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

[tater]

Couldn't someone use the community resource pack to make a new fuel/oxidizer type that is the appropriate density? Is it also possible to make one engine, use different fuels? (a suggestion for the end user, not shadowmage)

[Shadowmage]

No texture sets yet (will be re-using MFT-A/B tank and adapter textures), but most of the functionality is in place and several core models have been created.  Only basic solar panel layouts have been done so far... more complex setups can certainly be added in the future (4-panel + and x... others?)

ATV-esque

Orion-ish

 

Random 'short' Apollo SM (note it still has tons of dV...more than the full SC-B-SM)

 

Only a single 'set' of RCS thrusters is supported as integrated per-part; if a second (or more) set is needed (for balanced translation), they will have to be added as stand-alone parts (probably even should add them on the payload itself).  Perhaps an option for the future would be to include a second set of RCS; but for now, as I'm not even sure it is viable to swap multiple sets of RCS around, the initial implementation will only have one set.

(BTW, for people who know what they are doing... all that stuff is available in the dev branch on Github...  if you have to ask what that means... don't bother...)

Edited November 30, 2017 by Shadowmage

[Jimbodiah]

@Cheesecake 

Just make the tank bigger    Changing to 1.5 is basically cheating and you will have to patch that yourself.You can change the resource volume to add more units per weight:

Spoiler

 

SSTU_RESOURCEVOLUME:NEEDS[NearFuturePropulsion]
{
    name = ArgonGas
    volume = 0.003049
}

This way you can fine-tune units per volume. But again, 1.5x is just cheaty, might as well just patch the ISP of all the engines to be 50% more efficient, that's less work than changing the ratios of all the fuel types individually.

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleEngines*]]:FINAL
{
    @MODULE[ModuleEngines*]
    {
        @maxThrust *= 1.8   // engine thrust

        @atmosphereCurve     // engine ISP
        {
            @key[1, ] *= 1.7
	        @key,1[1, ] *= 1.7
	        @key,2[1, ] *= 1.7
        }
    }
}

 

 

 

 

 

@Shadowmage Sattelite dishes brainfart:  Would it be possible to have a dish as nose-cone model like we have different nose options with the MFT right now? This would allow switching between nothing (just top attach node) and a few different top models ?    **

Those legs look ready to package. Mjum!!!!   I'd love to see what you come up with if this is 5 miutes during work

 

@tater   I'd want to use 3rd party engine like NFPropulsion, so would favor no engines like on the planned SM. If you included an engine, you could patch it to behave like a 3rd party engine, but the effects and model would look weird if it is based off of conventional engines. Think monoprop vs plasma.

 

**:  I reserve the right to make weird suggestions without expecting or requiring these to actually be implemented in-game. I am not hindered by any knowledge and will just blab out whatever my little mind thinks of out of excitement for possible future parts.

 should add that last bit as part of my signature to avoid needing to repeat...

 

Edited November 30, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[vossiewulf]

26 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

 should add that last bit as part of my signature to avoid needing to repeat...

Make sure you include the resevere part

 

[tater]

13 parts. These craft using the stock paradigm would be 27 parts (assuming the hollow LC tank is still just one part, otherwise it'd be 34 parts  ).

Edited November 30, 2017 by tater

[RedParadize]

@tater I would not agree with densified resourse, or tank. Technically, its the same substance, just cooler. As for the and tanks... they are the same. Unless someone come up with a density to temp plugin I don't see how it could be implemented. (no! I am not asking for that Mage!) But again, sometimes it fun to cheat reality a bit. Like you said, that should be done on player side. Which is why I explained how to adjust SSTU tank.

@Shadowmage That look awesome! So, in that part we will have a optional cargo bay or is it gonna be separated? 

 

48 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

**:  I resevere the right to make weird suggestions without expecting or requiring these to actually be implemented in-game. I am not hindered by any knowledge and will just blab out whatever my little mind thinks of out of excitement for possible future parts.

 should add that last bit as part of my signature to avoid needing to repeat...

Exactly! (even if I do hope they will implemented, but its kind of cheap to ask and not do any of the hard work)

15 minutes ago, tater said:

Wonderful image sniped

Now I am jealous! 

Edit Never mind... I found it!

