SIM Modelers - Post Your Designs

[EXPjawa]

This thread is sort of a mental tangent offshoot of several others that have been active lately - including the Assymetric Stability discussion, the general discussions surrounding the Summer Build Off, even the Rocksim Depository. I thought it would be neat to have a dedicated thread to unique designs that have been made possible by using Open Rocket & Rocksim. This gives the OR gods a place to show off, Rocksim gurus a place to critique and collaborate, etc.

What I'm envisioning is contributors posting sim renderings that they've come up with, describing what they're goals were in designing, what cool details that they were able to model. I'd prefer to keep this to unique designs (think Summer Build Off style) that do not take from pre-existing rockets. Odd rockets and rockets that look like trains, dragons, buildings, etc. all apply. But you should be able to post a sim rendering of it. It does not, however, have to have actually been built. This isn't a contest, but is rather intended to be a pot for stirring up imaginations for designing.

 

[EXPjawa]

I'll go first. Some background about me: I'm an engineer. I'm not an artist or a graphic designer. The reason I'm not those things isn't because I can't draw (I can pretty well, thank you), its because I lack the artist's outside the box imagination. So coming up something completely new and novel isn't my strong suit, but I am very good at recombining other ideas into new forms or putting them to new uses that were outside their original intent. So I do struggle to come up with truly new thoughts with regards to design and form. Most of what I do devise are, as you might guess, new spins on existing ideas.

Anyway, why that's relevant, I dunno. But here's my first posting on the topic, I drew it up last night while listening to some early Pink Floyd - though I don't think that really has too much bearing on it. I call this thing Triventium; I had come up with a more clever name but forgot it. Its intended to be a fairly large, but simple and lightweight, cluster rocket with some sci-fi elements added. I have not devised a backstory for it, like I sometimes do. This should be a fairly easy build if I ever do.



View attachment Triventium.rkt

Rocksim says it'll manage about 850' on 3X E9 motors, and even lift fast enough to be stable on a 4' rod. Assuming they all light...

 

[Screaminhelo]

I like your idea! I enjoy playing in OR from time to time and I may have one or two designs on my old laptop that are worth posting here.

 

[K'Tesh]

I wonder if anybody has simmed the Anti-Moose Missiles from 19-2000

Here's the only shot I've been able to find of it.

 

[EXPjawa]

Alright, I'm going to keep posting here until other catch on. After further developing the Triventium design, it evolved into something a bit more sci-fi inspired. I present the SS Triconderoga.


This is, obviously, a deep-space exploration vehicle. Operated by a small crew of researchers and engineers on long-range missions, the Triconderoga is powered by a trio of ducted nuclear reflux reaction motivators. Solar arrays supplement experiments and general power needs. The primary crew quarters and bridge areas are located in the forward hull, as far removed from the engineering area and power cells at the rear of the ship.

At one point, I had a second, larger, ring tail just ahead of the wing fins. This was intended to visually represent a ring the would be rotated to provided some gravitation for the crew. But it added too much drag, and even though the rocket is only projected to be around 10oz, three E12 motors could only lift it to 500' or so. It also necessitated so nose weight to stabilize, since it was far enough forward that it pulled the CP up. So I took it off. It was aesthetically quite busy too; I'm rather fond of the design as it stands now.

 

[EXPjawa]

OK, on tonight's edition of Post Your Designs, I bring you the Fast Burn Rocket Shuttle. The name is taken from the craft referenced in - but not shown on screen - the Firefly episode "War Stories". The FBRS was used by Niska's team of mercenaries to kidnap Capt Reynolds and Wash, leaving a distinctive track on the sand. Since the ship isn't pictured anywhere that I'm aware of, I have a sort of free hand to design it as I see fit:

I'm imagining that the shuttle is operated by a crew of two, with the side-by-side cockpit under the streamlined canopy. There's a cargo/passenger bay just aft, with a row of center-facing seats on either side. It can haul 8 troops, or 2000lbs of cargo. There would be side doors behind the canards, which extend up into the turtle deck area. Flight in atmo is powered by the ram-jet turbine hybrid engines mounted on either side of the rudder, but a large "fast-burn" rocket motor at the rear of the fuselage provides short-range space flight, as well as sufficient thrust to make rapid escapes possible. As such, the type is quite popular with smugglers and mercenaries alike, but is most commonly found operating from larger cruisers or space platforms.


View attachment Fast-Burn Rocket Shuttle.rkt

 

[K'Tesh]

Niece Work!!!

EXPjawa is apparently the Master of RocSim!

 

[jqavins]

I present the SS Triconderoga.

View attachment 296741View attachment 296740View attachment 296738View attachment 296739
This is, obviously, a deep-space exploration vehicle.

Wow, I guess great minds really do think alike. I did this one years back and will probably never build it.

It's a long range colony ship. It runs on nuclear powered ion propulsion, which is why 1) the passengers and crew must be far away from the engines, in the forward tube on the ends of those pylons, and 2) the engine compartment needs large thermal radiators (which conveniently act as fins when a small model of the craft is flown on a cluster of three 24mm motors.) The one pylon of a different color than the rest allows access to the engine section when it is required.

