SpannerMonkey(smce)

Hi all in the various SM mods there are an assortment of hydraulic/robotic parts, all are currently broken, and as you may know, have been for a good while now.
So a fix has presented itself in the form of the latest KSP dlc release, in that it has basic robotics as stock(ish) , this in all likelihood means that with a bit of research , I can probably convert the broken bits to use the stock system. Obviously this will make the parts only available to anyone with the appropriate dlc,  while not the perfect solution it does mean that the parts will probably remain fixed for as long as KSP exists, and rather than breaking every update, then waiting on a mod update that may never come, players should ( within the realms of KSP probabilities) to be able to transition complex craft between versions. 
While i've tried several other robotic plugins to power them , nothing has worked as well with the parts, as the original Infernal robotics, despite reworking the parts many times, there's always an issue somewhere.

Opinions welcome

Hi all, answers to a few questions I've received.
Am I back?   Tricky question, although  having just viewed and edited around 960 cfg's and patches, all without flying into a ksp induced rage, is likely a very good sign. Mainly addressing tweakscale, MM and general cfg issues, further work is still required to prevent issues going forward.

Will SM mods be back soon? (and all the associated questions, no links etc.)   Its looking promising for some of the mods to return for 1.8.x, I doubt 1.8 is going to last long enough for me to get where I want to be, and knowing you lot, eager to make the jump I don't see any point in rushing out maintenance  releases for 1.7.3

As it stands today what happens for KSP 2 depends entirely on what KSP 2 will require in the way of changes.
There are many things that it's easy to do, and many things that are neither easy or particularly fun to do, on the way to updating a mod, and should the changes require far too much of the latter and not enough of the former  ( for example the idea of retexturing several hundred parts for pbr is nasty just thinking about it)I feel that they'll stay as KSP 1 mods.  
That's not to say that there wouldn't be KSP 2 mods from SMI, because if the rumors are true our stuff could finally get some proper use

Cheers 0/

Not dead yet!

HI all, first off thanks to all those who've inquired after my welfare, as to the reasons I'm no longer active on the forum or releasing mods, they are many and numerous, primarily it's health issues, I've been fighting a mystery virus for several years,  and as I've become older the effects of that have become more difficult to live with, tbh it's really difficult to be creative ( or sociable) when you feel like crap. Along with that, the frequent KSP updates combined with the size of my mod catalog meant that just keeping them all updated or even working became a chore, much more like unpaid slavery than fun, and guys it needs to be fun.  There are of course other reasons, some to do with the forum in general and some  to do with mods that have been a cornerstone of SM mods since the very beginning but we'll leave that there.  
Regarding the closed threads and broken links, when i decided that enough was enough I was not in the best frame of mind, and certainly was not in the mood for explanations,  so perhaps a final message was in order, but honestly forum interaction had dropped to a point that it hardly seemed worth the effort.  Shortly after closing the threads i became aware that certain parties had without my permission, or even asking for it, taken  parts of various mods, the simple solution at the time, and to prevent further unauthorised use of assets,  was to simply pull the mods from the various locations, and while it was perhaps a bit heavy handed, I do have a serious amount of time invested  in that lot, as any of the guys on the team would tell you, and somehow i don't feel like just giving it all away.

Which brings me nicely to the current SpaceDock situation I'm aware that SM Armory and SMAFV's are back up on SpaceDock, this is completely unauthorised, they are not supported . I've not been contacted by the user RecoverMod regarding them, and such publication is in breach of the license. I and others are taking steps to have them removed, something I shouldn't have to do.

As to the future,  difficult to say, but after playing KSP since 2012 and making KSP mods since 2014, I think a break is in order, but the sad thing is we, the team and i, know pretty much where KSP outer limits are, we know what can be done and where, and while the game remains unity based they are very unlikely to change in any great way, so where's the new challenge? the idea of doing the same thing over and over just in different ways is not something that appeals

Thanks again to all those who supported the SM mods in any way, particularly those who got my gears spinning.
Happy travels guys