[WIP][1.8.x] SSTULabs - Low Part Count Solutions (Orbiters, Landers, Lifters) - Dev Thread [11-18-18]

[Jimbodiah]

What's the difference with an "SLS Launch"? Is there a special way the boosters are ejected?

 

19 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

I'm aiming to fix the 'only adds mass and cost in career' mode

LOL, that was just a joke. The KSP aerodynamics are so forgiving that you can launch most stuff without any fairings at all, as long as the weight is balanced. Even in career mode I never look at exact required dV values, I sometimes have half a tank left when I reach LKO: fuel is cheap.

[Shadowmage]

22 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

What's the difference with an "SLS Launch"? Is there a special way the boosters are ejected?

 

LOL, that was just a joke. The KSP aerodynamics are so forgiving that you can launch most stuff without any fairings at all, as long as the weight is balanced. Even in career mode I never look at exact required dV values, I sometimes have half a tank left when I reach LKO: fuel is cheap.

I think he was referring to STS launch (acronym for shuttles).  These generally work poorly in KSP due to its limited gimbal/trim mechanics, and lack of precise information regarding CoM/CoL/CoP.  He's just trying to add/'cheat' some extra control over the craft through the use of reaction wheels.

Honestly, I have not yet managed to get a shuttle-styled craft to orbit yet myself due to those limitations, though I'm working on it slowly (as precursor research for the SC-E parts).  My last attempt ended with RUD right after takeoff; was a pretty hilarious sight, with the shuttle cockpit somehow surviving and ending up next to the wreckage of the rest of the rocket.

 

Shielding -- I'm being serious about it though   It will be good for both decreased dV to orbit -AND- stabilizing the wobbly rockets (which you had questioned earlier in the week).  I'm not sure which is the more important reason to do it, as they are both pretty major points in a physics-based game.

I also design my rockets with a bit more... finesse?  I generally only end up discarding stages with ~5-10% fuel remaining (often <200 dV), as I often design my rockets with very slim margins.  Granted, I still do some rockets vastly over-engineered, where they return-to-kerbin with their LKO injection stage, still half-full of fuel...; but for the most part they only carry -just- enough for the mission + a small reserve for inaccuracies in dV requirements and course corrections.  My last/current game, I designed a manned Moho mission, where the lander makes it back to orbit with <100m/s of dV left; repeatedly and reliably... just enough for rendezvous and docking (which was necessary, as the overall mission was -very- tight on dV for the interplanetary stages... Moho is expensive to attain orbit around if using 'optimal' transfers).

[Jimbodiah]

Gheghe, last few I sent up to rendezvous with a departure stage already in orbit, had enough dV left to go to Duna on it's own. I tend to have 3 lifters and pick the one I need based on diameter   Small 1.875m probe launcher, Ares I for crew and small shuttles, Delta IV heavy for everything larger. The cost saving is negligable, so fine tuning is not really needed. I play sandbox sometimes, then it's fun to try things out to optimize an orbit, and maybe import that into my career save.

 

STS: Check out the Energia-Buran mod. It has a complete Buran shuttle the launches properly. they shifted the CoM, I got it to fly and land in my first attempt, not hard either. Yeah, stock versions are a laugh, typicsl Kerbal launches, straight into the buildings or ground. I have no clue why they made the engine and slanted engine mount as it will not fly properly no matter what you do.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Jimbodiah

[Jimbodiah]

... double post

Edited January 26, 2016 by Jimbodiah

[Shadowmage]

41 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Mage, would you mind if I send in a PR to add to the tank lengths up to 10.0 for the MFT-A and B? I often find myself adding more length, don't know if you are against adding them? Otherwise I can try to make a patch for myself.

They don't work that way; you need to add _new models_ in order to increase the max length.  Each 'tank length' is a distinct pre-compiled model.  If you need longer tanks, you'll need to create new models for them (which won't work cleanly, as they are already at the max of the texture size; would require completely redoing the parts).

Though, I've never even seen a need for the 8x tanks, certainly not for a 10x tank (for reference, the 8x tank at 5m dia (so 40m length) is longer than even the main tank for the SLS would be).  What crazy stuff are you trying to build that requires a tank that tall?

[Jimbodiah]

Yeah, I noticed when i tried to change them  I will need to keep adding another tank on top like before    I tend to use long first stages and specifically on the smaller diameter they can stay a bit short. I thought it was a quick fix, but it wasn't.. hence I removed it, but you caught my quote  

[Shadowmage]

Yah, I get an email for most posts to this thread; alot quicker to look at my emails (which are generally already open because of work), and gives me near-realtime updates if I'm paying attention.  They catch whatever the initial content is;  I only know about edits if I load the page and read the actual message.

Hmm... (has thoughts of adding one or 2 short tank models as a nosecone variant).... and more hmm...  in theory that could go all the way up to double-height tanks, triple if you did the same for the mount.

