Genius Evil

I haven't had a chance to test it with 1.0 yet (Finals and such...) but it should be fine as long as AJE hasn't changed its AJEPropeller module. Progress on the next release: P-51 IVA is ~60% complete. Modelling mostly done, starting texturing. Still lots of props (switches, lights, etc.) to do as well. School has been taking up a lot of my time, so hopefully I can work a bit faster now.

@Wolf123 -- The engines can be switched from push to pull mode in flight and in the VAB. The button will say "Set reverse thrust" or "Set normal thrust" depending on which mode it is in. It's at the bottom of the tweakables menu, so you might have to move the camera around to see it. In some views the button is off the edge of the screen because of all the AJE options above it. You probably clicked it by accident while you were building your plane.

@Wolf123 -- Do the engines produce 5 thrust in flight? AJE sets the thrust dynamically in flight; the value given in the engine cfg is discarded, so all are just set to 5. The descriptions in the VAB will say 5, but the actual values will be different. If the engines are producing 5 thrust in flight, then AJE is not working properly. This would probably be of incompatible versions of FAR and AJE, as NathanKell said earlier. The gibberish descriptions are from a modulemanager patch I was debugging -- I had it set the description on every part it affected to some random typing so I could see if it was addressing the right parts. I forgot to remove the line before releasing. I will immediately release a version without it. Also, here's the plan for the next release: Internals for P-51 style cockpit P-40 / Hawker Hurricane styled cockpit, hopefully with internals Better model for the XLR-99

@ mike9606: That's odd. Does it happen to all the engines, or just one of them? Also; Progress Update: Completed surface-attachable p51-style bubble canopy. No internals yet though. Completed some rocket motors: The ME-163's Walter HWK, the X-1's Reaction Motors XLR-11, and de Havilland Spectre. I'm going to add the X-15's XLR-99 and then release. The internals for the bubble canopy will probably be in the next release.

That's a bug with AJE. If you start an AJEPropeller engine at 0% throttle, it won't work properly. If you bring the throttle up to 10% or so before activating the engine, it should work.

Progress update: New version is out, with drag fixes & PTank normal maps. Next update will probably be one or two surface-attachable cockpits, a few rocket engines for aircraft, and possibly an engine cowling for the inline engines. @Eskandare The engines currently require AJE to work, which requires FAR; so the new stock aerodynamics probably won't have any effect.

Hey, I'm back! Sorry for not posting anything sooner. Progress update: I got a bit burnt out from pushing to get the mod done over winter break. That + start of new semester meant that not much got done in January. The drag issue with the inline engines is nearing resolution. It turns out that having more than two meshes in the same space completely breaks FAR drag modelling (?!). Now that I actually know what the issue is, I have a couple of ways to fix it. Going through and fixing this in all the inline engines may take some time -- hopefully not too long though. I also started working on normal maps for procedural fuel tanks. The maps might be released at the same time as the drag fixes. @DisarmingBaton5 I'm not sure exactly how inline cowls will work. They will probably have a choice of cowl shape, and a choice of air scoop shape. The inline cowl will probably be a separate part from the engine, since sometimes an inline engine needs to go on a cylindrical body.

I used a manually-defined drag model because I was imitating the configs for propellers in AJE; this engine is part of a pack of models to replace the Firespitter engines used by AJE. I also used a manually defined model because many of the engines have complex meshes. The only thing that differentiates this engine from any other engine is that it is constructed with several MODEL{} nodes. Anyway, I found the source of the issue -- the model used for the propeller's spinner. FAR doesn't seem to like that it spirals (to allow it to look like this without a high-res texture). I will create a more conventional mesh to replace it. Replacing it with a simple cone has no effect. Removing it entirely does lower the Cd to a much more reasonable value, however. I'm certain the issue is something I'm doing wrong; but I can't find it. Min, max, and angular drag is set to 0. The FARBasicDragModel is copied from one in FerramAerospaceResearch.cfg. I've reinstalled from scratch. But I still can't get a manually defined drag model to work. I can post the model and cfg I'm having trouble with, if that would make things easier. Ferram, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond to me and help me out with this.

Just bumping this since it's been a couple days. I've tried reinstalling KSP and all mods, but FARBasicDragModel still does not seem to work with 0.90. I can use this cfg in 0.25 and it works perfectly, but in 0.90 the FARBasicDragModel has no effect on the part. It really feels like an installation issue, but I started from scratch and still had the same issues. Could someone please tell me if I'm doing something wrong here?

