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[1.10.x] Mark IV Spaceplane System (August 3)


Nertea

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On 12/16/2017 at 6:21 PM, Apaseall said:

If text in cfg files is case sensitive then, mk4turbofan-25-2.cfg line 558 has the first letter in the wrong case for thrustTransform. Inside same cfg all other refs are ThrustTransform.

What an interesting and utterly incorrect assumption.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was trying to hunt down some behavior I thought was odd and stumbled upon it.:)

On a completely different topic. I am wondering if the thrust from "mk4liftfan-10-1" drops off rapidly with altitude? What I think I am seeing is with nearly zero horizontal speed, my vertical speed drops off and I end up with an apparent ceiling of 3000 meters. My thoughts are that at some point the vertical up thrust from my horizontally mounted fans are equal to the down force due to gravity. What I would love to do is tweak things so I level out at a higher altitude. Taking a peek I think the thrust I am interested in is defined in the "atmCurve" ? If so would a change from "key = 0.7 1" to "key = 0.9 1" work in the way I wish it to? I would have a crack at or ask for help with a mm patch but since I have no mm cache due to other mods failing, a direct source cfg edit seems the way forward.

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@Apaseall That engine is configured to operate best between 48~80m/s and under 2km from Kerbin sea level. It flames out over 192m/s and is useless in any thin atmosphere, sadly. The following is all you need to know to make the engine behave differently

velCurve is thrust multiplier by velocity, atmCurve is thrust multiplier by atmosphere pressure. The numbers in each key are respectively:

  • speed (in Mach #) or atmosphere pressure relative to Kerbin
  • Thrust multiplier
  • Tangent In (sharpens or fine controls the curve entering this point. visual editor required if non-zero)
  • Tangent Out (sharpens or fine controls the curve  exiting this point. visual editor required if non-zero)

At the very last, put 0 for the tangents. They also prevent the curve from going negative as is currently the case with the engine.

Spoiler

nl952ij.png What the keys suggest, including the plateau between Mach 0.15 and 0.25

YjkHnU2.png What actually happens because the tangents are null (auto/smooth)

Here's a skeletal patch to get you started.


@PART[mk4liftfan-10-1]
{
	@MODULE[ModuleEnginesFX],*
	{
		!velCurve {}
		!atmCurve {}
		velCurve
		{
			key = 
		}
		atmCurve
		{
			key = 
		}
	}
}

 

To fix your MM problem, MM will likely reveal the locations of any files with syntax errors. You can screenshot it by using the PrintScreen key and then paste into MS Paint or any imaging program. If MM doesn't do it, zip up your output log, store it online somewhere and PM me a link so I can help you there too.

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Well this is odd. I seem to have ended up posting here again. New issue.

I have a space plane that I am working on. I made it bit heavy and thought to add more engines to get it off the ground. Anyway I remember seeing dual and triple engine pods in my parts list and thought they would do very nicely. I was using a large pylon to which I added a pre-cooler which had a RBCC-8 "Scimitar" engine at one end with a shock cone intake at the other end. Fine I will pick up the dual engine pod, stick the intake plus engine on it and stick it on the pylon. Only the pod wants to have a native vertical orientation. Ok so I can rotate the pod before attaching it. Nope cos it rotates oddly. By odd I mean the pod flips either above or below where it was attaching on the pylon. Right so will let it attach oddly, then use auto align to bring it back to the central part of the pylon. Then my center of lift and masses needed adjustment. Space planes right! No problem, oh might as well use the triple engine pod instead. Go through the rotation stuff again. Finally get round to moving the pylon with stuff attached forwards or backwards along the space plane to bring full and empty centers of mass in alignment.

But then I noticed the main reason for this post. My center of lift was non mid line! Took off the engine pods. COL mid-line. Er added pylon only. COL ok. Add the triple pod in its native orientation. COL fine. If I manage to get the COL mid-line when using the pod then the direction of thrust is not mid-line. The reason for this is can easily by seen, the engine pod is pointing downwards with respect to front to back of space plane.

In other words, attachment points, rotation center and lift/drag centers do not seem to work as expected. Which is a damn shame.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I'm having problems with some absurd drag on a perfectly reasonable spaceplane.  As far as I can tell it's acting like every Mk IV part is open on the front, and I don't think it's dealing with the cargo bay properly.  The image included shows this, but my TWR is 1.35 and I'm stuck at around 400m/s due to the drag.

