TheShadow1138

I'm wanting to add a slider to the PAW for my warp drive part module so that the player can choose their desired maximum warp factor with an absolute upper limit warp factor defined in the part CFG. So, I need to be able to set the upper limit of the slider from a variable that is set in the part CFG. As an example, if the part CFG defines the drive with a maxWarp = 5, then the slider needs to go from 0 - 5, but if the CFG defines maxWarp = 7, the slider needs to go from 0 - 7. Monodevelop tells me that "An object reference is required to access non-static member 'TrekDrive.SW_ModuleWarpGenerator.maxWarp'". So, I conclude that I must reference the object to which the module is applied, but cannot because the KSPField is used before the module is actually added to the part. I did try moving the KSPField definition for the slider to the OnStart() function, but it seems that I cannot place a KSPField definition there. I haven't been able to access the KSP API Documentation because it's been undergoing maintenance for over a day now, so I can't really go digging through that for insight, so any help y'all can provide would be greatly appreciated. Edit (found the answer): I was able to find the answer, or at least a working solution.

It's been a while since I posted any pictures, so here are some screenshots of the NX-class Bridge IVA. From the Captain's Chair Looking to the left: From the Helm: Science Station: Operations Station: Ops (to the right): Comms Station: Looking to the Captain: Engineering Station: Looking back to the Captain: Master Systems Display: Aft Table Screen: United Kerbin Starfleet Warp V Project Briefing Start Screen: Looking Towards the Bridge Crew: Development continues along with testing. I have identified an issue with the impulse engine module code that is the cause of most, if not all, of the "slumping" of the shuttlepods or NX during takeoff and/or landing. That has been fixed in the code and will be in the next mod update.

Looking good.

Quick Update: I just wanted to let y'all know that I am still working on this. I just finished the final console textures for the NX-class bridge IVA. So, I can get that exported and start parting out the IVA in Unity. The shuttlepod IVA shouldn't be too difficult, and should go a bit faster than the bridge. I'll only need to make one console texture, which is where a lot of the time has been spent on the bridge. No ETA on when this will be ready, but it will be coming.

I was thinking about the colliders too. Off the top of my head I don't think the saucer's collider extends to that part of the saucer. I'll have a look to double check the colliders and maybe add a couple to make sure the struts aren't necessary. Glad you got a workaround.

In my longest term test ship, I did notice this happening. I'm not sure what causes it, or how it can be prevented, other than making them integral to the saucer. This would add yet more to the PAW for the saucer, which is why I'm hesitant to do this. I was hoping that with "rigidAttachment = true" on all the parts that this wouldn't happen. When 1.12.1 come out it ruined the ship because of the autostrut bug and the whole thing would flop around like a dead fish. Setting "rigidAttachment = true" fixed that, but I don't know if that is the source of this issue. Since the forces are not applied through the engine parts so if the engines are out of alignment it shouldn't affect the ship's operation, it's just going to not look right. I had chalked it up to something that happens as a result of time warping while the ship is experiencing significant forces. I'll have a look at it and see if I can figure out what is causing it, or at least a way to keep it from happening.

I was originally going to use the show-accurate shuttle bay, but with the refit hull blocking part of it and making it much more difficult to get the pod to that location that's why I went with what we have. Your solution is great. I've never used the stock robotics, or any robotics for that matter, but I've thought that the stock interface looked rather complicated, compared to what I saw in your video.

When in landing mode, and the vessel is sub-orbital, once it's at or below its hoverAlt, vertical thrust is applied to slow the vessel down to 5m/s of vertical speed. This is done regardless of throttle setting, so yeah pretty much free thrust, but the same is true with the takeoff mode. Did you use the warp drive to get to the moon, or just the impulse drive? Right now with the warp drive the NX would be the best choice to get you there in under a second. That's neat! If people want to do that with their NX, I'm all for it.

