[1.8.1-1.12.x] Modular Launch Pads v2.6.1: Launch clamps evolved: Real-style launch bases and towers [03 July 2023]

[ChrisG_NSF]

Love this mod.  I've taken your suggestion and have manually tweaked the configs to be scaled with RSS/RO.  That's all worked great size wise.  My one question has to do with the speed at which the various arms move.  Specifically, the Shuttle and Saturn pad arms.  I see in the .cfg files an "animation speed" line that's preset to 12.  My issue is that no matter what I change the animation speed number to, the arms always move at the same speed.  Changing that number doesn't seem to effect anything.  Is there another area I'm missing, or another file, I need to manually update to change the speed at which that arms move?

[AlphaMensae]

15 minutes ago, ChrisG_NSF said:

Love this mod.  I've taken your suggestion and have manually tweaked the configs to be scaled with RSS/RO.  That's all worked great size wise.  My one question has to do with the speed at which the various arms move.  Specifically, the Shuttle and Saturn pad arms.  I see in the .cfg files an "animation speed" line that's preset to 12.  My issue is that no matter what I change the animation speed number to, the arms always move at the same speed.  Changing that number doesn't seem to effect anything.  Is there another area I'm missing, or another file, I need to manually update to change the speed at which that arms move?

Hi ChrisG!

Yeah, I also don't know what the "animation speed" line actually does. The only way to change the speed is to change the actual animation in Unity.

[ChrisG_NSF]

19 minutes ago, AlphaMensae said:

Hi ChrisG!

Yeah, I also don't know what the "animation speed" line actually does. The only way to change the speed is to change the actual animation in Unity.

And it's the .mu file I need to upload into Unity to modify, correct?  (Very very new to modding anything. As in, this is the first attempt to do so.  Appreciate the help.)

[AlphaMensae]

1 hour ago, ChrisG_NSF said:

And it's the .mu file I need to upload into Unity to modify, correct?  (Very very new to modding anything. As in, this is the first attempt to do so.  Appreciate the help.)

.mu is a Squad proprietary format, created with their PartTools script, and can't be loaded into Unity.

If you use Blender however, Taniwha made a plugin for it that loads and exports .mu files, so the animation could be changed there. I don't use Blender, so have no idea if it would work.

[AlphaMensae]

The new separate Large General Launch Base is now done and on the AlphaDev branch.

This was only a partial rebuild of the Large Base, with only the exhaust holes, decks, railings, ladders and details being remade or modified. The full remake will come later.

There are many more exhaust hole sizes now in the large base, with the max square one being 20m in width, the max long rectangle (3x) being 6m, and the max short rectangle (2x) being 10m. Square and rectangle sizes are set separately to allow more flexibility in the number of sizes each shape has.  The exhaust hole sizes go from 3m to 5m in 0.5m increments, 5m to 10m in 1m increments, ad for the square shape only, from 10m to 20m in 2m increments.

The extended deck is larger, and can be toggled on for all exhaust hole sizes.

The railings and ladders have been converted to a new system that will be put into the other general bases and launch plates. Their color is now separate from the base itself, and can be switched between three variants: yellow, red and dark gray. Ladders still have a short/tall option and multiple configurations.

The General ROFI has also been revised, the deploy limit slider and animation for adjusting the height has been removed, and the fuel amount and ISP have been tweaked to give a 15 second (KSP clock) burn time at full fuel level.

Pics of the new large base:

[infinite_monkey]

Are these pipes (?) meant for water? Is/will there be a water deluge system?

[AlphaMensae]

5 hours ago, infinite_monkey said:

Are these pipes (?) meant for water? Is/will there be a water deluge system?

No, just cosmetic. While they are styled after the shuttle platform's deck rainbirds, they are just details to help fill out and break up an otherwise vast empty space.

[AlphaMensae]

The new railings and ladders have been added to the Medium General Launch Base. I also forgot to adjust the attach nodes for the Large base, so that's been done too, and both updated sizes are on the AlphaDev branch of the Github.

 

The Small General Base will be the next to be revised. The dimensions will stay the same for now, as the full remake will part of a larger project to rebuild and re-UV Map almost all of the General parts (bases/plates/stands, towers and arms). 

[AlphaMensae]

Been revising the Small General Launch Base, which was more extensive than anticipated, as I did make it slightly bigger to have the interior opening size be the one for the upcoming Mini General Launch Base, 9.5m square (the 0.5m is to accomodate the walls of the exhaust hole walls, something which I have to do for the other base sizes), so I can reuse all the exhaust hole+deck combos I just remade  The Small base will be remade again, this time with a 12.5m opening.

I also did some revisions to the cosmetic rainbird detail objects, just some texture improvementss. Now I have to replace the old ones in the other bases with the new ones.  

New Small Base is now on the AlphaDev branch of the Github!

 

Next to do is the splitting and revising of the General Service Towers.

