localSol

Yep! Though I think the fact that I made several mods' textures smaller probably helps compression too, though only a guess, I don't know the specifics of how Dxt works, I would guess that there are fewer ways to represent the data in a smaller texture than a larger one so that may help compression efficiency? Also definitely helps on textures with lots of repeated same-color or normal level, like in stretchySRB tanks, SMA's ducted fan textures(this needed a huge manual reduction though), several b9 adapters. If you edit and resize kethane's textures to use TGAs, you'll get odd looking textures on the external fuel tanks and a few non-green areas on others because some sort of keying to the green coloring is lost, but you can get it down to a small fraction of its normal size with not much quality loss. IIRC the large fuel tanks look best with at least 512x512 though I decided to reduce the normals more. Edit : That is, at least 512 in the larger dimension, if applicable. Also IIRC needed to flip them vertically. Edit : Thank you rbray89!

I'm using about 10 of the larger texture-including mods and I already sized down most of them by editing mbms to half or quarter dimensioned tgas. This makes my install even better! I got this just now at the main menu after loading : KSP private working set with lotsa mods sized-down and squad texture reduction pack : 2,527,784K Same install with Active Memory Reduction Mod : (-) 1,895,684K (~) 632,100K saved (!) All right!!

Ah! Slope from the adjacent start or end point. Clever way of doing it, that is just what I needed, thank you. Now to test it and see if what I'm visualizing makes sense.

Oh, thanks! After finding myself literally scratching my head over the code there for 15 minutes, I read wiki's article on bezier curves and tangents to get concepts I forgot. With what I'm imagining, at some point humongous values make less and less of a difference to the curve's shape.. I guess the two values in the cfgs are the two control points (p1 and p2 aka c1 and c2) in a cubic bezier curve. And if that's so, then the atm and isp values in the cfg would be enough to be start and end points p0 and p3..But if that's it, the two extra values in the cfg are only enough to define one axis for each of the two control points, where they would have the same value as the start and end points respectively, i would guess, or, enough to define only one control point, making it effectively quadratic? Hmmm...hmmmm...?! How far off could I be misunderstanding it?

Flared bottoms of rockets, more drag I would think. That makes sense. No wonder I keep seeing rockets that look like that. I'll try some more exaggerated flared bottoms and see what happens. It's nice to see those graphs Senshi, - I tried over the last hour to make a graph of TV's Engines but I don't understand the extra slope control variables in the cfg for velocitycurve. ferram posted as help in a reply in september, "The extra zeroes specify the slope of the curve at that point; the first specifies the slope coming from the left, the other specifies it coming from the right. This can be used to specify the curve more exactly with fewer inputs." Anyone know if there is any official info on this? How do they work? Can't be angles or radians? TV's turbojet has '0 28000000' for density 0 atmospherecurve and '-400 0' for density 1. I have no idea how to interpret that I guess unless it's part of some curve variable..never tried to program a curve..almost..then I got sleepy. Ha ha. By the small values in the velocitycurve curve-mystery-variables I would guess they are much less curvy but that's all I can guess.

Great plugin. Helps a lot for delicate stuff too. I just noticed what some of the features do today after using it regularly for months. I was able to get NaN ap/pe even easier than before for fun too! And it just occurred to me that it may help to get really circular geosynchronous orbits for satellites, engine limits permitting..

I was curious so I tested and got the same thing as english mobster and senshi. I tried the fix and it did make things more stable with no control input at all. That vehicle with no other control-help still flips eventually with the cfg fix, though I'm not complaining, only noticing. Only one reaction wheel or either four rotatable fins made rockets like this very easy to control. I don't know anything to say about realism but that's what happened. Fun though, I noticed that a ncs adapter and nose cap that I rarely use was much more aerodynamic for this purpose than a regular nosecone. Somehow only a bacc with a okto2 on top doesn't flip at all, but also doesn't get nearly as far an apoapsis, IIRC I think ferram may have mentioned before something about that being a side effect of the simplified cylinder aerodynamic calculations compared to what's used for nosecones? The RT-5 SRB from TV PP is more stable than the bacc or rt-10 for this purpose..less drag, less thrust, less dry mass, less wet mass but similar effect because of the thick atmosphere. In testing a dozen or so of these I was reminded how much easier it is to control the ascent of a small light rocket! andqui : Orbit won't be possible but you can sometimes hop up to 40km or so(engines won't work there but you can get science or maybe even a risky eva..maybe try experimenting with throttle and swooping up and down at different angles of attack once you're already at around 10-15km. Ability to do it depends on the shape of your wings, control surfaces, twr, total mass if not other things I would think. Edit 2 : I don't know how to fix the "Xw" longitudinal derivative. I hardly know what it is.

