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[WIP][1.8.x] SSTULabs - Low Part Count Solutions (Orbiters, Landers, Lifters) - Dev Thread [11-18-18]


Shadowmage

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20 hours ago, Mike` said:

What's the story behind the F1 engine upgrades, btw? The ISP-Upgrades are commented out, and they're all in the same techtree node. Just a test?

Testing, yes, and apparently I was sloppy and left in in the part config.  It was testing if the upgrades would be compatible with the engine-clustering system (which it wasn't, but after some minor code-fixes, is now :) ).  Eventually I plan on adding ISP / thrust / mass-reduction upgrades for most of the engines, but had to make sure it would work at all first.

 

4 hours ago, Kerbal01 said:

I haven't used this mod since 1.1.3, whats's new?

The highlight reel would probably be something like:

  • Station Core parts - Salyut and ISS styled station parts following the SSTU theme -- integrated everything.
  • More station parts -- inflatable habs and ginormous torus (torii?).
  • Large selection of new solar panels, with custom colored-specular shader w/backlighting where applicable.
  • More engines
  • More fuel tank styles and variants.
  • Recoloring Support - new part shader and texture system used on most parts that allows for in-editor customization of the coloring (in addition to texture-set swapping for different details/material looks).
  • Probably a ton of stuff that I've already forgotten about :)

 

On 9/23/2017 at 5:43 AM, gmiddlemass said:

First of all, thank you for making such a fantastic mod. It has completely changed the way I play Kerbal and I now can't imagine playing without it. Very much looking forward to all future releases.

 

Now on to my problem...

Has anyone tried making a 1.5 stage rocket along the lines of the Mercury Atlas launcher using SSTU?

The closest I can get is in the (terrible) test vehicle shown below using the SSTU decoupler with hollow collider enabled mounted to the interstage node of the central engine. The remaining outer engines are attached to the decoupler and use the "pyrios" mount. If I use a fuel line I can get all three engines to fire and I can stage the outer two engines but I just can't get it to look nice no matter what I try. If I use the offset tool to line everything up then all of the engines are destroyed upon staging and if I try a different mount on the tank then there is still a large gap in the structure as seen below.

Have any of you managed to build a working (and good looking) layout such as this and if so could you please share how you did it? I know BDB has working (and beautiful) parts that I could use but I wanted to try and build it using SSTU.

If this is not possible then could I request that it may be considered as a future part option? Perhaps it could be achieved by adding a hollow collider and interstage node to the "pyrios" engine mount option? I don't know how to code at all though so obviously this is just a guess and I expect it's massively more complex than that.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

:D

Thanks for the support, is much appreciated :)


The problem with 1.5-stage setups, as you've likely found out, is due to colliders.  Basically for it to function properly, you need a hollow collider for the mount, with a big hole in it where the 'staying attached' engine slips through.

Hollow colliders are extremely bad for performance.  Not inherently so (as there is no built-in 'hollow' collider type), but simply due to the number of standard colliders needed to simulate a hollow shape.  While a standard 'solid' shape may only need one or two colliders, a hollow collision setup will require at least 4 (and probably 8, 12 or 24 if you want the object to seem even partially cylindrical/round).  This is why the decouplers use standard (non-hollow) colliders by default, and why the fairings by default have no colliders -- it would be detrimental to performance, and only benefit very specific craft setups.

Not really sure if there is a solution available that would both give the use that you are looking for while keeping the collider setup simple.  Open to suggestions though if anyone has ideas.

 

Edited by Shadowmage
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18 minutes ago, tater said:

What are the shapes for colliders in KSP?

Sphere, Capsule, Cube, and Mesh (convex only).  All of them are convex shapes, meaning no cutouts / hollow areas.  The only way to make a 'hollow' collider is to arrange multiple primitive / mesh colliders around the area that you want to be hollow, usually by using cubes (scaled to rectangles) or mesh colliders.

