[WIP] R.E.L Skylon C2. Alpha Released. FAR config broken. (08 Dec 2014)

[Mekan1k]

Ehm....

DAMN MAN. THAT IS ....ING AWESOME!

[CaptainKipard]

Ehm....

DAMN MAN. THAT IS ....ING AWESOME!

Oh, NOW you like it?

Edit

Just a few orthographic shots. I'm particularly happy with how the underside of the wings/fuselage came out.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

@Cpt Kipard just posted in my thread some unity shots including hierarchy of built in gear, hope this is of some help, if not I'm sure we can work a usable and discreet system for that rather .... spacecraft

[CaptainKipard]

rather .... spacecraft

Huh?

discreet system

Huh???

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

apparently I cant say very attractive in a four letter way so I'll say it's seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyyy instead, and discreet meaning not something thats stuck on the bottom, sorry if my english is difficult to understand, I forget that not everyone is not a native speaker

[Dextre]

apparently I cant say very attractive in a four letter way so I'll say it's seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyyyyyyyyy instead, and discreet meaning not something thats stuck on the bottom, sorry if my english is difficult to understand, I forget that not everyone is not a native speaker

Once upon a time famous russian translator said^ the most friquently used language isnt english...it is bad english

[MightyDarkStar]

I'd love to see this released soon!

[Virtualgenius]

Its very very nice

[driftwood11]

I really really like the look of this. Have you got a rough guestimate of a release date?

[CaptainKipard]

I really really like the look of this. Have you got a rough guestimate of a release date?

I'm afraid not. If things go well I could release an alpha in a few weeks technically, but things never go well. Expect months realistically.

[montyben101]

WOW i have been watching this thread for a while now and to return to this is amazing

BTW whats that little engine at the end of the fuselage

[CaptainKipard]

WOW i have been watching this thread for a while now and to return to this is amazing

BTW whats that little engine at the end of the fuselage

That's the Orbital Maneuvering System. The nacelle engines are designed for sub orbital insertion iirc, and the OMS is designed to circularise and other orbital maneuvers. I doubt people will use it that way, but it's there for the sake of authenticity. I'm yet to check engine stats for Skylon, so it might turn out that the OMS is in fact more efficient, giving players an incentive to use it in space.

[Master Tao]

I'm yet to check engine stats for Skylon, so it might turn out that the OMS is in fact more efficient, giving players an incentive to use it in space.

I realize it'll be a while, but I've been looking these things up after the FAR 14.1 nerf. The Skylon User's Manual says the OMS can provide up to 100 m/s dV not including circularization and deorbiting. It has an I_sp of about 460 s, same as the main engines, so the biggest advantage in game might be lower thrust and better responsiveness for precision maneuvers.

[montyben101]

Bit off topic but its the funniest and strangest thing to see a users manual for a SPACE SHIP as if it was some vacuum cleaner brought from a local shop XD

Btw will you get round to making the upper stage for skylon? i woundnt worry about it being recoverable since that would be more effort for a very small thing (though you could just stick some chutes on it)

PS: what size cargo can the bay hold? 1 meter or 2 meter?

PPS: can you guess how much memory this will use up (sadly i have to use 32 bit )

Edited July 25, 2014 by montyben101

[R0cketC0der]

Bit off topic but its the funniest and strangest thing to see a users manual for a SPACE SHIP as if it was some vacuum cleaner brought from a local shop XD

Actually most commercial launchers have a user manual freely available in the internet. Just google "*insert any rocket here* user manual".

[CaptainKipard]

... the biggest advantage in game might be lower thrust and better responsiveness for precision maneuvers.

I'm fine with that. I often limit thrust manually when I play for that reason.

Btw will you get round to making the upper stage for skylon? i woundnt worry about it being recoverable since that would be more effort for a very small thing (though you could just stick some chutes on it)

I don't know what you mean but my hope is that eventually I'll build a bunch of addons for it taking inspiration from what R.E.L. have officially designed. That means the Personnel Module, some satellite racks, hopefully the orbitally contructable mars mission they imagined, and other things I don't know about yet.

PS: what size cargo can the bay hold? 1 meter or 2 meter?

Here's a cross section. I made it big enough to hold 2.5m parts with attachments.

PPS: can you guess how much memory this will use up (sadly i have to use 32 bit )

I'm not sure. Right now the textures take up ~20Mb. When it's finished it might be twice that. That's only the Skylon though and the textures are compressed right now. I think they get bigger when KSP loads them.

I have six 2048*2048 textures and two 1024*2048 at the moment.

[montyben101]

Awesome can't wait + rep

[CaptainKipard]

I'm experimenting with panels, hull imperfections and slight dirt. Tell me what you think.

[Reddragon]

I'm experimenting with panels, hull imperfections and slight dirt. Tell me what you think.

I really like the textures. Better then the 'original' full black color of the real concept. About time for Skylon to enter the KSP universe. Great work!

[CaptainKipard]

I just found out that the Skylon fuselage will be made of carbon fibre. That means no panels, and much smoother textures. It could turn out really boring.

[GusTurbo]

Just give it that unpainted carbon fiber look. For spaceships that look like cars that look like spaceships.

[CaptainKipard]

That would look nice but be completely unrealistic. The black parts obviously need to be made of some ceramic thermal insulation, and the white parts are probably painted.

[Justin Kerbice]

The texture shown above are very nice and I prefer that to raw carbon fiber tex, except panels continue as they are on heat shield, it may be better to separated both areas (top white and bottom black).

[Reddragon]

Carbon fiber textures would need to be in very high res. to look good in KSP I guess. You can still change the current one in a later update if you find a better solution. Also Skylon is at least 6 years away so who knows what they'll change.

[CaptainKipard]

For now I'm making it look like it's made of large single piece composite sections (that's how carbon fiber construction works). I'll keep the slight bumpiness (maybe make it more wavy than bumpy), but I'll increase the dust and dirt cover slightly in appropriate places to make it look more like it's been used. The space shuttle to my surprise did get a bit dirty during use.

Also I'll need to decide on some labels and flags. The long horizontal KSP logo is an obvious choice, but I'd like more ideas.