[1.12.x] Mark IV Spaceplane System (August 18, 2024)

[endl]

just my OCD kicks in, and I wanna get greedy with function AND form...lol

try using these cells they have a great charge per second notice i didnt say minute and they dont need to be deployed. with the great wide design of this fuselage you can fit them right next to cargo with no clipping

[Bacon_commando]

Could you make some special landing gear to go with the parts? One that fits with the feel of the rest of them would be nice.

[The Yellow Dart]

Wow. It is so flipping pretty! Well done Nertea!

[riocrokite]

Hey Nertea!

Earlier on I wrote you about having problems with extrawide rover and rear ramp.

I'm thinking about 2 possible solutions that would make your craft capable of delivering rovers/cargos efficiently to atmosphereless planets - the feature that no other plane mark bodies achieved:

1) opening nose with ramp - something like an-124

This would solve problems with vertical landing on i.e. minimus or mun. I could add small rotatable engines on the sides to make craft go from vertical to horizontal position. This would also solve problems with decouplers that are usually attached to the rear of the craft.

One thing that would need to be implemented (possibly) to avoid weird situations is to ensure that ground velocity is less than idk 5m/s for nose to open or just change drag heavily when nose is open. Also an-124 opened nose has reduced vertical clearance and it would be good to avoid that however i know the design will be difficult.

1a) to go along with point 1 - what about inline cargobay that doesn't have opening function but features roof colliders - its great feature would be that i can attach something to it's roof from inside / outside while now i can't so it would complete opening nose design.

2) what about cargbay that opens into 2 side ramps?

All in all 1) has much greater potential than no 2) imho. If it's hard to do it with crew cabin you can design it tweaking iguana or armadillo adapter merged with nose cone.

Cheers,

Rio

Edited December 2, 2014 by riocrokite

[johnsonwax]

LLL has (had?) a cargo bay with a hydraulic floor. You could put a collider and solid wall on the rear of the bay (connected to the floor so it also lowers - maybe a grid or some such) to attach docking ports to attach the rover, then lower the bay when landed and drive off. Could also use it for air-launched cruise missiles.

[blowfish]

1a) to go along with point 1 - what about inline cargobay that doesn't have opening function but features roof colliders - its great feature would be that i can attach something to it's roof from inside / outside while now i can't so it would complete opening nose design.

[riocrokite]

You can attach things to the cargo bay doors just fine. Of course it will look a little silly if you open them but you can just not do that

Hmm, I just checked and I can't (I'm thinking about opening roof part). It's not a biggie so 1a is totally optional

LLL has (had?) a cargo bay with a hydraulic floor. You could put a collider and solid wall on the rear of the bay (connected to the floor so it also lowers - maybe a grid or some such) to attach docking ports to attach the rover, then lower the bay when landed and drive off. Could also use it for air-launched cruise missiles.

I never installed LLL since (memory issues and too much of non-essential stuff). Apart from mk4 compatibility issues I think it would require vertically extending landing gear first which is suboptimal. Opening nose is more elegant imho.

[Tcy16]

Just like everyone else: WOW !

[Hodo]

Hey Nertea!

Earlier on I wrote you about having problems with extrawide rover and rear ramp.

I'm thinking about 2 possible solutions that would make your craft capable of delivering rovers/cargos efficiently to atmosphereless planets - the feature that no other plane mark bodies achieved:

1) opening nose with ramp - something like an-124

http://i.imgur.com/8OS8fr1.png

This would solve problems with vertical landing on i.e. minimus or mun. I could add small rotatable engines on the sides to make craft go from vertical to horizontal position. This would also solve problems with decouplers that are usually attached to the rear of the craft.

One thing that would need to be implemented (possibly) to avoid weird situations is to ensure that ground velocity is less than idk 5m/s for nose to open or just change drag heavily when nose is open. Also an-124 opened nose has reduced vertical clearance and it would be good to avoid that however i know the design will be difficult.

1a) to go along with point 1 - what about inline cargobay that doesn't have opening function but features roof colliders - its great feature would be that i can attach something to it's roof from inside / outside while now i can't so it would complete opening nose design.

2) what about cargbay that opens into 2 side ramps?

