Orion aka "Ol' Boom-boom"

[czokletmuss]

Hey czokletmuss you could use the Orion for a future AAR. That would probably make for some interesting situations

It's SLIGHLT overpowered, which kinda ruins the drama of space travel. I run some tests:

I'm starting from low Kerbin Orbit, c.5-6t of payload, target - Eve.

Crew pod broke off but I still have 271 bombs left and guess what?

Kerbin-Eve in 47 hours!

With additional bombs I can easily increase payload and reduce time travel, although 0.001c is quite impressive.

With Orions you can get to Eeloo and back in few weeks! And without this Hohmann transfer nonsense or planet alignement.

You know what we need guys? BIG 5-1 adapter: you put 5 Orion engines, on top of them 5 bomb tanks, than adapter and some 100-200t of payload. Voila, you have your ISS above Bop in few days

Edited May 26, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Leonov]

-snip-

5-1 you say?, that is a monstrosity. I can already get a 125 Ton Payload to Dres in record time. The raw power this craft has made me make it my Universal Payload launcher, Perfect for any mission.

In refernce to the Z control or Throttle. Personally after doing some testing with nervas for fine adjustments, I like it being bound to Z. Its very useful for course corrections, hammer out the large delta V number into a smaller manageale one for Nervas. Throttle controls would mess up that perfect balance.

I want it to stay on Z.

[czokletmuss]

Well yeah but what if I want to move KSC to Laythe? Seriously though, with this adapter we don't need fancy FTL to travel to other stars.

Where do you put corrective engines on Orion? Each "bang" changes delta-V for c.100 m/s which makes precise flying impossible.

[Canopus]

Well yeah but what if I want to move KSC to Laythe? Seriously though, with this adapter we don't need fancy FTL to travel to other stars.

Where do you put corrective engines on Orion? Each "bang" changes delta-V for c.100 m/s which makes precise flying impossible.

You don't need to be precise with Orion. My Duna ship has no secondary engines other than on the landers. Edited May 26, 2013 by Canopus

[nyrath]

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?

It didn't launched a bomb when i docked to it.

Sigh, another conditional bug.

Thanks for the testing, Canopus! Remember the movie The Right Stuff? That's you, with nukes.

And the same goes for czokletmuss, Leonov, and the others in this thread.

Fyrem, again, a craft file of the ship which exhibited the problem would be nice. Were you using KSP 0.20, 0.19 or other? Any mods?

Orion Z key vs Throttle

What if I made two engines, one that responded to Z key, the other for throttle?

I will have to see if there is any way to toggle from one control to the other, there does not seem to be an obvious way.

[czokletmuss]

I didn't mention one thing: while accelerating (Z pressed all the time) in x2 = no problems, x3 = no problems, x4 = pod said goodbye to the ship.

Also after 1-2minutes of accelerating on x2 the pod broke off from the rcs tank attached atop to the engine and bombs. I hope it'll help somehow (?).

[Canopus]

Having two different engines would be a bit impractical i think. I personally see no need for the throttle given that Orion acceleration is so high that you wont hold Z for a very long time. Otherwise i would prefer both options in one engine.

@ czokletmuss i'm sure thats just some in game physics weirdness. It happens to me everytime i do 4x physics acceleration on every ship.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Canopus

[lyndonguitar]

I would like to see a throttle option, maybe you can configure it to properly compute with the manuever node, for lets say mech jeb?

[Canopus]

I would like to see a throttle option, maybe you can configure it to properly compute with the manuever node, for lets say mech jeb?

The way i do it is letting the maneuver planner compute a maneuver for me, then i use Smart A.S.S. to point me at the node and then i just hold Z for the required amount of time.

[nyrath]

It's SLIGHLT overpowered, which kinda ruins the drama of space travel. I run some tests:

I'm starting from low Kerbin Orbit, c.5-6t of payload, target - Eve.

Crew pod broke off but I still have 271 bombs left and guess what?

Kerbin-Eve in 47 hours!

With additional bombs I can easily increase payload and reduce time travel, although 0.001c is quite impressive.

With Orions you can get to Eeloo and back in few weeks! And without this Hohmann transfer nonsense or planet alignement.

You know what we need guys? BIG 5-1 adapter: you put 5 Orion engines, on top of them 5 bomb tanks, than adapter and some 100-200t of payload. Voila, you have your ISS above Bop in few days

Well, that is the entire point about Orion drive. It is insanely powerful. But what do you expect from a rocket driven by freaking atom bombs?