I think these two ships were built in the same ship yard.

Note that I generally use color in RockSim to visually differentiate the various pieces as much as to represent potential paint schemes. The "real" ship does not have bubble gum colored motor mounts.

 

[jqavins]

Here's one from even longer back, despite the appearance that I'm ripping off Gary.

I've got a bunch more, as I just love playing around in RockSim, designing stuff I'll never build. I'll sift through for more worth posting.

I have a delta-winged plane style design partially finished that is the next thing I should do with my elliptical body tube, but that can't be rendered in RS or OR. Maybe I'll break the thread rules and post both the best approximation from RS and a truer picture from OpenSCAD.

 

[jqavins]

Last one for now. This is a two stage, 29mm missile, with the upper stage kinda sorta inspired by a Nike upper stage.

One thing I like about this is the nose. I modeled a highly rounded ogive by using an ogive transition and a parabolic tip, carefully matching the slopes at the junction. I've been working on and off on the math to get this perfect. (I can match the slopes, but I'm still working on matching the curvatures as well.)

 

[rstaff3]

OK, since it flew today, I decided to add the Chesapeake Sea Monster diagrams. The main set of three 24mm mounts aren't canted like on the real thing.

 

[rstaff3]

And some more...all these flew...

 

[rstaff3]

And some more:

 

[dhbarr]

If that federation starship is a rocksim, I'd love to take a poke at it.

 

[jqavins]

View attachment 297078

I'd love to see this one break apart at apogee to reconer independently.

 

[rstaff3]

If that federation starship is a rocksim, I'd love to take a poke at it.

It was in Rocksim but I can't find the files for some of these. Still looking...

 

[rstaff3]

I'd love to see this one break apart at apogee to reconer independently.

Nothing that fancy. The real thing is a clustered, finless, 'GDS' model. This one has flown successfully.

 

[rstaff3]

If that federation starship is a rocksim, I'd love to take a poke at it.

Well, crap. I think I must have grabbed the file here and probably didn't keep the .rkt since it wasn't mine. https://www.rocketreviews.com/what-if-uss-enterprise-3144.html

 

[dhbarr]

Well, crap. I think I must have grabbed the file here and probably didn't keep the .rkt since it wasn't mine. https://www.rocketreviews.com/what-if-uss-enterprise-3144.html

Well maybe I'll have to give it a go over the winter

 

[rstaff3]

Well maybe I'll have to give it a go over the winter

I downloaded it...again.

 

[EXPjawa]

Guys, that's stuff is awesome, keep it up. I'm particularly impressed with Dick's modeling of the ekranoplan - have you been able to correlate the sim to real flight performance yet? The closest thing I've done to the triple tube design is a model I call Binary Star:


Which I built last year. It currently needs some repair after landing on a step ladder at URRF3 last month.

 

[rstaff3]

Guys, that's stuff is awesome, keep it up. I'm particularly impressed with Dick's modeling of the ekranoplan - have you been able to correlate the sim to real flight performance yet? The closest thing I've done to the triple tube design is a model I call Binary Star:
View attachment 297101View attachment 297102

Which I built last year. It currently needs some repair after landing on a step ladder at URRF3 last month.

I regret not flying the Alt3 in it, but was chicken. My gut says the sim is way over-optimistic. It says 1000+ ft and I seriously doubt that it came near that.

 

[EXPjawa]

Wow, I guess great minds really do think alike. I did this one years back and will probably never build it.
View attachment 297068View attachment 297066View attachment 297067
It's a long range colony ship. It runs on nuclear powered ion propulsion, which is why 1) the passengers and crew must be far away from the engines, in the forward tube on the ends of those pylons, and 2) the engine compartment needs large thermal radiators (which conveniently act as fins when a small model of the craft is flown on a cluster of three 24mm motors.) The one pylon of a different color than the rest allows access to the engine section when it is required.

I think these two ships were built in the same ship yard.

Note that I generally use color in RockSim to visually differentiate the various pieces as much as to represent potential paint schemes. The "real" ship does not have bubble gum colored motor mounts.

Joe, as it happens, there's a third model from the same shipyards - the USS Tiberius. I continued development of the same concepts that lead to the Triconderoga, but wanted something with different diameters between the front and rear modules. So, the rear section is now BT101, though the front remains BT80. And I played with the fin/tube arrangement. Also, I went to four connecting tubes - the core is BT20 with a full-length coupler for reinforcement, surrounded by three BT5 tubes. I've debated whether they should be linked by trusswork, but that would be tedious. This is the result:

Also, for this one, I've clustered three 29mm mounts, so it would fly on E16 or F15 motors. But there's enough drag to keep it low and slow. I have noticed a quirk in Rocksim, which I assume has to do with its rendering. It seems to have issue with correctly placing tube fins that aren't on symmetric planes. For this model, I applied two sets of three tube fins, with the intent that they'd be at 120 degree spacings, but indexed off of center so that a rail could fit between them. They'd basically be on either side of one of the large fins. But, as you can see from the rendering, in the 3D view it has essentially flipped them on the vertical axis so that they appear centered in pairs between the fins. See how they're applied in the 2D views:

I saw the same phenomenon when I modeled both the Estes Hawkeye and NASA Pegasus rockets; but have tube fins above the wings. In both cases, Rocksim renders them below in the 3D view...

