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Nuclear Rockets [WIP]

Kommitz

By Kommitz
in KSP1 Mod Development

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PTNLemay

PTNLemay

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Sorry if this has been asked to death, but... what program did you use to create your own parts? Blender? Is it complicated making them into a KSP-compatible part?

I have lots of wild ideas for parts, but little actual skill in implementing them.

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Kommitz

Kommitz

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Hadn't seen that, haven't checked the page lately. Last I saw the older fatmans were still up......

Thank you for informing me....

I'm taking a very long time texturing things because, although I like the results, I find it a bit boring. Just be glad I'm not a developer :E

Sorry if this has been asked to death, but... what program did you use to create your own parts? Blender? Is it complicated making them into a KSP-compatible part?

I have lots of wild ideas for parts, but little actual skill in implementing them.

I use 3DStudio Max for modeling, and GIMP for textures. If you can model something then importing it into KSP is really the easy bit.

Here, have a look at the 240 (now the 280) on a space tug I built

fdSCJ68.png:

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Kommitz

Kommitz

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This ^_^. Love the steering rings at the end of the nozzles. Are they animated, or is it just a decoration?

I'd animate them properly if I knew of a plugin I could use, but currently they're just rotating around the gimbal.

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Kommitz

Kommitz

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Great work! A suggestion: turn the red bits yellow. It may be better for stockalike.

I'm not really aiming for stock-alike with these engines, I'm just trying to make the texturing technique fairly similar (simple, limited colour palette) so they don't look completely out of place. Also I like the red-green colour scheme I'm working with at the moment so it's staying.

I might put out an alternate texture pack if people are interested though, I could always do with the practice and it's nice to have some variety.

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BigFatStupidHead

BigFatStupidHead

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Why don't you do both textures, the one you like as well as a stockalike? If you're interested in getting the practice, and people are interested in stockalike, it seems like everyone will end up a winner.

Love the engines, by the way. Looking forward to the Fatman re-release.

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Kommitz

Kommitz

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Hey, what's progress on said re-release? I've wanted to get these things (because they look awesome) but they have been taken down :(

Do you have an estimate on when they'll be back or is this one of those, wait and be surprised new unveiling type deals?

In case you haven't already, check my release thread!

Also here's a little blockout of a 0.625m engine. It seems a bit impractical to do a full on nuclear reactor at that scale so I'm basing this off the idea of a radioisotope rocket; like an RTG with propellant run over it. It'll be less efficient than a full on reactor based NTR but should be an interesting alternative to Ions for some probes, albeit still with very small thrust.

lfgx6FG.jpg

Not entirely sold on the pump to be honest, I might just decide to go with it as a pressure fed engine.

As for the realistic fuels and things I've been pondering about for ages, I'm thinking of tying them in with some other parts I'm making. More on that when I've got some concept art down.

Edited by Kommitz
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  • 2 weeks later...
TouhouTorpedo

TouhouTorpedo

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I'm going to release a few tanks (the toroidal one included) when 0.21 is out. I'm currently reworking my fatman engines and I'll put a collection of round tanks out with them when I re-release the pack.

In fact...

redes2.jpg

Here's the FTmN 240 re-work that I'm currently finishing. Including a thrust vectoring mechanism on the model, trying to make it look a bit more 'atom punk' and lowering the polygon count in the process!

I'm waiting until someone produces a suitable plugin/I can convince a plugin maker to help me. I've no hope of writing my own for ages.

Hey there, if you've not got that thrust vectoring on that lower ring down yet, I can drop my thoughts in on how I'd do it.

Have the ring as a seperate object in the model, set up each arm to the ring as two objects in the model (piston, cylinder) the piston and cylinder models must have their longitudinal axis about the Z axis, pointing toward one another. and their origins at the attach points (a pain to set up from where you are, maybe easier to remake those actuator bits) When in Unity set up a ThrustTransform containing the ring model. Now place the pistons in place in the ring's heirarchy, and the cylinders under the main engine models heirarchy. Use LookAtFX from the wheel cfg's to force the rods to always look at each other by refering to the names of each object. If all goes well, the ring should be vectoring and the pistons and cylinders following it.

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Kommitz

Kommitz

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Stuff

I actually figured that out by looking at other configs (and the current release uses it).

Also here's that tiny nuclear engine, I think it's kawaii as ಠ_ಠuck. It's pressure fed now.

0stUFrd.jpg

I'm working on some parts for resource mining too, but I'll wait until they're textured a bit before I show anything. Mostly meant as aesthetic alternatives to others because I wanted to make some cool looking mining and industrial stuff.

Also considering making a config for Kethane that'll add water (or more often, specifically, ice) to it so you can make your own nuclear propellant, which would reside in tanks like this:

F15dZgV.jpg

Going with a density 1/10th that of the standard liquidfuel, which means that while the tanks may be huge, they'll not weigh very much. This one full weighs half of the orange tank, which means the mass fraction of the fuel is really awful with the standard fueltank ratios. Will change that for the purposes of balancing.

EDIT:

KfY9KKT.jpg

Here's a 1.25m reactor to match my engines, too.

Edited by Kommitz
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