[1.0.2] NovaPunch 2.09. - May 6th - 1.0 Compatibility Update

[Tiberion]

Interesting. My first thought it to doublecheck that those top tanks are being used up, otherwise they\'ll still be full and thus making your ejected stage top-heavy

Another thing to try would be to slide the decoupler up a bit higher, and then place the booster tank lower on the decoupler so its applying its force closer to the middle of the Center of gravity of the booster, which should reduce roll.

[Volt]

I did make sure that the tanks were draining correctly, and I can confirm the drop stages were scrap metal when detached. No fuel on board. ;D

What was the ejectionForce of the strut originally? I turned it down to make sure the rest of the design works, but I\'m going to make some effort to get it ready for NovaPunch/KW PLF Pack distribution so I\'ll have to remove some elements of other packs and edited parts.

[Tiberion]

but I\'m going to make some effort to get it ready for NovaPunch/KW PLF Pack distribution

Whats that?

(and decouplerStrut has an ejectionForce of 10)

[nlancaster]

In my testing with a rocket like your\'s Volt, I think I know what is going on. The decouplers are applying a force at the center of the attachment point. with that second tank above the first that moves the CG of the detached tack above the force applied by the decoubler. this causes it to rotate into the rocket, instead of away. attach the top tank to a decoupler and it rotates the other way from the rocket, and can bang the engines together

[Volt]

Whats that?

(and decouplerStrut has an ejectionForce of 10)

I mean I\'m getting ready to post up my rocket series in the spacecraft exchange, but I haven\'t had the time to test them properly to see what they\'re capable of. I want to remove some parts from other packs so they work fine with only Kw PLF and Novapunch, without any CFG edits, so I needed the correct ejectionForce and to get it working properly.

In my testing with a rocket like your\'s Volt, I think I know what is going on. The decouplers are applying a force at the center of the attachment point. with that second tank above the first that moves the CG of the detached tack above the force applied by the decoubler. this causes it to rotate into the rocket, instead of away. attach the top tank to a decoupler and it rotates the other way from the rocket, and can bang the engines together

Yeah, I thought this was what was going on. I\'m going to try moving the struts down, when I get round to getting back on KSP.

Edit

I tried it, moving the strut nearer the drop tanks\' CoG seemed to work perfectly. I feel stupid for not thinking of it before now!

[DYJ]

Gets SSTO capabilities, those vernier thrusters should probably be nerfed a bit.

[Alizter]

I have to say these mods are very very detailed could you give a list of all the parts in it? Thank you

[Cryocasm]

I still have my Kerbal 0.8 folder with all these yummy parts. I will never delete that folder.

[MC3craze]

I still have my Kerbal 0.8 folder with all these yummy parts. I will never delete that folder.

I still have my .7.3 zip.

Its not extracted, but its backed up on Dropbox. Once this game reaches its 1st anniversary, I\'ll extract and run it. Then see the glorious classic. 8)

[Spoot Knight]

Yesterday was actually KSP\'s first full year of development; page is up on HarvesteR\'s Tumblr.

[MC3craze]

Yesterday was actually KSP\'s first full year of development; page is up on HarvesteR\'s Tumblr.

I am aware, but for me development doesn\'t count, I\'m talking first public release.

[Tiberion]

Okay 0.9a is incoming, just a couple of tweaks this time:

Edit: Download HERE

NovaPunch v0.9alpha

-Re-designed the Launch Escape Tower to work in later versions of KSP. It now has a separate decoupler (which goes on top of the stackable parachute) with 2 top nodes, which you place a 'half tower' on in 2x symmetry.

-Lowered th thrust angle, output, and fuel consumption on the vernier pod. No more SSTO.

-Replaced the Omni Bertha engine model with a new one, to release the old model for use in a N2 replica pack.

I also looked at the issue with the S-100 tank being mis-aligned on symmetry. Its actually an issue with the collider, it has the right number of sides, but it is mis-aligned when compared to the stock tank.

However, it IS aligned with all of the original parts it was with, and it would require a sweeping set of changes on all of the meshes, so I don\'t think it will happen anytime soon.

[illectro]

I felt the need to feature this pack in a video - I kept getting asked where I got all the parts from, and so I decided to point the random people this way

[Herpderpsslerps]

Cool, you used my reworked values! I bet with enough we could still do a SSTO with those verniers.

[Tiberion]

Wow, Scott, awesome video. If you don\'t mind, I am going to add it to the front post as a mini-tutorial or info-blast about the pack.

