[1.12] Extraplanetary Launchpads v6.99.3

[panarchist]

11 hours ago, taniwha said:

And before you say that's ridiculous, I have built, and flown to orbit, a rocket with 1174400u of LFO (combined) (just shy of 9kt on the pad), in both 1.0 and 1.1 (same rocket, was testing 1.1's behavior).

I totally want to see that ship - I thought I was building some big craft.

@taniwha - just wanted to say thanks for the mod.  I've used it off and on until getting started with MKS, and now it's a regular part of my games, though I'm usually using it with the OKS shipyard rather than the original parts.  Right now I'm building an Orion-powered ship to go to Other World's Cercani - should take about a year and a half for 24 Kerbals to get there in an 800 ton ship.  I'm sending them with an OSE workshop and a UKS shipyard so that they can build large assemblies in orbit with EL once they get there, since resupply from Kerbin won't be practical.  Anyway, EL has become an integral part of my gaming, and it really makes ISRU and "colonizing" other planets worthwhile.  Thanks for contributing to the community, it's appreciated.

Oh, and I realize it wasn't always your project, but 2-1/2 years is more than long enough to put a distinct stamp on the work, and it's been great watching the evolution of this mod.

Edited May 28, 2016 by panarchist
clarification

[Penkover]

How to mine this metalic ore ?

Theese minning thinks dont work. I click extend and its doing nothink , and no button "start minning" , what am i doing bad ?

Edited June 3, 2016 by Penkover

[SciMan]

So I read the post explaining how to use the survey stakes, and I think I mostly understand how it works, with one exception

How do you set the "don't spawn any part of a constructed vessel below this altitude" limit if you're in the middle of one of the flats of Minmus?
There's no "higher elevation terrain" handy to put another survey stake on, and you can't attach them to parts.
Even then, I'm not sure if the stakes can even perform this function.

Every time I build something with EL, the fuel tanks are always empty even when the build process consumes the same amount of fuel that should go in the tanks of the thing I'm building.
Apparently nobody else is encountering this bug, even tho I've been encountering it for MANY versions of KSP, and I always do a clean install whenever KSP updates. I'm nearly certain that it WON'T happen if you're using only Stock+EL. Other than that, and a vague suspicion that it might be an odd interaction between EL and KSPI-E, I don't know where to start.

Anyways, to get around this bug, I was planning on fueling the stuff AFTER I build it.
To do that, I was going to build the stuff on a launchpad, then connect it to the base with a KAS pipe to fuel it, then release it.

The problem is that the launchpad I want to use can't be targeted by EL, so I have to use survey stakes.

The problem with using survey stakes is that everything I spawn "on" that pad using survey stakes spawns submerged INSIDE the pad.
Obviously, this renders both base and constructed craft unusable quite rapidly (lots of explosions).

What I need is a way to make the stuff I spawn "on" the launchpad to actually spawn above the surface of the planet, but I don't have a hill handy to put down a stake for that because my base is in the middle of Minmus' Greater Flats biome.
And I don't even know if the stakes can be used to do that in the first place.

I've got my production chain working fine, the problem is the build site.

 

In summary:

Why do the things I build spawn with empty tanks when I give it enough resources to fill the tanks? Why has nobody else encountered this issue if I've been getting it constantly for quite a long time?

Secondly, how easy is it to make "any given part" work as an EL launchpad? Do you need a special transform in the model or something?

Thirdly, how the heck do you make a rocket spawn in "mid-air" using survey stakes, when you're in the middle of a Flats biome on Minmus?

[taniwha]

9 hours ago, SciMan said:

How do you set the "don't spawn any part of a constructed vessel below this altitude" limit if you're in the middle of one of the flats of Minmus?

You don't, of course, but you do not need to, either. Without any Y bounds stakes, the bottom of the vessel's bounding box will be placed about 19cm above the ground (that's where the origin of a stake is).

