ROCKSIM 9 Discussion

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luke strawwalker

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Thought I'd start a conversation about RockSim 9.

How many of you have it, how many want it, how many plan to upgrade??

For those that have it, how is it working for you?? Thoughts, impressions, complaints, kudos, comments??

Any problems?? Bugs, fixes, work arounds, etc.

Let's hear YOUR experiences! OL JR :)
 
Well I definitely want it, and I'm debating on whether I should upgrade. Are the new features worth $40 when I would barely use the features in real life? Now of course, I can start building more complicated rockets, but I would always have more of the typical 3FNC or 4FNC rockets.
 
Well I definitely want it, and I'm debating on whether I should upgrade. Are the new features worth $40 when I would barely use the features in real life? Now of course, I can start building more complicated rockets, but I would always have more of the typical 3FNC or 4FNC rockets.
Yeah, I'm with you. I have RockSim 8 and I'm pretty happy with it. I've done an Ares V in RS8, and I'm wondering if it's worth the money for me to upgrade, at least right now. I'm also a bit concerned with some of the problems some folks have reported having, though I'm sure they'll be worked through. I'm not a "gotta have the cutting edge technology as soon as it's available" type... I kinda prefer coming to the party a little later and getting a more mature product.

I DO like the new features they've put in. I'm sure I'll spring for the upgrade, just not sure when... :) OL JR :)
 
I have it and for the most part it is working fine. Before I go any further, I think the 'pod' feature is well worth the upgrade price. I'm having a lot of fun with it. :)

The main issue is I get a 'black screen' instead of a graph when I try to add a custom fin to a pod. The work around is to select a fin from the database and then edit it. I've found it a little cumbersome to get some configurations of fins configured right. But, practice makes perfect and I should get better with it.

The accuracy of the fin-on-fin configurations are somewhat in question. I have a couple of examples where the sim says it shouldn't be stable but since the rockets exist, I know better. Still they are close enough to get a good feel for where the design stands. Some of this may be operator error.

You can see what I've simmed here.
 
I have V8 right now, but I'll probably upgrade soon :)
 
I have it but have not had a chance to really put it to the test yet. So far I've just viewed some existing v8 designs and it looks pretty much the same - obviously. ;)
 
Grrrr. Just ran into a problem I thought had gone away. That is, sometimes the pod-ladened sims don't run. The only fix has been to replace them all and try again. I saw this early on but the last several designs worked fine. It just reappeared on my latest design :eek: This intermittent problem has been seen by others also. Since my latest was just a 'what-if' exercise, I ain't going back to figure out which component(s) are causing the problem. Grrr
 
I've been using it since it was released, and so far I really like it. Some of the things to comment on though:

The new simulation graph output, though I suppose is more flexible in letting you manually examine any portion of the graph, seems to be a little more trouble than it's worth to get everything sized right, especially since dragging a selection box to the corners of the graph area doesn't stop the selection field, so you can end up selecting areas that you'd really never care about (negative times, negative altitudes, etc).

Something that's been present with v8 as well, but it seems that, by default, my program always opens minimized, but still taking up most all of the screen. Normally this wouldn't be a big issue, but if I don't remember to maximize the window again, or don't remember it's minimized, my natural method of exiting the program is to scroll the mouse all the way up to the top-right corner and click. This works if a program is maximized, but often I'll forget, have another window (Firefox, etc) open underneath RockSim, and end up closing that instead. Wish it would start maximized by default...

My program crashes whenever I try to open a file by saying to open the file with RockSim (as opposed to opening RockSim, then opening the file from the already-running program). It gets as far as loading the window, but when it tries to import data, it encounters an error and gets shut down by Windows.

The 2D flight profile does not load the sprite files it generates, instead continuing to retain the default basic rocket design.

The default background image for the 2D flight profile is a dead file link, but it's easy enough to go find a proper file in C:\Program Files\RockSim 9\Backgrounds

Other than those few minor things, I've really enjoyed playing around with pods. It's a nice program.
 
Not tried it. May try a demo, but still perfectly happy with v7. Tried v8, but didn't really see anything new that really wanted to make me upgrade. I don't care for all the shinyness... I just want a tool that will tell me the basic stats like Altitude, Launch Rod Velocity, recommended delay etc.
v7 gives me enough "CAD" stuff to put a few tubes and bits together and tweak them until I'm happy.
Did they ever fix the bug where the default ejection event was always "eject at motor burnout"? I'm sure there's a reason for it being an option, but never understood why it was the default option!
 
Eject at motor burnout was never the default in v8, so that seems to have been fixed. As for the upgrade, v9 seems a significant improvement in modeling strange designs. V8 wasn't as much of a change from what I could tell (my first purchase was V8 though - I never had V7, so I don't know for sure).
 
Eject at motor burnout was never the default in v8, so that seems to have been fixed. As for the upgrade, v9 seems a significant improvement in modeling strange designs. V8 wasn't as much of a change from what I could tell (my first purchase was V8 though - I never had V7, so I don't know for sure).

I didn't note a big change between 7 and 8 either, modeling-capability-wise. I know that the interface style changed (went to the multi-tabbed menu that it is today), but I didn't really notice a whole lot else. I think the studio-lighting feature might have been introduced with 8 as well.
 
