curtquarquesso

Option 2. If you're going to break crafts, now is the time.

Reporting that the Tsunami bug, and some other graphical weirdness seems to be gone as of the latest posted update. Many thanks. I'm on OS X running the latest 1.1 pre-release.

So, in your part's config, you're going to define thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform. This tells KSP that the empty thrustTransform in your part's Unity setup is the object that's going to gimbal around. Because thrustTransform gimbals now, anything that is a child of it will also gimbal. As you can probably assume then, you're going to make your mesh, and your mesh's collider a child of thrustTransform. So your hierarchy will be thrustTransform > your_engine_mesh > collider. You can make the collider and the mesh a child of the thrustTransform, or make the collider a child of the mesh like I do. Matters not.

I think a Phobos Grunt return capsule would fill that niche. The Luna probe isn't meant for return. I don't think it even has ablator. The Luna probe wasn't made to be an impactor, or survive anything extreme. It would would decouple a few meters above the ground, and was intended to land land at a speed no greater than 6m/s (14mph) I think the Luna 9 probe needs to have a simple experiment on it, and the Phobos Grunt sample return capsule needs to be a science container only. I think for the sake of not being totally OP, they shouldn't have reaction wheels. The whole point of the Luna probe's petals is to right the probe on the surface. It makes gameplay more interesting. Crazy OP reaction wheels have seriously spoiled the KSP player base. Soyuz Docking Probes: When I went through the thread, and was racking my brain for what could be wrong, and what 1.1 could have broke. There's nothing remotely hacky about the Unity setup, just basic collider exploitation, so 1.1 shouldn't effect anything. Glad to find out it's a silly error, and not something big. Also, nudge, nudge, complete docking port revamp development roadmap, nudge, nudge... Cygnus: I love Black Cygnus! Clever! Most of the major components for the revamp are basically done, but I need a roadmap of what you want in order to finalize things. We need to decide on how the Antares revamp will be done, what the tolerance is for the off-size associated with Cygnus is, and how PBR stuff will be handled. In general, Tantares needs some dev road-mapping. We have a lot of half-finished revamps...

Separate Legs Pros: Adds another useful part to the Tantares catalog and stays true to the "lego-like" design philosophy. Provides alternative to the badly designed small stock landing legs. Allows for proper part crash tolerance. Currently, the probe has a crash tolerance of 45, whether you land it upside down on it's sensitive side, or properly on its legs. Allows for suspension so the part doesn't bounce like the current iteration does. Allows for proper friction definitions so the probe doesn't slide down gentle slopes like the current iteration does. Separate Legs Cons: No AO Increases vessel part count by 3-4 parts. Not as quick and easy, and requires you to lean how wheels/legs work in 1.1 Return Capsule: 0.625m sounds too large, but I'll have to look at a diagram to see for sure. Either way, I think if you're going to revamp the Grunt, it needs the return capsule, and ascent stage. Tantares lacks small little probe parts. Paired with eventual 1.1 antenna relay changes, it could make sample return missions really cool. Soyuz Crew Size: For a while, I thought it was an April Fool's joke on you... I can't believe it's still debated. It's too small for three kerbals. All there is to it. Tag System: Neat! It isn't possible to create a new bulkhead profile size, correct? That's defined by the game, and the game alone, right?

I'm not sure I've seen it. Link? Does it have any info on how shaders are being handled, and which can currently be utilized?

@Table, You've gone to about a dozen different add-on release topics and copy-pasted: Please stop. Interesting idea. I think the only problem with this is that you can't EVA kerbals out of the capsule once you've landed. The 0.625m node on the top isn't large enough to act as a hatch, and it's obstructed by the parachute. You'd have to side-mount or integrate the parachute into the side of the capsule.

I've been away from the thread for a while, but I'll chime in on the Grunt. Have you considered making the legs separate? That'd be a better solution than having both a three-legged and a four-legged Grunt. With 1.1 pre-release out, you can finally start making landing legs knowing that they're not going to be rendered obsolete any time soon. For the sample return capsule, (if planned) how a bout a tiny version of he Hamal descent capsule? Not sure at the moment what size would be best, but you could go down to 0.3125 like some of the parts in Taerobee are.

So, using the standard shader in Unity, this is as far as I've gotten... The part has some characteristics of a standard shaded part, but still isn't quite right. I exported through the legacy PartTools .mu export, but am using the standard shader in Unity. Obviously there's some support, but since no one has figured out how the AssetCompiler works yet, we wait for Squad to tell us I guess. A very short ReadMe indeed... Do we need to bug Squad for documentation, or should we wait a little bit?

