Raptor9 Posted December 18, 2017 Author Share Posted December 18, 2017 3 hours ago, redmonddkgamer said: The LV-2A can only carry one crew, the EV-2C can carry three, and the LV-2C can carry four. Am I supposed to send the LV-2A back up for the rest of the crew in the EV-2C or what? That wouldn't be possible since the the LV-2A doesn't have a probe core (unless you modified it). A couple things you need to understand. 1) The LV-2C isn't a crew lander, it's a pre-positioned habitation lander equipped with a suite of science experiments, like the Materials Bay. It's sent ahead of crews to a target biome, and after crews arrive the ER-V can do basic sensor measurements of adjacent biomes.2) The LV-2A is designed to carry only a single Kerbal, land to a target biome, take measurements, and then return to an orbiting research station like 'Wernher's Station' displayed in the OP. Refuel monoprop, and go again. It's design is minimalistic on purpose. The concept is that the first EV-2C mission carries an LV-2A to the Minmus orbital research station. Each follow-on EV-2C mission replaces the LV-2A lander with a monopropellant storage module in the 'Titan 3P' payload fairing. This allows more LV-2A refuelings and re-use for more landings for surface measurements, which feeds the data into the research station for long-term, continuous science generation. Normally, this drives an EV-2C crew compliment of a pilot and two scientists. The pilot flies the lander to collect the data, and the scientists remain at the research station to process the data. Alternatively, you could replace one of the scientists with an engineer if you're trying to get some Minmus orbital XP under his/her belt. When it comes time to use the LV-2C habitation lander, you have several choices. You can either send more LV-2A's to the station and watch the scientists and engineers struggle to land without SAS, or you can send an LV-2D 'Cricket' to shuttle crews down two at a time (the LV-2D has a probe core). And if anything else, strap a couple EAS-1 External Command Seats to the side of the LV-2A and take crews down that way. You can do whatever you want, I don't care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted December 21, 2017 Author Share Posted December 21, 2017 2 minutes ago, redmonddkgamer said: So do I send the Duna Landing Kit direct to Duna, ahead of the M3V or use the M3V to get it to Duna, along with the crew? Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted January 2, 2018 Author Share Posted January 2, 2018 With the new year comes a new "thread re-branding". A new video, a new logo, and a modified catalog title. The previous Raptor Aerospace video was drastically outdated, containing only atmospheric aircraft from v1.0.5. The new thread video contains a more adequate representation of the full catalog, but is really just a sample of all that is available. And you can only do so many different camera sequences. Some shots will preview craft I have yet to publish (because I've been busy and haven't finished the graphics). Notably the EV-7 'Skipjack' is seen close-up and through several configurations, along with a new specialized 'Pol Logistics Kit', and a clip of the new Duna surface modules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragon0072 Posted January 2, 2018 Share Posted January 2, 2018 Raptor, Great video! I especially love seeing the EV-3, EV-4 and Windjammer designs in action. I am sure all of us would love to see more videos of your designs in action. If you do find time to do more videos, I would like to suggest a couple of ideas. One would be doing a video demonstration of landing the HLV-5 on the Mun. (From de-orbit burn to touchdown). And the other would be a video tour of your Cis-Munar set up. Keep up the great design work! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crobal Posted January 2, 2018 Share Posted January 2, 2018 Hi, happy new year everyone! Thx for your work again raptor and i can't wait what is coming next p.s: Nice video Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted January 2, 2018 Author Share Posted January 2, 2018 (edited) 7 hours ago, dragon0072 said: If you do find time to do more videos, I would like to suggest a couple of ideas. One would be doing a video demonstration of landing the HLV-5 on the Mun. (From de-orbit burn to touchdown). And the other would be a video tour of your Cis-Munar set up. Hi there @dragon0072, welcome to the forums. Videos are a huge time-suck for me that I do rarely. I'd rather spend the time designing new craft to publish, or actually playing my KSP career. Having said that, I was working on a Cis-Munar Economy Tutorial video a little bit this fall. The playthrough is all filmed, I just had to put it together into a proper video. What halted the project was moving to a new residence and getting a new mike that actually sounds half decent, so I can provide voice-over explanations and narration. I recently got