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

[The Destroyer]

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 .

I mean what HAPPENED to your water? Seriously that's... not... normal...

[Wanderfound]

These parts are cool enough that I set up a new KSP install with minimal mods just to make room for it.

One possible glitch, though; it looks like the speed/thrust curve of the SCIMITAR engine isn't quite right for FAR. Normal jet-mode RAPIERs completely lose power at about 1,700m/s in FAR; the SCIMITARs were still pushing at 2,000m/s and beyond, allowing me to easily get a large ship to a 70kmAp/30kmPe without burning any oxidiser. This is more than a bit overpowered.

Otherwise, awesome cool.

[Raptor9]

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.

I think the most value of an opening nose, or a cargo ramp midway down the fuselage, would be the ability to still put MkIV components (like fuel tanks and/or engine mounts) in the rear fuselage, instead of shifting them to the wings. The tail cargo ramp precludes this. Not that I'm complaining about the tail ramp at all, I love it. But I see the value of having alternative ramp and cockpit locations.

[MrHatty]

Parts look fantastic for a starship Any chance of support for Real Fuels?

[Wanderfound]

I think the most value of an opening nose, or a cargo ramp midway down the fuselage, would be the ability to still put MkIV components (like fuel tanks and/or engine mounts) in the rear fuselage, instead of shifting them to the wings. The tail cargo ramp precludes this. Not that I'm complaining about the tail ramp at all, I love it. But I see the value of having alternative ramp and cockpit locations.

Yup. The MkIV tailpieces are awesome, but I'll rarely use 'em because I nearly always want a ramp.

[mike9606]

I see a problem with adding Deadly Reentry Support: the crew hatch on the cockpit is on the bottom.

EDIT: I know this probably wouldn't affect much ingame, but in a RP standpoint it does.

[temporalExile]

I mean what HAPPENED to your water? Seriously that's... not... normal...

I think it might be this http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100857-WIP-EVE-%28Environmental-Visual-Enhancements%29-Overhaul

[BadLeo]

When I saw the tail cargo bay I almost cried. Overall gorgeous, but that, my friend, THAT is SPECIAL! Thank you SOOOOO much for that parts!

[Explorator]

I think i had an ...... when I saw these parts. Sorry if that wasn't the best choice of words but Oh My God this looks fantastic.

Edit: Mods I got excited, please understand:P

[Horus]

It's a really nice mod.

Alas, 3gb memory threshold is a real pain in the ... And there are so many nice mods of quite a large size... *sigh*

[blowfish]

It's a really nice mod.

Alas, 3gb memory threshold is a real pain in the ... And there are so many nice mods of quite a large size... *sigh*

You can use ATM or use DDSLoader and convert all your textures to DDS (with the added bonus of reduced loading times) ... There's still a limit but it's a lot higher.

[BadLeo]

It's a really nice mod.

Alas, 3gb memory threshold is a real pain in the ... And there are so many nice mods of quite a large size... *sigh*

Beyond DDS (that I personally love) and ATM, you can make KSP run with OpenGL instead of DirectX. Frees a lot of memory and there's no considerable graphic quality lost.

[DaMichel]

Congratulations on this release. I think the parts are very neatly done (as always) and fit really well with the SP+ parts.

But i would never comment here without having something to nitpick

The IVA props are really cool. But i would love to have RPM support for NavUtilities and VesselViewer. For some reason i cannot access these pages. But they are accessible from the stock cockpits.

Secondly, any chance you could find room for the stock speedometer? It is kind of useful because it is very well readable and shows EAS with FAR installed.

[jake9039]

this is really cool.but the problem I see is the cargo bays can't go upside down

[Nertea]

Mini Challenge! I have a picture in the OP of a tiny plane trying to launch out of the cargo bay. What's not clear is that I failed miserably. If you are feeling up to it, try to do it! The winner will get to name the upcoming KJ-X1 scramjet engine and its manufacturer (within reason, don't name it after yourself or something ridiculous ). I'll also make you a badge thing. If you want.

Requirements:

• Stock and MkIV parts only
  
• The plane has to be manned!
  
