[1.4] SpaceY Heavy-Lifter Parts Pack v1.17.1 (2018-04-02)

[NecroBones]

I got a contract to test the heavy launch clamp while landed on the Mun. While the payout was reasonable, I figured it would be quite impossible. Is it something you can disable?

Minuteman-I (all-solid) had four nozzles, however, newer versions have only one, to make steering easier.

http://historicspacecraft.com/Photos/Missiles/MM1_CCAFS2009RK_1.jpg

Which brings to: The large SRBs can be difficult to control. I don't know why the stock SRBs don't gimbal, but the space shuttle SRBs did most of the initial steering by gimballing. Maybe add some to the SpaceY ones too?

Holy cow.. I'm learning something new all the time. Thanks for those! I didn't realize either that the Shuttle SRBs could gimbal, or that there were 4-nozzle SRB precedents. I had just done it that way because I thought it worked well with the KSP aesthetic and wouldn't have to worry about scaling the thrust emissions.

Knowing this, I might indeed work some gimbal in, though I'll probably keep the range tight.

[NBZ]

What is 0.7.1? It's not on the "Change History".

[NecroBones]

I got a contract to test the heavy launch clamp while landed on the Mun. While the payout was reasonable, I figured it would be quite impossible. Is it something you can disable?

Missed this part. Unfortunately, KSP just has a "surface" option in there, and doesn't differentiate between Kerbin's surface and other surfaces. The clamps have the same setting as the stock clamps, too. So if they've fixed it for the stock clamps (not sure if they did or not, but I know it had this problem initially), then they must have hardcoded an exception, but made it based on that particular part rather than parts that contain the "LaunchClamp" module.

It's a silly problem. The only way for me to fix it is to remove it from being testable under contract altogether.

What is 0.7.1? It's not on the "Change History".

Oh, that's a typo. We went from "0.6.1" to "0.7", and I just didn't delete the ".1".

[NecroBones]

Holy cow.. I'm learning something new all the time. Thanks for those! I didn't realize either that the Shuttle SRBs could gimbal

For future readers of this thread, I found some mention of the actual gimbal range of the shuttle SRBs:

* http://www.ssdl.gatech.edu/papers/mastersProjects/KranzuschK-8900.pdf

Scroll down to Page 1, and it's at the top. 5 degrees on each axis, or 6 total if operating on only one HPU.

For KSP, since everything seems to use smaller gimbal ranges that the real world counterparts, perhaps 1 or 2 degrees might be OK? I'm tempted to add this to the 1.875m boosters and see how that goes.

[NBZ]

For future readers of this thread, I found some mention of the actual gimbal range of the shuttle SRBs:

* http://www.ssdl.gatech.edu/papers/mastersProjects/KranzuschK-8900.pdf

Scroll down to Page 1, and it's at the top. 5 degrees on each axis, or 6 total if operating on only one HPU.

For KSP, since everything seems to use smaller gimbal ranges that the real world counterparts, perhaps 1 or 2 degrees might be OK? I'm tempted to add this to the 1.875m boosters and see how that goes.

No actually. The range is about 4.5 degrees, as can be inferred from Figure 8. The numbers on page 1 are gimbal rates, i.e. how quickly nozzle gimbals. That is 5 degrees per second (6 degrees per second total on one HPU). However, it will rarely turn at full rate for a full second.

Comes out that the SRBs have a relatively low range compared to liquid fueled engines (especially the SSME).

Maybe Squad limited gimballing to make steering more of a challenge. If real world ranges were available, almost no crazy contraption would ever flip. Being that SRB are so cheap, they had to have a downside, so "modelling" lesser gimbal range as no range was an acceptable choice for more interesting play. In the same vein, the NERVA-equivalent was nerfed and made heavy, to prevent it being the only engine in use. And so too, engines and tanks are heavy, so people will have the aspect of staging.

[NecroBones]

No actually. The range is about 4.5 degrees, as can be inferred from Figure 8. The numbers on page 1 are gimbal rates, i.e. how quickly nozzle gimbals. That is 5 degrees per second (6 degrees per second total on one HPU). However, it will rarely turn at full rate for a full second.

