Rocksim 10

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gary7

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New post on the Apogee website announces release of Rocksim 10 next month. There are a couple of things mentioned there. One is that the upgrade will be free to current users.

Anyone who uses or doesn't AND who has more than just "every day computer" user experience care to comment with their thoughts, opinions etc? I am not asking for an Open Rocket comparison.

I have had Rocksim for about 10 years and rely on it heavily for design and motor selection. I have done my share of very successful scratch designing and building different high power rockets that I otherwise would not have been able to do. I really enjoy it and like it very much.
 
Use it. Love it. Only issue is that it does a complete reinstall after you go through a Windows reset. Instead of preserving any .rkt files you have in the Designs directory, it overwrites them. Ugh! Lost tons in my last recovery which I had to do on a short time line and forgot to extract my rocket design directory. Now with better OneDrive support by Microsoft, I keep them all remote.
 
I like the little cartoon simulation of the flight profile.:D
Hopefully it won't be another ten years before we see a Rock Sim 11.
 
Wow -- thanks - built a new computer and completely forgot about installing Rocsim - good to know about the update too!
Got to find how to move my license before I retire the outgoing machine.
Anybody know the process? Seems that's all I've been doing for the last week is digging up and typing long license keys.
 
Wow -- thanks - built a new computer and completely forgot about installing Rocsim - good to know about the update too!
Got to find how to move my license before I retire the outgoing machine.
Anybody know the process? Seems that's all I've been doing for the last week is digging up and typing long license keys.

You will need your product key from the original install. Many may be unaware that there are more than one installations available when you purchase the program. You can use one of your installations or email Apogee and ask if you are eligible for them to deactivate your install since you got a new computer. They will also have a record of your purchase with the original activation key required for installation/activation.
 
Cool,

I think I can dig up my license key on one of my Linux boxes. Anyone remember the suffix on the file. I diddled with WINE for a few years and actually got the thing to run. VMware doing a windows partition under linux was easier.
When running WINE only thing that wouldn't work is the generation of the rocket icon of the design you were testing. The generic rocket worked fine. I worked my tail off getting Burnsim to run under WINE and affter I mastered that, I
loaded Rocksim and it worked fine. Kurt
 
Wow -- thanks - built a new computer and completely forgot about installing Rocsim - good to know about the update too!
Got to find how to move my license before I retire the outgoing machine.
Anybody know the process? Seems that's all I've been doing for the last week is digging up and typing long license keys.

Give Michelle a call, she fixes me up every time I need to reactivate.
 
Wow -- thanks - built a new computer and completely forgot about installing Rocsim - good to know about the update too!
Got to find how to move my license before I retire the outgoing machine.
Anybody know the process? Seems that's all I've been doing for the last week is digging up and typing long license keys.

You go over Help -> Product Activation...
Then a pop-up windows is displayed, where you can opt to "Deactivate RockSim 9 on this computer"
Works well and reliable.
 
The batch motor run will be very cool. This should give the convenience of thrustcurve but with the accuracy of rocksim. I had to write my own add on to rocksim 15 years ago to do this very thing.[emoji122][emoji122][emoji122]
 
New post on the Apogee website announces release of Rocksim 10 next month. There are a couple of things mentioned there. One is that the upgrade will be free to current users.

Anyone who uses or doesn't AND who has more than just "every day computer" user experience care to comment with their thoughts, opinions etc? I am not asking for an Open Rocket comparison.

I have had Rocksim for about 10 years and rely on it heavily for design and motor selection. I have done my share of very successful scratch designing and building different high power rockets that I otherwise would not have been able to do. I really enjoy it and like it very much.