And this model only uses 1 kiloton bombs. There was another study about an Orion that used 15 kiloton bombs.

That one could deliver 1,300 tons of payload (not kilograms, tons). To the the Saturnian moon Enceladus. And back.

I do have the stats for a weaker 1 kiloton nuclear propulsion unit, it only has 2,000 kN instead of 3,500 kN.

Yikes, I made a mistake in the part.cfg file. I have

bombImpulse = 3500.0

bombMass = 0.079

It should be either

bombImpulse = 3500.0

bombMass = 0.141

or

bombImpulse = 2000.0

bombMass = 0.079

I'll fix that in the next release. By that time hopefully I'll have individual magazines, so I can offer a selection of magazines with different sized bombs

[Flixxbeatz]

Well, that is the entire point about Orion drive. It is insanely powerful. But what do you expect from a rocket driven by freaking atom bombs?

And this model only uses 1 kiloton bombs. There was another study about an Orion that used 15 kiloton bombs.

-snip-

I'm pretty sure anyone on-board there will be pretty much reduced to human paste due to massive g-forces each explosion, unless some safety support is installed...

[nyrath]

I'm pretty sure anyone on-board there will be pretty much reduced to human paste due to massive g-forces each explosion, unless some safety support is installed...

Well, that was a major concern. The designs had not one, not two, but three stages of shock absorbers in order to smooth out the acceleration to something the human body can survive. And over-designed acceleration couches.

[Fyrem]

Nyrath,

Ok, I found more details about the 'one bomb at docking'.

It has to do with "engin activation", not throttle. When you dock to a ship, and have Mechjeb, that happens to still have "AutoStage" turned on, MJ will 'Re-Activete' the engines of the mother ship. normally this is a non-issue, since the throttle is at 0. however, for your engine..... one bomb.

So, since this isn't exactly a problem with your mod, it is really an issue with the combination of MJ and your mod. I will rebuild my station and attach the Orion engin LAST. and also make DAMN sure I have unchecked MJ's "Auto stage" button before I do.

Also, it would be helpfull if your Engine had the 'activate/dectivate" toggles.

[nyrath]

Nyrath,

Ok, I found more details about the 'one bomb at docking'.

It has to do with "engin activation", not throttle. When you dock to a ship, and have Mechjeb, that happens to still have "AutoStage" turned on, MJ will 'Re-Activete' the engines of the mother ship. normally this is a non-issue, since the throttle is at 0. however, for your engine..... one bomb.

So, since this isn't exactly a problem with your mod, it is really an issue with the combination of MJ and your mod. I will rebuild my station and attach the Orion engin LAST. and also make DAMN sure I have unchecked MJ's "Auto stage" button before I do.

Also, it would be helpfull if your Engine had the 'activate/dectivate" toggles.

Gotcha! I'm glad you found out what was causing it.

I'll look into activate/deactivate toggles.

Attention Sbowyer28!

Clean your private inbox. I cannot send you any messages until you do.

[Hremsfeld]

From a few pages back :V

Oh, now I see! That's not a bad sketch at all! [Note: yeah it was :V]

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 actually literally copied the stack decoupler's decoupling module and pasted in a clone of the radial decoupler, so it had both modules. Unfortunately, it did not change the direction of the ejection force, which is what I was going for. The detachment arrows are the arrows on the stack decouplers that say which end will leave, while it stays attached to whatever's on the other side.

As for being unable to stack your magazines: Try messing with the camera angle a bit?

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.

Yeah, that last one...should be able to launch pretty much anything. The limiting factor at that point is if your processor dealing with the part count.

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.

I'm going to vote Throttle mode. This would probably make it easier to 1)get the engine recognized as an engine (and therefore calculate TWR and delta-v), and 2)eliminate the MJ-autostage-nuke bug. The fire-one-bomb-when-activated feature could be removed, because the fire rate would be linked to the throttle, with full throttle being one bomb per second. My usual interplanetary missions involve toggling off all engines except the nuclear engines on my tug stage, so the only difference would be how nuclear power is applied. If there's a long enough delay between bombs at low throttle, launching a single bomb is just an issue of hitting shift and then control, or whatever the throttle is keyed to for others.

With Orions you can get to Eeloo and back in few weeks! And without this Hohmann transfer nonsense or planet alignement.

