kcs123

I was apsent from playing KSP for a few months(rel life issues). I started again recently and relized that I forgot about key binding, what key is used to switch between local and absolute part rotation in SPH. Since there is new help page available in game, I looked there first, but didn't found answer. I found information that I looking for at online KSP wiki page, but it will be nice to have that information available in game too. From wiki page: F in place mode: Toggle Symmetry between vessel or parent part F in Offset mode: Toggle between absolute or load centered offset F in Rotate mode: Toggle between absolute or relative rotation That information is not available in game anywhere, trough tooltips or additional GUI icons.

It's not only skin temperature that matters, inner, core heat capacity is important too. Skin temerature is more important when you have rapid heating, high temerature but in short timeframe. Inner, core temperature, is more important if you "cook" cockpit trough longer timeframe. Depending how shallow ascent profile is and TWR capabilites is on the way up. On re-entry, if you choose shallower re-entry, skin temperature won't be too high, but since re-entry longer, inner temperature might go too high as well. Everything is slightly different from 1.0.5., so re-entry procedure need to be adjusted and/or craft design. I don't feel that creating good SSTO become easier, it's just that we become more experienced building it and have more nice mods to choose from.

Nice videos and nice SSTO too. That S3 cockpit is one of reason why you didn't encountered issues. It have 2700K temperature limit. I have discovered issues with new Mk2b cockpits that have max temerature around 2200K. That is even lower than stock Mk2 cockpit. It also have low mass(meaning low heat capacity). Anyway, I solved my issues by creating more stable crafts capable to sustain high AoA on re-entry, without RCS, I use those mainly for docking. Those videos will not be futile, it will help someone else that search for tips.

Extra power is needed to compress air, for heat exchanger, etc. For gamebalancing purposes too. To not get extra air from nothing. My consideration is that airflow comes from intakes in compessor, it is slightly hold, compressed(cooled) and then passed to engine. Due to constant airflow, more air comes in to compressor that is again compresed and so on. For shock cone intakes and sabre intakes it have less purpose than with ram intakes and other types of intakes. Reason is that shock cone intakes have linear increase in air scooping as craft speed increases. For other types of intakes it is more useful after certain speed when scooping from intakes start to drop. For gamebalancing reason, my biggest concern is how to limit cooling only to intakes and engines, but not other craft parts. Whole idea still need a lot of tweaking/balancing, but it is start. Yes, due to length of sabre engine, it will look odd when it is rear mounted, but combination of engine mount, cooler, engine and intake placed somewhere near COM, it might work better. You want to mount SABRE engine closer to COM, because engine itself is heavy, to avoid COM shifting as fuel is consumed. EDIT: It is certainly possible to use only air intake as input resource, without EC. Currently, all things need to be tweaked to see effect in game better. Cooling effect is more visible in game than extra air, could use only air intake as resource for cooling, leaving less air for engines (flame out sooner), but engines overheat less. I'm divided to drop compressing effect (taking one unit of air and converting to 1.50 unit or more) and leave only cooling efect. It is kind of hard to see in game effect does compressor do anything because air intake as resource is hidden from GUI. Can't be activated trough debug menu either, at least I don't know how. Also, have no clue meaning of keys in curve module, how much it can have on generating resource.

Whenever is frequent mod updates, it is good idea to export installed mods to "*.ckan" file, uninstall everything, delete all folders in gamedata except SQUAD to ensure that there is no leftover files from previous installs that could break something. Then install everything again from previously exported "*.ckan" file. CKAN will be cache downloaded files, so you don't need to download them again, only install them. While sound tedious, this can solve a lot of issues caused by possible faulty installs.

I just did it first normal re-entry. I was slightly adjusted craft, making tail 2m longer and slightly more dihedrial on main wings to improve stability in uper atmosphere. Also have two large radiators on cockpit, but I didn't activated on re-entry, don't know if that helped to protect cockpit in heating (less cockpit surface exposed to airstream). PE on re-entry was around 35km. Heated up cockpit similar as Van Disaster, around 4/5 of maximum. Missed KSC for about 600 km, but that is not much of problem, it is just about finding proper landing spot for PE. Can't record video (lack of proper software and HDD space) but here are some screenshots. Oh, and don't mid, that SABRE PreCooler, I added some features for it, but those were not used on re-entry. That is some small hacky way to create working cooler/compressor. You can find WIP config part info in B9 thread if you are interested. Still, can't get away from feeling that is so easy to make pilot mistake on re-entry. Need to repeat everything with full cargo bays.