I love the program. I think the algorithms for flight and the display and so on are good. The management of the motor library is also more or less OK. Importing motor files may be a little troublesome for some folks, but it's never really bothered me all that much. But, parts library management and maintenance is a little troublesome (actually more than a little, it a right pain in the ass). I really really get into the component models. I buy lots of parts, say a bag of 10-20 centering rings, body tubes, or motor hooks at a time. I measure them with calipers, weigh them with a lab scale, and then divide the numbers by 10-20 to get real/actual real world average dimensions and weights for parts that I commonly use (I even try to create "materials" with density and so on so that if I change the length of a body tube the weight will automatically update). For me, success, is when the CG and weight of my model in Rocksim is the same as the real world and I DON'T have to use Mass or CG override to set the real world parameters. This is not so easy to do. Over time I've started managing the csv files manually, but the structure of the files is a little ambiguous, and the mass object and materials files are particularly difficult to maintain. Overtime (a long time) I figured it out by trial and error and built an Excel VBA Program to maintain the library items in spreadsheet format, and then to automatically write the csv files in the correct format.

I think it would be orgasmic if Rocksim had a motor and component part management engine with a reasonable user interface to go with the program.

P.S. I've never used Open Rocket. I've got a deep seated loyalty to Apogee and I'll never change from Rocksim, but there are things I would like to see better.
 
Is the new version better at transonic and supersonic flight simulations than the previous?

Doubt it. From the blog post on Apogee's site:

"Well… don’t expect too many new features. Our primary goal at this point is for our new programmer to learn his way around in the spaghetti bowl of code that makes up RockSim. It is a big program with lots of tentacles. The directive I gave him was to learn where things are located, and to fix the nuisance bugs that we’ve been doing work-arounds for, for so long."

So mostly just some small UI tweaks and bug fixes. Still, really good to see that it's going to be developed further!
Dave
 
"Well… don’t expect too many new features. Our primary goal at this point is for our new programmer to learn his way around in the spaghetti bowl of code that makes up RockSim. It is a big program with lots of tentacles. The directive I gave him was to learn where things are located, and to fix the nuisance bugs that we’ve been doing work-arounds for, for so long."

So mostly just some small UI tweaks and bug fixes. Still, really good to see that it's going to be developed further!

New programmer....spaghetti code....makes one worry....wonder what in inject/fix ratio will be for bugs in the end.....
 
How much does it cost? I've not been able to find a cost on the site. I guess there are two versions. I have the original book that the software is based on for at lest low power flights, but they've extended it quite a bit with a CAD interface and what-not, as I understand it. Plus, I'm still working and don't need to get into making my own batch of spaghetti code.
 
I'm happy with 9 on my win 7 computer which is now off line. Won't bother installing the program on my new computer.
 
How much does it cost? I've not been able to find a cost on the site. I guess there are two versions. I have the original book that the software is based on for at lest low power flights, but they've extended it quite a bit with a CAD interface and what-not, as I understand it. Plus, I'm still working and don't need to get into making my own batch of spaghetti code.


https://www.apogeerockets.com/Rocket_Software/RockSim

If this isn’t the variant you are looking for, call Apogee next week. They’re quite helpful.
 
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I hope that one of the things they fix is the Mac installation. I have never been able to get it to run on my current machine (and no, I haven't gone to the much-hated-by-developers Catalina version of macOs). It does run on the cheapo Lenovo Win10 laptop I use in the field for downloading altimeter data, albeit slowly. I'd really like it to run here....
 
Wow -- thanks - built a new computer and completely forgot about installing Rocsim - good to know about the update too!
Got to find how to move my license before I retire the outgoing machine.
Anybody know the process? Seems that's all I've been doing for the last week is digging up and typing long license keys.
 
The last I knew, if you lost your license key Tim could look up your purchase. But, he charged $10 for a new key if he found your purchase.
I printed out the Email with the license key, folded it up and tucked it in the CD case with the program CD.
If it's a downloaded program, I burn it to a CD and put it in a case with the printed Email key.
Can't loose it then unless you loose the whole works.
I don't save anything from any program under the default file system.
I always save files outside the program, usually under documents in program specific sub folders.
First of every month I back up to a stand alone hard drive on the side.
It's only turned on to do the back up each month.
The last one I had I let run all the time, and when I needed it to restore to my new computer it didn't work.
Lost everything. Luckily, before I got that first side hard drive I had written most of my files to CD's.
Probably something I should consider to do in the near future, just in case...
 
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