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

[goldenpsp]

3 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

@The-Doctor You didn't ask a question, it was a statement. And it was not the "question", its the way you formulated it. Shadowmage always have been more than reasonable when it come to support. 

 

Well I would generally say it is a combination of things.  Including.

1.  A poorly worded post.  Not only was it more of a statement it was not easy to understand.  Deleting folders can mean something very different from hiding parts in game.  It was unclear.

2. Skipping over the very next post that actually had the answer, and instead responding to replies, especially being somewhat defensive or dismissive.  This is especially bad when those replies weren't even necessary had you actually read the thread before replying.

[RedParadize]

@goldenpsp Oh, I am often guilty of that. Just look just on last page alone, I asked something that I could reasonably have found myself if I had went back in the tread far enough. Tater linked me the post, but Shadowmage still went out of his way to explain the reason regardless. That's why I am saying Shadowmage is more than reasonable.

Edit: This is nothing... lets not derail the thread.

Edited October 27, 2017 by RedParadize

[goldenpsp]

1 minute ago, RedParadize said:

@goldenpsp Oh, I am often guilty of that. Just look just on last page alone, I asked something that I could reasonably have found myself if I had went back in the tread far enough. Tater linked me the post, but Shadowmage still went out of his way to explain the reason regardless. That's why I am saying Shadowmage is more than reasonable.

well yes very true.  Most thread could probably be half as large if people read back a page first.

[The-Doctor]

I didn't see the post cause I just click the notifications and I only get them if quoted. Sorry to all, hope I'm not on an ignore list

[RoverDude]

Wandering over here because of topic splatter...  

So I am confused.  I just installed this mod and did not see any MKS stuff vanish...  that being said, was there some legacy item/etc. that may have caused this?  Only asking so that not only can I squish this if someone else brings it up, but (more importantly), point them in the right direction without having to have them do extra mod archaeology

[The-Doctor]

@Shadowmage I am sorry

[Shadowmage]

15 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Wandering over here because of topic splatter...  

So I am confused.  I just installed this mod and did not see any MKS stuff vanish...  that being said, was there some legacy item/etc. that may have caused this?  Only asking so that not only can I squish this if someone else brings it up, but (more importantly), point them in the right direction without having to have them do extra mod archaeology

Apologies if any of this spilled over to the MKS thread, was absolutely not the intention.

Yes, several months ago (6-12?) I included an optional set of patches with SSTU that would convert some of the MKS Kontainer parts to use the SSTU modules for fuel/texture switching and model scaling.  It has not been included in the distributions (or even available for download) in quite some time due to exactly this problem.  It never was part of the regular installation, and always required the user to manually and intentionally install it.  Sadly there were still a few surprised users who installed it without looking at the contents.  Which brings us to where we are at today.

If you ever happen to see complaints of missing MKS parts and the user has an 'SSTU-OptionalPatches' folder in their GameData folder, that would likely be the culprit.  Feel free to tell them to delete it, as they probably shouldn't be using it anyway

 

 

[Jimbodiah]

Re the foundries landing legs, will they stay in foundries or be moved to SSTU? In that regard, do you want to keep them all in advancedMotors or do you want them spread out in the tree (rover and leg nodes)? Or better yet, want me to PR them into the tree?

 

OMG, it's @RoverDude   

Edited October 27, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[RedParadize]

Damn, for once I pointed in the right direction!

[RoverDude]

@Shadowmage - thanks for the clarification!  btw - this is the first (and only) complaint I have heard, so that's good news

[Shadowmage]

2 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

@Shadowmage I am sorry

Apology accepted, and appreciated; and I would like to extend my apology for overreacting.  I very much dislike having to ignore people and am happy we could resolve this so that it was not necessary.  I place a ton of value on the feedback that I receive in this thread, including yours, and would hate to see that diminished.

 

3 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

Deleting folders can mean something very different from hiding parts in game.

  Yep, that is what was getting to me.  Entirely different meanings and intent behind the two statements.  One implies specific malicious intent and permanency (and is prohibited by the KSP add-on rules), the other is a technical hiccup that is easily rectified.

I appreciate the clarifications that were posted, pretty much spot-on.  I often take for granted that not everyone has a technical background and thus I fail to properly interpret the intent of the message separately from the specificity of the wording.