Has the FARBasicDragModule changed with FAR for 0.90? Several parts I made which used it worked fine on my 0.25 install; but on 0.90 the FARBasicDragModules seem to have no effect. I created this cfg to see if something else was causing the issue: PART { name = DRAGTEST module = Part author = BLA //BLADES/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// MODEL { model=AJE/VTProp/Blades/HSCOBlade1 position = 0.0, 0.1375, 0.0 scale = 1.69,1.69,1.69 rotation = 0, 0, 0 } MODEL { model=AJE/VTProp/Blades/HSCOBlade2 position = 0.0, 0.1375, 0.0 scale = 1.69,1.69,1.69 rotation = 0, 120, 0 } MODEL { model=AJE/VTProp/Blades/HSCOBlade3 position = 0.0, 0.1375, 0.0 scale = 1.69,1.69,1.69 rotation = 0, 240, 0 } MODEL { model=AJE/VTProp/Bits/Spinner position = 0.0, 0.1375, 0.0 scale = 2.083,2.083,2.083 rotation = 0, 0, 0 } //PROPERTIES/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// rescaleFactor = 1 node_stack_top = 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// TechRequired = aerodynamicSystems entryCost = 2800 cost = 950 category = Propulsion subcategory = 0 title = TEST manufacturer = BLA description = BLA /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// attachRules = 1,0,1,0,0 mass = 0.1 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0 minimum_drag = 0 angularDrag = 0 crashTolerance = 7 maxTemp = 300 fuelCrossFeed = True CoMOffset = 0, -1.2, 0 MODULE { name = FARBasicDragModel S = 5.0 CdCurve { key = -1 0.004 0 0 // stern on key = 0 0.001 0 0 // sideways key = 1 0.003 0 0 // head on } ClPotentialCurve { key = -1 0 0 0 key = -0.5 -0.001 0 0 key = 0 0 0 0 key = 0.5 0.001 0 0 key = 1 0 0 0 } CmCurve { key = -1 0.001 0 0 key = -0.5 0.0 0 0 key = 0 -0.001 0 0 key = 0.5 -0.002 0 0 key = 1 -0.004 0 0 } ClViscousCurve { key = -1 0.0 0.0 0.0 key = 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 key = 1.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 } } } In 0.25, this has the proper Cd of ~0.05, but in 0.90 it has a Cd of over 2. Changing the values in the cfg seems to have no effect in game. Is this just a problem with my install?

That is intentional. The engines are scaled to the sizes of their real-life counterparts. They are intended to be used with Procedural Parts. If you want to use them with stock parts, you can set the rescaleFactor on the engines you want to 0.625. I may release a version scaled for that size, since several people want it. EDIT: Rescaled configs released.

Inline engines are in the mod. They are currently only represented by propellers though -- no fancy tweakable cowls yet.

Good ideas camlost, I'll do that. I started working on the mod before 0.90 came out, and never updated the install it was on. I checked to make sure it worked with 0.90, but didn't look into the new AJE folder. The cfgs are included to overwrite the existing ones and remove the duplicate engines that would be created by them. The engines previously in those cfgs are in the Parts/Props folder.

Damichael -- I haven't noticed any yaw instability when testing them on my planes. Is the propeller disk touching the ground? It has a rotating collider. Which engine are you using? I haven't tested every single one of them; one may have a thrustTransform pointing the wrong direction. I believe the flame-outs are an AJE issue. Do they occur when you start the engine at 0% throttle? The engines are scaled to be the size of their real-life counterparts. They are intended to be used with procedural parts. If you want to make them fit stock parts, you can set the rescaleFactors to 0.625. bs1110101 -- Those bugs occur because the engines are set to use AvGas, a Realfuels resource. I had them happen when I was testing the engines on an install without RealFuels. I can upload a set of configs set for LiquidFuel; it should only take a few seconds. You can use those with AJE and not RealFuels, but if you want to use them without either you will have to manually set the engine thrusts. I would recommend something like 0.03-0.05kN times the engine horsepower rating if you're not using FAR. Wow! I didn't think this would be so popular. I was expecting maybe one comment! Thanks everyone. I will try to post progress updates every day or so. I'm going to take a look at making a Pwing-based fuselage later today and tomorrow.

