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

[ctbram]

ah ty for clarification.  It is good to know that I have not installed something incorrectly.  I was watching a stream and saw the engine with  the articulated engine bell for vacuum operations and had to check the mod out.

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, ctbram said:

ah ty for clarification.  It is good to know that I have not installed something incorrectly.  I was watching a stream and saw the engine with  the articulated engine bell for vacuum operations and had to check the mod out.

Your welcome. Yeah, SSTU is an amazing mod. It almost makes other mods worthless... almost lol

[rkman]

"Integrated parachutes" it says on the box. Now Jeb, Bob and Bill are dead.  

Am i missing something? Or maybe the OP should include a notification about missing parachutes?

 

[Shadowmage]

1 hour ago, rkman said:

"Integrated parachutes" it says on the box. Now Jeb, Bob and Bill are dead.  

Am i missing something? Or maybe the OP should include a notification about missing parachutes?

 

They were there and working last I checked.  You need to right click the pod and then press the 'Deploy Parachutes' button; they do not work through staging (space-bar) and must be deployed through action group or right-click menu.

 

[rkman]

30 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

You need to right click the pod and then press the 'Deploy Parachutes' button; they do not work through staging (space-bar) and must be deployed through action group or right-click menu.

I gave it another shot (3 man reentry module), i do not see the option to deploy chutes in the right-click menu.

[Shadowmage]

3 minutes ago, rkman said:

I gave it another shot (3 man reentry module), i do not see the option to deploy chutes in the right-click menu.

Screenshots, log files, etc?  You can just launch the pod by itself and screenshot the right-click menu when you are on the launchpad; the parachute option should be available there.

If it is not present then either 1.) Something is interfering with the plugin  or 2.) Not using the right part.

It -sounds- like you have the right part (Re-entry pods; the ones with heat-shields), so the parachute should be there.   As such, I will need more information before I will begin investigating... starting with a screenshot (for verification), and the ksp log file to check for broken plugin / other mods interfering.

[Shadowmage]

Any guesses as to which engine this is/will be?

[tater]

Agena?

[Agathorn]

I made this "QuickLook" at SSTU for the RO guys, and just thought i'd share it with you here:

 

 

[Agathorn]

1 hour ago, Shadowmage said:

Any guesses as to which engine this is/will be?

LR105? Oh god please be the LR105

[Shadowmage]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLR81

Agena-D engine; specifically the Bell 8096-39 (or 8096A/B/L, or even the 8247, all are very similar aside from nozzle).  Hypergolic, low thrust, decent efficiency (for a hypergolic engine), not-too-shabby on the TWR either.

In my current career game, this has become the go-to upper-stage engine for probes and smaller payloads.  The stock Terrier is generally more efficient, but I often don't need the thrust or extra weight; nor is the Terrier very realistic as far as size goes (I'm not sure there is any real-world equivalent given its size/profile... vacuum engines are big!).

[NeoMorph]

9 hours ago, ctbram said:

This has probably already been asked so I apologize in advance for duplication.  There is a ships and sub-assemblies folder install file but they are empty.  I tried going to the craft repository and downloaded every ship in there but not a single one loads!  They say they are missing parts???

What is it that I am missing?  I loaded the sstu, and sstu-textures packages from github and all the craft files from the craft file repository link.  Are those just for the 1.0.5 version of sstu?  Are there any craft files for the latest 1.1.3 version?  With other mods installed it's really hard to sort out the sstu stuff from other stuff and build anything useful.  A couple pre-built examples would really be helpful.

 

Thanks,

RM

I had that problem when I wanted a Soyuz build... so I installed 1.0.5 and SSTU for 1.0.5 and worked out what parts I needed for the new build in 1.1.2... Once I figured it out I was golden. Gets to be fun to work it out too. SSTU is so darn compressed in the tanks sizes that it even beats out Procedural Parts in that it can reduce the number of parts in your craft.

I do wish we could have a more detailed texture on the Soyuz/Progress though. Would be awesome if we could make our own textures for the craft.

[Agathorn]

3 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XLR81

Agena-D engine; specifically the Bell 8096-39 (or 8096A/B/L, or even the 8247, all are very similar aside from nozzle).  Hypergolic, low thrust, decent efficiency (for a hypergolic engine), not-too-shabby on the TWR either.

In my current career game, this has become the go-to upper-stage engine for probes and smaller payloads.  The stock Terrier is generally more efficient, but I often don't need the thrust or extra weight; nor is the Terrier very realistic as far as size goes (I'm not sure there is any real-world equivalent given its size/profile... vacuum engines are big!).

The Agena is indeed an awesome final stage engine, but I thought you already had the Agena? I have one in my RP0 game, unless we just co-opted one of your other models and renamed it which is entirely possible  

The LR105 is still my goto second stage engine though.  I use the Agena for once i'm already in orbit, for *LI or sat positioning.

