Open rocket vs. rocksim?

Hi guys I'm relatively new to the world of HPR, therefore I don't really know a lot about simulation software. But by browsing this forum I notice a lot of people talking about rocksim and open rocket and I was wondering which software really is the best for designing HPR. Are there any downsides to rocksim that open rocket solves? Really I am just wondering what everyone thinks of the two and what they prefer the most.

Uh oh! Time to put on my fire retardant suit this is going to be a hot topic.....

Actually neither is any better than the other, Rocksim has a few more features like the ability to sim pods and to put fins on transitions/tailcones. Open Rocket has a better interface and is easier to use. As far as the sims with the rockets designed in either they are pretty good, I use Open Rocket and have yet to have a design OR said was stable be unstable, and most were within less than 10% of altitude sims. Rocksim is similar, but its not free either, another reason I like OR. Between RasAeroII, Rocksim and OR they all get the job done. FYI any Rocksim .rkt file can be opened and edited by OpenRocket open rockets file extensions are .ork, I haven't tested to see if the reverse is true by renaming the .ork to .rkt, however Rocksim will not open a .ork file on its own. You do have to watch when using .rkt in OpenRocket that the overrides are correct otherwise you may get wildly different results.

rharshberger said:

Uh oh! Time to put on my fire retardant suit this is going to be a hot topic.....

Actually neither is any better than the other, Rocksim has a few more features like the ability to sim pods and to put fins on transitions/tailcones. Open Rocket has a better interface and is easier to use. As far as the sims with the rockets designed in either they are pretty good, I use Open Rocket and have yet to have a design OR said was stable be unstable, and most were within less than 10% of altitude sims. Rocksim is similar, but its not free either, another reason I like OR. Between RasAeroII, Rocksim and OR they all get the job done. FYI any Rocksim .rkt file can be opened and edited by OpenRocket open rockets file extensions are .ork, I haven't tested to see if the reverse is true by renaming the .ork to .rkt, however Rocksim will not open a .ork file on its own. You do have to watch when using .rkt in OpenRocket that the overrides are correct otherwise you may get wildly different results.

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+1 to everything Rich said.

I started with OR just to see what it could do. If money was no object, I would probably get Rocksim for it's ability to model some of the features I would like to use for some of the more complicated sci-fi designs I enjoy. Unfortunately, money is an object, so you have to be a little creative. Remember, many rockets were designed before these sim programs came out. If I were simply doing 3FNC, I would be very content with OR.

+1 above

RS is only suitable to Mach 2, then you need to go PRO. I primarily use OR, but some times take the simulations to RS and RasAero II for alternative options. Found out the other day that RS can simulate more complex weather, I was particularly interested in what would happen if my rocket encountered high winds near max V. Could not get OR to do that. RA has more complicated options for fin bevels, which helps it predict drag better

rharshberger said:

Uh oh! Time to put on my fire retardant suit this is going to be a hot topic.....

FYI any Rocksim .rkt file can be opened and edited by OpenRocket open rockets file extensions are .ork, I haven't tested to see if the reverse is true by renaming the .ork to .rkt, however Rocksim will not open a .ork file on its own. You do have to watch when using .rkt in OpenRocket that the overrides are correct otherwise you may get wildly different results.

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While I do not profess to be any sort of computer expert, in my experience I've not been able to rename an .ork file as a .rkt and have it work in Rocksim.

Adrian

jd2cylman said:

While I do not profess to be any sort of computer expert, in my experience I've not been able to rename an .ork file as a .rkt and have it work in Rocksim.

Adrian

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Thats what I figured would be the case, thanks for posting your finding. So .ork and .rkt are not interchangeable between programs as only OR will open both.
I can't say enough good things about the guys who work hard to make OR available to us. I wouldn't mind if both programs made it easier to update materials lists, like adding BMS's T-300 airframes and stuff to the components database. I'm not a programmer type so decompiling editing and recompiling is a bit beyond me.

Adding materials to the Rocksim database is not really tough, nor is adding a custom component.

What do find difficult about it?

markkoelsch said:

Adding materials to the Rocksim database is not really tough, nor is adding a custom component.

What do find difficult about it?

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I mistakenly reffered to Rocksim when I really meant to be referencing OR where there does not seem to be a place to add to the stock parts database like airframes. I have seen references to being able to do it via using the open code and compiling a custom version but no simple I.D., O.D., O.A.L, wall thickness, material type etc, enter the data and click ok. Its easy enough to add custom materials like G12 were the computer calculates the weights based on the mass and area, or kevlar where I can enter the width and mass per x length. But airframe parts, nose cones, stock centering rings etc seem to be coded into the parts database within Open Rocket.

I don't use Rocksim because I don't feel it really has any edge enough to purchase it over Open Rocket, and the OR gui is better IMO, maybe if Rocksim got a serious facelift and they chopped the price a fair bit, personally $123.00 is more than I am willing to pay when a competing product is less money so far has done a great job and the sims so far have been about the same level of accuracy, and is free.