That's great. I wasn't thinking, but part of the issue was probably that once it was getting to or above its hover altitude there was very little keeping it in the air other than horizontal velocity so the higher hover altitude maintained vertical thrust long enough to attain sufficient horizontal velocity to maintain flight without adverse effects from drag. The difference in the hoverAlt settings were done because one set is a secondary, so I just set them to have lower stats. I tended to set my test craft to not stage the secondary impulse engines, but it might be better to at least have their hover settings the same just incase. Yeah, I didn't even mess with the reaction wheel settings. it's actually hold-over numbers from my Orion capsule, so in a way it's like an Orion capsule is trying to move an NX-class starship. I mean, from a realism standpoint, the reaction wheels necessary to rotate a ship of this size would probably be quite large and unnecessary. That being said, those numbers you used in your other post worked well it seems, and I can certainly see the utility of just using reaction wheels in some cases. I'll make sure to set these numbers to make them useful once I finalize the mass of the NX.

Yeah atmospheric flight is tricky. I think you're right that the RCS doesn't have enough thrust to counter the drag caused by the nacelles. I do believe the the nacelles are what's causing the aft end to drop because if you use the "B" variant where the nacelles are ventrally mounted you'll see the opposite behavior where the tail rises. The "C" variant with the four nacelles may negate some of this issue since the drag forces will be more-or-less balanced. As you said it wasn't designed for atmospheric flight, although we did see it in-atmosphere in the season 4 premier episode. It might be possible to change the "hoverAlt" parameter in the configs to a higher altitude where the atmosphere is less dense, and change the "maxVerticalAccel" to be higher so that it would gently rise to that altitude faster. This might mitigate some of the issues with the pitch authority for the rest of the flight to orbit. So, it would rise vertically to 30k m or higher, and then it might be easier to throttle up the impulse engines to get the rest of the way to orbit. The shuttlepod can be tricky to fly in-atmosphere. The SAS and RCS are your friends and being careful with your throttle. It isn't a good idea to go full throttle as it can become quite difficult to control even with the SAS and RCS turned on. I didn't make any part of the shuttlepod a lifting surface, but thinking about it, if I actually try making the wings lifting surfaces, it might improve the flight characteristics some. The impulse engine has a "Takeoff" and "Landing" mode that handles vertical thrust when the ship/shuttlepod is in a sub-orbital, landed, or splashed situation. In "Takeoff" mode thrust is applied vertically upward (normal to the gravitational force) along the center-of-mass (COM) that will cause the ship/shuttlepod to lift upwards to a "hover altitude", it doesn't really hover at that altitude, which is defined in the part CFG for the engine. Increasing the throttle will apply thrust through the COM pushing the ship/shuttlepod forward. There is now an option to switch this to thrusting in reverse. The toggle is visible in the PAW and can be set as an action group, just like the takeoff/landing mode switch. In "Landing" mode the pod will slow itself down to 5m/s of vertical speed (the speed indicator on the NavBall may show a higher speed, but it shows total speed, vertical and lateral, so that can be a way to indicate that you are not moving straight downward. The pod/ship, however, will not start slowing itself down until it reaches or is below its hover altitude, but it will apply more force the higher the vertical speed to slow it down quickly, but there could still be a possibility of hitting the ground too fast. I'm not saying that it will crash, I just want you to be aware that if the pod is falling at 1000 m/s when it starts to slow down, it may not make a safe landing. The shuttlepod and NX are still WIP and practically no balancing has been done. So, right now in-atmosphere flight should be handled with a gentle touch. I hope that helps some, but if not I'm happy to answer any other questions.

I see what you mean. It's something to keep in mind. There kind of is a neutral mode. The takeoff/landing only works when the vessel is sub-orbital, landed, or splashed. So, once in orbit there is no vertical (takeoff/landing) thrust being applied to the vessel by the impulse engine(s) at all, and if you are throttled all the way down to 0% the impulse drive is also applying no thrust to the vessel. So, if you're throttled all the way down in orbit then the RCS should be the only thing causing thrust. Also, if you shutdown the impulse engines there definitely will be no forces applied by them. I welcome any help getting things balanced. I should probably get the masses of the parts set before we really get into RCS balancing. The RCS on the NX is definitely more interesting to deal with than the shuttlepod, balance-wise that is to say. That's probably the source of the troubles/weirdness while trying to dock to the spacedock.

