[WIP] LanderTek - New Modular Lander Parts from Axial Aerospace

[artwhaley]

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UPDATE 10/20/2019 -   This mod is now released under the WTFPL license.  As such, you are free to do whatever you'd like with it.  Feel free to continue development, merge it with something else, host and share, etc!  

 

 

Development Download Now Available: https://*** malicious site we no longer use ***.com/mod/469/LanderTek%20-%20modular%20lander%20parts...%20for%20landing.

Development Download Now Available: ((Updated for 1.0.5!)

This is a modular pack of lander parts... It will eventually be a complete suite of pods, tanks, engines, decouplers, and legs for building everything from light probe landers to heavy manned missions with loads of science on board.

It's always bugged me that the stock parts don't lend themselves to building compact realistic-ish' landers. Landers are built light and boxy with an emphasis on low COG's, lightweight parts, and plenty of good places to attach the gizmos they'll need on the surface. Nasa doesn't like trying to keep a 2.5m round, 12 m high lander from tipping over anymore than we do. These parts don't match the stock parts in terms of volume of fuel in volume of space... justify it by saying that lander parts are built lighter than launcher tanks and such... or... just don't worry about it! KSP is a game and the scale of things doesn't work out perfectly in it, but I think these parts are a good balance of realism/fun.

Here's what's currently in the pack:

A 2.5m, 3 man lander can . The exterior is finished, the interior is just a couple of RPM huds in the pilot's seat... the interior will eventually be fleshed out in the same near-future style as my dreamchaser IVA, but that's way down the line.

A 2.5m stack that includes:

Upperstage with high TWR engine, fuel, monoprop, and integrated 5 way RCS Thrusters.

Lowerstage with low TWR engine and fuel

Slim decoupler

Undercarriage truss (also fits well on 1.875 engine part

Undercarriage truss with integrated legs (little buggy... but then, most single parts with multiple legs are....) and both surface and node attach points for science and miscellaneous

Additional 2.5m fuel tank for adding deltav to either stage

A 1.875m Single Stage engine module that includes onboard RCS thrusters and monoprop storage in addition to the main engine and fuel. Works great with the stock lander can and the ALCOR capsule!

A 1.25m stack that includes

Upperstage with high TWR engine, fuel, monoprop, and integrated 5 way RCS thrusters

Lowerstage with low TWR engine and fuel

Slim decoupler

additional 1.25m fuel tank for adding deltav to either stage

A 1.25m skycrane system that consists of -

Skycrane pod, with 4 integrated engines

Additional engine piece for adding 4 more offset engines for heavy payloads

Additional fuel tank for skycrane

RCS tank with integrated 5 way thrusters for orbital linkup with payloads

Docking port for skycrane payloads

Two landing legs - one that extends straight and one that folds away up for more clearance when stowed.

Smaller surface/node mountable versions of the goo container and materials bay - identical to stock but with cool new models and designed to mount to my lander undercarriages

Sample Return case - a cute little box that can store science experiment results. It still can only hold one of each experiment, but you can carry multiples! Put two of these on the upper stage and all your experiments on the lower stage and you can have your scientist run all experiments 3 times, putting one result in each container and carrying the third into the pod then leave all the heavy science equipment behind when you blast off! Or carry 8 cases with you and let a scientist biome hop several times before returning to an orbital lab to stash the data there!

Planned- I'll be honest, I've been very slow on my modding lately, so it may be a long time before any of the planned features get into the pack, and i'd WELCOME help if anyone is interested in contributing.

1.25m, two man command pod

Scaled down probe-sized science experiments

Tiny .675m probe lander system

More variety of lander legs

Heat shielded and aerodynamic set of lander parts for operating on planets with atmospheres!

And... maybe a Command and Service modules and set of docking ports that match the mod's aesthetic, so you can build a mission entirely out of it? Maybe not! There are a lot of good rocket parts out there and that's sort of scope creep from the idea of LANDER parts.

When I say ascent and descent stages in the part descriptions... there's no reason they can't be combined in a lot of other ways or used as single stages, etc. It's just easier to describe them in Apollo lander style stacks. Ascent stages are a little smaller than descent stages. Ascent stages will have built in RCS. Descent stages will make certain to have places to attach landing gear. But there won't be anything stopping you from putting the ascent stage on bottom... or stacking three descent stages on top of each other... etc.

