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[1.8-1.11.x] Beamed Power Standalone (and Propulsion), v1.1.0


Aniruddh

Wavelength setting  

46 members have voted

  1. 1. How realistic do you want the wavelength setting

    • Full realism (eg. "Far Ultraviolet")
      10
    • Some realism (eg. "Ultraviolet")
      15
    • Simple (and vague), (eg. "Short"/"Long"), option currently implemented
      19
    • No wavelength mechanic (wavelength preset by the code itself)
      2

This poll is closed to new votes


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0.9.0 is out, and should hopefully be the last version of this plugin. After this it's mostly going to be making parts and KSPedia pages. Those two take much longer to make so those will likely be coming in October (unless another modder adds parts to this plugin in their own mod by then).

Anyways, I've added support for warp-drives that depend on the USI warp-drive plugin. Instead of using multiple if conditions to check if warp-drive is on, I used a different method (that saved many lines of code).

As you may know, the USI warp-drive plugin moves the warping spacecraft, but there is no acceleration involved (and thus no change in velocity). This method (for checking for warp-drives being engaged) first calculates the change in position of the craft between two physics frames, divides that by the time between those two frames to calculate the 'actual' velocity. If the 'actual' velocity is greater than the velocity of the craft used in the game (the one that is unchanged by warp-drive), then warp-drive is on.

I noticed this did work when teleporting using the cheat menu, so it *should* work with warp-drives. If anyone wants to test with their favorite warp-drive mod, please report whether it worked or not, and if it didn't work, what went wrong.

Edited by Aniruddh
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  • 2 weeks later...

I finished making my first ever part for ksp! It is a photon-sail, and also has working animations. It currently looks like this:

BnuJa7x.png

VW5s7Fa.png

However, I won't be releasing this part till I've finished the transmitter-dish part that I have planned, and I will make this model have size variants as well. Once those are done, I will release this on Spacedock.

Feedback on this model is much appreciated. Thanks!

Edited by Aniruddh
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3 hours ago, Aniruddh said:

I finished making my first ever part for ksp! It is a photon-sail, and also has working animations. It currently looks like this:

However, I won't be releasing this part till I've finished the transmitter-dish part that I have planned, and I will make this model have size variants as well. Once those are done, I will release this on Spacedock.

Feedback on this model is much appreciated. Thanks!

As much as I like the transparency, doesn't that defeat the purpose of the photo sail?  Unless it is a one way mirror?

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18 hours ago, theJesuit said:

As much as I like the transparency, doesn't that defeat the purpose of the photo sail?  Unless it is a one way mirror?

There are some sails that are transparent to visible light, but reflect (opaque to) ultraviolet (or any other short wavelength). But yes, considering in my mod, I also allow microwaves as a wavelength (Long), I should change it to reflective and not transparent; I'm just now figuring out reflections, but it will come.

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I finished making the next part. I changed my mind, instead of doing a transmitter dish (models for which are already available in plenty of other mods), I decided to do the thermal engine. Here is a screenshot:

CoQwf1z.png

Screenshots in game:

Spoiler

3T6Y5zm.png

SAkEdiq.png

 

This mod will support Waterfall! This is the plugin that leads to the beautiful looking plumes in the two screenshots in the spoiler!

Edited by Aniruddh
link broke
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2 minutes ago, toric5 said:

Will the KSC tracking station come with a built in transmitter?

Well, I could. But I don't see the point of that, atleast for gameplay. It would make more sense for an extended KSC: with something like Kerbal Konstructs, you could create power plants next to the KSC and use the tracking station dish to beam power. You'd have to build the power plants, and they would cost a certain amount of money and generate a certain amount of power. Does that sound like a good idea?

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30 minutes ago, Aniruddh said:

Well, I could. But I don't see the point of that, atleast for gameplay. It would make more sense for an extended KSC: with something like Kerbal Konstructs, you could create power plants next to the KSC and use the tracking station dish to beam power. You'd have to build the power plants, and they would cost a certain amount of money and generate a certain amount of power. Does that sound like a good idea?

I would love that! A quick glance at the KK source code, however, suggests that you may need support on their end.

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Just now, Clamp-o-Tron said:

I would love that! A quick glance at the KK source code, however, suggests that you may need support on their end.

Yes probably, I know very little about creating UIs in Unity, and integrating into their UI would be tricky for me to do. I will request this in their thread at some point.

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  • 2 weeks later...

New part: This should be the final one for propulsion, this is an ablative engine. It runs on ablator (the same resource used in heatshields), and it has an isp of 2500s in Vac. This part was tough to model, since there was practically no concept art online, so I had to visualize how this would look like based on what it does. In the end I came up with a large (3.5m) metal dome, with a cylindrical hull around it that has pipes carrying LqdHelium (I think?) around it. The exhaust temperature is around 8000K, and in real life the exhaust would be made of gaseous metal or metal plasma. Don't let this get into the hands of Jeb. Just for adding extra detail and greebles, I also added wiring and such around the part, as without it, it'd just be a metallic dome (not that interesting :/).

