[[1.4.1] Kerbal Construction Time 1.4.0.69 (2018-03-24) - Unrapid Planned Assembly]

wow, thanks for responding man. I wound up having to scrap BTSM because of the upgraded building issue. Like I said, that mod starts career modes off with fully upgraded facilities, and even after solving the upgrade/deupgrade problem, the game still kept adding 1.4 million funds everytime I started it up (which I would have to go in and fix everytime). It also looks like it would've made my other parts packs go away. Such a bummer that BTSM doesnt really work with other mods. Anyway, thanks for the tip on Seti and ETT, I'll check them out.

Anyway, I was mostly trying to go for realism and creativity with this mod pack.

SXT (aircraft parts, like propellers and stuff)

B9 Aerospace procedural wings

Procedural fairings

Procedural parts

Tweakscale

Stage recovery

KCT

Magic Smoke robotics parts

Most of this stuff is just to maximize customization in the rockets, and add a little more realism in the form of stage recovery and making things cost time. However, I do have 2 other mods that are more just for fun, BDarmory (weapons), and a new boat parts pack called Maratime pack. I'm liking the maratime pack, it's less customizable than the other boat parts pack that's been around forever, but it's a lot more user friendly.

Additionally, I keep forgetting to add Kerbal Engineer to the list. That mod really ought to be in the stock game.

I kinda wish there was a realism overhaul mod pack that didnt include real solar system. The graphics and scale of real solar system feel a bit too much like Orbiter to me, which, frankly, wasnt a very fun simulator. Part of the fun, i think, in KSP, is the fact that it IS a fictional solar system, so every bit of it feels like never before exploration. Must be what exploring a different planetary system in our universe would feel like.

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also, I noticed that I need to rebuild vehicles everytime I launch one, including recovered stages, and aircraft. It still takes a while, in spite of having the recovered parts in my inventory. Is there some way to get KCT to recognize a reusable stage or aircraft, so that it simulates only the time it takes to refuel it? If not, I'd make that suggestion for a future addition to KCT.

[[1.4.1] Kerbal Construction Time 1.4.0.69 (2018-03-24) - Unrapid Planned Assembly]

well, I was really looking to find a more agreeable and realistic tech tree, but unfortunately RP-0, what I really wanted to use, ONLY works when tied to literally a BUTT TON of other mods, including real solar system. I wasnt too keen on having to install and work out the issues of the sheer number of realism overhaul mods involved, particularly when I'd prefer to stick with the stock kerbol system.

Anyway, BTSM was an alternative I've tried before, and actually quite liked. I figured there'd be a few minor issues. Thus far, this is the only one I've found, and I think I fixed it. Everything else in my new modpack seems to work fine (though I doubt that'll be the case the more I play XD). I know mods like BTSM disagree with other mods, but so long as you know a few things about save file editing, a lot of problems can be avoided.

[[1.4.1] Kerbal Construction Time 1.4.0.69 (2018-03-24) - Unrapid Planned Assembly]

I'd just like to point out that, after making a mod pack, I discovered "better than starting manned" is incompatible with this mod.

I think the reason is because, I completely forgot BTSM starts off career mode with all buildings already upgraded, but does it by upgrading them automatically AFTER starting a career mode game. This interferes with KCT's method of upgrading buildings. The result is that the Administration building (note, first in alphabetical order) rabidly upgrades and deupgrades in a way where the funding is refunded... Which earns the player about 1,000,000 funds per second (lol).

I'm sure there's a way around this by screwing with the save file, probably by just changing the starting levels for all the building to 1, and fixing the funds. But I just thought I'd point it out, in case the KCT or BTSM creators decided to find a workaround and make the mods compatible straight off.

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edit

Yup, after starting a game, go into the persistent save file, edit all the facilities to upgrade level "1", and then reset the funds back to the starting amount. seems to be the only way to make the 2 mods compatible.

I really wish BTSM would make their mod workable with the upgradable buildings.

[Parachute Failure, PLEASE HELP]

thanks

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If you guys want, we could continue discussing optimum ways to reenter. I think a lot of people would find it helpful.

[Parachute Failure, PLEASE HELP]

Wow, that's a lot of replies. I have yet to read them all, but I will. Thank you guys.

I think I figured out on my own how to handle them before people started answering. With that particular rocket, I only had a half second window in which to safely open parachutes, and it took several attempts.

I noticed people were asking about why my rocket's trajectory is so funky. Long story short, I was in career mode (so dont have air brakes), and was just trying to do my first sub orbital flight to get science from space. I strive for a fully reusable space program as is possible, so I also make the attempt to recover as much of a space craft as is possible.

