[0.25] Realism Overhaul w/ RedAV8R [Terminated]

[RedAV8R]

EVERYONE: Alright The X-800 Mini and the LR-91 Mini are now taken and configs completed. Meet the XLR11 and the XLR99. (Thanks ThorBeorn). Now I just need a suggestion for the Mini Orbital Bertha. Anybody?

[Felger]

Is there a way to save the plugins through mod manager after the initial install instead of having to reinstall every mod on every startup???

Another issue I'm having is the re-entry altitude I'm not picking up drag to slow down until 50,000 meters this is when I get flames, but entry drag should start at 100,000 Meters with flame. It seems like I'm picking up way too much speed, If I launch straight up to 125,000M and come straight back down I continue picking up speed all the way down to 50,000M.

Is this normal or just an error? Have all recommended and required mods installed. Thanks

On module manager patching, that's pretty much exactly what's happening. It's simply changing some numbers in part config files. Compared to the process of loading the textures into memory, this is very fast.

On reentry, if it is an issue, it's likely with FAR, I'll wait for verification if possible. Comparing to a paper on reentry profiles for historic craft, 50km seems about right for peak deceleration. Potentially there's some settings out of whack in DRE for when it draws the plasma, can you take some screenshots and post them here, making sure to show deceleration, velocity, and altitude?

[RedAV8R]

@closer:

I'm not positive exactly what you are talking about. Felger is right about what MM is doing, it's fast, relative to loading textures, models, sounds, etc. Maybe some more info could clear that up, or give you a better answer.

Reentry and drag is not RO (for the most part). That's more a property of RSS, FAR, DRE. Now drag is calculated on a vehicle basis, with more detailed info again we can likely give you a better answer.

[coldblade2000]

I don't know an exact one but I would suggest a small, hypergolic pressurized one. Kinda like the Aestus

[NathanKell]

If you're shooting straight up, you're going to have one awful whallop of G force coming straight down. Even for suborbital flights, you need to be going sideways *much* more than up; your suborbital arc should be at least 3x as wide as it is tall. Do *not* expect to launch straight up and survive the return.

I *love* the X-800 mini as the XLR11! Perfect!

[RedAV8R]

If you're shooting straight up, you're going to have one awful whallop of G force coming straight down. Even for suborbital flights, you need to be going sideways *much* more than up; your suborbital arc should be at least 3x as wide as it is tall. Do *not* expect to launch straight up and survive the return.

I *love* the X-800 mini as the XLR11! Perfect!

It's going to be throttleable from 25% on up...not exactly realistic, but each can could be turned on individually, so current state of things should do just fine. Just wait till you see the scaling, oh my, it's not too bad.

[ThorBeorn]

Wow. Really cool of you to go with the suggestions RedAV8R. Looking forward to trying them out.

Now if just throttle could be set to increments.

Edit: I think you're doing the right thing going with throttleable from 25% and upwards.

Edited October 30, 2014 by ThorBeorn

[RedAV8R]

Wow. Really cool of you to go with the suggestions RedAV8R. Looking forward to trying them out.

Now if just throttle could be set to increments.

Edit: I think you're doing the right thing going with throttleable from 25% and upwards.

You spoke up first, had a good suggestion, and one that fit what was available. I liked the direction you were going, and since there wasn't a 2 can engine for the XLR25, I jumped down to the XLR11 being it's a four nozzle, but I don't think you'll mind:)

[coldblade2000]

Nice additions red! Finally a good use for those engines.

I have two questions, which you don't have to answer, but I'm curious about the work being done on the mod.

1. Why did it take longer to support other mods in this update? Was it tons of game code changes, new additions of yours/Nathan's, bugs, not enough free time for the mod or something else?

2. Is there any reason as to why there are official configs for FASA, is one of the first part mods updated, gets support and more even though it is marked as a planned mod?

Again, you don't have to answer, it's just my curious side coming out. Sorry if you take any of these questions the wrong way

[Felger]

Nice additions red! Finally a good use for those engines.

I have two questions, which you don't have to answer, but I'm curious about the work being done on the mod.

1. Why did it take longer to support other mods in this update? Was it tons of game code changes, new additions of yours/Nathan's, bugs, not enough free time for the mod or something else?

2. Is there any reason as to why there are official configs for FASA, is one of the first part mods updated, gets support and more even though it is marked as a planned mod?

Again, you don't have to answer, it's just my curious side coming out. Sorry if you take any of these questions the wrong way

Changes happen in mods, and in the way the game works. For example some of the NearFuture parts would fail to load because RO changed from ArgonGas to Argon, which caused a problem for the part. Similarly, many of the animations in the LazTek Dragon parts wouldn't work in the VAB without Firespitter (creating a dependency) But that was changed in this rev of RO, so had to go through and remove those references.