I have 7 ad am still trying to learn how to do things with it. and get sims so work right sometimes. tried 8 didn't see much difference. need to download 9 and try it. though i cant honestly aford it. hell i would love to just get 8
 
I bought 8 in June of last year, so my upgrade to 9 was only $20 when Apogee was running their special.

So far I have had no issues with it, but I have to admit that I haven't really used it as much as I would like. I am still new to RockSim so I am not good at it at all.

I do have a question though.... When adding a transisiton, it always places it with the smaller diameter in the front. Does anyone know if there is an easy way to reverse the direction so the larger diameter is in front instead of manually adjusting the diameters and shoulders?
 
I would love to try it but with my current work and financial situation, I can not afford the $40 for the upgrade :(. Hopefully I can find a better job soon.

papa elf
 
I upgraded to v.9.0 and have had some issues but those were fixed by the last update. I haven't used it as extensively as I want. I like it so far...
 
I can't upload v9 as the laptop i'm planning on using it is not to be connected to the internet. I'm still waiting for the CD to be send:(
I have v8 on my home PC maybe i'll try uploading v9 to that for S&Gs but it's not got nearly the storage or ram my graphics laptop does.

I think I read somewhere they weren't going to release the CD's until the bugs are fixed...sounds like I may be waiting awhile:( I knew I should have waited...They've already charged my account. You'd have thought they would have waiting to send the charge through until they shipped the CD.
 
Well, though, look at the flipside micro... Better to get the bugs out before you load it up, because if you're not connecting that laptop to the internet you're not going to have access to updates to fix them later!

Know what you mean about the charges, though. Probably shouldn't have ordered until the CD's were ready to be shipped... :)

Good luck! OL JR :)
 
I got my CD copy in the mail last night, you should probably get yours soon Micro.
 
I've played with it a little, so far no complaints, just figuring out how to use the pod command correctly. The couple of tutorial videos I watched were good. Hopefully I get more time to experiment this weekend
 
Any one have suggestions on getting nice looking curved fins, other than repeatedly try the chamfer tool or plotting out the fin shape by hand and manually entering the coordinates?
 
I just had that happen to me tonight... I just delayed the outboards ingition a few seconds, and it ran, then I tried it again with all 3 lighting at the same time and it's been working fine, not saying it's fixed though... :D

View attachment Delta-ish.zip
 
Just got the Rocksim 9 update (used a rebate card from AT&T). There are some obvious differences between 9 and 8, some I find very annoying. Kinda like the absence of common buttons I used in 7 when version 8 came out. I don't like the fact to change the view you have to click the little button and move the mouse down to the setting you want.

Also, the default "Set to the front" option still there, even though 99.9% of the time I have to change it to "Set to the back of the object" and change the Location to "0." I wish they either allow you to set the default, make that the default, or allow it to remember the last setting it used.

Does the accelleration line on the graph chart look weird to you? It looks positive where it should be negative

How do I turn off all the Y Key? It just takes to much space. Would be nice to be able to hit a button to make the chart full size.

Using Vista, Ctrl C and Ctrl V don't seem to work in Version 9, have to use the menu. (Which is very annoying). (this is one of the changes made in 8 vs 7, got rid of the buttons but at least you could still use the keyboard shortcuts). Also the Delete key does not seem to work either to delete selected objects.

Cluster Choice button graphics look so small in Vista. Not sure if XP has this problem too, will try it later.

I find the pod feature easy to use

Is there a way I can set a "timer" or "Even" condition to simulate staging? That way I don't have to set a booster motor delay

Enough for now, I will write more when I think of it.
 
Just got the Rocksim 9 update (used a rebate card from AT&T). There are some obvious differences between 9 and 8, some I find very annoying. Kinda like the absence of common buttons I used in 7 when version 8 came out. I don't like the fact to change the view you have to click the little button and move the mouse down to the setting you want.

Also, the default "Set to the front" option still there, even though 99.9% of the time I have to change it to "Set to the back of the object" and change the Location to "0." I wish they either allow you to set the default, make that the default, or allow it to remember the last setting it used.

Does the accelleration line on the graph chart look weird to you? It looks positive where it should be negative

How do I turn off all the Y Key? It just takes to much space. Would be nice to be able to hit a button to make the chart full size.

Using Vista, Ctrl C and Ctrl V don't seem to work in Version 9, have to use the menu. (Which is very annoying). (this is one of the changes made in 8 vs 7, got rid of the buttons but at least you could still use the keyboard shortcuts). Also the Delete key does not seem to work either to delete selected objects.

Cluster Choice button graphics look so small in Vista. Not sure if XP has this problem too, will try it later.

I find the pod feature easy to use

Is there a way I can set a "timer" or "Even" condition to simulate staging? That way I don't have to set a booster motor delay

Enough for now, I will write more when I think of it.

I run Vista, and the copy, paste and delete keyboard commands work for me... Dunno...
 
I'm on XP and the keyboard cut, copy and paste don't work for me either.
 
Will Rocksim output things like fin shapes in standard CAD file formats? I'm wanting to buy, but also have a friend with SolidWorks, and would like to pass some design info to him.
 
Has anyone really played with the graphing abilities with rocksim? They're horrible in this version, even worse than version 8.

I think they're a lot of bugs with it as well. Can't get the markers to show up on the plots either nor get a plot to print.

Wish there was some way to export data points so i can import into a different program to generate plots.
 
Yeah, I have had issues with the graphing software.

Ironically... Works better for me in Ubuntu! You can maximize the Graph with just a click of a button!
 
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