[1.12.x] Starship Expansion Project - SEP | v2.1.0 (March, 28th, 2024)

[PaisteP7]

3 hours ago, Janus92 said:

That's a weird error indeed! The only thing I can think of now is that you may need to change KSP or some language-changing mod to the english language. From what I can see all in the kOS cpu's terminal is that the "KSPActions" are written in german, and it's trying to look for the english word "deploy", and then it fails.

Do you have some kind of language-changing mod in there? I can see you're running a lot of mods that may interfere.

I changed the language.  Now everything works fine.  Until staging.  Then the Starship flips wildly and accelerates.  After a few seconds it lines up properly, but only accelerates at 1/3 throttle  and fails to make it into orbit.

The booster also lands about 20m away from the launchpad, but I haven't checked the coordinates yet. Booster landing itself looks correct though.

thx for your help. 

[Janus92]

13 hours ago, PaisteP7 said:

I changed the language.  Now everything works fine.  Until staging.  Then the Starship flips wildly and accelerates.  After a few seconds it lines up properly, but only accelerates at 1/3 throttle  and fails to make it into orbit.

The booster also lands about 20m away from the launchpad, but I haven't checked the coordinates yet. Booster landing itself looks correct though.

thx for your help. 

Maybe you could try it without any unnecessary mods and check to see if the script errors out? I can't reproduce that behaviour at all (1/3 throttle is normal though since Kerbin is so much smaller than Earth). The ship should not flip, of course, so something may be interfering. It sounds nearly like some kind of aerodynamic change or early stage separation since the booster also lands off-target.

Alternatively you could enable logging in the settings and PM me the "Kerbal Space Program/Ships/Script/" log files. I can take a look and compare them with mine.

Edited June 5, 2022 by Janus92

[adriangm44]

19 hours ago, PaisteP7 said:

I changed the language.  Now everything works fine.  Until staging.  Then the Starship flips wildly and accelerates.  After a few seconds it lines up properly, but only accelerates at 1/3 throttle  and fails to make it into orbit.

The booster also lands about 20m away from the launchpad, but I haven't checked the coordinates yet. Booster landing itself looks correct though.

thx for your help. 

I'm having the same problem, when it stages, the ship will start spining backwards and then it will fire up the engines pointing down.

6 hours ago, Janus92 said:

Maybe you could try it without any unnecessary mods and check to see if the script errors out? I can't reproduce that behaviour at all (1/3 throttle is normal though since Kerbin is so much smaller than Earth). The ship should not flip, of course, so something may be interfering. It sounds nearly like some kind of aerodynamic change or early stage separation since the booster also lands off-target.

I also run many mods but none of them interfere with atmosphere or guidance (The only thing I could think of is booster guidance or mechjeb, but theyre not active during launch). I had Ferram Aerospace Research a while ago, it's the only mod that changes the aerodynamics (you should check if you have that one @PaisteP7), but I deleted it some time ago and it's got stock aerodynamics.

Perhaps we should look deep into details, like what ship configuration we were using and what characteristics we share. 
In my personal case, I was using cargo starship with an almost empty cargo payload (Only 0.1t or 100kg), a grappler to catch a small asteroid inside the payload bay. Maybe balance was the problem? I have to try with other starships to know.

[Janus92]

3 hours ago, adriangm44 said:

I'm having the same problem, when it stages, the ship will start spining backwards and then it will fire up the engines pointing down.

I also run many mods but none of them interfere with atmosphere or guidance (The only thing I could think of is booster guidance or mechjeb, but theyre not active during launch). I had Ferram Aerospace Research a while ago, it's the only mod that changes the aerodynamics (you should check if you have that one @PaisteP7), but I deleted it some time ago and it's got stock aerodynamics.

Perhaps we should look deep into details, like what ship configuration we were using and what characteristics we share. 
In my personal case, I was using cargo starship with an almost empty cargo payload (Only 0.1t or 100kg), a grappler to catch a small asteroid inside the payload bay. Maybe balance was the problem? I have to try with other starships to know.

very weird. Can you guys make a video, or send me some of my scripts logs, or both? Other questions: Is RCS running (this should keep it straight because stage separation needs to happen in the atmosphere for the booster to return)? At what altitude do you have stage separation? Does the program crash?

