TiktaalikDreaming

I've been testing a new part for long distance travel based on the Eagleworks' EM drive; And although I'm accelerating at maximum throttle, KSP seems to regard the acceleration as "insignificant", and allows both timewarp and switching vessels and to the Space centre. I was optimistic and even used the highest possible values from EW's peer reviewed paper, and I've double checked that my orbit is changing, but KSP still disregards my acceleration. Accurate translation of the RF Resonant Cavity device has maxThrust = 0.000000029 What could possibly go wrong??? PS: No, I don't need a solution.

I've been popping part adjustments as teasers over on the TD Orion bits forum topic. Basically part revamps I'm trying to have ready before 1.3 hits. But certain aspects of that depended on me being able to sort the max number of bomb types before the USAFOrion.dll module caps out and provides lovely nullReference errors. I'd previously found both an array size value (would have been soooo nice if that's all there was to it) and then a set of enable and disable procedures enumerated out for each value of the array. But that still didn't work. Today I found (right above the other one, where people with eyeballs and braincells should have been able to spot it) another set of enumerated functions. I've done something horrible in LibreOffice Calc to autogenerate the code for me, and it actually works. I *think* I need 18 (6 nuke sizes for each of stackable magazines, 10m loader floor, and 80foot loader floor) at the moment, but I'm considering raising that to the 18 for TD Orion plus the 9 needed for Nyrath Orions, so the way they break if loaded together on one game doesn't occur.

And the payload interface (although I still need to fix up the stack nodes on that, and tweak the fairing for the version that has a fairing) is done. It's a much simpler part than those floors. It's nice that when you zoom in past the shell, you can see the detail in the loader floors too; So, it's looking pretty solid that the 86-foot Orion will be all done for the 1.3 release.

Example of texturing. Final part (loader floor for the 86foot pusher plate Orion); With the old version stacked on top. The old version was basically just unwrapped and had a basic colour applied to each sub-mesh.; Although, I messed up the stack nodes somehow, and I must have rotated the part to match the leg covers. Those cylinders with the rounded tops should line up. But that's all fairly minor tweaks.

Having recently got some stuff to work that hasn't since 0.8, I don't think I'm in a position to criticise any delays. And I needed help for that too. Seriously, take your time, no-one's got deadlines for mods

I keep meaning to re-visit this and see if I can config it in (or more likely find a way of butchering some code) for the Orion. Because those pesky controlled fission reactions have nothing on genuine unchecked chain reactions.

You may also want to look at getting 5.4 (I think specifically 5.4.0p4, but I can't remember where to look to check) instead of 5.5.At least until Squad update to 5.5. Just about everything would be fine in 5.5, but you might stumble on some occasional incompatibility.

OK, first flight of the textured 86 foot engine. Them bomb loader floors very much need texturing next, and the payload interface, which is literally untextured. And I kept trying to screenshot the flash on the map view, never could get the timing right. But I managed here; That's the night side of kerbin.

The upper stages are clearly for landing.

You'd be after the warp factor. There is no thrust.

Yes. I think (from memory) there's two versions, little green men from Mars. And little green men from Duna. Duna is obviously easy mode. The four way was always going to be part of it, but somewhere along the way, it got left behind. But seriously, you don't need a five way.

1.1 is released. It has some minor fixups. Names of the short Eludium tanks now properly reflects sizes (aka, removed duplicate naming). Added missing manufacturer "Beagleworks". Fixed the Radio Frequency Resonant Cavity Device by adding a generated propellant "trapped waves". I've also confirmed that there is thrust coming from the device, so I might eventually remove the intentional typo in description.

Actually, looks like my assumption that ANY acceleration stops you from timewarp or space-centre was what was wrong. There's obviously a cap, under which is fine. Timewarp does set throttle to zero, and I imagine so does switching to the space centre (or other craft). But after some time, I have adjusted my orbit by some meters.

