[1.12.x] Artemis Construction Kit | Stockalike Orion & SLS | v1.4.0 | (Lockheed lander!)

[SpaceFace545]

14 hours ago, benjee10 said:

but I'm certainly open to any feedback on this issue and not totally against switching to another option. 

With BDB changing a lot of hypergolic engines to use aerozine50/n204 you could add support for that. Monoprop is still used for RCS but it adds another fuel type for hypergolic engines.

[Rodger]

37 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

With BDB changing a lot of hypergolic engines to use aerozine50/n204 you could add support for that. Monoprop is still used for RCS but it adds another fuel type for hypergolic engines.

That’s just an optional patch in BDB, not the default setting

[dababykerman]

Hey there, so when I use MechJeb2 to fly the SLS block 1 for some reason it automatically decouples the interstage (yes, autostage is turned off), does anyone know if this is a known issue or if there's a fix?

[Adam-Kerman]

1 minute ago, dababykerman said:

Hey there, so when I use MechJeb2 to fly the SLS block 1 for some reason it automatically decouples the interstage (yes, autostage is turned off), does anyone know if this is a known issue or if there's a fix?

Probably I guess a common thinking or thought: did check staging?

[dababykerman]

1 minute ago, Adam-Kerman said:

Probably I guess a common thinking or thought: did check staging?

Yep, everything is set up right in staging.

[DeadJohn]

Here's a big departure from SLS: imagine if ESA built the entire lifter instead of only the service module! @Wellthe textures of ACK match well with your Knes.

This is designed for low orbit at 2.5x scale, not moon flights. Upper capsule is all ACK Orion using the half-height service module and a functional yet smaller abort tower that skips some parts. SM and capsule are only 50% full of LFO+monoprop in order to let the main stage reach orbit. Lifter tanks and liquid boosters are Ariane parts courtesy of Knes.

Why did I build this? My Knes+NF+ACK career game had contracts for low orbit tourism plus a part test for 3.75m Near Future "Cougar" engine. The big engine had to reach full orbit for the contract so the vessel is near-SSTO in 2.5x scale; only the 2 small boosters to supplement TWR are dropped early after launch and the KER DV estimates are lower than actual. The lifter tank doesn't have enough fuel left to survive reentry but it could be repurposed into an orbital fuel depot.

[Pappystein]

22 hours ago, DeadJohn said:

I completely understand how hard balancing can be, especially when so many players play with different settings and different mods, and even pure stock has some weird game balance.

The Orion abort tower, the real one not your model of it, is messy to replicate in KSP because all of the possible staging steps. What I've done for my use of your tower is to ignore the jettison motor. The other abort motor can handle jettison during a good flight, and after an emergency abort drains the abort motor the boost cover decoupler separates the tower without needing the jettison motor. I halved the solid fuel in the abort motor and it was still good for abort at 2.5x scale. Longer term I might patch the jettison motor to be lightweight and cheap so there's less penalty for keeping it as a cosmetic part.

The service module fuel is a philosophical decision with no single perfect answer. Whatever you want is correct I prefer a single fuel type: that's what real Orion does, and in KSP terms it's nice not to overanalyze how much RCS vs engine fuel I need. Monoprop feels the most stockalike to me. I understand your LFO argument but IMO that limits interoperability with stock capsules and station parts mods like SSPXr. The case others made for BDB/Skyhawk fuel types is interesting; I love those fuel types but it adds complexity and limits non-BDB users.

