ASnogarD

Well I found it much easier... I dont seem to need half the struts to get my ships stable and into orbit. My old fuel tanker design was 343 parts, I removed only the tank to tank or tank to engine struts and the part count dropped to 211 ... now without these struts the old version would of had the craft falling to pieces on the pad, this new version flew perfectly (except for one odd case of the orbiting stage where a engine fell off... have no idea why). Thats a huge help, not needing to strut engines mounted to the bottom of tanks to the tanks, or strutting tanks together to keep them from popping off.

90% of this stuff the article is about isnt even criticism or even from fans, its just some foul little coward who can only get some attention from behind his moms apron remotely accessing his sisters PC while hiding the ip behind privacy protocols and virtual private networks, this ... thing is only capable of this type of attention because it feels secure and safe from any possible counter. Most of it has nothing to do with the actual game, or industry even its just a attention seeking cretin with no life or reason to exist... these things attach to any media focused scene or event and spew out their rubbish in hopes of sparking something to interest them, to focus attention on themselves. ... half the problem is they do get attention, they get reactions, they get what they crave and so they continue. The other half is the media which happily reports everything and watches for the inevitable fall out, so they can report more stuff.

I would rather have a 'simulation mode' where the player can elect to simulate a launch OR launch for real, in simulation you can revert to pad or cancel simulation and in the event of a disaster you will auto revert to pad type of thing... in the real launch there is no revert option. This allows for testing and ironing out the kinks yet still leaves the consequences of a botched job looming over your heads, the best of both worlds. I do feel reverting does take a bit out the game, for example its nearly pointless to worry about launch pad disasters and escape towers as any disaster can simply be reverted until the whole craft is perfected. There is no concern about the crew, if the craft blows up then simply revert... simulation mode could be made in such a way you can only simulate x amount... a launch, or landing but not the whole mission. For example: One could enter simulation mode, select Mun SOI, 30k orbit at 90degrees, 0 eccentricity and simulate Mun landings / operations. Take it a bit further and remove the Muns nice texture and replace it with a uniformed grey because its a simulation, to see the real Mun surface you would have to actually get there. A even more extreme step would be to be required to use a scan (like ISA) to get details about a planet/moon to use in the simulation... so you would need to gather data to simulate a mission, so you you could perfect a 'real' mission.

The 0.21 update also made things a bit sturdier, my old pre- 0.21 heavy fuel tanker (delivers with no issue 3 orange tanks full of fuel and 2 nukes with a lot of fuel of their own) had 343 parts , I took off ALL the struts that connect tanks to engines and tanks to tanks but kept the struts that joined the stacks to each other... dropped to a amazing 211 parts. Your designs may benefit from another look at how many struts you need, and less struts means less parts which lets you add more stuff rather than more struts.

I have something for you to think about Sirkut... Can you put in sub menus in the UI with the plugin ? If so how does a menu system with a main heading and then when you open it you get the controls sound ? Think... Crane [+] which then becomes Crane [-] - Crane Rotate < o > - Crane Tilt......< o > - Crane Extend.< o > ... and if thats possible, a nice feature would be Crane [+] o (the o here would be like pressing o on all the components of the Crane group at the same time (or better still sequentially)) The UI would then look something like... Crane [+] o Drill....[+] o Lifter..[+] o As always , these are just mere suggestions and ideas , not demands. I do appreciate your hard work in this mod and really enjoy the freedom these parts add to my designs.

This is a older version of my mining rover... ... however such designs are typically inefficient, and while it sounds good to have a vehicle that can travel around and relocate at will the vehicle isnt very good at actually mining much. It has a crane, a kethane drill mount able to be packed away for travelling, a set of KAS winches to attach to multiple vehicles and some portable attachment nodes in case the target vehicle hasnt got a KAS attachment node, it can fly (sort of) with built in engines and RCS, landing gear to hold the craft stable when it gets to its mining location, solar power and kethane power generators, xenon gas + mono prop gas containers to top up vehicles that need those. It can travel at a respectable 13 - 15 m/s safely but can reach 20 m/s on flats but then is prone to toppling and blowing up. I am still working on the upgraded version I sent to the mun, trying to work out the kinks

You guys know that Romfarer had a camera mod that was additional to his Lazor mod ? It has a neat camera part with controls that opens up a little window you can move about. It doesnt need any lazor part added to the craft to work but does need the actual mod. Find it here : http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/lazor-cam/ (Note: I noticed it was 0.21 compatible, and it may not even need the original Lazor mod to work (it may be self sufficient in this download...worth a try I guess)).

