[1.11.x] RCS Build Aid v1.0.6

[Kevin Kyle]

Either there is a problem or Im not downloading the right thing. It appears that I dont have the dll's or proper directory to copy to the gamedata folder

[m4v]

link fixed, I'm not used to WYSIWSG type editors.

Edited December 3, 2015 by m4v

[Kevin Kyle]

Cool, ty

 

[m4v]

Version 0.7.5
-------------

* FIX: The whole plugin.

I'm surprised nobody reported anything, I need better PR.

 

 

[steve_v]

6 hours ago, m4v said:

I'm surprised nobody reported anything, I need better PR.

LOL, yeah, I had noticed something a bit off.
I was just about to come let you know, honest. I just, ya know, hadn't quite gotten around to it yet, since it didn't immediately eat my cat.

Edited December 6, 2015 by steve_v
Ye gods this editor is painfull, it's only a quote dammit, how can it be this annoying.

[smjjames]

So, what exactly was fixed in 0.7.5?

[m4v]

@smjjamesSymmetry was broken.

[Cerberus738]

20 hours ago, m4v said:

@smjjamesSymmetry was broken.

Yeah was about to report that.... makes me a sad panda.

[Neutrinovore]

Hmm. I suppose that I was waiting for someone else to mention this, but since no one has...

A problem I'm having is that RCSBA isn't recognizing the change in mass when a part is TweakScaled. Specifically, I use the LLL weights along with TS to fine tune both my thrust vectors and RCS balance, but this has been broken in the last three updates to RCSBA. To be clear, it does properly apply the base mass of the weight, but scaling the part has no effect in RCSBA. For instance, if I place a 1 ton weight off of the centerline of a craft, RCSBA adds the 1 ton to the total mass of the vessel, and will calculate the new CoM and thrust torque accordingly. Further, shifting the weight around results in corresponding adjustments to each readout as expected. BUT, if I scale the 1ton weight to, say, 120% (or 150% or 30%, anything other than the original 'base' mass of the part), RCSBA still only registers the weight as the original 1 ton, and doesn't shift the CoM at all. Version 0.7.2 DOES do this, which is why each time, after installing the new version and checking it in-game, I've reverted back to V0.7.2., which seems to continue to work perfectly for me in KSP 1.0.5, go figure.   Oh, and again for clarity, I don't mean that this issue is specific to the part I'm using as an example, the LLL weight. It's true of anything that can be TweakScaled: Wings, landing gear, antennas, anything that can be made bigger or smaller, and should consequently change in mass as well as in size, the newer versions of RCSBA don't register the change in mass. I'm sure it's something to do with changes that happened in KSP 1.0.5. Maybe someday Squad will settle down and do an update that DOESN'T force everyone to start all over from the beginning. Hah! Yeah, right…

Anyway, I did check 0.7.5, and I am glad to see the symmetry issue fixed, again I think that showed up in 0.7.3, and it still does happen to me occasionally in .2, but I found that cycling through the 'Engines, Translation, Attitude' modes, and then back to 'Engines' seems to let the plugin update itself to then properly recognize all the engines in the stage. 

Anyway, like smjjames said, sorry I've been remiss in not saying something sooner. 

I continue to find this addon quite literally indispensable for building anything that flies in KSP anymore, and in fact I usually even use it when I build rovers too, to make sure that they sit evenly on the suspension, to make sure they're not too front- or rear-heavy, and to check that the CoM isn't too high. Truly couldn't (well, sure wouldn't WANT to) play the game without RCSBuildAid. 

Keep up the great work, M4V! I hope this info helps in some way.

Later, all!

[m4v]

2 hours ago, Neutrinovore said:

Version 0.7.2 DOES do this, which is why each time, after installing the new version and checking it in-game, I've reverted back to V0.7.2., which seems to continue to work perfectly for me in KSP 1.0.5, go figure.

Is probably the change I did for fix an issue that RealFuels exposed, does stock's mass readout show the correct scaled mass or behaves the same way?

edit: Seems that way, TweakScale has a bug report for it.

Maybe TweakScale isnt' implementing the IPartMassModifier interface?

Edited December 7, 2015 by m4v

[fourfa]

Apologies if this has been addressed in this thread, I tried a search but didn't see it.... I have a feature request:

Currently RCS Build Aid (0.7.5) does not seem to take thrust limiting into account.  This is something I use to balance the ship when there are geometric limits to thruster placement (for instance, if the correct location would be on a cargo bay door).  I'll place it nearby, and use thrust limits to balance the ship.  But no matter how much I change the limit in the part's right-click menu, RCS Build Aid does not seem to change at all.  I can work it out by hand in orbit but it seems like a natural feature for this mod.

Thanks!

[m4v]

40 minutes ago, fourfa said:

 

Currently RCS Build Aid (0.7.5) does not seem to take thrust limiting into account.  

Seems to be working for me, any more info you can give?

[fourfa]

Oh! So it is supposed to work?  Then I'm not sure where to start...  In every ship I've tried, since 1.0.4 when I first used RCS-BA, it's never responded to thrust limiting for me.  If I click "Disable RCS Port" in the part's right click menu, the cyan thrust vector vanishes, and the values in the RCS-BA info pane update.  But nothing whatsoever changes when adjusting thrust limits.  True in both attitude and translation modes.  True for monoprop thrusters and vernor LFO thrusters. 

Currently 1.0.5, Mac OSX10.11.2, 0.7.5.

What else can I tell you?