If you want to try it out, I could probably guide you through a patch to set it up.

 

Edit:  Apparently there was a plugin-side error that would keep this from working in the current releases (even the just-posted one below), however, it -does- work after I fixed the plugin

 

If this is something there is a bit of interest in, I can clean up the patch and perhaps add a few other tank lengths as well.

 

Further Edit:

I should add that this method can be used to add (nearly) -any- existing model as a nosecone or mount option.  Have a favorite nose-cone or mount from stock/another mod and you'de like to use it integrated into the tanks?  No problem!

Edited January 27, 2016 by Shadowmage

[Shadowmage]

Updated testing release is available:

WARNING - Some of these changes will likely break existing craft, see the change-log for specifics.

https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/releases/tag/0.3.27-pre2

Many changes, fixes, adds j-2x prototype (no texture).  Fixes all tested parts for FAR compatibility.  Reworks parachute for physics based setup and ignores drag cubes entirely (and works in FAR). (RO patches will need to be updated for the new parachute module fields -- area mostly)

See the link for full change-log and downloads.

[Jimbodiah]

1 hour ago, Shadowmage said:

Hmm... (has thoughts of adding one or 2 short tank models as a nosecone variant).... and more hmm...  in theory that could go all the way up to double-height tanks, triple if you did the same for the mount.

Huh, say what???  You mean you can add another tank as the nosecone and/or mount? Gheghe, how did your mind go there? It's basically like making a weld of several parts then, copying textures and cfg into the single part?

[Shadowmage]

9 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

Huh, say what???  You mean you can add another tank as the nosecone and/or mount? Gheghe, how did your mind go there? It's basically like making a weld of several parts then, copying textures and cfg into the single part?

Well, when I designed the nosecone/mount system for the engine clusters and tanks, I had in mind that people could patch stuff in to use stock parts / other mods' parts / their own parts if they wanted.  You just tell it the name of the model file, give it some parameters for height/volume/offsets/node positions, and its good to go (you can in theory do the same thing for the main tank models, though they need to have their origin at center of height).

And then I realized that I could use the existing tank models as another nosecone option (they are a model after all...).  Its just another option for the 'next nose type' for the MFT.  So you can pick either a nosecone, or a tank extension, or an adapter.  You could use the stock tank models too if you wanted, or, really, nearly any model that is available in game.  If setup properly they will auto-scale and auto-position to fit as a nosecone/adapter/extension for any main tank configuration.

[Matuchkin]

My usual question. Is this compatible with realism overhaul? I really need this.

[Jimbodiah]

@Matuchkin I think José made an RO patch at some point but it working on updating it with the new engines?

@Shadowmage Would that work with parts that have modules in them, or only dumb objects like tanks/cones?

[blowfish]

23 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

My usual question. Is this compatible with realism overhaul? I really need this.

Compatibility is mostly there, but somewhat WIP (as is this mod itself).  Individual mods don't really maintain RO compatibility anyway - all the patches are in RO itself.  The RO patches are pretty up-to-date but expect them to be a release or two behind SSTU in general.

Edited January 27, 2016 by blowfish

[Jimbodiah]

Are you maintaining them for RO, Blowfish? I may want to use RO at some point, been thinking of RSS lately to up the challenge and use some better looking textures.

[blowfish]

Just now, Jimbodiah said:

Are you maintaining them for RO, Blowfish? I may want to use RO at some point, been thinking of RSS lately to up the challenge and use some better looking textures.

I'm not.  I believe it's JoseEduardo and stratochief66.

[Shadowmage]

50 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

My usual question. Is this compatible with realism overhaul? I really need this.

As far as I know the configs ship with RO when it is installed; however I do not use RO or maintain the configs, so they might be a few releases behind as far as new parts / changes to the mod.

The latest testing release added/fixed FAR compatibility for parachutes / modular parts / fairings, so, technically there should be nothing stopping it from being RO compatible aside from more/updated patches.

33 minutes ago, blowfish said:

Compatibility is mostly there, but somewhat WIP (as is this mod itself).  Individual mods don't really maintain RO compatibility anyway - all the patches are in RO itself.

Exactly; the mod is under constant development, and things change/get added at a pretty good pace. 

Stratochief and JoseEduardo do a pretty good job of keeping the patches as up-to-date as possible, though its a big job so there may need to be some fine tuning / cleaning up a few things.

 

36 minutes ago, Jimbodiah said:

@Matuchkin I think José made an RO patch at some point but it working on updating it with the new engines?

@Shadowmage Would that work with parts that have modules in them, or only dumb objects like tanks/cones?

It doesn't clone a PART{} or any functionality.  It clones a MODEL{}, or mesh (specifically, anything that is a .mu file) -- geometry only (and animations, though those are unsupported with this implementation). 