The 2.5m command pod will eventually include 3 different seats with very different controls - a pilot with a lot of visibility, who gets flight and fuel data through huds, but not much else - a science and engineering station with action groups, cameras and other controls, and a docking module pilot's seat that faces up. I'll eventually release a docking port for the top of the pod that allows you to see through the top windows for visual approach to docking.

These images are from the first development version. They show the old color scheme - this is still a WIP.

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Edited October 20, 2019 by artwhaley
1.0.5 update!

[drtedastro]

Looks GREAT... Really good stuff.

Keep it coming..

Cheers.

[MaverickSawyer]

Looks fantastic. Any idea what the performance will be? (Thrust, weight, dV, etc.)

[kiwiak]

Nice.

These look somehow like KSO station parts.

[artwhaley]

I'm working on the delta-v budget for everything. I want them to be flexible and useful for most landing situations, but I do want to balance it so that you have to really think about how to use them.

Here are the first few pics of the 2.5m command pod in testing...

[drtedastro]

Darn, I was hoping that a download url would be in my Xmass stocking.....

[rabidninjawombat]

Nice! I really like the look of the pieces. (nice and compact) Any chance of a 2.5m skycrane to go along with the 1.25?

Integrated antenna into the command pod would be nice (if you haven't already thought of it.)

[Helix935]

whoa now those are some nice parts good job artwhaley

[MainSailor]

Finally something that works well stylistically with the Alcor capsule. I hate throwing a round tank underneath it.

[artwhaley]

Original post updated... with download link! It's early... I may well have forgotten something major... don't crucify me! Constructive criticism very welcome!

[paladin061]

Don't wanna criticize too much, but the textures don't really fit in with the game. Maybe make an alternate, stock-a-like version, too?

[artwhaley]

I'm still putting a lot of thought into the textures... though since the game doesn't give decent lander components to start with, there's nothing that I feel I have to 'match', especially since I'm going to have a full pack that won't require any stock lander components, unless you want to mix them in. I sort of justify it by pointing at the differences in 'aesthetic' between the Saturn V, the Apollo CSM, and the LEM. The LEM looks radically different than the other pieces of that system, because it's got totally different design parameters. I may move closer to stock... but I doubt I'll release two texture sets entirely... as I hate texturing. lol. I'm more than happy to share my source files with anyone who enjoys texturing to see if they come up with something brilliant.

[drtedastro]

Looking great.

Downloading now for testing. Thanks for putting up a download for us.

Have a great new year...

Kerbal Stuff seems to be 'stuffed'. Been having lots of problems for the past few hours.

Is there a different download site? GitHub, or something??

Thaks.

[paladin061]

Yeah, man. Texturing is hell. I think the texturing makes or breaks many mods, like with many mods, if they don't fit the image of KSP, they get less downloads. Be wary of that.

[Ikaneko]

Yeah, man. Texturing is hell. I think the texturing makes or breaks many mods, like with many mods, if they don't fit the image of KSP, they get less downloads. Be wary of that.

Weird. For me, it's all about the quality of both the textures and the models. If the models Are too blocky and the textures are too pixelated, that's a guaranteed no download from me.

That said, stock-a-like is a major plus for mods in my eye!

[artwhaley]

Texturing and modelling are always about compromise. One of the major skills in modelling game assets is learning which details should be modeled and which should be done with texture, so as to minimize the impact that both geometry and texture size have on performance.

But... I'd rather this thread not digress into philosophy of 3D art making

I understand what you're saying about some preferring more stock-a-like texturing, but I'd rather put my energy into more useful parts than a massive retexture. No mod is for everyone. I think the texture style I'm using, with spec and normal maps, is starting to look good, and I'm gonna run with it. Like I said earlier, I'll gladly let someone take a shot at texturing it if they want to... but for now I'm focusing on making parts.

On a progress note - the 2.5m undercarriage started testing tonight - It's a truss ring that goes below the engine stages and integrates landing gear and 4 equipment attachment plates. I was testing the colliders and the fairing tonight and making sure it didn't interfere with the engines. I'm going to add some hydraulic push-tubes to all of the moving parts so it looks more 'solid' but the basic model is working well. Is anyone interested in having versions of the materials bay or goo canister that fit in my with mod's look and feel and node attach to the equipment slots under the lander? Or anything else they'd like to see modeled to fit there? KAS/KIS storage is definitely going to happen... and I want some sort of rover carrier... but is there anything else you'd like to strap low on a lander? Solar panels? Batteries? KAS connection panels? etc?

