[1.2.2] Realistic Progression Zero (RP-0) - Lightweight RealismOverhaul career v0.53 June 12

[Laie]

Notably there are three DSIF ground station with a 500 Gm range evenly spread around the globe, meaning once you are above 2.5 Mm ASL you will always have line of sight to at least one of them, thus all omnidirectional antennas with a range less than 51 Mm will reach 100 times their listed value

That's what I was trying to get at in my post, but without even mentioning the different ground stations and their ranges -- which really don't matter, IMO: once you're so far away that the standard stations may be out of range, you're sufficiently far away for DSN to take over. Simply assume 100x range and be done with it. Having no link is something that only ever happens when you're too low or behind the moon.

I can think up a few exceptions, but these are hardly relevant. I don't know why anyone should move into a 300Mm/80° orbit... and if they do, they should by all means RTFM. No need for a FAQ to cover every conceivable case, that's what the RT wiki is there for. But as long as you remain near the ecliptic and/or close to earth, the "assume 100x" rule of thumb will work fine for you.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Laie

[Rothank]

You guys seen this?

Taerobee

This thingy should get implemented instead of the RO conic cockpit!

[Jonno]

BTW, speaking of antennas, should an omnidirectional antenna really reach Earth from the Moon? As far as I can tell the Apollo missions had to use dish antennas to communicate with mission control, so including a starting omnidirectional antenna reaching that far seems wrong to me.

Perhaps the Communotron 16 should get a shorter range, somewhere between 400 km and 2 Mm, so it reaches Earth from geostationary orbit, but not from any lunar orbit...

[Lack]

I seem to be having some issues with the Bonzana cockpit, and FAR seems to agree with me that something is not right :

While the debug voxels appear to be alright to a cursory examination FAR obviously has problems with it, and i don't think it's just the mach calculations given the trouble it's giving me. The other cockpits are fine

Yeah, it's a bugged collider, only found out about it myself the other day so fixing them as people find them.

It's fixed (or should be) with the SXT dev build, I'm aiming to get a new version of SXT uploaded to KerbalStuff/CKAN this week. Download the dev build (bottom right of page) and either use that, or copy the new model file across (SXT/GameData/Parts/Command/Bonny/model.mu).

[Laie]

BTW, speaking of antennas, should an omnidirectional antenna really reach Earth from the Moon? As far as I can tell the Apollo missions had to use dish antennas to communicate with mission control, so including a starting omnidirectional antenna reaching that far seems wrong to me.

The Apollo missions transmitted live video, in color. Here's a picture of an early lunar probe:

Several of these were launched in 1958 (just after sputnik/vanguard/explorer). None of them made it to the moon because blowups happen, but that's the amount of antenna that was supposed to suffice.

[Laie]

As mentioned, this time I installed RP-0 and every suggested mod (lots of parts). Some things I notice:

It's impossible to get anything to the Moon early on. An unguided last stage could conceivable get there (Able/Delta is too heavy for 40t lifters), but without maneuver nodes? The most important holdup is waiting for the facilities to be finished, and by that time, a lot of tech also has come online. Many things falling into place pretty much at the same time, that's one huge leap ahead.

There's a shortage of small-scale command modules. The rangers can barely make an excentric orbit @somewhere, which is probably intended, but also means that you need to bring a power-hungry Able/Delta in order to circularise in GEO. With the best bipropellants, the surveyor can land on the Moon, but again needs an Able/Delta to circularize first.

That said, AIES brings several "Satellite Bus" modules that are in the same node as Agena, weigh less, need less power, and have no avionics limits. Want me to do something about it? Though personally, I'd rather move them to higher techs because of the looks. The FASA Pioneer, on the other hand, seems quite suitable... I'd like to adapt it for RO/RP-0.

There's too many diameters. Engines have the weirdest sizes (historically correct I presume) that don't match the command modules. Bringing the two together requires a lot of creativity I'd rather spend elsewhere. Rather than tailoring the rocket to a given engine size I also often find myself building my own fairings, but these can become fiendishly heavy at times.

[NathanKell]

Laie: As far as I know, facilities upgrade with the build rate, so they can upgrade quite quickly. Are you playing with Fund Penalties set to 100%, or something higher? That said, you're right that you'll probably need about 60t of LV (just over the limit) to get something TLI unless you nail a direct ascent. I'm not quite sure how to avoid the pitfall you're talking about regarding many things coming on at once--you can get a boatload of early science from sounding rockets and switching launch sites, and especially if you put a few points in R&D as well as build rate you can get a lot of nodes unlocked before the pad/TS/MC are all upgraded. That said, the nodes will unlock in succession so you can fly orbital (and even high-space) missions with starting buildings.

