Romfarer

Sooo, what is the verdict? At this point i could really use some feedback.

Alpha2-3 is out! Check the main post for more details. I recommend the Self-Destruct (S-D) button on a large ship. Let me know how that turns out...

I have had Debug.DrawLine to show in the game before, i just can\'t reproduce it... I\'m using a AMD Radeon HD 6850 on w7 and i\'m using .net4.0.30319. I got my own plugin and Tosh cart installed. I just did a test and i discovered it is Tosh Cart that is drawing this line. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I\'m sure the ever vigilant Tosh will pick up this message soon. SORRY I WAS WRONG....did another test..it is the stock command pod that is drawing it.

To me it looks like a Debug.DrawLine(vessel.transform.localPosition, vessel.transform.top).

This white line (to the left of my test vehicle) is drawn whenever i go to a craft on the launchpad or load a craft from the tracking station. The craft has the lazor system installed of course. I am not drawing it. What is? And how do i stop it?

Amazing how fast it finds stuff with only a naive LIDAR implementation.

Thanks guys, this information will be useful when i start on the lidar system. How exactly do you set up a camera with no cullingMask? Why would you want another camera anyways? And how exactly do i specify this layermask? I think i got to read up on hex....

I was out testing my new distance measuring lazor and i came across this! Apparently i am hitting something called 'Mun' and it is 1900 meter away. How can this be? If you look closely you can even see the lazor reflecting. It\'s worth mentioning that this particular system sends out a lazor that goes 2500 meter. It is based on raycasting. So it cant possibly hit or detect things further away than 2500 meter.

I just uploaded Alpha 2-2. The main thing in this update is the communication system which is spawned by putting blue lazors on your craft. The lazor on the top of the module has also been changed and is now part of a grouping system. This is the only lazor that can change color outside the VAB. Soon it will be possible to have several tasks running by changing the color of this lazor. There is a funny bug in the system that makes you able to remote control the lazor system of your craft. Can you find it? If you find other bugs or have comments, you are welcome to post i there. enjoy...

The tracking station actually doesn\'t have any information stored in it at all, so i could just as well connect to the water tower =P But to the player it will look like it has info. I plan to add a connection meter to it so if you have too few lazors connected on your ship so they wont hit correctly when you spin the ship around, or you are on the dark side of kerbin, you will loose the connection. And this is where the LIDAR system can take over.

Sneak peek at Alpha 2-2. Its not possible to connect to the Tracking Station and get a list of targets you can...target. I\'ve also added some functionality that will make it possible to run several lazor systems at the same time.

I\'m constantly recoding and improving the stability. And yes there is a lot of harmful stuff that can be put in the plugins, but i would never do that sort of thing. Soon the first functional system other than blinky lights and reflecting lazors will be ready.

No no no its not Harmful. Oh dear i guess i worded that wrong.

I found a bug in the system and pulled alpha2-1. :-[ It is purely a visual bug, NOT harmful to your computer.

So basically the idea is, just connect to the huge antenna with a communication/blue lazor. Then you will see what the antenna is tracking. This sounds very realistic to me. ...However there is a catch. To connect to the antenna you need line of sight. Meaning if you are behind the moon or on the dark side of kerbin you wont get connection. Hopefully one day in the future you will be able to send up a satellite with blue beams you can connect to and relay this signal. And the antenna wont see anything so it will never render scanners obsolete.

Thanks for the tips. For now i have found a much more elegant method to acquire targets 8) Seen the big antenna at the launch area? Turns out i can just connect to that with a blue lazor and i get this cool interface up.... =P

I think you missunderstand me, getting a target is no problem. I already have raytrace\'s in the system to make the beams reflect and stuff. The point is that just tabbing and getting a target don\'t make sense. You need some kind of radar for the system to know the target is actually there, then you need some kind of device to pinpoint the exact direction of the target. So in terms of LazorSystem, i need a scanning device and a tracking device, both spawned by putting different colored lazors on your ship.

I promised Tosh i would have some interfacing mechanic finished by friday but im starting to realize i might have to delay that. To get that finished i have to create a new aimable device and connect it to the system. That\'s not a problem in it self, the thing is, im starting to realize that we have to put aimables in different categories. In lack of better terms: [li]Target Tracking aimables. Such as the lazors i have in the system. Constantly tracking a direction. [/li] [li]Target-Lock aimables. For example Tosh\'s sunbeam. The aimable gets a target and fires.[/li] [li]Devices that do both of the above?[/li] [li]Devices that don\'t strictly need to aim but require a target? I.e. heat seeking missiles.[/li] So basically its necessary to complete this list and thoroughly classify the device types. Additionaly the interaction with the system has to be done in at least two different ways: passive and active. [li]Passive: The system provides constantly updated lists of available targets etc. Attached modules can plug-in to the system and get this info without the system needing to know they are there.[/li] [li]Active: The module registers for control with the system and the system takes over its movement.[/li] And to get targeting for the system, the system needs a targeting system. And i dont do magic so the targets has to be acquired somehow. By lazor power! 8) And to achieve that, a whole lot of lazor systems has to be implemented. This is also why i have held back on the modelling/texturing for the parts, i\'m just not 100% sure if the whole 'lazor attaches to color crystal' approach will work.