Edited October 16, 2019 by AlphaMensae

[UnhorsedGoose]

Hey there, great mod, really liking it, only problem is that I'm having some trouble, I'm using 1.7.3 with the 1.6 (latest version) of BDB and when I try to load the craft files for the BDB Titan II GLV with the launch pad, it tells me I'm missing a bunch of parts, haven't tried any of the other craft files other than the Saturn V (not the rescale) which works just fine. If you need logs, I can provide them, as well as video and screenshots of loading the Titan II unsuccessfully as well as loading the Saturn V successfully. Thanks, have a good day.

[AlphaMensae]

11 minutes ago, UnhorsedGoose said:

Hey there, great mod, really liking it, only problem is that I'm having some trouble, I'm using 1.7.3 with the 1.6 (latest version) of BDB and when I try to load the craft files for the BDB Titan II GLV with the launch pad, it tells me I'm missing a bunch of parts, haven't tried any of the other craft files other than the Saturn V (not the rescale) which works just fine. If you need logs, I can provide them, as well as video and screenshots of loading the Titan II unsuccessfully as well as loading the Saturn V successfully. Thanks, have a good day.

Which parts are missing?

If they're BDB parts, it could be an outdated craft file.

If they're MLP parts and you're using the v2.1 dev build, some of the launch stand and general parts have changed since that craft file was made for v2.0.

[UnhorsedGoose]

Just now, AlphaMensae said:

Which parts are missing?

If they're BDB parts, it could be an outdated craft file.

If they're MLP parts and you're using the v2.1 dev build, some of the launch stand and general parts have changed since that craft file was made for v2.0.

They are all BDB parts, and I'm currently using v2.0, so I guess they're outdated. Also, It's not just the Titan II, it's the LDC Heavy as well, maybe a few others. So what should I do about the outdated craft file? Are there newer, up-to-date craft files available somewhere, or am I just stuck with them being borked?

[Zorg]

2 hours ago, UnhorsedGoose said:

They are all BDB parts, and I'm currently using v2.0, so I guess they're outdated. Also, It's not just the Titan II, it's the LDC Heavy as well, maybe a few others. So what should I do about the outdated craft file? Are there newer, up-to-date craft files available somewhere, or am I just stuck with them being borked?

I looks like those craft files are using new parts added to BDB development branch which is currently on github but not officially released yet. Its not that the craft files area out of date, they are ahead of date 

Edited October 16, 2019 by Zorg

[UnhorsedGoose]

6 minutes ago, Zorg said:

I looks like those craft files are using new parts added to BDB development branch which is currently on github but not officially released yet. Its not that the craft files area out of date, they are ahead of date 

Wow, okay, guess I'll go check out the dev branch lol. Thanks for the help, really appreciate it

[Zorg]

1 minute ago, UnhorsedGoose said:

Wow, okay, guess I'll go check out the dev branch lol. Thanks for the help, really appreciate it

I think you'll find the dev branch to be worth your while (its also coming close to a release). The new Titan stuff is Cobalt Wolf's best work yet and is miles ahead of the old stuff. A little preview of new GLV with Modular Launch Pads of course

[UnhorsedGoose]

49 minutes ago, Zorg said:

I think you'll find the dev branch to be worth your while (its also coming close to a release). The new Titan stuff is Cobalt Wolf's best work yet and is miles ahead of the old stuff. A little preview of new GLV with Modular Launch Pads of course

 Man, that looks great! Got a picture of the ICBM version as the background on my phone, one of my favorite rockets/missiles, only beaten by the Saturn V

[AlphaMensae]

5 hours ago, UnhorsedGoose said:

Wow, okay, guess I'll go check out the dev branch lol. Thanks for the help, really appreciate it

Ah, yeah, I forgot I had used the development build of BDB for the Titan II GLV as Cobalt had remade all the Titan parts.

The Medium General Launch Base has now been revised with the new rainbird detail object, and a small mesh error with a few of the new railing posts was fixed as well.

[AlphaMensae]

5 hours ago, UnhorsedGoose said:

 Man, that looks great! Got a picture of the ICBM version as the background on my phone, one of my favorite rockets/missiles, only beaten by the Saturn V

One note about the craft files included with MLP:  Some, like the Saturn V, were made with the BDB craft files, so the rockets are complete and usable.  Others, like the Titan II-Gemini, I made myself to be just demos of different launch base combinations, and the rockets themselves are incomplete, with just enough parts to get off the ground with . I don't think the Titan II even has decouplers for the SRBs, and the Gemini doesn't have all the RCS thrusters, and the ones it does have were just slapped on anywhere, and I'm sure it's missing other stuff as well.

 

[UnhorsedGoose]

6 hours ago, AlphaMensae said:

One note about the craft files included with MLP:  Some, like the Saturn V, were made with the BDB craft files, so the rockets are complete and usable.  Others, like the Titan II-Gemini, I made myself to be just demos of different launch base combinations, and the rockets themselves are incomplete, with just enough parts to get off the ground with . I don't think the Titan II even has decouplers for the SRBs, and the Gemini doesn't have all the RCS thrusters, and the ones it does have were just slapped on anywhere, and I'm sure it's missing other stuff as well.

