Thrimm

Just left click on the airlock hatch.

Quite interesting concept. The prices are surely not balanced and your suggestion is definitely a step in right direction. I'll add this to the update. Regarding the habitation, I'm testing different options right now as I really want to make this mod compatible and useful with other base building mods - starting with MKS. Right now I added to my domes a shared living space modifier, 500 months to large ones and 300 months to smaller ones. They have 0 crew capacity, as the idea being that the domes themselves only make other modules more enjoyable and comfortable to live, but not offer much more on their own. Where there are few Kerbals in the base, they have pretty decent hab time, and that was intended, but once it gets crowded the hab times decreases quite dramatically. I'll be happy to compare my results with you and figure out what the best settings might be. I made a bunch of other domes that I'm testing currently that have been specifically designed as crew quarters so those might work differently. Also regarding the airlocks, their crew capacity will be gone with the next patch as I intend to make them hollow with animated doors, much like the other parts this mod provides. I'm also working on adding more dome friendly interior addons, such as greenhouses and plant pods, trees (as suggested earlier in the thread here) and maybe custom processing plants. But that's later down the road. The next update, which is going to be released relatively soon as I just need to make sure that all the animations are working correctly together and rework some models to support them, will add a bunch of new domes, new airlock behavior (model is largely the same, but with interior) and make them shippable in containers. I'm also experimenting with making tunnels behave as KAS pipes and MKS Flex-o-tubes. If this works and you will be able to walk inside, this is the way to go in my opinion. And hey, I'm glad you like my videos

Hi, it turns out that I forgot to add the appropriate module to the airlock! I'll be fixing that with next release, but for the time being you can just add the following to the airlock.cfg: MODULE { name = ModuleScienceContainer reviewActionName = Review Stored Data storeActionName = Store Experiments evaOnlyStorage = True storageRange = 2.0 } It should fix the problem. Post a picture of your base please, I'd love to see it!

Hello guys! A quick update on what's been going on for the past months with this mod. As we have no real news from SpaceX about the design for the split body flaps, I tested multiple different options myself. I tried adding them as built in parts to the landing legs, to the body of the spacecraft and unfortunately none of those solutions seemed to work. What I was getting was some level of control over the ship, but nowhere near what is needed for realistic reentry let alone flipping the vessel for landing on Earth (without reaction wheels that is). Problem with this ship design is that is looks like a bullet and really wants to fly straight, so adding small control surfaces doesn't really counter that. Also, for some reason FAR enforces somewhat strange orientation of the vessel even in level flight (rotated by about 60 degrees, on fin facing down) and I'm not exactly sure how realistic this is - and it is important because if want to stick to original SpaceX concept of having control surfaces for pitch and yaw only, then the roll problem has to be tackled separately. I've been toying around the idea of making the ship modular, so command pod, fuel tank, engine mount, cargo bay, engine mount etc. so assembling a crew or tanker version of this ship would be possible, as well as any other type of monster you could come up with. It would require some changes to the overall shape of the mesh but it might be possible - I would like to hear your opinions on this. Last, with all of the aerodynamic problems listed above, I decided to acquire the Aerospace Toolbox for Matlab and I will use to calculate real aerodynamics of the vessel and then transfer the approximated values to the game. At least we might hope it will be realistic and maybe we will find if there are some real problems in the design, and not just the game related ones. On top of that there are still optimizations and patches for RO. I have mostly finished working on RealFuels patch, but I have little experience with other parts of RO, so if anyone would like to contribute it would be greatly appreciated. Another thing I tested is adding the heatshield as a separate part that is in fact a heatshield, not just a decoration. It is possible and I think it would add to the realism, but we're limited by game aerodynamics (docking port already causes issues sometimes, adding extra drag to one side).

