Reusable Rockets

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⚠️ Early alpha, work in progress. Reusable Rockets is still being built: expect bugs, rough edges and changes between versions. Bug reports and suggestions are highly appreciated! Post them in the comments or the forum, with a screenshot if you can. Thank you! 🙏

🚀 Reusable Rockets

Rockets that come back: a giant two-stage rocket stacked and caught by its launch tower's arms, and boosters that land on landing zones and a drone ship, ready to fly again.

Build the rockets in two rocket halls, roll them out on a transporter and watch the 95 m catch tower lift the booster onto its launch mount and stack the ship on top. After liftoff the booster flips, flies home and sinks into the tower's open arms. The Swift 9 and Swift Heavy land their boosters on landing zones or out at sea on a drone ship. Every flight follows a real flight profile, with a live webcast overlay.

🔭 HIGHLY recommended: unlimited zoom. The towers are 95 m tall and the rockets fly kilometres high, so zoom far out to watch the launches, catches and landings. Turn on Unlimited zoom in my Simple Cheats mod, or use any other unlimited zoom mod.

Features

• 🗼 Catch tower: two arms on a carriage stack the booster and the ship on the launch mount and catch the booster high up the tower when it flies back.
• 🚀 Odyssey V1 / V2 / V3: fully reusable, 400 / 600 / 900 cargo or 40 / 60 / 100 crew, burns fuel gas and oxygen. The ship comes back from orbit and is caught right onto a waiting booster.
• 🦅 Swift 9 and Swift Heavy: 160 / 450 cargo, burn RP-1 and oxygen. Their boosters land and fly again with a new second stage.
• 🛬 Landing zones and a drone ship: single and double landing pads anywhere on the map, and a drone ship on open water that rolls with the waves.
• 🏭 Two rocket halls: the booster hall and the Odyssey factory build the rockets; the doors slide open and the transporter rolls them out to the nearest pad of their kind.
• 🔧 Engine factory I / II / III: Tempest and Zephyr engines, upgrades in place, with a test stand that fires the engines.
• ⛽ RP-1 rocket kerosene: made from light oil and hydrogen in the game's hydrocracker.
• 🎬 Real flight profiles: max-Q, hot staging, flip, boostback, entry and landing burns, legs out at the last moment, the catch.
• 📺 Live webcast overlay: mission clock, booster and ship telemetry, the flight's timeline, call-outs, and tracking cameras on each stage.
• 🔥 Effects: plumes with shock diamonds, exhaust trails, the deluge and the steam rolling out of the flame trench.
• 🔊 Its own sounds: the countdown, the launch roar, the double sonic boom and landing burn of a returning booster.
• ♻️ Fly again: refurbish the heat shield, restack, relaunch.

📸 In pictures

The tower's arms lift the ship and stack it on the booster...

...and catch the booster high up the tower when it flies home.

Swift 9 on its launch pad, with the strongback, the crew access tower and the lightning towers.

Swift Heavy: three cores side by side.

Two side boosters back on the double landing zone.

A booster landed far out at sea on the drone ship.

The booster hall and the Odyssey factory, where the rockets are built.

Engine factory III with its engine test stand.

How to start

1. Research Swift 9 (after Rocket assembly and launch).
2. Build an Engine factory, the Booster factory, a Swift launch pad and a Landing zone, and make RP-1 in the hydrocracker.
3. Build a Swift 9 in the booster factory: the transporter brings it to the pad. Launch it and watch the booster come home.
4. Research Swift Heavy for the double landing zone, then Odyssey V1 (after Swift Heavy and Rocket II) for the catch tower and the Odyssey factory.
5. V2 and V3 follow with the Engine factory III.

Good to know

• 🔭 Zoom far out for the flights: Unlimited zoom in Simple Cheats or any other unlimited zoom mod is highly recommended.
• Can be added to an existing game. Don't remove it from a save that has its buildings or rockets.
• Keep the launch pads on the same height as the rocket halls.
• Options in Options → Mods → Reusable Rockets: the webcast overlay, its live cameras, its height, the countdown sounds and the sonic booms.
• Made for Captain of Industry 0.8.7. English only for now.
• All names are fictional: a fan creation inspired by real reusable rockets, not affiliated with or endorsed by any space company.

All models, icons and sounds are original. No game files included. Contains Harmony (MIT).