These next 2 comments are based on the current mixed-fuel SM:

• If you keep the KJ10 (AJ10) engine current thrust and ISP based on real world values, perhaps reduce the weight (from 0.8 which I think is too high to 0.2 for balance based on its performance?) and cost (from 1000 to 200?). That will give career players more flexibility to mix your parts and stock, and give less incentive to always use the Terrier, Spark clusters, or the RestockPlus Pug.
• The aux thrusters seem way too expensive and heavy for their performance, especially 4x Aux Thruster 2 on the sample craft file which adds 10k to the cost. Both Aux Thrusters, 1 (OR-T2A) and 2 (OR-T2B) have identical thrust and ISP but the latter costs 2x and weighs 4x. I think rebalance both against a stock RCS thruster: Aux Thruster 1 has only 1 nozzle instead of 4 so maybe make its cost and mass 25% the stock RCS part. Then set Aux Thruster 2 to double 1's cost and mass, with 2kn RCS thrust.

 

First off @GoldForest Sorry I missed this ping!   Doh!

DeadJohn,  Yes in real life all the thrusters on even Apollo would utilize the same fuel (or one of two fuels.)   However there are two reasons why you do not want that in a Stock type (not RO) KSP career:

1) Few players ACTUALLY know how to operate spacecraft CORRECTLY and EFFICENTLY so you need margin for errors  This includes building them correctly!

2) Having separate fuel types eases management of the space craft construction...   Specifically in I do not need to create a "reserve" tank to get me home, I don't have any mods that nerf my craft when it is already "nerfed" by being realistic mass thrust and isp for 2.5x, and I do not have to worry about running out of gas because something wasn't put together right/KSP didn't follow real world physics   

 

As they guy who created the patch in BDB... and spent 3 years testing it after the initial work was done in conjunction with Jso.   I will tell you I *DID* make Hypergolic R4D thrusters quad for Apollo.    The end result was the game would over-use the thrusters and I would not have enough delta V to orient and for a return from the Moon in 2.5x in a typical (real like) LOR mission.    

 

Good news, if Benjee10 wants to switch the AJ10 over to Hypergolic... utilizing AZ50/NTO is the easiest... as it is the same fuel ratio (just 5 times the units) as LF/O in KSP.     Switching to the real MMH/NTO is not as nice math wise!

[GoldForest]

11 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

First off @GoldForest Sorry I missed this ping!   Doh!

DeadJohn,  Yes in real life all the thrusters on even Apollo would utilize the same fuel (or one of two fuels.)   However there are two reasons why you do not want that in a Stock type (not RO) KSP career:

1) Few players ACTUALLY know how to operate spacecraft CORRECTLY and EFFICENTLY so you need margin for errors  This includes building them correctly!

2) Having separate fuel types eases management of the space craft construction...   Specifically in I do not need to create a "reserve" tank to get me home, I don't have any mods that nerf my craft when it is already "nerfed" by being realistic mass thrust and isp for 2.5x, and I do not have to worry about running out of gas because something wasn't put together right/KSP didn't follow real world physics   

 

As they guy who created the patch in BDB... and spent 3 years testing it after the initial work was done in conjunction with Jso.   I will tell you I *DID* make Hypergolic R4D thrusters quad for Apollo.    The end result was the game would over-use the thrusters and I would not have enough delta V to orient and for a return from the Moon in 2.5x in a typical (real like) LOR mission.    

 

Good news, if Benjee10 wants to switch the AJ10 over to Hypergolic... utilizing AZ50/NTO is the easiest... as it is the same fuel ratio (just 5 times the units) as LF/O in KSP.     Switching to the real MMH/NTO is not as nice math wise!

No worries.

Also, 5 times the fuel for the same weight? If so, then that's really good. 

[DeadJohn]

17 minutes ago, Pappystein said:

DeadJohn,  Yes in real life all the thrusters on even Apollo would utilize the same fuel (or one of two fuels.)   However there are two reasons why you do not want that in a Stock type (not RO) KSP career:

1) Few players ACTUALLY know how to operate spacecraft CORRECTLY and EFFICENTLY so you need margin for errors  This includes building them correctly!