 

2 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Re the foundries landing legs, will they stay in foundries or be moved to SSTU? In that regard, do you want to keep them all in advancedMotors or do you want them spread out in the tree (rover and leg nodes)? Or better yet, want me to PR them into the tree?

As I am not the original author of KerbalFoundries I would like to keep it separate from SSTU.  The two mods also appeal to potentially different audiences, have different artistic styles that don't exactly match up, and even go about things in a bit of a different manner.  KF is not really concerned with 'low-part-count' at all, instead being focused on a specific feature set and purpose -- making things move (or not move in the case of landing legs... or at least not crash-land as it were).

As for the tech-tree arrangement -- the parts could certainly be spread around the tree a bit more.  They are no longer as over powered compared to the stock parts as they once were, and so I think the main reason for them being so far down the tree has lost much of its purpose.  Certainly a few of them should still be in the more advanced node -- the largest tracks and wheels -- but the rest could be bumped down a tier or 2 to slot in next to the stock legs and wheels.  A PR would be much appreciated if you wanted to put one together, just base it off of the KF2 repository ( https://github.com/shadowmage45/KerbalFoundries2 ).

 

SSTU will at some point in the future have its own sets of landing legs (at the very least) that are purpose built to be used with the LC pods and tanks and also include some form of part-count reduction (pre-built / scale-able sets of 2/4 legs?).  Wanted to get the LC fuel tanks redone and touch up the LC-PODs a bit first, but I did not intend to leave the LC parts with nothing to support them permanently (pun intended).

[T-10a]

I use the optional patches, but I've looked through them and deleted the obviously WIP patches (namely the deFirespitterisation patch and other similar module removing patches) as those broke other mods and were obviously in need of work.

[The-Doctor]

I've gotten it to work but I think I found the cause of the problem, it was a mod that added patches to sstu, I think its name was j patch laboratories? I'm uncertain but I think it's the cause, cause I installed the latest sstu without it and everything is fine

[Jimbodiah]

My JPL patches?  That's weird because I run that, along with a bunch of personal patches added alongside MKS + USL-LS with no issues. My patches don't remove any parts, at worst they can bork SSTU parts as I change a few things there, but nothing on MKS or USI-LS parts. If you have specifics, post them on my JPL topic.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[phoneix_007]

Hi, 

I have RO/RP-0 install and I've got a problem. Even if I research nodes needed for larger tank diameter, it's still stick in 2m config. I have the last 1.2.2 release. I've also tried new versions, but it resulted im game crash. How can i fix it?

 

[Temeter]

35 minutes ago, phoneix_007 said:

Hi, 

I have RO/RP-0 install and I've got a problem. Even if I research nodes needed for larger tank diameter, it's still stick in 2m config. I have the last 1.2.2 release. I've also tried new versions, but it resulted im game crash. How can i fix it?

 

You have to go to the RO/RP-0 threads for that. RO's configs completely repurpose SSTU's parts, so this really is nothing Shadowmage can help with.

Also don't try newer versions. RO's patches are made for a specific version of SSTU, so if you use a newer version there are going to be incompatabilities. Not to mention you shouldn't use a 1.3 mod on a 1.2.2 save.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Temeter

[Mike`]

As was found out some time ago, low/zero boiloff tanks are really efficient when only used for hydrogen, while another tank is used for oxygen. Now, this is rather inconvenient to do in practice, and you always have to scale the tanks equally if you need a different amount of fuel.

So i wonder, would it be possible without too much hacking to have the low/zero boiloff modifiers only affect the hydrogen part of an mft tank, while the oxygen part remains a standard tank?

Alternatively, what about the possibility to configure it per resource in the "configure containers" dialog (maybe via a dropdown per line or something)? That way, one could make the hydrogen-part low/zero bo, while one could also choose whether the oxygen part should be a standard or lightweight variant. In that case the durability of the tank would need to be determined by the weakest part. It would eliminate the need for an additional tank and would make scaling such a rocket much more convenient.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Mike`

[tater]

The zbf issue with using separate tanks is known, and there is not really much to do about it because of the way things work. 

