aviin

I use B2 very frequently in my playthroughs and I've made a few minor tweaks that I might as well share here for anyone interested. First two additional variants to the command module (Cupola with doors and Choppah Observer) and adding the deployable ladders to the standard Choppah variant. Patch in the spoiler below: I also frequently found myself wishing there was a selectable "Up" control point for the three parts that have ModuleCommand: Lastly, I'm sure I am not the only one who has noticed the, um, oddities of crew being assigned to the cargo bay parts. This patch removes cargo bay crew capacity"

Pull request submitted You'd think my 12 year old Github account would have seen some activity before now, but you'd be wrong.

How has this mod flown under my radar for all this time? Amazingly useful! Here's a patch to add the module to all of the adjustable base frames and cradles from https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/170211-112-stockalike-station-parts-redux-august-14-2024/ (this keeps the same values from the patch that came included for one of Squad's landing legs):

DSEV has a large variety of parts that are fantastic for this type of stuff. The three story one is specifically a DSEV Stateroom (if I remember right) with a DSEV Greenhouse on top. The conical ones are DSEV OmniLabs with one of DSEV adapters on top. The adapter has configurable resource storage and built-in fuel pump support. The fuel pumps are very simple. You stick one on a part with resources. From the PAW, you set it to "distribute locally" (which makes it pump its contents to other tanks that can hold those resources that are a part of the same vessel), "send to remote" (which makes it search for other pumps within 2000m even if they are part of another vessel and send the resources to it), or "receive from remote" (which makes it a target for pumps that are sending to remote). Works with all resources that can be transferred in the normal ways, including EC (which is something I overlooked in my early days of using them). Oh, and yes, the drills are from Pathfinder.

I've not seen any issues with orientation yet myself. Do most of my design work in the SPH. Whichever side of the craft faces the doors in the SPH faces the sandcaster head on. The biggest issue I have had has been printed vessels spawning too close to my rover doing the printing and either the rover or the printed vessel (or both) get sent flying away, especially when the vessel being printed has a sandaster itself facing the vessel doing the printing. On Bop my rover got tossed several hundred meters but I managed to recover thanks to reaction wheels and the low gravity, then slowly thread my way back through all the Parallax ground scatter. But seeing it go rocketing through the gap between two of my colony modules nearly gave me a heart attack. My solution going forward is that when I design something, I make sure to save it with the longest side facing the doors of the SPH.

Finally had some time to play with Sandcastle more this weekend. The foothold you can establish on another world with Sandcastle and the ease of doing it is game-changing. I have found myself rethinking almost everything about mission planning and execution. Here are a few pics taken on Bop of my newly established base there. Using the fuel pumps from WildBlueCore , you can make a base that is spread out over an area even without docking modules together and without KIS. Keeps the kraken at bay and lets you get everything up and running so easily. From this foothold on Bop, I will build more infrastructure to, with crew from the Bop-orbiting craft that brought my sandcaster-equipped B2 rover here, to spread next to Laythe. Loving it. *** EDIT *** Getting a foothold on Laythe... Can't wait to get some boots on the ground to check out that plume in the distance.

I should have also added Distant Object Enhancement (currently managed by @Lisias) which handles sky dimming where appropriate, visibility of, well, distant objects (satellites in orbit from the surface, for example), etc. Adds alot to your visual experience.

