Orion aka "Ol' Boom-boom"

[nyrath]

As a side note, remember that the Orion bombs will destroy everything within the blast radius. Somebody pointed out that this might be useful when trying clear orbital debris.

I am in awe of Canopus' design. By the way, how many bombs did you have to expend in order to travel to Duna?

Nyrath,

I have no idea if you already know this or not but the currently accepted standard is to scale Real-life items by 64% to "kerbal size" them. (Eg: ISS project, Anything Bobcat, Fusty, Devo, Wcole, etc.).

Ah, I didn't know that. What does everybody think? Should I make the current mod 64% size?

My only hesitation is that Canopus has already made some rocket stacks with the current size, and they look remarkably like pictures of real Orion designs.

This is Canopus' incredible design:

These are real Orion designs:

Edited May 22, 2013 by nyrath

[Fyrem]

can you package both? a RL scale and a Kerbal Scale unit? - ok, I guess I am just being greedy

but it can't hurt to ask

[Canopus]

I would keep the current size and make the model on the first site of this thread also avaiable as a smaller version

This one:

[Canopus]

I am in awe of Canopus' design. By the way, how many bombs did you have to expend in order to travel to Duna?

I used a liquid first stage consisting of six boosters to get the ship into Orbit:

From a 100x100 km orbit around Kerbin it took me 224 bombs to get into a 1000x1000 km Duna orbit

[Itsdavyjones]

Well seeing that this is out now (albeit beta), I might change my mother ship from ion powered to Orion powered, depending on the amount of kick provided. (Mothership is extremely long and only half fits in the VAB). But otherwise, sweet. And do you mind updating the first post with the download link, it'll make it easier then digging in the thread.

[nyrath]

I might change my mother ship from ion powered to Orion powered, depending on the amount of kick provided.

You can change the amount of kick provided by editing the part.cfg file. Currently it is 80,000 kiloNewtons per explosive device, with one explosion per second.

And do you mind updating the first post with the download link, it'll make it easier then digging in the thread.

Right! Sorry about that, should of thought of it myself. Like I said this is my very first mod, I'm a novice.

I also should have zipped of the file with a "parts" folder containing the two parts. Like the pros do it.

In other good news I managed to get the light flash working. Now at night the lift off lights up the launch site like a giant flashbulb. I'm still working on other issues.

From a 100x100 km orbit around Kerbin it took me 224 bombs to get into a 1000x1000 km Duna orbit

That's remarkably good fuel economy, I think.

I'm wondering about the Orion's heavy lift capacity. That can be tweeked in the parts.cfg file.

I'll think about doing the small version. It shouldn't be too hard to do, the plugin was the hard part and it won't change. But first there are a few things I have to fix on the current one.

Edited May 22, 2013 by nyrath

[Canopus]

Awesome nyrath!

[Mekan1k]

...

This is so cool.... I Am going to test this right now (New save, of course, so that IF I irradiate Kerbin, I will be able to learn from it)

[nyrath]

A gentleman named veritropism said

My third test launch got to Duna orbit easily, with 351 nukes left after getting into a nearly circular orbit. I launched about 30 degrees out of proper alignment for a minimum-fuel launch.

I also tested its ability to vaporize a Kerbal in orbit. Poor Bob died for science! (again)

http://imgur.com/a/4XY8L

Earlier he tried placing other ships on the ground, to see what the Orion launch would do to them

Takeoff worked well. A ship 600m away was not damaged, but may have been rocked to the side (when I switched to controlling it later it was slightly sideways.)

Retested launch with dual magazines and a target 300 m away, and that target was sent soaring but the Orion could barely get off the ground:

http://i.imgur.com/9v26Y5k.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2rUn7oG.png

[nyrath]

And the Orion mod does work in .20, though eventually I'll have to alter the mod into the new format

[Wait- Was That Important?]

I love this, I've wanted an Orion Pusher-Plate type deal for a long time now in KSP! Thank you thank you thank you!

[magnemoe]

This look real good and is very fun, might be an way to remove derbies with to

Works well now, behaves like an pulse engine should, next should be to make weight and trust more realistic, one of the main benefit of an orion engine is the huge trust however as I understand this might be hard, might even be better to return to using constant trust and add the explosions, plate animation and g-force variation on top.

