Juno: New Origins News

Continuing with the beta for version 0.7. If you missed the last beta post, you can read it here. Version 0.7 includes a big upgrade to rocket engine customizability, major improvements for building airplanes, and a whole lot more.

Here's what's new since the last beta:

• Added texturing to (most) rocket engines
  
• Allow resizing aerospike nozzle. Increasing length can increase performance, but it also increases mass.
  
• New sound effects for rocket engines
  

• When using the tinker panel to set stage activation to "None", the following items will no-longer auto-activate upon flight start: fairings, parachutes, and side detachers.
  

• Properly restore joints which were "bent" when saved.
  
• Fixed a bug preventing image effects from working.
  
• Fixed antialiasing on part icons.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause undefined behavior if two docking ports completing docking in the exact same frame.
  
• Fixed bug where translate/rotate gizmos can become sized incorrectly after using part-scale in the tinker panel.
  

• Fixed a bug where the exhaust looked over-expanded when throttling below 20%
  
• Fixed a bug where engines could not be disabled via activation groups.
  
• Fixed a bug with engines not starting when assigned to an activation group that is enabled at start.
  
• Fixed a bug where symmetric engines did not update their attached fuel tanks or their performance correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug where the new rocket engines were not reporting the correct max thrust when not actively burning at 100% throttle.
  
• Fixed a bug where the staging editor would report inconsistent delta-V when rapidly moving the altitude slider in the Performance Analzyer window.
  
• Attempt to scale exhaust particles when engine has a non-uniform part scale.
  
• Allow solid rocket engines to fire in same stage as a detacher.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed solid rocket engines to be active during time warp.
  
• Fixed bug where nudge gizmos would sometimes not adjust properly when using World-Space coordinates.
  
• Fixed issue where zooming camera in designer could cause gizmos to disappear.
  
• Fixed a bug with incorrect price and mass of rocket engines outside of designer.
  
• Fixed a bug where the craft would sometimes explode on the launch pad after tweaking engine properties.
  

Eight new engine types, seven new nozzles, and six new fuel types are available which allows for hundreds of possible rocket engine configurations. They also have slider options for size, nozzle length, throat radius, and chamber pressure so really there are infinite possible configurations.



The new Performance Analyzer window in the designer will give you immediate feedback. You can see how their performance characteristics change with altitude as you tweak the rocket engine's parameters.



This update also brings a lot of improvements and bug fixes for building airplanes. There is now a plane/rocket building mode option available on the command pod and a new visualization tool to help visualize your craft's direction of travel.

• Added procedural rocket engines
  
  • Several new types of engines: Pressure Fed, Electric Pump, Gas Generator, Staged, Solid, and Nuclear Thermal
    
  • Adjustable nozzle parameters such as Nozzle Length and Nozzle Throat Radius
    
  • Several nozzle options: Resizable Bell, Resizable Cone, Aerospike, Alpha, Bravo, Delta, and Omega
• New Fuel Types: Hydrolox, Methalox, Kerolox, Liquid Hydrogen, Water, and Solid rocket fuel.
  
• Engine exhaust plume now supports under-expansion and over-expansion.
  
• Added new Performance Analysis window to designer for jet engines and new rocket engines.
  
• Added build mode so you can now switch between rocket building and plane building. You can find this under your command pod's part properties.
  
• Added pilot orientation gizmo to help player visualize the intended direction of travel of the craft
  
• Added ability to invert the airfoil of wings.
  
• Display which input a control surface is assigned to when it uses Auto.
  
• Added ability to restrict a auto-configured control surface to a single axis.
  
• Added button in designer to show wing lift vectors.
  
• Added option to show wing lift vectors during flight
  
• Activation Group Replication - When you have a craft with multiple command pods you can enable this option on a command pod to replicate the primary command pod's activation group states.
  
• Docking ports can be disabled to prevent docking. Disabling while docked will undock the ports.
  
• Added flight scene camera speed and sensitivity settings.
  
• Upgraded to Unity 2018.3
  

• New engines are not yet textured and they don't have new sound effects yet. We are working on it.
  
