Firespitter propeller plane and helicopter parts v7.1 (May 5th) for KSP 1.0

[Yogui87]

Thanks to Firespitter's plugin, I made this drone for my upcoming base mod:

More about this mod on my official thread: Lionhead Aerospace

[BubbaWilkins]

The helicopter landing impressed me, was that a takeoff in reverse? My landings aren't quite like that, especially from a different viewpoint

That's exactly what I did there. My normal landings don't look that good either, often ending in a very Kerbal like explosion.

[Lemjack]

The main stumbling block has been the fact that custom engine sounds no longer work.

I'v found a way to handle engine sounds with a custom part module I'm writing. This has the benefit of probably working on mac for once, and having the engine produce sound even when the throttle is set to the lowest level.

It has the drawback of being an untested source of potential bugs. So it might act differently in terms of shutting down sounds properly, or other game crashing things if there are edge cases I haven't found. I think I've found most of them, but you never know.

(It adds events to the game's onPause and OnUnpause events, which I haven't tried before, and is scary)

The remaining work to be done before I can throw you a zip is just checking about 100 cfg files. When did I make all these!?!

I'm trying to add custom sounds to a part, (DYJ's Gatling GAU19) where do you make/write/create the "custom part module" for sounds? Is it in the DLL ?

[Snjo]

Source here: https://github.com/snjo/Firespitter/blob/master/Firespitter/engine/FSengineSounds.cs

It's compiled into a dll using Visual Studio Express 2012.

[CaptainHowlingMadMurdock]

This mod has become a staple in my KSP.. The first plane I made with this pack (months ago) was a biplane. and It flew great. It took off like you would except a real biplane to take off. I was streaming it at the time but I don't think I ever saved the moment.

Anyway, I had just attempted to make something based off the B-25, and there's a few things I'd like to suggest. Even though they probably already have been suggested before. An oblong shaped bomber cockpit, fuselage and tail piece would look great. Along with engines that look like they are actually big enough and powerful enough to lift the bomber. (have problems using FAR and getting those heavy beasts off the ground) Maybe some parts that just provide weight. Perhaps a few different sizes of these as the weights could be nice.. And a floatplane cockpit/fuselage/tail. Something like the Catalina

I probably could think of more.. But those are some things I think could do really well in the pack. Thanks for the mod! Really loving it. Keep up the good work!

[Snjo]

Well, those kinds of big oblong fuselage and cockpit sections are a requirement if I do the whole Lancaster bomber, which I want to. But I'm doing it whenever I'm in the mood, so no timeframes

The engines are done though, if you check the last few pages, there are some early shots. Got some code going for some exhaust effects on those too.

The floating hull section should be easy code wise, it just means making yet another cockpit, which is time consuming. On the other hand I do love seaplanes... The aerodynamics on that high wing+engines looks... challenging.

[Avalant]

That's one fancy looking PBY! Still my favorite WWII seaplane.

[colmo]

I thought I'd mention this mod which will maintain vertical velocity and allow gradual increments - extremely handy for helicopters. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50736-Vertical-Velocity-Control-in-1m-s-increments-with-compensation-for-vessel-angle

[Taverius]

'FSengineMenuCleaner', what does it do?

I see it in .cfg for the VTOL

[Snjo]

It removes unneeded info from the engine context menu:

if (engine != null)
        {
            engine.Fields["fuelFlowGui"].guiActive = newState;
            engine.Fields["realIsp"].guiActive = newState;
            engine.Fields["statusL2"].guiActive = newState;
            engine.Fields["statusL2"].guiActive = newState;
        }
        if (intake != null)
        {
            intake.Fields["airFlow"].guiActive = newState;
            intake.Fields["intakeDrag"].guiActive = newState;
            intake.Fields["status"].guiActive = newState;
            intake.Fields["airSpeedGui"].guiActive = newState;
            intake.Events["Deactivate"].guiActive = newState;
            intake.Events["Activate"].guiActive = newState;
        }

[Taverius]

As of the version on spaceport, the VTOL engine module assumes atmospheric nerf module is present ... this is unwanted for out B9 jet VTOL, and certainly for the rocket VTOL

If the atmonerf module is nonpresent action groups are reset on load and an error is spammed into log every frame.