For the moment, you need to use KAS to do so, or add a Konstruction port and dock two components together, and then fix them. That's how I do it now most of the time. I feel like I owe you guys an update on what's been going on with the development. Among other things, I wanted to make domes deployable from a container that you can ship in a cargo bay. Problem is, that it's really difficult to make a simple animation for deploying rigid domes, that doesn't look like they are inflatable. But that's a minor point. Second problem is that I wanted to make airlocks hollow with animated doors that you can open and walk through. This as you have probably figured out causes issues with the dome walls themselves, so the domes now need to have a second order animation for adapting to the airlock while it is present. On top of that, attachment nodes in stock KSP cannot be animated so I would either need to fix them in deployed position or make/use a module that animates them, like IR or Konstruction ones. This is already getting complicated as you can see, even from the end user perspective (multiple animations available once you dome is deployed and it would be very glitchy, as it would be up to you which part of the dome transform to fit the airlock). As for docking the tunnels, I tested an experimental ring docking port and in principle it works. It's a part that has the shape of the tunnel, hollow inside, that you attach to the airlock and to the tunnel and you can now dock them together. There are only two problems with it: you often end up docked rotated and it looks bad, and it increases part count by quite a lot - now a connection between 2 domes need 7 parts instead of 3. I tried adding some sort of locks to ensure correct rotation but that didn't really work. I have made a number of models for new dome types but they are not implemented because I wanted to figure out the shipping problem first. As you know, I'm not good at C# so I also started learning the language to make the needed modules, but I have rather limited time and therefore it is taking some times (ok very long time). Nevertheless, I'm prioritizing this mod for the moment over SpaceX ITS and directing all my available resources to its development. Anyway, I'm really happy that you guys enjoy the mod and I can promise you I'll do my best to keep it updated and expand it in the future. The bottom line here is that I greatly underestimated the amount of time and effort needed to implement the features I want and greatly overestimated the amount of spare time I have - but I'll do my best anyway. Cheers!

Yes it does work with 1.2.2 and regarding your second question, you can either use Extraplanetary Launchpads, Ground Construction or any other mod of your choosing. Or you can do it the way I've done it:

I wanted to make things simple and start with just removing homesickness if a dome is present in your base. Or at least greatly increasing hab multiplier. As for the topic of IVA-less things acting as IVA spaces, I'm not sure how it could be done. However, MKS from @RoverDude uses some sort of distance detection for vessel interaction (namely scavenging) and since Kerbal are technically vessels, maybe there is a way to tweak this behavior into acting as if there was an atmosphere inside the dome. I'm not sure, one thing that I'm not is plugin specialist

It's not the size, but so many conceptual changes + functionality extensions and new parts that it might be impossible to maintain compatibility. Also, I am thinking about adding some features explicitly related to MKS. I think that setting up a domed base should have some benefits (apart from killer looks obviously), so I was thinking that if domes removed kerbal homesickness that would allow building a permanent colony. If you guys have some other base building mods that would work well in this regard let me know, I'll try to make them compatible. As for Kerbalism compatibility, I'm working on it, but I would love to hear what features you would like to see implemented. Thanks for all your support!

@JadeOfMaar awesome looking base! As for the floors, I'll add extra nodes as well as some texture tweaking with the release that is coming up. Although the update is getting so bit that it might actually be split in two.

You can still use it with the latest version of KSP, that is why it's not updated. I'll update it as soon as there is something new to add. Which might be sooner than you think

Added to the to do list.

