[0.22] Extraplanetary Launchpads Legacy Thread

[trash0551]

Can you make the drills animated like the ones for the kethane pack are?

[colmo]

I'm looking forward to an old-school floating dock to launch boats - the water launch mods haven't worked since 0.21 for me.

[taniwha]

I've actually been pondering how to do limits to make different sizes worthwhile. There are some logical problems, though.

The dock is more of a place to anchor the built ship and thus while in orbit it's rather difficult to justify placing any capacity limits on it.

Tech limits would be similar: it's just a frame with some invisible "clamps" (ropes, even!).

I made the dock part as tall as it is to make right-clicking easy, as it's essentially just for providing the transform for locating the built ship. The diameter of the docking surface is so it looks reasonable, and the actual mounting side is designed to fit onto the truss adapter (1.25m round to square). I rather liked the look of the clampotron sr in a similar arrangement I was using for testing.

I feel the real limits are in storage of parts (low tech solution, though difficult to represent nicely in-game: crates tied to the station with rope), and getting the parts there in the first place. The latter is where things get interesting. While zero-g is great for building big, it's not easy, so ground based part building should come before orbital based part building (ie, in the current scheme, Metal to RocketParts conversion). Similar idea for refining ore into metal, and orbital refining would probably come after orbital parts building.

Just a few thoughts I had on where this might end up when complete (assuming Squad doesn't beat you to it with a release! )

The chances of Squad including something like EL in the next release are... slim at best. Otherwise, releases wouldn't really have any effect other than possibly extending the directions EL may go. Squad doing resources might make things more interesting (or just need to be replaced with more interesting resource).

[taniwha]

I'm looking forward to an old-school floating dock to launch boats - the water launch mods haven't worked since 0.21 for me.

The only thing in the way of EL supporting this is that for sensible results^*, PutShipToGround would need to be reimplemented to place the ship's side against the spawn transform rather than the ship's base.

^* With the way things are now, the spawn transform would have to be placed arbitrarily distant from the dock, which would restrict the maximum width of the vessel. Still, it should be possible to build such a dock if KerbTown supports right-clicking on statics (or you're happy to get a dock out there some other way).

Edited November 4, 2013 by taniwha

[RabidMonkey]

Live and learn... I had a full base set up on Minmus built around the Hooligan launch pad. Key word here is "had". I put together a ship which was never intended to land, so it needed launch clamps to keep it from falling over. Turns out that the stabilizing clamps spawn inside the collision mesh of the launch pad, making for some pretty pretty fireworks. I probably should have used an orbital launch station instead.

[roxedboxer]

Sooo how do I convert metal to rocket parts?

[Lyinginbedmon]

Sooo how do I convert metal to rocket parts?

You use the rocket workshop, it's in the pods tab

[roxedboxer]

Oh!! Derp, thanks a bunch for the quick response!

[roxedboxer]

Now I have another problem...the smelters don't work..when attached to something they stay translucent and don't spawn outside of the vab..

[KareemOWheat]

I put a launchpad on the moon, but everything I attempt to create from it started clipped into the launchpad and explodes. Any idea what might be going wrong, and what I could do to fix it?

Edit: I seem to only be having this issue with 3.4.

Edited November 7, 2013 by KareemOWheat

[match]

Recycle bins. Warning signs. Bill's family very sad. Industrial accidents = bad press.

Sorry Bill, whodathunk?

hrmmm... i wonder how many rocket parts i got for him?

[urablahblah]

I've created a series of flat landing pads using welded B9 parts. I thought I'd upload them for anyone who wants to use them. B9 is required; .cfgs are the only thing included.

Four sizes included. From top: 3m across, 6m, 12m, and 24m!

They also come in pearly white!

They are tested with EPL 3.3. I have NOT tested them with the orbital construction update, but if the launchpad module is the same then they should be fine.

>>Mediafire Download<<

Edited November 7, 2013 by urablahblah
Updated Link

[ThirdHorseman]

Just a quick question on the recycling. I understand the bins use a trigger, so I assume they automatically recycle any item marked as "debris" if any piece of that item passes beyond the plane of the bin opening?

