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FusTek Station Parts Dev Thread (continuation of fusty's original work)


sumghai

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Haven't had any problems with RasterProp before and don't seem to have any lag in the FusTek IVA but, FusTek is the only thing I have that has the transparent windows. The lag is worst on launchpad spawn and teleport into orbit, dipping to the sub 1 fps range. Once the camera readjusts itself in orbit frame rate hits around 5fps. Vessels without windows seem to do well. Ive got a 560 Ti and 16GB ram so KSP usually runs fine.

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Haven't had any problems with RasterProp before and don't seem to have any lag in the FusTek IVA but, FusTek is the only thing I have that has the transparent windows. The lag is worst on launchpad spawn and teleport into orbit, dipping to the sub 1 fps range. Once the camera readjusts itself in orbit frame rate hits around 5fps. Vessels without windows seem to do well. Ive got a 560 Ti and 16GB ram so KSP usually runs fine.

Yeah, the FusTek IVAs are fairly mid-to-high poly, but colliders are limited to just buttons and a few lockers. I'm not too keen on going low-poly, though.

I'll need to check this out myself someday.

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Progress Report, 17 July 2015

Number of days without a KSP-runnable laptop: 170

I'm aware that my usage of JSITransparentPod, together with medium-fidelity props, is causing significant lag for users. I suspect this has something to do with the spotlight transforms I'm trying to implement for internal lighting, but this will have to wait until I get my new laptop.

In the meantime, I've added some science experiment locker props to the Sci Module IVA. They might not be interactive props, but I've given them unique labels to represent various KSP experiments.

I've also been doing prep work towards consolidating the various Karmony modules, so that eventually, users can simply toggle whether they want tapered or flat ends, reducing VAB/SPH part list bloat. However:

- This will require MOARdV's URM Plugin as a hard dependency. I know many users hate my use of numerous dependencies, but SQUAD has no plans for stock support of procedural/tweakable parts, so you'll have to talk to them about it

- I figured out a way to minimize save-breaking, but this would require you guy to manually edit craft / savegame files before installing the (upcoming) update; more details to come

- You can only choose to have both ends tapered or both ends flat; you can't have one tapered and one flat end concurrently

- The Kuest Airlock, Kupola, Resupply Module will not have toggleable tapers, as they aren't supposed to be stacked in-line (as per their real-life inspirations)

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Re: The lag from transparent windows / JSI should be checking logs and submitting logs to MOARdv

That kind of lag can also be caused by errors spamming the log file.

I haven't been able to try the station parts since KSP 1.0 because of modding work but since I'm hitting a lull in business I'll take a look and see how things perform for me and check for issues.

Edited by Starwaster
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  • 4 weeks later...

(Lack of) Progress Report, 8 August 2015

Number of days without a KSP-runnable laptop: 192

As if not being able to test my dev builds myself wasn't bad enough, my current laptop has finally given up the ghost. Thankfully, I backed up all my data a mere few hours before that happened, so I haven't lost anything.

Unlike stupid_chris's laptop woes, where it cost him a non-trivial amount of money to repair, I do have enough cash on hand to buy a brand new one, but I'm waiting on specific models to natively support Win 10. I'm not going to impatiently just buy a Win8 machine and waste weeks updating to Win 10 myself and futzing around with drivers.

In the meantime, I've borrowed an (even worse) Win XP machine, barely enough to keep in touch with people over the internet, so this definitely delays development of this add-on.

Therefore, please don't donate money or suggest which laptop to buy.

Also, while folks like Starwaster, Bomoo, Moon Goddess, MOARdV and sharpspoonful have been working hard behind-the-scenes to help me with various tests, there are certain **other individuals** (who know who they are) who continually provide incomplete/useless bug reports, make accusatory statements about myself and/or my development method, and advertise subversive "hacks" and modifications. These **other individuals** should remove all FusTek and SDHI add-ons I have authored from their computers immediately, and they are no longer welcome to post in my release or development threads.

Edited by sumghai
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On the other hand, if you should happen to see any Ciao Bella (or in a pinch, Talenti) Blood Orange Sorbet, immediately buy it, pack it in dry ice and ship it to me ASAP as I am unable to locate any, anywhere.

Thank you and that will be all.

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On the other hand, if you should happen to see any Ciao Bella (or in a pinch, Talenti) Blood Orange Sorbet, immediately buy it, pack it in dry ice and ship it to me ASAP as I am unable to locate any, anywhere.

Thank you and that will be all.

This is how business is done ladies and gentleman.

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  • 2 months later...
...the local computer store informed me that the laptop I want won't be in NZ until mid-to-late November.

It is a pain and one (of the few) disadvantages of being in NZ. Had the same issue last year waiting for the right spec machine to come along and needing to move from ChCh to Auckland I was lucky that when I did purchase Noel Leeming ended up briefly stocking the same machine and so got the price match to secure a better deal! Didn't want to order from overseas because of the issues on GST being pinged as you come through and warranty and all too.

