[0.25] Realism Overhaul w/ RedAV8R [Terminated]

[coldblade2000]

That would be better for stock, not realism because of the vast difference between engines. Maybe a "blank" engine that would can choose what model you want (J-2 or RD-180, etc.) and it would rescale and rebalance accordingly.

[Devinci]

That would be better for stock, not realism because of the vast difference between engines. Maybe a "blank" engine that would can choose what model you want (J-2 or RD-180, etc.) and it would rescale and rebalance accordingly.

Exactly. The model of the engine is not a problem. I for instance like to make big realistic rockets so I need a variety of engines that don't necessarily have a counterpart IRL. But being able to choose the function of the engine (Atmospheric or Vacuum) then choose a thrust range, then choose the fuel type to match the ISP and lastly choose a model would be interesting.

I have used more than 8 F1 engines in one of my rockets but I'd rather have 4 or less engines with equal thrust unless it would be too unrealistic to have such powerful engines IRL as well.

[RedAV8R]

@Devinci & coldblade2000: Possible, if somebody makes something that could do it. If it were up to me in the end run, all 'generic' and 'stock' models would be removed, and real models of engines be put in their places. Now if we could get somebody to model all past and current engines...

@EVERYBODY: Work continues on something 0.25 compatible. Still waiting for some very important dependencies to be updated. When RealHeat is released we will be updating RO to be compatible with it instead of DREC. Because of some fixes implemented by Squad, there will be some scaling/size issues that will require new releases of supported mods and likely require rework on our end as well. Going to be a long process ahead, but I'm hoping to have most things updated and release a basic RO including stock parts and parts from dependencies as soon as the last requirement is updated.

Edited October 10, 2014 by RedAV8R

[Ophiuchus]

Hey Red:

The KW LE-7A in-game has no throttle capacity; the engine should be throttleable to 72% http://www.astronautix.com/engines/le7a.htm and http://www.mhi.co.jp/technology/review/pdf/355/355344.pdf (in Japanese)

The KW Vulcain 2 has a weight of 3.1t, but http://www.astronautix.com/engines/vulcain2.htm has it at 1.8t and http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bullet102/Coulon102.pdf 1.935t

The KW HM-7B has a mass of .2475t, http://www.snecma.com/IMG/files/fiche_hm7b_ang_2011_modulvoir_file_fr.pdf has it as .165t and http://www.astronautix.com/engines/hm7b.htm at .155t (also ASL Isp of 310s instead of 156s, but no idea where they got that number)

The KW AJ-10 137 has a mass of .65t, http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/850062.pdf has it as 850lbs (ugh), 0.386t

The KW RS-27A has a mass of 1.7t, http://www.astronautix.com/engines/rs27a.htm has 1.1t

The Castor 120 has a fueled/dry mass of 58t/9t, http://www.astronautix.com/engines/casor120.htm has 53t/4t

Edited October 11, 2014 by Ophiuchus
castor120

[NathanKell]

As for the masses, for liquid engines US engines often don't have the thrust structure included (classic example: The F-1 massed about 8.4 tons, but the S-IC had a 20-ton thrust structure, which meant in effect each engine massed 12.4 tons). That may be part of what's going on there.

Russian engines do include the thrust structure in the cited mass, AFAIK.

[Ophiuchus]

True enough NK, and if that's what's going on it's perfectly reasonable, but the thrust frame is so vehicle specific - number of engines, gimballing, whether any boosters are bottom-pushers or top-pullers. Example: take the thrust structure for the N1, divide by 30 and multiply by 2, would the mass be comparable to the Antares thrust structure?

[NathanKell]

Number of engines shouldn't matter, since mass will be proportional to the number of engines and therefore can be assessed per engine (or are you saying it's very non-linear?). Gimballing will matter, but since engine gimbal doesn't differ within a single engine part, it makes sense to assess per engine. Bottom or top we can't account for, true, but have there been any [relevant, pace Goddard] LVs that *lift off* as top-pullers? I.e. where TWR is high?

Thus I think assessing it per-engine is a pretty good approximation.

The one thing you did not mention however is "mass above that stage" i.e. what's pushing down on the stage at the same time the engines are pushing up. But I think that can be ignored with some level of accuracy (i.e. even if we're off by 20% you can make it up elsewhere if you're making replicas, and that's close enough and better than 100% off if you're not).