Comes out that the SRBs have a relatively low range compared to liquid fueled engines (especially the SSME).

Maybe Squad limited gimballing to make steering more of a challenge. If real world ranges were available, almost no crazy contraption would ever flip. Being that SRB are so cheap, they had to have a downside, so "modelling" lesser gimbal range as no range was an acceptable choice for more interesting play. In the same vein, the NERVA-equivalent was nerfed and made heavy, to prevent it being the only engine in use. And so too, engines and tanks are heavy, so people will have the aspect of staging.

Woops! I must have totally misread it then. I was in a hurry, so... yeah.

As far as SRB gimbal in the stock game, I can see having a severe limitation in the early game. Since the SpaceY boosters are late-game/advanced options, having a little gimbal here could be useful. I haven't worked on any modeling changes yet (which is necessary if you want the nozzles to animate), since I'm considering it still in discussion.

[Nhawks17]

Quick question. When I had this mod installed on 0.25 I had used TweakScale to adjust some of the rocket engines to go onto 1.25 and 2.5 parts and the engine effects would scale correctly as I decreased the size of the engine. However, when I added it to me 0.90 install when I scale down the parts the effects are no longer correctly scaled to what the effect looked like before. Was this something that was changed or did I mess something up with my TweakScale install?

[NecroBones]

Quick question. When I had this mod installed on 0.25 I had used TweakScale to adjust some of the rocket engines to go onto 1.25 and 2.5 parts and the engine effects would scale correctly as I decreased the size of the engine. However, when I added it to me 0.90 install when I scale down the parts the effects are no longer correctly scaled to what the effect looked like before. Was this something that was changed or did I mess something up with my TweakScale install?

That would have to be a bug with TweakScale, or just a version mismatch, or somehow not correctly installed. Did you upgrade to the latest TweakScale when upgrading to 0.90? If the parts are scaling at all, the stats should too. There's nothing on my side to do that, other than to just say "yes, this part can be scaled, and here's its default size".

[Nhawks17]

That would have to be a bug with TweakScale, or just a version mismatch, or somehow not correctly installed. Did you upgrade to the latest TweakScale when upgrading to 0.90? If the parts are scaling at all, the stats should too. There's nothing on my side to do that, other than to just say "yes, this part can be scaled, and here's its default size".

I believe it was installed correctly. I did use CKAN so maybe that messed it up. I'll try to do it manually and see if that fixes it.

- - - Updated - - -

Well this is weird. It was actually Hot Rockets causing the issue... Once I removed it the engines didn't have the issue anymore.

[NecroBones]

I believe it was installed correctly. I did use CKAN so maybe that messed it up. I'll try to do it manually and see if that fixes it.

- - - Updated - - -

Well this is weird. It was actually Hot Rockets causing the issue... Once I removed it the engines didn't have the issue anymore.

Well, that's certainly unexpected! Glad that you were able to find the culprit though.

[NecroBones]

Alrighty, 0.8 is out. I'm trying an experiment with auto-shrouds on the cylindrical tanks. If we hate them, I can always take them back out. I've added them to the tops of the tanks only.

I also adjusted the sheen of the paint schemes on the tanks to be a little more glossy, and less "satin". It's a little closer to what I've been doing with Color Coded Canisters these last few weeks.

0.8 (2015-01-09) - Beta
 - Added RemoteTech support for probe cores.
 - Added Engine Ignitor support for launch clamps.
 - Added auto-shroud to tops of cylindrical fuel tanks.
 - Altered fuel tank paint scheme to be a little more glossy, and less "satin".

[NBZ]

After all the attention given to CCC (with great results, I must say), I'm back as SpaceY commentator:

1. The Stack Guidance Systems' inner walls are currently generic tank-inner-wall textured, and practically indistinguishable in the menu. Could you make the 5m blue and the 3.75m orange? I think that wall's color would show clearly in the menu.

2. title = SpaceY Stack Guidance System

description = [as now]

title = Kerbodyne/SpaceY Stack Guidance System

description = A smaller (and therefore inferior) version of the SpaceY SGS, developed in partnership with Kerbodyne. Now with interior in Kerbodyne's trademark orange!

