New structural parts. You model, I texture?

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

I'm looking to make some relatively simple structural parts. Just plain cylindrical tubes with attach nodes on each end. A few straight sections, and a few small bends. 

Like these, except solid. 

Who wants to model them? I'll do the textures and .cfg and whatnot. I'm thinking 10cm diameter, or whatever the width of the "PB-NUK" RTG body is, minus the cooling fins. Seems an appropriate size. I want to use them for roll cage pieces for rovers, and landers. And as just a nice addition to the current structural pieces... That could seriously use some uniformity. We could then, of course, release them as a simple mod. Should be relatively future-proof, being simple structural pieces. But I'd be glad to manage any upkeep, if necessary. 

Anyways, the punch-list:

10cm x 1m tube, straight

10cm x 5m tube, straight

10cm x ? tube, 45*

10cm x ? tube, 90*

10cm x ? tube, 135*

(Not necessarily in order of importance)

 

Anyone down to help?

 

EDIT 11/23/16: Work is under way, thanks to some help. In the meantime, I trimmed the fins off the RTG, effectively, and so we have an example. A poor one, but hell. I just wanted to share  . THIS IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE INTENDED MOD, just a mashup of barely working stuff to kinda show off how useful this might be to rover fans. 

Edited November 23, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut
picture

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

I think you may want to reconsider your intended part sizes.   Consider how tiny a probe is when placed in the sph as the first part, at 100mm they'd be horrible to work with,  you'd be much better thinking along the lines of modular roll cage parts (there would be a market for such a mod)  , assembling dozens of parts to make a simple rover will get old fast. 

Spoiler

 

[DoctorDavinci]

4 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

I think you may want to reconsider your intended part sizes.   Consider how tiny a probe is when placed in the sph as the first part, at 100mm they'd be horrible to work with,  you'd be much better thinking along the lines of modular roll cage parts (there would be a market for such a mod)  , assembling dozens of parts to make a simple rover will get old fast. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

I'd love to see some modular roll cages and ru bars (crash bars ... they're called ru bars down below since hitting a kangaroo is the same as hitting a moose up here in the great white north)

Some rally racing inspired panels and such would be cool too

[Vince_K]

i'm with tis idea at 100% I wanted to do a mod like that several times but i was stop by my poor computer skill. The idea is to make an switchable intersection with B9PartSwitch and make different length that fit with different angles. After you can weld your frame with UbioZur Welding LTD. it's realy difficult for me to explain this in english and I don't know if allt that is possible.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

16 hours ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

I think you may want to reconsider your intended part sizes.   Consider how tiny a probe is when placed in the sph as the first part, at 100mm they'd be horrible to work with,  you'd be much better thinking along the lines of modular roll cage parts (there would be a market for such a mod)  , assembling dozens of parts to make a simple rover will get old fast. 

  Hide contents

 

Sorry for a not so timely response. I wasn't notified there was any replies. 

[Edit: pretty sure I'm notified if quoted. Feel free to do that, should you need my attention. I'll check my notification settings NEVERMIND, I figured it.]

Size: 10cm x 1m is about the same width as the aforementioned RTG hull, and about 30% longer. So roughly 7.6 RTGs would be the length of the 5m section. Why 10cm width? Ease of use. Modularity. A nice round number. A substantial thickness because Kerbals are dangerous. And in relation to real world roll cage tubing and cattle guards and trailing linkage and.... It works out to be on the large side of things, but not so uncommon. Besides, were talking about rovers (the most important of the intended uses) that range from 1 metric ton to 5 and beyond. That's a 88 Suburban with a massive lift kit, structural modification, and big 'ol mud tires kind of territory. 

From google:

And some tubing (I love Miatas):

Now 1m and 5m sections might be closer to the tedious side of things, for those that prefer less clicks to get a complete roll cage. My assumption is those players wouldn't be looking for this sort of thing. This would be for those of us that prefer a more custom, one-off approach. We who enjoy the design process. I won't wax too much on that. 

16 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

...Some rally racing inspired panels and such would be cool too

Not a bad idea, and I am certainly with you. However, I'm of the mind that a program/mod/tool should do one thing, and do it well. Think I read that in a Linux forum somewhere  . Makes sense to me. 

PROGRESS: 

I've made some headway with the modeling in lieu of a more experienced compadre. Blender is a strange learning process. Aggravating. I've got a simple model and -what I think is- a collision mesh. UV mapping and texture done (a relatively simple part). Having trouble with a .mu exporter that I found here though. May be out of date. 

Ive also downloaded Unity, but can't confirm license. All my internet access is through this iPhone. And I can't tether. 

Help? Haha. 

Edited November 22, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

47 minutes ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Help? Haha. 

I'll run the parts through unity for you if you'd like, no bother.  Also  don't forget convex colliders only no concave colliders unless created from convex shapes. It'd be good to learn how to make parts yourself as it's an eternal occupation once learned

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

26 minutes ago, SpannerMonkey(smce) said:

I'll run the parts through unity for you if you'd like, no bother.  Also  don't forget convex colliders only no concave colliders unless created from convex shapes. It'd be good to learn how to make parts yourself as it's an eternal occupation once learned

Awesome! I'll get all the other pieces made and shoot you a DL link in a PM. If I have time, you'll have them tonight. Waiting to see if I will be following someone to the courthouse today... 

And I'm keeping the colliders simple, so shouldn't be an issue. Rectangular cubes for the straights, pentagonal-thingamajigs for the elbows. Just enough to not go through the ground, and for a kerbal head to bounce off of  .

Learning to do it myself: I would love to, but can't license my copy of unity without web access on my laptop. Know of a workaround?

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

PROGRESS: 

Nothing special, no ETA, but see OP for new pic. 

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

On 23/11/2016 at 10:08 PM, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

PROGRESS: 

Nothing special, no ETA, but see OP for new pic. 

And behold it lives

Spoiler

5 minutes after putting the parts in game for the first time , instagrin generator mk1

 

[Kombat engineer]

We need to have heat reducing variants tat you could put on your rockets/payloads to reduce heat when you are in atmo exit/re-entry and you want to preserve power.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

1 minute ago, Kombat engineer said:

We need to have heat reducing variants tat you could put on your rockets/payloads to reduce heat when you are in atmo exit/re-entry and you want to preserve power.

You mean like passive radiation? I think that would require excessive mass (ie. thermal mass). I'll look into the necessary modules for such things, and see what fits, but I gotta say that doesn't seem to fit the bill. Maybe I'm missing your point? And as far as trans-atmospheric rockets go, extra mass seems a poor solution to heat management. 

@SpannerMonkey(smce) Has done a good job whipping some of my noob modeling into shape, and I'm playing with config files and general testing now. Will probably do a full agency, flag and whatnot to go with, for funsies. I like making flags  .

First version available for you fine folks soon!

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

Here ya go!