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

[Shadowmage]

18 minutes ago, Inside-Squirrel said:

In the perspective of the next 3 months, which minor version of the game will concentrate the developer's efforts? (1.4.1, 1.4.2 or 1.4.3)
I can take part in testing dev version with the game version 1.4.3
or do I need to downgrade to 1.4.2?

P.S.

Thanks for the excellent mod!

KSP 1.4.4

The current plugin in the dev branch should work fine on KSP 1.4, 1.4.1, 1.4.2, 1.4.3, and the upcoming 1.4.4 (untested, but should work).  I'm currently compiling against the KSP 1.4.2 libraries, so if you want the 'best' compatibility, I would say to use 1.4.2 or higher.  (I'll update my KSP libraries to the most current version prior to the first public release; for now though, I'm just compiling with what I already have linked)

[Inside-Squirrel]

This is just great news.
Thank you for attention.

[atomontage]

Hello, @Shadowmage!

Firstly, let me thank you for your great work on SSTU - I've been really enjoying the mod for a while, its a pure awesomeness. And all those PBR textures... jeez, its cool as hell! *drools*

I have a question. Lets say I have a standard MFT-A 2.5m x2.0 lightweight tank filled with LH2:
 

Spoiler

 

Then the volume of this tank is 5 * π * 2.5^2 ≈ 98.17 m^3 (Notice that the menu says its volume is 24.5 m^3 and its usable volume is 20,8 m^3.)
Now as we have mass and volume we can calculate LH2 density: m / V = 1475kg / 98.17 m^3 ≈ 14.025 kg/m^3
Google says the density of Liquid Hydrogen is something around 70.8 kg/m^3 that is almost 5 times greater.

If we consider the told volume (20.8 m^3) then the calculations are correct and the resulting density will be 70.91 kg/m^3.

I have also looked into the CRP config - it defines LqdHydrogen density as 

density = 0.00007085000

which seems to be correct.

Does SSTU divide the resulting volume by 5 just to match stock LF and LOX? Because it fills itself with stock resources correctly. But it seems like a strange solution as it completely breaks the usage of LH2 and other resources.

My SSTU version is 0.39.149 (KSP is 1.3.1).

Thanks!

Edited May 22, 2018 by atomontage
grammar

[Shadowmage]

29 minutes ago, atomontage said:

I have a question. Lets say I have a standard MFT-A 2.5m x2.0 lightweight tank filled with LH2:

Thanks for the comments, and excellent question.

The MFT part, using the MFT-A-2-0, at 2.5m diameter is a cylinder of diameter 2.5m and height of 5m.  Would have a volume of 24.54 m3 (24540 liters)  (pi * r^2 * h).  So looks like the GUI is correct on the raw volume.  Usable volume should be ~85% of that.

Stock resources are defined in 5-liter 'units'.  LH2 and other CRP resources are defined in 1-liter 'units'.  So yes, there will be a 5x discrepancy if comparing by number of units alone; but the volume will be the same.  Edit:  Also note that LH2 is extremely 'light' when compared to LFO fuel -- it is far less dense, so you will need much more volume in order to get the same mass of propellant.

If you compare these two screenshots, you can see that the 'usable volume' doesn't change depending on the resource selected.

 

20825 liters of usable volume, filled with LH2, = 1.475451t of propellant (1475.451 kg), which would give a density of:  0.070828331332533  kg/l   or  70.828331332533 kg/m^3  (minor discrepancies likely due to floating-point rounding errors)

 

Seems like it all checks out to me....

 

Edit:  Looks like the error in your volume calculations are due to using 'diameter' rather than 'radius'.  Diameter = 2x radius.

Thus:

Quote

Then the volume of this tank is 5 * π * 2.5^2 ≈ 98.17 m^3

Becomes:

Quote

Then the volume of this tank is 5 * π * 1.25^2 ≈ 24.543692606170259675489401431871 m^3

 

Edited May 22, 2018 by Shadowmage

[Jimbodiah]

It is definitely worthwhile to use LH2 over LF in-game whenever possible due to lower weight and higher isp; Using them in practice confirms that they work as intended.

[atomontage]

17 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Edit:  Looks like the error in your volume calculations are due to using 'diameter' rather than 'radius'.  Diameter = 2x radius.

Jeez... NOW I am ashamed! Haha. Yeah right, I used diameter instead of radius... *sigh*

Thank you much for your great answer and very quick reaction!

Mr. Kraken, bless this dude and this mod for us please! Oh did you already do it? Okay then, but do it again please! For more reliability..

