Galane

Downloading right now.

One of the best Kerbal Mecha is Jebsy Danger.

Breaks MechJeb landings... How about a toggle to disable it when doing landings in atmosphere with MechJeb? It's the fuel savings during liftoffs that I like about this mod. The stock high drag aero is your friend when landing, especially with minimal fuel onboard to reduce landing weight.

Nifty. Can you also give it a speed ramp down? The powered docking washers could use the same treatment. What would really be slick is a single piece hub with two stacked, counter-rotating sections for building concentric rotor helicopters. I made a test one using powered washers and small fuel tanks and an edited cfg for one of the stock rectangular wing panels for the rotor blades. Functional but the rotors are either full on or off, instant top RPM and instant stop. Makes it very hard to fly. A speed slider would be exceptionally useful, move it and it stays there without having to hold down a key or dedicate an action group to hold it on. co-axial rotor test by g_alan_e, on Flickr

That wouldn't be so bad if there's a Kerbal breeding mod to make more of them.

How about a zip or rar?

If Kethane is going to die, I have some Rovers and landers and refinery/tankers in various orbits that will need replacing, fuel transferred and/or creatively done away with.

Powered rotary IR parts would be even more useful with a "no brakes" tweak so they would coast slowly to a stop or be free spinning when the action key is let up. Another useful addition would be a way to map keys to change the speed of the currently powered servo(s), without altering the setting for any not currently being moved. Rotatrons and powered docking washers would become practical for more things, especially rotary wing craft.

How do I get the free spinning rotors on this thing to spin fast like they need to? I tried it first with a single rotor but unless it can be made to freewheel fast enough it can't fly straight. I haven't tried a coaxial free spinner yet. Turns out that craft can fly without the rotors, at full throttle. (Thus proving Anime Aerodynamics. Anything can fly with enough thrust.)

Added the scale = line and changed the dragCoeff = Changed the name too. Directional control, especially yaw, seemed to be quite good. Have to pitch forward to fly forward. Use chase cam or go IVA for easier controlling. To fly this, keep upping the number in the speed in the IR window until it takes off when holding the button down. I didn't assign keys. Would be nice if there was an auto run and throttle mod for IR. Would be easier to fly. Another issue is when you let off the button or key the IR rotary parts quit moving instantly. If there was a ramp up/down setting it might be possible to land this without crashing. The tailfins cause pitch down and forward moving when the rotors are stopped. There are three powered docking washers. One upright on the bottom and two in the middle with fixed bases together, topmost one has invert axis on. Swap them for free spinning, unpowered washers for use with tip jets or for attempts at autogyro rotors. Still not much luck there. I'm thinking with stock aero it's not possible to get a rotor to spin fast simply by dragging it through the air. On my side by side twin rotor gyro I took the rotors off, leaving the stub wings built of a single line of 1x1 panels and four type 5 elevons and it'd still fly, though needing full throttle instead of half. What might be neat is using tweakscale to shrink some IR parts to create a rotor with collective pitch. Hmmmm, now I'm thinking that at a much larger scale it might be possible to use IR pistons to control a swash plate and use landing gear wheels to follow it and control the blade pitch, using free docking washers at the blade roots for pivots. Definitely a job for a joystick or gamepad mapped to several keys to control such a monster.

This craft needs Infernal Robotics. http://pastebin.com/Evv4k1u4 It also needs this edited CFG dropped into the SPP\Wings folder. There was a complete lack of pieces usable for making rotor blades in the stock parts. PART { name = rotorBlade module = Winglet author = Porkjet, Galane MODEL { model = Squad/SPP/Wings/connector5 scale = 2, .5, .5 } rescaleFactor = 1 node_attach = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1 TechRequired = highAltitudeFlight entryCost = 2400 cost = 100 category = Aero subcategory = 0 title = Rotor Blade Type 1 manufacturer = C7 Aerospace Division description = Found in a trash bin next to a wing factory. attachRules = 0,1,0,1,1 mass = 0.02 dragModelType = override maximum_drag = 0.02 minimum_drag = 0.02 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 15 maxTemp = 3400 explosionPotential = 0.1 fuelCrossFeed = True dragCoeff = 0.02 deflectionLiftCoeff = 0.5 } co-axial rotor test by g_alan_e, on Flickr co-axial rotor crash by g_alan_e, on Flickr