Ugh. I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd been checking the beta releases section every so often, and right clicked a little bit too low in my steam library that time. I earned it. That was awful...

I'm so sorry people. Right clicked the wrong window...

NOPE

Not quite. I think it might just mean stock support for changing the properties of parts from the UI for the listed add-ons. @NathanKell, can you clarify at all?

Devotes just came out on /r/Kerbalspaceprogram.

I won't quote each reply about the LV balance discussion, but Beale is doing the right thing by balancing against stock, as opposed to IRL performance expectations. If you want more realistic rocket performance, what I do, is install either 64k, or scale the universe to 6.4x scale with Sigma Dimensions, and then use SMURFF to alter part stats across the board. That way, everything is balanced, and you can build rockets that perform in a more realistic manner. Ugh. Sorry to hear about the Black Arrow S2 flipping. I don't think you're building the part wrong, I think it's your flying. Try attaching ullage motors onto S2 somewhere. The goal should be to keep your acceleration very constant during staging. For example, if you're pushing 2G's at S1 sep, you don't want to all the sudden be pulling 4G's when S2 lights. It could render the vehicle unstable because whatever aerodynamic forces you were fighting at the end of S1, you have to fight much, much harder with S2, and you may not be able to. Have you experimented with other parts to isolate the issue to the S2 engine? I'm of the opinion that the stock style and textures suck anyways, so Beale should just do what he thinks looks the nicest. Granted, I think his recent work has been playing a bit too safe, and I think he should embellish his parts more like he used to, but I don't care if his parts don't match stock all that much. There are so many parts in Tantares and TantaresLV now, that you can build almost anything without having to use any parts from stock. How about that Soyuz launch tonight, eh? The little pink stuffed owl dangling from the flight controls got me thinking about possible post-1.1 IVA props...

You're a little late. It's apparently already been done for you.

Not exactly what I meant. The stripes are much too thick and prominent. They make the tank look shorter and stockier. Doesn't match the rest of Tantares very well. I would keep it much simpler. I would do: "ALV" or whatever the rocket's name is, written vertically down the side in a nice red color Large wrapped flag decal mesh that covers the span between two of the pipes you have running down the side. More or less, 30º or so of coverage. Thin black strip on the bottom of the tank. Wider matching black stripe on the bottom of stage one, like the real deal. Make the writing red, not the stripe/stripes. The vertical stripes near the external pipes are a no-go for me. It'd be nice to nice AO there against the white/gray tank. AO doesn't look good over color. I think a better description is contrast, not color for the sake of color. Stripes on rockets are rarely aesthetic, and almost always serve some sort of function. Warning labels, service panels, and plumbing/greeble that have color in them are better ways to add color and contrast to a part, without just adding a lazy stripe.

I think the interstage section needs a bit of work. From what I understand, the truss interstage section splits in two halves at stage separation. One half remains connected to stage 1, and the other half remains connected to stage 2. The only unknown is whether at some point after separation, stage 2 jettisons aforementioned interstage half. I'm not sure whether it remains connected throughout stage 2's burn. Here's a mockup making as few alterations as possible: As far as the monochrome scheme goes, I think it's too much. Proton is anything but monochrome. Nice bright text, the contrast between the silver nozzles, the white core tank, and the black stripe, etc. Proton has been all white, all silver, and a mix of both, so you could do it any way you want, but the monochromatic look is starting to loose it's appeal. This rocket needs some contrast somewhere.

Stage 2 engine of what rocket? Maybe I missed something.

Thank you both for doing configs for various mod packs. They add a lot to the game. Do either of you do custom plumes, or do you just utilize the prefabbed plumes? Beale does some really great custom FX for some of his more specialized engine parts, and it'd be a shame to not use any of that work in the configs for RealPlume. The particle/FX system is a system I don't know a lot about unfortunately. Can't find too much documentation on how they're created, defined, and configured. You're very welcome! @Beale, you've revamped your avatar more times now than you've revamped the Soyuz. What gives?

What's the current hold-up with Fuji? I can advise on that if necessary. Courtesy of planeguy868, here's the dropbox link. I don't know what all works, so you'll have to just test it out. I'm pretty sure most of it works ok. Great little video. Fun music choice. Those FX... Where's @VenomousRequiem for RealPlume configs? I'm able to do configs using the prefabbed configs, but I've never done custom ones, like would be needed for the Black Arrow engine. There's not a good prefab for the H202/Kerosene flame. The Blue Streak motor is just standard LOX/Kerosene, so that's easy. For the standard FX for Waxwing, I think it needs a different effect. It seems to have a blue cryogenic flame, and it really needs a solid motor exhaust flame. I'm not a big fan of the stock solid motor FX, but it's better than nothing. RealPlume has a great solid upper stage effect, but it'll need something for those not using RealPlume. Also, found a great new source of info for Blue Streak, Black Arrow, and more. Includes this great image of the Prospero/Black Arrow launcher being prepped: Source! Make sure to use a translate extension if you can't speak Russian...