Since it is a second day, I think a new post is in order. More testing this morning with the shipwright. A test vessel on the runway with three Sandcasters. I am seeing an oddity. Everything starts out proceeding as I would expect with the initiating Sandcaster loading the entire parts list then it appears to farm out production of individual parts from the part list for the print to the other two Sandcasters. Observationally, it seems like the "master" caster starts with the root part which in this case is a command pod from another mod. The two "slave" casters each seem to receive the final parts I added to the build and start printing. Slave caster 1 receives a ladder (the last part added to the vessel) which prints very rapidly while slave 2 receives a parachute (this vessel contains two identical chutes placed in symmetry as the second to last parts added to the vessel). Slave 1 finishes the ladder and moves on to a chute while the master continues printing the pod and slave 2 keeps printing its original chute. All good so far. Now is when it gets weird. Slave 2 finishes its chute and goes idle, not receiving a new part to start printing. Its GUI continues to show the chute but it remains idle. Slave 2 finishes its chute and starts printing another chute (this would be a third chute printed, despite this vessel having only two chutes). Slave 2 finishes its chute and goes on to the next part (in this case, a science experiment that was the third to last part added to the vessel). The master keeps printing the pod, slave 2 continues up the list in reverse order, and slave 1 remains idle. Slave 1 never starts printing again. If I close its shipwright GUI and reopen it, it still shows the parachute it died on but now missing its thumbnail and remains idle despite parts still being in the queue of the master. Pausing slave 1 after goes idle and restarting it doesn't correct the issue. So printing is now only happening with two of the three casters. Perhaps it is related to the chutes having been added in symmetry and that is somehow what throws things off? I will do more testing here in a bit to further the investigation. One QoL change that would be nice (and I have no idea if it would be simple or complex to implement) would be that if I scrap a print job on the master, I would like to see the slaves scrap their current part print. As it is right now, a slave will finish printing its part regardless of the master having abandoned the print job. It is not a huge issue, but would be nice. Another QoL change would be for the Sandcaster to require deployment before operation. As it stands, it can print without being deployed. Something that could be complex to implement but would be sooooo nice would be if the shipwright was smart about how Tweakscale works. Right now, a vessel with tweakscaled parts prints fine with the tweaked size being correct, but the cost in ore is based on the base version of the part, not the tweaked size. Is it possible to get the mass of the tweaked size from the vessel rather than the part config? Even if not, at least it prints correctly which was a pleasant surprise. I will be testing things more throughout the day. Absolutely loving it so far. *** EDIT *** Further testing with a specially designed test print has yielded some information about what is going on with the shipwright buy having all unique parts with no duplication of any individual part so I can see what exactly is happening. The initial part assignments work correctly, but whichever slave gets finished first gets assigned to print the exact same part that the other slave is already printing. The slave that got assigned the duplicate part is the one that stalls. It seems like the slaves don't respect what other slaves are already working on before they begin printing their next assignment except in the case of the initial part assignments when the print job is first started.

@Angelo Kerman, I was going to quote your post to make comments about individual points but, wow, it is all sounding soooooooooo good. Downloading now. Don't have alot of time tonight to play around with it, but looks like my upcoming Laythe mission just changed scope. Very exciting. *** EDIT *** One quick note. The download doesn't have the latest Module Manager. *** EDIT 2 *** Testing the shipwright now on the runway. This feels so organic and clean. The shipwright GUI is very informative and easy to understand. I would like to see the Sandcaster have some kind of visual indicator that it is currently running while printing, even it it is just a blinking light. And a deploy and retract option on the PAW for it. Oh, and the EC cost for printing doesn't appear anywhere on the part description. I will say that on my first vessel print, the "print finished" alarm triggered when the vessel was only 67% done, but the other prints have all been almost spot on. Maybe it was because I ran out of EC at one point during the print while time warping? And I changed the warp speed many times during that first print. Maybe something from doing that threw it off. I admit that Sandcastle was your only mod I never really got into despite trying it out a few times. But now I can see it will be a part of every playthrough from now on. You have outdone yourself. This is exciting. Your future plans for this mod all sound amazing but even just as it is TODAY, it is a game changer. Oh, and printing a vessel overlapping another was just as glorious as I had been picturing in my head. *** EDIT 3 *** Ignore my deploy/retract comment above. In my excitement, somehow I missed updating WildBlueCore. I am guessing once I do that the option will exist. Got way too excited to try it.