It is intended for 'dumb' models only, and does not support anything that would need a MODULE{} to control. however it will accept any model in the game.  You could add a cockpit model as a nosecone; but you would get no crew capacity, no sas/asas, nothing aside from additional fuel volume.  One of the initial engine clusters was four stock nukes mounted onto a stock quadcoupler (yes, engine clusters can be built from stock/other mods engines as well...).

 

A large portion of the plugins/modules that I create are highly configurable, and there is nothing stopping others from going nuts with this stuff.  As far as I know Jose is the only one who played around with it much, using other mods' engine models and mount models for his initial concept development and testing of the plugin.  Would love to see what people could come up with though

For example -- the MFT plugin could easily be adapted to do spherical tanks, or a set of gold-foiled LH2 tanks, it -could- even be adapted to do a set of Soyuz-style tanks (with some thought..), USI-styled Kontainers, torus-shaped tank setups; the models don't even need be cohesive, each 'tank length' could be a completely different type of tank.  Heck, you could use it just to combine all of the stock tank models into a single part.  -All of them-.  With rescaling.  And nosecones/adapters/bi/tri/quadcouplers.   Edit: -- this all purely config / patch based and already built into the plugin; it only requires proper setup of the part file.

The NodeFairing module can be adapted to replace the stock fairing setup on stock engines (for texture swapping and size changing), through a fairly simple patch.

-I- haven't even had time to explore some of the fun stuff you could do with the plugins

 

 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Shadowmage

[SpaceBadger007]

On 1/26/2016 at 2:59 PM, Jimbodiah said:

In aerodynamics with the petal adapter.

hhhhmmmm i only have the petal adapter and thats in utility, does that mean i have an older version? 

I downloaded it about a month ago

Edited January 27, 2016 by SpaceBadger007

[blowfish]

6 minutes ago, SpaceBadger007 said:

hhhhmmmm i only have the petal adapter and thats in utility, does that mean i have an older version? 

I downloaded it about a month ago

Shadowmage updates SSTU pretty frequently.  It's a fair bet that you have an old version.

[Jimbodiah]

Yes, that is an old version. Find a new version with the link ShadowMage included a few posts back.

[davidy12]

@Shadowmage: The parachutes for Orion fails to slow down.

[Shadowmage]

40 minutes ago, davidy12 said:

@Shadowmage: The parachutes for Orion fails to slow down.

Works fine for me; will need more info (version, logs, customizations).

[SpaceBadger007]

5 hours ago, blowfish said:

Shadowmage updates SSTU pretty frequently.  It's a fair bet that you have an old version.

So to download the new update do I go on the first post n click the link saying latest stable version? I don't won't the one a few posts back because it says it might break saves.

 

[stratochief66]

@Shadowmage

At a size of 8.4m, the interstage petal adapter is about 141T with 0.3.27-pre2, so I take it that you didn't have a chance to look at changing the massing equation? I am trying to fix/learn some stuff to improve our RO representation of the SLS, using the new interstage petal adapter

I will have to take a closer look into what is needed to update the parachutes. Previously the parachutes failed to slow things (I was using RO & FAR, so one or the other was probably not yet compatible, things should obviously be better for @davidy12 once he updates to your newest and if using RO, in a week or so when I have had time to figure out the new chutes and adapt.

@JoseEduardo added this bit of code so that engine support and aero fairings would be generated appropriately, depending on whether the user attaches the ICPS or EUS (your HUS)

https://github.com/KSP-RO/RealismOverhaul/blob/master/GameData/RealismOverhaul/RO_SuggestedMods/SSTU/SSTU_Orion.cfg#L406-L433

When the part is first spawned into the VAB, the EUS/HUS engine support appears, even though we want neither to appear. Once you toggled the EUS node on and off again using "Toggle EUS1 node" no engine support appears until you attach something to one of the base nodes. Do you have any insight into what might keep that from showing up when the part first spawns? I barely understand the trick that allows these fairing/support parts to be auto-generated, but I really like them.

Edited January 27, 2016 by stratochief66

[JoseEduardo]

9 hours ago, Matuchkin said:

My usual question. Is this compatible with realism overhaul? I really need this.

most should be compatible, the last patch I made for RO was in late december to cover the Apollo CSM and the AJ-10-137, many things have changed since then, like the Orion pod, but stratochief updated many other things since my last patch. (however idk what's the current state because stratochief also maintains a lot of other RO stuff, all I know is that at one point there was a problem with the new Orion spacecraft and some engines, but this has been sorted out already)

Right now, the lack of x64 support on KSP made me burn out for a while, so I haven't made KSP patches since the last one I said above, but once 1.1 comes with a stable x64 and SSTU is updated to 1.1 I WILL get back to maintaining the SSTU RO patches (unless someone else steps in), until then I'm just closely following the development  (in fact, SSTU and Buran are the only mods I'm following the developments)

Edited January 27, 2016 by JoseEduardo

[Kerbal01]

I'm loving this mod. Nearly every us liquid engine ever made, combined in absurd monstrosities.