Fusion almost always impresses, even if real life experiments still struggle to break even with net output...anyone heard of focus fusion? Quoting the society website at focusfusion.org: " “Focus Fusion†refers to electricity generation using a Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) nuclear fusion generator with hydrogen-boron fuel (pB11)[...] If Focus Fusion reactors are made to work, they will provide virtually unlimited supplies of cheap energy in an environmentally sound way - no greenhouse gases, and no radiation - because the reaction of pB11 is aneutronic. Focus Fusion faces two main technical challenges: * it requires much higher ion temperatures and plasma density-confinement time product than Deuterium-Tritium fuel; * and x-rays produced by the reaction reduce temperatures. Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. (LPP) is currently conducting experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of Focus Fusion in overcoming these challenges. LPP’s research addresses the challenges with four innovations based on well-verified, conventional physical theories: the DPF [Dense Plasma Focus] leverages, rather than fights, plasma instabilities; x-ray emissions are managed with the quantum magnetic field effect (QMFE); " I sort of understood the general idea some months ago. Interesting anyway.

Good about the technology.. Most of that is over my head but I'm glad there are enthusiasts who know about nuclear technology. The variety in the Interstellar pack is good for KSP. I know balance is a hard thing to do, adding a new part or a change to one part can change the whole balance but it can be fun to see what happens. I'll be glad if you decide to do any sort of texture pack option. I read pieces here and there about a newish part.cfg 'texture = ..., mesh = ... 'option to load textures without needing to overwrite anything.. If modulemanager can work with that too, that seems like an even better way.

I sent you a PM yesterday about the textures, FractalUK. I noticed today though that the science lab and interior of it look pretty nintendo-Wii-like when I reduced textures that low for them, so I will probably redo those to the next 2^x step. I tested a 768 squared texture though and it looks like it took as much system memory as 1024 squared. I didn't try to confirm for VRAM.. I didn't know a type of thorium could make potentially dangerous by-products. I heard a while ago about proposals for thorium fuel being so good and abundant as to change the modern world,.. LFTR molten salt reactors being much safer than uranium reactors today... well, who knows. Interesting anyway. I'm doing an alumin(i)um hybrid rocket manufacturing mission on the Mun! Back to little green men!

Fractal_UK : Great plugin, I reduced most of the textures in this pack and converted any pngs to tga, and also resized any existing tgas. According to 'Bac9' a month or so ago, "png loading in KSP is 'borked' " . I guess that's still true, I don't know. I didn't try to edit the mbms. It helped much more than I thought it would. I can give the pack to you if you want, Fractal_UK. If you're not interested, would you consider making a low texture pack to go with this too? I resized everything to 25% in each dimension , 1024x1024 became 256x256 - potentially 16 times less texture memory and total texels. My game works much better now when using this with some of the other large-texture mods - an easy way to tell which mods use the most space is by using TreeSize, a very good disk space management utility. For anyone wanting to do it themselves, I edited mu data with HxD and resized textures using Lanczos filter (usually a little better quality than spline) and the default light sharpen filter with Irfanview. I didn't change the root warp.pngs and similar, I guessed they were dummy images controlled by the DLL. The texture artists for this are really good but even downsized they're good for usual viewing distances... KSP tends to kersplode when it starts to use near 3GB of system memory so this sort of thing can keep that from happening for now..

You know it's interesting, last week I remember some good conversation about re-entry at high angle of attack, lifting bodies, SSTOs and that sort of thing.. So today I decided to try an SSTO with minimal wing, it went really well! Static analysis for mach 1 to 2 made me think an angle of attack of 23 degrees would be best..haha! So it was fun, so I made a video of it. Things get much easier after I get over mach 2 or so. Also minimal plane otherwise. : (Video sped up to 4x, long parts of flight at another 2x in KSP) (720p) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oQ4bj-T1WY craft (needs TV, B9 and FAR..TV has comparable landing gear also) : https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6231140/KSPstuff/minimalairfoils1.craft I don't know aerodynamics really, but here : I have been using dihedral wings, they're supposed to give a little more stability and lose a little maneuverability?, seems stable to me..I guess these flat-ish mk2 body sections are making more lift than I thought they would. And that's good. Though still the engines do most of the work, L/D is very low compared to my other "planes". Keeping an eye on my air requirement met % and angle of the intakes relative to airflow makes it easy. VOID also helps you track your vertical climb/drop in m/s numerically to help you keep stable especially during transonic flight. Jeb could be eating spiced soup while doing this.. While absent mindedly piloting at mach 3 in there. I want some soup, Jeb. I like soup. Don't forget to wear your pilot's scarf and aviator goggles!