[nad_nerb]

YEET! Awesome mod, well done

I get some pretty intense wobble between the starship and the booster, through the interstage. Auto-strut eliminates the wobble, but the booster remains attached during staging (I've tried all the auto-strut options and rigid attachment). Seems like spacebar staging with autostrut wont work, but the 'undock' option on the starship will separate the booster from the ship. Anyone else experiencing this?

 

 

[OrbitalManeuvers]

56 minutes ago, nad_nerb said:

Anyone else experiencing this?

yep. try  changing the Docking System on the main body to QD. That setting works for me, but the butt one always gets stuck (actually, what's happening is that it re-docks)

[Dub-Sidious]

On 4/13/2022 at 12:26 PM, Janus92 said:

I'm currently adapting my kOS scripts to SEP, in order to automate ship & booster launch and landing, by making a nice little interface for operating the ship. I'm a little bit busy with other stuff in between, and it's not 100% reliable, but if people wanna test it, I'll put the link in here:

 

https://mega.nz/file/XkkUQaoB#Bcur0LMALYPeFXSqt2GotYWSkydbueUsCbnoaD_jJxA

 

REQUIREMENTS:

• All basic requirements of SEP
• kOS
• Trajectories mod
• TundraExplorations "TundraExploration.dll" (or just install the mod)
• Only works with my provided .craft files
• SLE (For catching the booster and ship)

NOT SUPPORTED:

• RSS/RO
• FMRS

You'll need to load the craft files I added to the ships folder (should show up if you allow showing the stock ships) for the scripts to work correctly. With the proper craft file the interface should show up automatically on launching.

 

Let me know what problems you find!

Pictures:

Video: (https://i.imgur.com/SzPEF34.mp4)

UPDATE 22/05/21:

• Experimental catching of the booster and ship. Please use the latest SLE update from github!! Stacking is not yet working, so please recover your ship and booster soon after landing.
• Automatic De-Orbit has been reworked to allow de-orbits from higher inclinations to land in all the areas that such orbits cover. Please report any bugs.

UPDATE 22/05/24:

• New Tower Page, for controlling the tower and future re-stacking (once I figure out how to dock) after landing.

UPDATE 22/06/04:

• Crew Page extended to show all 10 occupants and a mildly varying Environmental Control System
• small fixes.

I'm having similar issues of starship flipping at seperation from SH and only throttling up to 1/3rd throttle so it will not make it to orbit  

I have noticed in your post your starship is running oxidiser and methane. is this right?The fuel switch toggles are there on the booster body to change from ksp's standard fuels to methane mix, but not on the starship body, is this how it should be? 

 

I usually use the methane mix before i tried this mod, so not sure if i should be using ksp's standard fuels with the script or methane mix. Thanks! I can't wait to get this mod working, you've created a masterpiece to finish off this Starship mod

 

Edit: I have also noticed Starship Heavy pitches over slightly before seperation which being in atmo is what i think is making the starship flip right after seperation.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Dub-Sidious

[Janus92]

On 6/8/2022 at 7:46 PM, Dub-Sidious said:

I'm having similar issues of starship flipping at seperation from SH and only throttling up to 1/3rd throttle so it will not make it to orbit  

I have noticed in your post your starship is running oxidiser and methane. is this right?The fuel switch toggles are there on the booster body to change from ksp's standard fuels to methane mix, but not on the starship body, is this how it should be? 

 

I usually use the methane mix before i tried this mod, so not sure if i should be using ksp's standard fuels with the script or methane mix. Thanks! I can't wait to get this mod working, you've created a masterpiece to finish off this Starship mod

 

Edit: I have also noticed Starship Heavy pitches over slightly before seperation which being in atmo is what i think is making the starship flip right after seperation.

Aha, maybe your post gives a hint at the possible root of the problem, which I couldn't seem to recreate however hard I've tried. I am indeed only using ksp's standard fuel of 'liquid fuel' and 'oxidizer'. I thought that my craft files would run on liquid fuel by default, but that obviously didn't work.

I had to create copies of some items (booster core, engines, ship, etc)  with specific values for liquid fuel, oxidizer and thrust to make the script work properly and not have unrealistically high delta-v in orbit (another feature of this is that I can integrate the required kOS units inside the parts). Using different fuels and thrust could easily offset the desired altitude of separation (around 24+km for me) and therefore make the ship flip and completely offset booster return trajectories..