3. Can I have a 0.625m attachment node in the center of Dibamus' backplate? Useful for mounting on surface-attached tanks.

4. What happened to developing the Super-Dibamus? I suggest beginning with scaling the Dibamus up to a 1.25m backplate with node. Dual nozzles in all directions. The "outwards" nozzles as a horizontal pair. I've got a heavy Tylo lander that could use some for higher TWR.

5. The landing gear needs further work. For some reason it doesn't stick to its stack. If that can be solved, it is usable: Cut down to 4 legs, and make them much less slanted when extended. you don't need more clearance than the Raptor cluster.

6. Can you upscale the (already working) LT-2 and modify it? Make it rectangular in cross-section, and make it much wider than thick, with a huge square foot. Oh, and make it white with blue trim.

7. Adapter names:

SpaceY A2-1x Stackable Adapter < the long one

SpaceY A2-1 Stackable Adapter < the short one

SpaceY A3-1q Stackable Thrust Plate < q for quint (=5)

SpaceY A3-1s Stackable Thrust Plate < s for sept (=7)

SpaceY A3-2 Stackable Adapter

SpaceY A5 "Rose" Stackable Thrust Plate < the special 8x1.25 + 1x 2.5m lookes like a flower – "Le Petit Prince"'s flower.

SpaceY A5-2d Stackable Thrust Plate < d for double (=2)

SpaceY A5-3 Stackable Adapter

- - - Updated - - -

SpaceY A3-1q Stackable Thrust Plate < q for quint (=5)

SpaceY A3-1s Stackable Thrust Plate < s for sept (=7)

SpaceY A5-2d Stackable Thrust Plate < d for double (=2)

If you prefer, then this roman numbering (in upper- or lowercase) would work too:

SpaceY A3-1v Stackable Thrust Plate

SpaceY A3-1vii Stackable Thrust Plate

SpaceY A5-2ii Stackable Thrust Plate

Edited January 11, 2015 by NBZ

[NecroBones]

After all the attention given to CCC (with great results, I must say), I'm back as SpaceY commentator:

1. The Stack Guidance Systems' inner walls are currently generic tank-inner-wall textured, and practically indistinguishable in the menu. Could you make the 5m blue and the 3.75m orange? I think that wall's color would show clearly in the menu.

2. title = SpaceY Stack Guidance System

description = [as now]

title = Kerbodyne/SpaceY Stack Guidance System

description = A smaller (and therefore inferior) version of the SpaceY SGS, developed in partnership with Kerbodyne. Now with interior in Kerbodyne's trademark orange!

3. Can I have a 0.625m attachment node in the center of Dibamus' backplate? Useful for mounting on surface-attached tanks.

4. What happened to developing the Super-Dibamus? I suggest beginning with scaling the Dibamus up to a 1.25m backplate with node. Dual nozzles in all directions. The "outwards" nozzles as a horizontal pair. I've got a heavy Tylo lander that could use some for higher TWR.

5. The landing gear needs further work. For some reason it doesn't stick to its stack. If that can be solved, it is usable: Cut down to 4 legs, and make them much less slanted when extended. you don't need more clearance than the Raptor cluster.

6. Can you upscale the (already working) LT-2 and modify it? Make it rectangular in cross-section, and make it much wider than thick, with a huge square foot. Oh, and make it white with blue trim.

7. Adapter names:

SpaceY A2-1x Stackable Adapter < the long one

SpaceY A2-1 Stackable Adapter < the short one

SpaceY A3-1q Stackable Thrust Plate < q for quint (=5)

SpaceY A3-1s Stackable Thrust Plate < s for sept (=7)

SpaceY A3-2 Stackable Adapter

SpaceY A5 "Rose" Stackable Thrust Plate < the special 8x1.25 + 1x 2.5m lookes like a flower – "Le Petit Prince"'s flower.