Another request who should be easier is

to make the pulse units an transferable resource like kerthane.

[nyrath]

next should be to make weight and trust more realistic, one of the main benefit of an orion engine is the huge trust however as I understand this might be hard, might even be better to return to using constant trust and add the explosions, plate animation and g-force variation on top.

Another request who should be easier is

to make the pulse units an transferable resource like kerthane.

Well, the thrust is not a problem.

Here is the situation: I modeled the 3D image of the Orion on the 1960 USAF 10 meter Orion design. However, that design was made after they figured out that the American public was not going to be happy about an Orion ship taking off from the ground under atom-bomb power. Too much fallout.

In other words, the bomb size was constrained by political reasons, not by engineering reasons.

So they made it lofted by the bottom two stages of a Saturn V rocket. Since plutonium is expensive and massive, they scaled the bombs down to only 1 kiloton. This is all the thrust you need for that altitude. But for a ground launch, 1 kiloton makes a thrust to weight ratio of 0.55 (thrust of 3,500 kiloNewtons). Too little to take off.

Since I knew that Jeb was going to want to take off from the ground, I made the mod use 5 kiloton pulse units (designed for a 4,000 short ton ship). These have a thrust of 80,000 kiloNewtons, as you can see in the part.cfg file.

If that is not enough, the 10,000 short ton Orion was to use 15 kiloton pulse units. That will give you a whopping 400,000 kiloNewtons of thrust. That is enough to transport an entire Mun base in one trip.

Of course it is also enough shock that it might shake the ship to pieces. I haven't actually tried it.

Alternatively, one can play with the part.cfg file to make the bombs go off faster than 1 per second. For instance, if they go off at a rate of 2 per second, your thrust will be doubled.

I do have to figure out how to make the nuclear bombs more like a resource. Right now the engine code is so stupid it can only find one bomb magazine, regardless of how many you add. I'm still learning about mod making.

Edited May 23, 2013 by nyrath

[lyndonguitar]

Can you do this one too?

Also, My KSP testing of Nuclear Pulse Propulsion, version 0.19.1, SO AWESOME!!!!

[zirgon]

Awesome mod!

Tested it on 0.19.1, it brings no game breaking.

Even more, this engine brings variety in game, you have to think in terms of discrete pulses, not continuous flow of thrust. Of course it needs to have thrust control by changing frequency of pulses and some strap-on pulse-units tanks to change mission profile on VAB stage in terms of delat-V. But even in this state, i repeat, this mod is very, very good! Waiting eagerly for 0.20 adaptation

I`m sad and disappointed that our countries abandoned this excellent propulsion system.

Sorry for my english, obviously lacking proper grammar, cause i`m russian

P.S

Nyrath, i want to thank you for your awesome site which is so informative, addictive and interesting. I`ve learned so much about spacefaring, reading it whole through (yeah, apparently i can read well, but my speech is soooo bad... ).

[Kerbal01]

.20 compatability?

[Canopus]

.20 compatability?

It is perfectly compatible.

[nyrath]

Can you do this one too?

Well, that is the Orion created by my buddy Rhys Taylor, and he'd rather I didn't.

However, I have seen other people take my Orion mod and strap booster rockets all around it.

Nice screen shots! Look at that thing go!

Awesome mod!

Tested it on 0.19.1, it brings no game breaking.

Even more, this engine brings variety in game, you have to think in terms of discrete pulses, not continuous flow of thrust. Of course it needs to have thrust control by changing frequency of pulses and some strap-on pulse-units tanks to change mission profile on VAB stage in terms of delat-V. But even in this state, i repeat, this mod is very, very good! Waiting eagerly for 0.20 adaptation

I`m sad and disappointed that our countries abandoned this excellent propulsion system.

Sorry for my english, obviously lacking proper grammar, cause i`m russian

P.S

Nyrath, i want to thank you for your awesome site which is so informative, addictive and interesting. I`ve learned so much about spacefaring, reading it whole through (yeah, apparently i can read well, but my speech is soooo bad... ).

Zirgon, no need to apologize. You speak English far better than I speak Russian.

Yes, I am trying to figure out how to change the pulse rate. Maybe by using the standard thrust control, though Canopus like hitting the Z key (as do I).