Would this change require a high altitude scan resolution, or would a land based scanner be able to locate the richer deposits ? Currently I just criss cross the target planet/moon which reveals 1 or 2 hexes of each deposit so its possible to see where most of the deposits are which allows for a land vehicle with a scanner equipped to scan the local area and basically fill in the holes the criss cross style left.

Did I say the mechanism is exactly and precisely the same as it was before ? NO! Did I say the map was the ONLY change Majiir did to the mod ? NO! How many players would download the mod and think, ahh let me slap on 20 scanners onto a satellite ? 1, at most 2 for symmetry is the norm. Consider also the question here... Is scanning still super friggin slow? Does this sound like a player who would be satisfied to sit for 20 min in real time after nearly maxing out the scan potential with 20 scanners, optimal orbit, and at max warp speed to 100% scan a planet ? (Your claim to have scanned Kerbin in 20 min real time 100% resolution... that I assume is at nearly maximum scanning potential of the mod currently?) I answered the question in a manner suitable to the person asking, and gently encouraged the player to still try it out. (Note: This is not to imply that the person who originally asked the question is intolerant or impatient, players have different tolerances for different mechanisms... I for one get annoyed at the vagaries of the atmospherics during ascent, or the limitations of the construction section, or the inefficiency of the client to load from VAB to hangar but I have no issues waiting for a scan to complete when hunting for Kethane)

Oh for Petes sake ... I was answering this question : Is scanning still super friggin slow? Last I played w/Kethane was probably December. Have ranges been increased or can you scan while time warped? My answer was : The scanning mechanism is about the same, the map though is a hex grid overlay over the planet / moon you are scanning. It is still kind of slow and you cant max timewarp and leave it for a few minutes as it will miss hexes. It isnt too bad though, a decent angled orbit at about 4x speed will give you a decent idea of where Kethane is. If you quit Kethane due to the slow scanning before, you will probably quit again which is a pity as it does really add to the game. You still have to put on a detector, you still cant scan while the craft is not the active craft, orbital scanning still needs to be put in a orbit that will let it take advantage of the planet/moons spin, etc etc... so it is about the same. It IS kind of slow (not that I have an issue with that). I was answering the question in the context of the question given, basically is it still a slow process to scan for kethane in this mod and the answer is basically yes. It may not be mechanically exactly the same, or impossible for a experienced user of the mod to min/max the system for optimal speed scanning but, for a new / inexperienced player who will most likely just slap on a single detector on a probe and send it to orbit (like I did), it is still slow. I am not arguing the system is slow or needs to be fixed, I was merely answering that particular question and basing my answer on the context ie the person considered the slow scan a nuisance before and has the current system been sped up enough for a person who didnt like the slow scan before, and in my opinion the scan is still slow and needs patience. Personally it doesnt bother me, I just put a single detector at a nice angle so it criss crosses the target planet and gives me a rough idea of where the deposits are and I send in a land craft with a scanner to those spots to mine... I dont need or even care about 100% resolution. Thats why I got irritable with another poster coming in and saying YOU ARE WRONG!

I take offence to your retarded comment, I did not give 100% completely inaccurate information ... the scan is about the same as it used to be, just the display is changed. Most players will not slap on 3 - 4 scanners on a satellite to scan for Kethane as the power needs to keep it scanning even when solar power is blocked is quiet high. The scan resolution thus is about the same speed for most players, and as such the person asking the question will experience the same issue. My information is accurate given the context, but as you may of not noticed I did say you can get a decent idea of the kethane deposits with a good angled orbit at 4x speed and that the person would be missing out if they quit again. ... bloody annoying, like being told by a clown to stop fooling about.

The scanning mechanism is about the same, the map though is a hex grid overlay over the planet / moon you are scanning. It is still kind of slow and you cant max timewarp and leave it for a few minutes as it will miss hexes. It isnt too bad though, a decent angled orbit at about 4x speed will give you a decent idea of where Kethane is. If you quit Kethane due to the slow scanning before, you will probably quit again which is a pity as it does really add to the game.

