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[1.12.X] Tantares - Stockalike Soyuz and MIR [16.1][28.05.2024][Mars Expedition WIP]


Beale

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2 minutes ago, tjsnh said:

FYI - some testing with tantares/tantaresLV in the 1.1prerelease (otherwise stock, no other mods or patches):

R-7 significantly easier to fly than in 1.05 (without fins clipped into the tanks or any other tricks), both "sputnik" and "soyuz" configs.
R-7 way, way, overpowered - worse than 1.05. "sputnik" config R-7 can boost a vostok into a 200km circular orbit without even using the wayfarer vostok stage. "soyuz" configuration can similarly boost a soyuz WITH R-7 upper stage into a 120km circular orbit BEFORE staging into the R-7 upper stage. With the upper stage, and without soyuz service module, it's easily capable of getting to Minmus.
VA/Soyuz DMs re-enter like a charm. Performance is excellent.
Vostok DM has thermal issues on re-entry, slightly worse than 1.05. Out of 10 re-entries with various profiles (angle between 10km and 30km) spontaneous explosion on 3 out of 10 attempts. 20km seems to be the "magic angle" for not overheating and exploding. Changing the part's max temp may resolve the issue. Aerodynamic breaking is LESS of a problem than 1.05, all 7 successful re-entry attempts slowed down enough to deploy the chute with altitude to spare.
There were bugs staging into some non-engine parts. Mainly a couple of the decouplers, and the soyuz parachute. I had to right-click to use them, staging was ineffective - no idea why.
No clipping/mesh issues with any parts, textures all loaded great (except one of the 3-panel solar panels, I suspect you already know about that one), docking ports seem to work, etc etc. 

Will probably do more testing and throw more random feedback tomorrow.
 

Great stuff! Many many thanks!

I had no idea the aerodynamics may have changed. I am really short of time lately, especially to play and test the game, but I will try to take a look.

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Just now, Beale said:

Great stuff! Many many thanks!

I had no idea the aerodynamics may have changed. I am really short of time lately, especially to play and test the game, but I will try to take a look.

I'll be doing some more exhaustive testing tomorrow (trying to spend some free time doing testing for the various mods I use and giving feedback), should have more updates then.
It's hard to know if some of the differences are due to game physics changes, slight aerodynamic differences due to part rendering in unity5, etc etc. I suspect most parts-pack mods are going to get a bit of tweaking/performance editing to account for the combination of minor differences going into 1.1.

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The problem with parachutes which not trigger by automatic staging is known. The behavior is similar to a random and affect all parachutes. Reloading the game prior fixes the problem for a while. It is best to always install two parachutes and can both be addressed via manual trigger.

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31 minutes ago, Beale said:

Great stuff! Many many thanks!

I had no idea the aerodynamics may have changed. I am really short of time lately, especially to play and test the game, but I will try to take a look.

I'm basically at the point where I might just start telling people to use rescales (3x or whatever) if they want realistic performance. It's impossible to get stock rockets to match up - they're too big relative to the scale of the KSP universe. They're 2/3 size but orbital velocity is 1/3, etc.

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1 hour ago, CobaltWolf said:

They're 2/3 size but orbital velocity is 1/3, etc.

I have never heard it explained better!

It may be even more complex, I am not sure the scaling is linear - the Black Arrow here has similiar performance to the real rocket, but on the other end of the spectrum the N-1 has maybe 5x the capacity of IRL.

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1 minute ago, Beale said:

I have never heard it explained better!

It may be even more complex, I am not sure the scaling is linear - the Black Arrow here has similiar performance to the real rocket, but on the other end of the spectrum the N-1 has maybe 5x the capacity of IRL.

Just the simple fact that it doesn't explode on the launchpad makes it a bit OP.

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9 hours ago, DarthVader said:

Half the craft files in the OP are broken. Hand built an N1 and a TKS they fly masterfully. 

Yeah they have been broken for some time, some of them anyway ( @CaptKordite's crafts should be good enough though).

In future versions I'm releasing a manual with the files, with building instructions. In even further future versions, I'd like to integrate the manual directly into KSPedia.

7 hours ago, VenomousRequiem said:

Ah! I figured out your secret, @Beale! I was trying to figure out what some of the TKS parts go to.

It's Safir from Kolyma's Shadow!

lX8FgaC.png

safir2a.png?cache=

Please tell me you haven't said that that's what it is before... I want to feel smart! :P

It's based on the Lk-1.

It looks like the Safir is pretty much the same, under a different name - so you can have a point.

48 minutes ago, Cdodders said:

Quick Q, the engines for the brit rockets have no flame, was there a fix I missed?

Here's The Fix.

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18 minutes ago, Beale said:

Yeah they have been broken for some time, some of them anyway ( @CaptKordite's crafts should be good enough though).

In future versions I'm releasing a manual with the files, with building instructions. In even further future versions, I'd like to integrate the manual directly into KSPedia.

It's based on the Lk-1.

It looks like the Safir is pretty much the same, under a different name - so you can have a point.

Here's The Fix.

Awesome cheers :-)

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4 minutes ago, hendrack said:

@Beale Do you plan to release an updated version of Tantares/TantaresLV  for KSP 1.0.5 before going to 1.1?

Very doubtful.

I will at the very least, wait until 1.1 is available to all before updating.

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40 minutes ago, Redhornet919 said:

@Bealeany reason you've been using .7z files ????

7-Zip is generally better for compressing files.

If I remember right, it is only slightly better for compression of textures, but performs excellently at compressing text and other misc files.