10 hours ago, SciMan said:

Every time I build something with EL, the fuel tanks are always empty even when the build process consumes the same amount of fuel that should go in the tanks of the thing I'm building.
Apparently nobody else is encountering this bug, even tho I've been encountering it for MANY versions of KSP, and I always do a clean install whenever KSP updates. I'm nearly certain that it WON'T happen if you're using only Stock+EL. Other than that, and a vague suspicion that it might be an odd interaction between EL and KSPI-E, I don't know where to start.

No, nobody else thought it was a bug for several versions of KSP: it is very much by design. Part of the cost of survey builds is vessels are always spawned empty of fillable resources. If the problem is resources that KSPI does not normally allow to be transferred (ie, are not fillable), then KSPI needs to define suitable EL_Resource recipes.

10 hours ago, SciMan said:

Anyways, to get around this bug, I was planning on fueling the stuff AFTER I build it.
To do that, I was going to build the stuff on a launchpad, then connect it to the base with a KAS pipe to fuel it, then release it.

This is the expected work-flow (minus the pad) when building via a survey station.

10 hours ago, SciMan said:

What I need is a way to make the stuff I spawn "on" the launchpad to actually spawn above the surface of the planet, but I don't have a hill handy to put down a stake for that because my base is in the middle of Minmus' Greater Flats biome.
And I don't even know if the stakes can be used to do that in the first place.

Add an EL pad module to the pad's part.cfg file.

MODULE {
	name = ExLaunchPad
	SpawnHeightOffset = 0.75
}

As it's likely the pad was not designed for EL, you will probably need the SpawnHeightOffset as the origin of the part is used when determining where to spawn the vessel. the above worked quite nicely for the Hooligan Labs pad (back in KSP 0.21.1 (don't remember the EL version off-hand, but 3.something, so long before the vessel was actually docked to the pad, so it may be a little high (I set it that high for wheeled vessels))). SpawnHeightOffset is in meters, and is the displacement from the part's origin along the part's Y axis.

Of course, the pad will have to somehow be connected to the rest of your construction base (eg, KAS pipe, though I think a winch (docked mode) might work better as it's flexible and thus less likely to cause base-jumping).

10 hours ago, SciMan said:

Thirdly, how the heck do you make a rocket spawn in "mid-air" using survey stakes, when you're in the middle of a Flats biome on Minmus?

Launch clamps

[mockingking]

Any ETA on the next update release?

[taniwha]

Sorry, I had forgotten there was a need for one. I think by the end of this weekend (5th) at the latest. I need to get in some more testing on the recycling bins and maybe do a bit more work on the docs (not sure I'll include them in the release, but if I do, they'll be very raw still).

[mockingking]

No hurry. The borked bins keep me from playing ATM; so I'd rather wait a bit longer for them to be proper fixed than run into another unfortunate and sticky-to-explodey incident.

[SciMan]

8 hours ago, taniwha said:

No, nobody else thought it was a bug for several versions of KSP: it is very much by design. Part of the cost of survey builds is vessels are always spawned empty of fillable resources

Okay, so why is it that you can make resources "disappear" by telling the build menu to fill the tanks, when it will spawn the tanks empty anyways because of being spawned using survey stakes?

In other words, why can I send LF+Ox to a build that's being constructed at a survey stake, when the survey stake always spawns all resource tanks empty?

Also, shouldn't ElectricCharge be an exception to the "every resource spawns empty" rule? Most rechargeable battery chemistries that I know of are at least partially charged when manufactured, and charging batteries is relatively trivial.

 

I'm connecting the pad to my base with UKS Colonization "Kerbitrail" tubes, which are basically bigger KAS pipes that have a longer max connection distance (200m). I'm only using them over like 25-50m tho, and the launchpad I'm using weighs 162t so I shouldn't have any problems with "base jumping around" if I keep the builds lighter weight.

Thanks for the tip about the spawn offset thing, that's basically exactly what I was looking for.

[taniwha]

5 minutes ago, SciMan said:

Okay, so why is it that you can make resources "disappear" by telling the build menu to fill the tanks, when it will spawn the tanks empty anyways because of being spawned using survey stakes?