2) Having separate fuel types eases management of the space craft construction...   Specifically in I do not need to create a "reserve" tank to get me home, I don't have any mods that nerf my craft when it is already "nerfed" by being realistic mass thrust and isp for 2.5x, and I do not have to worry about running out of gas because something wasn't put together right/KSP didn't follow real world physics   

It's interesting how our opinions on this differ: I think multiple fuel types gives me less margin of error for my capsules. It doesn't make a huge difference to me, though, and 3 great mods take 3 different approaches: BDB favors mixed fuels in upper stages, Tantares puts LFO in capsules and adds LFO RCS, and Knes favors monoprop by adding monoprop radial and service engines.

With ACK Orion, LFO gets used for high DV maneuvers to intercept and match velocity with a moon station, monoprop gets used more for low speed docking. If I misjudge during craft construction or make errors while piloting I can prematurely run out of one fuel type. If the main engine is out of LFO, it's painfully slow to use RCS thrusters and physics timewarp can be unreliable. Similarly, if the RCS runs out of monoprop, reaction wheel gymnastics to use the main engine for docking is painful.

A single fuel type makes it obvious how much total DV I have left, so I have a better estimate when to abort a mission to return home and am less likely to run out of gas. Again, that's just my preference, and since KER can report on RCS DV separately from main engine DV ACK is good whether it uses a single or dual fuels.

[PokeWasTaken]

2 hours ago, DeadJohn said:

It's interesting how our opinions on this differ: I think multiple fuel types gives me less margin of error for my capsules. It doesn't make a huge difference to me, though, and 3 great mods take 3 different approaches: BDB favors mixed fuels in upper stages, Tantares puts LFO in capsules and adds LFO RCS, and Knes favors monoprop by adding monoprop radial and service engines.

With ACK Orion, LFO gets used for high DV maneuvers to intercept and match velocity with a moon station, monoprop gets used more for low speed docking. If I misjudge during craft construction or make errors while piloting I can prematurely run out of one fuel type. If the main engine is out of LFO, it's painfully slow to use RCS thrusters and physics timewarp can be unreliable. Similarly, if the RCS runs out of monoprop, reaction wheel gymnastics to use the main engine for docking is painful.

A single fuel type makes it obvious how much total DV I have left, so I have a better estimate when to abort a mission to return home and am less likely to run out of gas. Again, that's just my preference, and since KER can report on RCS DV separately from main engine DV ACK is good whether it uses a single or dual fuels.

IRL the backup thrusters (the 8 engines, 4 pairs on the bottom mounted in line with the Aj10), IIRC are not used at all except for small maneuvers, not for normal RCS which would drain your reserves a lot (and I mean a lot) which is the issue you might be running into because for me I have plenty of monoprop (however ive done a extremely large number of shuttle dockings so im fairly experienced, especially when it comes to something that isnt a whale to dock its quite easy for me).  

[DeadJohn]

51 minutes ago, PokeWasTaken said:

IRL the backup thrusters (the 8 engines, 4 pairs on the bottom mounted in line with the Aj10), IIRC are not used at all except for small maneuvers, not for normal RCS which would drain your reserves a lot (and I mean a lot) which is the issue you might be running into because for me I have plenty of monoprop (however ive done a extremely large number of shuttle dockings so im fairly experienced, especially when it comes to something that isnt a whale to dock its quite easy for me).  

I'm not running out of monoprop if I launch with 100% full tanks, because the capsule and SM carry a ridiculously high monoprop amount if it's only intended for docking. Most of that monoprop is dead weight for normal docking, and wastes DV from lower stages. It's much more efficient to fly ACK with partly drained tanks at launch and never use the 240 ISP aux thrusters.

But should we launch with only 10% monoprop for typical efficient docking, or 20% to allow for more errors, or 50% in case I run out of LFO??? That's a problem caused by mixed fuels and players are likely to bring too much of one fuel type on every mission.

Redundancy is good IRL. In career KSP, unless ACK is intended mostly for use with a part failure mod, redundancy is waste. ACK looks great but is inefficient for hard career games.

