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[WIP]D12 Aerotech - A B9 Aerospace Expansion (Beta1)


PolecatEZ

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I agree with Falken, even though the shots Polecat has shown make me think it's already a finished thing and maybe additions are not planned?

B9 is really missing a widebody S2 cockpit with more "spacy" look in the B9 style. Something like Porkjet's MK2 expansion project, which added amazingly looking Mk2 cockpits that look EXACTLY like they are designed for space:

http://i.imgur.com/8mx5tk9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/G6fR0eW.jpg

The downside is that they don't fit in with B9's art-style.

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I agree with Falken, even though the shots Polecat has shown make me think it's already a finished thing and maybe additions are not planned?

B9 is really missing a widebody S2 cockpit with more "spacy" look in the B9 style. Something like Porkjet's MK2 expansion project, which added amazingly looking Mk2 cockpits that look EXACTLY like they are designed for space:

http://i.imgur.com/8mx5tk9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/G6fR0eW.jpg

The downside is that they don't fit in with B9's art-style.

Could we maybe get a texture swapper MM config for these parts? Similar to the fustek parts (dev build)

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Perhaps someone knowledgeable might share his thoughts on this, but I don't think we can expect it from Porkjet himself. He is intent on finishing the whole pack first before tweaking it.

I would guess textures would need to be made and defined for the models, which is no easy work. Probably they can be made to reference B9's textures.

But I don't think this discussion fits in Polecat's thread. If you want you can bring the issue to Porkjet's development thread, I will support you. Don't expect a positive response though..

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Yes it will.

I have an alpha pack for testing, but when I decided to delete my Squad folder and reinstall just that, I got a weird bug that locks up the game when it loads (on Squad models). I've spent the last 4 hours troubleshooting and still haven't found the issue. I literally pulled my entire gamedata folder, one sub-subfolder at a time, and the problem persisted until I pulled my very last Squad props folder. I started putting folders back one at a time and it choked on the Squad folder (only). No idea at all what's up, it seems to be a bug with the latest Squad version off Steam near as I can figure.

Anyways, I know my original supplemental parts work just fine, there's just issues with the Squad replacements. It chokes on one of parts permanently and damages the Squad parts (eh?) I just need to figure out which one - that's my theory...

Get the goodies here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o0s5vkncxiqbae9/D12earlyAlpha.zip

This contains about 5 new engines, drop tanks, Mk1 Cargo Bay, 1 new cockpit, and a rollup fix file from the community for B9 fixes (but does not include engine fixes yet until I declare them safe). Does not include any Squad replacement parts (wings, adapters) until I safety check them.

---------------

Update: All parts are safe, I think the method I was using to knock out the replaced Squad parts wasn't playing well with either RPM, the latest 2.0.3 Module manager, or Active Texture Management. I'll troubleshoot a bit more and do a fuller release later.

-----

Update 2:

For everyone developer's future reference, exporting a 4x4 .mbm from Unity is bad, mmmkay?

If you want to knock out a part:

- Find a 13kb sized .mbm from somewhere, make copies of it, use it to exactly replace the model00x textures in the folder. No more, no less. This will hang the loading in odd places if done wrong.

- Do not completely erase the part.cfg file. Put in it just "PART {}". A completely blank .cfg will hang the system immediately on load.

- I'll do some further experimenting. I really wanted to avoid batch files again, as it wasn't user friendly when I used it before with the texture reduction pack.

Edited by PolecatEZ
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Tried the Alpha: Loved it.

Your work is very professional looking, blends perfectly with Bac9's aesthetic.

Some comments/suggestions: The buzz turbines look really cool, but i had an issue where roll control was inverted. Could we get a toggle to invert roll? Also, it would be cool if we had a radial fit ring mount for these fans to sit in.

As for the rotors in general, having them switch to a transparent blur when above a certain RPM would help confer the impression of speed.

Cannot wait for the rest of the Command pods, I personally am waiting on the Mk13 SBS, and hopefully you or someone else makes b9 textures for the porkworks spaceplane parts.

Something just came to mind. If the rotors all use intake air to determine lift, they'll not work in other atmospheres. However, if you made them lose thrust dependent on atmospheric pressure, similar to the thrust curves of the stock jet parts, they could work on eve or duna. If still planning on making them internal combustion powered, perhaps make them toggle in an internal oxidizer source, similar to the SABRE engines, just way more efficient.

Edited by Gryphorim
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Something just came to mind. If the rotors all use intake air to determine lift, they'll not work in other atmospheres. However, if you made them lose thrust dependent on atmospheric pressure, similar to the thrust curves of the stock jet parts, they could work on eve or duna. If still planning on making them internal combustion powered, perhaps make them toggle in an internal oxidizer source, similar to the SABRE engines, just way more efficient.