Edited May 22, 2018 by atomontage

[Deltac]

Has anyone else noticed that the SSTU engines tend to be bigger than their other mod counterparts?  Is this mod intended for an upscaled KSP?

[Shadowmage]

7 minutes ago, Deltac said:

Has anyone else noticed that the SSTU engines tend to be bigger than their other mod counterparts?  Is this mod intended for an upscaled KSP?

Please provide some images for demonstration -- what mods, what parts?

Generally speaking SSTU's engines are 64% of the size of their real-world counterparts; most accurate down to a few cm if compared to the parameters/sources used for design.  They are intended to be used in the stock system, which is most often specified that the 'kerbalized' parts are ~64% the size of human-scaled parts (thus the 64% scale applied to the engines).

Other mods' engines may be done at a different scale, or based on different sources, or be an entirely different variant of a specific engine.

[Deltac]

1 minute ago, Shadowmage said:

Please provide some images for demonstration -- what mods, what parts?

Generally speaking SSTU's engines are 64% of the size of their real-world counterparts; most accurate down to a few cm if compared to the parameters/sources used for design.  They are intended to be used in the stock system, which is most often specified that the 'kerbalized' parts are ~64% the size of human-scaled parts (thus the 64% scale applied to the engines).

Other mods' engines may be done at a different scale, or based on different sources, or be an entirely different variant of a specific engine.

ah, I think Cobalt isn't using the dreaded 64% formula.  The Bluedog Design Bureau Saturn Engines are smaller than yours, and so is the SSME provided in Pak's Cormorant Space Shuttled mod.

F1 engine comparison:

 

I really only noticed this when trying to use your SSME for the Liquid Rocket Booster.

I think this will really only bother people that want everything to be the same scale.  I'm assuming a tweakscale config would probably be all anyone would need if it really bothers them.  Either that or adding more code to resize the engines.  Programmers just love adding more code!  /sarcasm xP

[Jimbodiah]

You can patch the size of engines by changing a single line.

 

But if Wolfy doesn't use 0.64x scaling, then his engines should be way bigger, not a little bit smaller. Maybe wolfman himself @CobaltWolf can chime in?

[Shadowmage]

@Deltac Thanks for providing the examples, at least I can see specifically what you are looking at.

30 minutes ago, Deltac said:

ah, I think Cobalt isn't using the dreaded 64% formula.

If others are not using 64%, that is most likely the cause of the discrepancies.  I believe the range of scales on my parts ranges from ~63% - ~66% depending on the engine, with most being very close to 64%

30 minutes ago, Deltac said:

Either that or adding more code to resize the engines.

As @Jimbodiah stated, such code already exists; shouldn't be more than a simple patch to change the engine scale (likely a single line; more complex if you also wanted to adjust mass/cost/thrust)    (but you are entirely on your own if you choose to do so)

 

Some quick measurements ---

F1 - real diameter = 3.75m; SSTU's scaled diameter = 2.45m;  scale = 65.33333%
RS-25 - real diameter = 2.4m; SSTU's scaled diameter = 1.54m; scale = 64.166666666666666666666666666667%

IDK... I would say that they are pretty consistently scaled...

 

FYI - The stock F1 motor is modeled at that scale as they needed 5 engines to fit under a 5m fuel tank.  A real 64% Saturn-V would have a 6.4m diameter S-IC, but stock likely did not want to add even larger fuel tanks.  In SSTU it is entirely possible to have 6.4m tanks (or 6.25m), and the engines fit just fine when everything is done to the proper scale.

Edit: I should also mention that SSTU is really intended to be played with most stock (and other mods') parts removed or disabled.  Inconsistent scales can't bug you if they don't exist....

Edited May 22, 2018 by Shadowmage

[Jimbodiah]

 

Quote

Edit: I should also mention that SSTU is really intended to be played with most stock (and other mods') parts removed or disabled

Janitor's Closet is my best friend for removing 99% of stock parts    It renames the cfg/mu files so they will not even load the next time you start KSP.

 

The MM patch to scale engines:

@PART[partname]:NEEDS[SSTU]:AFTER[SSTU]
{
    @MODULE[SSTUModularEngineCluster]
    {
        @engineScale = 1.0
    }
}

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by Jimbodiah

[Kaa253]

9 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

Janitor's Closet is my best friend for removing 99% of stock parts

PermaPrune! What an interesting feature. Thanks for mentioning this Janitor's Closet mod!

[CobaltWolf]

14 hours ago, Jimbodiah said:

But if Wolfy doesn't use 0.64x scaling, then his engines should be way bigger, not a little bit smaller. Maybe wolfman himself @CobaltWolf can chime in?