All in all 1) has much greater potential than no 2) imho. If it's hard to do it with crew cabin you can design it tweaking iguana or armadillo adapter merged with nose cone.

Cheers,

Rio

You can do this with IR if you really wanted to...lol

[Nertea]

with respect to landing gear its a question of useable surface space, with heavier planes you want to go wider since the wings will have to be wider too.

i was under the assumption the engine pods were also radial fuel tanks

i cant really tell you how to fix it for far since i dont know how ferram balances it, but the problem is just the way you have your numbers set up for engine performance it scales differently and the current set up definitely feels like its for stock aero performance. you might want to just ask ferram if you have an interest in supporting FAR with your mod. just as an example the plane i pictured has a TWR of 1.2 but flies like it has a TWR of .5, it gets off the ground but gains no ALT at a 45 climb and no speed either

as for the drag problems i think its caused by the way the nose is modeled you might want to ask ferram again to take a look.

also as a side note are there any plans for VTOL or HYBRID NUKE engines? i have those set up for the plane but it would be nice if someone made some to cut parts down for those of us who want a plane that can do everything.

I plan on making some surface-attach VTOL jets, a 2.5m RAPIER and probably a scramjet. Exotic engine technologies will come elsewhere if they do at all.

endl: I think you're going to have to demonstrate that something is wrong first. The usual FAR setup in the CFG is very simple and has zero fine tuning involved. Occasionally a part will require custom drag parameters but that is almost never the case. Engine curves are also not very different between stock aero and FAR - FAR nerfs thrust by 50% but that's across the board and the TWR you're seeing will be the corrected TWR. It's possible your acceleration problems have to do with a part creating more drag than it should. To check this enable FAR's drag visibility and see if any one part is creating a lot more drag than the others (the nose should of course be creating more but not hugely). If it is, try re-attaching that part and everything attached to it (that's been my problem more than once). If the problem persists then it's probably a bug.

EDIT: Though it might be worth adjusting the SCIMITAR's VelocityCurve to be more like the RAPIER's under FAR:

@PART[RAPIER]:FOR[FerramAerospaceResearch]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleEngines*],0
	{
		@maxThrust = 100
		@velocityCurve
		{
			@key,0 = 0 0.8 0 -0.00098
			@key,1 = 170 0.7 0 0
			@key,2 = 400 0.8 0.00049 0.00049
			@key,3 = 1100 1 0 0
			key = 1700 0 -0.00098 0
		}
	}
}

Not a tough thing to change. If anyone does note any increased drag parts, let me know. I'm in the process of going through all the fuselage parts with a fine comb and tweaking colliders, so if there's some that need editing, it's good to know.

Could you make some special landing gear to go with the parts? One that fits with the feel of the rest of them would be nice.

No, I think I'll wait to see what the rumored new stock gear are like first.

Hey Nertea!

Earlier on I wrote you about having problems with extrawide rover and rear ramp.

I'm thinking about 2 possible solutions that would make your craft capable of delivering rovers/cargos efficiently to atmosphereless planets - the feature that no other plane mark bodies achieved:

1) opening nose with ramp - something like an-124

http://i.imgur.com/8OS8fr1.png

This would solve problems with vertical landing on i.e. minimus or mun. I could add small rotatable engines on the sides to make craft go from vertical to horizontal position. This would also solve problems with decouplers that are usually attached to the rear of the craft.

One thing that would need to be implemented (possibly) to avoid weird situations is to ensure that ground velocity is less than idk 5m/s for nose to open or just change drag heavily when nose is open. Also an-124 opened nose has reduced vertical clearance and it would be good to avoid that however i know the design will be difficult.

1a) to go along with point 1 - what about inline cargobay that doesn't have opening function but features roof colliders - its great feature would be that i can attach something to it's roof from inside / outside while now i can't so it would complete opening nose design.

2) what about cargbay that opens into 2 side ramps?

All in all 1) has much greater potential than no 2) imho. If it's hard to do it with crew cabin you can design it tweaking iguana or armadillo adapter merged with nose cone.

Cheers,

Rio

Haha, re: the opening nose, it's listed in the future plans in the OP. It will be a lot later because It'll also need to be associated with some kind of inline or surface-attachable cockpit. There's no need to do drag stuff I think - FAR will model that by itself and stock aero is so messed up that I don't care .