The part's name within the game is 'BP-AE "Sublimation" Ablative-Engine', and looks like this from the front:

BGzfacv.png

Sorry for the large image this time. I tried reducing it's size, but ended up just reducing it's resolution, not it's dimensions.

Edited by Aniruddh
typo
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  • 3 weeks later...
15 minutes ago, toric5 said:

are you working transmitter parts? do you plan on patching existing parts to also have power beaming capability, or will you be making brand new parts?

For some modules I will just provide patches for existing parts. In the next update, there will be patches for most NFeX parts that will (hopefully) be well-balanced. However, I am currently working on some parts which includes a large transmitter dish. It will still take some more time, as I had exams for the last few weeks and part-modelling is too time-consuming.  :/

So overall, yes I am making some parts but others will rely on patches for existing parts. I will also be updating the existing part models to make them look better, and more consistent.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Since the second most picked option on the poll is 'Some realism' for wavelengths, I have gone ahead and added a version of the plugin with this, in the 'Extra' folder.  1.0.5 also has patches to add beamed power modules to the NFeX parts.

In the mean time, I've been working on a transmitter-dish model, but I haven't released it yet as I'm not 100% satisfied with it yet. Here is what it looks like so far:

FVj5t6S.png

As you can see, the texture on the base of the dish is lacking any detail, 

The dish is highly reflective/metallic however, so looks good on other celestial bodies:

gwcyRqy.png

Edited by Aniruddh
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9 minutes ago, darthgently said:

To keep things simple I like to stick to CKAN for installing mods.  But this mod is very interesting.  Are there plans to CKAN it?

Yes! Thanks for reminding. I checked the box on spacedock, so it should be added to CKAN soon. I was waiting for a stable release, and 1.0 was stable enough, so this is ok now.

Edited by Aniruddh
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1 hour ago, Aniruddh said:

Yes! Thanks for reminding. I checked the box on spacedock, so it should be added to CKAN soon. I was waiting for a stable release, and 1.0 was stable enough, so this is ok now.

Hi, the version file has some syntax errors, but I don't see it on GitHub. Where can we submit fixes?

Also, do you want the alternate files in the Extras folder set up as a separate option in CKAN?

Edited by HebaruSan
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16 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Hi, the version file has some syntax errors, but I don't see it on GitHub. Where can we submit fixes?

I've upload the version file onto GitHub on the source code link, the syntax errors are likely due to me copying another mod's version file in a haste to release the mod early on.

16 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Also, do you want the alternate files in the Extras folder set up as a separate option in CKAN?

Yes. in the separate download option, the two .dlls should replace the main .dlls in the main folder, this should further automate the process .

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18 hours ago, darthgently said:

I'm haunted by visions of huge arrays of modular hexagonal orbital mirrors for amplifying and diverting sunlight into power receiving PVs and to farms in pressurized greenhouses on Dres.  Is this mod's future plans beaming these visions into my skull?

I can easily add all the parts and features that you want here, so yes it may. As for special effects, it would be difficult to have an effect of a beam of visible light reflecting off of a orbital mirror.

Btw I've always wanted to make a Dyson swarm like structure in KSP! I assume you're thinking of something similar to this  (as I am), just on a much smaller scale:

Spoiler

 

 

Edited by Aniruddh
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2 hours ago, Aniruddh said:

I've upload the version file onto GitHub on the source code link, the syntax errors are likely due to me copying another mod's version file in a haste to release the mod early on.

Thanks! Most of them are fixed in the file you uploaded to GitHub, remaining fix submitted here:

2 hours ago, Aniruddh said:

Yes. in the separate download option, the two .dlls should replace the main .dlls in the main folder, this should further automate the process .

OK, that should be feasible.

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3 hours ago, Aniruddh said:

Yes. in the separate download option, the two .dlls should replace the main .dlls in the main folder, this should further automate the process .

What should the alternate module be called, so users will understand the difference between the two? (I'm not sure I understand it myself, yet...)

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Just now, HebaruSan said:

What should the alternate module be called, so users will understand the difference between the two? (I'm not sure I understand it myself, yet...)

The module is for more realistic wavelength options (the second option on the poll), so the name 'Beamed Power Standalone- Realistic wavelengths' should be fine. Sorry for not being clear on that.

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2 minutes ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

An alternative solution is to use either a .cfg settings file that can be changed by the user (not the best choice for CKAN) or simply to use the ingame settings which you already use to determine which code to run.

I did try something like that (used a config file) but it turned out to be quite complicated when dealing with mod support (writing MM patches). I would prefer this method though,  since I wouldn't have to edit two versions of the code every time I wanted to make changes.

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Can you add beamed power transceivers? My thought is they should be able to beam and receive without direct line of sight for close range use. Like if you have a ship with smaller drones you can put a transciever on them and the mothership so that every small drone does not have to have its own power source or line of sight when close to the mother ship.

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