Edited November 30, 2017 by RedParadize

[Jimbodiah]

43 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Exactly! (even if I do hope they will implemented, but its kind of cheap to ask and not do any of the hard work)

The up-side is that Mage is too far away to do me any physical harm   

[Shadowmage]

48 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

That look awesome! So, in that part we will have a optional cargo bay or is it gonna be separated?

If/when I actually make some animated cargo bay models - yes.  The support already exists at the plugin level (or will/untested so far).  Could easily make a body variant that included the stock service bay model for example.

50 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Like you said, that should be done on player side. Which is why I explained how to adjust SSTU tank.

Indeed; which is why I was asking 'why?' -- depending on the goal, there could be very different and easier/simpler methods to do it.  I don't personally care if someone adjusts fuel densities/part mass/isp/etc; but knowing the 'why' helps me answer the 'how' with more precision.

[Shadowmage]

1 hour ago, Jimbodiah said:

Sattelite dishes brainfart:  Would it be possible to have a dish as nose-cone model like we have different nose options with the MFT right now? This would allow switching between nothing (just top attach node) and a few different top models ?

Animated or static?

Animated -- not really. (the long answer is, its possible in theory, but not in the current code)

Static - sure.  Find a giant dish model... add it as a top adapter.  Profit   (could even patch one of the stock non-animated relay antennas for the purpose)  The plugin already supports enabling/disabling of the top attach node depending on the currently selected adapter (or should... and if not... extra nodes rarely hurt).

Functional - nope.  I don't currently have plans to integrate any antenna-stat-manipulation stuff into plugin, and the fact that it supports diameter scaling (and thus adapter/dish scaling...) complicates things a bit.  I'm not even sure if the stock module supports runtime manipulation of antenna stats.

[Jimbodiah]

Static, I doubt you can switch out nosecones that have animations. And what's to animate on a dish? If you want something fancy you could use a 3rd party dish and select the mount-flat option to attach it to the top node. I mean just a static model to switch out, "for show".   

Re antenna Module manipulation... is it possible to enable/disable anything, either through plugin or manual via the gui?

1 hour ago, vossiewulf said:

Make sure you include the resevere part

 

I type too fast

[vossiewulf]

Mage, would it be possible to allow modification of say a fuel tank outside the editor if you have N rocketparts on hand? Right now just thinking of being able to change what it contains, I have a giant booster tank on my space station that brought up rocketparts and it would be more useful to me if I could switch it over to LH2. Pathfinder allows freely changing containers and although that certainly makes things easier, I never much liked it from a design standpoint. On the other hand, requiring a reasonable number of rocketparts to perform a conversion like that makes sense to me.

[Jimbodiah]

I think that is on the list of to-do somewhere but with low priority?


BTW: We can already make a basic satellite with the LV tank like @Nightside showed us. I just added the ProbesPlus dish to it.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[tater]

Stick chutes (or engines) on the fitting out container, and land the thing.

Alternately, since the tonnage is never going to be spot-on, keep some around as rocket part "tankers." Inflate (fit out) expandables, then pile the excess in a tank to take to another station.

[vossiewulf]

18 minutes ago, tater said:

Stick chutes (or engines) on the fitting out container, and land the thing.

Alternately, since the tonnage is never going to be spot-on, keep some around as rocket part "tankers." Inflate (fit out) expandables, then pile the excess in a tank to take to another station.

Oh yeah, I've recovered every single stage required to launch all these modules up, even the ones that ended up in orbit. And it won't hurt to have room for more rocketparts, if it stays as is I'll fill it up and have over 50k on hand ready to build the Space Battleship Yamato or send it off someplace else. But I'd still prefer to keep it there as an LH2 tank

 

[Mike`]

Talking about satellites and probes, what do you usually use for attitude control of those? RCS seems to be useless with stock SAS, unless you have a gimbal engine aswell and only need RCS to point the probe roughly in the correct direction. I tried flying a probe consisting only of the MUS, a non gimballed engine and science experiments to the moon, but gave up when i realised it had a very slight torque caused by the different radially attached experiments and thus couldn't fly in a straight line... I guess my next try will either have gimbal or reaction wheels again...

Edited November 30, 2017 by Mike`

[Jimbodiah]

Probe core; it has reaction wheels on board. I never have RCS on board unless I need to dock to something.

