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

[NecroBones]

17 hours ago, ModZero said:

Ah, what about R-7 style boosters, if talking slanted? For small rockets these tend to end up overpowered, but I remember using the ones in KW Rocketry quite a bit back in 0.25 (AFAIR, they were 2.5 and 3.75, just tanks, but not at all stock-alike :/).

Yeah, I'm still not sure yet. If I add those, they'll probably go in the Expanded pack. The problem is that they're a lot less flexible to use. That is, they need to be radial boosters and not in the center stack, and you don't have any control over the slope & length (as a player). It's not the same as stacking tanks in a cylinder. But since the request does come up from time to time, I need to give it some thought.

 

4 hours ago, Wolf Baginski said:

I find that the "Kiwi" engine makes a difference for 1.25m booster stages, roughly twice the thrust of a "Swivel" gives a useful choice that doesn't depend on a 2.5m tank, with the rationale of improved turbopumps. And now I'm wondering if a similar upgrade to the "Terrier" would be useful for transfer stages and the like. Looking at the stock tech tree, I'm not sure it would be worthwhile. It would be at a higher level than the "Kiwi", where it would be competing with the "Poodle" and 2.5m-1.25m conical tank as a transfer stage.

I'm undecided. It wouldn't be hard to make a test part.cfg pointing to the "Terrier" mesh and textures, and applying similar scaling for thrust. mass, and ISP to the "Swivel"-"Kiwi" combination.

Yeah, it's hard to say. For the most part people seem to be pretty satisfied with the existing vacuum engines, especially now that I've added some in larger diameters (on top of what stock offers). However a lifter engine in that size class was something that was sorely missed.

[ModZero]

32 minutes ago, NecroBones said:

If I add those, they'll probably go in the Expanded pack.

Good enough for me :-)

33 minutes ago, NecroBones said:

It's not the same as stacking tanks in a cylinder.

Not the same, but I did actually stack them (yeah, I built monsters) — you can think of them as ludicrously oversized tank caps.

[NecroBones]

 

Alright, the first of the separator nose-cones is assembled. It color-changes to black, optionally. I have it oriented so that it lines up without rotation when placing it on a booster on the right side of the vessel. I'm still playing with stats, etc.

(yes, I know the description is wrong, still editing as of the screenshot)

Edited December 9, 2015 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

 

More screenies:

 

[NecroBones]

And one more:

 

[PickledTripod]

This update is looking really good... But I think the 2.5m nosecone should be a bit longer, like the shuttle SRB's.

[NecroBones]

1 hour ago, PickledTripod said:

This update is looking really good... But I think the 2.5m nosecone should be a bit longer, like the shuttle SRB's.

I was thinking that too. Here they are, 30% taller:

 

[PickledTripod]

Awesome. But it's kinda weird how you just do everything I suggest lately... Are my ideas that good or what?

[Delta_8930]

It's coming nicely! SLS booster paint schemes are things I've wanted to have for a while-especially the "Dark Knight" paint scheme. And the Separatron nose cones...OMG. Words cannot describe how awesome it would be to have that in KSP. Gone are the days where I had to painstakingly attach separatrons symmetrically to the boosters and adjust the fuel level (which resulted in the rocket looking like it had separatrons sticking out of it), since all you have to do is just to add the nose cone now!

[PickledTripod]

30 minutes ago, Delta_8930 said:

It's coming nicely! SLS booster paint schemes are things I've wanted to have for a while-especially the "Dark Knight" paint scheme.

The Dark Knight is unlikely to be chosen for the Advanced Boosters though, since the SLS Block 2 wouldn't be able to lift the baseline 130 tons to LEO with them. I'm placing my bet on the Dynetics "Pyrios" liquid boosters, they allow for 150 tons to LEO and would be cheaper than ATK's AJ1-E6 booster with lower development costs, and the Congress has a massive hard-on for re-using Saturn and STS hardware...