Black Prince: I think making repeating sections of texture is a good practice, and should be done, I'm just not crazy about the actual design. It just looks... bleh? Plus, if you're concerned about polys, the modeled rim in the center adds around 48 vertices right off the bat, so it's not doing anything for aesthetics, or performance. Also, make sure you mind the black and yellow striped decoupler. I don't think it needs a big redesign. I quite like it the way it is frankly. If it could not break crafts, that'd be great. Are you planning on touching Prospero at all, seeing as it shared texture space with the rocket parts? Big-G Hmm. I'll have to think about that. I see your point. I have an idea. If you give my a few days, I can mock up a way for that to work like I did for the rest of it. Switch gears and finish up some other things like Fuji, or Proton. Heh. I'll get back to you on Gemini. WindowShine! Yeah! I really like it. Whenever you make new parts, just be conscious of how WindowShine looks at a spec map, and try to take that into account, then I can do the rest. I think as long as you leave things like windows and solar panels at 100% specular, WindowShine will figure it out from there. Ven's solution to the window illumination not working with WindowShine was to add a duplicate object for windows. One for shine, and one for illumination. I don't think an extra draw call for a detail that minor is terribly efficient, but it might be nice for the core parts, like the Tantares capsule, and the TKS capsule. One extra draw call on the TKS capsule wouldn't sink anyone's boat I don't think. 1.875m Nosecone Neato! Nice shape. What's gonna be in it? Parachutes, LFO, or empty space? Could you give it some room for LFO, but let it default to empty? 1.875m Centaur That I did not expect from you. Heh. Which year/version of Centaur are you looking to replicate, and what's your source for the drawing? I can find you an accurate source if you tell me which iteration of the Centaur you're going for.

You need to ask a moderator to move your original post to add-on development or add-on releases.

Just procedural wings. Taerobee doesn't have any wing parts presently, except for the Bumper fins. I would pester Beale about them, but I know how much he loves making plane parts, and I'd rather him focus on Tantares. Heh. The stock wings also don't really suit the Bell X-1 very well I find. The craft itself performs really well surprisingly with both stock and FAR aero. To get the shape and dimensions correct, I literally dragged two image planes of the Bell X-1 into KSP using my own home-brew add-on, and matched the wing size and shape as accurately as possible.

I've been relatively absent from the thread for a fews days, but it all looks really good. A note on the engine for the Blue Streak engines. I don't understand what the top of it means. When you started using that modeling pattern in the Salyut parts, I thought that that look meant that the part had a crew traversable tunnel. I don't really know what it indicates now. Anyone have any ideas for how the top of an engine part should look? Examples from other add-ons? Big G: If you're still using the rough models that I sent you, it should all be fairly correct, and be chopped up into nice diameter parts. As you can see @CobaltWolf, it actually keeps going to 3.75m, and then even larger still. I didn't model the last section, as I didn't think Beale would even get around to making Big G. For launching of Big G, you'll have to use the largest variant of Titan, or look around for a good Saturn IB add-on. My goodness, was the Big G concept ugly... @Beale, keep me posted on this, and let me know if you need help or advice. What would be really nice, and really unique, is big airliner passenger windows, like seen in this mockup. It'd be great for early-game tourism contracts. There are usually very few excuse to put big windows on spacecraft. Big G would make for the perfect excuse. If you're still keen on working on fleshing out Gemini, a dedicated science module like this, would be really out of the ordinary, and unique: It's the same overall size and shape as the current service module you made, it just has these giant opening experiment bay doors. It'd be a great take on the Tantares take on the stock materials bay. Either you could make it empty, for stuffing stuff into, or you could just make it stuffed with pre-dabbed greeble, like the materials bay is. Your call. Tantares WindowShine Support It's coming... Much of it is pretty easily done because Beale is pretty neat and tidy when it comes to his spec mapping. Prospero, as you can see, works really well, and looks really pretty. A lot of the solar panels work really well, and are super easy to configure. A difficult example can be seen in the 1x4 Soyuz panels in the right picture. Because they solar cells are two texture sections instead of one, you see some yucky looking divisions. Luckily, simple things like windows work out pretty easily. Anyone have any specific requests for things to make shiny other than the obvious things? I'll see what I can do without manipulating alpha maps. A good example of it working really well, is the Luna 9 Probe. Be sure to check out the Taerobee thread. Taerobee is now supported for WindowShine.