ss8913

Is the thing about showing actual numbers for CoM/CoL/CoT/etc difficult? is there a hook in the code for that and it simply hasn't been done, or is this something that's actively being hidden from the API? ... or am I the only one that wants this? lol...

I'll wait a few days for comments on it; I'll incorporate any requested changes and then send it to the MFT guys for inclusion.

So i haven't tried my hyperspace-carrier model since the FTL changes went in, @FreeThinker - you may recall my previous issues using FTL + timewarp in this configuration. This is like that, but worse. I'm not using timewarp at all. Just warping towards duna from Kerbin, with a spaceplane docked to a hyperspace carrier craft. steering is erratic, won't hold course, it can't go over 20c even with a 7.5:1 warp to mass ratio (plus two 3.75m antimatter reactors/generators *and* a 5m QSR), parts randomly fall off and explode.. etc. If I fly the hyperspace carrier pod by itself without the docked spaceplane, it works fine. I'll run some more tests, I'm not 100% sure I can reproduce this but it was a fairly narrow case here with not a lot else going on (ie timewarp).

@Nertea - OK. I'd like to let you look at this before I submit it to the MFT author for inclusion in that mod, since it contains MM patches for several other part mods... here it is: @PART[mk4fuselage-1] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 16000 type = Fuselage basemass = volume * 0.000714 } } @PART[mk4fuselage-2] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 8000 type = Fuselage basemass = volume * 0.000714 } } @PART[mk4fuselage-3] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 4000 type = Fuselage basemass = volume * 0.000714 } } @PART[mk4adapter-1] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 3400 type = Fuselage basemass = volume * 0.000714 } } @PART[mk4adapter-2] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 3400 type = Fuselage basemass = volume * 0.000714 } } @PART[mk4servicebay-1] { MODULE { name = ModuleFuelTanks volume = 600 type = Fuselage basemass = volume * 0.000714 } } If you want to try this, put it as a .cfg file inside your GameData/ModularFuelTanks/ folder with the other .cfg files, and good to go. Looks like it even works with the mesh switch.

liquidfuel is actually pretty good in there. However you should know that 4x 1.25m TRJ + 4x 1.25m antimatter reactors is approximately equal to a single 2.5 variant of each.. which is the default size. May be able to lower part counts that way.

powered by which reactors? You can lift a couple thousand tons pretty easily with a 5m tank of hydrazine, a 5m antimatter reactor, a 5m charged particle generator, and a 5m thermal launch nozzle. I use that basic design as a launch vehicle for space stations (one launch, big fairings!) ... Can use a thermal ramjet nozzle as well, add some intakes to the side and even save some fuel What are those landing legs from, though, I must have them... Side note - @FreeThinker - on my last post I edited it as you were replying to the original... I added some other issues I was having with FTL about it responding incorrectly to steering input after warping near the sun which is bizarre yet reproducible pretty reliably.. no idea what could possibly be causing it.. logs are clean.

about 2.4 to 1.

MechJeb's attitude control window shows CoM/CoT/CoL during flight. @FreeThinker - flight in FTL from Kerbin to Duna.. I've been all the way around this planet at low warp, my exit speed is 14400 m/s, and I can only get a variance of a few tenths of a m/s, no matter where I position the craft in the gravity well... does this just require a deeper gravity well than Duna can provide? To add strangeness to strangerness... every time I fly from Kerbin to Duna, regardless of their positions relative to each other or to Kerbol, it's always around a 14400 m/s exit speed. So, I thought, let me try the old way of using the sun's gravity to circularize.. great, so I did that and as soon as I warp away from the sun, the craft is now incapable of holding a heading - more specifically, under FTL, any time any significant control input is given, the thing veers suddenly and violently off course by about 40 degrees or so and I have to drop it out of warp to get it pointed back in the right direction. If I don't it will start tumbling out of control. Doesn't matter if the controls are from MechJeb or from manual input. Flies fine out of FTL and flew fine *in* FTL until I tried to use the sun for gravity braking... very odd.

Already have that installed, and no it doesn't unfortunately. I need to see how much, quantitatively, adding and removing certain parts shifts the center of mass...

I have a suggestion... I haven't found any other mod that does this, and it seems like it'd fit in very well with how KER works.. and maybe it already does this and I can't find it? anyway: please let me see *actual numbers* for distance fore/aft and laterally, of the center of mass/center of lift/center of thrust. Those ball things that stock has are ok, but I want to calculate things and compare between craft, I want to see *actual numbers*. Would this be possible?