This mod is intended to add parts for making realistic planes with FAR and AJE. Contains realistic piston engines, rocketplane engines, and miscellaneous aircraft parts. Realistic Piston Engines. Advanced Jet Engines (AJE) currently uses rescaled Firespitter models to represent its piston engines. The Firespitter engines are nice models, but they aren't exactly realistic. These models, however, are: Features Tweakable textures & cowl styles. Animated cowl flaps. Accurately represents all 28 piston engines in AJE -- down to the number of cylinders. Only takes up ~5MB on disk. Textures are reused as Procedural Part and Procedural Wing textures. Constructs engines from many rescaled simpler models (prop blades, spinner, cylinder, cowl, etc.) to minimize memory footprint by reusing models; also means new engines are simple to add. Miscellaneous Airplane Parts. Realistic rocketplane engines -- HWK 109-509 (A1, A2, and B1 variants), which powered the ME-163 XLR-11 (5 and 13 variants), which powered the Bell X-1 XLR-99, which powered the X-15 (Current model is a placeholder) Spectre, British design intended for the SR.53 WIP P-51 style bubble cockpit. Cannot currently EVA or IVA. Download here. Installation instructions in zip and on download page. Note: Requires Firespitter.dll and AJE. (Get them here and here) Realfuels is recommended, but not essential. Future Plans Normal maps for procedural fuel tank textures -- rivets, seams & greebles. Done! Ditto for procedural wings. Procedural fuselages with the PwingManipulator module. This might not work; I haven't looked into it yet. Not currently possible. Surface mountable cockpits. In progress! Landing gear. Greebles -- exhaust ports, antennas, etc. Jet and rocket engine models. Partially done! Changelog [LIST] [*]v0.14 -- Added black and white colors, added rocket engines (Walter HWK, XLR11, XLR99, Spectre), added WIP p-51 bubble cockpit. Engine Fuel type now automatically configured for RealFuels if it is installed. [*]v0.13 -- Fixed drag issue with inline engines; Added normal maps for procedural parts; Changed folder structure. [*]v0.12 -- added configs to scale engines to stock part sizes [*]v0.11 -- added configs for use without RealFuels [*]v0.1 -- Initial release [/LIST] Models by Genius Evil. Realistic engine configs by Nathankell & Camlost. Uses textures by nli2work (Prop disk) and Snjo (Metal texture). Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

That sounds good. EDIT: Thread is here

Camlost, Nathankell, The piston engine models I've been working on are complete and ready to use. Would you prefer: A. That I start a new thread for the engines? B. To have them integrated into AJE?

Thanks Nathankell! I just finished redoing the cylinder model (the previous model had no cylinder head). Took a while, but it was worth it. Here's a picture of it on the Shvetsov M63 with a Townend ring: I also got a texture for wooden blades done; this image is the Liberty L12: I'm going to redo the cowl models, which will take anywhere from 1-7 days depending on how much trouble I have animating the cowl vents and how much college work I have to do. After that, it will just be a matter of setting up the cfg files for all the engines.

Tellion: If you mean thrust in rocket mode, it should not affect AJE's function, as far as I know. Just be sure to change it in the "B9_Sabre.cfg" file in the AJE folder. If you want to buff atmospheric thrust, you will have to go into "B9_Sabre.cfg" and increase the "acore" value for the engine you want to change. If you're worried about breaking AJE, make a copy of the cfg file. If editing it breaks AJE, just replace it with the copy.

Here's some pictures of some piston engine models (to replace the rescaled Firespitter parts) that I've been working on: The spinner and cowl textures are tweakable with FSTextureSwitcher, and the cowl style can be tweaked via FSMeshSwitcher. Through the magic of extreme cfg welding, the engines are patched together from several different meshes -- blades, spinners, the cowl and the cylinders (one cylinder, copied many times) are all separate meshes. This means I don't have to model every single engine. The entire mod takes up about 3MB so far (thanks to cfg welding), and probably won't go above 5MB.

artwhaley: Yes, the texture type is normal map and the model is set to calculate and split tangents. Oddly, when I used a random normal map from Retrofuture it worked fine (in-game). I've tried making a different map as grayscale and importing it into Unity, but when I wrote the .mu it exported the map as a solid color! It had been shown as a proper normal map in unity, so I'm not sure why that happened. I believe the problem is not in the model or my application of normal maps to it, since the Retrofuture one worked. I have no idea why this map is only working in the unity editor. The map for another part of the model works fine. - - - Updated - - - Okay, just tried a different bump map. It works now! Apparently KSP is more selective about what a normal map is than the Unity editor. Changing value or hue both work in the editor, but KSP only likes changing hues.

Naming the normal map files with _NRM made the cowl normal mapping work, however it did not fix the cylinders. I went back to Blender and unwrapped the cylinder again, thinking I might have changed the mesh after unwrapping it. Unwrapping the cylinder model again did not fix the normal mapping though. When I get back I will try the cylinder mesh with the working normal map to see if that works.

Is there something special you have to do to make a normal map? I just looked at a normal map from the Retro Future pack and used the same colors to indicate edges. I had tried creating from grayscale in unity before, but it did not seem to work. Do I have to use a specific file type? Also, I noticed that the unity screenshot is too lo-res to see the mapping unless you view full resolution.

I've been working on a radial aircraft engine model. I just got it into KSP and found that the bump mapping on the cylinders doesn't show up. This album shows the process I used and the problem: Any idea what the problem is? I'm probably doing something simple wrong -- I haven't used bump maps before.

Just an update on the custom prop project. Tests showed that Firespitter props made from multiple models are possible, so I can definitely do it -- it's just a matter of getting the models done. I've started working on some, but I probably won't have anything complete until after final exams.