[1.12.x] Freight Transport Technologies [v0.6.0]

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

SpaceY has large docking ports:

Instead of launching in segments and docking in space, starlifters can be built all at once in orbit via Extraplanetary Launchpads:

 

[RoverDude]

So a couple of new things

First, phase 1 of the Starlifter refresh is done (still a lot more to do).

Second.  The old style kontainers are deprecated as of KSP 1.2 (we have all we need in USI Core)

Third.  With the new construction code coming with UKS, orbital construction will be a breeze

[Merkov]

35 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Second.  The old style kontainers are deprecated as of KSP 1.2 (we have all we need in USI Core)

I'm new enough to all things USI that all Kontainers are old to me, but are you referring to the flat bottomed Kontainers that are roughly the same form factor as the UKS Mk-III parts (I think they're called Mk-II Kontainers)?

[RoverDude]

(Editing for clarity)

The flat bottom ones, that are like sugarloafs.  And the hex ones.  Not the square eight sided ones)

Edited September 9, 2016 by RoverDude

[Merkov]

16 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

(Editing for clarity)

The flat bottom ones, that are like sugarloafs.  And the hex ones.  Not the square eight sided ones)

Got it. I will miss the flat bottom ones, but not enough that it matters. I'll fly a rocket into the Sun pour a drink out for them, but the eight sided ones really do everything we need. Mostly I liked making my bases look bigger than they actually were from a distance. "Look at all those buildings! Oh, wait, half of those are Kontainers."

In an older (and very buggy) save, I had a small "base" that was pretty much just Kontainers. I lovingly called it my Potemkin base.

[davidy12]

1 hour ago, RoverDude said:

So a couple of new things

First, phase 1 of the Starlifter refresh is done (still a lot more to do).

Second.  The old style kontainers are deprecated as of KSP 1.2 (we have all we need in USI Core)

Third.  With the new construction code coming with UKS, orbital construction will be a breeze

 

Where'd you get the Hermes like cockpit?

[RoverDude]

I made it...

[davidy12]

1 minute ago, RoverDude said:

I made it...

 

So this will be in the pack?

[RoverDude]

Yep.  It replaces the old command pod.

[shawn625]

First off let me start by saying your mods are amazing and continue to be that way time and time again. Keep up the awesome work!! I am also new to the forums here and am not really sure where I should mention something so i will mention it here and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for future reference. 

I play KSP 1.1.3 and I use Karbonite, Karbonite plus, FTT, and USI life. i just recently added Karbonite plus and love the karborundum torch drives!!!

The thing I wanted to ask was if there is any chance of the Honey badger's  fuel/cargo being able to hold Karborundum and not just Karbonite?

Thanks again for the great mods and sorry if this was not the right place to ask that.

[shawn625]

I am also wonder if the Honey badgers VTOL fan is only supposed to have 15kn of thrust. With such little thrust I sadly can not get 2 of them to even budge the smallest probe core. It would be great to be able to add this awesome looking inline fan into my honey badger crafts but with practically no thrust to weight it seems to serve little purpose as a VTOL fan.

[Vhaegrant]

On ‎9‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 5:53 AM, shawn625 said:

First off let me start by saying your mods are amazing and continue to be that way time and time again. Keep up the awesome work!! I am also new to the forums here and am not really sure where I should mention something so i will mention it here and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for future reference. 

I play KSP 1.1.3 and I use Karbonite, Karbonite plus, FTT, and USI life. i just recently added Karbonite plus and love the karborundum torch drives!!!

The thing I wanted to ask was if there is any chance of the Honey badger's  fuel/cargo being able to hold Karborundum and not just Karbonite?

Thanks again for the great mods and sorry if this was not the right place to ask that.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Honey Badger doesn't get a bit of a rework to fit in with all the other USI packs.
While I enjoy using it, it's starting to look a little dated compared to the newer USI inventory.
Of course only Roverdude would be able to confirm.

The Orca command pod looks great, can't wait to see the other parts

[shawn625]

5 hours ago, Vhaegrant said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Honey Badger doesn't get a bit of a rework to fit in with all the other USI packs.
While I enjoy using it, it's starting to look a little dated compared to the newer USI inventory.
Of course only Roverdude would be able to confirm.

The Orca command pod looks great, can't wait to see the other parts

I am super excited for the Orca command pod!! I am always excited to see what RoverDude has coming next.