[Snjo]

As of the version on spaceport, the VTOL engine module assumes atmospheric nerf module is present ... this is unwanted for out B9 jet VTOL, and certainly for the rocket VTOL

If the atmonerf module is nonpresent action groups are reset on load and an error is spammed into log every frame.

There's now a new setting in the upcoming version of the dll to disable atmospheric nerfing. The module itself needs to be there, as it's the end point for a few different thrust calculations.

The new setting is "disableAtmosphericNerf = True" to always use full thrust regardless of atmosphere. This will be needed on any rocket engine or similar with VTOL/hover module that's supposed to work in a vacuum.

[Snjo]

This is a release to get some important code fixes out while we are still at the current KSP version, more parts will follow in the full version.

v5.6 pre-release

Download

Changes

-Avro Lancaster Engines. Surface mounted big engines, one variant with internal landing gear, one without. (I think I turned down their bounciness, but if you bounce too much on landing, let me know)

-FAR fix: if FAR is present, the control surface range module is disabled to fix incompatibility.

-Turned Allow Surface Attach on for tail control surfaces.

-Tweaks to the default rotation code in multi axis engine and part turner.

-atmospheric nerf can be disabled to allow for vacuum operations (the module itself is still required on relevant parts)

Known bug

the f-86 tail control surfaces will rotate on the wrong axis in FAR, but it flies fine.

[CaptainHowlingMadMurdock]

-snip-

v5.6 pre-release

-snip-

Made this guy to mess around with the new engines.. It seems to be very maneuverable.. lol. The props are looking great and match the bombers now. I'm not sure I like the motors though. I tried them out and on my joystick it seems to have full throttle reverse, and no throttle making it go forward. A bit weird but not a huge problem. I didn't notice much bounce on landing in this aircraft either. I wasn't really watching either though.. I have knocked the engines off the wings a few times, which ends up with funny landings..

Will have to try it out on something heavier.. I forgot to mention in the last post about a raised bomber tailpiece. I had to use part clipping and use a few B9 parts and make this really odd tailpiece then put on the bomber tailpiece to get the tail to look good and hold the elevators and such. you can see the B9 Mk1 Raised Tail coming out the back holding them up in the GIF. lol

[Snjo]

Made this guy to mess around with the new engines.. It seems to be very maneuverable.. lol. The props are looking great and match the bombers now. I'm not sure I like the motors though. I tried them out and on my joystick it seems to have full throttle reverse, and no throttle making it go forward. A bit weird but not a huge problem. I didn't notice much bounce on landing in this aircraft either. I wasn't really watching either though.. I have knocked the engines off the wings a few times, which ends up with funny landings..

(...)

Will have to try it out on something heavier.. I forgot to mention in the last post about a raised bomber tailpiece. I had to use part clipping and use a few B9 parts and make this really odd tailpiece then put on the bomber tailpiece to get the tail to look good and hold the elevators and such. you can see the B9 Mk1 Raised Tail coming out the back holding them up in the GIF. lol

That's starting to look like a proper bomber! Love the tail.

edit: The problem with wheel motors according to Taverius, is that a wheel at an angle will have very different torque impact forwards than backwards, because of spring compression and grip.

This is wholly due to the ridiculously badly written wheelCollider in Unity. My workaround has been to reduce power backwards, but that only makes sense at the angles I have used. I'll try to even out the power a bit, but in some cases, that will only make it worse, depending on the angle. There may be a spring setting that fixes it though

I have some good news and some bad news:

Good news, I have found the issue that caused the bomber cockpit and bomber wings to be indestructible (Has to do with the what's the first collider written to the file in Unity)

Bad news, a lot more kerbals will die horrible fiery deaths on the runway!

I was trying to reproduce that indestructability bug on other cockpits, but was unable to. Have any of you seen this happen in the smaller cockpits at impact speeds above 35 m/s?