I honestly don't know where the 64% comes from. I just use the rule of thumb 1m IRL = 0.625m in game (so a 2m rocket IRL neatly becomes size 1, etc). I also don't remember using any diagrams or anything to make the F-1 etc (I am once I remake them some time this year); plus, the BDB Saturn V itself is underscaled due to... well... a it's a long story.

To the same point, the stock shuttle is probably underscaled thus Pak's STME probably is as well.

[CodeFantastic]

I understand that this is a WIP mod, but I was wondering, are all the parts not supposed to have textures or did I install the mod incorrectly? The only parts with textures are the shuttle and lander parts.

[Shadowmage]

5 minutes ago, CodeFantastic said:

I understand that this is a WIP mod, but I was wondering, are all the parts not supposed to have textures or did I install the mod incorrectly? The only parts with textures are the shuttle and lander parts.

Sounds like you have installed it incorrectly, likely that the dependencies are either missing incorrect versions.

SSTU requires the following dependencies (all of a version appropriate for the KSP version you are using):

• ModuleManager
• CommunityResourcePack
• KSPWheel
• TexturesUnlimited

If you could provide a link to a hosted copy of your KSP.log file (use dropbox or another file hosting site, paste the link here), I could likely tell you exactly what is missing or otherwise going wrong.

[CodeFantastic]

Here's my output log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8jhowji13sixibr/output_log.txt?dl=0 

[Shadowmage]

10 minutes ago, CodeFantastic said:

Here's my output log: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8jhowji13sixibr/output_log.txt?dl=0 

Looks like you are missing the dependencies for SSTU, at least TexturesUnlimited is missing (which would cause all textures to fail to load).

Try installing this release of TU (I think it was the last one for KSP 1.3 -- https://github.com/shadowmage45/TexturesUnlimited/releases/tag/1.0.0.8 )

Generally though you should have installed everything that was included in the SSTU release -- I made sure to include all of the dependencies, and they were all intended to be installed as they are required.

 

Edit:  That log actually doesn't even show SSTU as being installed.  Are you sure you got the right log file?  It should be the KSP.log file located in the same directory as the KSP executable (the file is named 'KSP.log').

Edited May 23, 2018 by Shadowmage

[CodeFantastic]

Not surprised that's the problem, I've had it installed for a week and have been unable to get the mod to work even though I have the launch options in steam set to force open GL. I'll try re-installing it 

 

Edit: I've installed all the dependcies and re-installed TU. In the steam launch options I have "-force-opengl" (without the quotes), and the models still are not appearing 

Edited May 23, 2018 by CodeFantastic

[CodeFantastic]

30 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

Looks like you are missing the dependencies for SSTU, at least TexturesUnlimited is missing (which would cause all textures to fail to load).

Try installing this release of TU (I think it was the last one for KSP 1.3 -- https://github.com/shadowmage45/TexturesUnlimited/releases/tag/1.0.0.8 )

Generally though you should have installed everything that was included in the SSTU release -- I made sure to include all of the dependencies, and they were all intended to be installed as they are required.

 

Edit:  That log actually doesn't even show SSTU as being installed.  Are you sure you got the right log file?  It should be the KSP.log file located in the same directory as the KSP executable (the file is named 'KSP.log').

Sorry, didn't see your edit. Here's the KSP.log https://www.dropbox.com/s/a5eplh8sjraogjf/KSP.log?dl=0 

 

[Shadowmage]

2 minutes ago, CodeFantastic said:

Sorry, didn't see your edit. Here's the KSP.log https://www.dropbox.com/s/a5eplh8sjraogjf/KSP.log?dl=0 

 

Thanks for the log.  That one makes a lot more sense (I have a feeling the first one you posted was quite out of date, as it was for KSP 1.3.x).

Looks like the problem is that you are trying to use SSTU with KSP 1.4.3.   SSTU does not currently support KSP 1.4+, and you will have to wait for a compatible version to be released.

[Jimbodiah]

Another one?

If you run mods, NEVER use the steam install folder but copy your ksp folder elsewhere to avoid steam installing new versions without notice.

[Triibu]

Hello!

My game just keeps loading SSTU/Assets/ST-CFG-A i waited like 10 minutes and its still loading. Any help?

[Jimbodiah]

NO LOGS, NO SUPPORT.

 

If you're using 1.4.3, this mod supports 1.3.1 only at the moment.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Jimbodiah

[Sorabh]

Hello! I like this Mod. However the tanks have mass fractions like stock, hence unusable in RSS.. Could you please let me know how to apply SMURFF config to SSTU  fuel tanks?