It works fine for me as long as you have the 1.3.0 deployable engines plugin installed. Would be super nice to have modular fuel tanks compatibility though. My planes fly on hydrazine and I can't put that in these parts, currently.

oh... ok, that makes sense.. so i'm not necessarily always going right at the planet (or away from it) but i... wait, yes I do, but my exit vector might be perpendicular to the warp-approach vector... ok.

so i want to drop out of warp so that my kerbol-relative vector is pointing directly *towards* my target? or *away* from it?

I... will have to try this again. I tried going to Duna and things were... not easy like this. I dropped out of warp at Duna after warping straight at it until I was only about 150km off the surface, still had thousands of dV to burn.. turned around, warped back to Kerbin, did similar, needed 14k dV to circularize.. is the trick to just go straight at the target, slowly?

@FreeThinker or others who have been following the thread more diligently, is there a tutorial on how the new alcubierre FTL mechanics work? Before, if I jumped from Kerbin to Duna and back to Kerbin again without applying any sublight thrust, I'd have approximately the same relative velocity with respect to Kerbin that I started with... now it's a huge deficit, I'm betting it has something to do with the "gravity drag" being displayed by the warpdrive unit, but I"m not precisely how to turn this to my advantage..?

You can tweakscale it to whatever size.. fits handily inside any mk3 (maybe mk2 with enough scaling down) cargo bay... surface attach to the inside and it has its own decoupler just like the X11 tank. single part, no mess, no fuss, and it rolls nicely

So...ial use" is to find the flat spot at the bottom of a crater. Feel free to include in the next version, or disregard, at your leisure, @FreeThinker - it's literally just a .cfg change on top of the X11 fuel tank. if you take the X11 fuel tank and copy it to a differently named folder, and replace the .cfg with the text below... you get a 5t ball that can withstand 50 m/s of crash tolerance (and does not hold any fuel). This ball rolls. ie, to the bottom of a crater and finds the flat spot there. Kind of a stone-age level-finder, but it works. It's also entertaining to tweakscale these to different sizes and drop a bunch into a crater at once and see the ensuing mayhem, but the "official use" is to find the bottom of a crater... feel free to incorporate into the mod, @FreeThinker , or not, up to you I find it useful for surveying sites on places other than Minmus's "flats" biomes, however. PART { // --- general parameters --- name = LevelFinderSphere module = Part author = Zzz // --- asset parameters --- mesh = model.mu scale = 1 rescaleFactor = 0.953 // --- node definitions --- node_stack_bottom1 = 0.0, -1.22, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 node_stack_bottom2 = 0.0, -1.0, 0.70, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 //node_stack_bottom3 = 0.0, -1.0, -0.70, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 node_attach = 0.0, -1.22, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, 1 node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.2, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 //node_stack_side01 = 0, 0, -1.225, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 //node_stack_side02 = 0, 0, 1.225, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 fx_gasBurst_white = -1.16832, 0.0, -0.0826454, -1.0, 0.0, 0.0, decouple sound_vent_large = decouple // --- editor parameters --- TechRequired = specializedFuelStorage entryCost = 8800 cost = 550 category = FuelTank subcategory = 0 title = Level-Finding Sphere manufacturer = Kerbin Drive Yards description = For finding level ground, roll a giant ball. // attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision attachRules = 0,1,0,0,0 // --- standard part parameters --- mass = 5.0 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.3 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 50 breakingForce = 50 breakingTorque = 50 maxTemp = 1200 fuelCrossFeed = True stagingIcon = DECOUPLER_HOR stageOffset = 1 childStageOffset = 1 bulkheadProfiles = srf DRAG_CUBE { cube = Default, 4.303,0.6923,1.394, 4.303,0.6923,1.374, 4.289,0.6527,1.37, 4.289,0.6542,1.39, 4.305,0.6624,1.263, 4.305,0.6623,1.263, 0,6.771E-15,5.68E-08, 2.339,2.35,2.336 } MODULE { name = TweakScale type = stack defaultScale = 1 scaleFactors = 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64 scaleNames = 50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%, 300%, 400%, 600%, 800%, 1200%, 1600%, 2400%, 3200%, 4800%, 6400% } MODULE { name = ModuleAnchoredDecoupler anchorName = anchor ejectionForce = 0 explosiveNodeID = srf } }

One thing I've never understood about the fusion reactors... why do they require a constant source of power (other than themselves) to stay running? once they're going, shouldn't they be able to power themselves for plasma heating/etc?

