[1.0.4] Orbital Decay V0.0.1 (Full Release Version Coming This Week! 05/08/2015)

[CaelumEtAstra]

Anymore hope for this? The last commit on GitHub was something like 25 days ago. I realy love the mod and I'd hate to see it die prematurely.

[Tellion]

At the moment yes, the Station Keeping currently uses (or should in theory hypothetically maybe possibly if I have some inspiration!) MonoPropellant from Stock but I will add in a check for the Real Fuels plugin and change this to an appropriate resource.. Hydrazine I think? Unless Real Fuels uses Hydrazine and Nitrogen? Ill have to look it up, been so long since I have actually played KSP with mods that aren't my own experiments!

Not to worry I will include this in the full release too!

RF uses all kinds of propellants for RCS, from Hydrazine, its derivatives like MMH, UDMH, AZ50 to things like Nitrogen. For stockalike engines, each RCS thruster can be configured individually. Oh, and great mod!

[Whitecat106]

Hi everyone!

Okay so I am just about to release the full version onto the main release thread (the background resource issues and station keeping have all been resolved and incorporated) so this development thread will become obsolete, I just need a hand from some everyone in deciding quite how much propellant (Monoprop and Hydrazine at the moment - more will be included for real fuels in version 1.1.0) should be drained from a vessel say in a 300km circular Kerbin orbit, in this orbit the decay rate is about 3.6 x 10^-5 meters per second, so about 0.129 meters per orbit.

Any preferences on the fuel drain from this? How long would you like a tank of say 80 units of RCS to last in a high kerbin orbit?

Originally I had planned on having the resource consumption rate equal to the orbital decay rate but this isnt working out so smoothly so would anyone like to suggest an appropriate rate? Of course timewarp messes precise formulas up a bit due to the spool up and spool down of the timewarp so all I need are some suggestions (I dont want to release until this is a good balance!).

So yes! Everything has come together in the last 3 days of insomnia and 'arrrgg fine ill fix this darn station keeping thing', the entire code has been rewritten nicely and organised (forget that jumble on GitHub!), hopefully I can put the release out on the main thread tomorrow or Thursday!

So dont worry Mrsupersonic8, this mod certainly isn't dead! Just a bit hesitant so I do not put people off with bugs in the first full release! Not to fear Station Keeping is here!

Tellion, I will be adding more Real Fuels and RSS support in version 1.1.0, basically adding MMH UDMH AZ50 Nitrogen and anything else, if you could maybe send me a list of all of the RCS fuels from real fuels I could implement this faster?

Thanks everyone!

Again I'm terribly sorry for how long it has taken (2 months now!) but I'm a student on summer break so time kinda doesn't seem to be an object at the moment!

I hope you're enjoying the dev version and/or the Lite release version and I would greatly appreciate any feedback/suggestions and some ideas on the RCS drain rates

Not long!

Whitecat106

[billkerbinsky]

Originally I had planned on having the resource consumption rate equal to the orbital decay rate but this isnt working out so smoothly so would anyone like to suggest an appropriate rate? Of course timewarp messes precise formulas up a bit due to the spool up and spool down of the timewarp so all I need are some suggestions (I dont want to release until this is a good balance!).

start off with:

0) delta-V from drag during some (preferably larger) time period.

1) spacecraft mass

2) stationkeeping thruster Isp

Plug values in to the rocket equation to find the reaction mass consumption rate per time period, update periodically as the spacecraft mass decreases.

Should end up with a realistic approximation.

[MK3424]

How is the update going?

I'm really excited about it.

Edited August 5, 2015 by MK3424

[Treble Sketch]

Would development hold until 1.1 release?

[przybysz86]

On 8.10.2015 at 0:56 PM, Treble Sketch said:

Would development hold until 1.1 release?

I would also like to see it in 1.0.5 if possible. Life is not the same without it.
I am anti-spacejunk purist and I hate my 1st stages floating around endlessly at v.LEO/LKO.
Also without this mod maintaining space stations is less of a challenge.

[Whitecat106]

2 hours ago, przybysz86 said:

I would also like to see it in 1.0.5 if possible. Life is not the same without it.
I am anti-spacejunk purist and I hate my 1st stages floating around endlessly at v.LEO/LKO.
Also without this mod maintaining space stations is less of a challenge.

Hello there,

The Orbital Decay mod has been released (link in my signature) however, it is still on hold until 1.1 (hence no SpaceDock download link), there are some big bugs in the code that are really dragging the project down along with heavy lag, I am still actively trying to find solutions that do not compromise FPS, however I think that a rework with 1.1 and x64 might be more beneficial rather than having to update twice (1.1 will most likely break everything everywhere!)

Whitecat106

[przybysz86]

22 hours ago, Whitecat106 said:

The Orbital Decay mod has been released (link in my signature) however, it is still on hold until 1.1 (hence no SpaceDock download link), there are some big bugs in the code that are really dragging the project down along with heavy lag, I am still actively trying to find solutions that do not compromise FPS, however I think that a rework with 1.1 and x64 might be more beneficial rather than having to update twice (1.1 will most likely break everything everywhere!)

Let me start with much appreciation for your work and I fully understand that with 1.1 over the horizon there is no point in making it 1.0.5 compatible -I assume if this was a quick fix you'd have done it long time ago

Let's wait for 1.1 then

[Treble Sketch]

On 03/03/2016 at 9:22 PM, Whitecat106 said:

Hello there,

The Orbital Decay mod has been released (link in my signature) however, it is still on hold until 1.1 (hence no SpaceDock download link), there are some big bugs in the code that are really dragging the project down along with heavy lag, I am still actively trying to find solutions that do not compromise FPS, however I think that a rework with 1.1 and x64 might be more beneficial rather than having to update twice (1.1 will most likely break everything everywhere!)

Whitecat106

Exciting, couldn't wait.

[Jim DiGriz]

On 6/22/2015 at 3:35 PM, Whitecat106 said:

 

* A more realistic decay curve; this version uses a square function of decay mapping rather than an exponential differential function. The current model is equivalent to approximately 2x real life (~4km/month) but this is changeable in the UI.

I'm seeing 12.6Km/day decay around kerbin in a 150x150km orbit which seems a tad aggressive...  AFAIK, I've not twiddled with the stock settings...

I'm lucky I have the Trajectories mod installed.  I started out in a 80x80 orbit and was debugging some other module and distracted, but noticed the aerobraking predictions once I got down to nearly 60k in the atmosphere at which point I broke my fingers pressing the prograde and burnburnBURN! button...

EDIT: Yeah, my multipliers are all set to 1.0, and I'm not using RSS or other-sized kerbin or 24-hour days...

Edited May 6, 2016 by Jim DiGriz

[ColKlonk2]

I haven't read all the post but a side note or two:

In the formulae you've used I noticed a lack of Trig functions.

I'm sure when far enough away from any atmospheric effects, the orbital parameter effects will depend on the angle the craft is travelling wrt to the solar wind.

Within/out the atmospheric effects, we're also looking at craft orientation/ travel direction angles.

Just an idea for a future versions.

Edited December 31, 2016 by ColKlonk2