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Orion aka "Ol' Boom-boom"

nyrath

By nyrath
in KSP1 Mod Development

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Fyrem

Fyrem

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Going to use this to move a fully loaded Orbital Constrction werehouse from LKO to Jool orbit... thats 1000t of mass just in spare part cargo.

May I juggest a larger side connection node between the tank and the Engine? such a small node is very .. fragile.

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nyrath

nyrath

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Going to use this to move a fully loaded Orbital Constrction werehouse from LKO to Jool orbit... thats 1000t of mass just in spare part cargo.

May I juggest a larger side connection node between the tank and the Engine? such a small node is very .. fragile.

Heh, go for it.

For what it is worth, the connecting node has some outrageous values for breaking force, breaking torque, linear strength and angular strength.

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Hremsfeld

Hremsfeld

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*blink* *blink*

Enable both column and radial attachment? I did not think that was possible.

And what happens if you have a stack of magazines, then decide to eject the one on the bottom? I'd think that if they were using column attachment, the entire stack would be ejected. And if it was using radial attachment, the unsupported magazines would hang there until the acceleration stress tore them away. But I do not know what would actually happen.

The method used by the original USAF Orion was complicated and I am not going to try and duplicate it. The feed intakes on the engine ate bombs from the magazine at the bottom. When the bottom magazine was empty, it was ejected, and the entire stack would move down on rails until the new bottom-most magazine was seated in place.

I did have the bomb import ports and magazine ejection pistons modeled in the 3D model, you can see them at the bottom of the magazine array. I removed them for this new version because I was afraid they would be encased in the collider for the engine, and prevent the magazines from being attached.

I'm not sure I can visualize the oblique ejection angle that will accommodate both column and radial attachment. Can you make a quick sketch?

Oh, I didn't know about it feeding bottom-first. It's obvious, looking back, but I guess I've been playing this game too long. I was picturing the upper magazines emptying first for whatever reason.

I copied the radial decoupler and added the Rockomax stack decoupler's decoupling module to it so it had both. If the stack module activated, there's a puff of smoke but no decoupling. If the radial module activated, it behaved like a radial decoupler. If both, it behaved like a radial decoupler. I was thinking that the ejection force could be applied at an angle, rather than perpindicular/parallel to the rest of the construction. I'm not sure if this would actually help or not. Detachment arrows would be needed, so this is probably more trouble than it's worth. Did a quick "sketch" anyways...I am not an artist.

Actually not increasing the payload, instead increasing the propellant fraction (i.e., the mass ratio).

I had thought of doing the spine in sections, but that both compromises the structural stability and increases the part count (which has a direct impact on the frames per second). The current spine allows for 60 magazine or 3,600 nukes. Canopus managed to go from Kerbal orbit to Duna with only 250 nukes. I'm not saying you'll never need more, but you have to make trade-offs.

Yeah, that spine is good as-is. It can already take 24 tons to Eeloo and 12 tons back off-CoM, with one of the worst possible phase angles, and still have a third of its capacity. I definitely agree that you wouldn't want to reduce structural integrity or FPS if you don't have to.

ohboy, I didn't even think about that. Bad idea to keep sucking from one magazine until it is empty.

One magazine has a mass of 4.92 tons (4.74 tons for the 60 bombs, 0.18 for the empty magazine). Using up one magazine then ejecting it will move the ship's center of gravity by almost 5 tons. That's got to hurt the ship's stability.

Will have to try and absorb equally from the top 6 magazines.

Being off-CoM isn't an absolute end-of-the-world...but it was still pretty inconvenient, especially without RCS. And most people probably wouldn't want to time accel to stop rotation. Of course, that was with about a third of the total mass being offset, but hey.

Both the engine and the magazine array have

dragModelType = default

maximum_drag = 0.2

minimum_drag = 0.2

angularDrag = 2

because those were the values in the part.cfg file I cribbed from, and I didn't know what reasonable values were. Suggestions?

I'd have to play around with different values to be able to answer that, because I don't know, either.