Thanks for the heads up Voidryder, however I would rather it not be a mod if it can be helped thats why I put my suggestion here instead of the addon section. Extra addons means less portability between players, and you always run the risk the mod author gets tired of development and / or tired of KSP and leaves. I already have too many addons as it is : Mechjeb, Chatterer, Aviation Lights, IR (with DR parts), Lazor Mod + Lazor Mod camera... and I am looking into a parts addon as well some stage.

Any eta on the piston part yet ? The OP indicates tomorrow but tomorrow never comes. I am just curious as its the only part I need to replace in order to update my rover from the older DR parts... would hate to send that thing to the Mun and then see a nice shiny new piston 5 min later on the forums

A better idea would be to designate all the parts of a craft attached to the top of a fairing mount as a payload and not part of the rest of the ship, and then right click on the fairing mount and disable / enable payload RCS (or Action Group it). ... this would require Squad to implement their own fairings, but I am pretty sure its something they were planning at some stage, despite how well current mods fill in this lack at the moment.

Not to be nasty here but... I am not asking for help with an issue here, I am suggesting something I think can be a good and logical addition to the game. The Crew Manifest will not help in issues where the hatch will be covered by the craft or the whole design would have to be compromised to allow access to the hatch of a can or pod (unless I add another module with a hatch , like the Hitchhiker). My idea is to allow the designer to place, as a separate part, a alternative entry / exit to the craft so the crew can still access the command pod / lander can even if the pod / can is embedded into the craft in such a manner as to block the built in hatch. Example : The 1 man lander can is a ideal (in my opinion) cab for a lunar rover at the front of such a vehicle but you would have to either have the can perched on top of the vehicle or leave access room behind the can to allow a Kerbal to exit / enter the vehicle... either method leaves holes in the design (I know, I have tried such designs). My idea would allow me to use a radially mounted hatch on the side of the vehicle with minimal fuss, a stacked hatch would allow for space stations with exits / entries near docks and / or equipment (such as RCS tugs, KAS equipment, etc etc).

I would really appreciate a hatch / airlock a player could click on a EVA any Kerbal in the craft, one that can be placed anywhere on the ship like a separate part so you dont have to be force to work around the limited hatch placements on the command pods / lander cans. Have the part in multiple variants to allow for radial mounting, and stack mounting, with some various sizes for versatility. This part would neatly allow for Kerbals to EVA at more logical parts of a craft / station than just a single hatch where the Kerbal is currently in. A nice bonus would be placeable windows / view ports as well, a neat piece of detail would be to be able to click on the window / view port and select any Kerbal on the craft which would show a Kerbal silhouette in the window / view port. A extreme version would have a limited IVA which only shows the border of the window / view port and the view out of that window / view port (so you wouldnt need to render the inside part, just the view from a kerbal who is looking out the window / view port).

I tried a quick search but no joy so I'll ask here... I was trying to use the rover autopilot as a form of cruise control, its gets tedious trying to keep a 22 ton mining rover between 13 m/s and 15 on long distances... I dont want the thing to drive itself but I would love the thing to keep a set speed so I can just drive and enjoy the drive. The problem is when I call up the module, then click on the speed, set to say 1 m/s (testing) the vehicle just auto accelerates but no attempt to control the speed whatsoever. I thought at first it was because my rover uses a lander can as a command seat for the rover, so I did a test with just a probe and a seat... the vehicle registers fine as a rover complete with rover icon yet MJ still fails to control the speed. Is the rover cruise control working in 0.21 ? If so can you detail the steps needed to get it to work. Thank you.