• We are looking for feedback on the new rocket engines. We've spent a lot of time trying to make them as accurate as possible. Let us know if you have any feedback on their performance or visuals.
  

• Open the Steam client and go to your Library
  
• Right click SimpleRockets 2 and click Properties
  
• Go to the BETAS tab
  
• Select beta - Public Beta Testing from the beta dropdown
  

Results from today's test fire of the new procedural rocket engine.

• Type: Liquid
  
• Power Cycle: Gas Generator
  
• Fuel: Kerolox
  
• Chamber Pressure: 10.0 MPa
  
• Nozzle Throat Radius: 0.1440 m
  
• Nozzle Exit Radius: 0.5400 m
  
• Nozzle Ratio: 14.06x
  

• Total Thrust: 1,067 kN
  
• Isp (sea level): 298s
  
• Isp (vacuum): 324s
  
• Mass Flow: 364.79 kg/s
  
• Exit Mach Number: 3.59
  
• Exhaust Velocity: 3,071.80m/s
  

You may have noticed that things are quieter around here lately. We have shifted our focus over to SimplePlanes so we can finish the 1.8 update. We hope to finish it next month and then we'll return our focus to SR2 development.

Before jumping over to SimplePlanes, Kevin and I made a lot of progress on the new procedural rocket engines. I'm really excited about them and I can't wait to start working on them again. We're trying to make them as flexible as possible to accommodate as much player feedback as we can. Here are some of the options we currently have:

* Engine Type: Liquid, Solid, Nuclear (thermal), Ion
* Power Cycles (Liquid only): Gas Generator, Staged, Pressure-Fed, Electric
* Fuel Types: Kerolox, Hydrolox, Methalox, Solid, Liquid Hydrogen (nuclear thermal engine), Xenon (ion engine)



There are also several nozzle options available. Most of them are fixed geometry, but there is a procedural cone style and a procedural bell style you can adjust to get the exact nozzle area ratio you want. This will allow you to optimize your engine for sea level, vacuum, or anywhere in between. We will also include an altitude-compensating toroidal aerospike nozzle.

Also, Philip did a lot of work to improve support for building airplanes in SR2, including a new option to specify if you are building a rocket or an airplane. Parts will adjust to a more convenient orientation when added and you can also adjust the direction of travel using this new handy gizmo:



In the same aim of improving support for building airplanes, William has been working on adding resizable landing gear. They are still in the early stages of development, but they already show a lot of potential.



We're hoping to get most of this out next month as well, but that will be a tall order! We will do our best!

Come melt your face off with our latest jet engine addition to SimpleRockets 2. Put the throttle lever to the metal, and fulfill your need for speed. Full release notes can be found here.

Here's a new trailer showing them off:


We really went all out on these. I hit the textbooks and learned about the thermodynamics of jet engines, (which are fascinating, btw) and Kevin created detailed, modular jet engine models. In the end, we have a highly procedural jet engine part that can be used to create anything from old-style turbojets to new low-bypass military turbofans to high-bypass civilian airliner engines.



You can also tweak several visual aspects of the engine, including the shroud style, length, and curvature. Cycle through the available nozzle styles, fan styles, and inlet cones. Here's a quick GIF showing some of the features:



You can tweak the size, bypass ratio, compression ratio, and afterburner and see how it affects the performance. The designer has some extra tools to help analyze performance at different altitudes and airspeeds:



Jet engines need air to breathe, so the new inlet part helps to make sure your jet engines are getting enough air. If you connect an inlet directly to a jet engine, it will only provide air to that engine. If you connect an inlet somewhere else on your craft, it will provide air to any jet engines that don't have sufficient airflow. If you're curious about how your engines are doing, you can click on them during flight and check their Inlet Efficiency to ensure they are getting enough air.



Of course, the fun doesn't stop there. Kevin built two new stock airplanes to show off the new jet engines.


They are a blast to fly and it's fun to watch the new jet engines in action. Don't forget to turn on the new heat distortion particle effects for maximum enjoyment.