Your 'Lets learn to Orbit' KSP video was the first KSP video I watched, about 2 hours after my friend had showed me the game and I had tried and failed to do anything. It pretty much taught me all I have needed since then, so thank you, and I am glad you like the pack.

[Tiberion]

So, my Dropbox download limit triggered today, so all download links for NP and my shuttlepack are down. I am working on new hosting right now, sorry for the downtime.

We really need a mod repository site again, with version management

Edit, new download links are up: http://www14.zippyshare.com/v/22028994/file.html

New links for the Orange Ares skins and the alternate old tank and engine configs are in the OP. The 'old version' links are dead for now, they\'ll work later when Dropbox re-opens the downloads, though I can\'t imagine many of you are using those links anyway.

Also, sorry to anyone who downloaded 0.9 before today, I didn\'t remove the extra crap outside of the parts folder from the zip file, so you got some extra junk (the config folders, 3 sets of skins, and a working folder for shroud edits) - you can safely delete all of that crap.

I cleaned up the zip file and its smaller than ever. Happy downloading.

[Drone]

http://www.kspyard.com/ would host it!!!

[Tiberion]

Certainly looks interesting.

One concern: We have been trying to get all mod makers to use a standard folder layout like this:

PackName.zip

-PackName

--Parts

---part1

----textures

---part2

----textures

Because this lets a mod pack be copied into the JGME-managed Mods folder automatically.

And some packs have things other than the part folders in them, like a ships folder with save files (.craft) and alternate skins in a subfolder for manual over-writing.

Just wondering if the requirements on the upload are set in stone, or a recommendation?

[foamyesque]

NovaPunch v0.9alpha

-Re-designed the Launch Escape Tower to work in later versions of KSP. It now has a separate decoupler (which goes on top of the stackable parachute) with 2 top nodes, which you place a 'half tower' on in 2x symmetry.

What exactly did the fix entail? Aiming the thrust sideways, hence the pairing with the other half?

[Tiberion]

Yeah each half thrusts at 20 degrees off vertical.

It sort of pulls to the left when used, because its rather hard to test a solid booster burst in a meaningful way.. but thats okay, its supposed to be a frenetic thrust booster away from the flaming death.

Only drawback was the loss of the top stack since its two pieces. I guess I could add a third top node to the decoupler and let it 'float' just above the towers, but it would cause weird collider stuff like that.

[Feragorn]

Why did it need to be two halves again?

[Tiberion]

One piece, with 'down' thrust, was failing to launch the tower in most configurations, because the thrust origin was intersecting with a collider.

Just angling a single thrust would have just tipped the tower over, not launched it, so it needed a pair of pieces to provide opposing thrust; they combine to provide roughly vertical force on whatever is attached.

[Feragorn]

Ah.

[Tiberion]

So, NovaPunch needs a lander.

I\'ve used the Yawmaster parts and the landing legs as a sort of makeshift moon ship, but its too large to work as a Apollo-style lander, which will be all the rage when persistence and docking arrive. And besides, Yawmaster is supposed to be the CSM of the ship.

So I could probably make a new lander from scratch, but I thought that it would be more appropriate to rescue an old lander from the past.

So after checking with Nova for permission, I have started to adopt this for NovaPunch:

Lunar Lander

So technology-wise, she is outdated, coming from the days before even RCS existed. Those thruster blocks are regular old SAS parts

So, changes that will be needed:

Find a place for RCS tanks (maybe radial pods like in SE?)

Repurpose thrusters as RCS blocks.

Add a dedicated landing crew capsule to the ascent stage, since we\'ll soon be leaving our pod in space with Bob and the CSM (and lets be honest, Bob will be glad he doesn\'t have to land in this thing)

Pre-plan a docking clamp-thing on top of the ascent module.

Add an ASAS unit somewhere in the ascent stage.

Also looking at the legs: They\'re pretty tall looking, might make it hard to land. I could just scale them down to make it less topheavy, ir I could widen the legs a bit, or I could just try to use the legs we have in the pack already.

So, lemme know what you think.

[Jesus KerBeard]

I like the SAS modules on that lander, they\'re very effective at stopping spin. The legs are good too, they provide a wider profile than other legs around. Radial mount RCS tanks sounds good, that\'ll help keep the CoG low.

Just for visual effect, a radially mounted ladder piece would be good, say in short and long variety, then they can be mixed together as the player wants.