If the electric rotors (assuming they are electric, since you mention them not using intake air) want to work at all, they need two resources. This is solved by using an insanely small amount of FSCoolant, which is stored in the rotor itself. If they are not electric, they need intake air because they are diesel/gas/jet fuel powered, which requires oxygen to combust.

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Tried the Alpha: Loved it.

Your work is very professional looking, blends perfectly with Bac9's aesthetic.

Some comments/suggestions: The buzz turbines look really cool, but i had an issue where roll control was inverted. Could we get a toggle to invert roll? Also, it would be cool if we had a radial fit ring mount for these fans to sit in.

As for the rotors in general, having them switch to a transparent blur when above a certain RPM would help confer the impression of speed.

Cannot wait for the rest of the Command pods, I personally am waiting on the Mk13 SBS, and hopefully you or someone else makes b9 textures for the porkworks spaceplane parts.

Something just came to mind. If the rotors all use intake air to determine lift, they'll not work in other atmospheres. However, if you made them lose thrust dependent on atmospheric pressure, similar to the thrust curves of the stock jet parts, they could work on eve or duna. If still planning on making them internal combustion powered, perhaps make them toggle in an internal oxidizer source, similar to the SABRE engines, just way more efficient.

For the Buzz Rotor, a few things are planned or are already done but just need some unity packaging:

- 4x6m Delta wing with center ring mount (a few failures sitting in my bin, will revisit before full release though). For now they do fit nice and flat under or inside most wings. If you don't want them to clip use a cubic strut to off set them.

- Switching to electric power, will use the FScoolant trick above.

- Custom sounds.

- They're chopper rotors, I think fuel consumption is already way too efficient :) One neat trick for electric rotors is to hook up a fusion generator from the interstellar mod...little rotors run on delicious uranium then.

As for inverted controls, I'm not even sure what its supposed to look like. I do know that you can simply rotate them on the center axis in the SPH and get the gimbaling going any which way you want. The only thing they don't do well is mount in anything more than pairs, such as 45 degree angles (quad mounting in X shape or star mounts from the rear - trying to lift a rocket with 6 of them is fail). You can mount them, using the short steel bars, as far out as you feel like. I had 6 going in a parallel wing that way. Maybe I could add a few more thrust transforms and see if that would do the trick. They were templated off of Snoj's rotors in Unity and so far as I can tell they do what they're supposed to, and my test craft fly beautifully. Maybe you could explain it differently and I'll see what I can tweak.

All command pods are undergoing re-beautification at the moment, but unfortunately now it conflicts with finals week at uni. I'll push the wings and other Squad replacement odds and ends out tomorrow, as I finally solved all the issues with those (6 hours of my life I'll never get back).

For Porkworks stuff, I'll say this originally started out as a texturing project (see other project if you can find it), but basically that just adds a lot of RAM usage so I went this route instead. Included in the next release are B9 replacements for the two Mk2 fuselage parts from Squad. It would basically be easier to make my own versions of things like passenger cabins for Mk2 rather than try to re-texture his stuff. One thing I wish I could do is duplicate the "feel" of his wings, as they look thin but still feel very solid. The scope of this project is limited though to direct use of B9 textures unless there is absolutely no other way to do something.

For the guy that asked for S2-Wide loading ramp, I've got some mock ups done but the issue is that for it to be useful I'd need to make also a floor inset for the cargo bay (or replace the bays with alternate versions) so we'd have a perfectly flat surface to run on. In testing, any rover I took up the ramp basically blew tires or flipped out, even if they looked like they should be straddling the "maintenance pit."

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Very nice parts so far and I'm looking forward to the rest but should the Buzz Turbine have it's center of thrust so far above it? I'd expect it to be at the fan and it can create issues if you want to rotate one with IR.

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I did that because I was testing putting them under things and it was creating balance issues - center of mass way above center of thrust was clumsy. I can definitely tone that back down though. FS rotors have theirs about .3m above the rotor or right on the top cap for taller ones, and that's how the other ones were set.

So Buzz Rotor wishlist so far:

- MOAR! tilt transform directions (if FS Plugin can handle it)

- Electro switching

- Second attach node (side with mirroring 0, 0, 1)

- Lower thrust transform - probably dead center.

- Housing wing, I'll try to make compatible with the rest of the set.

