ss8913

maybe I didn't? I grabbed the "KSP_Update" branch which last had a commit a few days ago.. that one seemed correct, is it not?

so I finally got a pre-alpha dev build of FAR out of github and decided to try it, so i'm back in KSP... of course I'm still using KSPIE, but a major difference i noticed between the last 1.1.3 version of KSPIE and now... the thermal ramjet and thermal turbojet now have about the same ISP. The turbojet still has more thrust at low speed as expected, but the ramjet nozzle now makes about 2x as much starting from 0kph, and scales up much faster. A 300-500t spaceplane that i used to need full throttle or close to it to get to orbit due to the less thrust from the ramjet nozzle in general, now tears itself apart if I use more than 33%. Also, in closed cycle mode, the ISP on the thermal ramjet is about the same as the turbojet; the whole reason to put up with the ramjet's reduced thrust was for the ISP.. now they're pretty much identical and I don't see an advantage to the ramjet engine...? Are these changes intentional or bugs?

Just got a dev build of FAR installed, so had a chance to actually fly something... Kramax seems to be working correctly, although... it seems overcorrecting for certain things.. but that could be something going on with FAR, since that only happens with certain designs. As far as Kramax itself.. heading hold is definitely broken and I cannot find anything else useful in the logs either >< Following a flight plan still seems to work, as does altitude and pitch and bank and glideslope. it's like it's literally only the NAV function that's broken.

So I've installed the test build... It does seem to be functional, my planes no longer crash immediately on takeoff as they did with stock aero, so that's a marked improvement Few things I've noticed, and I'll file these as bugs/issues in github as soon as someone confirms that this isn't expected behavior: 1. SPH - transonic design, all lines are pink. guides used to be black, curves used to be yellow, blue, green.. and lines do not show through parts like they used to. 2. In-flight - seems like stall speeds are generally higher, but I also notice that stock Mk3 fuselage, cockpit, etc parts are not producing any lift as per the aero overlay (F12) Are these functioning as intended or should I file bugs? update: after a few flights I noticed that in the FAR window the mach numbers are stuck at 0.00... indicating that, perhaps, FAR had stopped working; KSP.log has no direct evidence of this (is the log in the KSP_x64_data/ folder preferable to the one at the top level?) update2: yes, I do have modular flight integrator installed side note: All that work for 1.2 and the wheels are still terrible. Planes still pull off the runway and still require parachutes to stop any plane over 200t or so.. wheel brakes won't cut it. Unless this behavior is correct and 1.0.5's behavior was unrealistic(?) but that's not a FAR issue, I digress.

Does this mod not support interstellar fuels like hydrazine? ie, fuels from IFS/KSPIE? it doesn't appear to...? Modular Fuel Tanks does, but that mod conflicts with this one. And I can't install TCA without installing this one, or so it seems, so I have a huge problem now. in 1.1.3 I could use KSPIE+MFT+TCA, and now there's a dependency chain preventing that. I'd happily use this mod instead of MFT, but it doesn't support KSPIE's fuels, which is a requirement.. any way around this?

anything I can do to help? can I pull the 1.2 branch, install it, and submit bug reports/send logs? Or are we not at that point yet? @ferram4 please do let me know when that kind of help is desired, I will provide.

hm, maybe i should install mono and just compile it on linux, since I'm more familiar with that environment... thanks for the tip. Have done almost no C# previously. I'm still used to platform-dependent executables and libraries

well, until I need to compile it for Windows, which I do, since I play KSP on Windows... even though I am a linux systems engineer/programmer in my professional life. I only have ONE 40" monitor and one gaming-class PC, after all is MS Visual Studio required to compile mods for windows or is there an open-source/otherwise-free C# compiler for Win64? Sadly however the source for this mod does not seem to be available.

the seeming-repost is due to how these forums work; I pushed REPLY on your reply to my original, and it loaded my original post and let me add to it and then moved the post to the end of the thread. Seems like that's just something these forums do; I didn't see any option to change the behavior. Sorry for the confusion!