You're welcome, TT. Best luck with your projects.

Hooray and congrats to ferram and a.g. on another great release! Thanks to this discussion thread, I used flaperons for the first time last week. And it looks like I also used elevons without knowing it.

Thanks! I used up to eight diverterless supersonic intakes to four engines (2:1) on an earlier design, but will test more. Your tailplane is a little lower than a few I used, and the static analysis curves look similar to what I was getting so that's helpful too. I forgot about imgur, I'll check it out thanks.

Fantastic! KSP has a good sound system already and this is just what it needs to utilize it more. I watched the Riding the Booster with enhanced sound video also, really cool! Really excited about whatever FAR integration there might be.

For plane building discussion: For all my trying I must be missing something about plane design in FAR just for one particular purpose. I think it may be small. I tried making a similar plane as this kairbus one after I saw it - but smaller, using regular and firespitter parts for crew modules (the K-12 Minivan...double pun..sort of intended!). It was fairly unstable though, not sure why, possibly asymmetric drag due to part mirroring..the bicouplers sticking out, causing weird drag? At that point I was using a few more struts that I wanted to have to, even with Joint Reinforcement mod, which is still good..But even then and only around 25-28 tons and also with four normal turbojet engines in the same way using bicouplers, I couldn't get it past about mach 3.2 . I was thinking less mass and higher TWR might make it easier to get to near that speed, but somehow it didn't work. Though four of these engines seems like plenty even for that massive 59.9 ton plane!(?) I used a small dihedral on the wings IIRC (and the ones below), though I don't think that had anything to do with the strange performance. Static analysis told me I would be able to get near mach 5.2/3...Maybe just a fluke of some kind or other oversight on my part . But argh, unfortunatly I don't have screenshots of the original, but I have some based on it, of the 'what if I add this instead', where it has a similar 'tri' fuselage : more swept : http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521508795644/E11CF3D2E1E6E0128D5FFD7D1B1A80AABABA4221/ more wing area : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521508798575/4BF3BC3C48606E5CDA77E3E213EA510099BDFD53/ lowered tailplane, other adjustments , still can't break mach 3.5ish, fun though! : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521508797975/8A916962ED0C94F31F02009F98666AC8661AA99C/ something entirely different and crazyweirdfun - nuclear powered, rhomboid wing, electric prop with hydrogen plasma thrusters from near future mod (totally didn't get to orbit, in kerbin atmosphere anyway.. but was fun) 1 : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521508802875/70FBA3A3A04052E00016AF5C79812EF82B7D284C/ 2 : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521508804107/57223A72394C90FE43C03757E9942925F7858242/

It's strange to me that the parts would show up for one of you but the scaling wouldn't work. I have never had problems with this mod, the latest version is for 0.22, I don't know how to help you but in case there is any chance it wasn't installed in the needed way, you could try using KSPModAdmin to install it : http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/26031-Win-KSP-Mod-Admin-v1-3-9-Mod-install-with-2-klicks

Yes these definitely! I think plenty of mod makers would use those features right away. As for spaceport, that would be the most convenient but maybe there is a way without it too if squad isn't interested. I would like it also if the 'ksp compatible version # ' data was community vote-able too, so that if a mod author isn't around to update that relatively small piece of information, if a large number of people test and vote for it such that it works in the latest version, then spaceport or similar could update that info without the mod author needing to do it, though they could override it whenever they want, or not allow that sort of voting for their mod if they wanted to. The voting thing would be especially helpful for smaller mods that the user has a lot of and whose authors may not update as often.

Thanks, this does help. My point of reference was starting a new sandbox game and looking at KSC without moving, with normal shadow settings, best rendering quality and high textures at 1280x800 on a Radeon 6850 1GB Barts Pro. Doing this increased my frame rate from 30, to 34 or 35 in default (increase of about 15%). Regular low detail is higher at about 39 fps in the same reference point, but default land terrain definitely looks better than low, and I couldn't tell a difference with whatever ocean terrain might be because I guess this only changes what's underwater. I use a lot of mods though also, which has me confused as to why this helps me since my GPU is newer and faster technology-wise than my CPU. In any case I'm very glad to know about the settings file.

