Absolution

Been a while since my last post. Figured I'd take some time to let everyone know that I am still here and working... slowly. Remember this? Yeah... not all that great. I never could settle on a concept for the First Light. Over the last few months I've spent a lot of time scratching my head and combing through the internet looking for inspiration. About 2 months ago I finally found it: The Pillar of Autumn from Halo. It had the right shape I was going for. It was triangular (not sure why I fixated on that) and relatively flat making it KSP friendly. Organic shapes tend to be poly-heavy and a pain to texture when you're as amateur as I am. Introducing an incomplete but new and improved First Light. The below only shows the command section and the habitation section. I still need to design the fuel tanks, engine and docking hub: The command section wound up being too much like the source material for my liking but I like it too much to risk messing it up. You'll notice I reused the cockpit from above. It was the only part of the old design I liked so it made little sense to scrap it. The new design is also more modular than before. The habitation section (back half of image) is composed of a central structure and two swappable modules on the top and bottom. The fuel tanks, engines and hub will all be their own modules that attach to the central structure. Also, the new design is a lot more poly-heavy than before. Typically I design parts to not exceed 1500 triangles. The recent improvements that Squad has done to the core engine has given me some confidence and I've added quite a bit of detail. I expect the final product to be in the area of 30- 40,000 triangles all put together. Compare that to a fully assembled Anvil V rocket at 11,000 triangles and I think I am okay. Worst case scenario is I back off on the details. There's also the possibility that I will replace the details with a normal map like I should be doing away. My normal maps haven't turned out well so far. :\ Anyway, I won't speculate on a release schedule. I am taking my time and doing this thing right. I'll pop in once in a while with updates. Good luck and have fun!

Are you using the latest build? Previous ones were not compatible with FAR but the latest one should be. Maybe the aerodynamic control surfaces you have chosen are not sufficient to counter act the added mass? The weight alone shouldn't compromise your flights but you might have to design your ships differently to account for it. I'm not much help in that department since I don't use FAR myself.

Well that's a pleasant surprise. Turns out that I don't have to do anything to enable tweakable functionality in 0.23. Everything I want enabled is enabled by default. And although the "light" variants of Anvil are no longer needed I am inclined to leave them anyway. No harm; no foul. You can delete them yourselves, of course. The other thing I have been scratching my head over is enabling career capabilities to Anvil. I've looked at where Squad puts their rocket parts and I think I've settled on putting Anvil V into "Heavy Rocketry" and Anvil IV into "Very Heavy Rocketry". My problem is that I would like to balance the costs of my rockets somewhat reasonably against Squad's parts. My assumption is that if you are playing career mode you are doing it for the reward of earning advancements and I think it would be a downer to reach a certain milestone just to get super powerful rockets for dirt cheap (or a rip off). The snag is that Squad and I are playing by completely different standards of balance. One of squad's biggest fuel tanks has 6000 units of fuel where my smallest has about 3000 and my biggest has 45000. It all works out to be reasonably balanced in actual practice but we are working on difference scales. I have no idea how to come up with a price that will be fair. I'm not even sure I can. I'll see what I can do but don't get your hopes up. :\ Anyway, enjoy 0.23!

I do not think it works out of the box. I need to define where on the tech tree my parts should go and I have not. I am waiting for the tweakables update to hit before I release the next update to Anvil. Much appreciated! I've spent the last few weeks working on the next chapter of CORE. There have been a few false starts with this one so I am hoping for the best this time around.

I apologize for the confusion. The suspension is a little different and it is also missing some pieces. I based the Prowler after the KTM AX and that's the way it looks.

Dune Raider and Fire Hawk 0.2.0 is now released! As always please delete the existing parts before installing new ones for best results. Link: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/dune-raider-v0-1-0/ *Spaceport page is now appropriately updated. Enjoy!

Yup, they are installed wrong. Give the following images a look to see if it helps. If you are looking straight down the suspension should create an "X" shape.

Perhaps you are putting them on upside-down? Could you take a screenshot?

