[WIP] Infernal Robotics - Next

[Rudolf Meier]

I was thinking/reading about KSP 1.4 for some hours and... maybe... if it's true what I read about joints in this new unity and if it works the way I read it should... then I'm not sure if we shouldn't immediately stop thinking about 1.3.1 and directly move to 1.4 ... I will check it out at least... but if that's really that good, then the only question would be: who's recompiling all those mods that are currently using 1.3.1 and how long do we have to wait? ... I'm not sure if I would start a new game in 1.3.1 or directly move to 1.4 now

I will now run tests to compare 1.3.1 and 1.4 (for joint strengths)

[kcs123]

Updated craft files.  I have created more compact and strongest mechanizm for variable wings. I tried without pivorons on extendratron root branche, it makes whole mechanizm stronger, but available rotation angle of wings is limited. It is necessary to allow extendratron to pivot for 1-2 degree while streching retracting, otherwise it produce uncontroled forces on joints where you don't won't is. With two pivatrons on both extendratron ends different issue pops up. That is, when extendratrons are in retracted position, even small aerodynamic force might be enough to push whole wing inward too much. Therefore two extendratrons are necessary, to prevent such thing to happen.

And, I used pipes this time instead of truss. Pipes are much lighter and smaller, so it is easier to hide mechanizim inside wing. Also, I found out that is much stronger connection for wing to attach on longer surface than only at one point on some IR part. That is reason for using additional parts. Also, it allow to place additional struts between wing and other structural parts without compromising mobility.

Same mechanizm fully extended and rotated for 70 degree.

Here it is how it looks when whole craft is almost finished. Straight wing configuration (extendratrons retracted). Requires B9PW, B9 Aerospace, Kerbal foundries, Tweakscale and IR next mod.

Swept wing configuration for in flight purposes, have premade presets to extend extendratrons to 0.50 of 0.66.

Here how it looks like with full rotation. On this craft useful only for parking purposes, or you may want to put whole craft inside fairing and launch in space. Or park it on aircraft carrier, whatever you like more.

I was able to put craft in air, but for being more useful, stronger joints are required. Whole thing is made with IR version with weak joints.

[ZodiusInfuser]

8 minutes ago, Rudolf Meier said:

I was thinking/reading about KSP 1.4 for some hours and... maybe... if it's true what I read about joints in this new unity and if it works the way I read it should... then I'm not sure if we shouldn't immediately stop thinking about 1.3.1 and directly move to 1.4 ... I will check it out at least... but if that's really that good, then the only question would be: who's recompiling all those mods that are currently using 1.3.1 and how long do we have to wait? ... I'm not sure if I would start a new game in 1.3.1 or directly move to 1.4 now

I will now run tests to compare 1.3.1 and 1.4 (for joint strengths)

Given that the Making History Expansion is coming out next week, I suspect most modders will be waiting for that to see if a KSP 1.4.1 drops with it too. So I would suggest holding off with a 1.4 release until after the expansion is out. Of course, that won't change the unity version so testing now is a good idea.

Personally, I'm quite interested to see how all this model / texture switching / theme stuff works. After all, it would be very easy to create alternate themes for the rework parts given their "I can't do texturing, so here's solid colours instead" style

[kcs123]

3 minutes ago, Rudolf Meier said:

I was thinking/reading about KSP 1.4 for some hours and... maybe... if it's true what I read about joints in this new unity and if it works the way I read it should... then I'm not sure if we shouldn't immediately stop thinking about 1.3.1 and directly move to 1.4 ... I will check it out at least... but if that's really that good, then the only question would be: who's recompiling all those mods that are currently using 1.3.1 and how long do we have to wait? ... I'm not sure if I would start a new game in 1.3.1 or directly move to 1.4 now

I'm sure that quite a lot of mods will be updated quickly enough, not way too much things that are broken. KSP 1.4.1 comes out next week, some modders will wait until then, so that they don't need to make updates twice. Some of mods were on hiatus for longer period of time, though, so it is unknown for those when or if will be updated for 1.4.x at all.

I think you should focus more only on 1.4.x version and wait for about 2 weeks until the rest of mods update to 1.4.x. Then consider what is better to do, there will be more valid info by that time.

That is also a reason why I uploaded two version of craft files, one with mechanizm only, that consist of only stock and IR parts and other that use mods some people might not have installed.

Oh, and I almost forgot, found some small annoying thing when I builded that craft with FAR. When I rotate(move) IR parts trough editor or it's presets, FAR is not able to recognize moving and update of COM and COL does not happen. So, each time I do that I also need to select some part of craft and move it with move tool selected. Just pressing on arrows of moving tool and releasing is enough for FAR to update. However, often I move such part by accident too and sometim I mess up whole craft.