For example, the decoupler looks like this with hollow collider setup (24 mesh colliders):

I0IT8LJ.png

(those are procedurally generated mesh colliders, but you would do pretty much the same manually using cube/mesh colliders for other parts)

 

Also, initial testing of the parachutes w/new models, textures, and recoloring support.  Normal maps need to perhaps be toned down a very slight bit... but looking much more detailed than the previous versions (which apparently I don't have any images of for comparison....)

2ZfGyQE.png

avI5frt.png

Edited by Shadowmage
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Hmmm. Do the engines already have colliders? I could see, using the S-1D pictured above, just cubes (arbitrary rectangular boxes, or a real cube?) for the area the engines actually attach, and perhaps a cube on each side of the hole where there is not an engine on the mount.

Of course, this whole thing only really exists for a minute to 90 seconds before it is staged away, I bet.

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46 minutes ago, tater said:

 

Of course, this whole thing only really exists for a minute to 90 seconds before it is staged away, I bet.

Depending on the rocket and flight profile as much as 2 minutes... but yeah... Not much more than that.   Except the landers (Apollo LEM etc...)

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Updated release is available:

https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/releases/tag/0.6.37.140

Many changes / additions / fixes -- see the link for full change-log and downloads.

 

Highlights of new parts/features include:

VA parts (ShipCore: Series-V)

30786655-938c0178-a136-11e7-84ec-c2de048

Recolorable parachutes (new models/textures/masks).  Includes multiple patterns, though you cant exactly see them in the editor (stripes, checks, rings):

30786615-f18b97a8-a135-11e7-8054-3d8b0c9

Upper-stage SRB nozzles (textures/masks WIP still) -- nozzle models by @blowfish:

68747470733a2f2f692e696d6775722e636f6d2f

 

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2 hours ago, tater said:

Hmmm. Do the engines already have colliders? I could see, using the S-1D pictured above, just cubes (arbitrary rectangular boxes, or a real cube?) for the area the engines actually attach, and perhaps a cube on each side of the hole where there is not an engine on the mount.

Of course, this whole thing only really exists for a minute to 90 seconds before it is staged away, I bet.

Yes, engines have colliders; either cubes or cylinders/cones (lots just use cubes), 1-3 per engine.  As the engines were intended to be clustered I tried to keep the colliders as simple and few as possible.

Edit: The 'cubes' can be any arbitrary 6-sided cuboid (all corners are 90').

 

1 hour ago, Pappystein said:

Depending on the rocket and flight profile as much as 2 minutes... but yeah... Not much more than that.   Except the landers (Apollo LEM etc...)

With the lander tanks I was able to get away with 'only' 8 colliders while still maintaining accuracy to the mesh.  Still more than I would like, but an acceptable trade-off considering the added utility.

 

Re: the pyrios mount, here is the current mesh(wireframe) and colliders (white)

GYUygwb.png

 

Options for a hollow setup might include something like:

7urvxoq.png

Which only adds three additional colliders, but as can be seen, the hole is quite square; some engines might not fit even though it looks like they should.  Cutout could be rotated, but any attempts to make it more 'round' would only increase the collider count (1 collider per 'side' of the center cutout; square = 4 colliders, octagon = 8, 12-sided cylinder = 12, etc).  In this case as the outside is a 12-sided cylinder, the inside side-count needs to be a factor of that; only options are 3,4,6,12.

Thoughts?

 

 

Edited by Shadowmage
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14 minutes ago, tater said:

The square hole is FINE. The only reason colliders need a real shape is for outside attachments, right? Like adding fins?

Saturn-V mount would also be awesome :wink: 

Yeah, pretty much; need some place for fins or extras to be attached (rcs, antenna, etc).

I'll give it some thought; wouldn't take too much to do a each mount (20-30 mins), but I'll have to consider which mounts, and any potential side effects (like not being able to surface attach stuff in the center of the mount).  Perhaps create a new mount definition for the hollow-collider model (e.g. Pyrios-Hollow, Saturn-V-Hollow)?