@FreeThinker I've developed a very low-tech use for your high-tech parts... one of them anyway. I took the round fuel tank.. modified it to not hold fuel, weigh 5 tons, and have a much higher crash tolerance. Basically a big metal ball. Why would I do such a thing? Well you know how when you're trying to find a level spot to put a base, and you're on the Mun and it's kind of uneven at the bottom of that crater? Why not drop a heavy metal ball and let it roll to the lowest point? Instant level finder! seems to work well with the existing X11 tank until it hits 5.0 m/s and explodes. going to test now with the strengthened solid ball. It's basically just a copy of the X11's part folder plus tweaks to the .cfg file. will paste the .cfg file here once I get it working. Mk4 drop bays are great for this sort of thing.. will post a picture of the cargo plane that deploys it as well. UPDATE: Yes, it works *exactly* as I had hoped. Here's the contents of the cfg... copy the X11 round tank folder to a new folder, change the name of that folder (put the new folder in the same dir as the old one, or build an entirely new tree under GameData, preserving the paths as FreeThinker has them in the existing mod) ... then just replace the .cfg file with this: PART { // --- general parameters --- name = LevelFinderSphere module = Part author = Zzz // --- asset parameters --- mesh = model.mu scale = 1 rescaleFactor = 0.953 // --- node definitions --- node_stack_bottom1 = 0.0, -1.22, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 node_stack_bottom2 = 0.0, -1.0, 0.70, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 //node_stack_bottom3 = 0.0, -1.0, -0.70, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 node_attach = 0.0, -1.22, 0.0, 0.0, -1.0, 0.0, 1 node_stack_top = 0.0, 1.2, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1 //node_stack_side01 = 0, 0, -1.225, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 //node_stack_side02 = 0, 0, 1.225, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0 fx_gasBurst_white = -1.16832, 0.0, -0.0826454, -1.0, 0.0, 0.0, decouple sound_vent_large = decouple // --- editor parameters --- TechRequired = specializedFuelStorage entryCost = 8800 cost = 550 category = FuelTank subcategory = 0 title = Level-Finding Sphere manufacturer = Kerbin Drive Yards description = For finding level ground, roll a giant ball. // attachment rules: stack, srfAttach, allowStack, allowSrfAttach, allowCollision attachRules = 0,1,0,0,0 // --- standard part parameters --- mass = 5.0 dragModelType = default maximum_drag = 0.2 minimum_drag = 0.3 angularDrag = 2 crashTolerance = 50 breakingForce = 50 breakingTorque = 50 maxTemp = 1200 fuelCrossFeed = True stagingIcon = DECOUPLER_HOR stageOffset = 1 childStageOffset = 1 bulkheadProfiles = srf DRAG_CUBE { cube = Default, 4.303,0.6923,1.394, 4.303,0.6923,1.374, 4.289,0.6527,1.37, 4.289,0.6542,1.39, 4.305,0.6624,1.263, 4.305,0.6623,1.263, 0,6.771E-15,5.68E-08, 2.339,2.35,2.336 } MODULE { name = TweakScale type = stack defaultScale = 1 scaleFactors = 0.5, 0.75, 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 24, 32, 48, 64 scaleNames = 50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%, 300%, 400%, 600%, 800%, 1200%, 1600%, 2400%, 3200%, 4800%, 6400% } MODULE { name = ModuleAnchoredDecoupler anchorName = anchor ejectionForce = 0 explosiveNodeID = srf } }

And a working heading hold is also needed... that worked in 1.1.x....

@FreeThinker - on the latest 1.3.0-compatible build, I'm still having electrical issues... only in a certain case though, if I dock a ship to something, and then undock it, none of my generators produce any electricCharge. If I F5/F9 it fixes it.

I learned.. or relearned.. something. If you place a single survey stake and build something on it such that the built object intersects the stake... well... don't. If you delete that stake from the tracking station later and switch back to your base, you might find it, say, 3000m above the surface, in free fall. Or you might not have deleted the stake.. in which case you might find the stake buried 10000m below the surface. Which is ok since that doesn't teleport your base thousands of meters above the surface and cause it to violently impact the ground.

it might just be the time it takes you to get there. sometimes an F5/F9 will fix frame rate issues.

@FreeThinker thanks again for fixing the throttling rates on the thermal engines... can use atmospheric thermal turbojets very effectively for VTOL with TCA now Have a 3400t SSTO VTOL craft that can colonize a moon or planet in one mission now ... and land safely back at KSC...

Looks like since the 1.2.2 version (1.14.14) and the 1.3 version have the same version number, CKAN is only publishing the 1.2.2-compatible one.. AVC complains "built for 1.2.2" and it crashes on load since it's compiled against 1.2.2... not sure how to fix except to either split into 2 separately named mods(?) or change the versioning. Will install manually for now since KSP won't load at all with the non-1.3-compiled mod.