[Nightside]

2 hours ago, Mike` said:

As was found out some time ago, low/zero boiloff tanks are really efficient when only used for hydrogen, while another tank is used for oxygen. Now, this is rather inconvenient to do in practice, and you always have to scale the tanks equally if you need a different amount of fuel.

So i wonder, would it be possible without too much hacking to have the low/zero boiloff modifiers only affect the hydrogen part of an mft tank, while the oxygen part remains a standard tank?

Alternatively, what about the possibility to configure it per resource in the "configure containers" dialog (maybe via a dropdown per line or something)? That way, one could make the hydrogen-part low/zero bo, while one could also choose whether the oxygen part should be a standard or lightweight variant. In that case the durability of the tank would need to be determined by the weakest part. It would eliminate the need for an additional tank and would make scaling such a rocket much more convenient.

Alternatively you could change it so oxidizer suffers boiloff too, as does liquid oxygen in real life.

Quote

Some propellant tank designs have achieved a liquid hydrogen boil off rate as low as approximately 0.13% per day (3.8% per month) while the much higher temperature cryogenic fluid of liquid oxygen would boil off much less, about 0.016% per day (0.49% per month).

Propellant depot - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propellant_depot

I think there was a patch floating around somewhere...

...Oh yeah, it was SRP-0

+SSTU_RESOURCEBOILOFF[LqdHydrogen]:AFTER[SSTU]
{
	@name = Oxidizer
	@value *= 0.0216189// LOX hsp/LH2 hsp * LOX density/Oxidizer density, probably not right but should do it.
	@cost *= 0.1650114 // Oxygen boiling point/Hydrogen boiling point * LOX density/Oxidizer density, probably not right too but gameplay-wise its serviceable.
}

 

[Jimbodiah]

Does boil-off work at high-warps at all; i.e. empty tanks for no reason on zbo tanks?

[Temeter]

41 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Does boil-off work at high-warps at all; i.e. empty tanks for no reason on zbo tanks?

Should be. That said, analytic mode in KSP is ofc a bit unrealiable, so there might be edge cases where it doesn't work (read about that with Nerteas cryotanks).

Most of them are solved by having a solid electricity reserve.

(just asking to be sure, you got the necessary electricity production to keep the tanks cold?)

Edited October 29, 2017 by Temeter

[Jimbodiah]

Ha, yeah, enough Ec, that should not be a problem (1000+ Ec storage and solar panels). I;ve never had any luck with boiloffs so have then disabled since forever. Same reason I hate LS mods as they tend to have the same issues. Especially in RSS with very long time warps, the game likes you to have enough storage for the whole trip instead of actually working any recyclers etc along the way. When I do LS plays I tend to send any station crews back to Earth and only have the current ship crew active, or preferably frozen with DeepFreeze to avoid them being gone/useless when the ship comes out of warp.

Edited October 29, 2017 by Jimbodiah

[NotTheRealRMS]

ZBO works perfectly in my experiences. I'd like to showcase a mission which craft designs are almost entirely made of SSTU components as an example of ZBO in action here, nothing original, using an old SSTU version because RSS isn't officially out for 1.3.1 yet(once it is it will have Ceres so for me it's worth waiting longer before updating KSP). It is not as hardcore as doing it like in Stephen Baxter's Voyage either, because instead of doing over 20 launches to send then refuel a propulsion stack in parking orbit plus the crew, lander and habitation module and a flyby to Venus for gravity assist to Mars, I prefer to follow the much more straightforward KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Two small nuclear reactors(from Near Future Electrical) per ZBO tank. Could just add lots of solar panels instead, but a power demand around 60 ec/s isn't simple to keep supplied and going all nuclear gives it a smaller part count, plus not using solar panels proved to be a very convenient choice for another reason.

Maneuvers around Earth's Orbit:

Spoiler

Once orbit is achieved, the interstage petal adapter opens, temporarily dividing the spacecraft, but through a 5m docking adapter, the MEM docks directly with the Skylab. The last stage of such modernized Saturn V remains attached, for it will be ignited twice further to help with rendezvous with the STS like propulsion stack launched and assembled previously. With some difficulty due to insufficient RCS thrust for its mass at such moment, the rendezvous burn is done. Upon reaching parking orbit with the propulsion stack, the last stage is finally jettisoned, the fairing of the Skylab Habitation module is jettisoned as well, and finally the Apollo CSM is transposed and docked with an adapter module previously stored in a smaller interstage petal adapter, then with the Skylab, giving to the astronauts immediate access to the MEM.

