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[1.0.4] Kinetic Penetrator - for Science! BETA (No longer supported)


Randazzo

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I don't think a delay deployment is possible in stock. You might be able to do it with smart parts.

What would you want to do with the RT-10? That's a pretty hefty SRB for such a Tiny probe, I imagine it's enough for an escape trajectory in most places.

Whoops, I meant the DP-10.

RT includes the Flight Computer. It can hold directions like SmartASS, and has a forced action execution setting. So, I'm seeing the procedure as:

  1. Decouple from main probe, remain in range of ersatz-DP-10.
  2. Retroburn
  3. Set FlightComp to Prograde-Surface
  4. Set forced delay to, say, 3 h
  5. Schedule antenna activation; it appears in the action schedule at current signal delay plus forced delay
  6. Set delay back to 0 s
  7. Deploy airbrakes, decouple the tank and ditch the ersatz-RT-10; decoupling occurs after only the mandatory signal delay
  8. Penetrator descent
  9. Radio activates
  10. ???
  11. PROFIT!!!

So what I'm proposing is an omnidirectional antenna wrapped around the fuel tank.

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I'm enjoying the hell out of this Mod right now, and it's working rather well and gives me that tingly feeling of a good exploration mission. :o

I will say though, that I've noticed two things occuring with the new patch and I'm curious if they're common issues or conflicts between this and another of my 70 mods (likely).

1. The "always-on" 200km Omni might not be working, the probe loses connection upon dropping the main body with larger antennae attached. I'll test this more to make sure I'm not just ballsing something up.

2. I'm getting very strange camera effects when time-accelerating. The camera shoots ahead of the probe several km, and then once time-warp stops slowly creeps back towards the probe. When landed, this results in the camera being thrown into the interior of the planet. I expect if this isn't a common issue that it's some conflict from something like Persistent Motion or Kerbal Joint Reinforcement.

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I'm enjoying the hell out of this Mod right now, and it's working rather well and gives me that tingly feeling of a good exploration mission. :o

I will say though, that I've noticed two things occuring with the new patch and I'm curious if they're common issues or conflicts between this and another of my 70 mods (likely).

1. The "always-on" 200km Omni might not be working, the probe loses connection upon dropping the main body with larger antennae attached. I'll test this more to make sure I'm not just ballsing something up.

2. I'm getting very strange camera effects when time-accelerating. The camera shoots ahead of the probe several km, and then once time-warp stops slowly creeps back towards the probe. When landed, this results in the camera being thrown into the interior of the planet. I expect if this isn't a common issue that it's some conflict from something like Persistent Motion or Kerbal Joint Reinforcement.

1. I think I might see the issue. I left a tech required node in there for unmanned tech. Without it, the probe won't have the SPU module active.

2. I don't get this behavior, and I have KJR installed. Could be persistant motion.

Just a comment on the tech-tree part. Historically, impactors were the first probes sent to the Moon, before soft landing was figured out. So perhaps this should be fairly early in the tech tree, maybe even before (or with) landing legs?

Perhaps, I chose the node I did because it was the same node that the seismometer unlocked. If I were to put the device earlier in the tree, I would have to either remove that experiment or make it a custom one.

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Perhaps, I chose the node I did because it was the same node that the seismometer unlocked. If I were to put the device earlier in the tree, I would have to either remove that experiment or make it a custom one.

Fine, I'll just make more work for you then: Low-tech impactor probe, with lower science return than the hi-tech penetrator probe. Once you get the bugs ironed out, of course.:D

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i was expecting something like deep impact mission on an asteroid with cool effects and destruction, not a simple needle, crash and insta science. I suppose some more can be added later on so ill follow whats up for now but avoid in its current state.

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i was expecting something like deep impact mission on an asteroid with cool effects and destruction, not a simple needle, crash and insta science. I suppose some more can be added later on so ill follow whats up for now but avoid in its current state.

Thanks for your input. I can tell you now it will never be a device for destruction, nor for showy effects, it is entirely for science.

The real-world device proposal can be found in the OP, if you're interested in the actual origins of it.

Edited by Randazzo
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Why don't you ask for some help from some of the more experienced modders to remove the unwanted menu items? I don't think it's too hard.

I really like this, but think that you should either make it much earlier in the tech tree, or make a new part which would be earlier but without the advanced experiment.

