 1961. The mod also includes parts to make the Avro 730 / 731 Spyplane concept, planned to replace V-Bomber ~1957. Parts included in the mod are balanced against those in the stock game and should provide a generous and enjoyable experience. For a more realistic profile, playing with a 2 - 3x system rescale is recommended.

Some additionnal parts allow you to build some other iconic aircraft, like the Bristol 188 or the Skylon SSTO (scale not respected).

All crewed parts have IVA    /     Some Craft Files included

 BlueSteel is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The original parts (Blue Rock) of this mod, was made by @Beale for the mod Commonwealth Rockets / CRE but never released and have stay in "dev / wip" for many reason. 

He allow me to follow him on this project, sharing assets and help to make a standalone release. That was pretty much 1 month of work to make all parts needed for a release, include a more real scale of the manned Blue Steel with a 0.625 scale cockpit!  So please thanks him for that, this mod can't exist without him. And of course download Commonwealth Rockets / CRE,  Commonwealth Aeronautics "Blue Steel" is really made to fit with it.

Commonwealth Aeronautics "Blue Steel" :

Download Link (GitHub)    /    Spacedock

Development considered completed, this mod will not receive new parts.

no dependencies!

Transaltions : English / French

Edited May 18 by Well
Update

[Beale]

It's alive! It's alive!

You did an amazing job with this!

[hemeac]

Congrats on the release!  I stumbled on your Github of this last week and was really looking forward to these parts, especially the 0.625m cockpit, that was really missing in the game.  They pair really nicely with CRE and really great for early careers.

Edited December 5, 2020 by hemeac

[JadeOfMaar]

Hyyyyyyype! Blue Steel lives!

[SpaceFace545]

How do you launch/ use the blue iron, blue steel, and blue rock.

[Kerbalwings]

The avro 730 had a two wheel bogie could you add that in?

[Beetlecat]

19 minutes ago, Kerbalwings said:

The avro 730 had a two wheel bogie could you add that in?

Are there any aircraft mods/parts pack that have these? I know stock has the big multi-wheel gear, but I've never seen a two-wheel version that I know of : )

[Well]

43 minutes ago, Kerbalwings said:

The avro 730 had a two wheel bogie could you add that in?

sorry too many wheels was already made for this mod. Avro 731 have also a giant wheels on the core. Sadly i let the player  choose what sort of landing he want to use.

[Well]

14 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

How do you launch/ use the blue iron, blue steel, and blue rock.

Blue Steel was "air launched", the Avro Z101 manned Blue Steel was planned to be air launched the same way under an Avro Vulcan, i've personnaly choose to use the aircraft planned to replace the Avro Vulcan V-bomber. So the Avro 730 (see craft files). Generally takeoff full thrust, separate Blue Steel arround 20000 Km or more ( i'm not a specialist of air launch) for a suborbital mission.

With @Beale we actually like the idea of Launching Blue Rock / Blue Iron on top of a Blue Streak Launcher for orbital flight. Something like the planned Orbital X-15B

be creative, i'm curious to see what player are going to use those.

Of course that depend if you play stock scale or x2.5. at stock scale i personnaly really enjoy to launch it on blue streak, i've tested many way, even some weird config with my luciole mod.

But like i've said, the more logic way to launch it is with a Blue Streak launcher or a sort of Europa concept.

Edited December 6, 2020 by Well

[Daniel Prates]

Boy.... KSP needs mods like this.

Many thanks!

[Vals_Aerospace]

Congrats on release! Looking very nice and I can't wait to add this to my mod list!

[Z3R0_0NL1N3]

Just to let you know, the Spacedock page is missing a forum link

[Cloakedwand72]

Wow congrats on the release! Will be perfect for my possible career mode bundled with the Tundra Aerospace mod. Is your space plane mod balanced for the stock solar system & can you fit the jumbo max tank in the skylon?

[hemeac]

@Cloakedwand72, the parts were balanced with a 2.5x system in mind, but that's similar to all the other mods including Tundra, BDB.

