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

[Shadowmage]

5 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Have you guys never had the pleasure of a Moho capture burn so long you have to start it before hitting Moho's SOI? 

LoL, my most recent Moho capture was a 40 minute burn, on Ions.  Actually started the burn right when I entered the SOI, and was still burning past the original periapsis.  For a bit I was worried that I would over-shoot the SOI before I slowed down=\  Probably should have started outside the SOI a bit

Long burns are fine in stock, its only if you try and use one of the low-thrust engines as an upper stage / orbital insertion stage that things become problematic.  Edit:  Or try and use them for landing... yeah... don't try that either.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Shadowmage

[RedParadize]

40 minutes ago, blowfish said:

All I can say is physics warp is your friend

I do not use it much, it tend to induce inaccuracy.

[Shadowmage]

On 7/1/2017 at 2:29 PM, paladin17 said:

Sorry, if this has been answered earlier or is somewhere in the manuals (is there one?).
1) How do I use built-in RCS from upper stages? Should I add the fuel manually to the tank? There is some slider "support tank", or something. Is this responsible for RCS fuel? I've just launched one such upper stage (without explicitly filling it for RCS) and it had no RCS...
2) And other thing: what does "hollow colliders" option at some of the decouplers mean?
3) Oh, and here's even other one: how do I set the staging for those two-step interstage petal decouplers? As far as I can see, the default staging just decouples the top node (?), not the middle one. Should I use action groups for that?

Thanks for the great mod.

1.)  It should come with RCS ports + fuel built in (if the configs are setup properly).  Literally should be just select your main fuel type (for whatever engine you attached), and hit the launch button.

2.)  Hollow colliders -- you know how the decouplers look like they are hollow?  Well, they are not in reality.  Hollow colliders are extremely performance intensive to simulate, so they are only enabled when explicitly needed.  When would you need them?  Anytime you need something to go -through- the decoupler (be it an engine, an entire stage, whatever).

3.)  There is no staging setup -- use action groups or right-click menu to decouple the payload (the staging action only activates the opening of the petal panels).  This is a limitation of the stock systems, where parts can only have a single 'staging' action (once staged, you cannot stage a part a second time).

[blowfish]

28 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

I do not use it much, it tend to induce inaccuracy.

It hasn't been that bad in my experience.  Unless most of your maneuver burns are less than a minute long (which I would consider a colossal waste of rocket) chances are you're going to have to make small course corrections anyway.

[Shadowmage]

Oh hey... I actually got to do something modding related the past few days -- spent some time on finishing up the LMAE/LMDE engine unwraps and AO bakes:

At least now they can be moved onto the texturing stage.  Probably still going to take awhile as my time is still quite limited, but at least I'm getting some time to work on things (for now... likely going to be a couple more crazy weeks coming up towards the end of the month.. but then thing should start calming down in August and through the winter).

[_Augustus_]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Have you guys never had the pleasure of a Moho capture burn so long you have to start it before hitting Moho's SOI? 

With my rescale mod I literally have never gotten into Moho orbit due to the massive dv requirements.

[Jimbodiah]

My latest Mars mission in RSS. Using NF Propulsion for the orbital stages at this point (3rd manned trip to Mars now). Still mostly SSTU parts, even with NFT fuel in the MFT-A  

 

Edited July 3, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[DocRockwell]

@Jimbodiah looks good! What kind of landing legs are those?

[Bit Fiddler]

so it seems the Centrifuge parts were over looked in your CLS patch.   you have a CLS patch in the mod folders, and it has a bunch of parts in it, but not any of the inflatable centrifuge parts seem to be in that patch file.

[RedParadize]

9 hours ago, DocRockwell said:

@Jimbodiah looks good! What kind of landing legs are those?

That question sounds famillar!

[Jimbodiah]

Kerbodine Plus legs with a MM patch to reduce the size (the original is gjuuuge!).

[DocRockwell]

4 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Kerbodine Plus legs with a MM patch to reduce the size (the original is gjuuuge!).

Cheers! I've been looking for some additional landing legs, but I haven't found any mods that exclusively add them, and they're not prominently advertised in bigger part packs.

[GreatGreengGoo]

This is an amazing mod. Seriously amazing. Im still trying to figure out all the procedual stuff. The one thing I cant seem to figure out is the Hydrogen engines. Kerbal Engineer always gives me very....underwhelming results with them. Vague question I know but am I doing something wrong?