No worries, it took me a while to get it straight. I understand. What do you mean by "Kerbal-sized", the Phoenix and NX-class are both scaled down to Kerbal-scale. Do you mean like 1.25, 2.5, 3.75m parts? Hopefully you didn't have to remove his memory modules, or listen to his singing afterward. Yeah, a lot of the RCS and mass numbers are placeholders. I've also thought about offsetting the COM of the shuttlepod fuselage so that the RCS is more balanced. Actually, if you look at the configs the NX isn't that massive because I haven't messed with those numbers yet either. I've actually been thinking about the ability to reverse under impulse power. I hand't thought about it until a recent Star Trek film marathon when the Enterprise reverses in the Mutara Nebula at the end of TWOK, or at the end of Nemesis. It was actually really easy to get done. So... TrekDrive v0.99.1w v0.99.1w - Spacedock * Added a ModuleManager patch for StinkyAce's Spacedock, available at this link: https://spacedock.info/mod/1815/USS Nimitz and Drydock The patch scales the dock down to 0.6, a near perfect fit for the NX-class, and instead of modifying the drydock that comes with StinkyAce's mod, it creates a new part with the aforementioned scale, an impulse engine (no part, just the module), and produces the resources used by TrekDrive ships. This will be a good refueling station for the NX. * Updated the plugin * Fixed an NRE spam in the impulse engine code while in the editor * Added the ability to select a "forward" or "reverse" mode for the impulse engines. Toggleable in the PAW, and can be set as an action group. * Cleaned up the Waterfall patch by splitting the warp effects into their own patch. * Tweaked the texture tiling on the NX warp effects (both the Warp 5 and Warp 7 versions).

I placed a note with the link that a rescaleFactor of 0.6 is a good size for the NX. When I make the MM patch I can make that edit as well, so that others don't have to worry about changing it themselves. The docking ports are built into the ship. There are three external docking ports on the saucer (port, starboard, and aft), one on the engineering section (aft), five on the refit engineering hull (2 port, 2 starboard, 1 aft). Finally there are two internal docking areas where you can park the shuttles. There is an "Open Bay Doors" button in the sea of buttons on the saucer. This opens the aft bay doors, not the show accurate ventral doors. Then you can fly the shuttlepod into the bay, pretty far into the bay along the three yellow lines on the bay floor until the docking action begins. I would also recommend turning off SAS once the shuttlepod starts showing signs that the docking is beginning, that is if you have SAS on at the time. I hope that helps you to get it docked. Also, any "size1" docking port will dock to the ports, so the stock Clamp-O-Tron will work, if you or anyone wants to dock something besides the shuttlepod to the NX.

Thanks! I've added it to the OP. I'll probably make a ModuleManager patch to remove the GNDrive requirement and convert it to my impulse drive with Deuterium and Antimatter tanks for refueling operations.

That's just too perfect. If this is still available for download somewhere (Spacedock, GitHub) I'd post a link to it in a heartbeat. The NCC-1701 is next on the list, though it will not be that TOS show-accurate version. It will be a design influenced by various incarnations of the 1701. It will be closer to the DISCO version of the Enterprise, but not exactly. My goal with it is to essentially make a version of the Enterprise so that the film-era refit is more of a refit than a complete rebuild. The saucer and engineering hull will have profiles that more closely resemble the film-era refit while the nacelles will be a bit more original, taking some cues from the nacelles of the NX-class. I will be making a Galileo-type shuttle to go with the 1701, though it might get a bit of a facelift, not sure yet. I'm also thinking about doing the Travel Pod from TMP as it could be used even with the NX. As for the Constellation-class, or Intrepid-class I haven't given much thought to them. it took about 5 months to do the NX and Shuttlepod, and I imagine it may take at least that much time, maybe more to do the 1701, shuttlecraft, and travel pod. It might be possible, but I haven't looked into it, that I might be able to write ModuleManager patches to add TrekDrive compatibility to some of these ships/shuttles. I'd have to look at the parts though. I just want to make sure I understand what you're saying. You're asking for parts so that you could Frankenstein a ship from components of other Star Trek ships, correct? Basically, that's what I'm doing. I'm not making monolithic single-piece ships, they will be separated into Bridge, Saucer, Engineering hull, Neck (for those that have a distinct "neck" connecting the saucer and engineering hull, so an Intrepid- or Sovereign-class would not have separate "necks"), Nacelle Pylons, Nacelles, and separate Impulse engine modules if warranted. So, if I'm understanding what you want correctly, it would just require a uniform texture scheme so that say the darker gray of an Intrepid-class doesn't clash with the lighter gray of a Galaxy-class. If that's the case, it could be fairly simple for me to set a generic base color for the hulls. Also, I'm trying to picture what you described and am having a bit of trouble. The stern of Voyager is the aft portion of the ship, the saucer would be towards the bow, so what I'm picturing is the aft portion of the Defiant slapped onto the back of the Voyager's saucer, sitting on top of a Galaxy-class engineering hull as you described. It would certainly be an interesting look.

