AVK Spaceworks - [r4] [12/19/11] [NEW: Cyclone 1.1]

[aevionknight]

Heading to bed for the night, quick progress report:

• 
  [li]Modeled 1m and 2m aero decouplers, they work great. They have almost no ejection force, so give the forward RCS a few bursts to clear the stage (this look pretty neat).[/li]
  [li]Textured the heatshield, CMG, and pressure vessel. Also laid out the UV map for the RCS tank.[/li]
  [li]Nailed down the propellant budget. The 'reference mission' for Cyclone is:
  [list type=decimal]
  [li]Inject Cyclone to a 100km circular orbit and separate from the booster.[/li]
  [li]Use Cyclone main engines to do a Hohmann transfer to a 500 Km circular orbit.[/li]
  [li]Do a de-orbit burn from 500 Km to a 30 Km apogee (well within the atmosphere).[/li]
  [li]Perform lifting re-entry, holding approximately 20 degrees angle of attack.[/li]
  [li]At 1000 m, light engines for a pitchover, horizontal velocity null, and propulsive landing.[/li]
  

[/li]

Cyclone can accomplish this with a few seconds of fuel remaining (and pulling less than 3 gees on entry to boot). The RCS can also give you about 150 m/s of delta-v for trimming your orbits or killing small horizontal velocity on the landing.

For bigger missions (going to the Mun, geostationary, etc) you\'ll need to provide a bigger propulsion module to handle some of the lifting.

It\'s possible I\'ll have something to release tomorrow but it will likely be early this week.

[aryeon]

cant wait till its finished man good work

[Spoot Knight]

Tomorrow, early next week, either one is equally exciting.

[nlancaster]

Love this Mod. Used this and Novapunch to place a huge lander on the Mun.

Look what I built, I was bale to place an empty 3m fuel tank, with 3/4 of the fuel left in the strap on engines, on the MUN and return my Kerbals to Kearth.

Only problem is the first and second stages cause huge lag. Hopefully the new version of KSP will fix that issue.

Used this pack of course. and Novapunch - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4180.0

Here is the craft file if you want to play with it.

http://lancastercustom.com/upload/KSP/3%20Meter%20to%20the%20MUN.craft

[aevionknight]

You put my lander on a lander. Dawg.

And I will name it Directest Ascent.

[nlancaster]

You put my lander on a lander. Dawg.

And I will name it Directest Ascent.

I used it for the return stage. then there is another deorbit stage inside it.

it was a direct ascent, no orbit of kearth at all.

[aevionknight]

As expected, didn\'t get through everything today. I textured the RCS tank and am about 40% of the way through the fuel tank. That leaves:

[list type=decimal]

[li]Finish texturing the fuel tank.[/li]

[li]Texture the RCS thrusters.[/li]

[li]Texture the main engines.[/li]

[li]Texture the decouplers.[/li]

I\'ve decided to re-model the re-entry flaps. Right now they have no way to affect roll. This would be fine, except that they *think* they can affect roll, and respond in crazy ways. So if you hit the roll controls while deep in re-entry, you\'ll get wild pitching and yawing, which really sucks.

I\'m going to split the flaps into two so that they will hopefully give some roll authority and stop the madness. I can also make them a little more interesting than just a square while I\'m at it.

Getting real close now. The fuel tank is the last big texturing job, the rest should go quickly.

[spawnofbill]

Sooooo any progress?

[aevionknight]

Hah, I was trying to be less spammy with my updates. Work has been quite busy so I\'ve only been able to put a couple hours in.

Got a bit of progress on the fuel tank, maybe 50% done now. Most of the final assembled surface area has at least some non-orange texture now and I\'m quite pleased with it. Probably won\'t post any pics until release.

I tried splitting the flaps, but it didn\'t help. Control surfaces oriented in this direction clearly weren\'t anticipated by the code, so we\'ll have to live with the roll weirdness until I can get Harv to look at it. I\'ll post the bug once I\'ve released the mod so he can test it.

Also spent some time with the new release to see if the RCS control problems had been addressed, but no such luck. Filed a bug on it, hopefully Harv will have time to look at it this cycle.

Still looking at a couple days from a release.

[aevionknight]

Alright, I can\'t resist showing this off:

You can see the engines have been conveniently omitted.

The plumbing detail behind the RCS thruster quad and reentry control flap.

