Kerbal Space Program 1.7.3 is live!

[Wallygator]

why do the turboshaft engines show up under "robotics"?

[T1mo98]

23 minutes ago, Foxster said:

Umm. Gotta say I'm a little  underwhelmed. This would have been a great opportunity to introduce some easy to use prop engines but we got something that seems way over-engineered. 

I threw this together...

It didn't seem unreasonable to expect the engine to work like the other KSP engines i.e. set the throttle, hit the spacebar and off we go.

Alas, no. I had to go and map the throttle to the engine in action groups. No idea about staging yet because it was just at full throttle on launch and spun around and RUDed.

Even  when launching with no throttle and babying the throttle so as to avoid RUD from torque it doesn't have enough power to move the craft. I guess I need to map the blade pitch to some other keys?

That's all very painful. What would a KSP nub do with these "engines"?

 

  

Here's what you do:

Set the engine to go 100% through Custom01 or something. If the blades are in the neutral position (deployed with authority limited to 0) 
Assign the blade authority limiter to the throttle. This way you will throttle the plane by pitching the blades. It's very precise and requires more attention than 'simple' jet engines.

If you have more than 1 engine, say 2 on both sides, make sure to have 1 set to Clockwise and the other to Counterclockwise. Same for the blades. If you don't do this the plane will tend towards a direction other than straight forward. If you find plane spinning in place you need to check whether the deploy directions are set correctly, so invert the one causing the spin.

Note: This is coming from someone with no experience in the matter, I'm just saying what works for me after fidgeting around with it for an hour or so. Here's my first succesful plane.

Edited July 11, 2019 by T1mo98

[Serenity]

I also posted on technical support but i am too anxious to wait there, sooo do they have sounds?Because mine are silent, even the rotors, i dont hear anything from them.

[Wallygator]

I find the prop engines totally non-intuitive based on the in-game control framework.

How about an expert tutorial @SQUAD ???

 

[MaxwellsDemon]

The patcher doesn't want to recognize the folder I've got KSP in.... I have it as C:\Games\KerbalSpaceProgram (within which is the folder KSP_win64) and all I get is "Please select a valid Kerbal Space Program folder."    It gives me that when I browse to the paths C:\Games, C:\Games\KerbalSpaceProgram, and C:\Games\KerbalSpaceProgram\KSP_win64.   Little help, please?

[dok_377]

When is the new kerbal rock pickup animation playing? In what circumstance? 

[Guest]

I should note, the issues with rotors are a sign of proper simulation. If you ever had a chance to fly a real prop plane (say, a Cessna), it does pull to the left. On WWII fighters prop torque is so large that it makes flying difficult at full power. Blade pitch (and control of it) is also an important factor. Props in general are harder to manage than jets. It's the other, pre-BG props that had it wrong, since they were little different from jets.

[Just Jim]

32 minutes ago, dok_377 said:

When is the new kerbal rock pickup animation playing? In what circumstance? 

Picking up something like a Mun Stone

[Wjolcz]

This is great! I'm loving the propellers!

Edited July 11, 2019 by Wjolcz

[dok_377]

42 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Picking up something like a Mun Stone

Oh, so it works with surface features. Nice. 

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, T1mo98 said:

Here's what you do:

Set the engine to go 100% through Custom01 or something. If the blades are in the neutral position (deployed with authority limited to 0) 
Assign the blade authority limiter to the throttle. This way you will throttle the plane by pitching the blades. It's very precise and requires more attention than 'simple' jet engines.

If you have more than 1 engine, say 2 on both sides, make sure to have 1 set to Clockwise and the other to Counterclockwise. Same for the blades. If you don't do this the plane will tend towards a direction other than straight forward. If you find plane spinning in place you need to check whether the deploy directions are set correctly, so invert the one causing the spin.

Note: This is coming from someone with no experience in the matter, I'm just saying what works for me after fidgeting around with it for an hour or so. Here's my first succesful plane.

Thanks to your tip I got to pretty good speeds at only half of the throttle. Pitching the propellers can save you a ton of EC.

[StrandedonEarth]

Nice! Sooner than I expected! This explains why the "KSP Loading: Preview..."s stopped...

*braces for incoming waves of B-24 Flying Fortresses and B-29 Superfortresses*

[BNSF1995]

Yes, it's out! Now Kopernicus can be updated!

[ZodiusInfuser]

Anyone know what the Grid Pads are for?

[klgraham1013]

Finger's crossed this is the bow on the 1.7 update.  What an update it's been.  Good job Squad.  Keep proving my pessimism wrong.

[Guest]

Wow amazing work! Thanks!

8 minutes ago, ZodiusInfuser said:

Anyone know what the Grid Pads are for?

Walkers! XD

12 minutes ago, BNSF1995 said:

Yes, it's out! Now Kopernicus can be updated!

Yesssss plsssss

[Srpadget]

Where in the tech tree do the new parts appear?  I just poked through everything in R&D and didn't see any of them.  (Yes, I have both DLC packages.)

Are these sandbox-only parts?  Or is there something wrong with my install?

===

ETA: Nevermind, I started a sandbox save and found no new parts there either.  Off to Steam to verify files and get reinstalled...