The aux thrusters are eye candy. Pretty eye candy that I'd like to keep, but not when they add 0.8t deadweight and 10k funds to a launch.

As one of my earlier balance posts mentioned, this isn't an attack on the mod or modder. Career balance is difficult. My hope is that ACK can be as great for career as it is for sandbox or science mode.

[Pappystein]

7 hours ago, GoldForest said:

No worries.

Also, 5 times the fuel for the same weight? If so, then that's really good. 

It is the difference between KSP using volume instead of mass, and the real world using Mass instead of volume for fuel.   CRP uses real world numbers.    So you end up with the same fuel in volume but the units are much higher(because it is a different volume unit in CRP) 

 

You do get essentially more delta V because of densification of the fuel..   But not much.    Like 1 or 2% vs LFO. (Titan with LF/O engines vs Titan with AZ50/NTO engines at the same perfomance (thrust/Dv and mass) and the same fuel mass  has just under a 1% increase in D/V and you carry fuel tanks that are 80% full vs 100% full.) *going from memory it has been 3 years*

 

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Pappystein

[guest10985]

Hey, just wanted to report a small problem with the new EUS. As long as a craft has the EUS attached framerates drop to 50%-25%. I don't know if this is a hardware problem, a TUFX problem, or if it just has too many polygons. Also as soon as I detached Orion the lag stopped, even if I touch it. Thanks in advance for the help!   

[benjee10]

On 9/19/2022 at 6:27 PM, DeadJohn said:

• The aux thrusters seem way too expensive and heavy for their performance, especially 4x Aux Thruster 2 on the sample craft file which adds 10k to the cost. Both Aux Thrusters, 1 (OR-T2A) and 2 (OR-T2B) have identical thrust and ISP but the latter costs 2x and weighs 4x. I think rebalance both against a stock RCS thruster: Aux Thruster 1 has only 1 nozzle instead of 4 so maybe make its cost and mass 25% the stock RCS part. Then set Aux Thruster 2 to double 1's cost and mass, with 2kn RCS thrust.

Just on this point, I am fairly sure that in KSP the thrust value for RCS is per thruster rather than overall. As the double aux engine has two thrust transforms it should provide double the amount of thrust as the single version. Definitely going to rebalance mass and cost on these parts - initially I was using a much higher thrust value which is why their price/mass was increased, but it turns out the real aux thrusters have about the same power as the normal RCS. 

On 9/19/2022 at 11:47 PM, Blufor878 said:

What size is the upper part of the USA?

It is slightly larger than 3.125m to match the bottom of the Orion Service Module Adapter. There is another adapter included (same you would use to connect the Orion SM adapter with the ICPS) that will adapt to exactly 3.125m. 

On 9/20/2022 at 2:53 AM, dababykerman said:

Hey there, so when I use MechJeb2 to fly the SLS block 1 for some reason it automatically decouples the interstage (yes, autostage is turned off), does anyone know if this is a known issue or if there's a fix?

I haven't encountered this - at what point in flight is it happening? Are you sing one of the provided craft files or building your own? 

19 hours ago, DeadJohn said:

I'm not running out of monoprop if I launch with 100% full tanks, because the capsule and SM carry a ridiculously high monoprop amount if it's only intended for docking. Most of that monoprop is dead weight for normal docking, and wastes DV from lower stages. It's much more efficient to fly ACK with partly drained tanks at launch and never use the 240 ISP aux thrusters.

But should we launch with only 10% monoprop for typical efficient docking, or 20% to allow for more errors, or 50% in case I run out of LFO??? That's a problem caused by mixed fuels and players are likely to bring too much of one fuel type on every mission.

Redundancy is good IRL. In career KSP, unless ACK is intended mostly for use with a part failure mod, redundancy is waste. ACK looks great but is inefficient for hard career games.