[Voidryder]

These models are looking good. Looking forward to flying them. To answer your questions: Yes to material and goo. Yes to rover carrier. Yes to batteries.

As to other items, what about a "container" that allows the Kerbonaut to place "surface samples inside" while still on EVA? Right click transfer EVA report, surface sample UI, is what I'm thinking. The Kerbal would have to be within a certain range, like KAS to access and use. There was another mod that did this I believe but having a "container" that matches your style would be cool.

Thanks and keep up the great work.

[eldiabs]

Looking awesome man. One thing I personally enjoy about the variety in texturing between different mods and stock in KSP is it gives a more 'international' feel to everything. If one looks up our own spacey past, the variety in rockets and paint jobs is pretty spectacular.

Look forward to where this project goes. Thank you for your efforts.

[Z3R0_0NL1N3]

This mod has great potential! But like people are saying, the textures need a little work. Variety is certainly good, but they still need to have a little more stockalike feel. As a good example of "variety" while still stockalike, take a look at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/81537-0-90-Tantares-Stockalike-Soyuz-and-MIR-13-2-Crew-1-25m-Pod-Fuji-Release!]Tantares. Anyway, the models in this mod look very good, and it's certainly a good start!

[paladin061]

Some TAC Life Support support, maybe? KAS attachments? I do agree with you on the parts. I'd rather have 20 parts that arent stock-a-like than 2 that are.

[Kerba Fett]

I'd like to say that I think you've got the start of a very nice model pack here. I like the worn industrial yellow look for an established colony. It makes a good contrast to the surface of the Mun or Minmus so if a ship goes down it's easier to spot. I do see the apeal of a stock like color scheme though. Most spacecraft are white or shades of gray to reflect sunlight (heat) and because it shows damage. If you did want an alternate texture pack it shouldn't involve much more than loading the color channel into an image editor, selecting all the yellow hue stuff and turning down the saturation to make it gray.

I did have a couple of issues with the download linked in the first post though. It's refering to an IVA that wasn't in mine. This was causing problems for activating engines and going EVA would cause the space center to go all black and leave just the HUD intact. (navball, windows ect. By editing the 2.5m lander config to look for the stock 3 crew IVA (mk1-2) I got it working properly.

It seems to fly pretty well around the spaceport, but the pod torque is a bit high. I find it a bit twitchy at the default of 9. It seems better tweaked down to about 5 on each axis.

There's a couple of design points that I'd like to mention. First is the windows on the 2.5 m lander pod. They seem gigantic for a kerbal spacecraft. They're far larger than what you'd see on a tour bus. It seems like the sort of thing you'd see on the command tower overlooking a Mun base not on a light weight lander.

I would think on a research lander with 3 crew the pilot would be watching the ground below and ahead, the co-pilot would be watching flight instruments and calling speed and altitude and the commander/flight engineer would be watching system status and navigation. Mostly they don't have time to look out these huge panoramic windows. Also, upward visibility wouldn't be a big deal since there's no other overhead traffic to watch for and most of docking with the command module is done with instruments. You might want to seriously think about shrinking or eliminating the overhead and side windows. They seem like a luxury for a research craft and they'd cost a lot of mass and wall space that could be packed with science instruments.

I hate to criticize your work because I've seen the work that goes into making something like this, but that's my opinion.

The other thing that seems a bit off is the landing gear. They function great and give a wide enough base to deal with some decent horizontal velcocity in testing. But in the raised position they seem to hang down a long ways. The engine of the lower stage is tucked into the base nice and tight. The entire lander is a small compact unit exceot for those 4 legs sticking out the bottom a half meter. What if you were to have them stow 180' from their current retracted position like the large stock gear. That way they'd tuck in along the lander when retracted and still extend to the current postion. When landed they also seem to give a lot of ground clearance. This is great if you're mounting RCS tanks or GOO canisters on the bottom of the lander. You still have lots of ground clearance. If you don't mount stuff on the bottom it just looks like they tucked the engine into the lower stage for no real reason. You might want to consider a ring that attaches below the lower stage with lights, batteries KAS storage, ect to fill some of the ground clearance.

By the way, a great addition to your lander pack is the Universal storage mod and Dmagic Orbital Science that adds science modules in a universal storage format. The US octicore give plenty of room for science experiments and when they're all used you can either EVA and take the datapacks and take off in the upper stage to dock with the command module or transfer all fuel to the lower stage and return the entire lander to the orbiting station to refuel and reset experiment bays for another biome landing.

