[0.23.5] Realism Overhaul: ROv5.2 + Modlist for RSS 6/30/14

[pingopete]

My original post awaited moderation so it may have been overlooked. It would be nice if someone could take a look.

I’d like to add that I apparently made a mistake resulting in far too large engines (most of them, some look fine). That may be completely reality conform, I’m just wondering since it doesn’t correlate with weight/thrust. If it is ok, what engine should I add to a 1.25m tank for vac maneuvers?

Please see the pictures below (the LV-N and the Coxwain look normal for me):

http://imgur.com/a/IdDln

Thanks!

Yeah same here, on starting RPL career again, I was somewhat suspicious about the almost comical scale of some engines compared to the early tech level designs/engines I'm working with. Not sure if it's just that I'm not used to working with such small rockets again as of my career restart. My AIES 110 Kn upper stage engine could easily fit 3 kerbals head to toe across the engine chamber?! Which actually brings me to something I'd been wandering for a while about Realism Overhaul, Is the rescale based on size relative to kerbals as if they were an average human height, or is it assuming they're about penguin sized, I mean their body proportions make them appear to be around 3-4 ft tall?

[ThorBeorn]

I think it's supposed to be as if they are penguin sized. The 6.4 x rescale version rescales the universe as if they were human sized. I could be wrong though, but I think it makes sense.

[Phredward]

Thanks Nathan, I appreciate all your work on the RSS front! If there's a modding-getting-started doc, I'd love to lend a hand. If not, I'll continue making sized up docking ports, landing legs, and the hex adapter.

[Romby]

Good point about no engine ignitor support for them. I'll get on that. As for their Isp, they're modern engines, i.e. TL6/TL7. Have you been setting the tech level for the other engines as appropriate? (Note that in RftS most engines start out at low techlevel, but you can increase their TL to 7 [modern era] or anywhere in between. See the RF FAQ for more info on tech levels.)

My problem is i can´t change the techlevel for the russian engines like other engines i have unlocked. Only think im at tier 2 or so RPL tech tree, so that is max for every other engine. The russian engines doesnt even give me a choice.

But just to be sure. These modern engines shouldnt really be be in the tier 2 unlock or?

[marce]

I think it's supposed to be as if they are penguin sized. The 6.4 x rescale version rescales the universe as if they were human sized. I could be wrong though, but I think it makes sense.

So the size really is correct as it is and I have to use only 4+m tanks? Heck, I have to rethink my designs

Now the procedural parts make even more sense.

[NathanKell]

marce: Ah, yeah, your post popped up well after that part of the thread occurred, so it got missed. Sorry! Anyway, you probably have enough posts (or will shortly) that you'll be past moderation.

You're using RealEngines--there are a number of engines that doesn't support. They will still be using LF/Oxidizer. Use supported engines instead. And yes, not all fuel types available may be used by the engines you have; for example, Syntin is only used by some Russian kerolox engines, none of which are currently supported since the realism patch for BobCat's Soviet Historicals pack is not up to date.

It is not possible to change a part's RF tanks in flight. Think about it; it's not like you could pump red fuming nitric acid into a kerosene tank; it'd eat through the wall. If you pumped liquid oxygen in, it'd probably break the pumps, it'd be so cold. Etc.

MechJeb and the gimbal plugin used for RealEngines (KM_Gimbal) don't play nice right now. In MechJeb, open attitude adjustment and choose "Use Stock SAS."

You need an appropriate citylights texture. I keep forgetting to add it to the RSS opening post.

Yes, you can use real orbital values.

Regarding engine ignitions: While you can play without engine ignitor, it's not recommended Also, there's the fact that RealEngines doesn't yet really play nice with it. You might try RftS Engines in the meantime. But yeah, in general, you should only be using orbital-class engines for on-orbit work, and generally those have many reignitions.

You can place cryogenic fuel in non-cryogenic tanks (note that the ServiceModule tank type does count as insulated), however you will have higher boiloff. If you try to use a pressure-fed engine with a non-pressurized tank, it should fail to work (although I'm not sure if the latest Engine Ignitor is detecting that correctly; I thought it did...)

Now, regarding sizes.

If you are using the RPL tech tree, as its opening post and install guide says, you need to use RftS Engines, *not* RealEngines.

