magico13

I really should remove all mentions of Build Points and just keep them as an internal thing. They're just a way to quantify the "complexity" or "value" of a craft, so that I can calculate a total amount of time it takes for something to be built, but players only need to know times not that actual value. I kinda like the idea of getting upgrades for building a certain amount of things, I wonder if I could work that into a Preset... I'm glad you're enjoying the mod If you've got other questions or ideas, feel free to let me know!

There already is a message that tells you when you have a new point. It pops up when you pay for a tech node, since that's the only way you earn upgrades without buying them. There's no system that gives you upgrades over time or anything like that.

I'd suggest checking out RealChutes. Most stages only need a few parachutes and it doesn't look too bad. One of my favorite things to do is to put two or four radial chutes inside a rockomax decoupler. Then you don't see them until you decouple.

You don't need a probe core for parachute based recovery and RealChutes or TweakScale does a better job at handling parachutes than I ever could. If you're doing powered recovery then you probably already have a probe core on there or can fit one pretty easily. RealChutes cone chutes are pretty much my favorite part in the game (followed closely by the radial chutes)

This actually wouldn't (shouldn't) be that hard to do at all. Just save the current vessel and its orbital parameters to a file, then load that up as a new vessel in the other save. Should be extremely simple, the hardest part would be providing an interface for it (I like the idea of just adding a button to the tracking station to "export" a vessel and another to "import" one). Handling where the vessel would be in time is already done by KSP: the orbital parameters give the orbit and the current location in the orbit is computed based on the current time (the joys of KSP's patched conics model, it's only a 1.5 body problem and is solved exactly). There might be issues with Kerbals, so they might have to not be transferred over. There would also be issues if somehow you had different part mods (like you export the craft, then remove a mod and reload KSP, then import that craft). Both issues could be solved without too much trouble I think. I can likely do this as a modlet, either tonight or tomorrow depending on how busy I am. Edit: Alright, I went and made a mod for this. It works best without transferring kerbals too but is capable of it. If you try to load a craft with invalid parts it warns you and prevents loading the ship. Hopefully it works as well (or better) than you wanted!

In case you're looking for a solution to that, it's usually caused by alt-tabbing out of the game while it's loading. Two fixes: don't do that, or Mod-F12 into the debug menu and clear the input locks.

It doesn't change in career either. Parts that are in the inventory don't reduce costs, because by recovering them in the first place you've received that money back as if you sold the part. It's something I want to change when I (eventually) split the inventory into a separate mod, so that when you buy parts you hold onto them until you either destroy them or sell them and don't have to pay for their reuse.

StageRecovery comes from KCT's code anyway, so no worries KCT had its own separate recovery code until fairly recently, but it didn't make sense to do upkeep on two pieces of code that were nearly identical (with the exception that KCT's code did substantially fewer things), so I made StageRecovery a requirement for that and moved it out of KCT entirely. Hopefully RealChutes still works with it, since I always run RealChutes in my games (I'm 99% sure it's working fine still). If you find evidence to the contrary then I'd be very interested in seeing that! If you end up doing a rescue mission that's made possible by the multi-pads, let me know. I'd be interested in seeing/reading that

You could look into the Kerbal Joint Reinforcement code. If you look back to a version of the code from before 0.23.5 you'll see what the devs did in 0.23.5 (AFAIK they did the same things that Ferram figured out in order to reduce the wobbliness). Looking at the KJR code anyway might give you some ideas.

If you're talking about in terms of the part inventory, then RealChutes are handled there the same way any Procedural Part is handled (stored as 100x their cost, then pulled out at the same conversion. Procedural parts also don't get as much of a reduction in time because of retooling and all that). If you're talking about parachute based recovery of stages, that was actually removed from KCT and put exclusively into StageRecovery. KCT/StageRecovery have supported RealChutes since PreRelease 4 I think (I think that was around April of 2014). Tweakscale has been supported since KCT 1.0 For StageRecovery it just had support added in 1.6 (a few weeks ago). Regarding RSS: if you're running RP-0 I don't think the Preset has been updated to support multiple launch pads. They will probably up the cost quite a bit for multiple pads once that's updated. I'm glad you're enjoying the new features! Now I'm just waiting for someone to tell me their stories of how they bought 10 pads so they could launch a whole fleet off at once (um, stagger your launches dude ) or how they've started rolling out a rescue mission at the same time as their main mission (and perhaps has needed to use it) much like they did with the later shuttle missions.