[tater]

33 minutes ago, TheKnave said:

This is an amazing mod. Seriously amazing. Im still trying to figure out all the procedual stuff. The one thing I cant seem to figure out is the Hydrogen engines. Kerbal Engineer always gives me very....underwhelming results with them. Vague question I know but am I doing something wrong?

So your tanks are filled with hydrolox?

Many of the hydrolox engines (RL-10s, for example) are pretty low thrust, but high I_sp. One thing to remember is that hydrogen is very low density, so you need much larger tanks. Up the thread a little I posted drawing of various lunar lander concepts from Boeing. Note that the propellants are marked, some are the same craft with different propellants. Note that the hydrolox version are much taller since they need larger tanks for the same dv.

[GreatGreengGoo]

4 hours ago, tater said:

So your tanks are filled with hydrolox?

Many of the hydrolox engines (RL-10s, for example) are pretty low thrust, but high I_sp. One thing to remember is that hydrogen is very low density, so you need much larger tanks. Up the thread a little I posted drawing of various lunar lander concepts from Boeing. Note that the propellants are marked, some are the same craft with different propellants. Note that the hydrolox version are much taller since they need larger tanks for the same dv.

Thank you for your reply. Funny thing. I actually just went in game to take a screen shot of my problem. I realized I didnt set up the tank properly. Before I was getting a Delta V of like 600. Now its a more appropriate 2500.



Edit: I am honestly considering what mods are now completely redundant with this mod now.

KW Rocketry?
Pretty much all stock tanks now
Cryo Engines. I like them but never found a real practical use for them.
SpacY Heavy Lifters?
Modular Rocket System? Na I think I will keep that. It has some really cool engines.

 

Edited July 5, 2017 by TheKnave
more info

[Shadowmage]

On 7/4/2017 at 3:46 AM, Bit Fiddler said:

so it seems the Centrifuge parts were over looked in your CLS patch.   you have a CLS patch in the mod folders, and it has a bunch of parts in it, but not any of the inflatable centrifuge parts seem to be in that patch file.

I don't maintain the CLS patch -- that was contributed by forum / community members.  As a general rule, if I don't use a mod, I don't create or maintain patches for it;  I don't use CLS, thus I don't do anything regarding CLS patches.

If you would like it 'fixed', your best bet would be to fix it yourself and send in the corrections/updates as a PR to the SSTULabs github repository.

11 hours ago, TheKnave said:

Edit: I am honestly considering what mods are now completely redundant with this mod now.

Indeed

Between SSTU and KerbalFoundries (for landing legs/wheels/etc), I have the basics pretty well covered for craft construction.  About the only thing I don't do (yet) is life support / logistics / manufacturing.

[RedParadize]

13 hours ago, TheKnave said:

Edit: I am honestly considering what mods are now completely redundant with this mod now.

Told you! I do not mess with other mod unless they offer unique content. Like all Nertea stuff exept the tank, plane stuff, specific command pod (the always awesome ASET Pod)... That kind of stuff.

Because of that, I spend very few times worrying about balance. And KSP run much more smoothly.

[Shinka]

I really, really want to use them sexy SSTU landers, but i'm running into a few problems...

 

1) My Game ( KSP 1.3 64bit / DirectX ) Hangs forever during startup mods loading process, and it does so while trying to load SC-GEN-PPC SSTU .

There is no full crash happening, and thus there's no crash report. All i can do is rightclick the game icon on the windows toolbar and "close window" to exit the program.

 

2) in the SSTU .zip downloaded from GitHub, Directories "CustomShaders" and "Plugin" are outside the GameData" directory. Does that mean i should just drop them into the KSP root Directory?

 

3) Is this the right place to report stuff like this and/or ask questions, or i should do it at GitHub?

 

Thanks!

Edited July 5, 2017 by Shinka

[tater]

I ended up using the TRAILS gemini stuff (just the capsule stuff) to fill a gap, and some of the Nert construction stuff. We need some legs, and a few other things, but now I am free to use more non-part mods (rescales, etc).

[Shadowmage]

1 hour ago, Shinka said:

I really, really want to use them sexy SSTU landers, but i'm running into a few problems...

 

1) My Game ( KSP 1.3 64bit / DirectX ) Hangs forever during startup mods loading process, and it does so while trying to load SC-GEN-PPC SSTU .

There is no full crash happening, and thus there's no crash report. All i can do is rightclick the game icon on the windows toolbar and "close window" to exit the program.

 

2) in the SSTU .zip downloaded from GitHub, Directories "CustomShaders" and "Plugin" are outside the GameData" directory. Does that mean i should just drop them into the KSP root Directory?