Also, it creates rocketparts when recycling? Does the bin have storage for rocketparts, or do you need to put a rocketparts container on the recycling bin to hold the new parts?

Thanks!

[taniwha]

ThirdHorseman: not just debris: anything that passes in the recycling bin's trigger (to visualize the trigger field, picture a second bin upside down on top of the real bin such that they form a clam shell). The bins have no storage: anything they attempt to recycle must have storage supplied separately (but attached via either building in the VAB/SPH or docked (including KAS)).

match: sorry, no parts for Bill, but you did get some Kethane and metal if you had storage.

I've been away for a few days: trip to Kyoto with my family (Mom came from Australia for a visit).

[roxedboxer]

Still having the smelter not attaching or showing up outside of the vab/sph problem. Any idea how to fix this?

[taniwha]

I think my smelter designs have the smelter as the root object. Since my designs usually involve smelter, some KAS ports and an auger, I never have any trouble with it. Also, I build my smelter on-site.

[roxedboxer]

Hmm alright. Placing the smelter as the root part works, but it seems that if the smelter isn't the root part, then you're s.o.l.

[taniwha]

I agree that getting the smelter placed in a "normal" configuration can be a bear, but that's part of why I came up with my simple "smelter unit" designs. Why land something when you can build it there?

[Alarconte]

Situation:

I have KSP 0.22, ExLaunchpads 3.4, Kethane 0.8

Launchpad2 landed on moon (Sometimes, Opened, it says that I cannot quicksave 'cause the launchpad is about to crash (but is not))

Problem:

I can only bring the Show Building menu from CLOSED stage of the launchpad. when is Open, there is no show building menu.

Sometimes, I get Show building menu in Open stage, and I spawn a little rover I made for giving ilumination, and everything explodes and the launchpad flies into the sky.

I'm gonna cheat a bit in the savepad to build a Launchpad1 to see if works...

[taniwha]

Is the local terrain uneven?

It seems to me like the open pad is hitting the ground unevenly and causing problems for the physics engine and thus the pad's situation (landed/splashed/orbiting/...). Thus the inability to save or open the build menu (the vessel's situation must be one of landed, splashed, orbiting, or prelaunch for the build menu to be available).

If the pad is wobbling (due to uneven footing), the pad may be wobbling into the spawned vessel before physics kicks in properly, thus causing the collisions. Try adding "SpawnHeightOffset = 0.5" (default is 0.0 (was 1.0 before 3.4)) to the pad's part.cfg (in the ExLaunchPad MODULE{} block). This trick won't work for the new orbital dock because it uses a specific transform (rather than just the part location) and thus SpawnHeightOffset is ignored (though removing the SpawnTransform setting and using a suitable offset will work). You will not need to relaunch your ships to test config changes.

I guess I need to work a bit more on when the build menu is available (I can think of times one might want to spawn something while flying through atmosphere). I can also make SpawnHeightOffset work with SpawnTransform (I was undecided on that one). I think I might add an option for forcing docked builds (ie, as used when in orbit) for landed pads.

I can't think of any more at this stage.

[KhaosCorp]

Here is an easy fix for yall having issues with pad explosions. You will see this alot less if you DO NOT land the pad directly on the ground. I really like the KW 2.5m pancake tank for this. Only thing about doing it like this is you will need a small crane to deploy rovers without jumping off 3m drop =)

[taniwha]

I wasn't sure how much that would help. All of my testing so far has been around KSC and on Minmus (in the nice dead flat spots).

[d4rkpow3r]

I can't seem to get my Augers to work and mine ore, im landed in a nice big spot on the Mun with ore (already scanned), but when I press deploy on the Auger nothing happens, am i doing something wrong? here is a screen shot

[Alarconte]

The height spawn helped the problem, but well, there is a lot of practic problems... Next time I'll search a total flat area (hope Minimus bed lakes are totally flat).

But with the actual Framerate I have it's actually unplayable a space base (trying to KAS connect some resource-landers and the Launchpad and the computer have terrible time managing it.) I'm gonna look for OP settings performance or performance pluggins....

[d4rkpow3r]

Also tried with the Auger drills deep in the ground and still they don't seem to do anything at all, can anyone help?