[Delta_8930]

@PickledTripodI am also hoping to see Pyrios win. However the transition to Pyrios will probably force the MLP to undergo modifications to support the larger boosters, but NASA might not want to fund the modification cost. I think its a good choice since it can now lift 150 MT to LEO, and the F-1B will be even more powerful than RD-171M. And the AJ-1E6 concept...Aerojet Rocketdyne hasn't even got 500,000 lbf out of a NK-33 yet, so I'm not sure where the development of that is heading. After last year's Antares launch failure, I think they've given up modifying and playing with the NK-33 engines. They're something like 30-40 years old anyways and they were built to support the Massive ill-fated N-1 moon rocket, with 30 of those engines on the first stage. The most likely candidates are Orbital ATK and Dynetics, but they will get a lot more payload out of Pyrios, so I think the extra cost of modifying the pad is totally worth it.

Also, if you use Pyrios as a first stage for future heavy-lift rockets...you've revived the Jarvis launch vehicle concept!

Edited December 10, 2015 by Delta_8930

[NecroBones]

4 hours ago, PickledTripod said:

Awesome. But it's kinda weird how you just do everything I suggest lately... Are my ideas that good or what?

lol, well, I often work based on a combination of good suggestions, and whatever I actually feel like working on. I've been planning to add these nose cones for a while, and repainting the SRBs was a natural next step after adding that capability on the fuel tanks. So it's more like "great minds think alike" going on here.

[NecroBones]

I decided to start the nose cones with more modest stats than I had thrown onto them while making them. I can always tweak later.

 

Anyway, posted for download:

 

1.6 (2015-12-11) - SRB Overhaul.
 - Added additional paint schemes to the 1.875m/2.5m/3.75m SRBs,
    - Optional, requires Firespitter or InterstellarFuelSwitch core (DLL).
 - Added sepratron nose-cones for SRBs.
 - Fixed a typo with the engine heat animation for the K1 engines.
 - Corrected a typo with Agency mentality.
 - Replaced "placeholder" textures. Smaller, and more obvious when texture reassignment has failed.

 

[PickledTripod]

Really cool, but there seems to be a bug with the nose cones: they refuse to work with mirror symmetry, it's impossible to align them properly. Even if you place one on a booster, pick it and place it again with mirror symmetry, somehow they rotate themselves.

[NecroBones]

16 minutes ago, PickledTripod said:

Really cool, but there seems to be a bug with the nose cones: they refuse to work with mirror symmetry, it's impossible to align them properly. Even if you place one on a booster, pick it and place it again with mirror symmetry, somehow they rotate themselves.

 

Huh. OK, so it's not a "bug" with the parts as such, but rather KSP seems to only rotate things correctly in those cases when it's a top/bottom detail rather than left/right. I probably need to rotate the parts. I'll try that and see if it fixes it.

 

EDIT: Yes. Damn quirks of the editor modes. Rotating them 90 degrees in the part config fixes it. I'll post the update in a few minutes.

Edited December 11, 2015 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

I understand what it's doing. It has two different rotation modes based on whether you're aligning things top/bottom or left/right (based on the part's orientation at the attachment point), so that things like wings get rotated, but fuselages don't (visually speaking of course; in terms of the editor, it's the opposite of that). We were running afoul of that. Learned something new!

OK posted:

1.6.1 (2015-12-11) - Fix for nose cones.
 - SRB sepratron nose cones rotated 90 degrees, so that they play nice with mirror symmetry mode.

 

Edited December 11, 2015 by NecroBones

[Wolf Baginski]

I know there are one or two stock offset cones, shaped to put the tip closer to the core rather than symmetrical, and it's pot-luck whether the direction of the offset comes out correct. But rotating the cone affects the whole set equally. I'll try things, but this may work out. How I'd expect to do it seems pretty obvious

Place the radial decouplers and booster with the stepped mode and symmetry.

Place the nosecone with the same mode setting, it should appear on all the boosters in the set.

Rotate the nosecone to line things up. Again, it should apply to the set.

That's what I am expecting. I shall go check.

It's possible that you're not hitting the attachment node, I've had awkwardnesses like that in the SPH.

[NecroBones]

Radial attachment mode works as expected, it's just the "aircraft" side of things, the "mirror" mode, that was having problems. They have some tricky logic in there to make it work intuitively for planes. By making the thrusters point "down" instead of "left", it clears it up. So I think we're good now.