Dune Raider and Fire Hawk Update: I've been busy for the last two weeks working on the first update to both the Dune Raider and Fire Hawk. This update is now complete and I just need to test it to make sure everything I changed works properly (most of it does so far). I anticipate releasing version 0.2.0 this weekend barring a disaster during testing. Here is a change list for your previewing pleasure: Dune Raider: -Fixed super bouncing (mostly). I've taken the Prowler off of some wicked jumps and landed awkwardly but safely. I've also rammed into various structures at KSC without any catastrophic bounces. It did bounce a few times but only once or twice and never very far before it settled on the ground (usually upside-down :\ ). Hopefully that means the worst part of the bug is gone for everyone else but we wont know until the community gets a chance to test it. -New "universal chassis" meant to act as a common platform for all future Dune Raider bodies. I simply split the old Prowler body into two separate parts. The wheels and chassis will form the basis for all future Dune Raider configurations. The chassis contains the electric battery and no means of recharging it. -Removed the lights as a separate part and integrated them into the Prowler body. I had to split them up in the past because of the way the various old parts handled animations but with the new configuration I managed to fix that. The Prowler body was also modified to allow for stock solar panels to be attached in an aesthetically pleasing way. No more broken "unbreakable" power sources. -Wheels can now withstand more abuse (see bounce testing above) without breaking and also consume less electricity. You still need to be careful about what you drive over but at least you can be more adventurous. The stock solar panels do not produce electricity as fast as the old method so I balanced the consumption to be reasonable. Fire Hawk: -Revised the model for the core module. It now looks more "rocket-shipey". It's still far away from the quality some modders can manage but it's better than the old model and I am happy with it. Plus, I think my relatively low polygon models makes for a better KSP experience overall. -New landing legs. The animation won't play in reverse so when you close the gear they "snap" closed and I have no idea why. Either the KSP coding is bugged (possible) or I did something wrong (likely). However, they are pretty cool legs that fold flat against the body of the Fire Hawk. You might even find a use for them in your non-CORE creations. -Removed the integrated RCS ports. I found that they do more harm than good so I just took them off. There is still RCS fuel available if you want to attach stock RCS ports. -Other slight tweaks to the models you likely wont notice or care about. Stay tuned!

I've got a quick question about landing legs. How do you get them to animate smoothly while retracting? I got mine to work just fine when extending but when I go to retract them they "snap" instantly back to the start of the animation. *edit* I understand that the animation must be played in reverse and, obviously, I have missed a step. What is that step?

It was originally planned to integrate Anvil into the campaign in a way that made sense. However, now that the first stages of the campaign are in the game I am not sure how to go about it without breaking the intent. I would need a more intimate understanding of how the tech tree develops and make sure my parts are made available at the appropriate time. It is still a possible feature but I do not have any solid plans for it at the moment. I still have a large laundry list of features and improvements to make to current projects. @Deltac What kind of payloads are you launching? I've put 40 tonnes on the Anvil IV and couldn't detect any wobbling.

Funny you should say that because I had completely forgotten about that and other updates I had been planning for Anvil so I spent the majority of the day making the latest update happen: ANVIL 1.7.1 RELEASED! http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/anvil-rockets/ As always I suggest deleting all previous content before installing new content just to be sure. ---1.7.1--- (20OCT13) -Revised Anvil V and V-L part properties. Upper stages now have higher Isp than lower stages (among other things). -Added emmisive texturing to Anvil V and V-L engines. (they glow hot now) -Removed SRB-050A-1. Rendered obsolete by Anvil V revamp. -Fairings now compatible with FAR mod. (May have to reattach fairings to existing rockets) Hopefully the FAR thing worked because I don't have FAR to test it myself but I have it on good authority that the changes I have implemented should make it all work properly now. Let me know if I am a dirty liar and I will try again. Good luck and have fun!

That particular situation I am aware of and have seen it myself when you go off of a jump and have an awkward landing. I can try putting a standard collision mesh on the outer rim of the wheel so you hit that instead of the wheel collider and maybe that will make it go away. What I was more concerned about is the spontaneous leaping from a standstill some people reported. I actually have two wheel colliders in the model. One goes up and down with the suspension and the other does not and acts as a backup to prevent clipping. Either that second wheel collider is not working at all or is working in a way I do not intend. I will experiment with getting rid of it as well as adding a standard collider to help prevent bouncing in a roll. Thank you for taking the time to capture the video.

Update: Are you all still having problems with the rover jumping into the air? I haven't been able to reproduce the issue on my end but there are a few things I can try out. With the new update there is a reason for me to further develop the Fire Hawk and Dune Raider so you can get some real work done. I've also decided to reactivate the First Light program and start that over from scratch (again). The Fire Hawk has given me a lot of neat ideas with where to take the First Light so expect to see some information on that soon. I am currently working on revising the Fire Hawk core module (the one with the integrated engines and bay for the Dune Raider). I've remodeled the stanchions and engines to make them more interesting. I still need to texture it. Also, I am working on the landing legs. I've never done an animation like this before and my intent is to make a neat looking flat-folding leg system. The problem, of course, is that because I have no experience in doing this kind of part I've dedicated all this time so far to research. I think my idea is pretty cool so hopefully I can pull it off. I am not sure what I want to do after this. I was first thinking of revisiting the First Light but the science update to KSP has compelled me to consider developing the second Dune Raider chassis. Where the Prowler is designed for simple transport the, as yet unnamed, chassis will be for science gathering and will offer a variety of ways to incorporate scientific tools. I have an idea how I want it to look and function but I need to play with the new science mechanic in KSP to make sure it will be relevant. I am also planning on a crew module for the Fire Hawk so maybe I will do that next. Lastly, I've decided to incorporate all of my projects under one "mega" pack once the new spaceport goes online. That will make it easier for people to find my stuff. I think I will be able to release the Fire Hawk update in the next week or two. Good luck and have fun!