 

3) Is this the right place to report stuff like this and/or ask questions, or i should do it at GitHub?

 

Thanks!

 

Thanks for your interest, hopefully I can answer your questions for you.

1.)  That crash happens when you don't have Community Resource Pack installed properly.  If you  do have CRP installed, please post your KSP.log file so that I can see what is going on.

2.)  Those are merely the 'included source' to comply with KSP forum requirements -- you only want the stuff that is inside the GameData folder in the release zip (SSTU folder, CommunityResourcePack folder, ModuleManager.dll, KSPWheel folder).

3.)  Questions can go here (lots of forum members help with answering general questions), actual bug/issue/feedback reports should go to the GitHub issue tracker (so that they don't get lost/forgotten in the forum).

1 hour ago, tater said:

I ended up using the TRAILS gemini stuff (just the capsule stuff) to fill a gap, and some of the Nert construction stuff. We need some legs, and a few other things, but now I am free to use more non-part mods (rescales, etc).

Hehe, is this a hint that SSTU needs a 1.875m'ish command pod?

Hmm... perhaps it is about time that I get to work on the SC-D (VA/TKS) capsule?  Possibly I can swing it to have an alternate service module, and get it to work for both a Gemini and VA....possibly....

[tater]

It's not critical, and gemini would then need LR-87 (for a hypergolic LV). I'd put it lower on the list, honestly, there are plenty of alternatives. Cool lander things, or deep space stuff (that cool Boeing thing just above on the last page) would be more generally useful, honestly. In the stock game you blow past the need for 2-crew LKO pretty fast---and there is always Soyuz!

[Shadowmage]

New KSP-Weekly challenge has been posted; this time it is a 'low part count' exploration challenge.

Time to show the rest of the forums what SSTU is all about (and might as well show off some of the recoloring system while you are at it).  Free internet cookies for every SSTU submission! 

[Nertea]

On 7/3/2017 at 11:32 AM, Shadowmage said:

Oh hey... I actually got to do something modding related the past few days -- spent some time on finishing up the LMAE/LMDE engine unwraps and AO bakes:

I fairly frequently use your engines for simplified piping reference and was modeling a LMAE-derived engine on Sunday. If only I'd waited a bit, haha, I'd have had an easier time!

[Jimbodiah]

1 hour ago, Shadowmage said:

Hehe, is this a hint that SSTU needs a 1.875m'ish command pod?

Hmm... perhaps it is about time that I get to work on the SC-D (VA/TKS) capsule?  Possibly I can swing it to have an alternate service module, and get it to work for both a Gemini and VA....possibly....

@Shadowmage  A 1.25m one crew pod and a 1.5m or 1.875m two crew pod (non soyuz) to replace the stock gumby capsules would be most welcome     I am running a stripped BDB just for the Mercury/Gemini capsules as well as his aardvark ATV replica.

 

@TheKnave  Also check f the LC capsule is not holding the wrong fuel, ie extra weight, as the orange tanks always hold some kind of fuel. And yeah, a lot of other mods will no longer be needed or will offer redundant parts one way or the other.

@Shinka   All you need is the SSTU...zip file found on this page: https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/releases    No other files from the SSTU github needed besides an install of Community Resource Pack.

 

36 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

New KSP-Weekly challenge has been posted; this time it is a 'low part count' exploration challenge.

Dude.....  rush request. Can you make a single part tank with engine, solar panels, rcs, two drills, ISRU, landing legs, ladder for EVA, decoupler for command pod ???   Mwuhahahahahaaa, just kidding. This craft + pod and go the entire kerbin system with one stage and two parts.   [Installing stock version just for this]   I already have a SSTU based science container that has all the stock experiments in one part :))))

I think they mean stock ships though, else I could just slap on an engine and make a patch for near infinite ISP and thrust. And I can't find on the challenge if you have to land or not?

Edited July 5, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[Shadowmage]

40 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

I think they mean stock ships though, else I could just slap on an engine and make a patch for near infinite ISP and thrust. And I can't find on the challenge if you have to land or not?

Yeah, the challenge posting was exceptionally light on details/requitements.  I -think- it is just a challenge to visit the planets, I didn't see any requirements to land on them.  There also was nothing regarding mod use, so I interpreted that as 'use whatever you want'.

 

Dropped a bit of color on the LMAE, as well as testing out the texture detail for the 'wrapping' on the bell:

 

Only the first pass, so still some improvement to be made, but here is what I'm going for on the wrap details (more or less):