I tried (in .90) the firespitter.dll from github dated 3 days ago. Can't customize any of the parts that are supposed to have right click menus. Also cannot revert to SPH after launching. I changed dll back to 7.0.5398.27328 and can revert but still no customizing rightclick menus and I can't activate the engines I tried testing. Conflict with TweakScale? That shows in the rightclick on some of the FS parts I tried. I've had just the firespitter.dll for another mod that uses it, decided tonight to try the full FS kit to see if I could use it to have a proper auto-rotating gyrocopter rotor that spins fast enough to make a single rotor gyro stable. Look! Logs! http://partsbyemc.com/pub/firespitter-logs.zip Made with love and care using the latest firespitter.dll The smaller one is a copy of the log from startup to entering SPH. The larger one continues through an attempt at a launch of a craft with a pair of the VTOL Firespitter engines. No staging available, I could reduce but not increase throttle, something was causing MechJeb to show one of its yellow arrows projecting up out of the runway and even the stock small gear bay brakes were messed with. The plane kept rolling for a ways after I engaged the brakes. Oh, and there's a cockpit interior immovably embedded in the middle of the SPH floor. screenshot25 by g_alan_e, on Flickr So, um, yeahhh. I'll be removing Firespitter and going back to that older version of the DLL for the other mod that uses it. Pretty sure it's Infernal Robotics.

How to make coaxial spinning things using the free spinning docking washers. You need three washers. Place one with the fixed base down, on top of the craft. Place the bottom rotor parts on top of the washer. Place a washer, fixed base UP, on top of the bottom rotor. Place the third washer, fixed base down, on the second washer, then build the top rotor. However, it's easier to build from the top down because the nodes on the washers don't want to snap together when placing then on top of other parts, but do snap on the bottom. I gave this a test with a simple unmanned drone with two four bladed rotors build with wing connectors and the little orange radial engines at their tips. What would be useful to reduce the numbers of joints and parts in such a build is a double sided free spinning docking washer with a fixed center and two rotating parts. Here's my attempt at a dual rotor (not coaxial) gyrocopter. It flies pretty decently, pops up off the runway real smooth in a short distance at half throttle with SAS on. MechJeb's spaceplane guidance handles it well enough. The problem is landing. I've managed just once to land it without complete destruction (still tore off 1.5 rotors) and killing Jeb, and that was missing the runway. All other times throughout development to the posted craft it crashed on the runway. Even when it comes down level it immediately flips to one side. Tonight I tried extending the rear landing gear to the sides with 1x1 panels on the small hardpoints then angling them down to bring the gear down to the same level as the nosewheel. Same flipping problem, even with changing the flaps on the rotor support bar to two type 5 on each side. That pretty much stopped roll instability in flight. Still pitches up and down a little. I may try a quad landing gear, extended even farther to the sides. Just for the heck of it I may try sticking an Oscar B and one of that size engines on the radial attachment point then trigger it at touchdown to try and 'nail' the craft to the deck to keep it from flipping. The really bugging thing is how slow the rotors spin. Real world gyroplanes have the unpowered rotors spinning real fast via the air movement through them. Would be nice if they'd spin fast and work for landing with auto-rotation. They can be forced to spin fast by putting engines at their tips, but then it's no longer an autogyro. Once the power it stopped the rotors slow to a crawl, no inertia. If they'd spin fast enough a single rotor design would work, but at the slow speed it gets retreating blade stall and rolls the craft over.

Tonight I made a dual rotor, jet driven gyrocopter. Got it to be pretty stable and it pops off the runway very quickly at half throttle. http://pastebin.com/Gw4dwm5t Landing it, uh, yeah. Might be able to do it manually. I got Spaceplane Guidance to crash it once without killing Jeb. Knocked one rotor completely off and two blades off the other. The pastebinned one is the last revision of a large number of revisions. Might be a bit bendy without KJR. All stock parts except for the IR free spinning docking washers. First I tried a single rotor but for some reason the movement through the air only spins the rotors at a slow speed. With a single rotor it gets retreating blade stall at the slow RPM. It holds altitude and heading with SAS or MechJeb's spaceplane guidance. Doesn't handle too bad with manual piloting. Proof of concept but without having rotor blades that will windmill a lot faster it's not too practical. Until this last revision they all had poor roll stability. This one has the rotors tilted inward a little, and with the four ailerons it's much less rocky in the roll axis. Still wants to dive, smack the runway, bounce, flip on its side and explode when landing. Probably should put a parachute on the radial attachment part but nobody at Alan Aerospace Recycling and Packaging knows how to sew. screenshot24 by g_alan_e, on Flickr screenshot23 by g_alan_e, on Flickr

Doesn't matter how it's made, I'd just like to see one fly in KSP.