In other words, why can I send LF+Ox to a build that's being constructed at a survey stake, when the survey stake always spawns all resource tanks empty?

That is merely a preview of what the build will want and is only for planning purposes. The only effect the sliders have is to set the defaults for pad builds, but as survey builds perform no resource transfer, those defaults are meaningless for survey builds. It's really only a minor user interface issue. I guess I could lock them to 0% for survey builds.

10 minutes ago, SciMan said:

Also, shouldn't ElectricCharge be an exception to the "every resource spawns empty" rule? Most rechargeable battery chemistries that I know of are at least partially charged when manufactured, and charging batteries is relatively trivial.

Actually, I have always had to charge rechargeable batteries, including in the beard trimmer I bought about a month ago. And yes, charging batteries is relatively trivial: that's what solar panels are for (and kerbals can open solar panels from EVA, or you can set the panels to deployed in the editor and they'll spawn deployed).

[SciMan]

2 minutes ago, taniwha said:

The only effect the sliders have is to set the defaults for pad builds, but as survey builds perform no resource transfer, those defaults are meaningless for survey builds. It's really only a minor user interface issue. I guess I could lock them to 0% for survey builds.

So it doesn't consume those resources if the tanks are spawned empty? Cool. Locking those sliders to 0% would be appreciated, it would clear up a bunch of potential confusion.

[ss8913]

So I've noticed a behavior change in EPL.. not sure which is correct:

OLD:  I build something on survey stakes, with PB-NUK thermoelectric parts.  After build, there's zero charge in the batteries, but the PB-NUKs charge them up.
NEW: I build the exact same design on survey stakes, also with PB-NUK.  After build, there's zero charge and the PB-NUK say efficiency is 1.00 but they do not charge the batteries.

if NEW  is correct... should I scrap the PB-NUK parts as they don't seem to be doing anything?

[taniwha]

That's certainly not correct (at least from EL's point of view). Have you tried saving/loading? I know some things don't work properly when built via EL, but are fine after a save/load cycle.

[ss8913]

10 hours ago, taniwha said:

That's certainly not correct (at least from EL's point of view). Have you tried saving/loading? I know some things don't work properly when built via EL, but are fine after a save/load cycle.

repeatedly.  There also seems to be a new stock bug(?) i think, where... well, I built that base on the Mun and it wasn't on fully level ground.  After building, part of it ended up embedded in terrain.  After KJR stabilized the physics load, the thing went flipping end over end up into space... held together... and miraculously landed right side up after 2 full flips, with no damage... but that was the fourth try, it landed and exploded the previous 3 attempts   Maybe landing legs or something would have helped?  Not sure.

But saving/reloading definitely didn't fix it.  I sent an engineer up with a cargo plane to load supplies, materialkits, machinery into the base, and got the Thorium fission reactor started by jumpstarting it from EVA, so the station has power now... but the PB-NUKs still don't appear to be doing anything, although it's kind of hard to tell.  This game really needs a mod to display in a window (and also in an IVA screen), an electrical schematic showing parts producing and consuming power.. basically a bus diagram.  But that doesn't seem to exist.

[taniwha]

On 31/05/2016 at 5:35 AM, ss8913 said:

There also seems to be a new stock bug(?) i think, where... well, I built that base on the Mun and it wasn't on fully level ground.  After building, part of it ended up embedded in terrain.

Nothing new there. That problem has been around forever. I believe it's what put an end to Scott Manley's Reusable Space Program (probably his best series, actually).

On 31/05/2016 at 5:35 AM, ss8913 said:

his game really needs a mod to display in a window (and also in an IVA screen), an electrical schematic showing parts producing and consuming power.. basically a bus diagram.  But that doesn't seem to exist.

Well, let's see...

The game really needed a mod to allow ship construction on other worlds, and skykooler came along and created EL. Then some yobbo named taniwha came along and started patching it (because he actually wanted to create it but skycooler beat him to it) and eventually adopted it. (actually, Orbital Construction (later Orbital Construction Redux) came first, but it didn't really do landed operation, and its mechanic was... limiting (you had to have a special part on the ships you wanted to build)).