[CSE]

On 09/09/2016 at 6:53 PM, RoverDude said:

I made it...

One of your best parts yet, and that's saying something. I've always liked the art of the Starlifter cargo and containers, and this new cockpit completes it perfectly.

It's rather greedy of me, but - I hope you have plans for a few more pieces in this 3.75/2.5 form. The shape combined with the upper/lower shading and nodes underneath will be great for surface bases as well as in spacecraft.

[RoverDude]

On 9/27/2016 at 0:53 AM, shawn625 said:

First off let me start by saying your mods are amazing and continue to be that way time and time again. Keep up the awesome work!! I am also new to the forums here and am not really sure where I should mention something so i will mention it here and hopefully someone can point me in the right direction for future reference. 

I play KSP 1.1.3 and I use Karbonite, Karbonite plus, FTT, and USI life. i just recently added Karbonite plus and love the karborundum torch drives!!!

The thing I wanted to ask was if there is any chance of the Honey badger's  fuel/cargo being able to hold Karborundum and not just Karbonite?

Thanks again for the great mods and sorry if this was not the right place to ask that.

Thanks, and sure, log a github issue.  The HB is due for a refresh of its own.

On 9/27/2016 at 1:20 AM, shawn625 said:

I am also wonder if the Honey badgers VTOL fan is only supposed to have 15kn of thrust. With such little thrust I sadly can not get 2 of them to even budge the smallest probe core. It would be great to be able to add this awesome looking inline fan into my honey badger crafts but with practically no thrust to weight it seems to serve little purpose as a VTOL fan.

Fixed in the 1.2 release

On 9/28/2016 at 7:37 AM, Vhaegrant said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the Honey Badger doesn't get a bit of a rework to fit in with all the other USI packs.
While I enjoy using it, it's starting to look a little dated compared to the newer USI inventory.
Of course only Roverdude would be able to confirm.

The Orca command pod looks great, can't wait to see the other parts

Yup, a rework is on the list (but it is a long list) and thanks!

21 hours ago, shawn625 said:

I am super excited for the Orca command pod!! I am always excited to see what RoverDude has coming next.

Thanks!  It was a fun part

39 minutes ago, CSE said:

One of your best parts yet, and that's saying something. I've always liked the art of the Starlifter cargo and containers, and this new cockpit completes it perfectly.

It's rather greedy of me, but - I hope you have plans for a few more pieces in this 3.75/2.5 form. The shape combined with the upper/lower shading and nodes underneath will be great for surface bases as well as in spacecraft.

The new MKS bits go perfectly with this.  They are also in the 2.5/3.75 form factor.

[Vhaegrant]

On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 4:16 PM, RoverDude said:

Yup, a rework is on the list (but it is a long list) and thanks!

Having worked on personal projects, it's always a long list
I'm sure it will be worth the wait.
Hopefully I'll have better luck balancing vtol craft with the new 1.2 fuel balancing... so many HB wrecks around Kerbal Mission Command

 

[RoverDude]

I did a lot of tests with the engines and the HB does fly like a dream.

[Somtaaw]

Really wanted to avoid going to modded parts, but when I made a stock mk3 VTOL spaceplane challenge, there was a real underwhelming response, so it appears I shall have to go to mods to get the VTOL spaceplane designs I want.

 

I do however, have a question where if the answer is negative, it turns into a request. Is there, or will there be, a passenger module? It looks damn near identical to the old Space: 1999 Eagle transporters, but those had passenger, freight, and military variants. The HB seems to be purely freight, and I'm looking to design something loosely resembling the HB, or Eagle transporters, be capable of VTOL flight and moving upwards of 20 Kerbals in a single flight. Preferably with enough VTOL to handle Duna, Dres, Moho and maybe even Laythe.

 

The other question would be just how many of the USI mods would I have to install to get the Honeybadger to work properly? Looks like I may have to start using Karbonite again, and possibly others, or would the FTT pack alone be functional?

[RoverDude]

NEW VERSION FOR KSP 1.2 IS UP!