Think about the Ranger series of probes that were launched in the early 60's

LGG

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Well, it seems that with the approach of 1.1 and its integrated mini-RT, you're going to have to focus on the RT stuff.

...no pressure ...right.

Anyway, the original impactors (Luna-2-style) carried no actual scientific equipment for the surface. So what you need is a science trigger for anything crashing into the orbital body.

Edited by DDE
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Well, it seems that with the approach of 1.1 and its integrated mini-RT, you're going to have to focus on the RT stuff.

...no pressure ...right.

Anyway, the original impactors (Luna-2-style) carried no actual scientific equipment for the surface. So what you need is a science trigger for anything crashing into the orbital body.

Oh I'm not worried. The stock "version" (to use a kind word) will be undoubtedly simplistic in terms of what I'll have to do with the penetrator itself.

Edit: Also, I'm really just waiting for some input to come back on the RT functionality introduced in 0.11 to find out if I need to make major changes to that before proceeding.

Edited by Randazzo
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Here is my problem with this mod.....

Requiring KAS which requires KIS to work properly. Now that's 2 kind of heavy mods I don't want just to use yours. Not cool, especially since I already have a bunch of mods. I would really like to use this but not If I'm forced into mods I don't want.

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Here is my problem with this mod.....

Requiring KAS which requires KIS to work properly. Now that's 2 kind of heavy mods I don't want just to use yours. Not cool, especially since I already have a bunch of mods. I would really like to use this but not If I'm forced into mods I don't want.

You don't need KIS just for this. You really only need the KAS .dll for this to work.

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I've getting a weird physics bug with the impactor. It seems that whenever I manage to break the antenna off the probe, it loses all physics significance and will then act very strangely. Sometimes the probe continues with zero drag and flies through the atmosphere at 1.8km/s before instantly stopping at the ground, mach effects continuing, or the probe quickly slows to 0m/s mid air with mach effects swirling around it.

Seems like some of the physics hacks have had some interesting effects, probably with some of my mods. Is this something anybody has experienced, or should I troubleshoot this further?

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Also, I'm really just waiting for some input to come back on the RT functionality introduced in (1.1) to find out if I need to make major changes to that before proceeding.

Thus far it seems that the stock RT-lite won't even have integrated omnis in probe cores. So we're probably going to have to go down the path of an integrated mini-DT-10.

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I've getting a weird physics bug with the impactor. It seems that whenever I manage to break the antenna off the probe, it loses all physics significance and will then act very strangely. Sometimes the probe continues with zero drag and flies through the atmosphere at 1.8km/s before instantly stopping at the ground, mach effects continuing, or the probe quickly slows to 0m/s mid air with mach effects swirling around it.

Seems like some of the physics hacks have had some interesting effects, probably with some of my mods. Is this something anybody has experienced, or should I troubleshoot this further?

That may have something to do with the fact that the antenna itself has no collider and is not a separate object, so if it breaks, it's actually the entire physics collider for the device going with it. I'll most likely just have to make it unbreakable.

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Hrm... this seems to have killed science transmission for me. Going to uninstall this and see if it clears the issue.

EDIT: Yep, that cleared the issue with transmitting. No idea what caused the issue, though. Lemme root around and see what I can dig up in the .cfg...

Edited by MaverickSawyer
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Hrm... this seems to have killed science transmission for me. Going to uninstall this and see if it clears the issue.

EDIT: Yep, that cleared the issue with transmitting. No idea what caused the issue, though. Lemme root around and see what I can dig up in the .cfg...

For all parts or just the mod parts?

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0.11a is up and should correct the issues with the RemoteTech modules.

It also has some adjusted colliders on the device itself that will hopefully allow it to better handle angled terrain and impacts.

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ALL parts. Even the stock Communitron 16 didn't work.

Very odd indeed. I've no idea why that would've happened, the patch was specifically for the KPMain part.

Try it with 0.11a if you don't mind, see if it still does it.

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How about having a very high heat tolerance or having ablative shielding for re-entry. It always gets a little bit hairy while re-entering. Very fun for science farming!

The device itself has a very high tolerance and I did consider making the engine and tank have the same resistance, but I felt like it took away from the experience.

I like to use a fairing with a heatshield on the bottom for entering Eve or Laythe, that seems to work fairly well. No pun intended. :)

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Two weeks have passed with no complaint, so I'll assume everything is working wonderfully.

I thought perhaps the colliders might need further adjusting.

Edited by Randazzo
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