I think you'll have to explain this a bit further for me. You want it so the inventory parts don't adjust the build times? There are several ways of achieving that already: The easy way - Set the "Inventory Effect" to 0 in the settings (you might also want to change the Build Effect to 0 as well, when it's non-zero then subsequent builds with the same parts are faster). The "more options" way - Change the EffectivePartFormula to something else (in this case, remove the "[ I]+" part of the formula). To call KCT "configurable" might be an understatement, as pretty much every equation that KCT uses to determine times/costs/values can be defined by the user. Read up on Presets and on the various formulas that can be changed if you're interested in more.

If I understand you correctly, Trajectories already has this ability. Just choose the "complete" option in the Trajectories window and it will show your landing site even for airless bodies. Sometimes the X is hidden by the terrain, so I frequently will use "Body Fixed Mode" as well, which shows what the trajectory would look like from an observer on the surface of the planet/moon, rather than from the vessel. That mode would then show the trajectory line hitting where the X is, even if you can't see the X.

Alright, I'll have to test that out later. There are a few other fixes I need to make to the refill code (specifically for procedural tanks) so maybe I'll try to fix those both at the same time

1. When you recover to storage and then edit the craft to refill tanks, the "Refill Tanks" button on the KCT GUI should refill life support containers as well. If it isn't, that's a bug. It should reset all resources back to their default values (so fuel and food fill fully, but CO2 safely says sayonara). 2. KSP-recover. The parts get added to the inventory. Recovering them as a vessel would usually be pretty useless, since you'd have to scrap them to put them back on a ship (they're typically spent stages), plus the KCT-recover function is very error prone (KSP doesn't like going from a Vessel to a craft file.) 3. I leave sandbox up to the player. I don't like Sandbox being treated as "you must have everything unlocked for you automatically" but prefer it to be "you can do whatever you want". 45 upgrades is less than the fully unlocked tech tree but still pretty high. Depending on your play style you might start with a lower number (like the default 15 for Career/Science) then increase that number when you do something that you consider deserves a reward. Example: if I were to play Sandbox right now I'd probably start with 15, then give myself 1 or 2 for reaching orbit, 5 or so after landing on the Mun, another 5 for Minmus, 10 or 15 for Duna or Eve, etc. Sandbox is about defining your own progression, to me at least, so KCT is designed around that idea (45 is just a nice high-middleground for generally playing around. Also keep in mind that you'll need less upgrades total, since you don't have to put anything into unlocking tech nodes faster). You can reassign points by using the "Reset Points" button, like normal. You might want to change the formula that controls that if it's something you'll be doing often (like if you're just experimenting with different point values). If you have any other questions/comments/suggestions, let me know

I don't expect that will happen. It's definitely going to be a lot of changes for modders to make to update, but I don't think it'll be that bad. We should still be able to use the same GUI code (but will hopefully also have the option to use the newer GUI system). I'll probably have a bit harder of a time with KCT than a lot of other modders will with their mods, since KCT tries to work around the base game so much. I imagine part mods will be mostly OK, but plugins are definitely gonna have a bad time. We'll see when it comes out (or maybe a bit before, once Experimentals starts). Modders who have basically already left likely won't come back, but those of us who are still quite active will definitely move forward. I'll still be here at least I'd actually love to redo everything from scratch if it didn't take so long to do. Around this time last year enneract and I actually did start writing KCT2, which was to be split into 3 separate mods (Some Assembly Required [the construction part], HoloDeck [simulations], and ScrapYard [part inventory]). I actually even passed it off to him as lead developer, since school and work were occupying most of my time. He ended up having the same issue as I did, but it seems to have hit him worse, since he's basically been gone since the summer. I still really want to split it off into 3 like that, but the Presets update sort of knitted them together even more so it'd be hard to do now. I could still split ScrapYard off, but I've half-done that at least twice now. The one from last year had some nice features but would require quite a bit more work before it'd be ready to ship, and I could use that time instead to actually finish BROKE or implement the KCT API (both of which keep getting pushed back themselves. I wanted to have this update out 2 weeks ago so I could use some of my break off work to write the API)