If I remember correctly, this craft was a capsule on top of a single SRB. So, it had no reaction wheels, and no steerable fins. This made aiming for a shallow trajectory very difficult, which is why I was coming in from far higher and steeper than ideal. Most of my SSTOs in the beginning of the program are just big dumb SRB rockets on suborbital launches, so it just sorta goes without much piloting involved.

Anyway, my second iteration, after unlocking more parts, allowed me to put on steerable fins. With 3 capsules, for those pesky tourism missions, fins, and an SRB, I found that even at the steepest reentry angles, the ship was literally able to pull out of a dive (thanks to the new body lift) and climb towards space again. At the apex of 23,000 meters, it was safe to deploy chutes.

Now i've sent a lander to the Mun with a fully reusable launcher (basically a 120 meter tall big dumb liquid rocket), and im still only with bare minimum parts in the tech tree. I think ive got a handle on the new limitations.

Also, I cant figure out how to mark this thread as "answered".

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Pandoras Kitten

This is actually really helpful. I noticed my ship, during launch, wasnt cooling off. It didnt explode, and survived reentry, but It never cooled down. I put them all around the engine bottom (on the twin boar engine, which was overheating). So, what you're saying is, those radiators need to be on the top of the rocket, as far away from the hot engine as possible.

And, what you're saying is, radiators can be used to make space planes more practical? glad to hear it, i was struggling with space planes in 1.0.1

Kryxal

that sounds EXACTLY like the same design I used for my early tourist ship. Mine was actually able to dive in, pull out of the dive, and glide UPWARDS. after pulling out in reentry, it would climb by like, 10km.

Grumman

They are right, the more time you can spend flying sideways in the upper atmosphere, and less time plummeting vertically, the better slowing you'll get. Counter intuitively, this means going faster to make your trajectory longer. I recognized this as the problem as well, but unfortunately couldnt do much with a little controllable SRB.

those few who dared do suborbital flights in real life had an atmosphere almost twice as thick as Kerbins, and fell in low density capsules. They also had stron heat shields. They arent exactly a good example.

Signo

One of the multiple failures was caused by that. I forgot to open the bay with the ground coming up fast. But I was previously aware they cant successfully be opened inside the bay.

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On a side note, I found a pretty cool way of increasing a ship's drag without making it wider.

With large returnable ships, I found there was a problem in which the rocket would touch down, the parachutes cut, it falls over, and explodes. My solution to this was to put all the radial parachutes only on one side. this way, under chute, it falls at an angle, touches the ground, and some of the chutes remain long enough to gently turn it over onto its side.

A side effect of this was a very efficient and stable reentry, despite a harsh speed. The unbalanced weight caused by the parachutes caused the ship to come in at an angle, which greatly increased its drag, and gave it enough body lift for it to remain slowing in the upper atmosphere for a very long time.

It was also difficult to fly without SAS on takeoff, but that's beside the point.

In fact, this solution is not far off from the design of the Apollo space capsule. They were designed to be asymmetrically weighted so that it would reenter at an angle and generate body lift off the heat shield. It had a glide ratio of 1:1 if I remember correctly.

I particularly like this idea, and even though It'll make launches a bit more difficult (at least till I get SAS probes), I think the natural tendency to reenter safely is well worth making my large ships unbalanced.

[Parachute Failure, PLEASE HELP]

Hi. I've been with KSP for a couple years now, and I don't think I've been more stumped since.

First of all, I'd like to say I fully expected the recent aerodynamic/thermodynamic changes to the game. I was a little split on the issue, but now that it's here... Well, it's gotten really difficult to play, but I like that the game is leaning towards realism.

My issue is that the parachutes seem a little... Too far. I'm currently trying to launch a rocket into sub-orbit. In order to keep the rocket from reentering parachute first, I had to re balance the craft, and did so by dumping the unnecessary heat shield and replacing it with an engine and small tank. Now it enters engine first, which is good.

But no matter what I do, it simply doesn't bleed speed fast enough, and no matter what I do to the chutes, they ALWAYS FAIL.

So I enter from an apoapsis of about 100km altitude, at about 45 degrees. I know it's been pretty steep. But even in 1.01 and 1.02, I hadn't had any issues with an entry like that. Now, even with a deployment altitude of 50 meters (bare minimum), and pop them at 500-700 meters, coming in at 250 m/s (note, LESS than the speed of sound), flames going away at about 3,000 meters, no heat bars showing up for chutes, chutes protected in small bays, it always gives me that same stupid message, "Aerodynamic/Thermodynamic Failure", and fails the second I press space bar.