It is a pretty perfect drydock for the NX. The slider makes more sense the more I think about it, plus it might give that feeling of giving the command for warp 3 and being able to quickly and accurately get to it without any guesswork. But, you'd still have that fine control of the throttle. It'll probably be in the next update, which will be the IVAs, which will be the full 1.0 release. I imagine that the blue hue in the gray makes the overall blue glow from Kerbin that much deeper/noticeable.

That is a quick way to get to orbit. Thinking about it, when a drive is set to have a max warp of 10 things will really go from 0 to "was that Alpha Centauri?" reaaaally fast. It gave me an idea. It might be possible to have a warp factor selector slider that moves in maybe 1/4 increments. This would allow you to say, select warp 1 and then throttling to full throttle would only be warp 1 as opposed to the drive's actually maximum warp. That would allow at least a little more control while maintaining the ability to use the throttle. You'd be able to limit a Warp 5 or even Warp 10 ship to just Warp 1 for use in-system with fine control. I'll have to see about doing this. This is awesome. Did you make that drydock? If not, where's it from?

Fantastic videos again! It seems that TexturesUnlimited doesn't like the alpha textures for the registries. I've never used TU myself so I'll have to take a look and see if there is a way to fix this. A better solution would be the ConformalDecals mod's text decals as it would negate the need for a bunch of registry textures, the trouble is fonts and getting ConformalDecals to recognize them. There is a font in ConformalDecals that is passable for the Airborne font, but any TOS-film era ship and beyond would need a new font. It's still something I'm planning on working on from time to time. Edit: Solving the small issue with TexturesUnlimited may be easier than I thought. Apparently in the TU configs, which I assume you had to make for the NX, you can exclude certain messes, which I assume will fix the registries. For the saucer: excludeMesh = Saucer_AftNameplate excludeMesh = Saucer_MainRegistry excludeMesh = Saucer_VentralRegistry_Port excludeMesh = Saucer_VentralRegistry_Stbd For the Refit hull: excludeMesh = RefitEngHull_AftNameplate For the Refit Nacelles: (One for each nacelle) excludeMesh = Warp7Nacelle_Registry_Port excludeMesh = Warp7Nacelle_Registry_Stbd Alternatively, you could assign a second TU shader, perhaps the Transparency shader to just the registry meshes using "mesh = " in the MATERIAL definition in the CFG. Hopefully, one of these two options would alleviate that unsightly registry issue.

This is absolutely gorgeous! It's so cinematic, and the ship passing the camera at warp is exactly how I imagined it when I set out to do this. If I can get the video to embed so that it can be watched in a post, may I put this in the OP?

I couldn't resist. Enjoy the NX, and boldly go where no kerbal has gone before. Thank you, it turned out much better than I could have ever hoped.