Methane I never got to work properly in the past (it messed up delta-v calculations for me), so I'll check it out again and either find a way to make it work, or when really necessary to inhibit using the script with methane fuels.

Thx for the detailed description! In the meanwhile try using my craft files with liquid fuel and oxidizer!

EDIT:

Okay so I worked on the script and parts to fully embrace methane as well, as I think that may be causing the problems. I updated the download-link on page 5 for those that want to try. I don't have time to properly check everything, but the booster and ship seem to still fly and land okay. I also took the opportunity to rename the craft files and make the tower a default, so the old ones won't work anymore and can be deleted. I hope there aren't any big bugs, and I wonder how things will go for you guys. Let me know!

Now Community Resource Pack is a dependency, so don't forget to install it! (Although the ship should hopefully still work on liquid fuel if you don't have it installed, I think it's a nice upgrade to use methane)

 

Edited June 11, 2022 by Janus92

[PaisteP7]

On 6/9/2022 at 9:58 AM, Janus92 said:

Aha, maybe your post gives a hint at the possible root of the problem, which I couldn't seem to recreate however hard I've tried. I am indeed only using ksp's standard fuel of 'liquid fuel' and 'oxidizer'. I thought that my craft files would run on liquid fuel by default, but that obviously didn't work.

I had to create copies of some items (booster core, engines, ship, etc)  with specific values for liquid fuel, oxidizer and thrust to make the script work properly and not have unrealistically high delta-v in orbit (another feature of this is that I can integrate the required kOS units inside the parts). Using different fuels and thrust could easily offset the desired altitude of separation (around 24+km for me) and therefore make the ship flip and completely offset booster return trajectories..

Methane I never got to work properly in the past (it messed up delta-v calculations for me), so I'll check it out again and either find a way to make it work, or when really necessary to inhibit using the script with methane fuels.

Thx for the detailed description! In the meanwhile try using my craft files with liquid fuel and oxidizer!

EDIT:

Okay so I worked on the script and parts to fully embrace methane as well, as I think that may be causing the problems. I updated the download-link on page 5 for those that want to try. I don't have time to properly check everything, but the booster and ship seem to still fly and land okay. I also took the opportunity to rename the craft files and make the tower a default, so the old ones won't work anymore and can be deleted. I hope there aren't any big bugs, and I wonder how things will go for you guys. Let me know!

Now Community Resource Pack is a dependency, so don't forget to install it! (Although the ship should hopefully still work on liquid fuel if you don't have it installed, I think it's a nice upgrade to use methane)

 

hey sorry for the late reply.  had exams this week and no time to play.  I've also used regular liquid fuel and oxidator and tried crew and cargo.  Do you still need video and logs?

[Janus92]

On 6/10/2022 at 1:26 PM, PaisteP7 said:

hey sorry for the late reply.  had exams this week and no time to play.  I've also used regular liquid fuel and oxidator and tried crew and cargo.  Do you still need video and logs?

Can you try with Community Resource Pack installed and the new version that I uploaded to my post on page 5 (and using the newly named craft files that I provide)? If it doesn't work, could you tell me the altitude at which separation occurs, and maybe the reported thrust of the Booster (in the VAB or during liftoff)? I think those two things are critical. My patches for reducing booster thrust may not be working for everyone.

[kevinhagandude]

@Janus92 This script looks amazing!! I am having problems getting it to work. I can hear the KOS beeps attempting to get it started as soon as I load the ship on the pad. This is what KOS had to say about it. plzHalpMe ;_________;

 

[kharly]

17 hours ago, kevinhagandude said:

@Janus92 This script looks amazing!! I am having problems getting it to work. I can hear the KOS beeps attempting to get it started as soon as I load the ship on the pad. This is what KOS had to say about it. plzHalpMe ;_________;

 

Hi @kevinhagandude,

I know by experience that FRMS mod is not compatible with it ( and you don't need it anywa, auto switch to booster on landing)

;-)

[Janus92]

21 hours ago, kevinhagandude said:

@Janus92 This script looks amazing!! I am having problems getting it to work. I can hear the KOS beeps attempting to get it started as soon as I load the ship on the pad. This is what KOS had to say about it. plzHalpMe ;_________;

 

I’ll take a look at it once I find some spare time!

Is anyone else having any other problems at the moment? No boosters or ships spinning out of control anymore?