Stuff left to do:

[list type=decimal]

[li]Texture the engines.[/li]

[li]Texture the decouplers.[/li]

[li]Final balancing pass, now that we have a Kerbal Theory of Drag.[/li]

[li]Final .cfg cleanup / scrub.[/li]

[li]Release![/li]

I think I can do all of that in one day, though it may slip to two.

[Rico88]

This looks awsome. I thought it\'ll be white but this colour makes it more unique. Can\'t wait to fly it.

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

hey do your rcs blocks Q and E key effects show up in the new update? if so what is the rotation stack set to? mine broke in the update. thanks.

also, looks amazing

[Spoot Knight]

That\'s good texture work there, love how it\'s looking.

[CardBoardBoxProcessor]

hmm. though it would be nice to see like. tile work on it. maybe colour saturation taken down a bit.

[aevionknight]

Everything\'s textured, doing final tuning pass now. Then a quick scrub of the flavor text, missing .cfg params, etc.

[uPDATE] Final retuning done. Scrubbing .cfg files.

[uPDATE] Scrub done. Doing final flight tests.

[aevionknight]

Cyclone is released! Grab it on the original post.

The only major change from what I\'ve said before is that the propellant load was de-tuned slightly. Starting from a 100km x 100km circular orbit, you can only safely boost to a 350km x 350km and have enough to de-orbit and land. Also cut down the RCS load somewhat.

Stuff I\'d like to hear from you guys:

[list type=decimal]

[li]How does the handling feel? Too much / little lift? If there\'s too little you\'ll feel like you\'re dropping like a stone, too much and you\'ll feel like you\'re floating.[/li]

[li]How is the propellant load? It\'s designed to feel 'constrained'. Let me know if it\'s too draconian.[/li]

[li]Any textures/model work you think needs more attention?[/li]

[li]Finally, I toyed with the idea of creating some emergency chutes in case you burn too much propellant in orbit. Shouldn\'t take long, is that something you\'d be interested in?[/li]

I\'ve been playing with this thing for two weeks so I\'m pretty good at it, it\'s hard for me to tell whether others will find it too easy/hard to fly. Feedback is appreciated.

FYI, this is how much fuel you need to land safely. Start your landing burn no earlier than 1000m altitude or you\'ll probably run out. I recommend killing most of your horizontal velocity with the main engines, then pointing up, engaging SAS, and killing the rest with RCS.

I\'m going to post a flight manual and some glamour shots to the original thread tomorrow, and I think I might whip up a challenge or two for fun.

Clear skies and good flying!

[EDIT: Putting the Cyclone together is pretty easy, but here\'s the .craft for the impatient.]

[Slew]

Well I\'ve flown it a couple of times now. Once on a trip around the moon and once in a low orbit.

I\'ve got a bit of feedback.

How does the handling feel? Too much / little lift? If there\'s too little you\'ll feel like you\'re dropping like a stone, too much and you\'ll feel like you\'re floating.

• 
  [li]I feel like the RCS doesn\'t provide enough torque. Manoeuvring in space was very slow. In particular, rolling (Q&E) didn\'t seem to work at all.[/li]
  [li]I couldn\'t land the capsule successfully. I tried what you suggested (holding the 20 degree AoA then using the engines to flip over at 1000m), but I couldn\'t keep the capsule straight during the flip. I just death-spiralled into the ocean.[/li]
  

I use a joystick if that makes any difference.

How is the propellant load? It\'s designed to feel 'constrained'. Let me know if it\'s too draconian

• 
  [li]I ran out of RCS fuel, but I\'m pretty sure that\'s because I left the RCS switched on when I time-skipped to the moon. [/li]
  [li]Fuel for the main engines is tight, but that\'s the point.[/li]
  

Any textures/model work you think needs more attention?

• 
  [li]The textures on the bottom of the decouplers are quite plain. Maybe add some more detail there?[/li]
  [li]Personally I feel like the brown colour is a little dull. It looks 'unpainted'.[/li]
  [li]The model is brilliant. I love the way it snaps together.[/li]
  

Finally, I toyed with the idea of creating some emergency chutes in case you burn too much propellant in orbit. Shouldn\'t take long, is that something you\'d be interested in?

Parachutes would make landing a lot easier.

[Rico88]

I\'ve finished testing it a moment ago. I still couldn\'t figure out the way of the landing though, I didn\'t have much time, but here is my opinion at first glance.

1. The handling is good, even sophisticated manuvers can be done very well, but might be a little too slow, compared to the ship\'s size. It\'d be good if the manuvering speed\'d be a very little bit faster.