And I'm glad you enjoyed my website!

As Canopus found out the mod will work as is in 0.20. I will, however, eventually alter the mod's structure to match the new standard.

I'm trying to make the part.cfg settings to be close to the original USAF 10 meter Orion ship. As it turns out, it works pretty well as long as I reduce the number of nuclear devices from 3,600 to 600, and the mass of the engine from 91 tons to 2 (kerbal sized it). And changed the impulse per bomb from 1000 kiloNewtons to the USAF rated 3,500 kiloNewtons.

Actually at that rating, flying the ship with just a cockpit on top gives it an acceleration of about 6 gs! It can do about 1.5 gs while carrying 100 tons of payload.

Edited May 23, 2013 by nyrath

[nyrath]

Can you actually land with it and will it destroy anything too close to it on takeoffs and landings?.

Whenever I try landing it, it always ends in a big explosion. But yes, it will totally destroy everything with 220 meters of the bomb blasts (except for the fixed items at the space center.

Quick question, though; I noticed in the screenshots that explosions aren't putting off a whole lot of light, and while that's just a minor aesthetic issue of mine, is it possible to make the bomb detonations emit a brighter flash when they detonate?

Yes, the bomb now illuminate everything with a camera-strobe like flash.

I had to reduce the range of the flash. While the thing was pulsing away in orbit, it was illuminating the entire Kerbal ocean.

[zirgon]

As Canopus found out the mod will work as is in 0.20. I will, however, eventually alter the mod's structure to match the new standard.

Yep, i already understand how to retrofit your excellent mod to 0.20 (100 metric tones refueling craft on Jool orbit, by the power of science!), but some hapless souls couldn't do it, so this work needs to be done.

Keep up good work, and bring the power of atom in SPAAACE (really like this phrase in english).

Actually at that rating, flying the ship with just a cockpit on top gives it an acceleration of about 6 gs! It can do about 1.5 gs while carrying 100 tons of payload.

Even considerably sized down Orion engine is overkill. Maybe it could serve its educational value by showing effectiveness of nuclear pulse propulsion to the young.

[Canopus]

Even considerably sized down Orion engine is overkill. Maybe it could serve its educational value by showing effectiveness of nuclear pulse propulsion to the young.

Maybe some politicians could change their minds and lift the outer space weapons treaty:)

[nyrath]

Even considerably sized down Orion engine is overkill.

Well, that depends on the mission.

A single cockpit on top of an Orion is overkill.

An Orion boosting a 100 ton space station into orbit with one launch is not overkill. Or into orbit around Jool.

Phooey, found a new bug!

I attached landing struts to the pusher plate, in an attempt to land the blasted thing. When a bomb is detonated, the pusher plate moves forward. Unfortunately the landing struts do not move, they just sort of hover in mid-air.

This is going to be challenging to fix, maybe. You see the engine is composed of two parts, the pusher plate and the main body.

If the struts are attached to the Engine, it is going to be challenging.

If the struts are attached to the Pusher Plate, it will be easy.

What I have to do is find everything attached to the plate, and move it with the plate. If parts are attached to the Engine, I'm not going to know which engine sub-part they are attached to.

In any event, my landing attempt failed. I came down a bit too hard, the magazine array blew up, and I was left with the engine and the cockpit rolling around on the ground.

Which reminds me, I have to code it so when the magazine array blows up, it also destroys everything within about 220 meters.

Edited May 24, 2013 by nyrath

[mushroomman]

Well this is quite awesome. But the size is a bit too large for me, so I changed scale and rescalefactor to 0.5, and the model scaled to a size which is better for me anyway, but the attachment nodes are messed up. I also need to tweak the power of the drive itself, but how would I fix the nodes?

[Fyrem]

i have heard, that the Scale/Rescalefactor settings MUST both be used, not just one of them.

add Scale=1 with your rescalefactor, and see if that helps.

[mushroomman]

i have heard, that the Scale/Rescalefactor settings MUST both be used, not just one of them.

add Scale=1 with your rescalefactor, and see if that helps.

I had them both set to 0.5. Maybe if I changed scale to 1 it'll work.

edit - yeah. That got it. Thanks!

Edited May 24, 2013 by mushroomman