All engine sizes in RealEngines are correct. Apollo SPS really was 4 (3.9 actually) meters in diameter; the HM7B really is sized for a 5m stage (the Ariane 5, actually 5.4m diameter core) and really has 65kN of thrust, and so forth. Real vacuum engines have *gigantic* bell nozzles for efficiency in vacuum; KSP is hilariously wrong about just about every nozzle you see (and, of course, its engine have about 1/3 to 1/4 the TWR of real engines). It's also, of course, wrong about having a giant "tank butt" at the top of most engines--that's actually the bottom dome of the stage's lower capsule tank, not anything to do with the engine itself. Here is a real HM7B.

The fact that KSP-looking engines look "normal" to you is for the same reason that one might think waiting until 10km to start pitching over, and having pea-soup-level aerodynamic "drag," is normal: because KSP gets it hilario-tragically wrong.

pingopete: see above; use RftS with RPL, per the RPL instructions.

Realism Overhaul is scaled 100% to real life. It's well known I eventually plan to replace the Kerbals with humans anyway.

Phredward: thanks! You might want to look into "welding" aka using MODEL nodes to reference existing assets. I'd be happy to include your landing leg rescales in RO.

Romby: No real engines have alterable tech levels; that's because they model specific real engines, not notional lineages of engines that are upgraded over time into different models. Note the Russian engines have not yet been placed properly in the tech tree; they're all TL6 and TL7 engines...

[marce]

Nathan,

thanks for the complete answer, very useful hints I'm afraid I don't know enough about space (yet) to detect all arcade/casual elements...

One question left at the moment: I downloaded the 8K Earth textures which look awesome in Map view but awful (much worse than stock Kerbin) from the orbit, do you have any idea what I messed up now?

Well, eventually it will work out, just stumbled upon remote tech too so I currently have a truckload of new concepts to learn, but sleep is overrated anyway (I'm GMT+2 so exactly 5h left before work, damn you KSP).

Edited May 7, 2014 by marce
typo

[NathanKell]

marce: thanks!

Regarding Earth: Well, real Earth has about 113x the surface area of Kerbin. The 8192x4096 texture has only 16x the pixels of the stock 2048x1024 Kerbin texture. Therefore you have about 10% of the pixels-per-square-km. Since KSP only supports a maximum of 8192x8192 testures, that's about the best that can be done right now. If you zoomed in the same amount in map view as you are in orbit, they should look identical. If not, post pics?

[Woopert]

Nathan, do you know what it was that made my SLS craft and Saturn V incompatible? They appear as locked in the VAB. It's quite weird, I assume it's from 0.23.5? Or something else? Thanks!

[kendoka15]

I'm pretty sure I've seen this mentioned in this thread (or maybe it was in the RSS thread) but I'm having the weird KSC bug where the buildings flicker and are semi-clickable, but it just got worse

I just landed a probe on titan, and when I returned to the KSC to make another spacecraft I couldn't click the buildings anymore, not one

I reloaded a save, no dice.

I reloaded KSP, still no dice.

I then made a new save, did a small mission and the exact same situation happened again

So it appears I can't do more than a mission in sandbox without the KSC being unusable :/

(I have these mods if it matters: http://pastebin.com/iFFyfers )

[NathanKell]

Woopert: check KSP.log after you open the Load Craft menu. It will tell you. Search for the craft's name.

kendoka15: the flickering is well know the first time you get into Space center view; however, if you enter the VAB, SPH, or Tracking Station and then exit it again, clicking will be as normal. Regex is working on it.

Also, that really belongs in the RSS thread

Changelog:

v5.1 \/

*Updates to FASA patches by RedAV8R

*Fixed heatshield tangents not being set, leading to unexpected behavior

*Add patch for MissionController (patches fuels and engine costs to be 1k = $1000 USD 1960)

*Update RT2 patch file, fix errors

*Add throttling and EngineIgnitor support to BobCat Soviet Engines

*Upgrade to ModuleManager 2.1.0

[Romby]

Romby: No real engines have alterable tech levels; that's because they model specific real engines, not notional lineages of engines that are upgraded over time into different models. Note the Russian engines have not yet been placed properly in the tech tree; they're all TL6 and TL7 engines...

Ok nice. Thx for the info. Will remove the engines until they are added to the techtree.

Nice new patch btw

[Phredward]

Resized (scaled up) parts + album

cfg files - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/cjshvj4hpvrf607/FMqRK7zP-9

Album - http://imgur.com/a/liRVi

4m docking port

I optimized the attach points for the 4m docking port. It also has a different scale factor compared to last time. I'm not sure which to go with, but you can diff the file to see what's changed.