On the topic of .cfg values, I'm a bit surprised the engine is as light as it is. I know you'd reduced it from 91 tons for thrust/weight reasons; perhaps something heavier is called for? I'm saying this as someone who hasn't actually done heavy lifting with the ultimate heavy lifter, but something that large and that dense probably shouldn't be that light.

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Fyrem

Fyrem

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When even I dock to a ship that has this engine one of the bombs is launched. this is really messing with my orbit, as I am sure you can imagin. is there any way to prevent (or to recode) the engine so that when it is 'activated', or 'staged to' so that is doesn't launch one bomb?

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nyrath

nyrath

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When even I dock to a ship that has this engine one of the bombs is launched. this is really messing with my orbit, as I am sure you can imagin. is there any way to prevent (or to recode) the engine so that when it is 'activated', or 'staged to' so that is doesn't launch one bomb?

Yikes! I didn't know it did that. It is easy to stop that, but I'm worried about lift-off. If you have your rocket held clear of the launch pad by stabilizers, you'll have to be quick to hit the spacebar then immediately hit the Z key. Otherwise the ship will fall to the ground and blow up.

I'll look into this.

Come to think of it, why doesn't this happen with all the engines in the game?

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nyrath

nyrath

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I copied the radial decoupler and added the Rockomax stack decoupler's decoupling module to it so it had both. If the stack module activated, there's a puff of smoke but no decoupling. If the radial module activated, it behaved like a radial decoupler. If both, it behaved like a radial decoupler. I was thinking that the ejection force could be applied at an angle, rather than perpindicular/parallel to the rest of the construction. I'm not sure if this would actually help or not. Detachment arrows would be needed, so this is probably more trouble than it's worth. Did a quick "sketch" anyways...I am not an artist.

Oh, now I see! That's not a bad sketch at all!

I was resisting putting the framework with the magazines, since the framework scaffolding pattern only repeats over several magazine-heights. If I can get the stacks working, I can avoid that.

I assume you were activating the two different modules by commenting out sections of the part.cfg file? Pardon my newbie-ness, but what is a detachment arrow?

I'm such a newbie at this. I have the new engine, with the spine incorporated into the engine. In the part.cfg file I put seven node_stack_top nodes, one on the top of the spine, and six where the bottoms of the magazine colums will rest. On a single magazine disc I place one stack top node and one stack bottom node, and set attachRules = 1,0,1,1,0. I can place one magazine on each of the six spots on the engine. But I cannot place a second magazine on top of an existing magazine. I tried attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0, but makes the magazine try to stick to the outer skin of the engine. I'll figure it out.

Being off-CoM isn't an absolute end-of-the-world...but it was still pretty inconvenient, especially without RCS. And most people probably wouldn't want to time accel to stop rotation. Of course, that was with about a third of the total mass being offset, but hey.

I'll assign that bug a lower priority in Bugzilla.

I'd have to play around with different values to be able to answer that, because I don't know, either.

On the topic of .cfg values, I'm a bit surprised the engine is as light as it is. I know you'd reduced it from 91 tons for thrust/weight reasons; perhaps something heavier is called for? I'm saying this as someone who hasn't actually done heavy lifting with the ultimate heavy lifter, but something that large and that dense probably shouldn't be that light.

Well, the problem is the original USAF Orion had a thrust to weight ratio of about 0.5. I fudged the engine mass to make it capable of lift-off, but obviously I fudged it a bit much.

Of course the USAF was using 3,500 kN bombs, if I can get the magazines working I can offer a selection of 2,000 kN, 3,500 kN, 80,000 kN, and 400,000 kN. I'm sure the latter can handle a 91 ton engine with no trouble at all.

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MDBenson

MDBenson

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Real problems with Orion aside...

This mod is awesome, if a little tricky to control. For landing and more fine work, a bunch of radial liquid engines (I had 12) with a pair of action group keys that lets you switch them off and on is good for fine tuning orbits etc., just match as close to the speed you want with charges then flickj the OMS engines on and off to fine tune it. Steering the sucker needs a lot of SAS torque or just a ton of RCS fuel and thrusters.