Is this really realistic? I don't think a real parachute would fail only semi deploying at a speed of 250 m/s at ANY altitude, would it?

I'm wondering if it IS realistic, but the fact that Kerbin's atmosphere is a lot thinner between the surface and the edge than Earth's is getting in the way of an accurate portrayal of a reentering object. I'm only just coming out of reentry flame by the time I'm just 1000-3000 meters. It's like there just isn't enough room to slow down before deploying chutes.

Is there any way to get around this? What do the thresholds look like for safe parachute deployment in 1.04?

[InfiniteDice -=Skillful=- Combat Damage & Weapons Mod]

Hey, figured out how to change the turret controls, thanks for the help infinite. Having so much fun

I thought I'd try using it with your boats mod, but am having difficulties. I made a mid size boat (using the tier of parts smaller than the carrier parts). It was a frigate with torpedoes and 2 5 inch guns. But it seems to always want to float for a sec, then sink (just enough to break parts), no matter what I set the vertical offset to. Is it possible the tank guns are too heavy for a boat that size, or am I setting it up wrong?

[InfiniteDice -=Skillful=- Combat Damage & Weapons Mod]

Thanks for the advice dice (and surprisingly quick response). I'll see if I can get it fixed. Despite not being able to turn the turrets, I have already had much fun building and testing vehicles. I can see how this could turn ksp into the first true space combat flight simulator.

I look forward to future weapons. The 88 flak sounds like fun.

I've noticed that a camera mod I've been using works very effectively with the crosshairs in the 30mm (I think its that one that has them, right?). Its very accurate that way.

PS, I have noticed a few minor bugs (I'm surprised there aren't more, being a first release and all. You really have done a good job with this mod). Not huge ones, just minor quirks. I was wondering, if it would help to improve the mod in future releases, if I mentioned them in detail in this forum?

And yes, laptop designers really need to stop oversimplifying hardware.

[InfiniteDice -=Skillful=- Combat Damage & Weapons Mod]

Hi dice, like this mod, but I have a bit of a compatibility issue I was wondering if you could help me out with?

I have a decent windows 8 laptop, but I'd like to give the designer of the keyboard\keypad a piece of my mind. I cant even play most games without a USB mouse. My issue is, the mod requires use of the keypad numbers to control the turrets.

...I have no keypad on my keyboard. I was wondering if there was any way to remap the controls?

If not, I'd like to suggest a way to custom map controls for the turrets in your next update. Perhaps a separate interface in-game like other mods, or even a way to use the vanilla action groups? At the moment, I'm stuck with infernal robotics for personal control.

Also, unrelated suggestions for the future: smaller caliber tank turrets, like 57mm, 76mm, and 105mm, just for a bit of variety. Also, you might want to consider cfg files for Tracks mod, excellent parts to combine with yours to make tanks.

[[PLUGIN+PARTS][0.23] SCANsat terrain mapping]

what's github? do i even need anything from it for it to work?

[The only thing thing that I care to see in .24]

heh, i guess im a little behind on the news then i think im still using a slightly older version of ksp as a matter of fact.

either way, i still think it would be cool if they incorporated partgen into the game itself, and maybe make joints at least a bit more logical. i dont really have huge issues with wobble, mostly just confusion about why the joints work the way they do.

i think a bigger issue with wobble was the way fins and RCS worked in the previous versions of the game, different controls at the bottom and top of the rocket would continually oscillate the whole rocket back and forth. SAS tended to overdo corrections. the fact that they fixed that in 0.23 fixed most of the issue for me.

[The only thing thing that I care to see in .24]

*i forgot to mention the kerbal engineer mod, which also really outa be incorporated into vanilla ksp as well.

[The only thing thing that I care to see in .24]

jeez, so much argument over a simple issue. nobody's offering any real solutions either.

here's an idea that might work as a solution to wobbly tanks and weak joints without making it too easy on the player. instead of simply making the joints stronger, why not make them more realistic?

there's nothing wrong with the physics of the game in context of wobbliness, it simulates the wobbly just fine. what's messed up is how the ENGINEERING is simulated.

at the moment, the joint system seems to be based upon joints that connect at a single small point. this isnt very realistic, you dont weld two parts together in the real world by a single dollop of weld, do you? it wouldnt matter how strong that one dollop of weld is, it'd still be unstable in that the parts would be liable to pivot around that point. even though the parts arent supposed to rotate from that point, they still do a little bit, but a little bit on several parts is enough to generate oscillation. the wobbliness has less to do with joint strength than it does with joint area.