a new headset for gaming, so the tutorial is back on the KSP "To Do" list hopefully (I haven't tested the mike recording yet). The video tutorial itself covers setting up an entire economy from scratch, starting with launching a couple of propellant depots from Kerbin, using scanning equipment to find suitable mining locations, HLV-5A and -5C landers delivering a crew and MIR rovers to a small ISRU site, landing an IV-1B ISRU rig to the Mun, and finishes by demonstrating a fuel transport sortie to an orbital 'Depot Station' using an HLV-5B. So your two ideas would be covered in the same video. Edited January 2, 2018 by Raptor9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted January 5, 2018 Author Share Posted January 5, 2018 CisMunar Tutorial Part 1 is live... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted January 7, 2018 Author Share Posted January 7, 2018 (edited) CisMunar Tutorial Part 2 is live... ___________________________________Also, in an un-related note, I don't intend to publish any more craft files until KSP 1.4 comes out. Besides the obvious visual changes that will be occurring (as announced in yesterday's KSP Weekly), I suspect there may be a few subtle stats re-balancing of some of the existing parts. This is pure speculation on my part, but I just don't want to have to potentially re-do some of the work. Edited January 7, 2018 by Raptor9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeben Posted January 7, 2018 Share Posted January 7, 2018 Very instructive ! Thank you very much Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redmonddkgamer Posted January 9, 2018 Share Posted January 9, 2018 My ER-4 keeps yawing left when I start the gravity turn and I can't figure out why. The navball orientation is correct and the CoM is, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted January 10, 2018 Author Share Posted January 10, 2018 9 hours ago, redmonddkgamer said: My ER-4 keeps yawing left when I start the gravity turn and I can't figure out why. The navball orientation is correct and the CoM is, too. From the FAQ section on the OP: Q: One of your craft appears to not be working as intended.A: This is a common comment I see on KerbalX. First thing I'm going to ask you to do is try the craft out in a vanilla (stock only) install of KSP. 9/10 times a mod is altering the behavior of the craft or interfering with a designed feature. I am not without my mistakes, but I thoroughly test these craft in stock KSP before publishing them on KerbalX. Another reason may be using the craft in a different version of KSP than it was intended. I'm always happy to troubleshoot issues, but the first two questions I will ask are "Do you have any mods installed?" and "Which version of KSP are you running?" To add to that, several weeks ago I purposely tried to get the ER-4 to wobble during launch by introducing several rapid control oscillations, and was unable to. So there is probably a mod responsible... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hajii Posted January 12, 2018 Share Posted January 12, 2018 The tutorials are great, thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted January 15, 2018 Author Share Posted January 15, 2018 (edited) On 1/12/2018 at 7:55 AM, Hajii said: The tutorials are great, thank you! Thanks Hope they were useful.___________________________________ In a random project this morning, I completed a more quantitative investigation on how viable a Falcon 9-style rocket would be in terms of cost-savings. I get the occasional suggestion to do reusable rockets, but the repetitive launching sequence always became tedious for me. To make an analogue to the Falcon 9 (an orbital-class two-stage rocket for launching satellites), I used an extended 'Javelin' booster stage, re-engined for better TWR and atmo ISP, and a 'Javelin 2' upper stage. After a few tries I was able to successfully launch a 0.5 ton satellite to a 100km orbit with plenty of upper stage fuel to spare, and recover the 1st stage back to the KSC relatively easily. So I started looking at the cost and performance breakdowns. For comparisons sake, I'll call the reusable rocket the 'Javelin R' and I compared it to the 'Javelin 1' and 'Javelin 3', but I didn't include the launch clamps. A 0.54 ton satellite payload was used for the delta-V calculations using DMagic's Basic Delta-V modlet, however I just used raw vacuum readouts and didn't take into account gravity or drag losses. 