 

[EXPjawa]

Here's another one that I've been working on lately. There's a build thread for it somewhere, but the construction is mostly done. I'm in a painting phase, except that I've elected to paint the pods separately before I attach them. So, that's the stage I'm at. I call this Berthasaurapod. Don't ask why, suffice it to say that it amused me. The design is basically a highly modified Big Bertha, and it has pods attached to it. Thus the "saurapod" part of the name. I guess I explained it anyway; it made a more natural connection in my head... Anyway, I had Mark Hayes make me vinyl decals that have the name, plus a variant of a cartoon dinosaur as rendered by the late Johnny Hart of the B.C. comic strip fame (who happens to be from the same home town I am). Without further ado:
View attachment 297103View attachment 297104View attachment 297105View attachment 297106

You can see from this and above designs, I have a thing little strake fins. Unfortunately, the SRB pods are strictly dummies, the only motor is in the central core tube. The SRB nozzles are too small for 1/2 motors, though in looking at the micro rocket kits I just received today from Flis, the micro motors might fit. But it would still leave a thin wall section in the nozzle balsa. I think this will scoot well enough on an E12, or possibly F32 motor...

 

[rstaff3]

Here's another one that I've been working on lately. There's a build thread for it somewhere, but the construction is mostly done. I'm in a painting phase, except that I've elected to paint the pods separately before I attach them. So, that's the stage I'm at. I call this Berthasaurapod. Don't ask why, suffice it to say that it amused me. The design is basically a highly modified Big Bertha, and it has pods attached to it. Thus the "saurapod" part of the name. I guess I explained it anyway; it made a more natural connection in my head... Anyway, I had Mark Hayes make me vinyl decals that have the name, plus a variant of a cartoon dinosaur as rendered by the late Johnny Hart of the B.C. comic strip fame (who happens to be from the same home town I am). Without further ado:
View attachment 297103View attachment 297104View attachment 297105View attachment 297106

You can see from this and above designs, I have a thing little strake fins. Unfortunately, the SRB pods are strictly dummies, the only motor is in the central core tube. The SRB nozzles are too small for 1/2 motors, though in looking at the micro rocket kits I just received today from Flis, the micro motors might fit. But it would still leave a thin wall section in the nozzle balsa. I think this will scoot well enough on an E12, or possibly F32 motor...

I really like all those little strakes!

 

[jqavins]

I have noticed a quirk in Rocksim, which I assume has to do with its rendering. It seems to have issue with correctly placing tube fins that aren't on symmetric planes. For this model, I applied two sets of three tube fins, with the intent that they'd be at 120 degree spacings, but indexed off of center so that a rail could fit between them. They'd basically be on either side of one of the large fins. But, as you can see from the rendering, in the 3D view it has essentially flipped them on the vertical axis so that they appear centered in pairs between the fins. See how they're applied in the 2D views:

It's weirder than that. Not only are the 2D and 3D renderings 180 deg apart, but the base view when you're setting the radial angle is half way in between. I did up some simplified cases to demonstrate and sent them to Tim. He forwarded them to the programmer.

 

[EXPjawa]

That would explain why I had issues calculating the angles to put them at; I was sure my math was right, but they wound up in the wrong spot... I might send a sample case to Apogee as well to help reinforce the issue. Maybe the program will get fixed. Just like maybe they'll back an "undo" function that actually undoes something...

 

[EXPjawa]

I really like all those little strakes!

Thanks! But they are a pain to cut out, match up, bevel, and align...

 

[EXPjawa]

My next installment: Sagittarius Arrow

This is one of my favorite somewhat recent designs. I'd sooner say this one comes from the shipyards on Naboo than the more local ones that built the above utilitarian craft. I basically designed this one around the long plastic BT70 nose cone that Apogee sells, but after using said cone on another model, I didn't like the way it fit up to the body tube. So the design was adapted to use the LOC 2.2" cone, with BT70H tubing. The outer pods are BT55, so the overall length comes in at 42". That makes for a nice sized, sleek ship that should handle moderate H motors well.

 

[neil_w]

Ha, mine seem pretty simple compared to all these. But here goes. These are all designs that I consider to be either "finished" or at least close enough to present; I have a zillion others in various states of incompletion.

Diamond Cutter: built but not yet flown

Biohazard: build in progress

The remainder are not yet built.

Ring Warrior

New Ring Warrior (yeah, names need some work here)

Launch Lug Nightmare (it'll get a "real" name at some point if it gets built):

Space Needle

Pong (thanks Ken!)

I'll post the ORK files on request.