Finally, it's worth noting that this ties together with tank mass in RF (which is computed to try to lead to on-average-correct stage masses, *given engine masses in RO, and given stage masses in real life*).

[Jonathan_C_W]

Hey guys,

I'm using tweakscale 1.43 among many other mods and I'm encountering a major set of annoyances.

1. I tweak an engine in the VAB and everything appears fine and dandy. MechJeb is happy and gives me a sensible TWR for the rescaled engine. All stats are present and correct. I'm using real fuels and all sorts, but it all seems happy. With high hopes I then proceed to the launchpad and the ship loads with the engine visibly rescaled, so far so good. I launch. 30g! The tweaked engine loads in with original (un-tweaked) physics rather than giving me the rescaled physics. The same reversion also occurs if I save a ship and load it back up in the VAB. My gameplay is consequently ruined. In addition, I note that the RO mod has taken to removing engine gimbaling (for me at least). I somewhat fixed this by throwing the Gimbaling config file from SFJBRealEngines into my game folder. But that just won't do. Point of interest, this problem does not occur with the "Little Mother" engine although that's the only exception I've discovered so far.

2. Stack decouplers are totally broken. I spent ages trying to work out why my first and second stage engines were both firing at launch, only to find that none of my decouplers work. I fire the decoupler and the second stage engine base just sticks to the damn thing. So I can't launch anything multi-staged. I note that the decoupler graphic that usually connects the stages and shrouds the rocket engine does not execute when I connect a decoupler. Probably because the game isn't registering the fact I've connected a decoupler. What joy.

These problems have rendered my game unplayable.

Mod (heavily slimmed down but no fancy config edits outside of Planet Factory):

https://www.dropbox.com/lightbox/home/Screenshots

Output Log:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dw1wwx358u3agpq/output_log.txt?dl=0

If this is a known issue with a simple fix please, please let me know. If not any thoughts would be be highly appreciated. I've been working forever trying to construct a perfect enhanced realism mod. I've even edited the Planet Factory configs to death to create a sensible solar system and nearby star system on a pass (not an orbit). This is the final hurdle. All I need is Tweakscale to function and these damn decouplers to get their act together so I can finally waste the rest of my life playing KSP.

Thanks

J

[RedAV8R]

@Johnathan_C_W: What makes you think that RO is the cause of your issues? I see you have RftS installed, which completely disables all changes done to engines that otherwise would have been done. I also see that you have KSPI installed, which is absolutely hilarious considering nowhere does it mention that it's been tested or compatible with RO. Not to mention I see several other untested modifications installed. So. This is easy. Support Denied.

Thanks,

Management

[Jonathan_C_W]

Just tried it on the basic (required) mods. Same problems when RO installed. Problems absent when RO not installed.

[mdosogne]

After starting a stock 0.25 game with "difficult" settings and unlocking most of the tech tree in 4h, I'm looking forward to Realism Overhaul.

I've started downloading the 0.25 compatible mods, and noticed a minor issue with the RO package (which I realize is not 0.25 ready yet):

The OP lists ModuleManager 2.5.1 as INCLUDED in the RO package, but upon unzipping I find version 2.3.5 (and it's not just the file name; the binary also contains several references to "2.3.5")

Edited October 11, 2014 by mdosogne

[RedAV8R]

@Jonathan_C_W: Then I need logs and a proper report. You'll also want to verify EVERYTHING is updated as well. I noted several things that weren't updated to the latest that was available for 0.24.2. Regardless, I'm not overly worried about anything before 0.25, and 0.25 isn't ready yet.

@mdosogne: That's because I'm updating the OP as I go. When the latest release is pushed, it will be 2.5.1. In fact if I'm not mistaken the latest git commit was the update to 2.5.1. I'll be sure to make a note on the OP stating such.

[Phredward]

teal'c: right-click on the pod and select "Reentry CoM" when in flight, and the CoM will be offset. This is so that under normal conditions the CoM can be left un-offset, since people were having a hard time balancing their service modules with the pod with an offset CoM...