Would be possible to add some button in IR editor, to just call same function that is called after user stop moving parts in stock game ? That should do a trick for FAR to update it properly.
Should be done on extra button, because due to voxelization that FAR need it might consume too much CPU if you call such function on each frame.

[Rudolf Meier]

8 minutes ago, kcs123 said:

Would be possible to add some button in IR editor, to just call same function that is called after user stop moving parts in stock game ? That should do a trick for FAR to update it properly.
Should be done on extra button, because due to voxelization that FAR need it might consume too much CPU if you call such function on each frame.

ah yes... there was something in the old IR version that I removed because I first wanted to solve the problems of the mod itself... but maybe I should put it back in... then it should work again

[Rudolf Meier]

2 hours ago, Rudolf Meier said:

I will now run tests to compare 1.3.1 and 1.4 (for joint strengths)

very interesting what you can do now... I don't know if it can solve all problems, but at least some of them... maybe we would still need KJR in the future, but it might be possible that it can internally act in a reduced way and get the same results

but I learned enough I think to make "IR Next" also good enough for 1.3.1...

 

[viperwolf]

@Rudolf Meier So are you officially moving IR forward from this point?

[kcs123]

There is possible conflict with KAS, at least with it's winches and KJR/IR next combo too.
Rope from winch float sideways when released and magnet attached on rope does not work, or I forgot how to use it.

Have to check konstruction mod from Roverdude that does similar thig, will that one work or not.

EDIT:

Seems that I put too much weight for that winch, but regardless, with less weight I can lift stuff, but rope is still autostruted to something, probably interaction with KJR.

Edited March 11, 2018 by kcs123

[ZodiusInfuser]

6 hours ago, viperwolf said:

@Rudolf Meier So are you officially moving IR forward from this point?

In a way he is, although myself, Ziw and Sirkut do have some involvement in design decisions. What has been discussed so far is that once IR Next has had time to prove itself, it will be merged back in to the main IR distribution as IR 3.0.

[viperwolf]

1 hour ago, ZodiusInfuser said:

In a way he is, although myself, Ziw and Sirkut do have some involvement in design decisions. What has been discussed so far is that once IR Next has had time to prove itself, it will be merged back in to the main IR distribution as IR 3.0.

That will be great!

[Tirehtoori R.I.P]

On 21.2.2018 at 11:44 PM, ZodiusInfuser said:

I don't think so, as that is adding restrictions for no real reason. Plus people like @Tirehtoori R.I.P have had pretty much every robotics part go at high speed that we'd need a whole new set for them. You can see his many mech videos here: https://www.youtube.com/user/Xanhast08/videos

hello there @ZodiusInfuser long time  i just got my pc ubgraded to well.... much better than what it was so im again ready for some more mech building  any idea when IR is available for ksp 1.4 ? i was thinking of finally going after MG-Sahelanthropus

[Rudolf Meier]

34 minutes ago, Tirehtoori R.I.P said:

any idea when IR is available for ksp 1.4 ?

hi, it is running on my computer in 1.4 already... and I planned an uploading when the last bugs are fixed... I hope not long from now... could be hours if everything is going well...

I found a new bug related to extendatrons... positions seem to be wrongly shown in the gui and the new limits seem not to load properly. After that there's only the mirroring problem I need to look at...

5 hours ago, kcs123 said:

... but rope is still autostruted to something, probably interaction with KJR.

This may be the same bug I had when attaching a decoupler and an IR part. I have fixed it. Maybe you can retry this later with the KJR included in my next IR upload.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Rudolf Meier

[kcs123]

Well, by now, I'm several verions of IR next behind, but I just posting all of things I have spoted, so it can also be checked by others if I run out of time for testing. For now I just attempt to create craft with possible combination of IR and regular parts that other people might use as well, to discover as much as possible of bugs before "official" release.

I will be patient and wait until you finish everything and then re-test everything again and report back. Take your time with it, so far it looks very promising.

[Rudolf Meier]

29 minutes ago, kcs123 said:

I will be patient and wait until you finish everything and then re-test everything again and report back. Take your time with it, so far it looks very promising.

thank you for your support and help... and... right-extendatron... doesn't work the way I'm calculating the position... and then I'd have to look into the mirroring problem you mentioned...

after that it's only the damper-tweaking that's left... but I will upload it before I start working on that

[kcs123]

You are welcome. I'm glad that I was able to help. Perhaps you might need to add additional flag/variable in config file for parts that need to use different method for calculating postions ?
Might also be necessary for cartain parts that are not mirrored properly with current settings, or axis used in previously mentioned "pointer" variable need to be set in different way to have proper mirroring ?

[Rudolf Meier]

36 minutes ago, kcs123 said:

Perhaps you might need to add additional flag/variable in config file for parts that need to use different method for calculating postions ?

