Rubber Ducky

As for a pre-release/beta, I was planning on doing that once I get to the first milestone I set for myself. If I get a chance to really get some stuff done tomorrow, I'll probably be able to put something out this weekend. Take that with a grain of salt though.

Actually, it's funny this should be brought up... This is that new project I referred to in my last post: (click for full size) As you can see in the guidance sensor box, the vessel is ~415km away. The plugin works by going through on-rails vessels and drawing models where the parts are supposed to be. It doesn't render physics or anything (just visual), so it shouldn't be too performance-intensive (I need to do more testing on that note). You can now see vessels up to 750km away! There is some z-fighting due to the inaccuracy at that distance, and some other bugs and stuff. Again, this is NOT something that'll be included with the CactEye plugin -- I'll be expanding this mod further and (maybe) making planets and vessels accurately visible from large distances. I'll probably make a separate thread for this soon. It'll be pretty sweet when combined with the telescope. But I'll be focusing on CactEye at least for now -- I essentially have two models and a few other tidbits to make and then I'm ready for a first release. Also, as far as seeing surface features on other planets, that's a no for the moment. If the terrain rendering works like I think it does, I doubt you can get any better than high-resolution texture replacements tbh. I've actually been trying to increase the render distance of static objects (KSC, island airport, other easter eggs), but it seems that some of them appear below the terrain at long distances.

Yeah, pretty much all of my free development time is dedicated to CactEye, and I've actually got another promising project lined up after that. I certainly haven't forgotten about this mod, though, hopefully I'll be able to update it at some point (if I don't exhaust myself).

Service ladder is now finished: If you're wondering where I've been for the past couple of weeks, I actually had an idea for a sweet new feature to add to this and I ended up working on that quite a bit. It ended up being cool enough that I think I'll make it an entirely separate mod out of it. But before I really start plowing into the new project, I'll definitely at least get a first release out for this mod, don't worry. Basically, all that's left is a few more models to crank out, some part/experiment descriptions, and other general polishing. It's also a four-day weekend for me, so I'll try to get as much done as possible.

I've experienced flickering and outright disappearing planets at high magnification while testing my telescope mod that uses this plugin -- have you tried cycling the GUI off and back on (press F2 to toggle it)? This completely gets rid of flickering for me, even with both Universe Replacer and City Lights and Clouds installed.

Science experiments are now almost entirely finished. Basically just need to do some further testing and write out experiment result dialogues for a couple of them. Here's the mid-tech experiments, mounted in various ways around the service bay: I've been working on the solar panels for the past few days. It took a ton of troubleshooting, but I finally got it working: For further challenge on my end, I decided to design the solar panels so that they roll out - like the first and second generations of Hubble's solar array. Here's a video of the solar panels deploying: http://youtu.be/zeJDXgQvPL4 This solar array is easily the most complex part I've made so far, so I'm really quite proud of them. Anyway, next up is going back to the plugin side and making the parts actually require electric charge when activated and such, and integrating with blizzy78's Toolbar plugin (if I can actually figure it out; I'm pretty bad with GUI still).

Quick update: Experiments are mostly modeled, but they still need a TON of work. Not functional at all at this point, and there's still some critical bugs to work out. I'll show these off a bit more when they are all finished and I'm ready to move on to the solar panels. Also, in the interest of speeding up development, I've decided to delay solar telescopes until a later update. I'll focus primarily on the basic telescope for the first release.

There's some experiments that will just run as long as the telescope is in orbit and activated (doesn't matter where it's pointed). IMO KSP's default star map is quite uninteresting and painfully low res (even without the telescope!). Maybe I'll look into making a custom skybox with Universe Replacer to be used with the telescope, but that'd have to be in a future update - I don't want to add any more major features at this point. Keep in mind that I'm only showing off the totally finished stuff; there's still a ton of bugfixing and most of the parts have no models and are only half-functional. It's still too rough at this point. Don't worry, though, because outside of some family stuff that's come up I mostly have the entire next week to work on this. Hopefully should be done not too long after that. I kind of arbitrarily set the transmission rate to 0.9 just for now. I've been thinking about just changing all of them to 100% for release; it all depends on how final testing goes with career mode. Thanks everyone for all your comments! Morale is still very high here.