I assume you are referring to the NX. I forgot to mention in the release post, or really anywhere, that the best thing to do is to cheat the NX into orbit after launching from the runway. So, with the NX on launch clamps on the runway, press the Space Bar to launch. This stages the main impulse engines and the ship will automatically begin lifting upwards. Then bring up the Cheats menu by pressing "Alt+F12", and selecting "Cheats" on the left-hand side of the window that pops up. Then select "Set Orbit", and you can use the default orbital altitude and other parameters, or change them to your liking, and click the "Set Orbit" button under the parameters. This will place the starship in orbit without issue. The ship has RCS thrusters, and once in orbit with the impulse engines active you maneuver just like you do with conventional rockets. Taking off and flying it to orbit can be quite difficult because of atmospheric drag. The impulse engines apply thrust through the center-of-mass at all times, but the nacelles cause non-symmetrical drag which will tend to cause the ship to flip in the direction of the nacelle placement while in atmosphere. It's much easier and far less aggravating to cheat the ship to orbit where it behaves much better. I hope that helps you, and any others having difficulty flying the ship. I am aware of this old mod, and I do have its GitHub page open for coding references, so I can get to them. I am planning on doing the NCC-1701 USS Enterprise, though not the exact TOS version, but with modifications taking inspiration from the film refit, the version in DISCO, and the nacelles of the NX-01. My goal with my version is to make the film refit Constitution-class Enterprise more of a refit than a complete rebuild. That is, I want my pseudo-TOS version to look like a more logical precursor to the film-era refit. There is also a planned bridge IVA for the 1701, as there is for the NX-01. As for the Voyager, I hadn't planned on doing it myself. I may look into seeing if it could be made to work with my mod, and see if its original author would allow it to be included. I won't make any promises about this though, but the NCC-1701 will be coming. Thanks for the offer. Kerbal-style parts weren't in my plans. When I set out to do this, my plan was to make Star Trek ships with which to use the warp drive, but there is at leas one other person, I believe, that would like more stock-alike parts. For the time being, they are not in my plans. Maybe, and I stress maybe, I'll consider stock-alike parts after the NCC-1701 is completed (that means in-game, released, with IVA), but I make no promises, guarantees, or assurances.

It's been a long road, getting from there to here... NX-class RELEASE!!! v0.99w - NX-class Release * B9PartSwitch is now a hard dependency. (Included in download) * Updated the TrekDrive.dll * Warp speed formula changed to allow faster interstellar travel * OnLoad function updated to not automatically set the warp drive to "Not Ready" if it was in a "Ready" state at the last save. This allows the player to immediately engage the drive after the vessel loads, if the drive is in a Ready state upon loading. * Added NX-class Starship Parts * Bridge module (Crew capacity of 6) * Saucer section (Crew capacity of 20) * Engineering section * Nacelle Pylons (B9PartSwitch variants) * Upper variant (2 upper pylons) * Lower variant (2 lower pylons) * Four variant (2 upper & 2 lower pylons) * Warp Nacelles (Port & Stbd) * Main Impulse Engines (Port & Stbd) * Secondary Impulse Engines (Port & Stbd) * Navigational Deflector (2 variants) - Serves as a transmitter * NX-01 Oval "Mark I" Deflector * NX-02 Rectangular "Mark II" Deflector * Added NX-class Refit Starship Parts * Engineering Section Refit (Includes warp 7 warp core and warp drive, Crew capacity of 10) * Refit Warp Nacelles (Port & Stbd) * Added Custom Waterfall FX model and texture for streaking stars at warp effect. * Updated the warp stars effect on the Phoenix * Added six (6) craft files for the NX-class and NX-class Refit * NXClass_A: Standard NX-class starship (as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise) * NXClass_B: NX-class starship with two (2) ventrally (lower) mounted nacelles * NXClass_C: NX-class with four (4) nacelles * NXClass_Refit_A: Standard NX-class starship Refit * NXClass_Refit_B: NX-class Refit with two (2) ventrally (lower) mounted nacelles * NXClass_Refit_C: NX-class Refit with four (4) nacelles Some Extra Notes: Plugin: The biggest change for the plugin since the 0.9w update is the change in the warp factor formula. I had been using a simple cubic formula, the same used in Star Trek and Star Trek: Enterprise, which means that at warp 5, the ship is traveling at 5^3 = 125 times the speed of light. This is obviously quite fast, but to travel to Nova Kirbani (the equivalent to Alpha Centauri), approximately 4 lightyears away, would take 11.68 days of real time at 125c (warp 5). This is realistic, but without using a very high physical timewarp, I don't think many players would like to deal with a trip that will take almost 12 real days of continuous warp travel. I wouldn't leave my game running for 12 days straight, and I don't think many others would as well. So, I changed the formula to be: speed = warpFactor^(0.25*warpFactor + 2.5) This gives the following speeds: Warp Factor Speed 1 1c 2 8c 3 35.534c 4 128c 5 417.9267c 6 1296c 7 3905.4103c 8 11585c 9 34092c 10 100000c At these speeds, a trip to Nova Kirbani would still take about 3.5 days of real time, but at the highest stock physical timewarp can be done in less than an hour. Of course, if you use higher physical timewarps, afforded by BetterTimeWarpContinued, travel times can be greatly reduced. At warp 7, however, travel to Nova Kirbani takes far less time and no timewarp is necessary. I also changed the loading code so that if the drive was in a "Ready" state when the game was last saved, it remains in the "Ready" state so that all you have to do is engage the drive and warp away. Docking Port Rotations: I had to comment out the ability to rotate docking ports because I have not been able to get it to work. I will continue to see if I can get it to work properly. Included Craft Files: I included six (6) NX craft files using each of the nacelle arrangements in the base NX-class and the NX-class Refit. If you open these craft files you can change the color to the bluish gray, and of course change the registry of the ship. Registries: I have included NX-01 through NX-10 in two "flavors": with our without "S.S." in the name of the ship. There is a "Registries" folder in the "NXClass" folder in which there are two files that you can use to make custom registries. The "NX_RegistryBuilder.png" file is a PNG file that contains the letters and numbers in the correct font, sizes, and color that you can copy and paste to make a custom registry texture. There is also a "NX_RegistryTemplate.psd" file, which is a Photoshop formatted file that you can use to simply type the registry if you have the necessary font, Airborne. The last file you need to know about is the "Registries.cfg" file, which is where you need to add the code to be able to use your custom registries, it's a simple copy/paste and change part of one line.