Edited June 12, 2022 by Janus92

[PaisteP7]

21 hours ago, Janus92 said:

I’ll take a look at it once I find some spare time!

Is anyone else having any other problems at the moment? No boosters or ships spinning out of control anymore?

Installed your update.  Unfortunately the booster does not lift off .  Everything is going according to plan, the countdown is over and the engines are firing.  However, it does not take off but falls back onto the starting table at full thrust. I'm not sure if that's because of your script or because of SEP.  Anyone else had this problem?  Thrust to weight ratio is well above 1. Fuel is correct on all parts

[Janus92]

On 6/11/2022 at 6:38 PM, kevinhagandude said:

@Janus92 This script looks amazing!! I am having problems getting it to work. I can hear the KOS beeps attempting to get it started as soon as I load the ship on the pad. This is what KOS had to say about it. plzHalpMe ;_________;

 

I think I figured it out. It happens if you rename the ship after loading right? I was able to recreate the error, and built in some protection against this happening again. With the next update it should hopefully be fixed!

18 hours ago, PaisteP7 said:

Installed your update.  Unfortunately the booster does not lift off .  Everything is going according to plan, the countdown is over and the engines are firing.  However, it does not take off but falls back onto the starting table at full thrust. I'm not sure if that's because of your script or because of SEP.  Anyone else had this problem?  Thrust to weight ratio is well above 1. Fuel is correct on all parts

This one sounds counterintuitive and slightly unhealthy! Are the arms moving away alright?

 

Okay, I just had time to try a launch with a crewed starship and it didn't go very well. Cargo ship went all right when I tested it a few days ago... lol. That's what I get for rushing an update..

Seems that the methalox still completely destroys the stock delta-v systems. It wrongly reports thrust, start mass, end mass, and therefore delta-v and TWR. Anyone got any clue as to what causes that? Is it just a part of Community Resource Pack?

Look at this data here for example, with my gui data being correct:

Crew and Tanker Ship didn't have rcs switched to methane by default, and caused a rather bumpy circularization burn (Jeb liked it). fixed that, lol. (in the next update)

A bigger issue has been confirmed: The booster was completely overshooting the tower (from the boostback burn) and couldn't find its way home. I wish I could make a boostback function that is accurate across all use cases, but it's hard predicting that stuff. Methane has a slightly different flight-profile than liquid fuel apparently. So I have to work on that a lot, as I don't really want to sacrifice either liquid fuel or methane right now.

So don't expect a working booster return for the tanker and crew ship until I get to invest a bit more time in reworking the booster script!

EDIT: Booster landing should theoretically still work without Community Resource Pack installed, as it will revert to using liquid fuel. Ah, what a headache..

 

Edited June 14, 2022 by Janus92

[AstralMinerNCC1701]

I currently use KRE but I like these leg designs.

What mod are these from? They aren't on the roadmap nor in the mod. If they were cancelled or are planned I'll keep using KRE.

[Janus92]

Allright, I updated the link on page 5.

I managed to make a new Boostback-Burn calculation that is way more accurate and works properly across these two use cases:

• with Community Resource Pack installed: The Booster and Ship will use "liquid methane".
• without Community Resource Pack installed: The Booster and Ship will use "liquid fuel".

The renaming fix and the RCS fix have also been included. The Booster will also fly a bit smoother and make a decent amount of lift on final approach in order to slow down airspeed ánd still reach the Tower.

I checked every ship with CRP and without CRP, and except for the messed up delta-v reported by KSP, everything works fine for me. I will check again tomorrow to see if I can find any bugs. Let me know if you find any!

Thanks for all the help guys! This way the scripts are definitely getting better and better across even more use cases/mods!

[AquaBoi]

On 6/13/2022 at 8:14 AM, PaisteP7 said:

Installed your update.  Unfortunately the booster does not lift off .  Everything is going according to plan, the countdown is over and the engines are firing.  However, it does not take off but falls back onto the starting table at full thrust. I'm not sure if that's because of your script or because of SEP.  Anyone else had this problem?  Thrust to weight ratio is well above 1. Fuel is correct on all parts

I'm getting no thrust with Super Heavy either, 0 clue why because the fuel type in the tank matches the engines, and I don't have anything that should conflict I believe... I press space, engines light, but 0 thrust.