YgQZjUv.png

Edited by Thor Wotansen
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I am having an issue, where some of the propeller blades do not rotate at all, I have noticed this on the corkscrew and buzzsaw engines so far. The whirllgig and hurricane both work fine, has anyone had this issue before?

 

Update: I was using CKAN to install it, with a manual install the props now rotate, but I now have a new problem where the center of thrust on the engine part is very much off centre.

Edited by nsgallup
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On 3/4/2018 at 8:56 PM, nsgallup said:

I am having an issue, where some of the propeller blades do not rotate at all, I have noticed this on the corkscrew and buzzsaw engines so far. The whirllgig and hurricane both work fine, has anyone had this issue before?

 

Update: I was using CKAN to install it, with a manual install the props now rotate, but I now have a new problem where the center of thrust on the engine part is very much off centre.

I had the same problem, and also was Near Future Props.

What engines are you referring? If are the jet ones, this is intentional, to simulate the compressor/turbine. Early the engines in KSP showed this, but now it's hidden. Many people exploit this to make rovers with CoM below the ground :P

JXBbVK6.gif

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15 hours ago, nsgallup said:

It was only some of the propeller engines

I'll look into it

For the impatient: 

1.4.1 Update Status

  • Super low priority mod to update due to loathing
  • Minor fixes required
  • ETA???
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10 hours ago, Nertea said:

Super low priority mod to update due to loathing

I know you've had a lot of difficulties with the fuselage parts, but if you ever decide to stop maintaining MarkIV, please consider moving the less-problematic parts into one of your other mods so they can live on.  The MarkIV engines in particular are very nice, and I'd be happy to just use them with stock or OPT planes (instead of the cheaty overpowered OPT engines).

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If you want, I can help out by changing all the mesh switching stuff (like for the lift fan engines) over to the stock system. I gave it a try on one engine and it seemed to work. If you give the green light, though, what repository do I do pull requests for? the dev one? have barely started learning how to GitHub...

EDIT: I mean, it might be pointless to do since B9PartSwitch will probably eventually get updated, just throwing it out there.

On 3/14/2018 at 10:53 AM, Nertea said:

I'll look into it

For the impatient: 

1.4.1 Update Status

  • Super low priority mod to update due to loathing
  • Minor fixes required
  • ETA???

 

Edited by AccidentalDisassembly
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19 hours ago, AccidentalDisassembly said:

If you want, I can help out by changing all the mesh switching stuff (like for the lift fan engines) over to the stock system. I gave it a try on one engine and it seemed to work. If you give the green light, though, what repository do I do pull requests for? the dev one? have barely started learning how to GitHub...

 

No thanks - will continue to use B9 as fuel switching is important.

Thanks for the offer though.

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2 hours ago, Nertea said:

No thanks - will continue to use B9 as fuel switching is important.

Thanks for the offer though.

Okie dokie, no prob.

That's one thing I can't remember seeing a definitive answer to - can the stock system not switch fuel / modules / anything but meshes, textures, and nodes? If not, you've got to wonder... why the heck not?

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One small bug, the 2.5m fuselage tanks are getting twice the fuel their Rockomax conterparts receive, with cryotanks installed. It seems the values are doubled inside the GameData\MarkIVSystem\Patches\MkIVCryoFuelTanks.cfg.

The cost and dry mass are also higher, but I think this is intended, due to the higher heat tolerance.

Untitled_1.jpg

I think they should be 3/0.2/5, like in the CryoTanks configs:

Spoiler

B9_TANK_TYPE
{
    name = MkIVLH2OCryo
    tankMass = 0.000267778
    tankCost = 0

    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdHydrogen
        unitsPerVolume = 6
    }
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = Oxidizer
        unitsPerVolume = 0.4
    }
}
B9_TANK_TYPE
{
    name = MkIVLH2Cryo
    tankMass = 8.11658E-05
    tankCost = 0
    RESOURCE
    {
        name = LqdHydrogen
        unitsPerVolume = 10
    }
}

 

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Just now, theonegalen said:

Then I apologize. I haven't tried it on 1.4.1 as yet, too busy working on things myself. :)

Thank you for understanding. Frequently part packs work without being updated, so it's more a matter of isolating whether those parts are incompatible (and why, and whether it is because of a dependency or the pack itself) or if they are conflicting with another mod. That and some people figure out fixes before the mod author updates. :wink:

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