It seems like we have similar thinking but in completely opposite directions XD 

You're right that redundancy isn't necessary in KSP unless you have part failures, but I would argue that what the dual fuel & aux thrusters provide is redundancy for mission planning. First, unless you use KER you don't have a good idea of how much RCS delta-V you have, so separating the manoeuvring fuel from the RCS fuel allows the player to be sure they have enough delta-V for the mission they're flying.

Keeping the fuels separate also makes the whole flight experience more forgiving. Any docking trouble (docking seems to be the number 1 thing players struggle with once they're able to reach orbit successfully) won't cut into the return-home budget. Conversely, if you do muck up your mission profile and run out of fuel, you have a decent amount of backup fuel and an additional set of thrusters to make the process less painful. As it's KSP the fuel values are quite forgiving, so the spacecraft has roughly the same performance you would expect even with the extra monoprop. Most players won't notice they even have more of it than they need - just like with the big buffer on the amount of Ablator in heat shields - but more experienced players who do want to optimise and are confident in their flying abilities can always tweak the amount down. 

Overall there's no perfect option, but I think I'll stick with what I have, at least by default. Once I'm a bit further along some optional extra that patch for just monoprop or the BDB hypergolic option sound like they might keep everyone happy!

16 minutes ago, guest10985 said:

Hey, just wanted to report a small problem with the new EUS. As long as a craft has the EUS attached framerates drop to 50%-25%. I don't know if this is a hardware problem, a TUFX problem, or if it just has too many polygons. Also as soon as I detached Orion the lag stopped, even if I touch it. Thanks in advance for the help!   

I'm getting no performance issues at all on a fairly low-end machine, but then I don't use TUFX - could you try a couple of things for me:

• Clean reinstall of the mod with a fresh download from github - I did make some changes to the EUS last night so you may not have the latest version
• Try removing TUFX and see if the problem persists
• If those don't do anything, could you send me a screenshot of your reflection settings in-game and the contents of your GameData folder

[Nebulagoodies]

I used this mod in a recreation of the E.R.V. concept in the Case for Mars

https://imgur.com/a/44q27wc

[guest10985]

17 minutes ago, benjee10 said:

• Clean reinstall of the mod with a fresh download from github - I did make some changes to the EUS last night so you may not have the latest version
• Try removing TUFX and see if the problem persists
• If those don't do anything, could you send me a screenshot of your reflection settings in-game and the contents of your GameData folder

thanks, I will try both!

[Socowez]

@benjee10, Would it be safe to delete imported parts folders if I have their respective mods? I have PhotonCorp, BDB, and RMM installed.

Also, would deleting the Booster folder bring sound back to the SRBs? This was discussed on page 5, and the exhaust plumes have since returned but sound is still absent.

[benjee10]

32 minutes ago, Socowez said:

@benjee10, Would it be safe to delete imported parts folders if I have their respective mods? I have PhotonCorp, BDB, and RMM installed.

Also, would deleting the Booster folder bring sound back to the SRBs? This was discussed on page 5, and the exhaust plumes have since returned but sound is still absent.

Yes, you should be safe to remove any of the folders other than 'Orion' 'SLS' and 'Patches' if you have the corresponding mods installed. As for the sound issue, not sure what is going on there but will take a look. I confess the last few test flights I've done have been on mute with TV on in the background so I wasn't aware that was still an issue...

[guest10985]

2 hours ago, guest10985 said:

thanks, I will try both!

Clean install worked, Thanks!

[dababykerman]

3 hours ago, benjee10 said:

Just on this point, I am fairly sure that in KSP the thrust value for RCS is per thruster rather than overall. As the double aux engine has two thrust transforms it should provide double the amount of thrust as the single version. Definitely going to rebalance mass and cost on these parts - initially I was using a much higher thrust value which is why their price/mass was increased, but it turns out the real aux thrusters have about the same power as the normal RCS. 

It is slightly larger than 3.125m to match the bottom of the Orion Service Module Adapter. There is another adapter included (same you would use to connect the Orion SM adapter with the ICPS) that will adapt to exactly 3.125m. 