No, it still took me over a year of travel...then again, maybe I just wasn't being aggressive enough on the throttle. That was bringing 24 tons of payload out to Eeloo, and 12 tons back off-center. That 10.7 km/s burn took about two and a half minutes, for reference's sake. As for corrective engines: if you want a circular orbit, slap some fuel tanks onto the sides of your craft, and stick some engines on the bottom of them. Although, if you're lucky or carefully calculate how far from prograde you point, you can get some fairly circular orbits. Managed 97x107 km over Kerbin on takeoff.

[czokletmuss]

No, it still took me over a year of travel...then again, maybe I just wasn't being aggressive enough on the throttle. That was bringing 24 tons of payload out to Eeloo, and 12 tons back off-center. That 10.7 km/s burn took about two and a half minutes, for reference's sake. As for corrective engines: if you want a circular orbit, slap some fuel tanks onto the sides of your craft, and stick some engines on the bottom of them. Although, if you're lucky or carefully calculate how far from prograde you point, you can get some fairly circular orbits. Managed 97x107 km over Kerbin on takeoff.

You've got 12.700 m/s when leaving Kerbin SOI, I got more than 30.000 m/s with 5t payload and still more than 1/3 bombs left, so I guess putting some small sattelite there wouldn't be impossible to do in a few weeks Of course with more/bigger bombs it will be easier. Either way, you deserve extra points for putting a chair on top of it

Yeah, I will check this out soon - I wonder what will be the Kerbin-Mun speed record?

Edited May 26, 2013 by czokletmuss

[redwolfy]

hey i just found this thread and was like meh another over powered nuclear engine

then i heard the words pusher plate, what a great idea to do in ksp although i hope kerbals dont get cancer

[Kerbal01]

They don't, their kerbals.

[Hremsfeld]

You've got 12.700 m/s when leaving Kerbin SOI, I got more than 30.000 m/s with 5t payload and still more than 1/3 bombs left, so I guess putting some small sattelite there wouldn't be impossible to do in a few weeks Of course with more/bigger bombs it will be easier. Either way, you deserve extra points for putting a chair on top of it

Yeah, I will check this out soon - I wonder what will be the Kerbin-Mun speed record?

True, yeah. I was still technically moving in circles instead of lines. Fun Fact Friday though, that was the very first thing I've done with seats in .20! (Also, Fun Fact Friday: Every day is Fun Fact Friday)

As for the Kerbin-Mun speed record...

(video isn't mine)

[nyrath]

I finally got the blasted separate magazine parts to stack!

What was the problem? The collider.

As you can see in the above picture, the automatic collider created by Unity 3D totally overlaps the volume the magazines were supposed to stack in. I fixed it by editing the magazine part.cfg file:

// attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision

attachRules = 1,0,1,1,1

so the magazine would ignore the engine's collider.

and yes, if you turn on the "center of mass" display in the VAB, if you add magazines asymmetrically you will see the CoM ball move off-center.

Edited May 26, 2013 by nyrath

[Canopus]

Looks great. I'm looking forward to it

[czokletmuss]

True, yeah. I was still technically moving in circles instead of lines. Fun Fact Friday though, that was the very first thing I've done with seats in .20! (Also, Fun Fact Friday: Every day is Fun Fact Friday)

As for the Kerbin-Mun speed record...

(video isn't mine)

59min50s to the Mun and back?

I will do this with Orion! (no landing though 'cause it's impossible with this ship)

[Flixxbeatz]

59min50s to the Mun and back?

-snip-

I will do this with Orion! (no landing though 'cause it's impossible with this ship)

If Orion NPP can reach Eve in 47 hours, let alone Mun. Oh dear...

[Hremsfeld]

I finally got the blasted separate magazine parts to stack!

Awesome! That's a pretty important step!

Also, for those of you who wondering: Yes, it's possible to have radially-mounted stages. You just need to finagle things a bit in the VAB...and probably use the Editor Tools mod to get it all to fit. Works fine, though!

Speaking of, from SA:

User-submitted patch for EdTools makes it compatible with 0.20: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u.../EdTools020.zip

Install to the legacy Plugins folder.

Only two features got cut, the load ship from command line (did anyone ever use that?) and the CTRL button turning off part clipping temporarily. It was buggy to start with anyway.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Hremsfeld

[Leonov]

Welcome to the literal ability to ride a shockwave.

This Engine is Fairly well balanced compared to design sheets.

In regards to the Kerbals and Radiation. Ide like to believe that kerbals can absorb and live off radiation. Read the design notes from the project.

Radiation isnt really that big of a problem.

Sweet with magazine stacks i can now attach RCS or 3m SAS modules. Im assuming that with the addition of magazines the "ammo" count goes up?

Edited May 26, 2013 by Leonov