I didn't checked all of math equations, but on the first look it seems that you have miscalculated Time to impact. I have similar working script, that is meant tu use along with SAS set to radial, to keep craft in vertical pitching, but you can easy adjust it for your personal needs. Script is available along with other craft files, written a lot of coments inside to help somene to start using kOS. Have also few safe checks, so it can be use with high TWR crafts on any celestial body. Here is download link. I wanted to explain it a bit more, why I did it like it is, but I didn't found time for it. Hopefully, comments inside will be enough, no need to bloat this thread with it.

Starting re-entry at 30-40 AoA, craft is capable to maintain it down to ~50km. Then shallowed down to 15-20 AoA as atmosphere become thicker. I'm trying with 6 stock airbrakes ( 3 per wing) just above flaps. Tried in combination with and without flaps. I'm still didn't exehausted all of options. Yes, it is more likely approach error than design error, as I said, need to learn again proper re-entry procedure. Once I figure out what is good re-entry, piloting wise, then I can do small tweaks on design to improve it. All of that require a lot of test flights.

I managed to create working compressor/precooler for SABRE-S engine. part config is in spoiler section. It still need more tweaking/balancing to not be overpowered, but it work in game. Compessor use air from other intakes and with cost of electrical usage it creates more air. While active, compressor also genearate heat. Good news is that there is also built in cooler that also need electrical energy to keep everything cool.

In KSP 1.0.5 I was using ~25 km for PE, never have even smallest issue with overheating. Now, I have everything between 25 and 40 km for PE. When I use low PE, cockpit burn out quickly. With higher altitudes it slowly heating, but it does not cool down and eventualy it explode. Only, it takes longer for it. I'm trying with additional radiators to see if it helps.

That method worked well for me too in KSP 1.0.5. But in KSP 1.1.2. things are a lot different. Craft properly slow down. at 30 km I'm at 5 mach or less. Problem is that cockpit still overheat too much. It need additional radiators near cockpit to keep it cool. Even slight mistake in re-entry profile lead to ka-boom. I want larger error margines, as I'm not always precise in piloting procedure.

Just realized that I actualy posted two similar crafts, one shown in hangar and other on runway. Pictures on runway were taken before ones in SPH and I loaded wrong craft. Both crafts are similar in shape and size to show flaps usage, though. Craft in SPH have only one engine. Main problem with it is that runway is not long enough to reach take off speed. For take off purposes, I temporary use rocket mode, to accelerate fast enough for take off, switch back to air breathing mode once craft lift off. Once in air, single engine is enough to push craft in orbit, however, in upper atmosphere, single engine does not have enough power in air breathing mode, you need to switch to rocket mode much sooner. Whole thing is just not effective enough for practical usage, that is a reason why I created similar craft with two engines. Both crafts are still WIP, I need to learn again optimal re-entry procedure. It is much different from KSP 1.0.x. I was able to return both crafts to runway, but with a lot of trouble in re-entry. Figured out "Kerbal" method of re-entry, to put craft in uncontrolable spin around 50 km in atmosphere. Atmosphere is thin enough to be safe from ripping off wings apart, Q is arond 1-2 kPa, but craft in uncontolable spin was heated more equaly, preventing cockpit to explode. Once craft is slowed down enough, around 15km, I put spin under control and fly to runway as usual. I never needed any kind of additional thermal control parts, now I need to add those on craft too, to be able to have more reliable method of re-entry. I experiment with different design aproach, short and wide crafts, swept vs various delta designs, with and without elevators on tail, with and without canards, etc. Don't know if you are noticed, but that craft on first picture use elevators on main wings, without small horisontal wing on tail, but with canards to help in pitching. Drawback is that it need small power from engine to have more controls with engine gimbals. Whole point is to create craft capable to reach orbit with least amount of force, trough sleek craft design, rather than brute force power from engines. Oh, I also upoaded bunch of new small aircrafts powered by jet engines. All of them with decent maneuverability, some of them can survive 15-18g turns at sea level. Just recently I have installed EVE and scaterrer, so I need to take new screenshots from test flight, for better entertainment when you watch all those crashes

Is it in career game ? If it is, then you first need to upgrade tracking station to have precise node available. Check out in sandbox game to see if precise node menu pops up properly. If you can't see it in sandbox game too, then some bug is involved, but I doubt that it is a case. Oh, and welcome to forums.