'Javelin 1' 'Javelin R' 'Javelin 3' Initial purchase cost 3,913 20,679 8,114 Cost break-down Rocket & fuel (expendable) Upper stage and all fuel (expendable) 1st stage booster (recovered) Rocket & fuel (expendable) Cost per launch 3,913 2,341 (if recovered on the launch pad or runway)2,708 (if recovered anywhere else on KSC) 8,114 Total delta-V (Vacuum) 4,378 m/s 4,819 m/s (assumes 1/3 of booster fuel used for 1st stage RTLS) 5,782 m/s Advantages Straightforward launches Can reach higher orbits than 'Javelin 1' More precise orbit placement capability It's cool and all the rage nowadays Can place a satellite anywhere in Kerbin SOI Disadvantages Lacks precise orbit insertion capability More precise timing and sequencing required for each launch Higher inclination trajectories eat away at dV due to increased cross-range RTLS Almost twice the funds-to-dV ratio than 'Javelin 1' So the conclusion from all of this from my personal gameplay and practicality viewpoint: I'm only saving about 1,200 by using a reusable 'Javelin' rocket variant to place satellites into LKO, which isn't worth the additional tediousness I'd be imposing on myself to launch a lot of satellites into orbit around Kerbin. However, depending on what the final orbit altitude and inclination is, it might be occasionally worthwhile in an early career grind (when funds may be tight) to use a 'Javelin R' and attempt a recovery back at the KSC instead of using a 'Javelin 3', which sometimes might be overkill. From a strictly performance stance, the 'Javelin R' might be a decent balance between the 'Javelin 1' and 'Javelin 3'. TL;DR Bottom line: I'll keep the craft file around for possible publishing in the future. Still not sure what sort of rebalancing KSP 1.4 may bring, but if the performance remains the same, I'll look into publishing it for all you launch-land-repeat enthusiasts out there. Edited January 15, 2018 by Raptor9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurotenshi55 Posted January 17, 2018 Share Posted January 17, 2018 I'm an avid fan of re-usable launchers myself and I get your aversion to them when it comes to repetitive tediousness. In my experience, 1.25m rockets aren't worthwhile to re-use, as demonstrated in above by you. However, it becomes more interesting when you start adapting 2.5m rockets for re-usability. If you feel like it, why not try making the Thunder 1 re-usable? Two-stage rockets and up usually need some help from mods like FMRS in order to make their first stage re-usable though. If you wanna keep it full stock while making other Thunder rockets re-usable, they'd have to overhauled into chemical SSTO's. At that point they might as well be a new launcher family all on it's own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cisco Cividanes Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 (edited) @Raptor9, I wanted to take a minute to thank you for publishing and maintaining your catalogue. I'm a 4-year KSP player, and unapologetic addict to the game. While I have built more rockets than I care to count, I have to admit, it's nice to have access to a set of thoroughly tested, well document lift platforms lift platforms that let me concentrate on my own orbital designs. Your Thunder and Titan line of rockets are current the backbone of my building projects, including an assemble-in-orbit, reusable, ship for Mun, Minmus, and asteroid exploration. With any luck, I'll be able to expand on my design and go the big hop out of Duna. But I digress. Your work here, and your willingness to share it with the larger world is most welcome, and I look forward to following future developments with your ambitious designs. Cisco Cividanes Edited January 23, 2018 by Cisco Cividanes typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted January 24, 2018 Author Share Posted January 24, 2018 @Kurotenshi55 & @Cisco Cividanes, welcome to the forums. @Kurotenshi55, regarding larger diameter reusable rockets, I've messed around with creating Falcon 9/New Glenn-style rockets in both 2.5m and 3.75m sizes, as well as SSTO's in 3.75m. However the amount of payload that they could deliver versus how much effort it would create for a single launch really turned me off from the ideas. Maybe down the road the designs will gain more traction in my play-style, because I do think the concepts are cool. @Cisco Cividanes, I'm glad you're getting use out of the lifters. I know some players have made the argument in the past that standardizing rocket lifters economizes a players time, in theory reducing the total amount of gameplay they get from KSP. Personally however, after launching into Kerbin orbit thousands, if not tens of thousands of times by now (since v0.13), building rockets piecemeal for each launch would have driven me up the wall. Thank God for subassemblies too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redmonddkgamer Posted February 6, 2018 Share Posted February 6, 2018 Can you put the vac DV on the rocket market pages? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted February 7, 2018 Author Share Posted February 7, 2018 12 hours ago, redmonddkgamer said: Can you put the vac DV on the rocket market pages? I'm afraid that wouldn't be a very efficient use of time, for a number of reasons. First, the majority of these rockets spend most of their time in the atmosphere. The delta-V is constantly shifting from atmospheric Isp calculations to vacuum Isp calculations as you climb through the thinner atmospheric layers to space. Even if I could calculate this down to an accurate value, any given player would undoubtedly use a different ascent trajectory, pretty much making my calculation irrelevant. Second, a rocket's dV calculation is dependent on how much payload mass is being sent to orbit. For this reason I've posted Payload Ratings. So a rocket with a 15 ton payload rating to low Kerbin orbit means that I've launched a test payload mass of 15 tons to a 200x200 km orbit (the apparent altitude delineation between LKO and MKO). This gives a much more useful indication on whether a given rocket configuration is adequate for a given payload mass. Third (and this is just a temporary situation), the 1.4 update is going to rebalance some performance stats anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexilahio Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 Hi there first of all : awesome work !! No words to describe all these crafts done for many purposes. Wow ! So I thought : I'm gonna use those to start my game !! I play KSP 1.3.1 with very few mods. Mech Jeb-Planetary Base Syst- KER-HE- but no mods to change the gameplay or graphisms I tried the Titan 3p to send pathfinder to Mun. Mechjeb failed. I tried myself. When i ran out of Lox, I decoupled pressing space bar then wanted to start the other engine. I checked it and activated it manually (mouse click). Then pressed space bar. Nothing but fairing's gone. Then pressed bar again : decoupled from pathfinder ! What did I do wrong ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted February 7, 2018 Author Share Posted February 7, 2018 @alexilahio, I just did a test launch and everything performed as intended. I don't use MechJeb, so I can't help you on that front. Nor can I rule out that mod affecting any behavior since I'm unfamiliar with the inner mechanics of it. Unless you messed with the staging, you shouldn't have to activate any engines manually. You may just be misunderstanding how the staging was set up. Staging 1: Launches rocket Staging 2: Jettisons boosters after they're spent Staging 3: Separates core liquid fuel booster from upper stage Staging 4: Activates upper stage engines Staging 5: Jettisons fairing Staging 6: Separates probe from upper stage Staging 7: Activates probe engine If it's doing anything besides this, you may have inadvertently changed something in the staging, so I would re-download the craft file. If you're still having issues, try it in a vanilla install of KSP to rule out any mods affecting craft behavior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexilahio Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 thanks for answering @Raptor9 I'm gonna try it vanilla mode Do I have anything to do to activate the different stagings except space bar ? I didn't modify the staging because I'd rather not use the conception part of the game for the moment I'll redwnld and try it vanilla and keep u posted ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexilahio Posted February 7, 2018 Share Posted February 7, 2018 same result vanilla mode. Not used to the rocket I guess. After multiple attempts, kinda worked when modifying AoA from 7 to 2 or 3. More than that and the craft would flip. So I'd say I found a way... maybe ^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raptor9 Posted February 7, 2018 Author Share Posted February 7, 2018 @alexilahio, I really have no idea what's causing the issues. All you need to do is launch and keep hitting spacebar at the appropriate times. I do recommend reducing the throttle to keep the G meter no higher than 2 G's. You can see the 'Titan 3P' launch at the start of Part 2 of my CisMunar Propellant Economy tutorial vid (link in my signature). It's launched like any other rocket. In the video you'll see me manually eject the fairing at 50km altitude, but you don't have to, nor does that affect the staging. Are you sure you're launching without MechJeb? It sounds like you're still using it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexilahio Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 @Raptor9 tested vanilla and modded : same results Yeah I checked the great video about CisMunar propellant Economy ! good one btw : gotta watch it again in details (have u got the depot base crafted in a way ?) I noticed that I had to be a little more careful for the liftoff than with the KerbalX for ex which is really easy to fly. All the rest has been working fine as soon as I got the rocket launched properly. Redownloaded the rocket then staging went all right ! Everything's nominal for Titan 3p Again, thanx a lot! Now to test all the other crafts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Kerman Posted February 8, 2018 Share Posted February 8, 2018 Does anyone know where I can download all of Raptor9s craft brochures? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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