I'm slowly getting the screen textures done, but it is taking longer than I would like. I've gotten 11 done, but I still have more to go. I also haven't even started on the IVA for the shuttlepod. So, here's what I'm thinking: the NX and shuttlepod are working, although the docking rotation isn't ready, but the NX and shuttlepod can be used, and it wouldn't take much testing to be able to get it into your hands. So, I'm thinking that I can release the NX without the IVA, and then release the IVA for the NX and shuttlepod as an update. That leaves one question that I have. What planet packs do y'all use? I thought that Galaxies Unbound (GU) would be the best one to test with, but I'm not sure which one(s) are most popular among the community. I ask because I want to make sure that my warp factor formula is sufficient to allow easy travel to extrasolar systems in reasonable amounts of time. I have never installed any mod that adds other star systems, and this is pretty much required with a warp 5+ ship because that's simply too fast for in-system travel, it is possible, just not necessarily advisable. So, let me know what your preferred star system/planet pack is so that I can do the final testing to get y'all the NX.

Bridge IVA Progress: I've got the IVA geometry and textures done, but I don't want to show any pics of the textured bridge until I've got the IVA built out with the screen and console props. On that note, I've got the props modeled, since they're just LCARS-like screens, each one is just a simple rounded off panel. I'm currently working on the textures for the props and have three of them completed: A generic start screen for a large wall panel, the Master Systems Display, and the helm console. I'm trying to stick somewhat to the Enterprise screen style, though I am using the LCARS font. I'm also going for a plausibly workable UI layout making it a bit more realistic without extraneous buttons with random numbers making the console borderline or completely indecipherable. Generic Start Screen Master Systems Display: (Uses orthographic renders of my NX model) Helm Console:

Bridge IVA Progress: Just wanted to show y'all the progress that's being made on the bridge IVA. The geometry is nearly complete. It's not an exact recreation of the bridge from the show, but it's pretty close I think. I've slightly reworked the science and ops consoles to be more ergonomic as the ones in the show were really only useful in the center and set dressing on the sides. My redesign is more ergonomic and would allow a user to use three screens instead of just one. I'm going to make simple non-functional display props in kind of an Enterprise-LCARS style. This way there won't be a lot of props to place and should make building out the IVA a faster process.