• The launch needs to be done at altitude (let's say at least 3000 m)
  
• Both planes have to be able to fly around and land
  
• The launch of the mini plane cannot result in rapid disassembly of the launching plane (this is where I screwed up)
  

Prove it with some screenshots! It will be judged based on coolness of your planes .

awesome parts.

one little niggle/request.

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

I might do intakes... but the scale doesn't work very well with mounting points.

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?

Pretty easy to clip an octo-strut in if you need a point.

I mean what HAPPENED to your water? Seriously that's... not... normal...

Dev version of EVE.

These parts are cool enough that I set up a new KSP install with minimal mods just to make room for it.

One possible glitch, though; it looks like the speed/thrust curve of the SCIMITAR engine isn't quite right for FAR. Normal jet-mode RAPIERs completely lose power at about 1,700m/s in FAR; the SCIMITARs were still pushing at 2,000m/s and beyond, allowing me to easily get a large ship to a 70kmAp/30kmPe without burning any oxidiser. This is more than a bit overpowered.

Otherwise, awesome cool.

Yeah I didn't know that FAR messed with the engine curves for the rapier. I will have to address this.

Parts look fantastic for a starship Any chance of support for Real Fuels?

Maybe!

Yup. The MkIV tailpieces are awesome, but I'll rarely use 'em because I nearly always want a ramp.

Haha, that's too bad... I just modeled 3 more tailpieces last night (2x2.5m nodes, 4x1.25m nodes, flat "blade").

I see a problem with adding Deadly Reentry Support: the crew hatch on the cockpit is on the bottom.

EDIT: I know this probably wouldn't affect much ingame, but in a RP standpoint it does.

Well, doesn't the fact that there's no heat tiles also affect the RP value? .

Congratulations on this release. I think the parts are very neatly done (as always) and fit really well with the SP+ parts.

But i would never comment here without having something to nitpick

The IVA props are really cool. But i would love to have RPM support for NavUtilities and VesselViewer. For some reason i cannot access these pages. But they are accessible from the stock cockpits.

Secondly, any chance you could find room for the stock speedometer? It is kind of useful because it is very well readable and shows EAS with FAR installed.

Well, there's no button for them set up I guess. I'll see if I can figure out how to do it... must add to TODO list.

Edited December 3, 2014 by Nertea

[TopHatDragon]

Mini Challenge! I have a picture in the OP of a tiny plane trying to launch out of the cargo bay. What's not clear is that I failed miserably. If you are feeling up to it, try to do it! The winner will get to name the upcoming KJ-X1 scramjet engine and its manufacturer (within reason, don't name it after yourself or something ridiculous ). I'll also make you a badge thing. If you want.

Requirements:

• Stock and MkIV parts only
  
• The plane has to be manned!
  
• The launch needs to be done at altitude (let's say at least 3000 m)
  
• Both planes have to be able to fly around and land
  
• The launch of the mini plane cannot result in rapid disassembly of the launching plane (this is where I screwed up)
  

Prove it with some screenshots! It will be judged based on coolness of your planes .

does the plane have to come out the rear cargo bay or can it come out the top?

[Beetlecat]

I just tried this out for a bit and I really love the near future props. Those displays are great! The rear seat positions have a hard time reaching the panels to the extreme right or left (depending). I'd also echo a request for a single RPM display somewhere for navutils.

[edit: re-read the first post -- you're on it!]

And as for one of your items: Could the cockpit "bumps" be turned into intakes with a surface part that snaps on the front, rather than changing them altogether?

Thanks for this great part set!

Edited December 3, 2014 by Beetlecat
reading comprehension.

[Raptor9]

So I built a Mk4 spaceplane with these parts. It consisted of the cockpit, crew cabin, four cargo bays and a tail ramp, with a cranked delta-wing and four separate engine nacelles under the wings. Each underwing engine nacelle consisted of a large structural intake with 1.25m mount, and a SCIMITAR mounted behind each. The IntakeAir resource had a total capacity of 16.00 (each intake 4.00), but never dropped below 15.00 until above 30,000m.

