When I first started back in rocketry I did a lot of simulation stuff with Rocksim v5 but I kind of stopped simming and just flew things and designing by eye for quite a few years. I'm thinking about a level 3 project now and will need to do some sims again so I'm wondering if it's worth upgrading to v8 before I both. Is there anything that v8 offers over v5 for the kind of simulations you need to do for a L3 project?
I won't be doing big, fat, heavy rocket on the smallest M motor I can get either so I'm interested in accurate supersonic drag models, accurate high altitude atmospheric models and ideally being able to predict likely downranges for the recovery phase.
It's good and for the animation of a flight, one can now stick a jpeg in the background and enjoy the entertainment. I took a shot of my favorite launch site and used that.
Only disadvantage is that you cannot load it on more than one machine at a time. v7 one could do that and I even have it running under the wine emulator in Linux.
With that in mind, I definitely WON'T be upgrading to v8 -- I keep it installed on both my laptop and my desktop, so I have the ability to run sims in the field. Tim even approved my doing so when I first bought the program.
Interesting, I did write them and state that I was concerned that if I gork my machine or if I want to move it to another machine I would have a problem. I received an email that I can uninstall v8 and the appropriate information will be sent to their server and I can reload it on another machine. I would have to use the v8 uninstaller
I was under the impression that the license was good for one computer only. If what you say is correct Rick, that would be a pleasant result.
In my opinion v8 has more eye candy. Don't get me wrong. It is a much cooler program than version 7 but 7 still gives you good calculations.
I have to admit, I haven't explored v8 to its' fullest extent but that is only because I'm not able, at least up to now, to have it on my other computers. Both versions give a rocketeer valid information on potential flights and it has saved me from some devastating failures.
For instance, became a BAR last September, worked all winter on an Estes Mean Machine where I fiberglassed the tube with resin (no cloth, my mistake). The ship of course was heavier than normal and I was going to use a D12-3 or an E9-4 for the test flight. Rocksim questioned the stability off the rod and suggested an F21-6 would give me between 950-
1000' of altitude and a stable flight.
Have done three flights on the F21-6 all of which were excellent and I have only had a problem with the fiberglass resin comig off of the body tube in a couple of small spots. I didn't sand the tube well enough for applying. Can fix it in short order.
I have somewhere between 75 and 100 hours of my time invested in the ship and the paint job. It made Rocksim well worth the cost.
I recently bought V8 and installed it on my PC at home. I've also installed it on my laptop. I simply emailed them, told them I wanted to install it on a 2nd machine and they sent me another unlock code
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