[WIP] Jade's Dev Thread

[JadeOfMaar]

2 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Could you make wrapper heatshields?

Already part of the plan.

[JadeOfMaar]

ThermoElectric Converters (Turbine type)

(Texture mostly finished). In the real world, we do not directly produce electricity from a nuclear reactor. We extract and channel its immense heat into a steam turbine which drives the spinning portion of an electromagnet assembly. These are that steam turbine + electromagnet assembly. Users of KSPI-E will recognize these as the "Generator" that is always paired with a source or store of ThermalPower.

How they will be balanced in-game waits to be seen (and decided by playtesters) as I don't play with KSPI-E.

Edited November 16, 2022 by JadeOfMaar

[JadeOfMaar]

Mk2 and Mk3 cockpit heatshields

They exist! They are drag-less. And they perfectly protect.

Textures pending.

The Mk2 shield includes a patch that adds a stack node to its cockpit for the perfect fit.

 

[SkyFall2489]

1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Mk2 and Mk3 cockpit heatshields

They exist! They are drag-less. And they perfectly protect.

Textures pending.

The Mk2 shield includes a patch that adds a stack node to its cockpit for the perfect fit.

 

Why not have a node that perfectly fits on the back node of the cockpit, and have a node facing backward on the heatshield at the exact same location so that the shield is "between" the rest of the plane and the cockpit on the part tree?

aero?

[JadeOfMaar]

@SkyFall2489 I want the shield to be at the very front with respect to stack nodes because drag cubes are affected by node attachment. I've entertained this idea already but I don't want to potentially cause an anomaly and a further drag issue by having it behind the cockpit in hierarchy. Also, I want that node to be visible after the cockpit is attached to the cabin or fuel tank behind it so there's less reason for the player to guess where the node is. Also, if it node attaches between the cockpit and the next Mk2 part, and then it happens to break due to an impact, the cockpit would fall off.

[Manul]

10 hours ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Why not have a node that perfectly fits on the back node of the cockpit, and have a node facing backward on the heatshield at the exact same location so that the shield is "between" the rest of the plane and the cockpit on the part tree?

I guess no one would love to see their precious spaceplanes decapitated after the heatshield explodes.

And there is another reason besides aero: maintenance. As far as ablator can not be reablated, Bill Kerman would definitely want to inspect and replace the heatshield of his Eve SSTO after the atmospheric entry before he allows Jeb to fly this thing back into orbit at Mach 5

[JadeOfMaar]

8 hours ago, Manul said:

As far as ablator can not be reablated,

I have an answer for that, actually, but as cleanly stated very recently:

20 hours ago, HansAcker said:

That's part of the Rational Resources Rabbit Hole.

The feature is called "Blacksmith" and is an extra/optional modlet. Click link for readme.

Semi-related: I've mostly produced the texture for the wrapper heatshields (with all the fuselage sizes and heights or the wrapper radiators).

Edited November 21, 2022 by JadeOfMaar

[JadeOfMaar]

Wrapper PV Panels

I originally wasn't going to do photovoltaic panels because NF Solar provides options for days...however, there's no mod for a surface-attached Mk2 solar panel so here goes. Any other "solar" panel I make is going to be solar thermal/ concentraing solar.

[WarriorSabe]

8 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Wrapper PV Panels

I originally wasn't going to do photovoltaic panels because NF Solar provides options for days...however, there's no mod for a surface-attached Mk2 solar panel so here goes. Any other "solar" panel I make is going to be solar thermal/ concentraing solar.

Solar thermal sounds cool, being able to have an actual part for it rather than just faking it with fairings and stuff will be nice. And would you consider a compatibility patch for the wrappers that gives access to near future solar's advanced cell options?

[JadeOfMaar]

8 hours ago, WarriorSabe said:

Solar thermal sounds cool, being able to have an actual part for it rather than just faking it with fairings and stuff will be nice. And would you consider a compatibility patch for the wrappers that gives access to near future solar's advanced cell options?