[Janus92]

11 hours ago, AquaBoi said:

I'm getting no thrust with Super Heavy either, 0 clue why because the fuel type in the tank matches the engines, and I don't have anything that should conflict I believe... I press space, engines light, but 0 thrust.

I see! As a quick note to that, with my script installed you shouldn't have to press space, but use the Graphical Interface and press "Launch" instead. This will start the launch sequence.

Unfortunately I can't start the sequence with pressing spacebar, and my kOS scripts may cause a sticky throttle (I'm trying to fix this as well I think I just fixed it), therefore you may not be able to set the throttle to 100%.

Then again, looking at @PaisteP7's problem, maybe something else is going on as well that I'm unaware of at this moment.

EDIT:

So I found and fixed the main issue causing the sticky throttle. There may be other cases that cause this behaviour, but we'll find those on the way.

I also found a bug in the de-orbit burn calculation causing it to fail too often. It's now fixed and the link on page 5 has been updated with the latest version.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Janus92

[Dub-Sidious]

Man i love this mod. 

Been playing this afternoon while putting a new station together in orbit. 

Janus's script is just amazing, brings SEP and SLE to life! 

 

[dizzy.]

On 1/23/2022 at 4:36 PM, Kari said:

 

does anyone know how the hell to put this thing together? i cannot figure it out its so confusing

[Dub-Sidious]

11 hours ago, dizzy. said:

does anyone know how the hell to put this thing together? i cannot figure it out its so confusing

What you getting confused on bud? 
Starship is comprised of:

Cargo/tanker/crew nose section

main body

2 larger lower flaps

2 smaller upper flaps

header tank for ontop the nose cone

3-6 Raptor Vacs depending which model you choose

3 Sea Lever Raptors

 

Starship Heavy is comrised of:

Control Core

4 Heavy Grid Fins (i had to flip mine upside down)

Booster tank

28/29 or 33 engine cluster

 

Start off with the Starship nose variant you want, i.e crew Starship nose

Edited June 25, 2022 by Dub-Sidious
spelling mistake

[Janus92]

I think I'm slowly advancing to a more stable (read: way less bugs) experience with the interface, and I'm really happy with that.

The biggest changes over the last few weeks have been the addition of Liquid Methane as a fuel (which was a major hurdle already for a long time), tweaks to the Duna Landing allowing a 30t payload to be landed on the surface or a Crewed Ship with quite some fuel still onboard, and the workings with multiple craft docked or in orbit to allow most functions of the script to work normally with way less crashes and other weird behaviour.

That said, I have started working on a Maneuver page which can slowly take over some simple functions of Mechjeb in the future. And now I am working on an auto-docking feature The page will change a bit over time, but here's a WIP screenshot:

 

Also, I made a Quick Guide of sorts for the Interface for those that are new to it:

 

EDIT:

Docking is already working way better than expected! If the Target ship is facing away from you, the ship will move itself to an "Intermediate Safe Point" (so it can pass the ship safely), after which it will move towards the dock for auto-docking!

Here's a screenshot of the Interface during docking:

 

And one of the Maneuver Page:

It will show the other required buttons and lists depending on which maneuver you select!

edit edit: Yes, I misspelled maneuver, that's fixed though..

 

edit edit edit:

I started my own github repository for the project, from where the latest updates will always be available. I am rather happy with the new maneuver page, and hope to expand on it soon.

The download link is both on page 5 and in my forum-signature.

 

 

edit x4:

I did another minor update just now. I fixed some small bugs I encountered, and just fixed the bugs that I encountered after the initial fixes... lol..

New craft will be able to update automatically when you install a new update from me (and a connection to KSC exists)! This means no more deleting the old craft and starting new from the VAB.

(Although that is only from this version onwards.. I do describe a way to update existing craft in the changelog file)

Auto-Docking is more foolproof, and I changed the behaviour of showing ship mass and delta-v while docked (I don't show it..). However Cargo Mass is more accurate now, and the icons are the right ones.

Also you don't have to stage your payload correctly anymore. Booster separation is commanded a different way now, so not via staging (spacebar)!

 

Let me know if you find any bugs!

Edited June 29, 2022 by Janus92

[Pepethecat]

In RSSRO the engine always catch fire and explore and the header tank just loves to pop off during reentry.  Pretty sure its an issue with the mod since I don't have anything that changes the way RSSRO plays.

[1000sowy]

Do you plan to add a clamshell opening for cargo bay?