Woooo! I was having a lot of difficulty controlling the final stage of crafts with the offset COM, and couldn't figure out how to just slightly offset the final engine. This'll make it a lot easier.

[Phredward]

Some payloads may not be able to handle high g. This isn't quite modeled in KSP yet.

I'm super excited for a future with max g for parts other than the pilots themselves. If anyone has a quick and dirty approximation for what features might fail, or why the shuttled was limited to 3 g's, I'm curious.

[Phredward]

Looking forward to playing on .25! Thanks for keeping up all the good work!

[Exosphere]

Not to sound impatient or anything (I'm just curious), but is there an ETA for a 0.25 compatibility update (even a kinda-sorta vague one)? Again, I'm not demanding you guys release anything soon, and if it's going to take a while/you're not really sure when it'll be done/you've got a lot of other work to do, that's totally fine -- but I was curious to know if anyone knows when it'll be up.

This is a really awesome mod, BTW -- along with RSS and the other realism mods (DRE, TACLS, etc), it's made KSP more challenging and immersive. I tried playing the game stock today and the experience seemed... strange. The game just doesn't have the same feel without the mods.

[RedAV8R]

@Exosphere: Patience my friend. Soon . Big issue at the moment is waiting on NK to push v8.0 of RealFuels, which 'should' be the last dependency. Supported mods are going to be few/far between and more or less limited to stock and basic things at first, but should be able to add others back pretty rapidly. I'm hoping to knock out the last remaining touches on stock additions within a day or two. All depends on what RL presents me. Between my RL work and a wife 36 weeks pregnant with our first, sometimes RO isn't on the top of the priority list:)

Hopefully squad fixing the scaling bugs won't bite things too bad, I know KW is suffering pretty bad from it, hopefully though the way we rescaled things from the start should limit the pains.

[coldblade2000]

Hey, would you care to add the RL-10-C1 variant? It's gonna replace the J-2X for the spot on the powerful SLS second stage: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/10/nasa-exploration-upper-stage-workhorse-sls/ Unless you have already added it, it's been a while since I have checked the RL-10

Stats can be found on page 10 here: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015783.pdf

Thanks in advance. I'd do the configs myself but I'm away from home

Edited October 13, 2014 by coldblade2000

[coldblade2000]

RealFuels has been updated to 8.0: https://github.com/NathanKell/ModularFuelSystem/releases

[RedAV8R]

@coldblade2000:

Why yes, I will add the RL-10-C1. Easy addition.

RealFuels. Yep. Was way past my bed time, going to pay for being up past 1 as it is. I'll see what can get done today.

[coldblade2000]

Thanks. Very useful. By the way, if I wanted to add a variant, would it be as simple as copy pasting something into a config file and adjusting ISP, weight, etc?

[Woopert]

Hey, would you care to add the RL-10-C1 variant? It's gonna replace the J-2X for the spot on the powerful SLS second stage: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/10/nasa-exploration-upper-stage-workhorse-sls/ Unless you have already added it, it's been a while since I have checked the RL-10

Stats can be found on page 10 here: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015783.pdf

That NASA NTRS link looks like it's from a couple years ago since it shows the old Orion design. I believe the current DUUS proposal looks like this. But yes, DUUS has been on my RO wishlist for a while now, I've just never mentioned it. It'd be cool if we could get a resized and accurate DUUS for RO to go with the RL10C-1.

[foamyesque]

I was so excited when I saw RF update... I forgot I still needed engines. :v

[jrandom]

I was so excited when I saw RF update... I forgot I still needed engines. :v

I did this exact same thing!!

I'm still trying to build rockets, but the sheer number of non-RO-supported parts is... well, it's forcing me to be creative. Also noticed that all the air intakes have some ridiculously-low air intake value so I can't fly around yet either. I will take this as... A CHALLENGE!!

[Exosphere]

I'm new to RO (I took a break from playing KSP prior to it being released and I'm just starting again now), so I was wondering -- which parts packs will be supported by the mod? I've got FASA, LazTek (the SpaceX parts mod), KW Rocketry, and AIES. Are any of those mods supported?

And I've been trying to get by with non-RO parts as well -- I just tried to do a lunar landing mission (with RSS) using nothing but stock engines. My rocket ended up looking just like the N1.