Actually, you might even be able to do a lunar flyby with just the TS/MC upgrades, and 40 tons, and no more than the first tier of tech nodes. If you have, say, 4x X-405s (for the Isp) as your first stage, and a stretched Able, you probably could orbit an Explorer and just enough Baby Sergeants to precisely equal a TLI burn (~3150m/s). I *think* that can be done just under 40 tons, but don't quote me.

Not sure why you'd need to bring avionics with you to GEO, you launch your satellite + apogee kick solid to GTO, create a maneuver node at apogee, orient towards it, then separate the upper stage. At apogee, fire the kick motor. Then on kick motor jettison, you can fine-tune with hydrazine. For a lunar orbit, you can just pack a couple Baby Sergeants, not even an Altair, and be fully under the 200kg limit of the Early Controllable Core even during LOI.

Same deal with Surveyor: in real life it used a solid retro to kill most of its incoming velocity, then small liquid verniers to cover the last hundred m/s or so. This was a direct ascent flight, no lunar orbit first. Unless by circularize you mean circularize in LEO prior to TLI, in which case yes (but you should have the Agena by then).

I agree that the AIES cores need to be moved. pjf placed them before avionics were a thing, IIRC, and also without much regard for their looks and modernity. :] I'd love it if you would move and reconfigure them appropriately! Same for the FASA Pioneer! Great!

Regarding diameters, the problem there is tankbutts. KSP part makers insist on giving engines giant tank butts, and it messes things up. The buttless engines in FASA, etc, should work OK, as should many of the VSR engines (they have a thrust structure, but it's still not as odious as a butt except for the LV-1F and the KR-2L, IIRC). You can do a lot with proc interstages and proc tanks, and indeed I find it hard to imagine playing RO without them to adapt...

- - - Updated - - -

Yep, as I thought.

(that tiny orange tank has nitrogen, you'd do even better with N2O or something.)

[JuxuR]

Hi and thanks for the great mod!

Is there anyway to clean away the non-R-0 parts? There seems to be quite a few of them around.

Cheers,

JuxuR

[NathanKell]

You can make them not appear in your part catalog, but there isn't an easy way to physically remove them from loading since often multiple parts depend on the same assets.

[JuxuR]

You can make them not appear in your part catalog, but there isn't an easy way to physically remove them from loading since often multiple parts depend on the same assets.

Removing them from the parts catalog would help! How should one go about to achieve said result? Thank you!

Cheers,

JuxuR

[Jonno]

Removing them from the parts catalog would help! How should one go about to achieve said result? Thank you!

Adding the following to a *.cfg file in the GameData directory should do the trick:

// Remove non-RO parts

-PART

[*]:HAS[~RSSROConfig[]]:FINAL

{

}

// Remove non-RP-0 parts

-PART

[*]:HAS[~RP0conf[]]:FINAL

{

}

[TheRag]

Is there anyway to get the Procedural Heatshield to show up on the techtree and part list? It is pretty handy for eccentrically sized payloads. (Also it is only heat shield that ablates)

[Rabada]

I would like to make a suggestion. I love the idea of adding avionics packages, but I do find them a bit difficult to integrate into my rockets easily. I suggest that RP-0 use KW Rocketry's radial SAS parts as avionics packages. Here is a quick Module Manager config I wrote that adds avionics to those parts.

@PART[KWSASmodule2mHalf]:FOR[RealismOverhaul]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleAvionics
		massLimit = 90.0
	}
}
@PART[KWSASmodule3mHalf]:FOR[RealismOverhaul]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleAvionics
		massLimit = 240.0
	}
}
@PART[KWSASmodule5mHalf]:FOR[RealismOverhaul]
{
	MODULE
	{
		name = ModuleAvionics
		massLimit = 640.0
	}
}

I really like to use those parts because they look good with a rocket, they are aerodynamic, and most of all they are very convenient to use. Also tweakscale seems to already be set up to adjust their size, so these parts would not be limited to 2.5m, 3.5m, and 5 m. Here's a quick example I mad using 2 of the 3.5m SAS halfs.

The numbers I put up were just an example. I would also suggest removing the reaction wheels from those parts, and adding some electric charge or whatever. I'm not sure where it would fit in the current tech tree but I could see using these parts to represent using lightweight and power efficient computers for avionics near the end of the tech tree.

[NathanKell]

Actually I just had a neat idea of how to make procedural avionics easily. When I get a sec I'll try that out.