Currently on hour 3 of trying to adjust orbit. 0.000029N is not a lot of thrust

About half way through the 86 foot retexture; And, for those really odd split second freeze frames,

Hmmm... maybe I've stuffed something else. I am using ModuleEnginesFX. I wonder if I need to have a linked effect. Or possibly my assumption that any thrust is enough to stop you using timewarp/craft switching is what's wrong. I'll throttle up and leave the thing running some more. See if I can budge the orbit at all

I've been half-heartedly working on an EM drive to add to my SpaceOpera thing. The current version doesn't generate any thrust, as (quite rightly) KSP doesn't do reaction without reaction mass. Or, the ModuleEnginesFX certainly doesn't as it needs thrust and ISP, so division by zero kills that. But using the standard work around of creating a fake resource in an electrically powered generator, then using that for reaction mass is essentially rounding to "not working". (determined by being able to time warp while running the engine) I was hoping to get something as genuinely useless as the numbers coming out of the Eagleworks papers as a demonstration of how low the numbers are. So, I was hoping someone knew if/what the minimum values would be for thrust/acceleration before they get rounded to zero by the game. Then I can just scale the size and power consumption until I hit the minimum.

Almost have the magazines done. There were some (stupidly simple) issues getting the label switching to work, but we're on the way again. The only remaining label issue is that I forgot to generate one of the labels (derp). I'll finish up my retexturing the Orion 10m engine, then look at the 86 foot engine. That one's more a "texturing" than "retexturing". Then I'll be aiming solidly at fixing some of the non-engine parts.

OK, the Nyrath edition is now updated with a working version. It seems it cannot live in a folder called Nyrath. But if I simply rename the GameData entry to USAFOrion, everything works fine. I've been through the code searching for references, but I can't find why this is. It may be baked into the models or old style mbm texture maps, or something. But, the short version is, if the mod installs to USAFOrin, it works. If it installs to Nyrath, it doesn't. I'll need to get the entry in netkan fixed up before CKAN will install this. All the checking references did make me notice that all the parts have a manufacturer "Chung Atomics, INC.", and a copied set of agencies from the TD edition with no sign of Chung Atomics. I've added Chung Atomics to the agencies, removed the unused agencies and cleaned up that a bit (left the logos there because, dunno, to be honest. Anyways, off to github and netkan for me. Pull request submitted for change to netkan. Now sleep! Or back to re-doing models and textures for the bits.

That's the sort of thing I need to exclude/determine with more testing. I should probably go about it a tad more rigorously. I know I checked switching out all the engine parts. I know I tested switching out all the magazine parts. I'm unsure now if I tested both. I think I did, but really can't remember for sure.

More very quick tests. I seem to be getting contradictory results. If I take the Nyrath original, switch magazines, then engines, then plugins, etc for files from the TD edition, it never works. There just doesn't seem to be any single aspect that is preventing it functioning, so as I delete original parts, and add in replacement ones, it doesn't start working. Now, if I start with a TD edition, and just add in parts from Nyrath's original, they work. You can point out that there's then an obvious fix for the issues. BUT, if I don't figure out what's going on here I'll get stuck with this issue later and no idea what to do. Again, more complete testing to be done later. In the few minutes I have for testing this each day this week, it's been frustrating me a fair bit. So I feel a need to share that frustration. :-D

They're not glitches! They're bonus warning lights!

The non working nyrath edition is starting to be very weird. Hopefully I'll get a clearer view over the weekend when I should have time to look at it properly.

Ran some quick tests this morning, substituting various components of the working Orion with no luck. I haven't had the time for a good look just yet.

OK, regarding the original edition, I can't get it working either now. The folder structure's a bit um... odd, now that I look at it, but fixing that doesn't fix the issue. The other thing that needed messing with back when I did get it working was getting rid of the double up on BombXferWindow.cfg file, but the uploaded version has that fix in place. I also tried just copying the known working module libraries over. So, I'm at checking logs and diffing configs stage. There really is no good reason for it not to work.