[WIP] CxAerospace: Stations Parts Pack v1.0 - Head Over to Add-On Release

[Neutrinovore]

Regarding the lag issue, I believe that it's also been established that parts-pack mods cause lag in two main ways:  One, the more animation modules or animated parts there are on your vessel, the more lag you'll get in both the editor and in flight.  Two, the more IVA's your parts have, and as a corollary, the more Kerbals you have in your vessel in flight, the more these factors will generate lag.  I've encountered both in several mods that I've had or still have.  In Lionhead Aerospace, for instance, almost every animated part in that mod generates so much lag that the mod is essentially unusable for me.  Radiators, solar panels, even the iris on the heatshield causes me major problems.  I also get a lot of lag when I use a lot of FusTek Station parts, this time because Sumghai, like this mod, likes to create very detailed IVA's, and once I get more than 4 or 5 FusTek parts on my craft in the editor, it really starts to chug my PC.

Anyway, I haven't really had the time to play around with this mod very much because I've been focusing on SpacePlane and mapping probe construction lately, but if this mod is causing a lot of lag for certain folks, I'm almost certain that it will be due to the large number of (and the details within) the IVA models and textures that the game has to process and render for every frame, even though we don't see them at all in the editor, and barely at all even in flight, for most of us.  I don't think that the texture size has much to do with anything, because active texture management (if you use it, as I do) compresses IVA textures just like any other, unless they're DDS format, of course, but even then that doesn't seem to matter.  It boils down to the simple facts:  The more IVA's you have on your craft, and/or the more animated parts there are, the more lag you will encounter.

I hope this information helps someone. 

Later! 

 

 

[curtquarquesso]

11 hours ago, Mods_o_joy said:

I used The Karmony Module with a hub adapter, 

Also i tried running it with Eighth Res Texture's and No Anti-Al

I've got the latest build, and I'm not seeing any NullReferenceException spam, and no noticeable FPS hits in the VAB when manipulating the mentioned parts. Move all your add-ons from your GameData folder to a temporary location on your desktop, download a new version of CxAerospace, and try it again, and see if the issue persists. 

[cxg2827]

22 hours ago, curtquarquesso said:

The textures in CxAerospace are 2k though, and the UV mapping is good, but could be better I suppose. The pack is still small, and it is good to leave texture space on texture sheets for future expansion.

Yup, there is always room for improvement . When I get around to standardizing the textures across the current parts, I believe I can have all US-based modules (and sleep modules) share the same 2k map. I've played around a bit with no normal maps for the parts, but it just looks too flat without them, and I think the normal maps help make the parts look good so that will stay.

Removing normals from the IVAs was a huge help with reducing the memory footprint as well, but the IVAs still could use a bit of optimizing themselves.

 

22 hours ago, curtquarquesso said:

2K textures could cause performance drops, and if you're not wanting to run half-res textures, it'd be nice for @cxg2827 to throw some half-res textures out there, but probably not too important at the moment.

I'll be reducing the external textures to 1k after the textures are closer to "final" since testing shows the quality doesn't take much of a hit with the 1/2 compression. Though the IVAs dont work out as well with the compression, but I might still include a 1/2 rez download for those that prefer lower quality textures to lower memory footprint. Like you said, not too important at the moment. 

 

[cxg2827]

Hey all, just checking in to break the radio silence.

I've been busy at work recently as well with my 9 month old, so haven't made much progress. Planning on getting back to development on the mod, as well as make a few more props to liven up the IVAs.

[Neutrinovore]

3 hours ago, cxg2827 said:

Hey all, just checking in to break the radio silence.

I've been busy at work recently as well with my 9 month old, so haven't made much progress. Planning on getting back to development on the mod, as well as make a few more props to liven up the IVAs.

Oh, hey, Mazel Tov! 

[Tristonwilson12]

4 hours ago, cxg2827 said:

Hey all, just checking in to break the radio silence.

I've been busy at work recently as well with my 9 month old, so haven't made much progress. Planning on getting back to development on the mod, as well as make a few more props to liven up the IVAs.

family comes first

[crash087]

im having a problem with the docking ports not actually docking. I dock them at .5 m/s but they wont actually grab and latch

[MrMeeb]

4 minutes ago, crash087 said:

im having a problem with the docking ports not actually docking. I dock them at .5 m/s but they wont actually grab and latch

The docking ports have both genders, and rotation limits. If docking a CBM to another, make sure one is active and one is passive. Also, the rotation should be around 0, 90, 180 or 270. They don't have to be exact, but fairly close. Try that out, and if it doesn't work, then I'll leave it to @cxg2827  

Edited February 4, 2016 by MrMeeb

[cxg2827]

@crash087, are you making sure to try to dock an active with a passive?

When you say they wouldnt grab and latch, does the magnetism kick in, but it wouldnt fully dock? if so, you need to rotate the craft as it only will dock at 90 degree increments, see THIS post

Or does magnetism not even kick in to pull the docking ports together?

 

[MrMeeb]

Lol, I tried  

[cxg2827]

Just now, MrMeeb said:

Lol, I tried  

Excellent response nonetheless, plus you beat me to the reply  

 

[speedwaystar]

howdy. i'm building a replica Kerbal International Space Station (KISS) with the aid of your excellent parts pack.

is there an easy way to make the many handrails on the modules and the PMA grabbable by kerbals during EVA? i've looked at the .cfg files for ladders and also at the Nebula Handrail pack as updated by @linuxgurugamer, and can't see anything in there which would specifically define them as grabbable, so i'm suspecting the railing meshes needs to be tagged by the modeller in the actual .mu file,

[cxg2827]

@Mods_o_joy good to know, I might add that to the first post so people are aware of possible conflicts with Active Texture Management.