I considered an RTG when I first noticed the fragile solar panels and chose to stick with the panels for the sake of balance. I didn't want to create a perpetual motion machine. However, in light of the problems with the panels I will switch over to RTG until I can figure out the problem with the panels. The bouncing problem is likely caused by a collider mesh interacting with the terrain that confuses the physics engine. It's not intentional. I only noticed the behavior after the buggy got airborne off of a jump or similar terrain feature and never just sitting, more or less, still. Does it happen often enough that you could capture a short video of it?

Draining fuel from the cargo is not intended but draining it from the upper section is. I've designed the lander to reach as far out as Moho in its basic format and to do that I needed more fuel than the lower section could carry.

Got any screenshots of what you've come up with? Maybe it will help inspire me.

That's not a whole lot to go by. What were the conditions in which you experienced the bug? Did you assemble the rover yourself or were you using the save file or craft file? That is the plan, yes. The Fire Hawk was something I designed only after finishing the Prowler and realizing I needed a way of transporting it. That was quite a face-palm moment. At the same time I realized it didn't make sense to do all that work for a single purpose. There's a lot of things I want to do with the Fire Hawk but I didn't want to sit on a completed Prowler while I developed those features. The Fire Hawk, as a result, was a very rushed design. The good news is there is lots of potential and I look forward to exploring it. My first order of business is to design my own lander legs. The stock ones are way too long for the purpose and the way I attach them is poorly designed. Don't try to do too much too quickly. You'll overwhelm yourself and might get discouraged.

Say hello to my new modification: Dune Raider It is a beta release at this point but it's got everything you need to make it happen. More documentation is forthcoming but I've been slaving away all day to get this thing out the door. The download includes craft files and a save game with a rover, lander and crew already on the Mun for your convenience. Also included is the Fire Hawk lander which is designed specifically to transport the Dune Raider to an alien world. Eventually this will be its own mod but for now it will support Dune Raider directly. Dune Raider Rovers Version 0.1.0 - Dune Raider Reveal 29SEP13 DOWNLOAD LINK: v0.1.0 *For best results I suggest getting Anvil as well. I designed the Fire Hawk and Dune Raider with Anvil in mind* http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/dune-raider-v0-1-0/ Screenshot: Videos: *sorry it is so dark. It's plenty bright when I render the video but it shows up dark on Youtube.*

Anvil comes in two flavors: 2m rockets capable of lifting up to ~20 tonnes w/ your choice of 2 or 3m fairings. 4m rockets capable of lifting up to ~36 tonnes w/ your choice of 3, 4 or 5m fairings. You could, of course, experiment and combine Anvil in ways I never considered for some scary lifting capabilities... assuming your Kerbalnauts have a thrill for uncertainty.

Quick update. I am still here and working on my next release. I hope to have something available in the next week or two. Stay tuned.

I can't disagree that such a system would be greatly helpful. However, I don't support other mods by policy. This is to protect my efforts and prevent a third party from breaking my mods as a result of a compatibility quirk. That said I do have plans on unofficially supporting FAR and there is always the possibility of expanding unofficial support to other mods. I wouldn't keep my hopes up though. I've got lots of stuff planned for CORE to keep me busy. We just have to see how the future turns out.

Check out a few posts after that. I put "fairing" in their "name" and it did not work. The actual solution was to put "fairing" into their "title" which is a completely different line in the cfg.

Easy enough. I'll incorporate that soon. Thanks for figuring that out!

Firstly are you using the latest version of my fairings? They haven't changed much, if at all, for a while so you are probably good but it never hurts to be sure while bug hunting. Otherwise, I am getting an idea and I think you may be right about the ejection forces. With such a long length of panels there is quite a lot of mass for the ejection mechanic to fight against. Also, the ejection force only acts on the nose cone and under normal circumstances that's what causes the fairing to "peel" away. If the mass is overloading the ejection force that could be a reason for the behavior you describe. It might not be enough to kick it away from the ship and then aero-drag causes the nose to fall into the ship (even at high altitudes). Or maybe I misunderstand what you are describing. If you could take some screen shots or a short video that would greatly help. I'll try out a few things on my end. And, of course, it's always possible my fairings are simply bugged.