imagine 2 orange tanks snapped together. all the weight of the upper tank is resting on a single point, the snap point. but in real life, all that weight would either rest on the lower tank in a disk, a washer, or a hoop. all of these spread out the weight better and provide support on the outer edges of the parts that keep them from rotating about the center. instead, they have to rotate about the edge to rotate at all, which is harder to do than at the single point, because all around the joint it is solid. the parts push together on the side bending in, and pull apart on the side bending out, so you get this sort of double feedback lever that makes things harder to bend in the first place. this is much less wobbly than a joint of equal strength at a single point. i think the game mechanic finds it difficult to keep parts from bending at the single point joint.

so instead of using these point snaps, why not use disks or washers or hoops instead for snapping parts together? they are more realistic, and provide a larger surface area to spread weights over. parts snapped together would act more realistically, not wobbling about single points, but only about the edges of parts snapped together, like a real rocket.

doing this might be difficult since it might make parts incompatible. so to ensure parts are compatible in the game at all times, i think only the option of disk or point joints be used. you could switch between the two for different purposes.

these would make joints more stable perpendicular to the rockets acceleration, but not make them stronger parallel to it (so engineering skill is still needed).

what i'd like to see to make joints STRONGER is some sort of girder/interstage/payload mount BUILDER (specifically for parts like adaptors, girders, etc, mostly i have the octagonal girder in mind, but of varying shapes, sizes, and strengths), so you could replace very unrealistic struts with you're own custom parts. this builder would calculate the strength of the part based on how you've designed them (so you need engineering skill). this is where struts would come in. you use something like struts to make the girders, or use solid for interstages/adapters (but driving up the strength also drives up the weight). once the part was made, you could save it in-game as a single piece part.

why not even go a step further? i saw one post mention that it's unrealistic to slap tanks of standard size together. this is true, and it drives up part count as well. so why not take a program along the lines of PartGen3.1 and make it part of in-game vanilla KSP? on top of the standard parts, you could design your own in game specified to your exact needs, but at the same time, calculates realistic weights and fuel amounts for your rocket (so you dont go all cheaty with it). it's already an application, why not incorporate it like sub assemblies was (which is bugged, btw, but whatevs).

all these solutions combined would both make KSP engineering more straight forward AND realistic. it would even increase creativity, if partgen were made part of vanilla ksp, people could make not just ships, but basic PARTS, and custom textures.

for people who bicker a lot over a small aspect of the game, all you guys are really saying is "fix it or leave it". it does need to be fixed, but i dont think "make the joints stronger" is in any way HOW it needs to be fixed, nor is it the only alternative to wobbly rockets. i think after 19 pages, there should have been more creative solutions than that.

[[0.25]KSP Interstellar (Magnetic Nozzles, ISRU Revamp) Version 0.13]

Sounds like you have a [KSP]\GameData\GameData\WarpPlugin set up, that is why you are having problems. All you need to do install the mod is unzip it into the base KSP directory, most mods are set up like that, that's why they have an included GameData folder. You should have two folders in GameData then: [KSP]\GameData\WarpPlugin and [KSP]\GameData\HexCans.

thanks bro, ill try it out

[[0.25]KSP Interstellar (Magnetic Nozzles, ISRU Revamp) Version 0.13]

...I really REALLLLYYYY don't want to go through 200 pages of forum just to find out how to install this mod correctly. It looks awesome, but I don't think I installed it correctly. ive tried everything to figure out where install notes might be online, but google suddenly sucks (got like, 3 results for "how to install interstellar mod on ksp" and various derivations of that, only related result was a random page on this thread that didn't actually have anything about installation on it), youtube didn't find anything, and the only place I can think to find install notes is here, amongst these 200 pages. although you guys did well on this mod, its not on ksp spaceport (many modders don't bother uploading or updating their mods to spaceport, which is really annoying, cause then they're harder to find or out of date on spaceport), and there is no readme document in the folder like in most mods. I think at the very least, that should be added.

anyway, my main problem is this: I dumped the entire gamedata folder from the mod into my gamedata folder for the game. that's usually all it takes to get mods to work for me. but in this case, it doesn't. none of the hexcans show up in vehicle assembly. and while all or most of the interstellar parts are there, when I try to launch a ship using engines from it, weird stuff happens. firstly, it launches with engines already running, secondly, exhaust doesn't just point downwards, for some reason, all the engines have a second exhaust texture thing coming out the side of the engine at 90 degrees from down. ?????????? also, when I compare exhaust to pictures I find online, the texture of the exhaust looks wrong. they also spark constantly like all the engines are continuously flaming out. stuff seems to be missing from the options when I click on them. finally, the engines in general seem to be super inefficient, despite what my VAB says.

how do I install this mod? do I have to do something specific to the hexcans and the plugin .dll's?