Yes, absolutely! The only reason it failed this time was due to not having enough fuel. You need about 300m/s of (atmospheric) deltaV in the stage to do powered landings. It's all calculated, none of that is left to chance. There's no "bonus" for airbrakes unfortunately until I take the time to figure out how to calculate the coefficient of drag on the vessel.

I decided that I've been sitting on this code for long enough. Most of the bugs are ironed out and now it's just a matter of releasing it to the masses so they can enjoy the new features (and hopefully not find any bugs, but I expect there are more). Version 1.3.0, The Launch Pad Update, is released! Huge thanks to @WuphonsReach for finding bugs and suggesting some enhancements to the Launch Pads feature. Seriously, it was tremendously helpful! The changelog (which I encourage reading, there are some cool new but tiny features) is as follows: v1.3.0.0 (01/06/16) Notable Additions and Changes: - Multiple launchpads added. Build additional pads to launch ships more often. Each pad has its own rollout and reconditioning timers, along with upgrade and damage states. Can be renamed as well. - All time input fields now support using y, d, h, m, and s for years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Can mix and match as needed. - You are now warned when a ship contains invalid parts instead of the game breaking. You have the option to ignore it for now or delete the vessels. If you delete them, you get the funds back. All the offending ships and parts are logged to a file in the save folder. - Improved KSCSwitcher support. Now properly sets the default KSC, each KSC can have its own launchpads, and upgrade points can be shared between them. - Rollout and Launch buttons now colored green if pad is OK, yellow if it is being reconditioned, and red if it is destroyed. - Limited to one rollout or rollback at a time per launchpad. (can't rollout when something is rolling back) - Wheels, Mystery Goo, and the Science Jr. are now reset properly on recover to storage (might need to delete the KCT_ModuleTemplates.cfg file) - Modules to be reset on recover to storage can now have a "parts = part1,part2,part3" line to limit that module to being reset only for those parts - Warp To functionality improved. Now much, much faster to warp down. - Tech Node Research cancellation must now be confirmed. - Delay for moving a vessel to orbit in simulations is now configurable. - Simulations should (hopefully) no longer mess up orbits when they time out and you purchase more time. Preset Updates: - Added several "Crew Variables" to several formulas. Check the Wiki page on Variables for more info. - New formula: NewLaunchPadCostFormula (pretty self-explanatory) - New option: SharedUpgradePool. When True, all KSCS share a single upgrade pool instead of each having their own. Default is False Warnings: - The launchpad changes are potentially save breaking if it doesn't update to the new system correctly. That bug should be fixed, however. - KCT now "upgrades" buildings A LOT. Any mod listening to the OnKSCFacilityUpgrading or OnKSCFacilityUpgraded events will likely be INCOMPATIBLE. Please notify me if you find any such mods and I'll see what I can do. Other: - New artwork thanks to a friend of mine! Speaking of new artwork, check out the new artwork that my friend made for KCT. You're free to use it as well, if you want to make a banner image or something.

The radial probe (the advanced one at least) actually has fairly high level SAS. I'm not sure why it wasn't being picked up properly, but the game was telling StageRecovery that the ship wasn't controlled at all, so it never even searched the ship for SAS capability. The workaround I just added to the dev builds forces a manual check for probes if the game says the ship isn't controlled (if the game says it is, SR just believes it, then looks for SAS capability).

