Balto-the-Wolf-Dog

Hey, guys, After a long period of silence on my part, LinuxGuruGamer has done me the tremendous favor of taking over the maintenance of this project. As the last poster stated, LinuxGuruGamer's adoption thread can be found here I'll probably see you guys around one day or another, and almost certainly in KSP2, but for now, direct all comments and inquiries to his new thread. I'm requesting this one be locked to prevent confusion. Cheers, Balto

Hey, guys, After a long period of silence on my part, LinuxGuruGamer has done me the tremendous favor of taking over the maintenance of this project. As the last poster stated, LinuxGuruGamer's adoption thread can be found here I'll probably see you guys around one day or another, and almost certainly in KSP2, but for now, direct all comments and inquiries to his new thread. I'm requesting this one be locked to prevent confusion. Cheers, Balto

Thanks a ton, both to you guys for picking it up and to whomever is still interested after my years of absenteeism. I've felt bad for not getting back to this for a long time. Unfortunately I don't have a terrific excuse; I've just been embroiled in a lot of other projects and haven't been able to summon the interest. It makes me very happy to see this ongoing, and who knows; maybe I'll contribute a cockpit here and there. For now I've got writing to do and software to develop. Cheers. Have an updated Prakasa logo that never got implemented. Use at your discretion.

Should. Prakasa has no technical dependency in and of itself outside the use of (what was once) RPM, which I think someone is still maintaining. Since KSP has finally stopped updating I think I might actually, after all these years, do a final master of it with the new stuff that never got released back in 2019/2020, but I can't promise anything. Unfortunately I can't really remaster the old stuff to get away from RPM either way. This is now a very old project (several computers old), and most of my original source files are gone or associated with licenses I no longer maintain. If anyone wants the unenviable task of "adopting" this project and seeing if you can squeeze a better remaster out of it, by all means contact me. I'll supply you with every last scrap of source I can dig up.

Update: Panel spec map fixed to be more consistent (and not blow out reflections on the text inlayed in the panels, as only the wood inlay was supposed to be chromed). Learning to get substance painter spec exports to play nice with KSP shaders has been an adventure, but with a lot of experimentation I was able to hack them mostly into working today. The process still involves photoshop trial-and-error postprocessing though, so if anyone knows better export settings, please tell me. Also, the Asima successor from earlier in the thread has made it in game: Since I'm also restoring Asima, Vahak will essentially be her upmarket sister.

Panel update. Had to shift to glass for part compatibility, but it works.

Good news! Today I bring not only WIP images, but actual in-engine WIP images. I've finally gotten around to setting unity back up and remembering how to prep models for export. Karaneva, Prakasa's first 1.875 pod. Props aren't cooperating just yet because I haven't quite worked out how to use MAS. Karaneva aside, Asima's spiritual successor (a few posts above) is already textured inside and out, and I've heavily rebuilt Asima herself to bring her more in line with modern standards. It certainly feels good to be writing .mu's again; it's been a hot minute.

I won't panic too much about it, then. For now, everything going forward will be using the new one. I've found myself in need of a 1.875 airplane cockpit because frankly it's the first reasonable fuselage size we've had, so that's the next project

A few announcements: Due to the horrifically bad habits I was in when I started developing this mod (and because I lost some of the old source files) I intend to split Prakasa into a current and legacy part download, with the Jalakag as the cutoff point. A few legacy pods will be updated into relative currency (probably Asima, Dhyana, and Naga) and added to the main file. Others will not generally be supported going forward. Given that they're parts, however, they should work fine regardless of version. If anyone would like to mess with any of the legacy parts themselves, I'm more than happy to provide whatever source files I can dig up. RPM discontinuation overhaul: When I ran away making 9001 cockpits I wasn't counting on RPM being discontinued. Bringing the mod up to date now requires every single IVA panel (or full IVA depending on the presence of source files) to be completely rebuilt. As big as Prakasa is, that makes for a very long and arduous process. I intend to perform it on all non-legacy pods, but won't promise it on the legacies. I'm not sure how involved it will ultimately be, but given parttools has updated several times since a few of these parts and most of their unity projects are lost to history, I suspect I'll have to completely re-compile most everything being brought up to date both interior and exterior Again, if anyone would like to build IVAs for either supported or legacy cockpits, I would gladly provide source files / generally be much obliged. I may split the supported parts into separately packaged individual downloads so people who don't want every part aren't burdened with Prakasa's irresponsible size. Engines and utilities will be kept together, but cockpits will be separate from that package and from each other. I'm not married to this idea. Let me know if you'd rather I keep everything together. Obsolete components I don't consider Prakasa's fuel tanks to be necessary any longer since the stock parts were overhauled, with the notable exception of xenon-bearing varieties. As such I don't plan to support them. Paint Access to substance painter has proven both incredibly useful and dangerously addictive. Supported parts will probably be repainted and may gain livery swap support. I have yet to come up with substance painter smart materials that are as stockalike as I'd prefer. If anyone has any they don't mind sharing, I'd really appreciate them. Thanks guys.