Just voted in OP. I didn't see anywhere in thread that someone suggested procedural wings, although I didn't read carefully trough whole thread. Either B9PW or continuation on PW mod. Both are helpful in craft designs to reduce overall part number and to minimize part cliping. At the same time it allows freedom in shaping overall craft, something that is even more important with FAR phyisics. B9 Aerospace(part) mod have also some few features that comes handy in craft designs. You can easier turn some fuselage from structural to fuel tank without replacing all parts when you figured out that you need some extra fuel. But I understand that part mods should be limited to allow wider public to join tournaments. Perhaps all of tournaments need to be put on hold until BD Armoury is updated for KSP 1.1.2 or future upcoming patch. Like some others mentioned, I'm not much of fan for weapons, but like a chalange in good craft designs, might join some of tournaments if procedural wings are allowed in at least one of them. Instead of pure dogfight chalange, maybe to consider Fighter vs Bomber chalange ? Bomber needs to reach some target on the ground and destroy it while dodging fighter, while fighter need to shoot-down bomber before it reach target. Target can be some of KSP building or other craft on the ground. Bomber can start on old runway while fighters take off at KSC. It could bring some more interesting videos to watch.

That is why this plane have canards too :). I never found flaps useless, regardless of wing shape, is it delta, straight or swept wing. You need to set other control surfaces properly to counterpart negative pitching down effect from flaps. I have used slats only on some heavy weight crafts where flaps were not enough because of overall craft weight, just to lower down pitching momentum, so craft can be easier to control. I found pitching down effect from flaps quite usefull. Designs with slightly tilted down nose worked best for me on take off landing procedures, less likely that craft will bounce during takeoff or steer left and right without controle. Here is small album that explain how I use flaps on my designs.

Thanks, take your time with this, no need to rush it. That will just give me more time to learn how to use kOS Nice to know that it is already on "to do" list.

I think that is main issue why people get a feeling that it does not work properly. For example, you need to go in flight, set window position as you pleased, recover craft and save your game, without reverting flight. Save your game once you are in space center, or exit to main menu at least once. Only after that changes will be visible as expected on any further flights. Small piece of info how things works can help to avoid confusion and false bug reports.

Haven't tried station science for a while, but whenever you use mod like this, you should tweak other difficulty option in main game how much science, money, reputation you get trough contracts and various other stuff. You can also use ALT+F12 do adjust some settings for personal liking if some stuff are too much or too low. Mods like this easy break gamebalance, but it is fun to use it regardless. Bringing heavy stuff in orbit is not always easy task, there is also docking procedure involved, etc. But, yes, it discourage people to some degree to explore other celestial bodies until they unlock large part of tech tree and do it with much better tehnology. You can easy miss fun with visiting Mun or Minimus with low tech grade parts. That brings different set of difficulty/experience.

I was apsent from KSP since 1.1.x is released, have a lot to learn to catch up with every change made, not only with kOS, bit with KSP and other mods as whole. You have probably already included something similar already, but is it possible to send data from one kOS CPU to another on the same craft ? It is better to understand it on example. Upcoming GAP will going to include cargo transport contracts. I was thinking on craft that will have one main kOS CPU on vessel and other one on payload with some probe and second kOS CPU unit. Once you deploy payload from cargo bay, CPU on probe is activated and behave on it's own, but just before separation, main CPU should send some data to probe, about target area for landing etc. Probe will then do it's own thing, deploy parachutes when needed, landing legs/gears, open cargo bay, deploy solar panels, collect science research data, etc. Or for some more violent people, use it as guided missile/smart bomb to hit a moving target. deployed probe should act on it's own, but use info from main craft that need to remain in physical area all time for everything to work in KSP. Coding wise, it should be something like this: On probe we have some function running in loop: Probe_funcion(param1,param2,param3). On main vessel, we set param1,param2 and param3 values as some stuff in gaming world changes, target moved or whatever. But those info is actualy used in program running on probe CPU set Probe:param1 to some_value. set Probe:param2 to some_value2. set Probe:param1 to some_value3. Or even better, call whole function that is declared in Probe CPU: Probe:Probe_funcion( some_value , some_value2, some_value3). I don't know exact kOS syntax from top of my head, but something like that. "Probe" should be non active vessel name or something similar, as much as I recall info from documentation about two crafts used in docking procedure when both are in physical range. Is something like that already possible ?