In this case ... it's just that I didn't work that much with Extendatrons... and those calculations are simply wrong :-)

the code is too fragile at the moment... when I'm changing something, everything breaks... that's not good... I need to improve this

some parts are good, some are... quick bugfixes and sometimes really a mess... but, it's getting better...

I do have the solution now, but I found out, that inversed extendatrons are locked always... (because of my new limits) ... if you invert them, then you have 0 to -2.4 instead of 0 to 2.4 and ... well... moving to negative values is not possible in this case, the other side locked...  

Edited March 11, 2018 by Rudolf Meier

[Rudolf Meier]

ok... I did upload the latest I have

it's not completely bug free... the rail for example doesn't work (because of negative min-positions) and I didn't investigate the mirroring problems and... I'm not sure if the damper/spring stuff is correct...

I need to clean up a little bit and after that, it might be a good thing...

(I didn't update the source code for a while on github... I'm working with my local codeserver, but I will upload it after the next cleanups)

... and the download contains the latest KJR that I did build and modify for IR

[kcs123]

Just quick test of 1.3.1. version. I don't know if I be able to do more testing until tomorrow late evening, so jsut to report small bug with IR groups.

1. I created new IR group inb SPH and moved only extendratrons in new group
2. switched to flight scene - extendratrons are properly in new group
3. reverted back to SPH, new group with extendratrons are no longer visible in IR editor as well as extendratron parts from that new group
4. going to flight scene again, extendratron group is properly visible and extendratron parts properly rect to moving
5. switching back to SPH, extendratrons and it's group is still not visible in IR editor
6. switched back to KSC scene, entered SPH again anl loaded different craft
7. loaded again craft with new extendratron group defined and guess what, new group is properly visible with it's parts
8. going to flight scene and back to SPH makes extendratron group to disapear again

Foldable wings behave much better now with limits enabled, but I have to wait for stronger joints for further testing, it is still to weak for craft to fly properly.
Have yet to try craft with KAS winch to see how it behave now.

[Rudolf Meier]

19 minutes ago, kcs123 said:

... but I have to wait for stronger joints for further testing, it is still to weak for craft to fly properly.

thank for the input with the groups

and those joints... sorry for that, I forgot a part in the code that makes them extra weak (I needed this to test the limits and forgot it, but it's only in translationals) ... I will clean that and bring a new version... and I will fix those 2 bugs

Edited March 11, 2018 by Rudolf Meier

[kcs123]

No rush. It is not only translation joints that is too weak, rotational joints or movements that is not supposed to be allowed on certain axes are still too weak too.
I will not be able to do much more test today, so no need to re-upload just for that.

[Rudolf Meier]

On ‎09‎.‎03‎.‎2018 at 12:31 AM, kcs123 said:

Meanwhile, there is small issue with symmetry regarding free rotatrons. When I set 90 degree on original part I need to set -90 on mirrored part to have them both in desired direction.

I don't know if that's a bug... you need to invert the axis, sure... but... I'm not sure if that's really something that should be done automatically...

[kcs123]

10 minutes ago, Rudolf Meier said:

I don't know if that's a bug... you need to invert the axis, sure... but... I'm not sure if that's really something that should be done automatically...

No big deal with it, just make sure that inverting axis is not mirrored on part in symetry and it is all good. It is just odd that it work as intended on pivotrons and not on bearing. Both parts rotate just over one axis.

Meanwhile, I was able to do quick test with KAS winch and new version of IR. Bug with rope autostruted on something is still present.

[Rudolf Meier]

6 minutes ago, kcs123 said:

No big deal with it, just make sure that inverting axis is not mirrored on part in symetry and it is all good. It is just odd that it work as intended on pivotrons and not on bearing. Both parts rotate just over one axis.

... but, is the axis looking into the same direction related to the mirroring?

it's not really a mirroring like in a mirror... jet engines on the left side are also the same as on the right side... they rotate in the same direction... I think that's the same here and I didn't find a situation in which it's not correct... but... could be there is one  I've had so many strange things... everything is possible

Edited March 11, 2018 by Rudolf Meier

[Rudolf Meier]

14 hours ago, kcs123 said:

... but rope is still autostruted to something, probably interaction with KJR.

I need more information on that. How did you do that? I need the exact list of parts or (if they're only stock) the vessel in a file. All my experiments didn't show such an autostrutting action. (but I know, that they only happen when the vessel contains parts in a very specific configuration... so, I guess I simply didn't find a config that shows the problem)

[Rudolf Meier]

new version is out... and this one should be a good one!

all that might need a little tweaking is the values in the cfg files... for stronger joints, modify those values... I don't know if we did choose them correctly, but there is a good chance, that the code is ok now...

Edit: I did test it, the joint strength seems to be ok for me (according to first tests with just one extendatron) ... but I see, there's sometimes a problem with the gui (too many buttons show up and the category doubled in the VAB... once...)

Edited March 12, 2018 by Rudolf Meier