 

@speedwaystar Handrails are made grabable via non-textured colliders. To keep the collider count down, I have only made the longitudinal handrail sections on the various modules grab-able, and the ones on the ends caps are mostly there for show.

I do plan on eventually adding the rest of the handrail colliders, but it is a low priority item right now.

[cxg2827]

Did some testing today on optimizing the collider for the CBMs. Currently they are 8-sided, and I tried out reducing it to 4 sides. Since docking ports clip into one another when the magnetism kicks in originally, it's not like reducing the collider shape will really affect docking since the colliders basically become disregarded during docking.

Testing Conditions:
147 part station
27 of which are ACBMs or PCBMs.
Physics Delta-time per frame set to 0.04sec

Original Collider:
30 seconds in game took 1:45 real time

Reduced Collider:
30 seconds in game took 1:05 real time

 

Since stations usually have a lot of docking ports as part of the craft, might be a good idea for me to make this change.

[MrMeeb]

5 hours ago, cxg2827 said:

Did some testing today on optimizing the collider for the CBMs. Currently they are 8-sided, and I tried out reducing it to 4 sides. Since docking ports clip into one another when the magnetism kicks in originally, it's not like reducing the collider shape will really affect docking since the colliders basically become disregarded during docking.

Testing Conditions:
147 part station
27 of which are ACBMs or PCBMs.
Physics Delta-time per frame set to 0.04sec

Original Collider:
30 seconds in game took 1:45 real time

Reduced Collider:
30 seconds in game took 1:05 real time

 

Since stations usually have a lot of docking ports as part of the craft, might be a good idea for me to make this change.

Cool Improvements like this are really crucial for stations, especially on docking ports

Speaking of docking ports, how is the active APAS coming along?

[cxg2827]

5 hours ago, MrMeeb said:

Cool Improvements like this are really crucial for stations, especially on docking ports

Speaking of docking ports, how is the active APAS coming along?

I agree, and until Squad makes improvements to the docking system in the game, I think the performance improvements outweigh the disadvantages with the simple collider.

active APAS is second on the queue after I finish the Mini LAB IVA. Still working on the modeling of the IVA so UV unwrapping and texturing is still a good week off.

 

[Callmedave]

<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/S9zr8"><a href="//imgur.com/a/S9zr8">View post on imgur.com</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I saw it mentioned above, but i did not see a solution for it.

 

Im having trouble docking, My station has Passive docking ports on it, the module im trying to attach has Active ports on, but the docking ports touch and just don't connect.

heres some screen shots to better explain.

http://imgur.com/a/S9zr8

 

 

Edited February 14, 2016 by Callmedave

[cxg2827]

@Callmedave so are the vessels being pulled to each other by the magnetism?

you need to rotate the vessel like a screwdriver one way of the other for it to "snap" into place. The tolerance is very tight so it needs that extra nudge to get it to fully engage.

 

[Callmedave]

13 minutes ago, cxg2827 said:

@Callmedave so are the vessels being pulled to each other by the magnetism?

you need to rotate the vessel like a screwdriver one way of the other for it to "snap" into place. The tolerance is very tight so it needs that extra nudge to get it to fully engage.

 

Quote

Hi, Thank for prompt reply!

No, The magnetism is not there. I have tried rotating a little, if you look at my first pic, the Docking port alignment shows im 0.4° off so i would have thought that was close enough, graphically, the fins look correct with the Active slotting inside the Passive. 

I tried putting the module onto a different port and get the same problem. i backed the module away from the station, (over 30m) to try and 'reset' the station port, still nothing. 

The active port is attached to procedural Structural section. I also have Docking port alignment indicator and Docking port camera installed (as well as a few others) are you aware of any mod conflicts?

[cxg2827]

I'm not aware of any conflicts. What version of the pack are you running with? In 0.13 and later, I modified the CFGs so the ports would magnetize at any rotation to make docking easier. Your issue almost sounds like the acquireMinRollDot parameter is still in the CFG. maybe try reinstalling the mod?

[Callmedave]

I'm pretty sure I'm using the latest version. Il try re-installing and report back! 

[cxg2827]

With Kerbalstuff acting up recently, I have added an alternate download in the first post via GitHub (hopefully I set it up correctly).

[Callmedave]

Ok, I done a little more testing last night and I don't think the fault is your mod. I docked a nearby probe I had to my station and it went on first time. I tried to dock the probe to the port on the module and it just wouldn't go. That single port is bugged, maybe it's in a connected state after my first docking attempt and it has not reset (is there a way I can tell?, or even better reset it?)

ive had a similar thing with stock docking ports so I put it down to that. 

Thanks again for your assistance!

[cxg2827]

That's a bit strange. never encountered that issue. Glad I could help with the troubleshooting.

Update:
MiniLab IVA is coming along nicely. Got started on a Minus Eighty-Degree Laboratory Freezer prop as well.

 

 

[cxg2827]

One prop done. Going to make one more prop and then release the MiniLab IVA. Then I'll crank out a few more props for the Science Labs specifically.