I found that the service bay needed lighting: Much better! Mostly, though, I've just been going through all the programming stuff I wanted, and surprisingly, I'm almost done. I've got the science experiments mostly working. The action group is still a bit wonky, but the experiments themselves are functional. Here's me stress-testing the highest power processor. Between KSP's default target marker on the navball, a variable reaction wheel (goes down to 0.001x torque for fine tuning), and a quick proximity readout I made, it's actually super easy to find pretty much any celestial body. The only downside is that at a certain level, the Kraken starts shaking the telescope like mad, which there's not much I can do about. Gilly, near closest approach. Click for full size. Eeloo. AT APHELION. Science gain is actually based on how centered the target is in the telescope and how optimal the phase angle is (using the telescope at closest approach will give more science points), plus a special multiplier for each planet (Mun is 1x, Duna is 3x, Dres is 5x, etc.). Now I'll probably switch over and finish the solar science stuff - I've actually got most of the groundwork done for a transit/eclipse camera! Then its back to modelling. Though I might have to take a break for a few days, for quite obvious reasons.

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates - got a bit busy with school. I've been working on this heavily for the past few days, but I didn't want to post anything until I had a good idea of what I can accomplish in the near future. So I bit the bullet and installed Visual Studio, with the intention of just making a small change to an existing mod. But after a few days of troubleshooting (why KAS rescales non-stock parts when removing them from containers is a mystery to me, luckily its an easy fix) and getting the hang of C#, I eventually got comfortable enough with it to just start my own plugin from scratch. It's not perfect and it's pretty basic atm, but I'm starting to get some nice functionality out of it. Aside from that, I've modeled the processors. Here's the low-tech processor sitting inside its mount inside the service bay: Bill preparing to insert a medium-tech processor from EVA: A quartet of Kerbals model the processors for us: In order left to right: low tech, medium tech, high tech, and a solar processor for sun-observing telescopes. Updated parts list, it keeps growing so I think I'll have to cap it here for first release: - Optical tube (complete) - Solar optical tube - Service bay (complete) - Mount (complete) - Processors [contains actual cameras] Low tech (complete) Medium tech (complete) High tech (complete) Solar Processor (complete) - Instruments/Experiments --Low Tech Wide Field Camera v1 (10% xmit) Kerbin Analysis Camera (10% xmit) Constellation Surveying Camera (10% xmit) ---------------------- --Medium Tech Wide Field Camera v2 (65% xmit) Infrared Spectrograph (65% xmit) Ultraviolet Spectrograph (65% xmit) ---------------------- --High Tech Wide Field Camera v3 (100% xmit) Gravioli-Shift Spectrograph (100% xmit) Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (100% xmit) ---------------------- --Solar Processor Solar Flare Camera Corona Analyzer Protosphere Magnetomatic - Servicing ladder that fits nicely in the bay - Solar Panels (?) - Gyroscope & reaction wheel unit - Radially attached probe core - Soft capture system (EVA-attachable, docks with Clamp-o-tron Jr.) Functionality (plugin-wise): - Processors only function when telescope is properly constructed, without using a bunch of stupid resources (complete) - Science experiments can only be run when their designated processor is in place and functioning (mostly complete) - *maybe* Science gain scales with distance from sun [inverse with sun-observers] - *maybe* Science gain based on the angular distance from the center of the telescope to the targeted planet and the planet's distance - possibly even just for WFC experiments - *maybe* Processor explodes when the telescope is pointed directly at the sun and the aperture is open [except for specialized solar optics of course] - Smart reactions wheels that toggle into a 'fine guidance mode' with an action group? I don't see why not, and it'd make operation a ton easier. - probably a bunch of other stuff that I'll think of while developing So it's looking quite good now! I think I'll work on the experiment logic quite a bit more next, and after that's sufficiently good, start actually modelling the experiments. Thanks for all the brilliant ideas guys, I'm using a number of them. Nothke - I love that mirror setup idea but adding a dynamic mirror system like that would be a pretty big undertaking, so I think I'll focus on the EVA-serviceable aspect more for now. Also, you said you were planning a similar mod to this - don't let my work dissuade you.

