helldiver

The aircraft flies perfectly once you get down to atmospheric effect. Before that it falls through the atmosphere like a tumbling rock. That's just temporary as right now my alpha copy doesn't have functional RCS. Hence once I'm done in space I just tumble down, not like I can do much in space without RCS. Again keep in mind I just have an Alpha copy of the project and physics, weights, instruments are missing. They are a lot further ahead on ZRM's version of the project. You'd have to do a descent procedure that gets you close enough to the area you wish to land. You need a runway or very flat land, I've ended up out near the foothills a few times without enough altitude to glide down to KSC, ended up tearing the whole thing apart minus the cockpit. Once you get down to few Km above ground, the control surfaces kick in and the KSO becomes very easy to handle. You just need enough altitude to coast and glide down to KSC. The KSO is very light and very balanced currently, so much so that if you're not careful it'll balloon up easily. So it's just a matter of placing the FPM at about the halfway point to 3/4 down the runway. At least in the current build, and even at release, your biggest concern is getting it and keeping it centered on the runway horizontally (roll). Vertically (pitch) you'll be fine, but that is subject to change since I'd like a little more weight on the nose, or an adjustable elevator trim tab. I don't want ZRM to change the handling or the runway/flat surface requirement, it's just too perfect I mean it's just perfect man it flies like a Cessna.

Not sure what you mean. Does the nose stay pointed up? What do you mean? Go a couple pages back to the imagur album I posted you can see the whole sequence from launch to landing. If you attempt to somehow land it engines down as if it was a command capsule/moon lander, it'll explode. It's not designed for that.

Actually nothing in the cockpit works I just realized. -Throttles aren't moving like they did in your pics. -None of the instruments work, including analog instruments. -I'm not seeing any of your plugin overlays I've never had installation issues before. Touhou and Firespitter mods went in just fine. Going to double check your message to make sure I installed the KSO itself correctly. I'm working on a clean installation of KSP without any mods besides TT and Firespitter mods. And I'm on Windows. I wasn't able to scroll the log. I double checked that Mono.CompilerServices DLL was in KSP/KSP_Data/Managed. Physics Time is set to 1.00 so all the way to the left. The jittery issues seem to have disappeared as well as the flimsiness.

I did this all last night once I got home, so I know I may have fudged the installation. I'll check today and see what I did wrong. What is this physics delta T? How do I set that? Firespitters Plugin; I only installed the Plugin directory of his plugin, (firespitter.dll). I did not install the parts and components that come with it. It that alright? Is that causing an issue? I've always had and used TT's plugin. It just takes some fidgeting to get the vectoring to work. When I move the control surfaces it also gimbals the engines, is that ok? Actually the Navball on the panel doesn't work either. So I'm going to assume a bad installation. I did have the lightswitch on, but not until I got back on the ground. Hehe. How do I turn on the Log?

Please mouse over for descriptions. -MFDs are borked currently as ZRM is working on them. In the shots above please ignore the MFDs. The HUD you see is also the old place holder. Currently the version I have was rather buggy, or perhaps I forgot to install something. Other than that, it was a dream on several counts. -VAB was a charm. The KSO snapped together really easily. Not too many issues, however you have to rotate the vertical stabilizers 90 degrees in order to get them to snap properly into a V-tail configuration. A Ship file of a fully constructed KSO will be included so you don't have to worry about that of that. -The KSO itself flew perfectly. This thing wants to fly and with very little skill I was able to glide it four times into a perfect landing. -HUD VIEW IS JUST ALL SORTS OF AWESOME! My first landing was doing it the old fashion way, external camera. The 2nd and 3rd landings were all done with the HUD view seen above. The 2nd landing I switched to external right after ground effect. The 3rd one was done all from IVA! The Bad -The KSO is currently very buggy. Most of the connections are very flimsy, obviously we still have more work to do. -The vectored engines aren't properly vectoring at first. It required that I fidget with them before they finally started responding. -RCS Nozzles like the Cargo Bay doors should start retracted. The RCS nozzles required I do an action group to get them to pop inside. Not a big deal, but would be cool if they default to retracted. Just one less thing to worry about before launch. -I love the landing gear. Players will have to get used to the idea that these landing gear mean business and will blow up your ship if you deploy them while the EFT is still attached. Conversely, the G key didn't work to deploy them. I had to use the mouse to click on the Gear icon to get them to deploy. Not a big deal. -The KSO has issues sometimes sitting on its nose. It's so perfectly balanced that it can easily tip onto its tail. You have to be careful when coming to a full stop making sure to turn off all RCS/SAS and using the breaks. Always land towards the ocean and on the runway. So far doing this has prevent it from tipping over onto its tail. -The KSO itself is very fidgety when on the ground. I noticed the entire vehicle being jittery all the pieces shaking. Looked really strange and I suspect it may be collision issues? It isn't that noticeable along the cockpit and cargo bay. But it is very noticeable along the engine bays, the engines, the landing gear, and the control surfaces. -During launch I had difficulty controlling the vehicle as well as getting into the proper angle for a gravity burn. Once the two LRBs got done the vehicle went into a spin. No RCS effects, so I'm wondering if that is a bug or we forgot. -Actually, the only time I was able to control the vehicle correct was during the descent flight. During launch the controls are a bit erratic. Enjoy the shots guys, and please keep in mind it is all still a work in progress.