Either way, most of the world, most of America (main users of this forum) do not have fast internet connections so archive-size is important.

 

Give me a moment and I will perform some test.

So:

TantaresLV.7z = 6MB

TantaresLV.zip = 8MB

Tantares.7z = 13MB

Tantares.zip = 17MB

See how the difference between format is creeping up for Tantares? :wink: 

That is why I use 7z.

Edited by Beale
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So I'm assuming the single RZ-2 is the heavy lift 0.9375m engine. What is the medium lift? I was thinking about making an efficient 0.9375m lifter engine that would have to be augmented with strap on boosters for sea level TWR, But I am not sure how much use it would see. Not that it has stopped me before. :P

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24 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

So I'm assuming the single RZ-2 is the heavy lift 0.9375m engine. What is the medium lift? I was thinking about making an efficient 0.9375m lifter engine that would have to be augmented with strap on boosters for sea level TWR, But I am not sure how much use it would see. Not that it has stopped me before. :P

I like the idea you describe!

For engines:

Currently,  the two nozzle engine could be called medium, but it ends in 1.25m, so that doesn't count.
What can be done, is to have a duplicate of that engine with a straight cylinder! (Last image, uses no new texture space).

That leaves only the low-lift engine, which can be a single Gamma-2 nozzle (A Gamma-1 I guess!).

f0119ed91f.jpg
e0c6d83aa1.jpg
21d445a479.jpg
b1fa3c941c.jpg

 

 

Edited by Beale
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3 minutes ago, Beale said:

Currently,  the two nozzle engine could be called medium, but it ends in 1.25m, so that doesn't count.

What can be done, is to have a duplicate of that engine with a straight cylinder! (Last image, uses no new texture space).

That leaves only the low-lift engine, which can be a single Gamma-2 nozzle (A Gamma-1 I guess!).

Well, something you are missing would be the Gamma 4 from Black Knight, which would also be cool due to the new gimballing options on 1.1. You could make it realistic by having two engines gimbal on one axis, and two on the other. And then the Gamma 8 is the same setup with an engine added to each gimbal arm to make 8 :P But a Gamma 1 would also be good, if a little weak I'd think.

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Just now, CobaltWolf said:

Well, something you are missing would be the Gamma 4 from Black Knight, which would also be cool due to the new gimballing options on 1.1. You could make it realistic by having two engines gimbal on one axis, and two on the other. And then the Gamma 8 is the same setup with an engine added to each gimbal arm to make 8 :P But a Gamma 1 would also be good, if a little weak I'd think.

Shh, I was hoping people would forget about the Gamma 4! :wink: 

Yes, that too needs to be made (To be honest, I'd forgotten it). As you say, the new gimbal options could be very interesting.

 

The large engine also looks really neat when combined with an adapter!

75e32a96b4.jpg

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More testing with the 1.1 prerelease.

Most parts function perfectly, I only ran into functionality issues/glitches with one part (the crater/luna probe core, mentioned below) and tested about 95% of the parts in both tantares and tantaresLV
I have not yet tested the MAPC beta.
I did, however, run into a handful of balance/power issues. Please don't think I'm whining or being a big complainer, just reporting results with 1.1pre.

New proton parts posted a couple of pages ago, with a full TKS/VA, and stock 2.5m shroud
no fins or struts
slightly wobbly, but flew well on assent
stage 1 seems way overpowered (too efficient?)
200km orbit EARLY in stage 2 , but stage 2 on its own seems decently tuned
3rd stage engine way too efficient, I got the full TKS/VA payload JUST shy of the orbit of Jool (Sun aps of 56,454,855,644km ) using only the proton 3rd stage. As an analogy to the proton, the full rocket should be able to push the TKS/VA about halfway to the Mun...

SoyuzLOK/LKlander payload, N1 rocket, stock shroud
without fins, flies out of control under 2000m. Gridfin part might be a very apropos addition to put on the roadmap?
with 8x elevon1 on 1st and 2nd stages, first stage flies very well, 2nd stage mild tipping (one full 360degree flip) issues but recovered, 3rd stage reaches Mun orbit (almost exactly), making a 4th stage with LLV-E050D pure overkill
For context, in 1.0.5 the same craft gets _slightly_ worse performance, with the 3rd stage cutting out about 3/4 the way to the Mun.
The LLV-E050D engine remains, as in 1.0.5, an order of magnitude too efficient. Using the S/L/N stack I can boost the soyuz/LK (the intended payload for the N1) out past the outer orbit of Eeloo, burning for 17 seconds after reaching escape velocity from the sun , mostly thanks to the E050D (that is to say, escape from the Sun without even staging into the LK's engine) .

Other booster stacks (PLV, etc) were similarly a bit overpowered, but the Proton and N1 (along with TLV/Soyuz posted yesterday) were the worst offenders (only ones I would consider legitimately busted) which is why I posted specific results only for those two.

Crater/Luna probe lacks a transmitter and is very glitchy if loading from a saved craft into the VAB or using "revert to vehicle assembly building" (can't click the probe core, move it, etc)
(LOTS of problems with remotetech installed, but that's a topic for another thread)
Survives low/medium speed impacts with the ground pretty well, and flips itself upright almost every time when the petals deploy.

 

Bottom line : Just about everything is working well, except the Crater/Luna probe core. However, the rocket stacks remain significantly overpowered relative to how far they can boost their "intended/default" payloads.
If extra manpower is needed to do performance tweaking on the engines/tanks/weights/etc , consider me volunteered.

Edited by tjsnh
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