Edited December 11, 2015 by fourfa

[m4v]

@fourfaoh, so you're talking about RCS? I thought it was about rocket engines since only those have..... wait.

I see now that 1.0.5 added new stuff to RCS ports... alright then, is something I have to fix.

[Drew Kerman]

2 hours ago, m4v said:

@fourfaoh, so you're talking about RCS? I thought it was about rocket engines since only those have..... wait.

I see now that 1.0.5 added new stuff to RCS ports... alright then, is something I have to fix.

Yea it was only possible via Tweakable Everything before but that and a lot of other TE stuff got rolled into 1.0.5

[fourfa]

Oh interesting!  I never even noticed that wasn't there before. I've only ever used this mod for RCS balancing, never even occurred to me to use it for engines.  But yeah, RCS thrust limiting.

[m4v]

@NeutrinovoreI checked and this is a TweakScale issue, as Engineer's Report mass readings are also wrong. I already reported it in TweakScale issue tracker.

[Neutrinovore]

7 hours ago, m4v said:

@NeutrinovoreI checked and this is a TweakScale issue, as Engineer's Report mass readings are also wrong. I already reported it in TweakScale issue tracker.

Ah, thank you.  I shall wait for TweakScale to be updated, then I'll update my RCSBA at that time.    Appreciate your help!

[ErikTheAngry]

Hi folks, long time lurker.  RCS build aid is a must-have mod for me (obligatory brown-nosing).

I'm playing career mode, and it is time for me to retrofit my Mun lander.  Why retrofit?  Because I use Kerbal Construction Time, and Kerbal Attachment System.  Way easier to throw the new parts in an SSTO and fly them up to my orbiting mun lander and snap them on in orbit - heck even deorbit the SSTO with the old parts on board for recovery.  That way I don't have to build a new ship, and I don't have to burn funds on lifters.

My Mun lander was balanced perfectly with RCS Build Aid.  Perfectly.  0 torque in any direction.  0 CoM movement while fuel is consumed.  It handles like a dream.  But it's old, it uses 909s and some simulations show that using Nervs now that I've unlocked them will make it much more flexible - increase the dV a LOT.

Now I could just launch a new one.  It's small and cheap and funds aren't super-tight due to basically re-using almost every craft I've launched since day 1 of the game.  But I think it would be WAY more fun to retrofit it in orbit.

My feature request?

Integration with KAS.  Give us a way to turn on the RCS build aid in flight so that we can build craft in space with perfect precision just like in the VAB/SPH.

[m4v]

@ErikTheAngry Not sure if there's anything to integrate with KAS, I don't play with that mod. Implement RCSBA in flight, despite being requested several times, is not planned at the moment.

[ErikTheAngry]

4 hours ago, m4v said:

@ErikTheAngry Not sure if there's anything to integrate with KAS, I don't play with that mod. Implement RCSBA in flight, despite being requested several times, is not planned at the moment.

Thanks for the prompt response!  I'll just have to do it the old fashion way and move the RCS ports around in orbit till it feels balanced enough.

[pellinor]

On 13.11.2015 at 4:13 AM, NathanKell said:

RealFuels should, by the spec of the IPartMassModifier interface, return the mass delta between the prefab mass and the current part mass (absent resource mass of course). Please tell me if it is not doing so.

Are you aware that this method will break as soon as two modules use it? Suppose I add 1t to a part and you add 1t, then both modules will report a moduleMass of 2t. So it only works if each module remembers how much it added and only reports this as its moduleMass.

For TweakScale I'll give the "remember what you added" solution a try.

I really fail to see what this IPartMassModifier is good for, its purpose seems to collect an information that is already there (the part mass) in a more complicated way.

[blowfish]

36 minutes ago, pellinor said:

Are you aware that this method will break as soon as two modules use it? Suppose I add 1t to a part and you add 1t, then both modules will report a moduleMass of 2t. So it only works if each module remembers how much it added and only reports this as its moduleMass.

For TweakScale I'll give the "remember what you added" solution a try.

I really fail to see what this IPartMassModifier is good for, its purpose seems to collect an information that is already there (the part mass) in a more complicated way.

Correct, if two modules try to modify a part's mass without talking to each other directly, then things will break.  The problem with IPartMassModifier is that it doesn't affect physics.  But as it is, you can't just not use it, as some things (e.g. the stock engineer's report) rely on it to report the correct mass (since it uses the prefab mass rather than the actual part mass).

I have heard from sources™ that this behavior may be fixed in 1.1 (such that IPartMassModifier actually affects physics), and if not, then most likely in a following version of KSP.

[m4v]

Version 0.7.6
-------------

* FIX: NREs.
* FIX: RCS thrust limits weren't accounted.

 

[pellinor]

11 hours ago, blowfish said:

Correct, if two modules try to modify a part's mass without talking to each other directly, then things will break.  The problem with IPartMassModifier is that it doesn't affect physics.  But as it is, you can't just not use it, as some things (e.g. the stock engineer's report) rely on it to report the correct mass (since it uses the prefab mass rather than the actual part mass).

I have heard from sources™ that this behavior may be fixed in 1.1 (such that IPartMassModifier actually affects physics), and if not, then most likely in a following version of KSP.

Actually they don't need to know about each other. It works if everyone remembers know what he added to part.mass and returns this as his moduleMass.

It would also be my favourite solution that everyone (i.e. editor and flight) uses part.mass+getmoduleMass+resourceMass. Let's hope for the best.