SpaceY A5-2d Stackable Thrust Plate < d for double (=2)

SpaceY A5-3 Stackable Adapter

http://i.imgur.com/ywISfid.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/h0mJS1N.jpg

- - - Updated - - -

If you prefer, then this roman numbering (in upper- or lowercase) would work too:

SpaceY A3-1v Stackable Thrust Plate

SpaceY A3-1vii Stackable Thrust Plate

SpaceY A5-2ii Stackable Thrust Plate

I'll answer by number again, as usual.

1. Yep, I think I can probably figure something out here. I have left-over space in the texture, so I should be able to split out that part with some additional colors.

2. lol, yes that could work.

3. Yep! And I went ahead and configured that for the next update. It's just a small config change.

4. That just went on the back-burner while working on CCC. Yep, that's pretty much what I was thinking, about double-sized, dual nozzles in all directions. And I was thinking of making it a more aerodynamic housing so that it's somewhere in the ballpark of the shuttle OMS engines. But that's not set in stone.

5. I think that leg stack just needs to be trashed. I've played around with it a lot, and there's just something funky about how impact force gets transmitted through that sort of part. The engines always fall off, and the only safe landings I've done with it required a speed of about 2.9 m/s or slower.

The good news: I have proper individual landing legs WORKING now. They're still more fragile than I'd like (something about the large scale parts KSP doesn't like), and I'll probably have to adjust the suspension numbers over time. But they function! So here's the plan: I'm going to remove the landing-leg stackable ring (leaving a placeholder in for now, so it doesn't delete vehicles out of people's savegames), and add the legs I originally intended. I scaled them down in size a little (20% reduction), and you can still comfortably fit 6 around a 5m stack if you want.

I'm finding that they still need a pretty modest landing speed, but they're not destroying the vehicle at 3.1 m/s... they're doing it at closer to 5 m/s. lol. I suspect some of it has to do with the design, in that the suspension distance is not very long. But now that I've figured it out, it opens the door to additional leg designs.

The fragility of the 5m parts when landing is troublesome. I'm tempted to start recommending Kerbal Joint Reinforcement to people.

6. Yes & no. I could make a duplicate that is scaled by a fixed percentage, and even replace the texture. But with animated parts, you can't just paste in additional components, as they won't animate. So at this point I don't think it's worth it.

7. OK cool. I might make some tweaks, but I think I can work with that.

- - - Updated - - -

Screenshot:

Edited January 12, 2015 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

BTW, now that I have made a working set of landing legs, more leg types are certainly possible. I'm going to see if I can put together a large set of lander legs.

[NecroBones]

BTW, now that I have made a working set of landing legs, more leg types are certainly possible. I'm going to see if I can put together a large set of lander legs.

Holy cow, these work even better. I tried a landing at about 15 m/s and it worked. I haven't textured it yet, except for throwing a blue stripe on it. I think we need large (current) and small variants of it:

[wasmic]

Holy cow, these work even better. I tried a landing at about 15 m/s and it worked. I haven't textured it yet, except for throwing a blue stripe on it. I think we need large (current) and small variants of it:

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202015-01-12%2014-04-03-77.jpg

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202015-01-12%2014-04-11-16.jpg

http://www.necrobones.net/screenshots/KSP/KSP%202015-01-12%2014-39-42-56.jpg

15 m/s? That's very fast, actually. If that's what you're subjecting the other legs to, no wonder that they're not working as intended.

[NecroBones]

5. I think that leg stack just needs to be trashed. I've played around with it a lot, and there's just something funky about how impact force gets transmitted through that sort of part. The engines always fall off, and the only safe landings I've done with it required a speed of about 2.9 m/s or slower.

OK, I take this back. I found some settings I could tweak that increase the breaking/torque strengths, so they're much more usable now. I'll take a look at scaling it a bit, but I think we can leave these in as an alternative option.

- - - Updated - - -

15 m/s? That's very fast, actually. If that's what you're subjecting the other legs to, no wonder that they're not working as intended.

No, no, no... I'm testing landings usually around 3-5 m/s. The 15 m/s was an experiment that it passed. That was more of an "OMG it survived that". But doing some extra-violent tests is helpful.