Also - if you want to grab the entire USI Constellation in a single zip... head over here:  https://github.com/BobPalmer/USI_Constellation/releases/

0.6.0 - (KSP 1.2)
------------------
All spherical tanks and Kontainers in the FTT pack have been deprecated as these are duplicated by USI Core.
3.75m Kontainers, when attached to a Starlifter Cargo Truss, can take advantage of cargo distribution.  This toggle, on the truss, will turn the kontainers physicsless, transferring their mass to the truss.  This will help with uneven loads and issues with high disparity in mass between connected parts.
Tweaked the ducted fan engines slightly.  Heavier EC usage, lower thrust, and the inline DFE for the Honeybadger now works.
All ducted fan engines now have appropriate blurred prop animations.
Added new Jumbo and Atlas sized ducted fan engines (2x and 3x the power of the large ducted fan, respectively)
Rebalanced all of the nuclear engines (they are both heavier, and significantly more powerful).
New (interim) engine effects for the nuclear engines
Ducted fan sound effects have been updated
The command pod has been deprecated in favor of the new Orca command pod, featuring an 80% recycler for USI-LS as well as battery banks, and crew quarters.
All starlifter parts are a bit less colorful (interim update)

[Merkov]

Hey RoverDude, quick (and probably somewhat dumb) question for you:

17 hours ago, RoverDude said:

3.75m Kontainers, when attached to a Starlifter Cargo Truss, can take advantage of cargo distribution.  This toggle, on the truss, will turn the kontainers physicsless, transferring their mass to the truss.  This will help with uneven loads and issues with high disparity in mass between connected parts.

I was hoping to play around with this feature. Specifically, I want to see if I can apply it to the KPBS bi- and tri-couplers that mod uses to try to balance base components. I see that the Cargo Trusses have ModuleWeightDistribution applied to them. How do I look at how this module works to try to play with it modify it to work in other cases?

I've only ever played with config files before, so if the answer is "download [program], learn [language], look at [file]" that is a perfect starting point for me.

Thanks for everything!

[Tarheel1999]

6 minutes ago, Merkov said:

Hey RoverDude, quick (and probably somewhat dumb) question for you:

I was hoping to play around with this feature. Specifically, I want to see if I can apply it to the KPBS bi- and tri-couplers that mod uses to try to balance base components. I see that the Cargo Trusses have ModuleWeightDistribution applied to them. How do I look at how this module works to try to play with it modify it to work in other cases?

I've only ever played with config files before, so if the answer is "download [program], learn [language], look at [file]" that is a perfect starting point for me.

Thanks for everything!

It may as simple as adding that part module to the part with a MM patch. That said adding that module may have unintended consequences. The only way to know is try it and see what works and what doesn't. 

[RoverDude]

@Merkov not sure if it will work for your purposes since one assumption is that the bits having their mass transferred have no child parts.  i.e. it is fine for radial cargo containers in FTT, or the expandable Ranger modules in MKS.

[Merkov]

3 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

@Merkov not sure if it will work for your purposes since one assumption is that the bits having their mass transferred have no child parts.  i.e. it is fine for radial cargo containers in FTT, or the expandable Ranger modules in MKS.

Hmm... Yeah, I could see that being a limitation. How does the module work? Does it only affect specific parts (i.e., Kontainers and Ranger modules) or does it affect any part attached to a parent with the module enabled?

[Ruedii]

I just thought of something.

I really would like to see giant wheels in this pack designed for large freight vehicles and other high weight vehicles.  (e.g. Large passenger transports and mining rigs.)

Namely they should be on the relatively slow side for something of their size (speed shouldn't scale up with size) making them cap out at between 30-45m/s depending on their load and the surface they are on.  They also should handle a LOT of weight, but be quite heavy themselves.

Another thing to add, if it can be done, is flexible joint pieces.  (With tweakable options to "Lock", "Straighten" and an adjustable spring and damper control on the flexibility.)

Finally, one more request is various independent spring suspension pieces for building A-Arm, Ladder Frame and other types of suspensions.

[COL.R.Neville]

If you use the starlifter cargo truss and the lil container holders (cargo adapters i think they are called) it wont pass the containers weight thru and the kraken awakens. 

also there seems to be quite a bit of gap with the 3.75 containers and the cargo adapter. If you connect the containers directly to the truss its all good. 

 

not only giant wheels but big ass landing gear like the coreworks c7 you know sorta like voyager has or soup up the aset landing gear they are pretty sweet as well.

speaking of wheels, landing gear etc who are the resident SME's on the subject course im just assuming there is more than one hehe. 

Edited October 17, 2016 by COL.R.Neville