Heh. Currently I have drafts for 5 parts (with fully unique shapes and sizes) for the job. 7 if you count two 2 sizes of sunshield and that they are secondarily solar thermal.

Solar cell upgrades are already in the plan. The selection will be rather long, of course, because the height options mulptiply by the cell quality options.

[WarriorSabe]

5 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

The selection will be rather long, of course, because the height options mulptiply by the cell quality options.

Could you not use two separate sets of options, one for length and one for cell type? Like, for example, how you can select the surface and two endcaps separately in SSPXr

[JadeOfMaar]

1 hour ago, WarriorSabe said:

Could you not use two separate sets of options, one for length and one for cell type? Like, for example, how you can select the surface and two endcaps separately in SSPXr

Sorry, no. When it comes to changing stats in a module that consumes or produces something, only one B9 module may modify it at a time. Example: Can't have one B9 module that affects an engine's thrust and another B9 that affects the same engine's Isp. If you're doing purely structural, there's no restriction such as with SSPXr endcaps.

[JadeOfMaar]

Much progress. I think it's just some texture or material tuning that remains now.

B9 options line-up. Some parts have 15 because they have 5 heights. What it looks like @WarriorSabe. Tech restrictions on upgrades not enabled yet.

Peak solar exposure to one side/ one half of the solar panel yields full charge rate. Roughly 90% of full charge rate is reachable when the panel is perfectly pointed (both sides evenly exposed) towards the star. The solar panel parts each have two of the solar panel module due to having a 180deg curve.

 

 

[Clonos]

those solar panels are fire

[JadeOfMaar]

On 12/12/2022 at 3:36 PM, Clonos said:

those solar panels are fire

But fire is bad for solar panels. D:

[WarriorSabe]

17 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

But fire is bad for solar panels. D:

I'm sure the concentrator cells at the very least can handle some fire. As their name implies, they work by magnifying sunlight onto small fractions of the area, where the actual cells are located, since solar  cells work more efficiently with brighter light. And because higher is better, at the extreme of high-concentration photovoltaics (which these probably are since they're the highest tier), sunlight is concentrated over a thousand times - easily enough to outright melt the cells without protective measures.

[JadeOfMaar]

@WarriorSabe pfft. I know that. But your answer does make me think more about how the concentrator versions work.

[JadeOfMaar]

As an artist, finally feeling confident in having the skill to do a great job, I'm quite unhappy now with the looks (and on the side, lack of modularity and the presence of intentions now obsolete) of the IPV series engines and I want to redo practically all of them. And I want to provide size options to most or all of them.

My attention's turning over now to two other significant projects:

1: An accessory system for @Angel-125's mods: Buffalo 2, Snacks!, SunkWorks. SunkWorks compatibility will take the form of my Sea Quest Science parts changing over from the KIS box profile and its awkward racks to a Universal Storage II compatible wedge system.

 

2: 5m Shuttle II for the KATS mod. This parts pack is going to be decently feature rich and is aimed at players of up-scaled and real scale systems. The only things you'll really miss are the kitchen sink and the IVA (because I still have no experience making those). The feature image is the CERV, its mount, decoupler and hollow adapter to popular rocket stacks instead of the shuttle body. My progress on that goes in its own thread:

[Rutabaga22]

On 11/20/2022 at 2:25 PM, JadeOfMaar said:

Mk2 and Mk3 cockpit heatshields

They exist! They are drag-less. And they perfectly protect.

Textures pending.

The Mk2 shield includes a patch that adds a stack node to its cockpit for the perfect fit.

 

Awesome! Those heat shields are fire!

[JadeOfMaar]

45 minutes ago, Rutabaga22 said:

Awesome! Those heat shields are fire!

Nooooo. They're supposed to resist fire. D:

(I see a pattern forming here.)