 

If you want, I could build a new craft file with master release parts for you, is there a way I could get a file of just the launchpad to add the rocket to that? I'm willing to do that for you, unless you want to, of course

Edit: I made a Titan II GLV with a launchpad based off of the design in your demo video using the master release parts, if you want I can send it to you

Edited October 16, 2019 by UnhorsedGoose
Decided on different phrasing to better elaborate my question.

[AlphaMensae]

4 hours ago, UnhorsedGoose said:

If you want, I could build a new craft file with master release parts for you, is there a way I could get a file of just the launchpad to add the rocket to that? I'm willing to do that for you, unless you want to, of course

Edit: I made a Titan II GLV with a launchpad based off of the design in your demo video using the master release parts, if you want I can send it to you

I use the dev branch of BDB, as CobaltWolf does such very long release cycles that the dev branch becomes the current version.  

Also, the old Titan parts are going to be removed; right now they've been given rusty colors in the dev branch to indicate they have been deprecated.

[AlphaMensae]

A note about KSP 1.8 and Modular Launch Pads:

MLP itself is fine in 1.8, and the current versions of the dependencies--B9PS, Animated Decouplers and Community Category Kit--also work as is, with one exception: B9PS mesh switching works fine, but the texture switching (used for the color variants) may not show the switched color on a copied part in the VAB. Once in flight mode though, the part will have the switched color, you just may not see it in the VAB at first, until you revert to the VAB, and then it will have the right color shown. This issue will of course go away once a version of B9PS compiled for 1.8 is released.  

 

[AlphaMensae]

Did a little rework with the Extras folder on the AlphaDev branch on the Github:

Moved the hide parts patch to the Extras folder, so they'e not hidden from the structural tab by default, you have to add it yourself.

Got a basic RO compatibility .cfg from the RO Discord server and added it to the Extras folder. It doesn't require Tweakscale, may not be fully complete, all it does is just do a blanket 1.6x rescale of the MLP parts and adds the RO values.

Here it is:

 

@PART[AM_MLP*]
{
        %rescaleFactor = 1.61

        RSSROConfig = True
}

@PART[AM_MLP_*]:FOR[xxxRP0]
{
    %TechRequired = start
    %cost = 5
    %entryCost = 5
    RP0conf = true
}

Also, the Small and Medium General Launch Bases got some small mesh and texture detail revisions.

 

[AlphaMensae]

The Large General Launch Base now has the mesh detail revisions the other sizes received and is now on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub.

The extended size deck also got more detail greebles to break up the large flat areas it has.

Finally am now working on splitting the general service towers.  

[AlphaMensae]

The Small General Service Tower has now been split off and is on the AlphaDev branch of the GitHub. The current multi-tower will be left on AlphaDev until after all the sizes have been split apart.

Pic showing the new options available in the separate towers: side panels (in multiple configurations) and an antenna mast for the top

 

The section type switcher is now like the Saturn tower, with all types (base, tops and tower cores) individually selected. No more need to turn on/off the base and top sections to stack tower cores.

Side panel options are one (in front), two (front-back or left-right), three (left-front-back) and all four sides.

The normal flat-roof top is called "Top Bare", and has an attach node on top; the antenna version is "Top Full" and has no node, but the mast does have a full-length collider.

[AlphaMensae]

Version 2.0.5 is released!

Did an another v2.0 point update, as a new B9PS (v2.11.0) has been released (included in v2.0.5 of MLP). What I thought was a KSP 1.8 issue with B9PS texture switching gettting stuck on copied parts was actually a bug in B9PS itself; the new version fixed that, as well as added the ability to prevent B9PS modules from moving to the end of the PAW.  Now my switchers and deploy limit sliders are back together again.  

B9PS works fine in KSP 1.8 as is, and so do Animated Decouplers and Community Category Kit, so I updated the thread title to KSP 1.8/1.7.  I removed the KSP 1.3.1 dependencies, as almost all RO players use KSP 1.6.1 now.  I also put in a couple of small v2.1 changes.

v2.0.5 Changelog:

• KSP 1.8: The current versions of B9PartSwitch, Animated Decouplers and Community Category Kit work in KSP 1.8 as is.
• When a 1.8 version of B9PS is released, it will be included in all future updates of Modular Launch Pads.
• Updated B9PartSwitch to v2.11.0; this one adds the ability to prevent B9PS modules from being moved to the end of the Part Action Window. It also fixes a bug with texture-switching on copied parts.
• Added lines to parts with B9PS modules to prevent them from being moved to end of Part Action Window.
• Removed alternate support columns from the Saturn and Shuttle clamp bases. They ended up outside the the base when the base was rotated.
• Adjusted General ROFI and Shuttle TSM sparker's burn time to a maximum of 15 seconds with full fuel amount.
• Renamed the alternate Saturn Lightning Mast to Shuttle Tower Lightning Mast.
• Added a Module Manager patch to hide the Modular Launch Pads parts from the stock Structural tab into the Extras folder.
• Added a basic Realism Overhaul compatibility patch into the Extras folder. I did not make this, I found it on the RO Discord server. It's just a simple rescale, TweakScale is not needed, and may not be complete or fully working.
• Removed KSP 1.3.1 versions of the dependencies, as almost all RO players use KSP 1.6.1 now.