I've been doing some testing on this subject with small helicopters. The bizarre thing is the rotors appear to behave like swashplate rotors on the roll axis, and I've consistently been able to make helicopters that control smoothly on the roll axis without the use of reaction wheels. Following the rotor blades through slow rotations while giving them control inputs confirms that roll inputs work as they should in a swashplate helicopter. Pitch does not, however. Unfortunately I think the correct behavior of roll may just be an odd side effect of the way KSP assigns angles to control inputs normally. That's unfortunate given how promising it is.

Given I haven't seen an operable one yet, I thought it might be worth a thread to share ideas and progress in developing a working ornithopter. I'm about three hours in myself, and so far my main prototype has managed about 11.5 m/s before the batteries die. It doesn't seem to be very short of rotation speed at that point, but isn't quite capable of it. Some of my more adventurous designs have pushed 14 m/s, but weren't very stable (and were hideous). All so far have taken a relatively long period of time to accelerate. My current configuration features dragonfly-style single-joint wings with opposing strokes. The strokes themselves are biased toward the upstroke: the angle of incidence rotates more steeply up on the upstroke than it does down on the downstroke, and the bulk of the dihedral range occurs above the neutral position for gear clearance reasons (60 degrees above 90, ten degrees below 90). Balanced strokes would probably be more effective, but haven't tested that yet. Wing area seems to relate fairly directly to acceleration (assuming the stroke remains the same), but the 14 m/s cap I've been seeing seems to result primarily from the stroke topping out and not beating fast enough for its net thrust to overcome drag. Basically a prop-pitch issue, but for ornithopters. The most effective workaround I've found so far is to offset the wings away from the fuselage so they're forced to travel a greater distance over the course of the stroke, but so far it hasn't been enough to fly, and it has a habit of baiting the kraken. Increasing the range of the wing incidence curve would probably help too, but I haven't found a good way to do so without outstripping the movement speed limits. I'd wager by now somebody has a much better design than this one, but I thought I'd put it out there

Hello again for the first time in a long time. I know I said I'd un-dead myself four months ago, but better late than never. Finals are (mostly) over, and the bug finally bit today. On a related note, I've been learning substance painter for work, and in the process discovered that I actually really enjoy working with it. Texture work was formerly my least favorite part of the process, so it's a very welcome change, especially given how much better a job I can do with it. The Asima pod has always been a favorite of mine and is one of the very few SketchUp-Era pods I actually still use in my own builds, so this spiritual successor will be the first part in Prakasa to be textured in Substance.

That's really cool to hear, particularly given the pretty-shoddy-in-retrospect craftsmanship on everything before Jalakag or so, when I hadn't quite figured topology out. I'd like to say I'm going to rebuild all the old stuff from the ground up, but so far attempts to that end have resulted more in spiritual successors than in faithful overhauls (hence the last 2.5 pod not being a real Kalpana replacement), so for now I'm just going to forge ahead. Any particular profile/style requests? It might be a little while given I have to rebuild my unity environment from scratch, but I'm pretty sure I mostly remember how to do it.

Hey guys, sorry for being absent for so long. 2018 turned into a rollercoaster year for me, and it happens that part of that rollercoaster was getting a real job in 3d art. As much as I love my job, I have to admit that working in 3ds max all day does somewhat dampen my enthusiasm to open it back up when I get done. That said, I'm not here to say I won't be maintaining this project. I've finally gotten settled in a new house and discovered there's a new project to mod VR support into KSP, so I'm poised to dive/be dragged back in. I'm afraid I can't promise that I'll ever be as fast as I once was (at the time I had literally nothing else to do), but hopefully I can get this cleaned up and maybe knock out a new cockpit every once and awhile. Looking forward to not being dead; it's cool to know people still use this pack after I've failed to update it for a year. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure everything should be hunky dory as far as compatibility goes. I haven't actually tested it though, so correct me if I'm wrong. I'll make sure I ax that when I update. Could have sworn I got rid of it, but I must have never actually pushed that update. I don't have any better excuse for that than "college". It's probably more accurate to say I'm lazy and forgot.