If you want to try something really Kerbal, there's Kaman's ejection seat that would convert into a jet powered gyroplane, the Stowable Aircrew Vehicle Escape Rotorseat or SAVER. Concept drawing. Photos I can find all show it mounted to a test frame with wheels and other things attached. The side rails and plates of the seat flip back to form tail booms and rudders. The small jet folds back for thrust and the rotor blades telescope out, most likely the rotor mount flips up from behind the seat. I assume that altitude control was mainly via throttle. Being a gyrocopter, landing would be simple. Cut the throttle and let it autorotate down. No danger of the rotor stopping because it's airflow through it that makes it spin.

Invented by Anton Flettner and commercialized by Kaman, a synchropter hast two, two bladed rotors side by side with their hubs close together. The shafts are angled outward and geared together so the blades cannot hit each other. Pretty much exactly like an upside down, flying eggbeater, but with the beater blades bent out straight. Kaman has built various helicopters with this design since 1947.

They moved and/or renamed a lot of parts folders and renamed many of the .cfg files. .90 is the third release in a row I've had to edit almost all of the ReStock files for, and not just for path and file names, they fiddled with node placement on a few stock parts so to make the ReStock parts referencing them work right I had to edit for that.

The staging looks proper for Ascent Guidance, no stages with engines without a decoupler icon. There are some ways of arranging staging that work just fine with manual staging control but which do not work with Ascent Guidance's auto staging. Post the craft file to pastebin.com so other people can examine it for assembly issues.

Up on the pad is known. Once in flight, monitor the amount of deviation of the velocity vector from the initial static up direction, if it varies. Sample it every second or so and 'forecast' the wobble to calculate how much and which direction control input will be required in the next instant to counteract the wobble. If the last input made the wobble worse than the previous deviation, alter the calculation and control input. Could also have an "I give up!" bailout function that after a certain number of adjustments that don't dampen wobble or make it worse, revert to the old method. Some fighter planes are made deliberately unstable and use computer control systems that constantly correct without over correcting, but their dedicated control system makes hundreds to thousands of corrections per second to make the plane seem to be flying on rails. I assume they use a system that is at least in part similar to what I described. The pilots don't direct the airplane which way to go, it's more like they tell the computer which way to allow the plane to be unstable toward. That's how they get such extreme maneuverability - the plane wants to go any direction except straight ahead. Biasing the constant corrections toward letting the instability turn the plane *that* way enables it to turn *that* way much quicker than a control surface can force an inherently stable plane to turn.

We don't know what will be done to the stock aero, but it's likely that there will be room for FAR and other mods to improve upon it. My speculation is that it will make most, if not all, previous aircraft designs obsolete. If there's a way to make MechJeb read and adjust to any alterations any aero mod makes, without needing to have specific support for each mod, that would be very nice.

Yes, Kethane deposits can be depleted. I did that last night testing a lander on Moho. Didn't fill up a pair of 16K unit tanks twice. Kethane goes on a per-deposit amount, you can drain all contiguous hexes in a deposit from one hex.

There is an issue with docking port pairs assembled in the VAB or SPH, then bridged with Quantum Struts or Strut Guns. They tend to not automatically let go on a Decouple Node but they do on an Undock. Sometimes they may not let go when bridging decouplers, but that rarely happens. What you end up with is dropped parts still connected to your ship by really long stretched out struts. The mod needs updated to make sure the struts disconnect when there's a Decouple Node event between the part(s) the strut emitters are attached to and the part(s) the struts touch. Also, don't mount the emitters on or allow the struts to touch "massless" parts and some other small parts. I recently tried an old rocket from .21 (built before KJR) which had Quantum Struts mounted onto small hardpoints, then aimed up and inward to brace an upper stage. Welll, that no longer works in .90. The Hardpoints' connection to the tanks they were attached to broke (or somehow became very stretchy) and they were wobbling around on the pad, but not changing their orientation. I launched anyway to see what would happen. The hardpoints got to whipping around ever more violently, yet maintaining orientation with the rocket, until the four of those very lightweight parts threw the rocket into a spin. Sooo, don't mount Quantum struts to Small Hardpoints, or the little cubical or octagonal "strut" girder blocks, or the TR-38-D (unless you fix it by deleting the erroneous physics significance line in that part's cfg file). Don't cross the streams allow the strut beams to touch those parts. What happens if the strut beams touch (or are mounted on) those parts is not good. At best the ship will be unable to rotate in any direction. At worst, you have a rapid dis-assembly, explosions and parts on escape trajectories.

KJR doesn't do anything for strengthening IR part connections, but your reaction wheel and docking port shouldn't be pulling apart like that. You could try using some strut guns from the Quantum Struts Continued mod to support the payload. Put the strut guns on an action group to make turning them off easy.

It doesn't adjust the capacity of KAS storage bins with their scale.