===

Edit 2:  Well, I seem to have been well and truly borked.  After 4 "verify, fix, reverify, start KSP and see problems get WORSE not better, back to Steam and find I've been re-corrupted", lather-rinse-repeat, I am now uninstalling and doing a clean re-install.  Let's see what happens...

===

Edit 3:  I only THOUGHT I was borked before.  Uninstall & clean reinstall followed by immediate startup of what should be a virginally-pure brand-spanking-new copy of KSP (no mods, no existing saves from previous version, nada) and it STILL refuses to load what it claims is BG 1.1 (because KSP 1.7.3 needs BG1.2, no more, no less).

Off to the Support section of the forum, I guess...

Edited July 12, 2019 by Srpadget

[ZodiusInfuser]

9 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said:

Walkers! XD

I'm not sure I follow. Aren't they styled structural panels?

[Daniel Prates]

I too at fist thought it was a bit overdoing it, to have blades attach to an engine and have it be controlled by the robotics interface. 

It seems though that it has a lot of potential, since the blades are actually control surfaces that can be set to control in all three axis. Makes more sense to build helicopters whose blades are controllable in all three directions. We'll have to see how this plays out.

[StrandedonEarth]

Yeah, I know, not the right place, use the bugtracker but.... Now that I updated to 1.7.3, I'm, getting spammed with mystery goo messages proudly telling me that it's collected and transmitted a whopping 0.0xx science points.... 

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, ZodiusInfuser said:

I'm not sure I follow. Aren't they styled structural panels?

They are supposed to have increased friction over structural panels. So like a piece of rubber as opposed to a metal plate. Could be useful for walkers, or for grabbing things with a robotic claw.

[ZodiusInfuser]

6 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

They are supposed to have increased friction over structural panels. So like a piece of rubber as opposed to a metal plate. Could be useful for walkers, or for grabbing things with a robotic claw.

Ah thank you! Will be interesting to see how that behaves in-game.

[klgraham1013]

11 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Yeah, I know, not the right place, use the bugtracker but.... Now that I updated to 1.7.3, I'm, getting spammed with mystery goo messages proudly telling me that it's collected and transmitted a whopping 0.0xx science points.... 

I never liked the mystery goo container anyway.  I guess 1.7 couldn't go it's entire life span without some weird new bug.

edit: Update: I wasn't able to reproduce this.  Might be something else going on.

Edited July 12, 2019 by klgraham1013

[Superfluous J]

On 7/10/2019 at 5:43 AM, UomoCapra said:

Kerbal Space Program 1.7.3 is live!

First off, YAY!

Secondly... (pulled from quote, and edited down to the ones I want to drool over talk about. Also, I've not read any replies yet so will re-edit with anything I've duplicated)

BaseGame
* Add ability to switch secondary docking ports (docked) to primary via the PAW.

What does this do, other than the obvious (switch which docking port says 'undock')? In other words, under which circumstance would I need or want to use it?

* Add advanced tweakable to docking ports that allows the user to set the attraction force percentage as they are docking.

YAY. No seriously the crazy magnetism was great back when I didn't know what I was doing. Now more often than not it causes problems I'd not have had if it was lower. I sense a bevy of MM configs to auto-set it to preferred values.

* Convert same vessel docking connections to real docked connections whenever the vessel undocks or decouples elsewhere on the vessel.

What is the reason for this? Is it that a ship needs one "real" docked connection and the rest are "fake" ones? If you have 10 docking ports connected and undock one of them, do the other 9 become "real" ones or does the game just make sure there is always one "real" one? And finally, does this matter to the players in any way or can we just ignore it?

* Remove from symmetry functionality added to all parts.

Cool! I already used this a few times and frankly thought maybe a mod added it, as I don't remember mention of it before.

* Add ExternalCmdSeat Ejection Force (advanced tweakable).
* Add Leave Seat KSPAction.

"What are you doing KAL?"
"I'm sorry, Jeb..."

Breaking Ground
* Changed compound part editor behavior to follow robotic parts.

What does this mean? At least in my experience, when robotic parts moved in the editor the parts attached to each end moved correctly with them.

 

2 hours ago, MaxwellsDemon said:

The patcher doesn't want to recognize the folder I've got KSP in.... I have it as C:\Games\KerbalSpaceProgram (within which is the folder KSP_win64) and all I get is "Please select a valid Kerbal Space Program folder."    It gives me that when I browse to the paths C:\Games, C:\Games\KerbalSpaceProgram, and C:\Games\KerbalSpaceProgram\KSP_win64.   Little help, please?

I didn't even know they still had the Patcher. I use Steam so don't need to bother but IIRC the SOP for upgrading KSP purchased from the store is to download the entire game every single time, because the Patcher hasn't worked since... well ever I think.

Edited July 12, 2019 by 5thHorseman

[Daniel Prates]

3 hours ago, T1mo98 said:

If you don't do this the plane will tend towards a direction other than straight forward.

This actually happens in RL piston engines. Unless they are counter-rotating, they will pull the plane to one side because of the engine's torque. Single engine planes too, but it will be more noticeable on multiengine setups. Hmmm... I wonder if the game is correctly depicting the torque effect of rotating shaft engines or if it is some other phenomenon of ksp physics.