[tater]

5 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

Oh yeah, I've recovered every single stage required to launch all these modules up, even the ones that ended up in orbit. And it won't hurt to have room for more rocketparts, if it stays as is I'll fill it up and have over 50k on hand ready to build the Space Battleship Yamato or send it off someplace else. But I'd still prefer to keep it there as an LH2 tank

 

I visualize my "fitting out" containers as basically empty COS modules. They are habitable space---since the crew must go in, and get the construction materials contained within. They are filled with collapsed room partitions, beds, furniture, computer equipment, etc. All the stuff that turns the inflated hab into someplace useful.

Really thinking it through, to physically inflate, it also needs some volume of air as well.

[Shadowmage]

9 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Static, I doubt you can switch out nosecones that have animations. And what's to animate on a dish? If you want something fancy you could use a 3rd party dish and select the mount-flat option to attach it to the top node. I mean just a static model to switch out, "for show".  

Animation-support on nose/mount modules is already present in the plugin code.  Need to add an ANIMATION setup block to the MODEL_DATA definition for the model, and add the SSTUAnimateControlled+SSTUAnimateUsable MODULEs to the part-config.  This feature was developed a long time ago, in anticipation of the need for it with the cargo-bay parts.

(lots of 'dishes' in KSP have deploy animations.... still doesn't address the problems that scaling of an antenna would present (what power does antenna range use for scaling?  square, cubic, other?))

 

9 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Re antenna Module manipulation... is it possible to enable/disable anything, either through plugin or manual via the gui?

I'm really not sure.  Stock module, stock code... so chances are low, and even if possible, its likely going to be more of a hack than anything else.  Well, I suppose not any more of a hack than what I do with the engine/rcs/other stock modules that I interact with from plugin code (none of it is what I would consider robust code; it all relies on quirks of KSPs loading timing... .and I'm very surprised it hasn't all broken down more often than it has).

It -might- work, depending on exactly -when- Comnet stuff is setup for the vessel.  If it happens during the ModuleDataTransmitters' OnLoad() method.... then not likely.  If it happens later (during the OnStart() or Start()) lifetime methods... then maybe.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Shadowmage

[RedParadize]

12 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

(what power does antenna range use for scaling?  square, cubic, other?))

If the power remain constant, it should be square. Almost certain of that.

Looks like not! Pretty sure no ingame dish is conform to these formula.

Edited November 30, 2017 by RedParadize

[RaiderMan]

for some odd reason, the soyuz included in the pack doesnt scale to the russian station parts properly and doesnt appear to have the option to rescale available..

[Shadowmage]

22 minutes ago, RaiderMan said:

for some odd reason, the soyuz included in the pack doesnt scale to the russian station parts properly and doesnt appear to have the option to rescale available..

It works just fine with the station parts.  Unless you have some pictures to document what you are talking about?

Edit:  Wait... are you using RO / etc?  (if so... please go bug them for support...)

(If you are looking for 100% authentic replicas... you are in the wrong place... that is not what SSTU is about)

Edited November 30, 2017 by Shadowmage

[Cheesecake]

@Shadowmage

The Why: It was an issue of me. I build a launcher with too little fuel for this size. Later i noticed that I used an cryo-tank (rightclick-menu) for LFO. But the cryo-tank has a lower volume (approx 2000 Units) for LFO as the Standard-Tank (approx 3000 Units).

So, the problem is solved by using the standard-tank of SSTU.
Thanks for your fast help.

[RaiderMan]

not looking for authentic..looking for the sizing to match up, far as pics go..standby.

[RaiderMan]

docking port issues by XRaiderV1.7, on Flickr

I've prodded at the available matching set of docking ports and the rescale sliders appear to do precisely bubkiss

[Nightside]

8 hours ago, Mike` said:

Talking about satellites and probes, what do you usually use for attitude control of those?

I sometimes run a mod to nerf the rxn wheels and require me to include RCS. For a non gimbaled engine you might need to run at reduced thrust to let your rcs keep up.

@RaiderManWhat do you mean by match up?

like relative length of Soyuz compared to Russian module?

Or docking port sizes?

I believe all SSTU-DP-ports can dock with each other regardless of size.