 

2 minutes ago, tater said:

BTW, did I miss the PC-HECS2 in the last release, or is it new? OMG, so cool!

Set tank to xenon, slap ion engine on it, 26k dv, lol (less with a huge dish on it).

 

Semi new; I've had it for quite some time (since my last career game), but I cleaned it up and added it to public releases only 2-3 versions ago.

Its mostly just for concept testing of a 'probe-core' series of parts.  I also felt that stock probe-core was extremely huge for its functions, so added an internal fuel tank :) (might be a bit op?).  Solar panels were pretty much a given, though I suppose some probe designs might use RTG (or nuclear?).  Future revisions of the testing model might include RCS ports (rcs main thrusters?) and some additional models for the top/bottom adapter slots (service bays?).  Would love to include a swap-able antenna model selection, but unsure how well the stock antenna code would cooperate with it.  Certainly open to suggestions and discussion on it (post it up in a github issue ticket), still in the early development phase so plenty of time to work things out.

 

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14 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Thoughts?

I'm not sure how many conflicts the square hole might have with engines, but if there are some: i guess the hexagon is a nice  compromise between round shape and number of colliders.

On the other hand, since the hole corners are almost all the way to the side of the mount, a square might be fine already, hard to judge though without being able to see the engine colliders with engine attached to the mount.

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9 hours ago, Mike` said:

I'm not sure how many conflicts the square hole might have with engines, but if there are some: i guess the hexagon is a nice  compromise between round shape and number of colliders.

On the other hand, since the hole corners are almost all the way to the side of the mount, a square might be fine already, hard to judge though without being able to see the engine colliders with engine attached to the mount.

Personally I use Neartea's Near Future technologies which has long spindly nukes that I could see using stage and a half for....   I know I am going to suffer performance issues... but I vote for 6 in a Hexagon arrangement

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Looking at the link above, it reminds me that a COS hab adapter with a window on it (looking "forward" towards where the docking ports are) would be a cool thing for using them on spacecraft (the mission support modules in Eyes Turned Skyward seem to have this).

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On 24/09/2017 at 11:00 PM, Shadowmage said:

Thoughts?

Honestly a square hole would be fine with me as I didn't realise that the hollow colliders would add so much of an overhead and I really don't want to put you to too much trouble. I really appreciate your consideration of the suggestion though. 

The new parachutes look awesome, can't wait to try them.

On another note I like the look of that S-1D at the top of the page too... might have to try building something like that next.

Once again, fantastic work on this mod, can't wait to see what comes next.

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1 minute ago, Nightside said:

Thanks for the new RCS @Shadowmage!

I don't have KSP available right now, but does the RCS on MUS parts scale with the tank? If so, would RCS model rescaling be a thing? No values need scale, just the model. It would make it easier to make craft with the right look, certainly.

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2 minutes ago, tater said:

I don't have KSP available right now, but does the RCS on MUS parts scale with the tank? If so, would RCS model rescaling be a thing? No values need scale, just the model. It would make it easier to make craft with the right look, certainly.

Yes, and already planned:  https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/issues/562

Will include at least scaling of the model (and thrust), as well as an optional structural attachment arm / stand-off.

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I'm trying to build a manned lander right now, roughly based on the apollo lander. Now my problem is, when i put the LMAE on the LC2 lander can, the whole thing gets too tall, as the engine is quite tall and was recessed in the original apollo ascent module. Well, i can use negative adjustment/move the engine partly into the LC2, right?

Well, only a small part of the engine. After that, the game thinks the engine is totally within the LC2 and instead of generating thrust, it just heats and explodes the LC2. :/ Any ideas?

Edit: On another note, the SuperDraco weight seems way too high, being almost the weight of a LMDE while being a fraction of its size. Considering its tiny nozzle and therefore bad ISP, and that low mass was its design goal, it probably should have the highest TWR of all fuel engines, while currently its TWR is just mediocre at 107N/kg.

Edited by Mike`
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