[NiL]

On 11/22/2022 at 1:04 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

Wrapper PV Panels

They look so awesome! One tiny suggestion I have - in older NF versions there was a "short" wrapper panel (more like a wrapper strip), can't find the image bit the height was the same as inline probe cores. It was very useful for slick spaceplanes, in-line probes, landers etc (crafts that don't need much power), but was removed pretty long ago.  Since you're already doing height variations - would it, by any chance, be possible to implement an "ultrashort" variants, at least for some panels, please? Or to get separate ultrashort parts as a downloadable extra, at least for some form-factors? 

 

[JadeOfMaar]

14 hours ago, NiL said:

in older NF versions there was a "short" wrapper panel (more like a wrapper strip)

This, right? Or was it non-deployable? In that case I never met it.

 

13 hours ago, NiL said:

Since you're already doing height variations - would it, by any chance, be possible to implement an "ultrashort" variants, at least for some panels, please?

You say "ultra" so... 0.2m? (Reference size shown in-game is 2m except for the Mk2.) I can easily enough make a part that is 0.2m long for some profiles and a 0.2m x 2m linear strip.

[Teslamax]

On 11/24/2022 at 1:27 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

Much progress. I think it's just some texture or material tuning that remains now.

B9 options line-up. Some parts have 15 because they have 5 heights. What it looks like @WarriorSabe. Tech restrictions on upgrades not enabled yet.

Peak solar exposure to one side/ one half of the solar panel yields full charge rate. Roughly 90% of full charge rate is reachable when the panel is perfectly pointed (both sides evenly exposed) towards the star. The solar panel parts each have two of the solar panel module due to having a 180deg curve.

 

 

would love to play with those... look great!

[NiL]

On 12/18/2022 at 6:28 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

This, right? Or was it non-deployable? In that case I never met it.

Yes, it wasn't deployable. I actually found it (by going to old versions of NFS on Github) and made screenshots of the part with reference and examples of usage: https://imgur.com/gallery/rDQN979 . Apparently it was 3.75m, and 0.4m in that form-factor, scaling down to 0.2m in 2.5m form-factor. Not sure why it is so, considering the most popular 3.75m probe core (from ReStock+) is 0.5m, and the core is the only part that would really limit the height (https://imgur.com/gallery/h9vGkNM - sorry for not including it in the first post, I'm not good with Imgur). 

On 12/18/2022 at 6:28 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

You say "ultra" so... 0.2m? (Reference size shown in-game is 2m except for the Mk2.) I can easily enough make a part that is 0.2m long for some profiles and a 0.2m x 2m linear strip.

0.2m would be convinient and consistent, I imagine (at least considering 0.2 fits both 1.25m and mk2 cores, and 0.4 is only for 2.5m). Two 0.2m strips could be used for 2.5m core (as in screenshots), and scaling it down to 1.25m with TweakScale would produce panels 0.1m in height, which could also be used in two rows.  If you would make different parts for different profiles, maybe 0.4m for 2.5 and 3.75m and 0.2m for everything else could be used? But I'm not a modder, so, fully unironically, what do I know. 

Linear strip sounds very cool in itself by the way. As far as I know it hasn't been done before, and they could be used longitudinally on rockets and spaceplanes, on the edges on Mk1 lander can  (with TweakScale), on vertical stabilizers of drones, on spaceplane wings, trusses etc. 

[Royalswissarmyknife]

On 11/24/2022 at 2:27 AM, JadeOfMaar said:

Much progress. I think it's just some texture or material tuning that remains now.

B9 options line-up. Some parts have 15 because they have 5 heights. What it looks like @WarriorSabe. Tech restrictions on upgrades not enabled yet.

Peak solar exposure to one side/ one half of the solar panel yields full charge rate. Roughly 90% of full charge rate is reachable when the panel is perfectly pointed (both sides evenly exposed) towards the star. The solar panel parts each have two of the solar panel module due to having a 180deg curve.

 

 

The solar panels on the MK2 are fire