- - - Updated - - -

Some more successful testing with landing legs. It looks like I have more control over structural/joint strength than I thought. I'm going to try to apply some of this to the docking ports too, and see if that helps there as well.

This next update will be a good one, IMHO.

Edited January 12, 2015 by NecroBones

[NBZ]

OK, I take this back. I found some settings I could tweak that increase the breaking/torque strengths, so they're much more usable now. I'll take a look at scaling it a bit, but I think we can leave these in as an alternative option.

- - - Updated - - -

No, no, no... I'm testing landings usually around 3-5 m/s. The 15 m/s was an experiment that it passed. That was more of an "OMG it survived that". But doing some extra-violent tests is helpful.

- - - Updated - - -

Some more successful testing with landing legs. It looks like I have more control over structural/joint strength than I thought. I'm going to try to apply some of this to the docking ports too, and see if that helps there as well.

This next update will be a good one, IMHO.

I'm looking forward.

1. The single leg (which reminds me of that tutorial...) looks very spidery. Is it possible to spread the innermost dual-blade part into a triangle, and unfold until the "upper-arm" and "underarm" are in a straight line, like a Y when extended?

2. For both types of legs, can you make them more like 45 degrees? They are to create a wide base more than carrying weight.

3. Also, regarding my previous request for a modification of the LT-2: I didn't mean to introduce any new elements, only, so-to-say, "stretch" current ones into a wider blade-like leg.

4. A SuperDibamus that transforms a horizontal 1.25m circle into a smooth pod, round on the sides and above, a little flatter below, with two nozzles below, and two cone-holes in each other direction, sounds amazing too. Much harder to model though.

5. Can we have top-size indicating colors on the SpaceY 5m and 3.75m thrust plates? Also the docking ports could use blue/orange cross-hair swaths or something like that. Just call the 5m one "SpaceY Docking Port" the 3.75m "Kerbodyne/SpaceY...", with a description matching the SGS.

6. I thought more about it, and now like the Roman scheme better: The "Rose" could be "A5-1viii+2", and the quad 2.5m "A5-2iv".

[NecroBones]

For now I think the screenshots are how the legs are going to look. A scissor-like Y-shaped animation is probably possible, but I'm trying to keep a couple of things in mind as I work on these. One is that these large, heavy vehicles are pushing on the bounds of the stock physics. So to keep things stable, I opted to keep the piston suspension vertical, since I think that is helping keep the vehicles from leaning when they land with a lot of weight. Also, the parts always have a single attachment point, and so if you have a longer "sliding track" or secondary hinge point, you're much more likely to see some flexing that causes part of the structure to clip in and out of the side of your rocket.

Making the legs "spidery" minimizes that, and having the leg bend out 90 degrees with a horizontal leg and a perfectly vertical leg gives the best "reach" for a wide base while also trying to keep the suspension vertical. I can experiment with some other angles too of course. But right now after putting a large chunk of time into figuring this stuff out and finally making it stable, I'm thrilled to have what we have.

The good news is the rotation angles aren't hard to change. Re-doing how the animation works would be a much bigger job. So if we want to angle the "ending position" outward and downward more, that's doable.

For the LT-2, yeah I know. With existing stock parts, it's either attaching static components, or it has to be re-modeled from scratch. There really isn't any in-between, other than just changing the overall scale.

Right now I have two sizes set up. The larger one fits the Ratite sized engines, and has a bulkier look to it with extra stripes. The smaller will fit a mainsail and is more slender.

Screenies:

Edited January 13, 2015 by NecroBones

[BlackTalos]

It looks like I have more control over structural/joint strength than I thought. I'm going to try to apply some of this to the docking ports too, and see if that helps there as well.

Yes!

If you can help improve the wobble-rockets (Have not updated to 0.90 yet, so have yet to test out your Ports) at the ports that would definitely be amazing!

As for the new landing legs, they look very weak structurally (By looks, not game coding). Did you use an existing example? They could do with an extendable joint at least, between the "Base Hinge"(stuck to the Fuel tank) and the top of the piston (bottom of the external leg).

Great Work though!