6m docking port

This is obviously much, much larger than any real life docking port (which seem to top out between 1 and 2m). In my mind, this part serves as a standin for a regular-sized docking port, but with a large stabilization structure around it (which seems like it could be built if needed). The only thing I've wanted this part for is very large orbital assembly (ie for manned Jupiter missions), where a 4 meter docking port might allow too much wobble with huge tanks attached to it.

Landing Legs

I've been sad that the stock landing legs don't stretch far enough to extend below the resized RSS engines. So here are 2x, 3x, and 4x landing legs (LT-1, the small kind; I'll work on the larger ones next). The masses and crashTolerances should probably be tweaked. I went with a linear mass scaling and did NOT bump the strength up at all. Probably want 2.5 mass and some additional strength, but I don't have any strong opinions on that. I don't know if all of these needed to be included, but I figured I'd do them all at the same time, and see which size(s) were useful.

Station 6-way hub

2m and 4m sizes. Mass scales linearly since I figured they're probably semi-hollow in real life?

[dlrk]

Small fix needed for ALCOR, as the part name has changed to "ALCOR_LanderCapsule"

[Woopert]

Nathan, do you think now with the FASA Apollo command pod, it might be time to re-scale the Mk1-2 and SDHI parts to 5 meters? Please?

[SpacedInvader]

So I'm having an issue with my RCS. I've got a probe and a delivery upper stage, both with different RCS thrusters (probe size on the probe, vehicle size on the upper stage), but all powered by hydrazine. In between the two is a decoupler and a procedural fairing base ring. Both sides of the break have their own hydrazine supply, but for some really weird reason, I can't get the bottom thrusters to fire.... ever. I've tried to replicate the issue through testing by building a simple vehicle with similar characteristics, but the thrusters on the test vehicle always fire without a problem. I've also tried deleting and re-attaching all of the various parts of the probe and upper stage, but its still not working. What could be going on here?

PS: Yes I am 100% sure that all of the thrusters and tanks are configured for hydrazine.

EDIT: NM... figured it out by reading RF OP like I should have in the first place...

Edited May 8, 2014 by SpacedInvader

[NathanKell]

Romby: thanks!

Phredward: Cool, nabbed.

dlrk: thanks! Will do.

Woopert: Even in that SLS ICPS/DCSS + SM thread you linked to from blackheart, blackheart is using the Taurus pod.

Which I probably should support, actually.

That said, I was actually considering making the Mk1-2 a *3* meter pod, since we don't have one of those. (Apollo is 4m, Orion is 5m, Mk1 is 2m...notice a gap?)

SpacedInvader: Pics? Craft file?

If you rebuild it exactly, does the issue still occur? (Not just a simple version).

[Woopert]

Woopert: Even in that SLS ICPS/DCSS + SM thread you linked to from blackheart, blackheart is using the Taurus pod.

Which I probably should support, actually.

That said, I was actually considering making the Mk1-2 a *3* meter pod, since we don't have one of those. (Apollo is 4m, Orion is 5m, Mk1 is 2m...notice a gap?)

Hmmm... FASA Apollo for 4m, Taurus for Orion 5m, and Mk1 for an *imaginary* pod... I like the shound of that! 2.2 meters might be good too, that's the width of a Soyuz capsule.

So, Taurus support coming soonâ„¢? Schweet!!

[SpacedInvader]

Romby: thanks!

Phredward: Cool, nabbed.

dlrk: thanks! Will do.

Woopert: Even in that SLS ICPS/DCSS + SM thread you linked to from blackheart, blackheart is using the Taurus pod.

Which I probably should support, actually.

That said, I was actually considering making the Mk1-2 a *3* meter pod, since we don't have one of those. (Apollo is 4m, Orion is 5m, Mk1 is 2m...notice a gap?)

SpacedInvader: Pics? Craft file?

If you rebuild it exactly, does the issue still occur? (Not just a simple version).

The issue was the STACK_PRIORITY_SEARCH flow mode of the fuels as described in the OP of Real Fuels. After reading that, I installed the crossfeedenabler and added a couple of extra tanks for it to work. My question there is wouldn't it be easier to use MM to search for all parts which have the resource "Monopropellant" and the attach rule "srfAttach" and then apply the mod?

Also.. how hard would it be to create a procedural trim weight mod? I've been using the RCS aid to help me balance my vehicles so that they don't spin out of control under acceleration, and I've been really finding a need for a smallish part that can have a variable mass to balance everything out. My thinking is it would be about the size of the AIES science experiments or maybe a little smaller and have a variable mass from .0001 - .1 to allow for easy fine tuning of balance. Thoughts?

