Announcing the NCA Aerotech RotoThrust

[SiliconPyro]

Download Link

Well, after a LOT of help from folks on the forum, especially nli2work, I've finally gotten my VTOL engine working. It still needs things like, oh, textures, but it WORKS! Here are a few demonstrations:

Edited August 23, 2014 by norcalairman

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Let me be the first to say congrats it looks great , who cares about the textures if it works well:) cant wait to get my hands on one to see how it works,I want one please.

Nice job,

[nli2work]

looking good! it handles better than any VTOL i've ever tried to build.

[SiliconPyro]

It handles like an absolute dream. I'm not sure how it will work with just one engine, but if I can balance it well, this might be my new favorite toy.

[nli2work]

I'd keep it symmetrical. dealing with 4 nozzles and trying to balance them is a pain. even with RCS Build Aid to show you the torque resulting from engine placements.

[SiliconPyro]

In case any of you were wondering what type of spaceplane could be built with this engine, well, this is what I'm currently working on. Here's a VTOL test of a spaceplane prototype. One RotoThrust engine, no thrust limiting this time. I can't wait to share this with y'all so you can go crazy with it.

[MightyDarkStar]

Oh sweet bejebus! That looks slick as well.. something that is slick!

[SiliconPyro]

Oh sweet bejebus! That looks slick as well.. something that is slick!

Haha, thanks. I'm still stunned at how well it works, even though I have a few adjustments to make to it.

[CaptainKipard]

Cool

Um, It looks a little odd though. The thrust from the first should be damaging the rear one and it doesn't look like it does. Is the thrust angled?

Another idea could be to do what they did with the Harrier. The front exhausts are a little wider than the rear ones. So two different parts.

Secondly I think the animation is a bit too fast.

[SiliconPyro]

Cool

Um, It looks a little odd though. The thrust from the first should be damaging the rear one and it doesn't look like it does. Is the thrust angled?

Another idea could be to do what they did with the Harrier. The front exhausts are a little wider than the rear ones. So two different parts.

Secondly I think the animation is a bit too fast.

Actually, it's using the values from the Jet Engine part.cfg. I think the rear nozzles are just far enough back not to be damaged. I agree that copying the harrier would be ideal for that reason, but it would limit design possibilities in other ways. Maybe I could make another engine with identical thrust that is a 1.25m diameter in front and .625 in back. The added benefit of a design like that, front and rear vertical engines, is you could limit thrust one one engine to balance your center of thrust, making balancing MUCH easier.

As you can see by the last video though, you can definitely build with a single engine, which gets rid of this problem entirely. You just have to be more mindful of your center of mass.

The animation is WAY too fast. This was a prototype, which I got working in game just before my computer froze and I lost my working files in Blender and Unity. So I have the exported part, but I have to rebuild it if I'm going to make any changes to the mesh, textures or animation. No biggie though, because now I know everything I need to go from a box to an animated VTOL engine and . . . knowing is half the battle.

[CaptainKipard]

Maybe I could make another engine with identical thrust that is a 1.25m diameter in front and .625 in back.

Why not a set of various widths? You could also make various versions where the exhausts are offset from the center, etc, etc.

Anyway good job on your first part.

[SiliconPyro]

Why not a set of various widths? You could also make various versions where the exhausts are offset from the center, etc, etc.

Anyway good job on your first part.

I can see an entire line of RotoThrust engines coming from this, now that I know how to make them. I'll get this one polished and textured first, I think, then apply the same design scheme to the rest.

This isn't my first part, just the first that I've shown anyone and I'm WAY more excited about this one. I've made probe cores and thrust vectored SRBs in the past, but those models were simple and design was a piece of cake. This required a lot more learning, but it is so fun to use.

[SiliconPyro]

Well, it got me into orbit. I might have finished circularizing with monopropellant, but I've got enough mono and fuel to get me home, so whatever.

[SiliconPyro]

Simple re-texture. It still needs work, of course.

[SiliconPyro]

In case anyone wants to give it a try, here's the RT-2B1250.

[nli2work]

You got the cylinderical body already, you could build the intake into the engine itself. all you need is an empty transform called "Intake"; +Z forward. then just copy the Intake and IntakeAir res definition from a stock intake part.

[SiliconPyro]

You got the cylinderical body already, you could build the intake into the engine itself. all you need is an empty transform called "Intake"; +Z forward. then just copy the Intake and IntakeAir res definition from a stock intake part.

I'm considering that as an alternate model, but one-part-does-all isn't really much like the way stock parts work.

[MonaBabii]

Hey This is amazing! nli2work pointed me in the direction of this part replying to my request for something almost exactly like this, and I'm excited to see a project like it going I'll definitely be tracking the progress of this one very closely, for specially if you ever decide to make a radial-sort of engine that could basically be attached to any kind of fuel tank

Amazing work so far! Keep it up !