It is not a big deal, no need to spend time on it, especialy if you have plan to replace it with new wing code. Narrowed down problem slightly. It hapens with crafts that have high stall AoA, around 30 or more degrees. "Bad info" happen imediately after I load previously saved craft in SPH, without moving ore reattaching any part. Does not metter how long I wait, or how many times I repeat AoA sweep, always show same bad result. Raising/lowering landing gears does not help either, but when I re-attached some parts, for example one part of hull that have some wing surfaces on it, and attach again on exact same spot, craft shape is not changed at all, but it seems that it trigers voxelization somehow to display good data on AoA sweep. Does not bother me much, in flight plane behave correctly as assumed based on graph info.

KSP 1.1.2. bringed some interesting stuff related to (over)heating. While it is not their primary purpose, those parts can be but in front of aircraft , exposed to airstream to be significant part that should take all heating or next to engines. Their heating tolerance should be better than other parts and they could serve same purpose as radiators(already part of stock game) , but you don't need to actualy extend them. Having already significant mass, their consequence of usage already give penalty to dV if you use them. I didn't played KSP for a while, need to do some more testing, but IIRC, having part of large mass next to heating source already helps to reduce heat of craft as whole.

That is even better than I suggested. Since you have actualy use some checking what kind of commands are executed, can you also add checking if there is no programm runing at all, to consider as unit is shut off and does not consume any power. For example, I want to include kOS CPU on each craft, even when I don't always need it, but there is a moments where manual pilot execution is much worse than something that is possible trough kOS. I wanted to try it, but I forgot to include kOS on my craft. Or, I put kOS on craft and forgot to turn it off on launching and because of that kOS drains battery. That will make wish to inegrate kOS CPU in each cockpit/probe a thing even more. It should not be too hard to include it trough MM patches. Check to see if player is already unlocked some kOS part and always integrate best one available. There could also be a check if cockpit have enough mass, so you don't need to add mass of kOS CPU to cockpit, but rather consider that it have enough space for kOS in it. Very first available kOS part should not be integrated though, just fo have reminder how bulky and slow CPUs were in the past. Only new small surface attachable CPUs should be possible to integrate. But that is out of scope for kOS, I would probably do some small MM patch for personal usage when next version of kOS is released. Agree on that. And based on Stevens answer, I think that you are close to optimal solution on this topic. Messing with memory limits will just overcomplicated everything and draw you away from more important things to solve than this. Different power drain based on executed commands as you are already included will bring some more interesting choices in game. Should someone spamm more bateries and solar panels on craft to satisfy kOS CPU needs, or he will try to optimize code, to consume less power for the same thing ? That will encourage people to think more about coding, how to make cleaner, more optimized code, for better efficiency of whole craft (less mass = more dV). Anyway, nice news on progress in development.

Second this. I already metioned it in post few pages back. While different CPU speed will be nice touch, it will not change anything in game much, how kOS CPU will be used. Whole other important process in game is much slower than even slow CPU from 60's as kOS try to simulate will have more than enough CPU power for that to handle. I think it is better for devs to spend their time elsewhwere than on this, but, hey, that's their free time, they can do whatever they want with it. Sligtly offtopic, but kOS CPU reminds me a lot to real life counterpart - various PLCs and microcontrolers used in industry. Both share similar philosophy - read input ports, do some calculations, set output ports based on calculations in determinated timeframe.

Yep. Mk1 0.5 have 104 units. Stock FL-T100 have exactly 100 units. There is no MM patch that modify it. Only that while empty Mk1 0.5 weights more than empty FL-T100. It might have better crash tolerance or temperature limits because of that. IIRC @NathanKell, explained somwhere long time ago, fuselages contain smaller units of fuel than whole volume for specific part because of preasurred fuel tanks. Especialy when comes to LFO. Fuel supoused to be inside mk2 part in rounded cilinders that can sustain high preasured fuel much better than other shape, different materials have to be used, structure supporting materials, etc. Not whole volume of part can be used to contain fuel. That is why double of fuel units in Mk2b part is too much compared to stock part of same size. Maybe 500 or or 600 units will be more fair ? Just to have some differences and player have a reason to choose B9 part over stock part. Having diferent price for the part of same size is OK too, but part price have much less influence on overall gameplay than other properties. And sorry, since you posted info about new thread just bellow mine, it seemed that you are on track of something to solve it, my mistake.

Found similar issue as Bokstore44. It is official FAR release, not developer version. I can only provide craft file if needed, output log is overwritten, can't provide that and I can only speculate about reason behind it. I think gong to test flight and reverting to SPH somehow trigers it, but I need to do more tests to find out reliable reproducing steps.