I actually like that it's disconnected from the throttle controls as it makes it easier to control and give you the option for fine control via conventional engines above.

This is great. I've tried to explain Orion to so many people and they simply cannot get their heads around it. A video of this thing in action is just what's needed. They can see, graphically how the ide of the pusher plate and the charges works to propel the vehicle using Newtonian physics.

Didn't Freeman Dyson do a calculation that a typical launch of Orion would risk killing an average of 0.11 people per launch or something crazy? It was surprisingly low, I do know.

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nyrath

nyrath

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So, I had a curious event happen today. I had an orion interplanetary stage deliver a lander to the Mun, then detached a lander, landed, and returned.

I got to within about 1 km and almost matched orbits, but ran out of fuel and RCS on the lander. So, 1km away, I use ] to switch focus to the Orion drive vessel.

The orion drive and other orion parts disappeared, and all of the other parts (12 of the largest "grey" stock fuel tanks, a hitchhiker compartment+ASAS+RCS tank, some RCS thrusters) go flying in wildly different directions - not any explosion, just that the very wide central component they had been attached to suddenly vanished, and they were at different heights above the Mun so were on divergent orbits.

Any attempts to save the game failed, and using ] to scroll through the options, there was one completely invisible part; I'm guessing that was the drive and magazine, and somehow the graphics (and collision meshes) for them vanished. That's why everything else came apart like that, I think.

@nyrath i just docked my lander back on the Orion mothership without the reported explosion issue.

Hrrmph. That's annoying. But good to know it is not universal.

Khyron42, could I please have a copy of the craft file of the ship this happened to? Were you using KSP 0.20 or 0.19 or other? What mods were you using?

When even I dock to a ship that has this engine one of the bombs is launched. this is really messing with my orbit, as I am sure you can imagin. is there any way to prevent (or to recode) the engine so that when it is 'activated', or 'staged to' so that is doesn't launch one bomb?

Canopus, when you docked your lander, did the Orion mothership detonate a bomb?

Thanks for testing this out.

Real problems with Orion aside...

This mod is awesome, if a little tricky to control. For landing and more fine work, a bunch of radial liquid engines (I had 12) with a pair of action group keys that lets you switch them off and on is good for fine tuning orbits etc., just match as close to the speed you want with charges then flickj the OMS engines on and off to fine tune it. Steering the sucker needs a lot of SAS torque or just a ton of RCS fuel and thrusters.

I actually like that it's disconnected from the throttle controls as it makes it easier to control and give you the option for fine control via conventional engines above.

This is great. I've tried to explain Orion to so many people and they simply cannot get their heads around it. A video of this thing in action is just what's needed. They can see, graphically how the ide of the pusher plate and the charges works to propel the vehicle using Newtonian physics.

Didn't Freeman Dyson do a calculation that a typical launch of Orion would risk killing an average of 0.11 people per launch or something crazy? It was surprisingly low, I do know.

OK, I'm not sure if I can rig the Orion so you can toggle between Z-key mode and Throttle mode. One or the other.

Everybody vote on which you'd like.

MDBenson, your radial engines sound awesome. Did you make any screen caps?

You need tons of torque because the blasted bomb magazine module is almost 50 tons. And in the future that may go up, if I can get the individual magazine option to work. The rack will hold up to 3,600 bombs, for a total mass of 295 tons.

I'm glad the Orion mod is educational, since the educational nature of KSP is what originally made me an enthusiastic fan. Orion = action and reaction in one easy lesson.

IIRC Freeman's calculation was based on the increase in background radiation and rising cancer risk with a few Orion launches. As it turns out, the fallout problem can be mitigated by using an armor-steel launch pad covered in graphite dust.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclearspace-03h.html

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Canopus

Canopus

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But what if you just want to fire a single bomb? How could that be done with the Throttle?

@Darth Vader you won't need to hold Z for an eternity given that the Orion as a pretty strong acceleration.

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