On topic though, I'm looking forward to your ongoing Fustek work!

Peace.

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  • 3 weeks later...

cant wait for you to get back in the game, sumghai, hope your pc gets to you sooner rather than later!

on a side note, is it just me and my super modded install, or do none of the internals actually work, like can see inside, except for the kupola module? i will try and see whats up, and see if its just me.

::Edit::

this is a pic of what im seeing, on a unmodded version of the game, 1.0.5 http://imgur.com/OOzyzYe

as you can see closely in the pic, the hab module is just a window looking at nothing, just out the back of the module, while the kupola has stuff in it.

Edited by stryker2279
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cant wait for you to get back in the game, sumghai, hope your pc gets to you sooner rather than later!

on a side note, is it just me and my super modded install, or do none of the internals actually work, like can see inside, except for the kupola module? i will try and see whats up, and see if its just me.

::Edit::

this is a pic of what im seeing, on a unmodded version of the game, 1.0.5 http://imgur.com/OOzyzYe

as you can see closely in the pic, the hab module is just a window looking at nothing, just out the back of the module, while the kupola has stuff in it.

Do you have JSI RPM installed?

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  • 2 weeks later...
yes, i do have jsi installed, which is why objects are appearing in the kupola module: when i uninstalled jsi, the kupola had no inner structure whatsoever.

::edit::
here is the log file, i believe this is the correct one.
[url]https://www.dropbox.com/s/33xhh6b0cup7s2t/output_log.txt?dl=0[/url] Edited by stryker2279
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  • 2 months later...

Hey guys, just a quick update:

As some of you are aware, I now have a new laptop capable of running KSP, and I have been slowly easing myself back into the modding scene.

However, I won't be able to jump back into working on FusTek Station Parts right away for the following reasons:

- My focus right now is on getting SDHI SMS back up and running for KSP 1.0.5/1.1; it makes more sense to fix up a smaller mod than to sink time into a larger parts pack that has been in a perpetual not-even-alpha state for literally years.

 - Given all the changes between KSP 0.90 and 1.0.5 (as well as the upcoming 1.1), as well as the gradual accumulation of bugs/issues/problems with the current dev release, I think it would be best for me to essentially rebuild FusTek from the ground up.

Thanks for your understanding.

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1 hour ago, sumghai said:

Hey guys, just a quick update:

As some of you are aware, I now have a new laptop capable of running KSP, and I have been slowly easing myself back into the modding scene.

However, I won't be able to jump back into working on FusTek Station Parts right away for the following reasons:

- My focus right now is on getting SDHI SMS back up and running for KSP 1.0.5/1.1; it makes more sense to fix up a smaller mod than to sink time into a larger parts pack that has been in a perpetual not-even-alpha state for literally years.

 - Given all the changes between KSP 0.90 and 1.0.5 (as well as the upcoming 1.1), as well as the gradual accumulation of bugs/issues/problems with the current dev release, I think it would be best for me to essentially rebuild FusTek from the ground up.

Thanks for your understanding.

I agree with you on all of these things and commend your decisions.  You should also simply spend some time enjoying playing KSP again.

Peace.

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14 minutes ago, theJesuit said:

I agree with you on all of these things and commend your decisions.  You should also simply spend some time enjoying playing KSP again.

Peace.

I'll second that!  :)  There have been a lot of changes since you last played KSP, Sumghai, so I totally agree that you should take some time to get reacquainted with the game in its current state, and also to just enjoy it again for a while.  Have fun, my friends!  :D

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  • 4 weeks later...

Progress Report, 28 February 2016

Now that I've finished updating SDHI SMS on my new laptop, work on FusTek Station Parts resumes.

In the past month, I've re-examined the way FusTek was being developed:

- Feature creep from user requests often resulted in repeated reworking of parts to integrate them
- There were too many part variants to maintain
- The original FusTek aesthetic was beginning to show its age
- Legacy parts, textures and design techniques left to ensure backwards-compatibility was hindering development
- The internals were still nowhere near complete, despite promises

As such, I've decided to essentially rebuild FusTek from the ground up, using new techniques I've picked up while updating SDHI SMS or examining the work of other modders. My general policy right now is to work on a few parts at a time to their entirety, rather than running around like a headless Goopsel applying small changes to all parts at the same time.

The first thing I tackled was the issue of part variants. Personally, I like to build space stations by docking together numerous modules, each of which have the distinctive ISS/USOS-like shallow tapered ends. However, there are also those who like to build huge monolithic one-piece stations or ring, and prefer to use flat-ended modules. This meant that I had to maintain two variants for each type of module, which not only cluttered up the VAB/SPH parts list, but also increases my maintenance workload.

After considering a number of options, such as plugin-powered configurable parts or using the newly-updated stock animation module to make parts that can only be animated while in the VAB/SPH, I ultimately opted for the simplest of solutions that would provide the most flexibility to end users while being easy to maintain: just make all the modules flat by default, and have tapers as optional structural parts. The tapers are attached to the basic flat-ended modules using hidden nodes, so that docking ports can still be directly stack-attached to the ends of the modules.