Also most of those other mods will probably work (in the sense that they won't crash the game. No promises.), but they haven't been tested to find all the parts that don't work right, or are slightly different than they were, etc.

Short version: minor changes that mean going through the configuration files and fixing things. Remember, the people who do this mod are just people who like doing this stuff, so they do things that they feel like working on. It's not like anyone's paying them to do it.

[closer]

On module manager patching, that's pretty much exactly what's happening. It's simply changing some numbers in part config files. Compared to the process of loading the textures into memory, this is very fast.

On reentry, if it is an issue, it's likely with FAR, I'll wait for verification if possible. Comparing to a paper on reentry profiles for historic craft, 50km seems about right for peak deceleration. Potentially there's some settings out of whack in DRE for when it draws the plasma, can you take some screenshots and post them here, making sure to show deceleration, velocity, and altitude?

With the MM everytime I starup it's like it's loading all the plugins and textures for the first time. It just seams strange that the real solar system plugin would have to change all the maps everytime. Is it not just replacing textures and files. But for the other plugins it goes through and says applying 1500 patches. Maybe I don't understand how the patches work or whats going on behind the scenes

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These are the screen shots I tried to up load straight into forum but it didn't work.

Yeah it doesn't start slowing down or glow until 62,000M and stops about 18-19M

From what I've read about orbital dynamics and re entry you def should be starting to drop speed through drag at 100M It should start there and plasma should be done at 60M.

It's almost like it didn't change from kerbin atmosphere.

You can see it continues to pick up speed all the way to 65M

This becomes more of a problem when your going orbital velocity and are trying to renter I still don't hit atmosphere till 65M So I just burn up. Anyway Thanks for getting back so quick, I appreciate it. Let me know if you need anything else

[Felger]

With the MM everytime I starup it's like it's loading all the plugins and textures for the first time. It just seams strange that the real solar system plugin would have to change all the maps everytime. Is it not just replacing textures and files. But for the other plugins it goes through and says applying 1500 patches. Maybe I don't understand how the patches work or whats going on behind the scenes

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These are the screen shots I tried to up load straight into forum but it didn't work.

Yeah it doesn't start slowing down or glow until 62,000M and stops about 18-19M

From what I've read about orbital dynamics and re entry you def should be starting to drop speed through drag at 100M It should start there and plasma should be done at 60M.

It's almost like it didn't change from kerbin atmosphere.

You can see it continues to pick up speed all the way to 65M

This becomes more of a problem when your going orbital velocity and are trying to renter I still don't hit atmosphere till 65M So I just burn up. Anyway Thanks for getting back so quick, I appreciate it. Let me know if you need anything else

Each patch is just a change to a part. Making a part bigger, adding some fuel, removing some fuel, adding life support, etc. TBH, 1500 is pretty lightweight. Get some more part packs, you can easily push 3-4k.

PDF with various entry profiles: https://engineering.purdue.edu/AAE450s/trajectories/Atmospheric%20Re-Entry.pdf

Now, looking at your screenshots, looks like you're re-entering too steeply. Here's some pointers:

• When entering the atmosphere, keep your periapsis around 30-40km (May have to tinker with this a little bit. Too low, and you'll smack into the atmosphere like you did in that screenshot, too high and you won't slow down enough)
  
• You very likely do not need all of those heat shields. That capsule comes with a sufficient heat shield to keep it safe. No need to take all that extra mass with you.
  
• Put some RCS thrusters on the capsule, and rotate the capsule a little bit. Watch FAR's flight dynamics display, depending on how you rotate the capsule, you can generate lift based on its angle of attack. (It's been a while, do the capsules still have offset center of mass / center of pressure?)
  

With those, you should have no problem surviving re-entry.

[closer]

Each patch is just a change to a part. Making a part bigger, adding some fuel, removing some fuel, adding life support, etc. TBH, 1500 is pretty lightweight. Get some more part packs, you can easily push 3-4k.

PDF with various entry profiles: https://engineering.purdue.edu/AAE450s/trajectories/Atmospheric%20Re-Entry.pdf

Now, looking at your screenshots, looks like you're re-entering too steeply. Here's some pointers:

• When entering the atmosphere, keep your periapsis around 30-40km (May have to tinker with this a little bit. Too low, and you'll smack into the atmosphere like you did in that screenshot, too high and you won't slow down enough)
  
• You very likely do not need all of those heat shields. That capsule comes with a sufficient heat shield to keep it safe. No need to take all that extra mass with you.
  
• Put some RCS thrusters on the capsule, and rotate the capsule a little bit. Watch FAR's flight dynamics display, depending on how you rotate the capsule, you can generate lift based on its angle of attack. (It's been a while, do the capsules still have offset center of mass / center of pressure?)
  