[Theysen]

5 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Agena-D engine; specifically the Bell 8096-39 (or 8096A/B/L, or even the 8247, all are very similar aside from nozzle).  Hypergolic, low thrust, decent efficiency (for a hypergolic engine), not-too-shabby on the TWR either.

In my current career game, this has become the go-to upper-stage engine for probes and smaller payloads.  The stock Terrier is generally more efficient, but I often don't need the thrust or extra weight; nor is the Terrier very realistic as far as size goes (I'm not sure there is any real-world equivalent given its size/profile... vacuum engines are big!).

Awesome Shadowmage, we then can replace the placeholder model in RP-0 with the real one It's awesome.

Edited June 30, 2016 by Theysen
deleterino picturino

[Shadowmage]

Indeed, the current SSTU - 'LR-81' is a placeholder model, a rescaled copy of the F-1B engine geometry.  Not sure if it exists in RO or not (I think I removed all the placeholder engines for RO). 

Either way, I'm working on filling in the few placeholder engines right now before I move on to any new ones;  so LR-81, LMDE, and LMAE will likely be the next engine models that I'll be doing.

[Agathorn]

13 minutes ago, Theysen said:

Awesome Shadowmage, we then can replace the placeholder model in RP-0 with the real one It's awesome.

 

9 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Indeed, the current SSTU - 'LR-81' is a placeholder model, a rescaled copy of the F-1B engine geometry.  Not sure if it exists in RO or not (I think I removed all the placeholder engines for RO). 

Either way, I'm working on filling in the few placeholder engines right now before I move on to any new ones;  so LR-81, LMDE, and LMAE will likely be the next engine models that I'll be doing.

Yeah looks like we had a placeholder  . I didn't know that so very cool. 

[Rabada]

Hello! I recently downloaded this mod, and I'm finding it pretty hard to figure out how to use the LES with the 2.5 command module. I read through the wiki and I spent the last half hour using the search in this thread and I couldn't find instructions on how I should set up the action groups and/or staging. If someone could tell me how they set up the LES from this mod or point me towards a guide I would be very grateful.

 

Edit: Also, when I right click the 2.5m command module in the VAB I see some options like "SM DC Staging Disabled" and "Port: Enable Staging" yet when I click them nothing changes in my stage list in the VAB, am I missing something?

Edited June 30, 2016 by Rabada

[Shadowmage]

9 minutes ago, Rabada said:

Hello! I recently downloaded this mod, and I'm finding it pretty hard to figure out how to use the LES with the 2.5 command module. I read through the wiki and I spent the last half hour using the search in this thread and I couldn't find instructions on how I should set up the action groups and/or staging. If someone could tell me how they set up the LES from this mod or point me towards a guide I would be very grateful.

 

Edit: Also, when I right click the 2.5m command module in the VAB I see some options like "SM DC Staging Disabled" and "Port: Enable Staging" yet when I click them nothing changes in my stage list in the VAB, am I missing something?

1.)  Simply map the 'Activate Engine' action for the BPC to the Abort action group.  When activated it will start the abort motor and automatically decouple when abort propellant is depleted and activate the jettison motors.  You should also place the Command Modules' 'decouple' action into the Abort action group, so that pressing the abort button will decouple the CM and activate abort motors simultaneously.

To jettison manually (for a successful launch), merely right click and press the 'Jettison' button  (should also be an action group-mappable action for that).  It will decouple itself and activate the jettison motors (the low-power ones) to pull the BPC away from the rest of the rocket.

 

2.) Stock bugs regarding multiple staging actions in a part; nothing that I can do about it; known issue: https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/issues/287

2 hours ago, NeoMorph said:

I do wish we could have a more detailed texture on the Soyuz/Progress though. Would be awesome if we could make our own textures for the craft.

Nothing is stopping you from making your own textures; they're just textures.  I can even provide the UV maps and AO bakes upon request;  -I- however will not be making any additional textures for it in the foreseeable future (lack of time, too many other things to finish/work on).

[NeoMorph]

41 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Nothing is stopping you from making your own textures; they're just textures.  I can even provide the UV maps and AO bakes upon request;  -I- however will not be making any additional textures for it in the foreseeable future (lack of time, too many other things to finish/work on).

Sweet. My problem is I can't find the texture you used for the Soyuz and Progress...

[Rabada]

4 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

1.)  Simply map the 'Activate Engine' action for the BPC to the Abort action group.  When activated it will start the abort motor and automatically decouple when abort propellant is depleted and activate the jettison motors.  You should also place the Command Modules' 'decouple' action into the Abort action group, so that pressing the abort button will decouple the CM and activate abort motors simultaneously.

To jettison manually (for a successful launch), merely right click and press the 'Jettison' button  (should also be an action group-mappable action for that).  It will decouple itself and activate the jettison motors (the low-power ones) to pull the BPC away from the rest of the rocket.