I personally feel like it makes sense for the print to end up in the same orientation as the printer itself. Out here in the real world, if I don't have my printer sitting level, the finished print won't be level either. I feel like it is on the user to level everything. Lots of options out there for in-situ leveling (pylons from your own Buffalo 2, legs from KerbalFoundries, cradles and frames from SSPXr, etc.). The biggest concern would be portions of prints overlapping portions of the ground or ground scatter with collision, but again, I feel like this lies with the player to solve. I have a number of imagined print mishap videos playing in my head as I type this . The question I have is if this will eventually have interoperability with Kerbal Konstructs. I know you have recently been working on the interface for that, too. Being able to manufacture KK bases with Sandcastle would be incredible and really push towards that colony creation goal. I'm even imagining kerbal road crews building highways across the munar highlands. Grand visions.

In addition to what @DeadJohn just said (he answered while I was typing the same things), as I recall, by default, this mod creates its own part category and the parts only show up in that KPBS category in the VAB/SPH.

Unfortunately I believe the mod's license forbids me from sharing them or the others I have made. Fortunately, in the case of Fuji, they are pretty basic recolors. I typically use Paint.NET for basic texture editing and write a B9PartSwitch module manager patch for the part. Pretty simple to make yourself. Honestly, as I sit here thinking about it, one could come reasonably close the the Fuji reskins I did just by using SimpleRepaint and a few Conformal Decals all while in-game.

Honestly looking forward to this situation being "officially" sorted out. Looking at how this has been handled in the past, donation links have been present on the forums for years without issue along with links to personal web spaces that include ads that potentially generate revenue for the poster. Even links to popular KSP YouTube series generate revenue. This went on without issue even during time when Squad/Take Two had a more direct hand in the moderation of the forums. I don't think anyone begrudged those kinds of posts in the past. Then again, I don't know what was happening behind the scenes. I can say from my own standpoint as a casual poster here, that is how it always seemed. Not that my opinion is an any way binding, but the so-called paid mods are not really any different than posting links to a YouTube video that generates revenue for somebody. In both cases, the forum user is able to access a version of the content for free. In the case of YouTube, that free version may come with ads. In the case of a paid mod, that free version might not be the latest bleeding edge release (unless there are paid mods that don't have a free version available; if that is the case, I would love to hear about it because I am not aware of it). I really don't see the difference. At the same time, I don't begrudge anyone their own opinions nor do I begrudge someone who can help offset their own personal costs in license fees for development software and time spent creating content. I come to these forums specifically to find out about mods. I hate the idea that there might be mods I am not even able to learn about here. That doesn't serve players at all. That hinders players. But again, just my opinion.

@blackrack's True Volumetric Clouds (available on Patreon) for beautiful clouds (comes bundled with Scatterer and Eve-Redux) will give you very nice clouds and atmospheric scattering as well as more realistic water. @blackrack's Deferred Rendering (also on Patreon) will give you very nice and better performing lighting (and replicates what @Papa_Joe's Planetshine does, though you can still get Planetshine to further customize that particular effect). @Shadowmage's TUFX will give you very nice post processing visual effects. I personally use the profile for it included with True Volumetric Clouds, but @ballisticfox0's Neutral TUFX Config is super nice in my opinion, too. @Icecovery's Shaddy/Shabby will give you nice visuals for solar panels and parachutes (dependent on what part mods you use). @Nertea's Restock will update the models and textures of the stock parts and is always highly recommended. @UltraJohn's HudReplacer coupled with @zapsnh's ZTheme (and @Squeaky's navball texture) will update your HUD to a more modern and clean look. I'm sure there are a million other options you could try, but for me, these are the "go to's".

I am loving the new release so far. Smoother and nicer all around. Environment-wise, between you and @blackrack, KSP is looking stunning. To anyone questioning if @Gameslinx or @blackrack deserve some of your hard-earned money, understand that they are both giving you a HUGE BARGAIN. The amount of time and effort they put into these things and they give it to you for FREE if you wait or for a pittance if you want it now. Do the right thing and get on Patreon support them. You are helping them and doing YOURSELF and even bigger favor.