I know this is v1.0, but I think the intakes are a little overpowered, especially when coupled with the SCIMITAR. As soon as I hit the dark blue mesosphere region of the barometer the IntakeAir resource went down really quickly, but up until that point, barely a decrease. All stock intakes provide a fraction of the intake air by the time you get to 15,000m, so not seeing a noticeable drop-off until above 30,000m was a little wonky.

[Tabris]

Here is My Submission for your mini challenge.

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i couldn't land the MKIV because it despawned (2.5km limit)

and the wings didn't survive because the rear door is too narrow (i'm using "Structural D" wings)

[Nertea]

So I built a Mk4 spaceplane with these parts. It consisted of the cockpit, crew cabin, four cargo bays and a tail ramp, with a cranked delta-wing and four separate engine nacelles under the wings. Each underwing engine nacelle consisted of a large structural intake with 1.25m mount, and a SCIMITAR mounted behind each. The IntakeAir resource had a total capacity of 16.00 (each intake 4.00), but never dropped below 15.00 until above 30,000m.

I know this is v1.0, but I think the intakes are a little overpowered, especially when coupled with the SCIMITAR. As soon as I hit the dark blue mesosphere region of the barometer the IntakeAir resource went down really quickly, but up until that point, barely a decrease. All stock intakes provide a fraction of the intake air by the time you get to 15,000m, so not seeing a noticeable drop-off until above 30,000m was a little wonky.

It's a bug. Looks like there's a typo in Taverius' tutorial - there is a multiplication where there should be a division. In the B9 configs the division is correct though, and using that formula appears to work. I'll need to hotfix this and the SCIMITAR's thrust curve... tomorrow I hope. As a stopgap measure, you can go into mk4intake-radial-1.cfg and mk4intake-radial-2.cfg, look under ModuleResourceIntake and change the area from 0.2 to 0.0005.

I just tried this out for a bit and I really love the near future props. Those displays are great! The rear seat positions have a hard time reaching the panels to the extreme right or left (depending). I'd also echo a request for a single RPM display somewhere for navutils.

[edit: re-read the first post -- you're on it!]

And as for one of your items: Could the cockpit "bumps" be turned into intakes with a surface part that snaps on the front, rather than changing them altogether?

Thanks for this great part set!

I'm not sure about that. because of the asymmetry of that area, it's tough to have parts that are specific to attach there. I'd almost rather have nothing... but intakes are kinda cool. The question is: like THIS (based on the inspiration) or THIS (realisticy)

does the plane have to come out the rear cargo bay or can it come out the top?

Rear bay . Top bay is too easy!

[Wanderfound]

I have had some issues with rovers partially dropping through the bays: mounted just clear of the floor on a docking clamp, when the clamp is released the rear wheels fall through the floor. I suspect that the wheel colliders may have flexed outside the bay during the initial drop.

Is there any way to fix this apart from strutting before release to ensure that it doesn't sag during the initial drop?

[DaMichel]

Well, there's no button for them set up I guess. I'll see if I can figure out how to do it... must add to TODO list.

Actually i was lying about the Speedometer. I noticed that yours can be switched between SRF and Orbital mode which is very cool.

But ... FAR has a special hack included that changes the default speedometer display. Doing this for modded displays is not going to happen on FARs side and i won't ask you to support FAR in this way. So nevermind!

[Stengord]

Thunderbirds are go!

- - - Updated - - -

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!

[riocrokite]

I love mk4.

Mining rig delivery test.

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[gkorgood]

I have had some issues with rovers partially dropping through the bays: mounted just clear of the floor on a docking clamp, when the clamp is released the rear wheels fall through the floor. I suspect that the wheel colliders may have flexed outside the bay during the initial drop.

Is there any way to fix this apart from strutting before release to ensure that it doesn't sag during the initial drop?

This is not a bug with the mod. The game does not allow two parts of the same craft to collide with each other. Hence we have boosters that can clip and work fine, until they decouple, and cause BOOM things to happen. Also hence, we have rovers that can pass through their parent ships.

Also, 100th POST HYPEEEEEEE!!!!!!!