The game really needed a mod to give sane aerodynamics and ferram came along and created Ferram Aerospace Research.

The game really needed a mod to make it easier to do air-drops, and the previously mentioned yobbo created Survey Transponder. Said yobbo later felt the need for flotation devices and added one to Survey Transponder.

The game really needed robotics, procedural fairings, procedural wings, better realism (debatable, but hey), worse realism (uh... not my cup of tea), a way to get more kerbals off-world (previously mentioned yobbo is working on that, but there's Civilian Population too).

tl;dr: if you feel the need, grab your favorite C# development environment, join #kspmodding on esper.net (you'll likely need the hand-holding), and get started Asking an existing modder to do it for you will not likely get you far: we're generally allready too busy with our current mods.

[colmo]

On 31/05/2016 at 9:35 PM, ss8913 said:

repeatedly.  There also seems to be a new stock bug(?) i think, where... well, I built that base on the Mun and it wasn't on fully level ground.  After building, part of it ended up embedded in terrain.  After KJR stabilized the physics load, the thing went flipping end over end up into space... held together... and miraculously landed right side up after 2 full flips, with no damage... but that was the fourth try, it landed and exploded the previous 3 attempts   Maybe landing legs or something would have helped?  Not sure.

Check out the Fundament part in Keridian Dynamics, an EPL expansion. It's a concrete foundation for EPL structures that works like a launch clamp (so no issues with terrain clipping), but also has a node to attach to permanent structures.

[Penkover]

On 28. 5. 2016 at 4:08 PM, Penkover said:

How to mine this metalic ore ?

Theese minning thinks dont work. I click extend and its doing nothink , and no button "start minning" , what am i doing bad ?

Any help ?

[Andem]

I think Keridian Dynamics deserves to get a mention in the OP, don't you think?

[goldenpsp]

39 minutes ago, Andem said:

I think Keridian Dynamics deserves to get a mention in the OP, don't you think?

Why?  There are plenty of mods that link into EPL, and those that have alternate parts with similar functionality.  None of them are on the OP either.  Seems like it would be a pain to maintain links to other mods that do stuff with EPL.  I'd rather see Taniwha put his efforts into his mod.

[Andem]

41 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

Why?  There are plenty of mods that link into EPL, and those that have alternate parts with similar functionality.  None of them are on the OP either.  Seems like it would be a pain to maintain links to other mods that do stuff with EPL.  I'd rather see Taniwha put his efforts into his mod.

Ok, It's just the only recently updated one that I've found, It might deserve mention. 

[Jarin]

I've been having this problem a lot lately. Basically, any build that goes over 10k parts (everything I've built lately) pushes the required partcount off the top of the display:

I'm thinking I could do without that hundreds decimal place, personally. Putting off the problem out to 100k parts seems reasonable (if I'm building a crazy-big mothership in one build job, I can deal with it).

[Warezcrawler]

I've been trying to create a simplified version of EL, lesser parts and simpler resource flow - inspiredby SimpleConstruction/MKS - but lighter flow on resource side, and some of the new part - while not all of them.

But I have one issue I'm hoping you can advise me on. That is, that I cannot seem to get EL to accept producing vessels using MaterialKits instead of RocketParts - doing this because MKS Lite (which I use) natively use MaterialKits, and I want as simple resource flow/tree for production as possible while retaining some of it.