The first few nodes make for some risky plane experiments

Edited October 16, 2013 by Snjo

[Snjo]

v5.6 pre-release

(if there are no known bugs, it goes on spaceport tomorrow)

Download

-KSP 0.22 compatibility

Parts:

-Avro Lancaster Engines. Surface mounted big engines, one variant with internal landing gear, one without.

-All parts have been assigned a science node (costs have not been set)

Useful tweaks:

-FAR fix: if FAR is present, the control surface range module is disabled to fix incompatibility.

-Turned Allow Surface Attach on for tail control surfaces.

-The bomber cockpit is now less indestructible. (Fixed collider order)

-The bomber wings have proper collision detection

-Wheel and engine settings in the SPH now affect the whole symmetry group.

-VTOL steering can be toggled on and off with an action group (without affecting the steering setup)

Minor tweaks you don’t care about:

-Tweaks to the default rotation code in multi axis engine and part turner.

-atmospheric nerf can be disabled to allow for vacuum operations (the module itself is still required on relevant parts)

-FSwheel: suspension overrides can have negative values if overrideModelSpringValues = True

-FSwheel: disable collider at a given time during retraction.

-VTOL steering supports models with inverted transforms through invertSteering = True

[sidfu]

update title to show .22 compat. even thou just prerelase chageing title will help

[Naten]

HEY HEY HEY HEY

SNJO SNJO SNJO SNJO

THEY RELEASED

THEY RELEASED

THEY RELEASED THE UPDATE!

I hope to make planes in the new version, and with propellers and stuff. I like them. Will you assign the items to a blank tech tree spot they included for the

Snjos(--no, great modders, well, what's the difference...) to put their parts in?

Anyways. Excited to see what you've got planned for the new features and if your parts will support them.

Bye.

-naten.

[Snjo]

The 5.6 has been uploaded to spaceport with no changes.

For new players, I'd like to remind you that if you have no engine sounds, it's probably because you have placed the older in the wrong place, or renamed it. Sounds must be in the path listed in the part's cfg file. Therefore you are unfortunately not able to name the Firespitter folder freely, and it must reside in the GameData folder.

Also, your questions about part usage are probably answered in the Firespitter Parts Guide, which is also included in the zip as a pdf.

If you see any new and exciting bugs, please let me know

[Snjo]

HEY HEY HEY HEY

SNJO SNJO SNJO SNJO

THEY RELEASED

THEY RELEASED

THEY RELEASED THE UPDATE!

I hope to make planes in the new version, and with propellers and stuff. I like them. Will you assign the items to a blank tech tree spot they included for the

Snjos(--no, great modders, well, what's the difference...) to put their parts in?

Anyways. Excited to see what you've got planned for the new features and if your parts will support them.

Bye.

-naten.

I have placed most of the parts in the same branch of the tech tree, together with the stock aerodynamic, supersonic and high altitude parts. The custom mod nodes are at the very end of the science tree, meaning they cost a LOT of science to unlock. Since we are mostly dealing with stuff that's less advanced than rocket motors here, I opted out of using that node.

The first wheel you unlock is the bi plane gear. since it's bulky and un-retractable, it doesn't compete with the stock landing gear bay. The other wheels are all in the same node as the stock gears.

The electric engines and batteries are all in the electric branch, and the trim tools and water launch are in a flight control node.

The seaplane floats are in a construction node above the aero branch.

There is a plugin in development that lets us define custom science trees, so I can change around the order of the nodes to make a plane-centric tree. I'll probably do one of those as an optional thing.

[Mihara]

You forgot to add crew report and science container capability to cockpits.

[Snjo]

Right you are!

It has been updated!

[Snjo]

You should all check this out: Basic Aircraft Design Explained Simply With Pictures

[BubbaWilkins]

This is excellent news! I can't wait to take the various planes I already have and strap goo containment to them for some loops....FOR SCIENCE!

[Snjo]

v5.6.2

-Removed error message spam on bi-plane wheels