Yes, the player will need to maneuver the entire telescope (I've found telescopes quite a bit easier to maneuver after the 0.21 SAS update), and the results will be displayed fullscreen.

This version is now depreciated. See the full release of this plugin here! [Moderator note: Actually, see Raven.'s updated version, currently here] --- CactEye is an orbital telescope that is fully EVA-seviceable through the use of Kerbal Attachment System. It also allows for science observations to be made on any planet or moon, where science value is calculated based on how relatively close the planet is to Kerbin (where opposition / inferior conjuntion is optimal) and how centered the object is in the telescope's view. [TABLE] [TR] [TD]REQUIREMENTS: These are completely necessary for the mod to work! Kerbal Attachment System by KospY and Majiir, with models by Winn75, and zzz Plugin required, parts recommended Incompatible with current version of KAS, grab the ModuleManager patch GavinZac posted here! Fix coming in the next update at some point. [*]HullCam VDS by Albert VDS, with additional work by r4m0n, sirkut, a.g., hubbazoot, and myself Plugin required, parts optional Okay, now THIS one is incompatible. Grab the fix Albert VDS graciously posted here. Fix for all this stuff is coming very soon. [*]Toolbar Plugin by blizzy78 RECOMMENDED: Action Group Manager by SirJulio This is borderline required. The ability to remap action groups after servicing will make your life much, much easier. [*]Distant Object Enhancement by myself This is a spin-off feature of this mod. This plugin draws planets and satellites realistically, and makes targeting much easier and satellite passes much more beautiful. [*]Procedural Fairings by e-dog If not this mod, then another fairings mod. It's nice to have some protection of the telescope during launch. [/TD] [TD] [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE] [TR] [TD] [/TD] [TD]USAGE NOTES: This telescope requires a high orbit to function. 250km is the high orbit threshold for Kerbin. The processor will explode if the telescope is pointed directly at the sun with the aperture open. Leave the aperture closed when you can for this reason. Make sure you zoom all the way out or exit out of the telescope view (default key is backspace, configurable in Hullcam's settings file) before switching to the map view! If a planet is flickering or cannot be seen, turn your GUI off and on (default key is F2). This mod is still under heavy development. Bugs and errors should be expected. PARTS: Make sure to read part descriptions in the VAB, including the right-click menu. Also, most of these are movable/storable with KAS. Optical tube The big piece. [*]Service bay This is where you put all the cool gizmos. Should be placed directly underneath the optical tube. [*]Processor Mount Goes inside the service bay, mounts the processor module [*]Processors (3) There are three different tech levels: low, mid, and high. They unlock successively in career mode. Tech level is correlated to magnification level. The right click menu in the VAB shows their magnification power. [*]Experiments (9) There are two types, Wide Field Camera and Basic. Basic experiments require only a working processor and that the experiment be placed inside the service bay. These are only usable once. To use Wide Field Camera experiments, you need to do the following: Select a target celestial body in the map screen Point the telescope towards the target (use the navball and, if unlocked, the Fine Guidance Sensor to help) A functional processor in its proper mount, and the experiment is placed in the service bay. [*]Gyroscope/Reaction Wheel Unit (2) These have three torque modes: Normal, Reduced, and Fine. There is a low tech and a high tech version The Kraken starts shaking the telescope a bit at high zoom levels / low torque levels. Just a warning. [*]Solar Panels Produces 8 e/s on Kerbin Roll-out mechanics, like Hubble's first and second pairs of solar panels Movable with KAS, but not storable in containers [*]Ladder Fits nicely in the service bay NOT compatible with KAS - yet. [*]Fine Guidance Sensor Displays angular proximity to the target, where 1.000 is pointing exactly at it and 0 is 5 degrees away. This value is used to calculate science value, so a value of 1.000 is desirable for the most science. [*]Smobodobodyne SLIM Probe Core A slimmer version of the stock cubic probe core. Designed to be stock-like. This part can be radially mounted inside the service bay (or any surface), however, it does not have a reaction wheel. 21 parts total. You'll probably also want to include a docking port, an antenna, and some batteries from the stock selection or other mod packs. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Rubber Ducky - plugin and all parts Snjo - Firespitter plugin code The FSanimateGeneric class has been recompiled into another plugin file, adding a few lines of original code, to avoid conflicts with the Firespitter mod. This module may be replaced with original code in a future release. [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] DOWNLOAD CactEye Telescope v0.1 (1.8 MB) Updated February 1, 2014 (KSP v0.23) License -- Source Code Development history: [INITIALLY POSTED 12/5/2013] [UPDATE 12/21/2013] [UPDATE 12/23/2013] [UPDATE 1/4/2014 / MINI UPDATE 12/30/2013] [UPDATE 1/17/2014] [UPDATE 2/1/2014] (release v0.1)