I haven't encountered this - at what point in flight is it happening? Are you sing one of the provided craft files or building your own? 

It seems like we have similar thinking but in completely opposite directions XD 

You're right that redundancy isn't necessary in KSP unless you have part failures, but I would argue that what the dual fuel & aux thrusters provide is redundancy for mission planning. First, unless you use KER you don't have a good idea of how much RCS delta-V you have, so separating the manoeuvring fuel from the RCS fuel allows the player to be sure they have enough delta-V for the mission they're flying.

Keeping the fuels separate also makes the whole flight experience more forgiving. Any docking trouble (docking seems to be the number 1 thing players struggle with once they're able to reach orbit successfully) won't cut into the return-home budget. Conversely, if you do muck up your mission profile and run out of fuel, you have a decent amount of backup fuel and an additional set of thrusters to make the process less painful. As it's KSP the fuel values are quite forgiving, so the spacecraft has roughly the same performance you would expect even with the extra monoprop. Most players won't notice they even have more of it than they need - just like with the big buffer on the amount of Ablator in heat shields - but more experienced players who do want to optimise and are confident in their flying abilities can always tweak the amount down. 

Overall there's no perfect option, but I think I'll stick with what I have, at least by default. Once I'm a bit further along some optional extra that patch for just monoprop or the BDB hypergolic option sound like they might keep everyone happy!

I'm getting no performance issues at all on a fairly low-end machine, but then I don't use TUFX - could you try a couple of things for me:

• Clean reinstall of the mod with a fresh download from github - I did make some changes to the EUS last night so you may not have the latest version
• Try removing TUFX and see if the problem persists
• If those don't do anything, could you send me a screenshot of your reflection settings in-game and the contents of your GameData folder

It's happening around 20-35 seconds after I leave the atmosphere, the interstage just decouples like when I have 20-23 DV left in burn 1, and I'm using one of the provided craft files.

[Socowez]

4 hours ago, benjee10 said:

As for the sound issue, not sure what is going on there but will take a look. I confess the last few test flights I've done have been on mute with TV on in the background so I wasn't aware that was still an issue...

The sound is absent with all PhotonCorp boosters, so it could be a PhotonCorp issue. After all, the mod hasn't been updated in many months.

[GoldForest]

@benjee10 Centaur adapter? (1.875)

Edited September 22, 2022 by GoldForest

[benjee10]

16 hours ago, dababykerman said:

It's happening around 20-35 seconds after I leave the atmosphere, the interstage just decouples like when I have 20-23 DV left in burn 1, and I'm using one of the provided craft files.

That's odd to say the least - unfortunately I can't replicate it. Is there anything in the log when it happens? Does it happen every time? 

13 hours ago, Socowez said:

The sound is absent with all PhotonCorp boosters, so it could be a PhotonCorp issue. After all, the mod hasn't been updated in many months.

I'll take a look and see if I can provide a patch to fix it if it is an issue with Photon. 

3 hours ago, GoldForest said:

 Centaur adapter? (1.875)

Funnily enough I am just working on other payload mount options at the moment, to go along with the default 2.5m option:

1.25m:

0.625m:

Flat fairing base-style:

(these are all still unfinished & pending normal maps etc)

A 1.875m mount seems like it would be a good idea too. I can probably kitbash it out of what I have already. 

These will be variant options for both the USA fairing base, and the new 5m and 6.25m (flared) Simple Adjustable Fairings I'll be adding. 

[GoldForest]

33 minutes ago, benjee10 said:

 

0.625m:

The most expensive cubesat launcher ever. 

Also, is pyrios planned at all? Would like to have these sexy LRBs for SLS:

Edited September 22, 2022 by GoldForest

[LTQ90]

1 hour ago, GoldForest said:

 Would like to have these sexy LRBs for SLS:

 

Wow very nice picture ! Don't know who is sinemi but this is very attractive.