1a) I was considering at one point, it would probably have a different texture in order to make it worth the extra part slot. 2) Eh... maybe after everything else.

You can attach things to the cargo bay doors just fine. Of course it will look a little silly if you open them but you can just not do that

Actually, I disabled surface attachment for those colliders .

[The Destroyer]

Awesome parts! What happened in this screenshot?

[blowfish]

Actually, I disabled surface attachment for those colliders .

Out of curiosity, how do you do that?

[Kirondoll]

Response is pretty good, thanks guys!

To people looking forward to longer parts: I tested out a double sized bay and it looked kinda puny. Interested in opinion on what multiple to use, I'm thinking 3x length might be more useful.

Good thinking, 2x parts would be too small.

[jonrd463]

Response is pretty good, thanks guys!

To people looking forward to longer parts: I tested out a double sized bay and it looked kinda puny. Interested in opinion on what multiple to use, I'm thinking 3x length might be more useful.

Did I hear you say 6x? Sorry, I'm one of those people who constantly suffer from "not enough cargo bay!" I could always send up large packages vertically via rocket, but space planes are just so damned fun to design and fly. So yeah, the bigger you make 'em, the better. It'll save part counts by reducing the number of struts needed to stitch multiple bays together and give a larger section to be the wing attach points.

[stardestroyer]

Great mod! There will be support for Deedly Reentry?

[Wjolcz]

I think PorkJet could use some of your help in preparing new parts for the next few updates.

I sure would be happy to see those triple engines in stock. Would be great for Arado-like crafts.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Veeltch

[Las-pen]

I'm guessing no, but is this compatible (as in, how well will the parts fit together) with that other "big space plane" pack. Forgot the name. It started with I, if I remember right.

Anyhow. Looks beautiful, as always. Very stock-y

[BudgetHedgehog]

I'm guessing no, but is this compatible (as in, how well will the parts fit together) with that other "big space plane" pack. Forgot the name. It started with I, if I remember right.

OPT and no reason why not. I mean, yeah, the Mk4 shape and the J-Series fuselage shape are obviously not the same, but each has adapters that go to 2.5m. But no, there's no Mk4-JSeries adapter if that's what you mean.

[biohazard15]

Also an-124 opened nose has reduced vertical clearance and it would be good to avoid that however i know the design will be difficult.

Actually, it would be hard to replicate that design, not avoid that. An-124's nose gear (you can see gearbay doors at the nose) has kneeling feature, to reduce loading height and loading ramp angle (you may notice that the aircraft on the photo is tilted forward).

[Dante Montana]

Great parts, thanks Nertea. Since I saw Scott Manley on his Interstellar mission, I also wanted a ship to fly all around Kerbol system. These parts make it possible. The 3,75m engine doesn´t fit in size exactly but it works well. There are also KSPIparts attached that are needed so it´s more functional than pretty. As I said, very nice.

P.S. a triple cargobay sounds good.

[Nertea]

Awesome parts! What happened in this screenshot?

http://i.imgur.com/JkNe6TD.png

Hmm, well, I flew it to the island runway, crashed it about 5 times before I managed to land it, and disembarked the rover that's in the other screenshot .

Out of curiosity, how do you do that?

Add a new tag in Unity, think it's called No_Attach. Assign it to colliders you don't want attachment to (this is new in 0.25 I think).

Great mod! There will be support for Deedly Reentry?

Yeah, I though I'd have time to make a patch last night, but I didn't

[EvilPanda]

Nice work! I will definitely try this out soon. Those cargo bays look awesome.

[Captain Sierra]

Jesus! Nert, i can't not watch the forums for 2 weeks without you releasing or updating something! And then my gamedata bloats further.

[Tabris]

awesome parts.

one little niggle/request.

could you PLEASE make a cockpit wit the side "Nodules" replaced with either intakes or a mounting point?

[Beetlecat]

awesome parts.

one little niggle/request.

could you PLEASE make a cockpit wit the side "Nodules" replaced with either intakes or a mounting point?

While the nodes are stylistic choices, it would be nice to allow us to re-purpose them. Can stuff be clip-attached to the surface? even without a node?