 

2.) Stock bugs regarding multiple staging actions in a part; nothing that I can do about it; known issue: https://github.com/shadowmage45/SSTULabs/issues/287

Thanks! I followed your instructions, and it worked! I think what confused me was that I never knew that the command module staging icon actually did something. I must say that so far I have only used the 2.5m command module and its LES, and at first I was impressed by how good they looked, but once I figured out the actions groups and staging I was blown away by all the neat little features and how well made and functional these parts are. After some experimenting I was able to figure out how to set up the staging and action groups exactly how I wanted them to work. I don't like using my mouse during launches, so I wanted to jettison the LES through staging with the space bar. I set the LES to have JettisonMotor as its default mode, with the decoupler staging disabled. I disabled all the staging options for the command module except for port staging. For the actions groups, I set up the abort action group to have the Command Module "decouple Service module" and I set up the LES to "Activate Engine" and "Switch Mode". Then I just put the command module on the same stage as the LES.

[Shadowmage]

2 minutes ago, NeoMorph said:

Sweet. My problem is I can't find the texture you used for the Soyuz and Progress...

Multiple textures, two for each part (DIFF + NRM) + GLOW textures where applicable

GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-DM-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-DM-NRM
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-DM-GLOW
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-OM-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-OM-NRM
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-OM-GLOW
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-SM-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-SM-NRM
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-BPC-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-BPC-NRM

[NeoMorph]

2 hours ago, Shadowmage said:

Multiple textures, two for each part (DIFF + NRM) + GLOW textures where applicable

GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-DM-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-DM-NRM
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-DM-GLOW
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-OM-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-OM-NRM
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-OM-GLOW
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-SM-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-SM-NRM
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-BPC-DIFF
GameData/SSTU/Assets/SC-A-BPC-NRM

Thanks Shadowmage. I was looking in completely the wrong place heh.

[Shadowmage]

General Development Update:

Things have slowed down quite a bit recently as far as development goes, for a few reasons. 

First, I'm still waiting on a working wheel solution before I can 'finish' the SC-E stuff and move the mod to a 'stable' state.  This is probably the most important thing that needs to be completed, and I will not be starting any new major projects/parts/module until they are in place.  Some progress has been made on them, but it is turning out to be a... bumpy and convoluted process.  Though, I've just thought of another potential workaround that -might- allow for use of the U5 wheel-collider (which will solve quite a few problems, but likely expose others); will likely be investigating this over the weekend.

Second, its busy crunch time at work, and likely will be until Sept./Oct. or so.  During slower months I have some 'down-time' at work when I can make a bit of progress on modeling/coding/texturing/etc... but not during the summer.  Currently it is non-stop from the moment I arrive until it is time to go home.  Generally this leaves me mentally exhausted at the end of the day and in no state to do any coding or anything that requires intelligence, patience, or understanding.

Third, the weather.  Hard to concentrate on coding when it is so nice outside, even more-so as I live in Montana and our 'good weather' months are limited.  Here it is like 8 months of winter, 1 month of spring, 2 of summer, and 1 of fall.  So, I've gotta do the summer stuff while the weather here is cooperative.  Have a few more camping trips/vacations planned before the weather turns bad again, and they generally take about 2 weeks of my time for every trip (a week of prep and a week of doing).

Fourth, I'm still struggling with getting my car fully working again.  It is running... but poorly... so I've been having to spend quite a bit of time (and money ) on getting it back into a reliable and well running state.  No fun, a bit stressful, and quite distracting.  This is likely what I'll be spending a major portion of my weekend time doing.  Hopefully I'll get it figured out though, and that should at least free up my weekends and let me begin to unwind a bit.

So... yes, development has slowed down a bit for right now (and likely the next couple months at least), but I have not abandoned the mod.  I have no plans to stop development anytime soon; still quite a few concepts I would like to investigate, and tons of ideas that I would like to see in game at some point.

 

Anyhow, I'm hoping to do a recompile for 1.1.3 this weekend (mostly just to update AVC and make sure nothing was broken in the plugin).  Have a few other small fixes and changes that should make it into the update as well, shouldn't be anything game breaking.  Not sure what day yet (sat/sun/mon)... but I should have a few free hours one of those days to get done what needs doing.

-After- the wheels bit gets fixed/finished/working, I will be changing my focus to getting some station parts in place.  Trusses, hab sections, some torus' parts (torii? what is plural for torus?), and the all-important 'welding docking port'.  At the current rate though it seems like these might not get done until this fall/winter; probably for the best anyway, as that is when I'll have time (and patience) to actually concentrate on them and do them properly.

[rasta013]

RL interferes with everyone eventually so no worries.  Do your thing, get your cats herded and things straightened out and we'll be mostly patiently waiting for you.  

Oh and the plural of torus is tori...

[_Augustus_]

I've been running fine on 1.1.3.