Here is a small update to the project. I added angle and rotation readouts to the interface and some buttons to control what lazors will rotate when movement keys are activated. The readout represents the angle and rotation of the 'leader' which is the lazor attached on top of the module. It is also possible to set the direction by changing the numbers in the display. If you look closely you will see the interface IAimable has been added. The plan is to use this as one of the interfaces you can implement to connect modules to the system. However the system is not actually set to update these yet as i\'m not 100% sure about the structure.

It will be better to use it as a larger device you need just a few of due to the higher complexity. It\'s possible to attach lasers to each attach point, just time consuming to get all the angles right i guess. And then the ball would have to be able to rotate. 360degrees around the z axis (that\'s covered). And approximately 30 degrees around the x/y axis.

That there looks cool. It\'s like a multi-lazor! A scanning device perhaps? That shoots beams everywhere.

One-liner of the week!! 8) public Vector3 RotateAround(Vector3 point, Vector3 origin, Vector3 normal, float angle) { return new Vector3((origin.x * (Mathf.Pow(normal.y, 2) + Mathf.Pow(normal.z, 2)) - normal.x * (origin.y * normal.y + origin.z * normal.z - normal.x * point.x - normal.y * point.y - normal.z * point.z)) * (1 - Mathf.Cos(angle)) + point.x * Mathf.Cos(angle) + (-origin.z * normal.y + origin.y * normal.z - normal.z * point.y + normal.y * point.z) * Mathf.Sin(angle), (origin.y * (Mathf.Pow(normal.x, 2) + Mathf.Pow(normal.z, 2)) - normal.y * (origin.x * normal.x + origin.z * normal.z - normal.x * point.x - normal.y * point.y - normal.z * point.z)) * (1 - Mathf.Cos(angle)) + point.y * Mathf.Cos(angle) + (origin.z * normal.x - origin.x * normal.z + normal.z * point.x - normal.x * point.z) * Mathf.Sin(angle), (origin.z * (Mathf.Pow(normal.x, 2) + Mathf.Pow(normal.y, 2)) - normal.z * (origin.x * normal.x + origin.y * normal.y - normal.x * point.x - normal.y * point.y - normal.z * point.z)) * (1 - Mathf.Cos(angle)) + point.z * Mathf.Cos(angle) + (-origin.y * normal.x + origin.x * normal.y - normal.y * point.x + normal.x * point.y) * Mathf.Sin(angle)); } I\'ve been struggeling with finding good methods to rotate my lazors around. So i finally found this matrix rotation formula and made a c# program out of it. It does the same as Transform.RotateAround but in stead of being dependant on the Transform object you get a vector you can do whatever you want with. Thats not against the rules right? I mean i almost need a formula to look at to draw a circle...haha ;D

Excellent ideas sal_vager. Thanks. I\'ll add the Azimuth and Rotation displays to the system. Perhaps also some hotkeys to make the lazor point straight forward? Or buttons to make it point towards other directions? I think it is important to get the lazor colors properly paired with effects. What you have listed up definately helps to take the project forward. If the system uses 1 or 2 crystals to color the lazor, we get 6 lazor colors. And if we say each functioning system requires 2 lazors, it\'s possible to spawn 30 or 36 different systems depending on wether we allow for systems with two of the same colors or not. And that is from only 5 base parts. ;D This can get really complicated fast. The challenge here will be to make the lazor coloring vs what system you will actually get intuitive enough so say for example you want a distance tracking device. Then you would automatically know, aha i need 1 green lazor combined with 1 yellow lazor. Cool idea Tosh. So in terms of the lazor system you would use a violet + a red lazor to detatch the part. Then use a green and blue lazor to create a tractor beam effect, move the part to where you want to place it and veld it on with a violet and green lazor .... 8) Edit: oooooh and in theory you could use this same process to weld lazors on and off, creating new lazor systems in flight!!!

So at the moment i have: red lazors are infrared and has something to do with heat. Purple lazors are ultraviolet and has something to do with......and this is where i would really like to hear your ideas. So i need to connect a property to the colors: red, green, blue, cyan(green,blue), purple/violet(red,blue) and yellow(red,green). And all these properties should make up the base properties one would need to construct any type of system. This is an interesting idea and one i would be interested to implement soon. Please explain exactly what you would like this readout to look like. I can make the lasers point anywhere you would like, direction of gravity, the direction you are traveling, directions to other vessels, direction to the moon, anything.

So i\'m trying to figure out what properties the different colored lasers should have. And also what combinations of these should yield the different systems. For example a distance measuring laser system could consist of two lasers of different color, but what colors should that be?