2. The propellant looks fine, I only have concerns about the RCS fuel. I think that it\'s not enough, compared to the current manuverability.

3. The textures are fine. Although on the RCS thruster, one of the thruster nozzle is darker the the other 3. It doesn\'t look like a thruster, but some sort of durt, or damage. Excpet this, everything is great.

4. Yes please, that would be very useful.

Overally, I like your new craft. She look\'s good and flies well.

[Spoot Knight]

I\'ll see if there\'s anything that should be pointed out after flying it a few times. Really excited that it\'s released now.

Edit:

I also feel the Cyclone is rather brickish in handling, and rolling while in atmosphere is treated like a second yaw input (It\'s very slow out of atmosphere but it does at least roll then). Before actually decoupling the vehicle from the carrier rocket (Remade the DUA&PS Luna rocket to house the Cyclone), it being attached resulted in the Luna being unable to roll at all regardless of altitude.

I suppose it can\'t be helped that the flap movements suggest that it can\'t roll to begin with, since all four flaps will contract or expand on roll inputs.

In regards to appearance, I think it looks great, although the underside of the decouplers do lack in any detail, the rest was well thought out.

[technoguy33]

Could you please use another file hosting site?! I find it extremely annoying to have to wait 5 MINUTES between downloads. >

[CleverWalrus]

Finally, I toyed with the idea of creating some emergency chutes in case you burn too much propellant in orbit. Shouldn\'t take long, is that something you\'d be interested in?

Yes please, maybe just under the heatshield togheter with sas, or even deciding to use the Sas or Parachute is fine, i would prefer to use main engines for orbital manouvers and deceleration but the landing itself is a lot easier with a parachute.

On a side note, the rcs thruster seem very low powered, is very hard to turn this thing while in orbit.

[trvtannenberg]

Command pod, without other parts from pack, explodes on (parachuted) landing.

[Spoot Knight]

Would its impact tolerance being nearly half that of the Mk1 Pod have anything to do with it?

Edit: Yeah it\'s because of its lower impact tolerance, putting it to the Mk1 Pod\'s level (14) it can do a parachute landing with just the command module itself.

[aevionknight]

tl;dr

Bricks in spaaace: RCS is pointless for roll/pitch/yaw in 1.0. Just turn it off and only use translation (IJKLHN). I can either boost RCS thrust and give up translation, or try and boost pod torque without destroying flight dynamics. What do you guys want?

Landing: Sounds like parachutes are a want. I\'ll see to it. I\'ll also post a video of a landing as proof that it\'s possible. It looks like this is difficult enough to make an interesting entry on the challenge board. : )

Textures: The decouplers are crap, I wanted to release Cyclone before I got tied up in holiday stuff. I\'ll fix them at some point. Don\'t know if I agree about the brown color, but I\'ll see if I can spice it up a bit.

Exploding pod: I don\'t know why you want to look at the pressure vessel without its skin, but I\'ll stop it from exploding. : )

File host: I\'ll find a better one. [uPDATE: all transferred to MediaFire now]

RCS Woes

Unfortunately RCS attitude control is broken. The WSADQE keys produce far less thrust than they should (compared to IJKLHN). This means you have two options:

1. Have small RCS thrust. This gives you nice fine control for linear translation but makes it pointless for roll/pitch/yaw.

2. Have huge RCS thrust. This makes it possible to turn on RCS but makes linear translation simply outrageous.

a. If you have a little fuel, translation will simply drain your tanks super fast and is useless.

b. If you have a lot of fuel, RCS can

.

I chose #1. To make up for it, I gave the pod a little torque, but that brings me to...

Brick pod

For the Cyclone, it was important that the reentry flaps work nicely. This means I can\'t have torque like the mk1pod, since that allows you to flip and spin without a care in the world - adding wings is completely superfluous. I wanted to have an unpowered pod and just got with RCS, but that didn\'t work (see above).

Changing this is a delicate operation, but I\'m willing to do it to make flying less painful until KSP RCS gets an overhaul.

Flaps don\'t roll, son

Geometrically, if you look at the flaps, there\'s no way they can cause roll. However, KSP doesn\'t seem to care, and tries to use them to roll anyway, leading to pitch/yaw madness. I\'m going to file a detailed bug on this today, but we\'re sort of stuck with it for now.

Hopefully a less brickish pod will make this less of an issue.

[trvtannenberg]

Exploding pod: I don\'t know why you want to look at the pressure vessel without its skin, but I\'ll stop it from exploding. : )

Beacause is nice for koyuz vehicles.