[Cloakedwand72]

4 hours ago, hemeac said:

@Cloakedwand72, the parts were balanced with a 2.5x system in mind, but that's similar to all the other mods including Tundra, BDB.

Can you make a version that’s balanced for the stock solar system? So we don’t have to do back end confining with the mod? And am used to the stock solar system.

[SomeoneWhoLikesTrains]

DID I HEAR AVRO!?

[Clamp-o-Tron]

9 hours ago, Cloakedwand72 said:

Wow congrats on the release! Will be perfect for my possible career mode bundled with the Tundra Aerospace mod. Is your space plane mod balanced for the stock solar system & can you fit the jumbo max tank in the skylon?

 

2 hours ago, Cloakedwand72 said:

Can you make a version that’s balanced for the stock solar system? So we don’t have to do back end confining with the mod? And am used to the stock solar system.

All parts in KSP get realistic payload fractions at 2.5-2.7x scale, and almost all mod parts (except for CONTARES IIRC) match their performance, making them best for an upscaled system if you want realism and less OP rockets. So a mod that says "balanced for 2.5x" is actually right on par with stock parts.

All the parts included are actually tiny, and the skylon is not real scale. I think the biggest tank you could fit is the OSCAR-B 0.625m tank.

1 hour ago, SomeoneWhoLikesTrains said:

DID I HEAR AVRO!?

Yes.

[Well]

11 hours ago, Cloakedwand72 said:

Wow congrats on the release! Will be perfect for my possible career mode bundled with the Tundra Aerospace mod. Is your space plane mod balanced for the stock solar system & can you fit the jumbo max tank in the skylon?

Thanks, Parts here skylon included are 1.25 diameter so really small. Not really a skylon, but just inspired by the shape.

4 hours ago, Cloakedwand72 said:

Can you make a version that’s balanced for the stock solar system? So we don’t have to do back end confining with the mod? And am used to the stock solar system.

I play stock Scale system with it. 

[SomeoneWhoLikesTrains]

Okay, now i feel kinda disappointed, i was hoping that i would be able to construct a somewhat-accurate Avro Arrow with these parts, but it isn't possible...

[Beetlecat]

13 minutes ago, SomeoneWhoLikesTrains said:

Okay, now i feel kinda disappointed, i was hoping that i would be able to construct a somewhat-accurate Avro Arrow with these parts, but it isn't possible...

Not with that attitude, it isn't!

But seriously -- if it seems in scope/context for this mod I'm sure it could appear at some point. Just need to state your case.   I agree the Arrow was quite a gorgeous looking plane.

[Well]

7 hours ago, SomeoneWhoLikesTrains said:

Okay, now i feel kinda disappointed, i was hoping that i would be able to construct a somewhat-accurate Avro Arrow with these parts, but it isn't possible...

I feel kinda disappointed by the fact you are disappointed. Avro Arrow is not in scope.

Already have many mod to manage, don't expect really more parts in the future.

Hope some people could love what the mod offers actually. Feel that already a lot of modularity.

[SomeoneWhoLikesTrains]

16 hours ago, Well said:

I feel kinda disappointed by the fact you are disappointed. Avro Arrow is not in scope.

Already have many mod to manage, don't expect really more parts in the future.

Hope some people could love what the mod offers actually. Feel that already a lot of modularity.

I mean we have the intakes, but i can't get the alignments right, nothing i do is satisfactory, even with B9 procedural wings!

[hemeac]

@SomeoneWhoLikesTrains, I think the Avro Arrow would likely need a custom fuselage profile to work well.  The central part of the fuselage is too rectangular.  That creates an issue as Well would be left with a couple of parts that work only with the Avro Arrow or he would need to create a lot of parts to make the new profile modular.  

[SomeoneWhoLikesTrains]

@hemeacWell the Avro Arrow wasn't the only flying brick out there you know.

[hemeac]

@SomeoneWhoLikesTrains, as it is out of scope for Blue Steel, I would recommend posting in Add-on Discussions to request the Avro Arrow.  It may help to suggest other "flying bricks" that could fit that profile.  I know that modders do go through the forums for inspiration and it is a nice looking plane.