wasml

Lisias - I've been following your trials since adopting this mod - you have my sincerest sympathy and upmost appreciation for the work you've done!

OK - I have a dim recollection of seeing something like that - I take it that you were joking but I have no idea how to implement something like that. It would load on the runway and after a very brief pause would launch into the air - usually retaining most parts (but not always). What was really odd was that no matter what I did I couldn't get it to behave even though the structure was the same as other working wheels. I finally recreated the structure, moved the meshes over, and rebuilt - and it behaved! Edit: Found one screen shot of a different wheel/different cause but was at 1 Km up and a "Physics easing in progress..." is visible in the upper right corner - I suspect that's at least part of the reason they survived the initial launch.

Spinners? I'm not familiar with the term

The Perseverance wheel is not in the download (see the note - second line in the OP). When I put the picture up I forgot the wheel was in there. I've been fighting with it but haven't managed to get it to work properly - or more accurately it works correctly but the graphics are messed up when symmetry is used - it rolls and turns correctly but the wheels on one side appear to roll backwards and turn opposite the other side. Edit: Correction - when symmetry is used both sides face the same way, when symmetry isn't used and the wheels face outwards on both sides the the graphics are messed up in a rather disconcerting way.

My use cases would be Countering the Kraken and things like removing a rescue contract Kerbal from a pod without a hatch (when I forget to install Rescue Pod Validator on a new install).

I don't see any ModuleRCSFX - which confuses me as I would have thought that, in addition to the EFFECTS, was needed to link the effects to the RCS.

Your best bet would be to look at the code for a mod that does something similar - Nertea's Dynamic Battery Storage is one that comes to mind. The API mentioned above and other modder's code are the really the only documentation available. That and asking or looking for similar questions on this forum.

Unfortunately the Squad code is not publicly available but the API is listed here.

Blender is a common one. You'll also need something for textures - Gimp is free. And of course Unity - Free to use if your making under some number of dollars - documented on the Unity web site. You'll need PartTools to package and export from Unity.

Can you describe how it is they are not acting consistently?

The highlight missing tells me the collider isn't working but why the attach nodes would disappear - I have no idea. Three things to check: 1) Mesh colliders have a maximum size - 255 triangles I think. If needed you can have multiple colliders. Generally the collider will be a simplified version of the model - for example a 24 sided fuel tank typically has a 12 sided collider. And if you can use a collider primitive (box, sphere or capsule) it's even better. 2) Colliders also need to be convex - in Unity there is a checkbox in the mesh collider object you need to check. 3) Though I don't think this is your problem (both the model and collider would be rotated) when Blender exports a model using the Collada exporter the model will be rotated 90 degrees when imported to Unity - I don't know if other formats do the same.

There are a number of different types of mods - what were you looking to do? Snark has a good description of the different types of mods here (seventh post down).

I've been unable to get the light to work - either the light works or emissive works but never both. Changing "useAnimationDim" in the config file from true to false toggles which works. I've tried everything I can think of including things that I didn't think would work (they didn't) and unless I find some new information or think of something new to try I'm stuck. If you do manage to figure this out I'd be very interested in hearing what you did to get it to work. Good luck!

Some instructions here: Have fun!

The .mu files are the KSP model files that the parttools script spits out from the Unity editor - definitely needed. The mbm files are an old texture format - dds is the preferred format now. If your making parts you can use .png for the textures and convert to dds when your done fiddling around with the textures - or leave as .png but I believe KSP will convert to dds internally slightly increasing load times.

I'm not understanding what you mean when you say the part won't rotate correctly. Do you mean that the part shows up in the VAB rotated incorrectly? As far as the highlighting - can you attach the part and then remove it from the vehicle? If not it may be because you don't have colliders - otherwise I'm at a loss as to why the highlighting doesn't work.

When I make a part with an animation the an Animator (the one that is changed to an Animation as it looks like you did) is attached to the what I think would be your testclamp (the blue box one). The one thing that looks different and I would not have thought it would make a difference is that in Blender I usually have an Empty as the parent object for the entire part.

As far as the nodes - the first three numbers are the X, Y and Z coordinates. The next three are the X, Y and Z node direction and the last is the node size Xpos, Ypos, Zpos, Xdir, Ydir, Zdir, NodeSize

One thing I don't see in your post - did you set the Animation type to Legacy? I'm using a different Unity version so things are a bit different but if I click on the blue box icon in the Hierarchy (that's where my Animation is) the inspector shows a "Model" label with two buttons after - an Open and a Select. Pressing the select changes the inspector to a view with four buttons across the top (Model, Rig, Animation, Materials) - I press the Rig button and the first line is "Animation Type" with a drop down that has Legacy as one of the options.

I've put together a number of projects for various parts here. Includes the Blender, Unity projects and the final in-game part. One on the solar panels should be retractable (animated). For the animation I would suggest looking up some youtube tutorials on animation. One thing that really helps in animating parts that rotate (like the panels on a solar array) is to set the origin of the part to the hinge. Another thing to note is that (last time I checked anyway) at least one of the Blender exporters didn't export rotations based on Euler angles (the Collada one I believe).

I suspect they are - The KSP.log should list the .mu and texture files as they're loaded.

I've haven't played with this much (very little in fact) and didn't get anything I was happy with - so take with a large grain of salt. I made two empties in blender - a top level and an emitter point with the emitter empty as a child of the top level empty. I exported from Blender and into Unity where I added PartTools to the top level empty and a Particle System to the emitter empty. I then added a material to the particle system and used the partTools "Write" button to make my .mu file.

I'm probably misunderstanding the situation but Unity shouldn't care about the transforms - I would think you wouldn't see the problem until you were in KSP. I suspect something else is causing the texture problem.

As I've figured out how to make various parts I've tried to document the steps and note any gotchas I came across here. I've been using Blender and Gimp - both free. You'll also need Unity(free if you have under X dollars of income from the Unity games you develop) and PartTools. Do be careful though - you may find the only time you spend in game is testing the shinny new parts you've made. Happy modding! Edit: forgot to mention Unity version for 1.8.X and 1.9.X is 2019.2.2f1 - not so important for parts but very important if you're making plugins