Orion aka "Ol' Boom-boom"

[Anglave]

So, I'm at home now, on a much more powerful machine. I'm running Win7 x64 and have a fairly serious gaming rig.

I've got 0.20.2 installed, and the only mod I use or have installed is Kerbal Engineer Redux.

I downloaded a fresh copy of Orion v9 and unzipped it. Launched KSP and built the same stack.

Clicked launch and almost perfectly recreated the same vibration->airborne spinning->explosion. Never activated the engine nor fired a nuke.

The mod seems perfect and the engine is quite usable so long as I only try to use one layer of magazines, and only 2MN or smaller magazines.

[Markarian421]

I just installed this tonight, and it's great fun, thanks!

Whenever I tried the engine with the built in rack and manually added magazines, the results were similar to what's being reported above -- the ship would tear itself apart/explode as soon as I hit launch. The magazines shake and violently eject. I started over from scratch with the same end result. Using the other engine and any combination of magazines I've tried so far works fine. OS X, KSP 0.20.2

[NovaSilisko]

So! Inspiration struck me and I cranked out this thing over a period of about two hours or so. Going to be powered by this plugin. Three parts, the cabin (built-in docking doors and payload bay, crew of 4 or 6 kerbs), bomb canister (built in docking port, 2.5m diameter), and orion engine (6 built-in docking ports to attach bomb canisters). The whole thing is 9m diameter. The payload bay has more than enough room for a big lander, or huge amounts of cargo. I'm trying to think of how you could possibly land it to put in more cargo, since flying into an atmosphere retrograde with an orion engine means having your nukes blasted by air resistance back into the rear of your spacecraft, where they then detonate and kill everyone (though this isn't simulated by the mod ) Could just be a space-only craft, though.

Anyway, here's a render of the whole mess:

Here it is in normal form:

Still need to model the rocket engines for non-nuclear travel, as well as built-in beefy RCS for the cabin to help control the ship. And no, this is not for the stock game.

Edited June 5, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[Canopus]

Looks very Awesome!

[Tommygun]

Maybe it needs a new type of radial NERVA engines?

[Splode]

I'm glad you still contribute to the modding community, novasilisko!

That model is fantastic.

[Mekan1k]

Novasilisko- Wow!

[nyrath]

I clicked the "launch" button, which loaded it sitting on the pad.

Then the photo, above.

Ah, what was the kind and number of each magazine? I'm trying to get the bug to reproduce on my system here. Until I can reproduce it, it is almost impossible to fix it.

Sorry the mod is being so uncooperative.

[nyrath]

So! Inspiration struck me and I cranked out this thing over a period of about two hours or so. Going to be powered by this plugin. Three parts, the cabin (built-in docking doors and payload bay, crew of 4 or 6 kerbs), bomb canister (built in docking port, 2.5m diameter), and orion engine (6 built-in docking ports to attach bomb canisters). The whole thing is 9m diameter. The payload bay has more than enough room for a big lander, or huge amounts of cargo. I'm trying to think of how you could possibly land it to put in more cargo, since flying into an atmosphere retrograde with an orion engine means having your nukes blasted by air resistance back into the rear of your spacecraft, where they then detonate and kill everyone (though this isn't simulated by the mod ) Could just be a space-only craft, though.

Anyway, here's a render of the whole mess:

That is glorious NovaSilisko! Looking forwards to seeing the finished product.

Let me know if you have any questions about the code, though I'm sure you will have little problem figuring it out (especially since it is based on the code you gave me). Any difficulties understanding my code will probably be because I'm a novice at C#. The readme file has a few notes about making the mod work with other mesh models.

Edited June 5, 2013 by nyrath

[nyrath]

So, I'm at home now, on a much more powerful machine. I'm running Win7 x64 and have a fairly serious gaming rig.

I've got 0.20.2 installed, and the only mod I use or have installed is Kerbal Engineer Redux.

I downloaded a fresh copy of Orion v9 and unzipped it. Launched KSP and built the same stack.

Clicked launch and almost perfectly recreated the same vibration->airborne spinning->explosion. Never activated the engine nor fired a nuke.

The mod seems perfect and the engine is quite usable so long as I only try to use one layer of magazines, and only 2MN or smaller magazines.

I just installed this tonight, and it's great fun, thanks!

Whenever I tried the engine with the built in rack and manually added magazines, the results were similar to what's being reported above -- the ship would tear itself apart/explode as soon as I hit launch. The magazines shake and violently eject. I started over from scratch with the same end result. Using the other engine and any combination of magazines I've tried so far works fine. OS X, KSP 0.20.2

Anglave, Markarian421 if you feel up to it, I'd like you to try an experiment. Only if you feel up to it, mind you.

In the Parts folder there are three folders with the problem magazines: USAFOrionMag1kt3_5mn, USAFOrionMag5kt80mn, USAFOrionMag15kt400mn. I'm reasonably sure the problem is because the magazines have too much mass. Let's try changing that.