(Speaking of flexibility, it will now be possible to use the Kupola Observation Module and Kuest Airlock in an inline stack configuration, although obviously they can only be used at the very end of a stack.)

Also, I invested some time this week into was updating the FusTek aesthetic - the hull panels have faux mounting rails between them where EVA handgrips could be plausibly fitted, EVA handgrip coverage has been greatly increased, the flat ends on the modules have a nicer raw bulkhead texture/normal map, the ring outer panels are divided up in the same way as the rest of the hull. In short, the overall look of the modules makes much more sense now.

Finally, a slight change in the naming scheme - each type of module will now have its own K-themed name, instead of simply all being part of the Karmony series (Karmony was derived from the real-life ISS Harmony Node module)

I think that's enough talk for today. Here are some nice pictures:

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I am also extremely happy to hear that you are going to be updating this pack, I've beem [;aying since KSP was a teenager (release number-wise) amd IMHO the FusTek station parts were by far the best of the various station parts packs I've tried over the years.

On 2016-02-28 at 1:12 AM, sumghai said:

The first thing I tackled was the issue of part variants. Personally, I like to build space stations by docking together numerous modules, each of which have the distinctive ISS/USOS-like shallow tapered ends. However, there are also those who like to build huge monolithic one-piece stations or ring, and prefer to use flat-ended modules. This meant that I had to maintain two variants for each type of module, which not only cluttered up the VAB/SPH parts list, but also increases my maintenance workload.

After considering a number of options, such as plugin-powered configurable parts or using the newly-updated stock animation module to make parts that can only be animated while in the VAB/SPH, I ultimately opted for the simplest of solutions that would provide the most flexibility to end users while being easy to maintain: just make all the modules flat by default, and have tapers as optional structural parts.

Personally I'm not too concerned about the number of parts in the part list, I'm more concerned about the number of parts in my space station. :D  A fantastic looking station is great, but if the frame rate is too low that takes away from the enjoyment, particularly by making EVAs and docking a pain. I do like the idea of having the end caps as they can be put onto other parts to make them more Fustek-like, but on the other hand I'd rather have one part per module rather than three (i.e. module + 2 end caps).

I don't know if it might cause some problems, but would it be possible to put two connector points at each end of a module, one that would allow normal end to end docking or attachment of docking ports etc, and one that's inside the module so that two parts could be fitted overlapped so that the tapered ends are hidden? That would satisfy the monolithic station builders, but it wouldn't allow people to opt for flat ended parts.

I'll be happy to get whatever you put out, but I thought I'd throw this out there for consideration. in any event, I guess if they are compatible with Ubiozur Welding I can make my own one-piece versions...

Additional  -

On 2016-02-28 at 1:12 AM, sumghai said:

Also, I invested some time this week into was updating the FusTek aesthetic - the hull panels have faux mounting rails between them where EVA handgrips could be plausibly fitted, EVA handgrip coverage has been greatly increase

Excellent!!!  It's a pain in the @$$ trying to get a free floating Kerbal stationary for long enough to be able to carefully attach parts using KAS, so this is a great improvement. I'd gotten into the habit of carrying a mobility enhancer along when doing station modification just to give the Kerbal a convenient temporary anchor so they don't float off while I'm trying to get the new part aligned and fixed properly. More handrails will be very convenient for KAS users.

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  • 2 months later...

Progress Report, 12 May 2016

A bit of a setback I'm afraid.

After diverting my attention to updating SDHI SMS and Strobe-O-Matic, and finishing off some contract work on the side, I resumed work on FusTek. KSP 1.1.2 has changed quite a few things, so I needed time to get my bearings and figure out which bits of my Station Parts development build need compatibility fixes.

First thing I did was to migrate my project over to Unity 5.2, and fix all the broken shaders and materials. For the most part, the newly re-exported parts turned out okay, but there was a bit of a problem with the module identifier decals - specifically, the transparent regions of the decals show up as ugly blocks of opaque color in the VAB/SPH parts list, but otherwise look okay in the build area itself and the flight scene:

QCMsbIz.png

This is related to the issue regarding flag decals causing areas of parts being (conversely) transparent in the build area. According to @nli2work, this is apparently a bug in Unity 5 itself rather than KSP, so while the issue ultimately is neither SQUAD's responsibility nor mine, it is still disheartening nonetheless when something doesn't look right.

IVAs powered by RasterPropMonitor also mostly turned out intact, although the blinkenlight looping issue has reared its ugly head yet again (sorry @MOARdV - this time it stays looping long after EC depletion)

Once I get this growing pile of issues under control, I would like to start thinking about redesigning the IACBM docking ports to actually use colliders and force docking alignments to perfect 90 degree intervals. @curtquarquesso, I believe you're the man I need to ask about this.

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Yeah. I was working with some parts with flag decals in Unity 5 and I got the same bug in the VAB parts list. Aside from that everything looks fine when it actually was used in the build area and the flight scene.

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