Oh hell, I probably accidentally dragged my copy of MM in there at some point ages ago while doing something else. Weirdly it doesn't error me, so I never noticed. Just delete it.

Welcome to Prakasa Aeroworks v0.8: "Southern Cross Plays Softly In the Distance"! Now with: Two more Mk2 pods! My very own fuselage profile! Adapters! Yet another 2.5m pod! 2.5m pods now have a new look, but the same great taste! There are two completely distinct engines here. The one up top is a bi-modal similar to the RAPIER and about 70% more powerful. Not quite as good as two rapiers, but considering TWR, probably close. The lower one is a SCRAM that won't fire at low altitudes or airspeeds, much like chikana.

Welcome to Prakasa Aeroworks v0.8: "Southern Cross Plays Softly In the Distance"! Now with: Two more Mk2 pods! My very own fuselage profile! Adapters! Yet another 2.5m pod! 2.5m pods now have a new look, but the same great taste!

You have no idea how long I've wanted an engine and nozzle designer. That's easily 60% or rocketry, and effectively eliminates the need for lots of niche engines. No idea how practical it would be, but since rocket engines basically always reduce to expanded gas, a lot of versatility could be gained by reducing engine creation similarly. The need for engine types would be eliminated, and hybrids like afterburning nuclear and air-augmented rockets would be to the user to invent. I would absolutely love to see freeform engine design develop; it would bring the fun of trying to develop the perfect kracken drive and put it in a reasonably realistic setting.

Kalpana fans rejoice! After making a rather poor showing of an attempted three-view rebuild, I'm now working with the original and redrawing every single polygon! Making surprisingly decent time too. Toward the fore and aft you can still see the horrifying knot of polygons that were responsible for the original Kalpana's "inconsistent" appearances, but they're being replaced row by row and I'm quite happy with how things are coming along. That said, I admittedly have absolutely no idea how I'm going to do the windows, so if anyone has any pointers when it comes to modeling large, curved, geometrically complicated holes, that would be greatly appreciated. My plan is to finish reworking the whole airplane, then rebuild the original 2.5 Kalpana as close as I can to the original. I don't expect the results to be exact, but if you're a Kalpana user, they shouldn't be too jarring either. They should also be much, much nicer to look at and use. The aircraft as a whole I mostly want for FSX development, but she's a strong snap-together candidate too. What I'll probably do is release a companion pack containing snap-togethers for full scale Kalpana and the tandem wing airplane from earlier in the thread, or perhaps simply dedicate an update to them. I don't care for release clutter, so I prefer the latter option between them, but that would add a firespitter dependency to Prakasa for the propellers used only in those models. As such, I'll separate if preferred. For those unfamiliar with Kalpana's origins, the spoiler below contains some nice big images of the three-year-old, horrifically polygoned SketchUp model. I've always loved her lines, and I'm finally confident enough to clean her up and make her presentable. I can't wait to fly her, and that's always good for productivity. Side note: You may have noticed that Jalakag has a bit of a belly. That's a side effect of my originally having built to the physics profile instead of the visual one, and I didn't catch it until recently. It's corrected now, but since it's a fairly minor visual anomaly and I've already got some update-worthy work sitting in the wings, I probably won't bother hotfixing for it in the meantime. That is, unless someone wants me to. It would be as simple as writing the part file one more time and uploading.

1.3.1 is just a localization fix AFAIK. No affect to Prakasa Meanwhile: Keeping the momentum up this time

Sorry guys, screwed up a config file for the science module. See Spacedock for a file with the issue hotfixed. 50% uploaded at time of posting. Edit: Keeping the momentum up

Sorry guys, screwed up a config file for the science module. See Spacedock for a file with the issue hotfixed. 50% uploaded at time of posting.

Version 0.7! Now featuring Mk2 parts and confirmed 1.3.1 compatibility!

Version 0.7! Now featuring Mk2 parts and confirmed 1.3.1 compatibility!