This is very basic, very scaled down, and only addresses one of the EPL use cases, but here we go... 1. install EPL 2. install MKS (you can use EPL without it, but I don't, and I'm writing the post here... main diff is that MKS overrides some of the resources used for building) 3. install KAS and KIS. This step is 100% required ok, now that you've got that done; go into VAB and design a sweet base using all the kolonization tools that MKS gives you. Whole base. No piece by piece, no skycranes, don't put any engines or RCS on any of it, you don't need it. Put some KAS CC connector ports on it for pumping stuff into it later. The EPL build utility window will show you how many MaterialKits and SpecializedParts you need to build this thing. Write those numbers down. now build a ship that has Kontainers sufficient to hold the required numbers of each resource from the previous step. Make sure it also has an EL Survey Station. Put your two best PILOTS in the survey station and maybe 4-5 well-trained engineers somewhere else in the craft. Make sure that at least one of the engineer-occupied seats has a seat inventory including a mallet and about 4 survey stakes. Fly this thing somewhere. Minmus is easiest since the flats are... flat. Take your engineer out with the mallet and drive the 4 stakes into the ground in a roughly square pattern. For best results, set the stake modes to "Y-" (right-click menu) if the ground isn't completely flat. If you're on minmus you can skip this. He can now get back into the nice warm ship. Push the EPL button on the toolbar. Pick VAB, pick your sweet base, and click Build. When it's done, click Finalize. Out pops a fully finished base in the area denoted by the stakes. Great, right? Almost; there's no EC or food or water or anything in the base, it is cold, dark, and empty (always is when you build with survey stakes). This is why I said put some CC connector ports on the thing. You may need to send a second ship here to pump all the stuff in, charge the batteries, and staff it. Unless your construction craft is capable of carrying all of that stuff and has some CC connector ports on it as well so that you can hook it up post-build and transfer it all. This is what I primarily use EPL for, and have done so successfully through many versions of this mod. Building a complex base with a single launch and no skycranes and frustrating ground-docking maneuvers is exactly what I always wanted, and EPL delivers. UPDATE: KIS/KAS is required for the stake-driving functionalilty. If you want to build in orbit, just use the appropriate parts (the space dock part, or the one from MKS if you're using that). make sure that the required amt of materialkits and specializedparts are in the station that you're building with; same crew restrictions apply, although in this case you don't need the EL survey station; you'd want like an MKS pioneer module instead. Push the EL button, push build. You'll have the ability to transfer resources and crew into the ship before un-docking it, unlike when building with stakes, so you don't need the CC connector ports to fuel/supply it in this case. Personally however I find it easier and cheaper to launch most things from the ground; then again I'm using KSPIE and a 3.75m or 5.0m antimatter reactor and a thermal engine can lift several thousand tons SSTO, so... if you're not using KSPIE you may be better off building in orbit; or if you ARE using KSPIE but haven't unlocked the end-tech node yet that makes the reactors this powerful.

is the source available? Is there a good link on what tools/procedures are needed to compile KSP mods for Win64? I'm more of a linux/unix programmer and I'm not sure that Windows has gcc and make, at least not without cygwin, and I don't think that would work I'd like to at least try a straight-across compile for 1.2 based on the current HEAD in github and hope for the best. Don't think anyone's picked it up officially though, and I'm likely not the right person to do so.

This is very basic, very scaled down, and only addresses one of the EPL use cases, but here we go... 1. install EPL 2. install MKS (you can use EPL without it, but I don't, and I'm writing the post here... main diff is that MKS overrides some of the resources used for building) 3. install KAS and KIS. This step is 100% required ok, now that you've got that done; go into VAB and design a sweet base using all the kolonization tools that MKS gives you. Whole base. No piece by piece, no skycranes, don't put any engines or RCS on any of it, you don't need it. Put some KAS CC connector ports on it for pumping stuff into it later. The EPL build utility window will show you how many MaterialKits and SpecializedParts you need to build this thing. Write those numbers down. now build a ship that has Kontainers sufficient to hold the required numbers of each resource from the previous step. Make sure it also has an EL Survey Station. Put your two best PILOTS in the survey station and maybe 4-5 well-trained engineers somewhere else in the craft. Make sure that at least one of the engineer-occupied seats has a seat inventory including a mallet and about 4 survey stakes. Fly this thing somewhere. Minmus is easiest since the flats are... flat. Take your engineer out with the mallet and drive the 4 stakes into the ground in a roughly square pattern. For best results, set the stake modes to "Y-" (right-click menu) if the ground isn't completely flat. If you're on minmus you can skip this. He can now get back into the nice warm ship. Push the EPL button on the toolbar. Pick VAB, pick your sweet base, and click Build. When it's done, click Finalize. Out pops a fully finished base in the area denoted by the stakes. Great, right? Almost; there's no EC or food or water or anything in the base, it is cold, dark, and empty (always is when you build with survey stakes). This is why I said put some CC connector ports on the thing. You may need to send a second ship here to pump all the stuff in, charge the batteries, and staff it. Unless your construction craft is capable of carrying all of that stuff and has some CC connector ports on it as well so that you can hook it up post-build and transfer it all. This is what I primarily use EPL for, and have done so successfully through many versions of this mod. Building a complex base with a single launch and no skycranes and frustrating ground-docking maneuvers is exactly what I always wanted, and EPL delivers.