 

------

New screenie. Lineup of the booster paint jobs and the cones:

 

[Wolf Baginski]

13 minutes ago, NecroBones said:

Radial attachment mode works as expected, it's just the "aircraft" side of things, the "mirror" mode, that was having problems.

Yep. it all worked as I expected.

With those boosters, you can have too many...

[PickledTripod]

Confirming it works now, thanks Bones! Your nosecones allowed me to reduce the part count by 6 on my shuttle, and they look great!

[RegalPlatypus]

 

I'm having a graphical issue with several of the engines from this mod.  Parts of them (but usually not the entire engine) have that shimmering effect that you see whenever, for example, you accidentally install two identical items in the same space.  You can see it here in the engine shroud.  Any thoughts?

Edited December 12, 2015 by RegalPlatypus

[Red Iron Crown]

@RegalPlatypus That's Z-fighting, expected effect when you put two identical items in the same space. Not related to the mod, but how GPUs process depth.

[RegalPlatypus]

25 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

@RegalPlatypus That's Z-fighting, expected effect when you put two identical items in the same space. Not related to the mod, but how GPUs process depth.

Right, except that I don't have two objects in the same place.  Symmetry is off, and as you can see, it's only affecting part of a one-piece SRB.

[blowfish]

@RegalPlatypus I recall that being a symptom of not installing Module Manager

[NecroBones]

3 hours ago, RegalPlatypus said:

I'm having a graphical issue with several of the engines from this mod.  Parts of them (but usually not the entire engine) have that shimmering effect that you see whenever, for example, you accidentally install two identical items in the same space.  You can see it here in the engine shroud.  Any thoughts?

 

2 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

@RegalPlatypus That's Z-fighting, expected effect when you put two identical items in the same space. Not related to the mod, but how GPUs process depth.

 

2 hours ago, RegalPlatypus said:

Right, except that I don't have two objects in the same place.  Symmetry is off, and as you can see, it's only affecting part of a one-piece SRB.

 

1 hour ago, blowfish said:

@RegalPlatypus I recall that being a symptom of not installing Module Manager

 

Yep, that's a typical z-fighting problem. Usually it boils down to one of a few different things. Now that I've seen probably most of them, I can give you a good list:

1. Everything is installed correctly, but ModuleManager's cache hasn't noticed the changes yet.

   Fix: This is a great one to try first. Delete the file called "ModuleManager.ConfigCache" in GameData. ModuleManager recreates it on the next KSP start.

2. ModuleManager isn't installed.

   Fix: Install it.

3. This mod is installed incorrectly, or you've deleted the color-change ModuleManager configs.

   Fix: Reinstall the mod correctly, and in its entirety. The MM config files include rules for what to do when color-changing isn't available, so please don't delete those.

4. ModuleManager thinks color-changing is available via Firespitter or InterstellarFuelSwitch, but neither is installed.

   Fix: This is a little trickier to pinpoint. Either another mod has bad rules in it (for instance using "FOR[Firespitter]" instead of "NEEDS[Firespitter]") and is therefore tricking ModuleManager, or one of these two mods is only partially installed. That could happen if you removed them via CKAN but the directories still exist, which ModuleManager will see as having them installed. To fix, either make sure both of those mods are completely uninstalled, or install one (or both) of them. Only the DLL from one of them is needed, you don't need the entire mod. But it needs to be running if ModuleManager thinks its there.

5. It's possible that another mod may be confused that changes how VAB/SPH tweakables or engine shrouds work.

   This is an odd case, but not impossible. When you don't have Firespitter or InterstellarFuelSwitch installed, the alternate paint jobs are disabled by turning them into "engine shrouds" that correspond to an attachment node that is a kilometer outside the VAB. If another mod interferes with this, such as defaulting all shrouds to "on" even when detached, then you might also see z-fighting. Sadly, the solution might be to simply not use the mods together.

 

EDIT: I've added this as "troubleshooting" in the OP.

 

Edited December 13, 2015 by NecroBones