No, the OMS engines should use the default KSP fuel for the launch engines (LOX, LH2). The RCS should use Mono. Otherwise everything else sounds fantastic. PM any other details.

Soon as I get in-game materials I'll put together some shots.

The portion behind the cockpit doesn't exist anymore. It was all welded together as part of the cockpit.

Alright guys. I'm currently waiting for ZRM to send me a copy of the project (the one players would get) so I can start verifying it all and making any final fixes. ZRM maybe a bit tied up with real life and other things so it's just a matter of him wrapping that up and sending it to me. So I'm currently sitting here just like all of you guys Once he's done, and I'm done checking it all, we'll do some final testing and fixing and we'll wrap it up and finalize it. ZRM has other commitments coming up, so we're trying to get this done before those come up so that folks can start playing with it while I work on additional art and assets for Phase II. That's the short of it, a waiting game for all of us. But we'll get there soon!

On my end, the resources compressed down to about 28-30mb if I recall correctly. Not sure the total number after all plugins and such but it should be around that ball park. Now I'm assuming in terms of the download size? Uncompressed you're looking at about 120-130mb. It could be smaller than that, but I'm not releasing any further details regarding texture format compression at the moment.

Before I can do laboratory space station modules (or modules you can park on a moon or planetoid) I need to know what Squad has in mind. Putting together the 3D models for that sort of stuff takes maybe a few hours at best. It's all in the programming really. Really wanted squad to animate the Kerbals inside the IVA of the lab modules. That way you could see the Kerbals doing their little experiments inside the thing. Alternatively, I could make my own Kerbals and animate them. Then, through plugin control, ZRM can flag them so that if there are no kerbals in that module, none are displayed. The more kerbals there are inside the more of them are made visible. Since all Kerbals look the same, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Only we would know. I build the interior of the module. Fully textured and all. I build four kerbals inside, fully animated and textured and all. Each one is flagged so that ZRM can make them visible or not. if ZRM has problems with animation calling (loading two animations sets on a kerbal and calling either by their key frame start and end time), I can instead make 8 kerbals inside. ZRM would just flag which ones he wants visible. The first set of 4 is flagged Idle. They just do their idle animation. The next set of 4 is flagged doing work. ZRM just makes the idle kerbal invisible, the working kerbal visible. The player can load up to 4 kerbals into the module. Each time another kerbal is moved into it, ZRM flags another to be visible. What's all that for? So you set your module up in space somewhere or on moon or on a station. You click on it and select "Commence Research". When you hit IVA on it, you can see your Kerbals working inside I would LOVE to do this. Once I get the shuttle and all, I'll start working on all that.

I was thinking modules like that as well. Fuel extension with additional mono and such. Wouldn't mind something like space lab.

What do you mean? We're more or less on schedule. We had a few delays having to do with the MFD process since it involved some art that eventually ZRM did procedurally to make the instruments much more accurate. Hence we lost a couple weeks there. Aside from that we should be on schedule. Basically what happened was that I was doing the GUI artwork for the MFDs. Unfortunately it wasn't accurate enough and we were having communication difficulties between what ZRM wanted, what I wanted, what worked, what didn't and so on. Unfortunately we ended up losing more time than the time we gained by me doing that. In the end ZRM wrote a series of scripts and plugins to create the stuff differently. The board going down didn't help any. We're not making any changes or additions. So any suggestions being mentioned above are pretty much being ignored. We already have a launch vehicle, flight model, and data. Just have to do final testing and what not. So please do not make suggestions as to using this or that, as that has all been pretty much set in stone or is about to. Suggestions that I want to see: -What vehicles would you like to see in the shuttle? -Space Station components? Keep in mind KSP themed. NOT ISS, or MIR and not any realistic thing currently up in space. -Rovers, what do you want to see on a rover? My plan is for a moon lander with a rover roll-on-roll-off capability. Basically drive the rover up a ramp and into the segment that holds it. -Satellites? Again keep it KSP themed.

We'll have some soon.

The funny part is that ever since the introduction of Reduced Vertical Separation Minima (RVSM) in the US, Europe and former CIS countries, Russia, China and other countries that historically relied on meters are slowly switching to feet for altitude. Other units in an aircraft are typically metric for convenience purposes (liters instead of gal and so on). Doing some research at Airliners.net it seems that the system you see in the screenshots above is the most widely used (airbus and boeing use the same). However there is variance in different countries. The Airbus glass cockpits can be switched between metric and imperial. Other instruments are metric or imperial and it all depends on the country, airline, aircraft, and so on. FYI, the real Space Shuttle uses KIAS and Feet for it's landing systems (not sure about the other instruments).