In each of those folders is a part.cfg file. You should have the originals in the zip file you downloaded, so you can edit the ones in your KSP folder.

For each part.cfg file, open the file with notepad or some other simple text processor. Do not use MS word or some fancy word processor because it might alter the file in such a way that KSP cannot read it (specifically by altering the "end of line" character).

In each file, find the line that says

mass = 13.3386

(or whatever mass)

and change it to

mass = 1

In each file, fine the line that says

bombMass = 0.141

(or whatever bombMass)

and change it to

bombMass = 0.01

Save the files, then try making big stacks again and see if they blow up on the launch pad.

As near as I can figure, the problem is due to the fact that if a part is linked to another part where the mass difference is larger than x10 or so, the parts start to jump around. Since some of these magazines have a mass difference of x100 or so, that could be the cause.

Again I'm sorry the mod is being so difficult.

[nyrath]

New Version Up for Testing

Go to first entry in thread

I drastically reduced the mass of the larger magazines. I did finally manage to reproduce the problem by making tall stacks of the 400MN and 80MN magazines, including the hovering in mid-air physics breakage.

I did note that with massive stacks of magazines, the advanced SAS was not up to the task of keeping the vessel's nose pointed in the desired direction. You need lots of RCS as well. In VAB, use center of gravity indicator.

Anglave, Markarian421 try this version. If you are still having problems I'll reduce the mass some more.

I did try reducing the mass to under 1 ton. The control capsule popped off. When I tried tying down the capsule with lots of struts, two 400MN detonations was enough to send the vessel into Kerbin escape trajectory.

[Anglave]

nyrath, while you were working on this latest version this morning, I did as you suggested and tested some altered magazines with reduced mass.

The magazines work fine when they're paper-light.

Unfortunately, as you noted, this does somewhat affect the mass/weight ratio of the craft. It's Ludicrous

[nyrath]

So! Inspiration struck me and I cranked out this thing over a period of about two hours or so. Going to be powered by this plugin. Three parts, the cabin (built-in docking doors and payload bay, crew of 4 or 6 kerbs), bomb canister (built in docking port, 2.5m diameter), and orion engine (6 built-in docking ports to attach bomb canisters). The whole thing is 9m diameter. The payload bay has more than enough room for a big lander, or huge amounts of cargo.

That model is gorgeous!

I have a question, but you do not have to answer if you care not to.

I have problems with the mesh of my engine in the central column section. The areas inside the column for the stacks of magazines makes the collision mesh have concavities, which are not allowed in a convex collision mesh. Your engine with the build-in docking ports for the bomb canisters seem to have the same concavity problem? How does one address this?

I'm trying to think of how you could possibly land it to put in more cargo, since flying into an atmosphere retrograde with an orion engine means having your nukes blasted by air resistance back into the rear of your spacecraft, where they then detonate and kill everyone (though this isn't simulated by the mod )

The USAF and NASA 10 meter Orions used a cannon powered by compressed ammonia to fire the nuke through a hole in the pusher plate.

For a tail lander, offhand I'd say you'd have to make the nukes mounted on tiny missiles in order to get them to the desired detonation point despite the air resistance.

At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The mod does not try to simulate the nuke placement since there was no point. Happens too fast to see, and it contributed nothing to gameplay.

I did try using girders and things to make long skinny "legs" with retractable landing feet on the ends. The Orion still came down hard enough to blow up when I tried playing atomic "Lunar Lander" to the left of the space center launch pad. I'll have to try it with the 0.88MN tiny nukes.

[nyrath]

nyrath, while you were working on this latest version this morning, I did as you suggested and tested some altered magazines with reduced mass.

The magazines work fine when they're paper-light.

Unfortunately, as you noted, this does somewhat affect the mass/weight ratio of the craft. It's Ludicrous

In my latest version, the fix is basically making the part.cfg of the 80MN magazine have bombMass = 0.2 instead of 1.152, and part.cfg of the 400MN magazine have a bombMass = 0.3 instead of 3.68

I could lower the bombImpulse to address the mass/weight ratio, but we want this thing to be able to lift off.

I get the feeling that the KSP physics engine was not designed to handle such dense loads.

[NovaSilisko]

It's not so much that as having said dense loads dangling off the side of something that's very lightweight. Try increasing the engine mass to something like 30, see if that does anything? Last I checked it only weighed 2 units.

Also, you replied to my post twice

Anyway, the collision mesh issue - you can use as many colliders as you want. Just model a bunch of different chunks of the whole and put them all together.

Edited June 5, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[nyrath]

It's not so much that as having said dense loads dangling off the side of something that's very lightweight. Try increasing the engine mass to something like 30, see if that does anything? Last I checked it only weighed 2 units.

Anyway, the collision mesh issue - you can use as many colliders as you want. Just model a bunch of different chunks of the whole and put them all together.

Ah! I'll try increasing the engine mass. Didn't think of that.

But there may be problems if I stack a 4 ton magazine on top of a 200 ton magazine. Time to experiment.