With those, you should have no problem surviving re-entry.

No doubt it's too steep, but what about the altitudes? Is this expected behavior or is it just me? If it's expected and normal for these mods, then I'll accept it for now, otherwise I must of missed something installing the mods.

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Right but can't you modify these parts once and be done with it? Is there a reason you couldn't do this?

[JT2227]

Very confused now... I am having too many troubles with real solar system. In earlier versions, I could easily use the 8192 texture packs, but now it crashes every time on start. I switched to the 4096 and kept the 8192 textures for earth, but it still looks terrible. So firstly;

Why are the new versions doing this and how can I fix this?

Crash log for the crash on texture loading: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzwBQu9jNY8cYm5zQjJRRU03V2c/view?usp=sharing

And Why is Earth still looking low-res at 8192. (I've used RSS before, and it's never looked this bad.)

[Felger]

No doubt it's too steep, but what about the altitudes? Is this expected behavior or is it just me? If it's expected and normal for these mods, then I'll accept it for now, otherwise I must of missed something installing the mods.

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Right but can't you modify these parts once and be done with it? Is there a reason you couldn't do this?

TBH, the re-entry stuff is a bit out of the purview of Realism Overhaul. RO just changes parts. But poke around in your settings, DRE's settings determine when the shock heating displays, FAR will determine what your deceleration will be (probably nothing needs to be changed here).

However, if you bothered to look at the PDF I linked, and converted his stupid imperial units to metric, and followed those graphs through...

You'd see that for a capsule re-entry like you're trying to do, you don't get significant deceleration until about 60km, which is exactly where you're saying you get it. So I figure it's pretty realistic. Remember, the definition of space is based on the altitude where you'd have to be going at orbital velocity to generate enough lift to fly. Point being, air's real thin up there, don't expect a whole lot of deceleration til you get lower in the atmosphere.

On module manager, yes we could. But doing so would mean redistributing everyone else's mods, and re-doing all the mod files every single time they release something, and in the end being responsible for a hell of a lot more things. For what? A few seconds of load time? That is the very definition of not worth it.

[RedAV8R]

@coldblade2000:

This to me seems like a very selfish questions, especially if you have to warn that an answer isn't necessary.

I'll indulge you.

#1. Well games evolve, mods evolve. MM has evolved, allowing us to do things we couldn't do before, or hadn't thought of. TAC has evolved allowing us to do more things with it. Ideas change, and new ideas form, causing us to have to go back and make those changes everywhere else for consistency. Bugs haven't been much of a thing, but they happen, and honestly there is SO much, that I can't test everything as thorough as I want, that's why I rely on the community to point things out. First and foremost, for the most part until Felger has started to chip in (THANKS AGAIN!!) This is basically a one man show. Nathan started things. I asked if he wanted help with FASA back in the day and he welcomed me aboard, he in the mean time has left most RO work to me, while he concentrates on all the plugins he has and so on. Then you add that both NK and myself have real jobs, real wifes, real lifes, and on top of that mine will be more complicated in about a week with the arrival of my wifes and I first child. So yeah, free time, I can only do so much. I'm trying to 'standardize' things more than what they ever have been, so that takes time. A lot of the things that worked with 0.24* work in 0.25, but I haven't tested them at all, and so therefore I'm not going to officially support them either. Thankfully, because 0.24* was the first time I really started to work on things, updating those that were good for 0.24* won't take much at all for 0.25.

#2. I had gotten behind on FASA with all the updates Friz was doing, it hadn't seen the love in a very long time, never got to it with 0.24* before 0.25 came out. There is no specific order, because, well, I do what I feel like. I don't take orders. I felt like doing FASA, so I did. It's basically done, minus bugs/consistency issues, which eventually will get straightened out.

My thoughts, Realism Overhaul is one of the most comprehensive mods out there. Right now, good supported configs touch over 600 parts. There are nearly 1000 more parts that configs have been written and just need touch ups before I declare 'official support'. There are thousands of more parts that will eventually see support added. We do what we can to ensure that we make things real, and I'm only one person. Thankfully Felger has pitched in recently, and that help is very much appreciated.

[RedAV8R]

@closer:

Yep, every time KSP starts it has to load textures, models, sounds, etc from your HD to RAM. We are talking 2GB+ worth of stuff, it takes time, and this happens for every program you ever run. Even Windows itself. Now compare that 2GB to the whole of RO MM configs, which clocks in something like 1.5MB. Changing text files is easy, that is NOT what is taking time. To understand RSS and it's loading time, you have to go back to the way KSP works. It loads it's 'world', then RSS changes that world and applies new textures to that world. That's just the way KSP works. It's nobodies fault, there simply isn't another way to do it. If there was a way to load the RSS world first and not have to load the default stuff, then that'd be great, but it'd still take time. Especially depending on what size textures you are using with RSS. The big pack is over a 1GB by itself. So yeah, every time KSP loads, it loads it's own 2GB, then has to load another 1GB on top of that. Bottom line. It's not MM and/or RO patches that is taking time, mostly it's texture loading.