Guys, I believe I owe you an explanation. First, let me start with a big THANK YOU to everyone who downloaded Planetary Domes and supports its development. I would have never expected something like this happening and it motivates me to work on this mod even more. That said, I've been hard at work testing several different solutions that would make the domes foldable and I need your opinion to help me decide where to take this mod in the future. Most of the test were in an early alpha version on the update so they are not really eligible for public testing. However, a couple of major possible development branches emerged, each with its own perks and issues. - foldable domes must have a floor integrated in and there is really no way to make them work without KIS/KAS unless a custom docking nodes are introduced. However, adding multiple docking nodes to the same part is a direct portal to the kraken realm. I really don't know what to do with this one, since I would like to make this mod standalone, even if its full potential could be unlocked with KIS/KAS - if domes are foldable, attaching airlocks and tunnels becomes an issue of its own. Again with KIS/KAS this is not a big deal, but without it the system simply doesn't work. I've tried making custom docking nodes (again) for PD parts, with fairings as potential solution for smoothing the connection. It has the same problem, there is a need for multiple docking nodes (side note: these nodes follow a hierarchy and are custom, meaning that they do not mate with stock docking ports and only mate within a specific family, ie airlocks with tunnels but not with floor attachment points. For the game however it is still one docking port with multiple different docking nodes that creates A LOT of problems) - foldable domes require multiple animations to be present, one to unpack (from shipping container, presumably one time use) and another to seal/unseal the dome, otherwise the dome wouldn't allow any base components to be installed inside. It should be obvious for you now that every animation would change the relative attachment point for the airlock and tunnels, which increases complexity even more (apart from making the animations simple yet pretty) - technically everything could be docked (base components to floors, domes to floors and airlock/tunnels to domes) but it will be very buggy - a solution to that might be in dynamic nodes such as those used in Konstruction by @RoverDude or IR. This would still however require KIS/KAS - another feature I tested are hollow airlocks. Airlock would not be IVA spaces as they are now, but would behave much like tunnels and domes with animated doors and stuff. It would allow you to walk inside the PD base from one end to the other - a simple solution to above problems is to make PD another base building mod where all spaces are IVA. There would be dedicated domes for everything: habitation, laboratory, aeroponics, etc (and compatible with USI for example) but you would loose the freedom of walking around inside the base. It's simpler to implement but I'm not a big fan of this solution because it adds little value to what we have already, apart from different cosmetic feel - yet another issue is the size of the bases. the way KSP saves ships will pretty much always make is so parts of the base end up partially buried in the ground. I haven't found a way around that, and my observations from other mods indicate that a solution might not exist. I am not very experienced however so any suggestions are more than welcome - I would like to keep this mod as pluginless and plugin independent as possible. There are two main reasons - first I'm not good at making plugins yet, and second plugins need to be updated every time the game is updated. Part updates that use stock modules need to be updated only when the engine changes or the stock modules change significantly. This alone makes the mod way more compatible. That said, I'm beginning to think that keeping it pluginless is impossible I have probably forgotten about something important to mention... Anyway development is on its way, but slightly slower due to real life obligations. That's a great idea. Totally adding this to my to do list. Thanks!

Yes, that is the plan. However it might need a crane so unless I add a custom version of IR unloading stuff might be tricky.

Sure, current plans include: - more domes (obviously): not entirely transparent variants with small windows, elongated ones (so not perfectly hemispherical), external airlocks with animated hatches and garage domes that also have animated doors/airlocks - packaging system. It's easy to make behave as if they were inflatable (from a developer perspective), but since they are rigid structures I prefer to have an unfolding animation that matches that concept. This is hard, because it can't be too long, it can't be too complicated and at the same time has to look realistic. The idea is that the domes come in custom containers that you deploy on site, with floors already being preattached. - connections. I'm not a plugin wizard and as a workaround I designed a docking system that will allow you to connect domes, tunnels and airlocks together after deployment while maintaining current functionality - texture switching for floors and domes - power systems. This might come as a standalone mod or an extension to this one, but it will include renewable energies pack (wind and solar, multiple types) that you can place as standalone buildings next to your base or a top of your existing structures. Current plans are: standard big solar panels, concentrator flat panels, concentrator concave panels (spherical), standard wind turbines (at least two sizes) and helical wind turbines (small). @RoverDude added geothermal generators to one of his mods so I'll leave that one for now, because he did far better job than I ever will. - adapters for Planetary Base Systems - airlock interiors I looked into making the airlocks behave as tunnels do now (aka empty) with animated doors but the problem of reconnecting them to the domes is not easy to handle. Domes need to be either pre-cut with caps as suggested earlier, but that multiplies part count quite a lot for bigger bases. I've tested multiple approaches but none really worked (like fairings). I still have some ideas but most of them are overly complicated. As for adding interior structures, I don't think it's going to happen soon. The whole point of this mod is to be an extension to the existing ones like MKS, PBS and such. Since the functionality is not doubled anywhere, they are always compatible. I'm not saying it's never going to happen, just not now. So all of this (and maybe more) is coming soonTM. I can't tell you when exactly since we have another big project going on as well, but I'm working on Planetary Domes nevertheless! Thanks for your support guys!