Target is something like
Ore -> MaterialKits
Karbonite -> MaterialKits

then
MaterialKits --> Create Vessel

So what CFG settings needs to be set in order to achieve using EL with MaterialKits instead of RocketParts? - if it is not possible, I will have to turn it around, which I really hope is not the case.
I thought it was the recipies I needed to change, since I didn't find references to RocketParts in the parts (except the cannisters). But if it is the recipies, then I'm missing the trick

EL_ResourceRecipe 
{
	name = Ablator
	Resources 
	{
		MaterialKits = 1			//RocketParts = 1
	}
}

EL_ResourceRecipe 
{
	name = SolidFuel
	Resources 
	{
		MaterialKits = 1			//RocketParts = 1
	}
}

EL_TransferRecipe 
{
	name = SolidFuel
	Resources 
	{
		SolidFuel = 1
	}
}

EL_TransferRecipe 
{
	name = MaterialKits				//RocketParts
	Resources 
	{
		MaterialKits = 1			//RocketParts = 1
	}
}

EL_TransferRecipe 
{
	name = RocketParts
	Resources 
	{
		MaterialKits = 1
	}
}

EL_ResourceRecipe 
{
	name = MaterialKits
	Resources 
	{
		RocketParts = 1
	}
}

 

[taniwha]

If all you want to do is set it so all parts use the same resources, then you need to set the default structure recipe (defaults to RocketParts = 1).

EL_DefaultStructureRecipe {
	MaterialKits = 1
}

Or whatever mix you want (the numbers are added together and then divided by the total)

[Kielm]

Hello!

I'm attempting to tackle a problem with resources not being transferred post-construction (i.e craft being filled with fuel etc once built). 

Here's what I have. A medium-sized base on minmus that initially just had a survey station with a couple of stakes to build craft. I'm aware that survey sites don't transfer resources; I wasn't expecting them to, and that worked fine for a while. But, I later added a UKS mobile launch platform to the mix, and connected it with a KAS pipe.

I renamed the pod containing the survey station (a UKS Pioneer Module) and the launchpad so I wouldn't get confused when building. Despite attempting a few times, I cannot get resources to transfer once a craft is built, and have to do it manually. This isn't a huge problem for me, but I understand it's not supposed to do that. I removed the survey stakes just to be sure it wasn't having an issue with them as well but no joy. Just to clarify: the launchpad and UKS Pioneer module are both in the same connected base (these are the modules with the 'Show UI' button to construct ships), and I've tried starting construction from both with the same result (remembering to reselect the correct one from the dropdown where it changes it's mind!). 

I trawled through the logs and found a couple of exceptions (posted below). My next step is going to be to backup the save and try destroying the pioneer module (with the survey station module) to see if it works then. I'll pop back with the results. 

 

UPDATE:Caused by Interstellar Fuel Switch. Log Removed. 

 

Edited June 7, 2016 by Kielm

[Agnemon]

Would it be terribly difficult to modify the launch clamps so that they did not release unless specifically set to? possibly change the colour on them to yellow or something to differentiate them from stock.

I have several large base's sitting launch clamps on various moons and I am terrified that I will inadvertently hit the space bar and release all the clamps.

 

If that were to happen, I would invariably call you lots of names for not making it idiot proof.

 

On a side not, I manged to blow a hole clean through the Mun, you could see stars through it, it was A BIG HOLE. Landed a kerbal on the mun next to the base, EVA'd , on touching the base the anti matter bomb some terrorists planted went off, no base, no lander, no Kerbals and no Mun, at least locally.

Max delta V was something over 19,000,000 m/s!

 

Needless to say, speeding tickets were issued and some pilots licences were revoked (posthumously) (or is that post humourously)

[Kielm]

Another update to my post above. 

I've had no luck getting resources (i.e. fuel) to transfer in to a craft at the "release" stage of building. I've tried UKS launchpads, and the orbital dock from this mod with no joy. I tried in a brand spanking sandbox game to be sure it wasn't my career game putting it off, and it appears my problem may be more than just a clunky base setup. 

Barring any suggestions from here, I'll start removing mods to find the source of the problem tomorrow. 

 

Update: I couldn't wait til tomorrow, it was bugging me too much. Did some testing and the problem was caused by Interstellar Fuel Switch, which I was using as it was bundled with the Mk2 expansion. I don't know if it's a problem exclusively with IFS, or the fact that it was competing with the other mods I have installed, but removing IFS fixed the problem for me. 

Edited June 7, 2016 by Kielm