As for your re-entry issue, 'glowing' is *maybe* a DRE issue, but could just be a stock issue. Don't know, not RO problem, that's for sure. Honestly, everything you see altitude wise, is the way it's supposed to be (for now) IF you have things installed correctly. So, if you want more help how about a log, just like the OP tells you to do in the first place. Why on earth do you have 2-3 heatshields on top of the included heatshield that's part of the Mk1 pod?? There is no reason, and if anything that added weight, while (cross section) drag is essentially the same = bad things.

I have no idea

"Right but can't you modify these parts once and be done with it? Is there a reason you couldn't do this?"

what that's supposed to mean. We edit things to work, so far we haven't had issues. So either you don't having things installed, or you are doing things 'wrong' and bad result is expected.

[coldblade2000]

Thanks for the answer!

[RedAV8R]

@JT2227:

Then you need to visit the RSS thread. RO does nothing with RSS other than they are complimentary. RO w/o RSS is really silly, and RSS w/o RO is kinda silly. What I can and will tell you is that you are not using ANY sort of texture modification program like ATM or TextureReplacer, which means that you will load every texture full res. Not good for 32-bit apps.

[RedAV8R]

It's late, I'm tired, and my water heater broke. I'm going to bed. I'll post the next release in the morning.

[Felger]

Very confused now... I am having too many troubles with real solar system. In earlier versions, I could easily use the 8192 texture packs, but now it crashes every time on start. I switched to the 4096 and kept the 8192 textures for earth, but it still looks terrible. So firstly;

Why are the new versions doing this and how can I fix this?

Crash log for the crash on texture loading: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzwBQu9jNY8cYm5zQjJRRU03V2c/view?usp=sharing

And Why is Earth still looking low-res at 8192. (I've used RSS before, and it's never looked this bad.)

Granted, this isn't the RSS thread, but I got it to behave better by using the force opengl method (google it, don't remember the specifics). Seems a bit more efficient at loading textures that way.

[tmikesecrist3]

Thank you red I look forward to seeing what is in the next update, and I would like to think you for the work you do. and if I had the skills I would offer to help you in more ways then sending you bug reports

[Felger]

Thank you red I look forward to seeing what is in the next update, and I would like to think you for the work you do. and if I had the skills I would offer to help you in more ways then sending you bug reports

Only one way to get the skills!

[Starwaster]

No doubt it's too steep, but what about the altitudes? Is this expected behavior or is it just me? If it's expected and normal for these mods, then I'll accept it for now, otherwise I must of missed something installing the mods.

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Right but can't you modify these parts once and be done with it? Is there a reason you couldn't do this?

Next time, please post in the Deadly Reentry thread, we'll be happy to help you there. That said, Felger is on the money and your reentry profile was a horribly tragic example of how NOT to reenter the planet's atmosphere. The Mk1 has more than enough heat shields without stacking three more on. All that did was increase your ballistic coefficient which lessens the effect of drag. Not that it matters much because your Kerbal was doomed from the start. That was not survivable at all. And for the record your pictures do NOT show you burning up. Maybe you should have but you didn't. You descended so rapidly that you didnt have time to pick up much heat and then you hit the lower atmosphere at almost full speed and decelerated rapidly enough to kill your Kerbal through g-force damage.

Also, re: Module Manager: Directly editing / replacing parts files has too many downsides and almost no benefit to be worth doing. Aside from what you've been told already,

Can you imagine if every mod did that instead of just patching the part? (which is what ModuleManager does). That would mean that I, as a player, am further limited as to what mods to install. Really I'd be limited to a single mod if all the mods I wanted were going to replace that part file. Does part file replacement still sound like a good idea to you?

Secondly, if the part being replaced is part of someone elses mod, that would mean that if I updated that mod then I would have to reinstall RO because the changes RO made were just lost. Does part file replacement still sound like a good idea to you?

Edited October 31, 2014 by Starwaster

[RedAV8R]

New water heater installed, sprinklers blown out, and new release time. Available, AFTER, you read the OP.

Realism Overhaul v6.1.2

v6.1.2 -- \/

Added FASA Official Support

Added LazTek Official Support

Added NearFuture Official Support

DRE New Decouplers for Mk1 and Mk1-2

Fixed RemoteTech part node sizes

Changed Stock radial to LR-101

Update AVC-KSP