Edited May 8, 2014 by SpacedInvader

[blux_]

I'm having a problem with the MK1-2 capsule with this mod. Whenever I get down to my last stage (Pictured), the rocket violently pitches up when I fire my engine. It doesn't happen with any other capsule, and it happens no matter what engine I use. Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?

[NathanKell]

SpacedInvader: MonoPropellant isn't STACK, it's still ALL_VESSEL. Also, definitely can't search for fuels that haven't been added yet.

(RF tanks start with no fuel in them).

I've tried to add CrossFeedEnabler to all known existing radial tanks, but I have not added it to stretchy and PP by default because that can screw them up due to the MODULE order loading bug (a SQUAD bug currently being fixed/worked-around by swamp_ig).

I use conic service modules at 1.0 utilization with nitric acid in them (for balancing my planes); RFNA has a density of about 1.4, so you can pack a ton in. Certainly if you made a conic tank the size of the AIES science experiments you could get 100kg of RFNA in it.

blux_: the Mk1-2 pod has an offset center of mass to enable flying lifting reentries (see the last question in the FAQ in the first post). Add weight to the other side of your service module to counteract it.

[SpacedInvader]

SpacedInvader: MonoPropellant isn't STACK, it's still ALL_VESSEL. Also, definitely can't search for fuels that haven't been added yet.

(RF tanks start with no fuel in them).

I've tried to add CrossFeedEnabler to all known existing radial tanks, but I have not added it to stretchy and PP by default because that can screw them up due to the MODULE order loading bug (a SQUAD bug currently being fixed/worked-around by swamp_ig).

I use conic service modules at 1.0 utilization with nitric acid in them (for balancing my planes); RFNA has a density of about 1.4, so you can pack a ton in. Certainly if you made a conic tank the size of the AIES science experiments you could get 100kg of RFNA in it.

I know monopropellant is all vessel, but none of the RF fuels are the same. That being said, the reason I said to do it that is because all radial RCS tanks match those search terms. They already all contain a reference to "resourceName = monopropellant" in their configs, and I believe that you can also search for attachRule with the new MM release. In this way, any radial tank that is configured for stock monopropellant would have the crossfeedenable module attached to it at loading time without having to define each tank individually.

As for the trim weight, I frankensteined one together using one of the weights from LLL and then putting the NRAP adjustable weight module into it. It works splendidly. That being said, I don't actually think you can make a stretchy tank that small, at least not without modding the config. They tend to hit minimum size around .25m I think.

[BombastixderTeutone]

Just downloaded RSS for the probable 400th time and installed all the required mods and some supported ones.

Good news is that the game does not crash, bad news is that once I load a new game, Kerbin and the KSC do not seem to exist (My modlist and a screenshot of the error in the Album below).

Can somebody help me?

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited May 8, 2014 by BombastixderTeutone
grammar and spelling

[Benoit Hage]

Good morning Nathan and Jack Bauer.

I was wondering somthing about SFJackBauer's RealEngines. Is it normal that the rescale config file put the node of KW's engine inside the engine and not at the top? At first, I say to myself that my install went wrong in some way so I re-installed everything two times, but It seems not. So I removed all node correction in the rescale config file and now KW's engine are fitting fine. I did not use any other engine config than Jack Bauer's.

Also, could the google doc summarizing the ISP, thrust etc... be outdated? I haven't check it all, but for some engine, I have noticed that the fuel mixture ratio is different from what I can read inside the game menu. Finally, is there a coming update for the new engines squad recently included? Those new engine only use the stock fuel and it would be great to have more 1.25m engine.

Please consider this post not as a beggar's post as I'm just exploring the new astronomical possibilities of making my fireworks fly. And it's just great!

[Benoit Hage]

Just downloaded RSS for the probable 400th time and installed all the required mods and some supported ones.

Good news is that the game does not crash, bad news is that once I load a new game, Kerbin and the KSC do not seem to exist (My modlist and a screenshot of the error in the Album below).

Can somebody help me?

I'm not sure about what I'll say, but I had those crash and those "Earth not loading" due to lack of memory issues. After deleting few unused parts, reducing some textures, I managed to get the whole RSS + RO working nicely. If you wish, I can give you my whole recipee. My KSP is running on a old 32 bits laptot, so if I can help, please say so.