I'll definitely look into actual lighting for the IVA. Again (and maybe I should clarify this in the OP), but the usual starting parts are all moved to later tech nodes - every stock part is still in the tree somewhere! If you want the now-overpowered stock parts to appear along with this pack's parts at the beginning of career mode, just open BargainRockets.cfg and delete everything underneath "//Stock Parts". If you want to remove this pack from affecting career mode altogether, just delete that cfg file.

I might use TreeLoader eventually - I don't like some things about how it works currently. If you delete BargainRockets.cfg from the addon folder, it will not modify any stock parts and Bargain Rocket Parts will not be in career mode. If, for some reason, you still want the BR parts in career mode without modifying stock ones, just open that file and delete everything below the //Stock Parts line.

Actually, Resources/ScienceDefs.cfg is just the stock way of adding new science stuff (one is included in the standard KSP files as well). ModuleManager is only added to move parts around in the tech tree (BargainRockets.cfg). Not everything is in that config file. If you look at this image I made, every stock part is listed. Just add the white-colored parts to the config file and that should be everything!

The stock parts are all still there, they're just moved to later in the tree (see the image provided in the OP for the full tree). It doesn't make sense to add the parts to the tree without ModuleManager because you'd have all these crappy, trash parts available at the same time as the nice and shiny stock parts.

Just to clarify, I had absolutely nothing to do with anything in this thread - this was all kerbtrek. I've been working on Bargain Rockets since August, which HeadHunter is referring to, and hadn't even known about this thread until a couple of weeks ago.

The potato was actually a low-powered RTG at first, but I found that I'd just slap a ton of them on and it was super over-powered. When I added everything to the tech tree, it made sense that there'd only be batteries early on in the game.

After serious budget cuts at the Kerbal Space Agency, they turn to the one contractor they can still afford: Bargain Rocket Parts Inc. Features: - 34 brand new parts, mostly fashioned out of duct tape, cardboard, and whatever else we could find laying around for optimum cost-efficiency. - Full IVA for the BC-1 Space Box command module. - Tech-tree integration (using ModuleManager). - Includes four new science experiments. New in v1.1: - Contracts! I imagine this mod is super unbalanced with the budgeting system, though Notice: I will be out of contact indefinitely as of July 30, 2014. This mod is provided as-is, as I can no longer maintain or update it. License: This pack includes ModuleManager, initially created by ialdabaoth and now taken over by sarbian. Forum thread, including the source code, can be found here! Alternate Download 1 (MediaFire) Alternate Download 2 (Google Drive)

Mun party! Fun fact: 30 Kerbals out at once gives you 1 FPS at minimum settings.