Thanks a metric kerbalton. This will go very well helping me to make better planes for FAR too!

Good post. It had me taking another look at pitching moment (Cm) in the graphs for my planes, that I overlook often. Anyone know what mod/plugin the Red Sphere is in these pictures, and what it does?

I can see your pictures. I was wondering the same thing about lat/lon.

I wanted to try a smaller plane to see what happened. before launch : in flight - http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521358478007/71D191B86161128A6540624D90F802A457D2FD8A/ landing - http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521358475191/C3C57FB458DEAC73B93417592B2B1DD23654E896/ landed and flight log - http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521358476120/C0B23B1692D78EE1AA756DE89C0B6B1FD39B7C25/ The SPH tends not to remember crew settings between test-reverts, and neither do I , so I ended up flying only with the pilot. Supports 1 passenger in the lander can though. Ladders added afterward, negligible mass/drag. Made me wish you could build rope ladders, inflatable ones, some kind of procedural ladder to drop over the wings though. Pilot (15), + Passenger (subtotal 45), + FAR (sub 85), - B9 (sub -5), + Mach 3.89 1,323m/s (295), Penny Pincher 395, Engine Shortage 495, Perfectionist 545, Blackout 565, total 565 again? All right!

Fun challenge! I spent some hours on this. Kerbal crew manifest couldn't detect the 28 external command seats inside my mk2 b9 cargo bay, so I just flew with two pilots. I used VOID for latitude longitude info, plane needed heading correction about every 15 minutes. Wouldn't make much of a difference flying without it, with less accurate heading on the b9 plane because it had so much fuel and the B9 F199 Turbofan is way more efficient than the stock TurboJet, but the F119 limits me to under Mach 3 in this plane. Not using VOID may have prevented the disqualified stock+FAR plane I built from getting to KSC, but not this one. Pilots : 15 x 2 = 30, Passengers : Theoretical capacity 28.. = ??, FAR 40 (subtotal 70), B9 -90 (subtotal -20), Fuel left : 2109 = 21 x 10 = 210 (subtotal 190), Mach 2(So close to 3!) x 50 = 100 (subtotal 390), Penny Pincher : 83 parts (subtotal 490), Perfectionist 50 (sub 540), Blackout 25 (sub 565)..Total 565.. Screenshots : Runway before takeoff . I flew before adding ladders but they add practically nothing in terms of mass or drag (esp. compared to so many tons of fuel), . : In-Flight 1 : Cruising aka trim-flying : http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521335388718/7FE1062C43EACD4ED1E8E5E638FDF9B53AA554AD/ In-Flight 2 : Very twitchy-sensitive supersonic roll to change latitude in a hurry. Didn't expect that to work, just go very very slowly : http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521335389610/7703006AD4BA2F25D607C1E04A3EBB42C3477E35/ Almost landed, Turning off engine gimbal helped a little with twitchy pitching : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521335392712/9BC3FFDA4BC5F1D79816FC2CEACD7C2EA5AB3015/ Landed and Flight log : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521335395818/172DAD09E0C9316EA4EF781DC55DB359AA65F005/ Other pictures : Halfway around the world - the Kethane popup co-ordinates, not the pod symbol : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521354439857/AA46326321BAA8F709F6081A9856C40C4667795E/ Far-stock plane that crashed, 10.5 dry tons, 75 parts, no passengers yet (can carry 2 in 2 lander cans), capable of staying under 20km but the flight is much longer and fuel consumption slightly higher than flying above 20km. : http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/523835521332239670/8BAEDE4471BE40A29775A098392C1D1219510F20/ I also tried a stock-and-FAR-only-jet that I posted pictures of above that made it just to the KSC and ran out of fuel. 35+ minutes of 2x time flying around mach 2 and a huge crash, so it didn't meet requirements, but it's probably/nearly capable..just uncomfortable and I put it here just for fun. Maybe a fun challenge next time based on this would be a flight to the halfway point on the other side of the planet, land for saved-game-edit refueling, or something else, maybe involving a premade saved game with a tanker on the ground and using KAS to refuel, and then continue on to KSC or somewhere else..Kethane co-ordinates would be about 0, 73.4W, not far south from a lake on the east side of a huge continent. IIRC VOID Edit :uses different co-ordinates, I don't know the difference, maybe a different center...