While the Propulsion Stack has a pretty good thrust, it still needs two separate burns to send the Ares towards Mars. Once the injection burn is complete, the reusable NTR boosters undock and burn retrograde with their remaining fuel to elliptical orbits around Earth, and their nuclear reactors are set to minimum power, for with their fuel almost empty, preventing boil-off is easier. In the future they may be refueled to circularize their orbits then be used again for interplanetary missions, because even a single NERVA II is too expensive to be merely discarded after a single mission.

Interstage Petal Adapters are useful for more than merely storing landers or other modules inside them

Spoiler

There were two choices to save delta-V: a complicated Venus gravity assist or an aerobraking-assisted orbital insertion. The engines are ignited near periapsis even with the aerobraking because Mars atmosphere is so thin relying on it and nothing more for circularizing an orbit is almost impractical, specially in such an impromptu and risky way.

A nice view of Olympus Mons, after a burn + aerobraking and a second aerobraking, a circularized low orbit around Mars is finally achieved and the petal adapter served its purpose. The pilot moves in to the MEM because they don't trust kOS automated scripts done by a lousy coder and would also have to deal with the light speed lag of downloading such scripts from Earth to the MEM computer core. The Skylab is docked directly to the NTR propulsion system. After that, the pilot jettisons the no longer useful docking adapter connected to the MEM and docks it to the Skylab, so the rest of the crew can move in to the MEM for the Mars landing.

Because the MEM has more than enough room for the entire crew of this mission, nobody will stay behind. All crew goes to the MEM, which undocks and uses its Beryllium solid rocket motor to deorbit for landing. Unfortunately mission planning didn't think about attaching a small nuclear reactor to the MEM, which will limit their time spent on surface.

A ballute and a drogue are used to assist with descent, everything goes well. If it didn't, they would square their shoulders to the task ahead and persevere.

For when they raise a flag almost as cool as the flag of a certain brotherhood made of steel and isolationism that survived in a post-apocalyptic Earth, they must be expected to always succeed, even if they don't have power armor. Research is done for as long as possible.

What aerobraking with petal adapters saved fuel for and the return:

Spoiler

 

The ascent stage is about as easy to maneuver as a truck skidding on ice due to its uneven center of mass(adjusting gimbal limits helped a bit), but rendezvous with the Ares goes well, the crew is transferred back and the MEM jettisoned, but there will be a long time yet before a transfer window to Earth happens, so the engines burn towards another destination instead.

And a very noteworthy landing happens, noteworthy because it was done using only RCS thrusters, possible thanks to the puny gravity of Phobos, and the entire Ares landed on it, where the entire crew made their first "steps", barely noticeable. The science officer traveled far with EVA thrusters to collect soil samples from several different biomes, and after some days, the Ares ascended from Phobos using at first only RCS and burned towards Deimos as well, where the same happened.

14 days on the surface of Mars, a few more on Phobos and Deimos and almost 3 years of space travel. Was it worth it? The fact the lab facilities of the Skylab module were forgotten about in another mistake of mission planning made such question even stronger, but where some things could have been done better, in the end, it was their first interplanetary manned mission, and in one of the intended design goals it succeeded fully. There was enough fuel to almost fully circularize the propulsion system in LEO. Spare fuel from the Apollo CSM also was used to help a little, and in the end the entire Ares established an orbit around Earth with an apoapsis around 990 km before the Apollo CSM undocked and deorbited. The first three who stepped on Mars, Phobos and Deimos finally returned home.

 

 

Edited October 29, 2017 by NotTheRealRMS
fixed more typos

[Temeter]

Jup, I didn't have issues with boiloff either.

[Jimbodiah]

@NotTheRealRMS   RSS hasn't been supported since 1.2.2, but there is patch that makes it work 1.3.0/1.3.1 as it's just the Earth/kerbin naming that was causing issues.

 

Maybe I'll try boiloff again sometime.