HDG Mode (the one you are probably seeing) is in Feet, and Knots Indicated Airspeed. Like an aircraft has. I specifically want it that way. NAV Mode (I believe) will be in Meters for altitude and M/s for speed like KSP has by default. If you are used to Meters and Meters per Second, simply switch to NAV Mode and you'll be fine. List of Mods Once we get ready for release we'll have a list of any mods necessary regards!

That sounds fantastic!

The MFD can be removed easily Let me know and I will send you the components. Again, this is awesome.

Damn, this is amazing ZRM Outstanding!

-All of the artwork is done -Everything is in KSP with a baseline flight data -MFD artwork is partially complete and implemented. MFDs are done in a completely different method than I am used to. Basically the Phase I is about 80% complete. Just the MFDs are holding us up. If push comes to shove, we'll complete the HDG and NAV modes. Test and set number right, release Phase I, and work on ENG modes and the other modes later.

We'll make a post on the released mods thread, mod showcase. Right now we're still working on the MFDs Soon as I get an update from ZRM, I'll make another update

Working on the MFD's currently. It's been back and forth since its on something I'm not quite clear. I think we're getting there. Once we get the first one done, then I think the others should go smoothly since the NAV mode is pretty much similar to the HDG mode. I want to get the MFD's (the boring part) out of the way before I move on with more pieces. Hopefully once that is all done we can get this project finished up.

We have zero idea at this point. We are still brick and mortar. Meaning, we're still putting pieces together and glueing them... ZRM used stock numbers and values as well as some sample values just to test that everything worked. That doesn't mean that things are playable, and it definitely doesn't mean it's usable by the average KSP gamer. I don't even have the KSO in my installation of KSP. That shows you how much we still have to go. Once it gets back to me, I'm going to be testing it thoroughly while ZRM finishes up its flight model, flight numbers, engine numbers, etc. Once that is all done and good, and he's happy with it, and I'm happy with it, we move on to Phase 1 release. I'm sure by then ZRM or myself will have an idea of such parameters and can be more honest on those numbers. There was some scaling involved between me and ZRM's pipeline. So numbers I give you, may be off by a few inches/centimeters. But the Cargo bay was designed to be 1.8 (6ft) meters wide Regarding why the Cockpit ended up being slightly off, and why I suspect other Cockpits made by the community have that issue: -Squad has not provided a T-posed Kerbal model. If Squad wishes to have mods (or even work with 3rd parties to provide DLC type work) it is imperative that they provide a t-posed Kerbal. -The problem with the Kerbals, unlike a standard character, is their limb sizes. I'm a character artist by trade, but I'm used to standard limb length. When I went to the Kerbal wiki and got the Kerbal size and did the math, I didn't expect their limbs to be so disproportionate. I mean they literally have no pelvis, and the thigh bones are very short. -That meant that their size is taken up by 1/3 of their head. -Now that's cool and all, but it means that if you build any asset for such a character, you really should have a t-pose of the character (I can do the vertex weighting with the skin modifier to apply a biped). -I can reverse engineer a Kerbal, there are several ways to do it, the simplest way is for me to provide ZRM with a measuring cage which he sets an in-game Kerbal against. He then takes screenshots in 4 views (top, left, front, perspective) and I rebuild the kerbal in Max. -The other more elaborate method (and slightly controversial) is to use a 3D Video Card memory hook. Essentially capturing any 3D data being sent to the video card. In the end I decided not to bog down the project by modeling a kerbal which could have taken two or more days. So, because of the disproportionate limb ratios, you end up with the panel being too tall, central column too high, headrests on seats not at the right location, seats not wide enough, and so on. Hence the issue. Keep in mind I do not have the KSO project in my installation of KSP. Even if I did I wouldn't know how to update changes I make. So a lot of it is like me making changes through a rear view mirror, while ZRM sends back directions through a small grey fuzzy 240p camera view...

The view isn't to the Kerbal's eyes if I recall. ZRM explained it in an earlier post. He also edited the FOV of the camera to compensate for the narrow perspective. He explained it a few posts above. Otherwise we have a solution where you double click the F/D button and get a central off-center control panel+windshield view. Unless it is a flight simulator, it is -impossible- to provide a proper cockpit view, without having perspective and FOV issues. Unless you make a fully open cockpit (I forget the name of a mod) any cockpit of this sort you make will have FOV problems if you leave the default eye-level view. FSX, XPlane and other simulators use a virtual perspective, or otherwise have 2D overlay panels on top of the 3D world view to get around this issue.

ZRM that looks so sexy. Sorry for the Analog Gauges confusion. I got confused with what you meant regarding linear marks, numbers, and such on the bezels of those gauges. So scratch that. That Nav Ball looks fantastic. Did you clear up the issues you were having with it?