I would just stick to group names and not mess with showing individual parts or the UI will get too big a bit too fast. My mining rover with a crane has about 6 - 7 controls already... I just rename the group to reflect the action the control will do rather than worry about what part I am controlling... example my drill arm has 2 actions, tilts the drill over from its parked position, and lowers it to near the surface so I have 2 groups one for the tilt and one for the slider, called Drill Tilt and Drill Slide. The good thing about this system is if you have a group with multiple parts that act at the same time you only need 1 control group... like 4 rotatrons controlling a VTOL engine set, now way a player could adjust all 4 independently but keeping it simple and adjusting all 4 at the same time is easy enough... toss all 4 in the same group and hey presto simultaneous control, if you want to separate the front engines from the back... make 2 groups. The only issue is if you are messing around with the parts, creating a new group always calls the new group... New Group and having multiple parts always shifts the parts into the first instance of New Group when you launch (you only have 1 control, even if you have several groups of New Group, and all the parts end up in the first group even if you had shifted them around prior to launching). One nice change you could try with the UI is a hide / unhide the speed edit function once you have launched, so you dont end up typing asdsad when messing about in the air with VTOL engines and piloting... like possibly a button to toggle the speed box from a edit box to a simple display the number.

Excellent work Sircut and Devo, much appreciated. A few things you may want to know about... - The current package has a typo in the directory structure, instead of Plugin it is written Plugins so when you copy the new download directory to your gamedata directory it doesnt overwrite the old plugin. - When you create a few new groups, it uses the same default name and so if you dont manually give each group a distinct name it simply puts all the parts into the first instance of that name and you end up with 1 group with parts and the others empty, even if you go and put each part in a different group. Is it possible to add a number to the default name... example New Group 01 , New Group 02 , automatically ? - A few other things you probably already know like the lock on the free docking rotator does actually lock when the ring is rotated without using the servo controls ( specifically I made a test rig to test a spinning module with small rockets to provide the spin... lock or not locked the ring spun), and action groups dont have the option to toggle the lock. The old parts seem to work fine as well, just default to a speed of 20 which in the case of the Cylinder makes it pop to max range and back in a flash...setting it to 0.3 makes it go at the proper speed. All in all very good work, I am going to have fun with the new hinges and waiting for the piston / cylinder. Are you guys taking over the DR mod or is R4m0n and DYJ still doing working on their update to DR/IR ?

Thank you

My only complaint about Chatterer now is that it always opens with the UI open since I updated to the newer one, even if I select / unselect use craft specific settings. It used to just sit as a little icon unless I specifically click on the icon to open the settings, now each time I launch to test out something I need to click the icon to close the settings box... other than that I am very happy with Chatterer, it keeps the boredom of a nearly totally silent game from discouraging me from playing.

Take a rover, slap on some Lazor Mod Cameras (the camera mod that goes with the Lazor mod), a Lazor, some pointy bits, DR/IR mod parts... fly it to Duna, and hey presto when you land you get all of the Take on Mars gameplay... ... ok you will have to pat yourself on the back each time you actually do something, but I assume we lot are capable of doing that and dont need the game to congratulate us every 5 secs (like some other games I could mention, that will give you an achievement for actually pressing the reload button... well almost that bad, nearly there). Lets see, Take on Mars has a basic construction with lander base and you get to slap on some equipment, you cant fly it there, you cant actually land it, all you really get to do is drive a mostly pre-built rover around on a reddish glowing desert terrain with red rocks sprinkled about the place and play with some moving bits on the rover... what part is missing from KSP again ?

Creat - You mean make something like this ... ... ? Its a lot of fun, I spent hours just messing about with it and I even managed to get my updated version to the Mun. I slapped on the Lazor mod and the Lazor Mod Camera mod (a little extra mod you can add to the Lazor mod), so I can have camera boxes inside the IVA of the lander can and can control nearly everything from IVA. The old DR parts are a bit odd to use but they are old so its understandable, and they still work fine with the IR Plugin as long as you 'fix' the files as described by sirkut.

Personally I think there is too little sound, I could almost hit mute and not note the difference if it wasnt for the occasional kerbalish screams from Chatterer with reverb set on. Lets be honest here, it aint a simulator because there is no way in hell my last trip to the Mun would of worked in real life... basically slapped a large lorry on the tip of a rocket and sent it to the Mun, reality would of sent the over powered rocket through the axle of the truck 0.0024 secs after hitting launch... ... and am I glad it aint too realistic, or we would all be stuck making trashcans with engines only. I would love some driving noises when I am driving rovers around, some hiss noises from the RCS, some muffled rock tumbling noises and muffled footsteps when I am on the Mun and ... and ... and ...and ...more noise please. Purists can always hit mute.