[Rothank]

Actually I just had a neat idea of how to make procedural avionics easily. When I get a sec I'll try that out.

Do i sense a connection to a Procedural Probes mod?

Also, Rabada, i know it's just an example, but that's a big*** sounding rocket you got there! ^^

Edited September 6, 2015 by Rothank

[NathanKell]

Nope! Adding a resource to RealFuels, and changing the ModuleAvionics code to read that total liters of avionics and convert based on techlevel and core type into an allowed tonnage. I think on reflection someone else proposed doing that a while back, but it slipped my mind.

Though might use the part from Procedural Probes as the base.

[Rothank]

This would really simplify things by a lot! Maybe even a little too much tho...

[chrisl]

Nope! Adding a resource to RealFuels, and changing the ModuleAvionics code to read that total liters of avionics and convert based on techlevel and core type into an allowed tonnage. I think on reflection someone else proposed doing that a while back, but it slipped my mind.

Though might use the part from Procedural Probes as the base.

This would be awesome. Would give a lot more freedom to recreate historical rockets and probes.

Edit: Though if it works, you'd probably want two different types. One high tonnage/high electric cost for lower stages. One low tonnage/low electric cost for upper stages.

[Laie]

Actually I just had a neat idea of how to make procedural avionics easily. When I get a sec I'll try that out.

That would be most welcome. Doesn't even need to be procedural in terms of capabilities; but variable width would make many things a lot easier.

Talking about ease-of-use: I'd really wish there was a simpler interstage fairing. As it is, one has to put the base below, attach sides, then adjust the extra height to match the part on top. I've tried the top-down approach, but then I have to toggle crossfeed and the auto-shape is all wrong. Either way, it's a lot of clicky-clicky.

In almost all cases, it would suffice if the engine fairings could be adjusted to arbitrary diameters, but my preferred solution would be a simple ring. FASA has such parts on it's Titan and Apollo models, is anyone aware of procedural parts that work in the same way?

[chrisl]

I am trying to create an early Surveyor probe for an unmanned Moon landing (Playing RO/RSS/RP0 with all required and most recommended mods). I just got the Miniaturization tech unlocked so I have access to the Surveyor probe core and some small landing struts. What I can't seem to find is an engine that's similar to the vernier engines used on the actual Surveyor probe. First I thought something similar to the LR101 used on the Atlas but the only option in game uses KER/LOX which I'm guessing wasn't on the Surveyor. Also, the LR101 is not throttleable and I'm guessing any landing engine will need to be. So then I thought about the "Vernor Engine" that's part of the RCS list. It can take different fuels but, again, it's not really throttleable. Any suggestions or is there an engine already available that I just haven't come across yet?

[NathanKell]

B787_300 gave me some docs. I'm adding it based on them.

[BevoLJ]

Nope! Adding a resource to RealFuels, and changing the ModuleAvionics code to read that total liters of avionics and convert based on techlevel and core type into an allowed tonnage. I think on reflection someone else proposed doing that a while back, but it slipped my mind.

Though might use the part from Procedural Probes as the base.

[GuardianofBlind]

Loving the mod so far. Have landed probe on Moon (with the 1 sec + delay on controls, more like, soft dropped it on to sand ), have sen't kerbal on a flyby past Moon (had just 11 hours of oxygen left when got back, phew), and later sent kerbals in full Lunar orbit. Meanwhile the unmanned probes have done fly-bys of Mars, Venus and Mercury. Even tried landing one on Venus, but it overheat within minutes on surface so didn't get the signal back, sending another.

Just wondering what else I have to do to receive crewed Moon landing contract, or if there is such. According to kerbal alarm clock, it is now 23rd March 1967, so the time is soon

[chrisl]

Out of curiosity, why is the Surveyor probe core an octagon when the real Surveyor probes were shaped like tripods? Wouldn't a hexagon make more sense?

[Framerate]

I'm having problems with the LR87-LH2 engine.

First only 2 of 3 engines in a 3 engine first stage cluster would ignite.

The error message read in the lines of: "Insufficient resources to ignite"

This was very consistent.

After fiddling around I abandoned that on the basis that it was a vacuum engine despite of the very nice ASL ISP

So swapped the three LR87 in favor of a couple of LR79s. Weird thing was that the problem continued and only 1 of the 2 engines would ignite on launch.

Interestingly I had a LR87 powering the second stage a swell. Swapping out this engine fixed the problem.

So it seems using the LR87 anywhere on a rocket induces ignition problems for all engines.

All mods are up to date, is this reproducible or a bad install?