That sounds great! Thank a lot for contributing - if you're willing to share I'll include them in the future update and credit you for them obviously.

It sounds like a great idea, but I think I may not be skilled enough (yet) to implement it

A big update is on its way, but it will take a couple of days (weeks?) before it's done. Tweakscale compatibility will be included probably.

This is actually really tricky, because what is probably causing the lag is not the part count, but the complex engine effects (it's the stock Vector). What I can try to do is replace those with some less demanding effects and make it an alternative.

I believe that the typo you're talking about arises from using a software that changes the text formatting: and regarding the names, I suppose incompatibilities will show up. I'm not using many mods and really can't keep track of everything. I'll make the fixes when such incompatibilities are found. On the other hand, I prefer putting part names that make sense and are somewhat related to the in-game part name (not like the stock Vector for example). Thanks for your input!

Regarding the drag, I think the main issue is the sheer mass of the ship. I've landed it successfully both in stock and in RSS/RO, but you must reenter on a very flat trajectory and use RCS to angle yourself correctly. All of this is possible when you're almost out of fuel. Activating the atmospheric engines at right point in time makes it even possible to flip the ship around for proper landing. When it's empty it actually flies pretty well, and I've jumped off the atmosphere two times before finally landing. Regarding the legs - they are absolutely rigid. There are no tweakable stats because they are not considered landing legs by the game (they are missing the right modules and wheel colliders). I'm going to correct that in the future, but so far the process was very buggy and not quite successful. Amazing job, thanks a lot. I'll add this to the configs for the next update, probably the same that will bring stock-friendly performance for the parts.

If I were to guess, the lag is caused rather by the plumes rather than by the part number. I frequently make SSTOs with 200+ parts and experience little lag while flying outside of the atmosphere. Firing up multiple rapiers changes things however. Side note: both Raptors use stock effects, ASL is the same as vector, vacuum has Rhino's effect. Especially the one from Vector seems to have a performance hit. I'm not sure how this can be solved while keeping things accurate though.

All of this will probably come at some point in the future, as well as stock config files. Right now comparing those engines to their stock counterparts makes no sense at all - their stats are the real (or expected) Raptor stats as announced by SpaceX, and I designed it with all of that in mind. On the other hand, adding modular cargo bays, fuel tanks etc is a cool idea, but it would require me to completely redesign everything. It's a concept I've been thinking about as well, but the sheer thought of going through heatshield texturing process fills me with dread. If I manage to avoid that, by all means modular design for everything will come. But this would be a big update for this mod, so no promises about 'when'.

I didn't want to use an engine ring mainly because I wanted this mod to be as modular as possible. With standalone engines, you can actually make your own rocket variants with procedural tanks and whatnot, if that fitted only this particular design then applications would be obviously limited. And 42 is a nice number after all, the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything The booster is 12m in diameter.

It's not really intended for career playthrough, nor for the stock game to be honest. The prices aren't optimized at all, and the engines are vastly overpowered for Kerbol system. The main goal of this mod was to bring the SpaceX ITS system to life with RSS in mind, following the specifications they used in the presentation given in September. If you feel like getting involved and adjusting the prices, I would be very happy to include them and credit you for that.

Yes and yes! I actually would like to make the hatch animated with an extendible ladder (because right now it kind of doesn't fit visually). Life support will probably be added as soon as I figure out what has to be done exactly. Cargo version is definitely coming.