I think I had tried just using what I was using for labels (which at the time just replaced the buttons with labels) instead of making a duplicate of the button style and modifying that. Thanks for the example though, seems pretty easy to do. To be fair, I haven't gotten a chance to actually touch the code since I made that comment. I was going to look at ship manifest when I got home from work, depending on if my plans for tonight allow me any time to get on my computer. Edit: @charfa thank you for your help! I've now got the rollout and launch buttons colored based on the pad status. I think things are pretty much ready to go at this point. If people find any bugs or want any other cosmetic changes I can do a smaller update, but I don't really want to sit on this code any longer. Thank you @WuphonsReach for your tremendous help with testing these. I'll update the Presets and probably push the release tonight, barring I find any noticeable bugs tonight.

Darn, I was hoping the part would have been destroyed, but it's definitely still there. I'll play around with it either tonight or tomorrow, whenever I get the chance. @speedwaystar Alright, would you do me a favor and drop the following .dll into the GameData/StageRecovery folder: link. I tested it on my system with that part and it appeared to be working properly, but I'd like another confirmation before I put out an official update. Let me know if you notice anything else weird with that dev version (like it recovering things it shouldn't be, for instance).

I mean, the list of refurbishing launchpads is at the top of the VAB tab, so you can just check that part, but the point about rollouts not saying which pad is good. I'll add that in now. I can't change the text color on the buttons, at the very least I haven't figured out how. Previous attempts just broke the buttons completely. I'll look into restricting it to not rolling out if there's a rollback in progress. With multiple pads that's not as big of an issue, like you said.

@speedwaystar it looks like that probe core should work based on the config. If you still have the log file (locations toward the bottom of that post) would you mind uploading that as well? The probe definitely has the right module on it so I'm not sure why it wasn't detected, perhaps the log would shine more light on the situation. If I get a chance tonight I'll try that part out myself.

Wow, somehow I mathed very wrong and added an extra 10x starting with pad 4 (when I was listing them earlier). I think I'll leave it at what it's at now, as I can't imagine people really needing a 5th or 6th pad and if they did it's still feasible. I imagine most people will stop at 3 or 4 total (800k or 2.7M). Btw, it might seem a little counter intuitive at first, but there's actually a good reason (once I update the Presets) to keep some pads at less than tier 3. I'm going to adjust reconditioning to be really low or non-existent for tier 1 pads (they're dirt, they don't need much in the way of reconditioning) and reduce it for tier-2 (smaller pad, probably simpler materials or at least easier/faster to replace). With that it'll always be best to use the smallest pad necessary for a particular rocket. So if you're launching an LKO satellite you might use a tier 1 pad and not have to worry about reconditioning times at all. Manned orbital missions and small Mun/Minmus missions might use a tier 2 pad and could be launched fairly often, while big missions would require the tier 3 pad and longer reconditioning times. (btw, in case you or anyone else was wondering, you can downgrade a launch pad by destroying it with ctrl-right click and choosing "demolish", then choosing the "rebuild as level [current-1]" option. That's a [somewhat hidden] stock feature that exists for all buildings, though it does cost funds to do so)

Sorry for the sort-of off topic, but was this just an example you thought of or was it something you actually saw? I'd be interested in seeing that thread, if it was real (great place to get ideas from). sal_vager's idea sounds like a good plan. One master thread per topic where people can discuss and share ideas rather than a bunch of closed threads cluttering up various sections of the forum. Would also make it easier for the devs (KSP devs or modders) to get ideas for if they wanted to implement the suggestion.

@nonnodacciaio if you post a list of mods you're interested in, we can probably help you find the appropriate versions. If those mods do releases on github then you might be able to find the versions you need there as well. Btw, with KerbalStuff you can search by supported mod version as well. Check out the advanced search options on the search page. Unfortunately not much listed for 0.23, but there's a bit more for 0.23.5. I think KerbalStuff had pretty much just started around that time. That's actually when I started modding