For future addons to your pack how about landing lights? The stock lights seem so huge. Do you really need a spotlight the size of your pilots head? How about some nice trim little LED lights.

I also wanted to mention your skycrane. A probe core with engines and fuel in one package is brilliant. It looks like it would be a perfect match for MKS. The same specs as the LV 909 split into a 4 engine package. And if you need more thrust you can always just rotate them 45' and stack them.

Would you be willing to do another variation of it focused on orbital construction? It would be exactly the same but with a second set of engines facing the other way. You'd select which group of engines are active with action groups and use it to move station modules into position. The module with the tug attached would be launched into orbit with a booster. Once in orbit the booster would seperate and the tug would use it's engines to rendezvous with the station and dock the module. Having engines facing in both directions means you don't need to keep turning end for end as you match velocity and you can save your RCS for final docking. The tug would then seperate and parachute to the surface for recovery. If you're using Extraplanetary Launchpads the tug could drive into a recycle bin and it's parts would be saved for future building.

If there was any way to use an emmissive texture to indicate which engines were active that would be really cool. I normally use lights tied to the action groups I switch the engines with, but lights don't have on/off switching with action groups. You can toggle them, but that depends on them starting in the correct state when used as an indicator.

Anyways, as I said at the start, really nice mod pack you've started here. I can't wait to see where it goes if you continue to develop it.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Kerba Fett

[artwhaley]

Kerba Fett,

I can't say enough how much detailed feedback like yours is appreciated!

You're right... I probably can generate a 'more stockish' texture that way... I'll take a stab at it eventually.

And I DID forget to include the IVA and the couple of props it requires. I should have several things ready for an update by tomorrow night, and I'll try to remember all the pieces then!

You're very correct... the windows on the 2.5m pod are gratuitous... The smaller pod I'm working on is much more 'real world' accurate. I think I'm going to push ahead with it and then look at it all together and decide if the 2.5m pod needs to be more like the smaller pod... or if I like providing a slightly more 'sci-fi' pod as an option. For me, when I play in IVA, I still like a nice field of view. But you're very correct that landing a bunch of glass is unnecessary and expensive and unrealistic. I'll give it some thought.

An attachment ring underneath the lander is a great idea! I'm already working on a full undercarriage with integrated legs... but WITHOUT the legs, it's just a lightweight truss ring with 4 attach nodes and extra room for surface attachments. It might be perfect for what you're suggesting, with a bit of scale tweaking. And I'm eventually planning to include legs of both flavors - the ones that are in the download now, and some that fold up and away to stay clear of stack attachments below the engines. I'm also working on some surface mount, almost fully retractable gear that could attach to the bottom of a lower stage instead of the sides, so they'd be hidden by the bottom fairing during launch instead of sticking out the sides.

I'll look at Universal Storage tomorrow! That sounds like a great way to open up more gameplay options without me having to reinvent everything! I think US ties in with TAC life support as well, which was one of the other requests I want to try to get to... so it may be a two birds with one stone situation.

Lights are definitely in the plans for soon.

Here's a quick image of me playing with the still in progress Materials Bay, Goo Canister, Sample Return Crate, and Battery Unit!

I'm not opposed to playing with a space tug, though it will be a while before I get around to it, as I want to focus on the landing parts for now. Have you looked at nli2work's tug in progress? The engines are mounted on arms that look articulated, but I don't know if they actually flip around or not? I'll post a question thread tomorrow trying to figure out if there's a way to use emissives to indicate an active engine without adding a plugin... it seems like something in the FX setup might be able to make this work... but I honestly haven't played with tweaking these much yet, so I'll have to dig in. Making engines with an 'active' light would be really useful in a lot of situations, it seems to me.

If I can't make it work that way, it might be easier to do animated engines that rotate based on an action group... which accomplishes the same goal functionally... Actually you could just animate the thrust transform... so you could make a 'double ended' engine bit where an action group would let you flip the thrust to come out the other nozzle... and that animation COULD also include an emissive bit! So that might be the way to do it.

Long way of saying... I'll look into it... but I'm guessing it will be next month before I get a chance to look at it!

Thanks again for so much feedback! I really appreciate it!

Art

[Tommygun]

Great looking lander parts. This is an area the game and modders haven't done a lot with.

The landing gear look perfect on this craft.

I like the well used and dirty textures you are using. The only issue I have is that the windows are too clean looking and the blue color doesn't seem to fit the orange texture you have.