As for sounds, I'm borrowing FireSpitter sounds for now, so if you have FS installed they should work. I have some of my own picked out, but 2 issues - I don't have a sound editing program yet or the brains to mess with it if I find one. They also take as much RAM as a 1024x1024 texture each. They will be in the full release.

buzz_Side_Mount.pngbuzztop_Mount.png

Edited by PolecatEZ
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I'm not sure if you're aware but the white dome on top the Shouty Rotor is transparent if viewed from underneath at the moment. I know you're not supposed to go upside down in helicopters but, well, it happens sometimes :)

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As for sounds, I'm borrowing FireSpitter sounds for now, so if you have FS installed they should work. I have some of my own picked out, but 2 issues - I don't have a sound editing program yet or the brains to mess with it if I find one. They also take as much RAM as a 1024x1024 texture each. They will be in the full release.

Strange, I have FS installed(wonder if it's the latest version, as long as you mean just the plugin and not a whole mod or something, which you probably don't :P ).

I didn't know the whole firespitter is a prerequisite, sorry :)

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Will this evolve into the new home for B9 as there has been no word from Bac9 since January

This is an expansion, not a continuation. And by the way, Bac9 has posted as late as just last week - it just wasn't in the B9 Aerospace thread.

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Yep, finally got it to work. It was frustrating because I remember doing it a long time ago for consolidating the Squad internals into a single folder (and chopping out about 2/3 the memory hit...may do that again). The trick is the ordering. I went back through and realized everywhere it worked was because I put the textures that I wanted to use somehow in alphabetical order first, either by folder or naming convention, so when it processed the config the texture it wanted was already in memory. To make sure, I made an "Xpansion" folder inside the B9_Aerospace folder to place everything (loads after all else in B9), and all is smooth. You don't even need the dummy files. The system also doesn't deal well with texture names with "_" in them, but B9 only has 2 or 3 of those and I can use FS to get around that.

Hmm, I kept running into the part hanging on load up without the dummy textures, although I don't think I've tested that in the more recent version of KSP. Those could have been the textures with the '_' though, I haven't had any trouble directly from them that I'd noticed.

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I know about the transparent dome thing, and have zero idea how to fix it. It looks great in blender , but when I export it to Unity the bottom disappears. I've tried a few tricks (flipping normals backward and forward, even re-drawing the entire bottom) and gave up after 3 re-import attempts.

If you want to test with that rotor, please let me know if the center of lift for it is too far backwards or forwards. There's no way to toggle it off in rotor mode either (I toyed with putting a pair of lift surfaces on the wings) with FS current iteration. There's a laundry list I'm putting together for Snoj until I learn to code myself. I'm also shocked nobody found the wobble yet...the animation didn't quite center it on the rotation center even though it looks fine in Blender :)

No, this won't be a new B9 home, just an expansion meant to add new stuff. If Taverius or Bac9 make parts themselves later with similar functionality I'll be happy to pull mine (and go treasure hunting for new modeling clay).

Ok, will work now to squish the remaining bugs with the wing set and get an update out...then 3 term papers in 48 hours...then cockpits...

Hmm, I kept running into the part hanging on load up without the dummy textures, although I don't think I've tested that in the more recent version of KSP. Those could have been the textures with the '_' though, I haven't had any trouble directly from them that I'd noticed.

That's two different issues. I was having all kinds of problems originally with using MODEL to switch out textures, but that was solved with re-ordering stuff and leaving in the dummy textures of at least 32x32 size (it may be overkill in some cases, but its safe).

The loading issue happens when I try to kill Squad parts with an overwrite. Completely blank "Part.cfg" is bad (fixed by putting just "PART {}" in the file), and having the wrong number of model00x textures in the folder with the part is also bad if it didn't match what the model.mu was calling for. The wing connector with 2 reduced model textures works to over-write most parts with the least memory hit, but models with 1 or 3 or more model00x textures to overwrite need a more specialized approach.

Ideally people would just erase them, but that requires a seek and destroy .bat script that doesn't work with other operating systems.

Edited by PolecatEZ
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That's two different issues. I was having all kinds of problems originally with using MODEL to switch out textures, but that was solved with re-ordering stuff and leaving in the dummy textures of at least 32x32 size (it may be overkill in some cases, but its safe).

The loading issue happens when I try to kill Squad parts with an overwrite. Completely blank "Part.cfg" is bad (fixed by putting just "PART {}" in the file), and having the wrong number of model00x textures in the folder with the part is also bad if it didn't match what the model.mu was calling for. The wing connector with 2 reduced model textures works to over-write most parts with the least memory hit, but models with 1 or 3 or more model00x textures to overwrite need a more specialized approach.

Ideally people would just erase them, but that requires a seek and destroy .bat script that doesn't work with other operating systems.

Ah, okay. You can generally get away with 1x1 for dummy textures, or at least that works for me.

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