Multiple colliders, obvious in hindsight, boy to I feel stupid.

Also, you replied to my post twice

oops, sorry about that.

Edited June 5, 2013 by nyrath

[s20dan]

In the Parts folder there are three folders with the problem magazines: USAFOrionMag1kt3_5mn, USAFOrionMag5kt80mn, USAFOrionMag15kt400mn. I'm reasonably sure the problem is because the magazines have too much mass. Let's try changing that.

Just wanted to let you know that for the last 2 versions I have done something along those lines and not experienced any of those issues.

However instead of making the bombs really light, I just reduced the amount in each container so the maximum mass is no more than 30 tons, and the engines were given a mass of 40-50 tons or so.

So thats 10 bombs per container for the largest bomb type and 30 bombs per container for the second largest type, I didn't change the amounts for the smaller bombs.

I have also changed the node sizes on each part... that may or may not contribute to their strength.

Here's an album of my recent direct ascent trip to Jool http://imgur.com/a/wIUk4

It was pretty funny burning off close to 5000 m/s in the atmosphere

I tried aerobraking tail first, but due to the use of FAR and poor design of the top section it would just rip tself in two. Surprisingly enough it held together when aerobraking front first even with the use of the Deadly Re-entry mod.

A clean break

Edit//

Ah I see I was ninja'd as I was putting this post together, wrt mass of engine ect

Edit// 2

Holy crap, Nova that model looks great. I can't wait to build something using that.

Edited June 5, 2013 by s20dan

[Canopus]

There is a serious but also hilarious bug with the engine that has the column on top:

It doesn't matter where i put the Launch clamps, the whole thing just explodes and wobbles around, defying the laws of nature.

[nyrath]

New Version Up for Testing

Go to first entry in thread

NovaSilisko suggestion to increase the engine mass to 30 seems to have fixed things (I hope). The new version restores the mass of the magazines, and increased the mass of the engines to 30. The largest magazine has a mass of 220.98 tons, this puts it within x10 of the engine mass. The smallest magazine has a mass of about 5, this puts the engine within x10 of the magazine mass.

Anglave, Markarian421 please try this version (or edit the two Orion engine part.cfg files).

s20dan, you may have been ninja'd, but you are to be congratulated for independently coming up with a solution.

I did notice that if I made a stack using the multi-magazine on top of columnless engine, the result was actually stable enough for the vessel to sit on the launch pad with no launch supports. This is not true with the individual magazines.

I am considering making the center column into a separate part. Or something. The engine with the center column seems to have balance problems compared to the column-less engine.

[Kerbal01]

Are the folders formatted properly for .20?

I don't really want to remove these parts from my partsfolder every time there is an update

[Canopus]

It's a little bit sad that this thing can't destroy Roche anymore. Otherwise this would be the perfect defense against killer asteroids:D

Edit: Weird, the new version doesn't seem to fix the problem for me?

Edited June 5, 2013 by Canopus

[nyrath]

Are the folders formatted properly for .20?

I don't really want to remove these parts from my partsfolder every time there is an update

Sorry, I'll get on that right away.

Edit: Weird, the new version doesn't seem to fix the problem for me?

Phooey. Back to the drawing board. But that's why I rely upon the good people of this thread to do testing.

Canopus, you might try manually editing the engine part.cfg and increasing the mass

It's a little bit sad that this thing can't destroy Roche anymore. Otherwise this would be the perfect defense against killer asteroids:D

Well, if you want to destroy Roche, edit all the magazine part.cfg files and set destroyMass = 1000

Edited June 5, 2013 by nyrath

[Kerbal01]

Talk about rapid prototyping, 3 new versions in 2 days!

[Anglave]

Yes nyrath, thanks again for all the effort you've put into this mod. If you can find an engine mass and magazine mass that the game engine can handle, Orion is going to be one of my favorite mods.

I'd help out with more testing, but I am at work...

I'm curious that you had to put on so many magazines to get the same jumping-bean failure I've been getting. I wouldn't have thought that would be machine dependent, but I can't think of anything else between our two installs that would be different. And for me (at least in v9) even two layers of any types of magazines (except the least massive) caused a failure.

Editing the .craft files and bringing the mass of the magazines down to nearly nothing did remove their tendency to jump about. However, as Markarian421 reports, the newest version still has enough jumping that a full stack of magazines instantly breaks physics.

If we could figure out what the variable factor is, that's causing you to have much less jumping than myself and Markarian421, maybe we can exploit it?

Edit: I had a thought. I see that you're dynamically calculating the mass of the magazines as bomb count is decremented.

Any chance you could just assign the mass to the engine rather than the magazines? This might throw off the center of mass a bit, but it would allow you to keep the overall mass of the craft appropriate, and allow the mass to scale properly when adding/removing magazines.

Edited June 5, 2013 by Anglave

[NovaSilisko]

Might be better just to depart from reality a little and have fewer, but larger, magazines. Small, heavy objects hate existing.