This isn't a new issue.. I had this in 1.1.3 as well. It seemed to happen when: 1. Certain parts that are finicky get clipped into one another 2. Whenever you use the surface-attach RCS tanks from the B9 mod Those 2 seem to reliably reproduce it, and most of the parts described as 'finicky' in #1 are also from B9. So I guess try removing parts and checking part clipping until you find the part that's doing it; I don't think it's specifically a KJR issue, although it might be a KJR+(unknown mod) compatibility issue(?) I run a lot of mods, so I'm not 100% sure; I have used KJR almost as long as I've used FAR though, so ... I can definitely say that I have seen this behavior (and found at least a workaround, at least in 1.1.3).

CKAN knows about several dev repos (MJ2 for example) which you can optionally turn on. This is pretty handy if you're someone who wants to try out dev builds.. lets CKAN auto-update to the latest build when posted, and keeps the main repo "clean" for official releases, for those who prefer to wait for a definitely-certified-working version. I'm not sure if this is something that the CKAN people "just do," or if it's something that has to be specifically opted into by the mod developer, but it is a thing. MJ2, ScanSat, RemoteTech, and Trajectories seem to be the ones that you can do this with right now. Go to Settings -> CKAN Settings, click New below 'metadata repositories' and activate the ones you want to install dev builds for.

seems I posted before on the wrong forum.... any chance to add the KK dev builds onto CKAN like MJ2 now does? there seems to be a facility whereby people can add dev/pre-release download repositories in addition to the mainline CKAN repo; not sure if this is something CKAN does or if it's something mod authors do, however. Super convenient though when you have over 100 mods and some of them are pre-release/dev and you can get the latest builds automatically.

any plans to put Konstructs dev builds on CKAN like Mechjeb is now doing?

Literally all of my spaceplane, which fly beautifully with far, flip over vertically through some unbeknownst pitch-up force shortly after takeoff, and then crash... when using stock aero. so I blame squad for not just making far part of stock, and... yeah that still confuses me. so I'm pretty much avoiding ksp until far is ready.

So.. can't tell from context, is this working in 1.2? can I just grab the existing version and use it?

@ferram4 I for one am willing to do this. if you have a device build and a test plan, I will run it through its paces and provide you with detailed bug reports in a timely fashion. it's the least I can do in return for all the enjoyment that FAR has brought me over the last few years. let me know if you want me to do this and we can get it set up.

hm. maybe? I haven't tried yet since I've been grounded pending FAR's release for 1.2. I'll give it a shot once I'm flying again though.

One thing that this mod is absolutely vital for is for cargo planes where your goal is to pick something up from the surface of another world and bring it home. Why? Because of the way docking ports work. I have "smart" Kontainers which are 3.75m in size and can be filled with all sorts of things by a mining rig on the Mun for example. They have wheels, power, and a probe core, so I can drive them back into the tail cargo bay (usually with OPT or Mr4 size planes). Now, if I take off with one of these Kontainers already docked, KSP sees this as a normal part connection and thus is very strong and rigid. When I drive the thing back in and re-dock it with the clamp-o-tron Senior, however, it sees this as a different type of connection, which is floppy, and also the wheels and the floor of the cargo bay no longer apply colliders between them since it's now the same vessel. as a result the cargo rover flops through the bottom of the plane and usually summons the Kraken. If, however, I put quantum struts in the bay so that they turn on and hold the Kontainer in place as soon as the docking sequence completes, it's now rigid and stable and I can fly it home for profit, thus 100% solving my entire problem. It has to happen at the moment of docking, though, which is why only Quantum Struts can accomplish what I want to accomplish here. That said, if I can help get this updated for 1.2 in any way, either by recompiling, researching, testing, etc (I'm a software developer), please let me know and I will devote some time to it. Thanks!

@taniwha - followup to earlier, I read the entire PDF docs... if you hadn't told me here that the Y- stake is what I was looking for to solve my problem, I'd never have known that *just* from reading the docs. I'd suggest that each stake type have a little blurb about "this is a situation where you'd use this stake type while actually building something in KSP" - teaching through examples is often more effective than just supplying the reference material, at least for me. However, the combination of your message here plus the PDF has me pretty confident that I can get my base built. Now just waiting on FAR so I have a way to get the kerbals on-site, since my craft designs don't mix well with stock aerodynamics, I found out last night in a rather spectacular way.

This mod disagrees with the glideslope of NavUtilities as well... although either way it seems to work out OK. It seems like Kramax glideslopes are more on the order of 4-5 degrees whereas the PAPI and NavUtilities default at least to 3 degrees (as is common in the real world, although there's a 4+ degree glideslope on 16R at KVNY which gets interesting! ). Also, and somewhat surprisingly since most autopilot mods don't do this, this works well with FAR. In fact none of my spaceplanes will even fly correctly on stock aero I learned last night, so that's an important distinction... Hopefully Kerbinside will be back in business soon too, so we have places to land other than KSC

awesome, thanks @linuxgurugamer for taking on the maintenance. should we expect to see it show up in CKAN soon?

thanks, I just.. missed it somehow before. Got it now.