The Munar Excursion Module (M.E.M.) is just too small

[Chris Bolland]

Hey guys,

After playing KSP's expansions for a long time, I've come to the realization that the MEM is a poorly designed part. As other threads have mentioned, the CoM and CoT for the RCS are not balanced properly, forcing players to include patches like the one from @Poodmund to actually make best use of the pod. But another problem has been upsetting my designs.

It's too small.

Compared to the Apollo-style 3-kerbal command pod, it's almost 40% smaller than it should be to be an accurate size for the Lunar Module. This makes designing around this scale inconsistency problematic, especially when playing with other mods like kerbalism, and expansions like breaking ground. I have no room to put extra containers of food and water, and making any sort of fold-able rover to fit on the side of the under-scaled decent stage is almost impossible.

My question is this: Can we fix it? Can I change the size of the part model to more accurately reflect the proper size, and could we change the IVA to match? I have little or no experience in part/IVA fabrication in KSP so I've a little scared to bring this up, but I'd enjoy the part a lot more if it were scaled right, and the rescaled version included Poodmund's fix.

Let's get those little Kerbal engineers running and figure this out.

 

Thanks to VAOS for making this handy reference image I'll link here:

 

[Poodmund]

Here is a link to the discussed patch: 

I assume the player will put a Docking Port Jnr on the top and a Spark engine on the bottom node so that is what the patch uses to offset the CoM of the M.E.M to try and neutralise RCS thrust torque. This doesn't completely zero out due to the bad design and lack of consideration to the RCS thruster placement on the part.

@Chris Bolland, have you considered using Tweakscale: Rescaled to increase the size of the M.E.M? https://spacedock.info/mod/3514/TweakScale Rescaled 

I wouldn't normally recommend using Tweakscale but JonnyOThan is doing a great job in cleaning up any mess from the legacy implementations of the mod.

 

Edited January 25 by Poodmund

[Chris Bolland]

Thanks so much for the reply Poodmund!

Last time I checked out tweakscale it didn't work properly on command pods, and was generally an unstable mess. I'll give this a shot though and let you know how it goes!

I'm also aware of Bluedog Design Bureau's Apollo parts which I might use for just the one Lunar module part.

[JonnyOThan]

38 minutes ago, Chris Bolland said:

Thanks so much for the reply Poodmund!

Last time I checked out tweakscale it didn't work properly on command pods, and was generally an unstable mess. I'll give this a shot though and let you know how it goes!

I'm also aware of Bluedog Design Bureau's Apollo parts which I might use for just the one Lunar module part.

Note that my version still cannot *increase* the crew capacity when you scale a part up.  But I think that's not an issue in this case right?

IVAs should scale with the part, and that has some interesting effects on Kerbal sizes...

[dave1904]

20 hours ago, Chris Bolland said:

Thanks so much for the reply Poodmund!

Last time I checked out tweakscale it didn't work properly on command pods, and was generally an unstable mess. I'll give this a shot though and let you know how it goes!

I'm also aware of Bluedog Design Bureau's Apollo parts which I might use for just the one Lunar module part.

If you use BDB then go all in an use 2.5 rescale. It's actually not really any harder than stock because the engines are considerably more powerful. BDB is the best mod I've ever played in any game. The attention to detail is something else. Loading times can be a pain in the ass but it's worth it.