Maybe a dirty looking black or gold foil windows would look better?

[Kerba Fett]

Glad to hear about your plans for the future of this pack. Sounds pretty cool and I'll keep watching for upgrades.

With respect to Tommygun's suggestion, the windows do look pretty clean compared to the rest of the texture and could stand a bit of grime. You'd want to keep it subtle though. A spacecraft is a major asset and the windows not going to get too dirty before somebody takes a clean rag to it.

I wouldn't change the color of them though. While transparent windows can be done in KSP, most people don't use them when they make models. They make the window a light bluish color like you did. If you were to change the window to shiny gold or black it would look less like glass and more like metal plates.

It's the same with lit windows. If people see a glowing square or circle and it's white or yellowish white they assume it's a window. If you make a glowey red or green shape people don't think it's a window with different interior lights, they think it's something else entirely. I'd stick with accepted colors for any glass on the ship.

I meant to mention a couple of things about your skycrane. It's not displaying the fuel bar or any icon in the staging. When used as a standalone ship there's no staging bar. If you right click on it to activate the engine it seems to fly well and with your landing legs it makes a nice little lander for science instruments. It's probably some minor config thing since all of your other engines seem to work well enough in staging.

I was wondering about an RCS pack for it though. I'm thinking of a matching part about half the thickness as the 1.25m monopropellant tank with 4 linear thrusters built in. My reasoning is that if you put your skycrane on top of a tall base module like one of the MKS modules your COM will be quite a ways below your COT. Your payload acts as a pendulem preventing your from pitching or rolling enough to control your horizontal speed. Adding RCS thrusters gives you fine control of your horzontal speed while the main engines keep you airborn.

A couple of mods that really help with skycrane flying are: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50736 and http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/85838

As for the tug, I am familiar with nli2work's tug and have downloaded it. I'm getting pretty close to the limit of what my install can handle though so it hasn't made the trip from the download directory to the KSP install directory. Hopefully soon though. It makes me sad that there are so many cool mods I want to try and the 64 bit version that should free us from these memory issues doesn't work properly.

The nice thing about yours is that it would only be one more part in the inventory. I was thinking that switchable fixed engines might be simpler and more future proof. As long as KSP doesn't change the way you activate engines with action groups future patches shouldn't affect your part. I was also thinking that rather than making a seperate robot tug with bidirectional engines you could just have a stripped down version of your engine mount. No fuel or probe core, just a 1.25m quad engine package. If you rotate it 45' and mount it on top of your skycrane it goes from being a quadcopter to an octacopter with twice the lift for heavy payloads. If you face the engine package the other way it goes from a skycrane to a robot tug.

Anyways, something to keep in mind for the future. One question for you: Making this stuff takes quite a bit of time. Between the modeler and Unity and config files and testing in KSP, then having to fix problems, do you actually have time left to play KSP any more? Or is it just a big developer nightmare where all your game time is spent on it and the fans just keep asking for more? :^) (like me)

[artwhaley]

I think that's the running joke between mod-makers. You sometimes forget it's a game you could just fire up and play... instead of just using it to test your latest part before it's back to Blender for the next one. But yes... I do sometimes play. I build stuff that I want to have in the game. Relationship with the 'fans' was hard for me at the first... I wanted to please everyone... so I'd try to adjust to every comment... and then you're not making someone else happy... so you change it again... In the end, you have to make the stuff you want to play with and accept that it's not for everyone. Like in this thread - I listened to the comments about textures, and I thought about it, and I decided that no, I want to make a strong design choice and make parts that look the way I want them to... I can't please everyone - all I can do is make something I'd want to use and trust that I'm not so weird as to be the only one who likes things the way I like them. So I'm better now at taking good suggestions, but recognizing that I can't use all of them... and at some point you have to say "Well, that's what I made... if you decide to make your idea, PM me if I can be of any help!"

I'll take a look at the skycrane fuel bar and staging. There are a couple of config file options that I bet I failed to copy over... because for that part I started with a command pod and worked towards an engine, instead of the other way around.

RCS for the skycrane is a good idea, both for landing, and so it doesn't have to be launched above the item it will be delivering... It could zip over and grab onto a docking port on the payload. I'll play with a pack on top... it may be too far off COM to be of any use for docking without a payload... but I'll see. The quad engine pack is definitely easy to pull off- a couple deletions and one new face and that would be ready to go, so that will definitely go on the list.