[NecroBones]

Yes!

If you can help improve the wobble-rockets (Have not updated to 0.90 yet, so have yet to test out your Ports) at the ports that would definitely be amazing!

As for the new landing legs, they look very weak structurally (By looks, not game coding). Did you use an existing example? They could do with an extendable joint at least, between the "Base Hinge"(stuck to the Fuel tank) and the top of the piston (bottom of the external leg).

Great Work though!

Well, I'm not sure it'll help much with the wobble, but it should help with things snapping off (like the docking ports just simply breaking during ascent). The wobble-factor still comes down to the joint size and how KSP scales it, as far as I know. So it's a mixed bag.

OK, so what I may do is hold the new legs back from the next update, and just include the SpaceX-style ones. When multiple people aren't happy with the design, then it's time to re-think it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, sometimes it's worth trashing or reworking a design to get something better. And actually, this does give me an idea:

What I could do is take these new legs, scale them down some, and make it into a medium-sized set of lander legs for MRS instead of SpaceY, then work on a new heavy-duty set for SpaceY. I'm thinking back to the launch clamps, and how after beefing them up a bit and making them look heavy and industrial, we got the look we needed. Now, for parts that will be used on a rocket, it needs to be sleek and lightweight too, but I see what you guys are saying about spindly/spidery weakness. So something completely different here might be good.

If you have ideas for the kind of look that you'd like, let me know. Screenshots from other mods, or from real-world examples could be useful. Something I haven't tried at all is any sort of scissoring, or pistons that are attached at both ends. I'd have to learn some new animation tricks, but that's not necessarily out of the question. Right now I have a good handle on single-point hinges.

I'm going to further tweak the SpaceX-style legs before pushing the update too. Now that the "stack ring" version, and the actual "landing leg" versions both work a lot better, I'll toy a little with the size/angles/etc. I scaled the legs down by 20% already, but this also has the side-effect of narrowing the foot-spread. I'll probably elongate them a bit and then have them deploy to a shallower angle.

[NecroBones]

I'm not ready to release yet, but here's where the change-log stands as of right now. I've colorized the inside of the probe cores, as that was pretty easy. I only needed to change the mapping on one of the two parts, and there was plenty of room left over in the texture. Adding colorization to the thrust plates is going to be trickier, since I have 8 parts sharing one texture, and spanning three different diameters. Worst case scenario, this goes back to being a CCC thing, adding a cap on them like with the engines, but if it can be done directly on the thrust plate textures, that'll save some memory and draw calls, and make it universally usable.

Anyway, what I have ready so far:

0.9 () - Beta
 - Added a stack attachment node to "Dibamous" RCS/OMS pod.
 - Experimentally tweaked some strength settings on the docking ports. Let me know if this helps.
 - Adjusted colors on inside ring of large probe cores, to differentiate them in the VAB menu.
 - Adjusted size, positioning, rotation, and number of the legs on the rigid landing leg stack ring.
 - Considerably improved strength of rigid landing leg stack ring.
 - Added "SpaceX" style individual landing legs.

[NecroBones]

OK, I managed to squeeze in some time to get some colorizing going on the thrust plates, plus tweaked the SpaceX-style legs a bit. The leg-ring still has some issues with uneven landings and the like, but the engines don't automatically fall off anymore. The rigidity of the legs still requires a reasonably gentle landing, but it's not useless like it was. I angled the legs to be 15 degrees above where they were, and reduced it to 4 legs on the ring.

The individual legs with suspension-feet now share the same deployment angle as the legs on the stack ring, and I gave the feet/pistons slightly more travel distance than I did originally, and managed to tighten up the "springs" a little. I think these are more forgiving of less-than-perfect landings. Plus, being proper legs, they respond to the landing-gear hotkey.

Some screenshots:

[NecroBones]

In-progress shot of the larger "dibamous" RCS/OMS pod.

[NecroBones]

In-progress shot of the larger "dibamous" RCS/OMS pod.

https://i.imgur.com/xMnykKQ.jpg

And don't worry, I didn't forget the "fifth" set of RCS nozzles.