[1.7-1.9] SMURFF: Simple Module adjUstments for Real-ish Fuel-mass Fractions 1.9.1 (02019 Nov 12)

[Jacke]

22 hours ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

SMURFF can be used in any solar system, and if the 'lever' variables have positive values, then SMURFF will reduce the masses of parts (specifically: engines, heat shields, fuel tanks, and crew capsules, provided they use stock-like resources and balancing).

In my opinion, it only makes sense to do this in upscaled solar systems....

Well, as an example, as I was designing rockets, I looked at the mass fraction of the RLA Stockalike SRBs (from RLA Recontinued) and seeing the dry mass as 25% of the wet mass...well, it's just wrong.

SMURFF might change things radically for the stock scaled solar system, but I'll think I'll give it a try.  Couple of questions.

1.  Are SRBs adjusted?  Looking at the MM script, SRBs are adjusted.

2.  Are aircraft parts adjusted?  I imagine the fuel tanks are.

And after skimming the last few pages, I see how putting SMURFF into the stock scaled solar system is likely too much.  Will still see what it's like.

Edited September 7, 2017 by Jacke

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

You could maybe tinker with some of the internal math that SMURFF does (i.e. not just the three 'lever' variables, but the 'factor' variables further down), but you're probably better off just writing a patch for the RLA boosters to make them lighter.

You're correct that fuel tanks are adjusted, but nothing else -- air-breathing engines are at about the right TWR, so they don't get adjusted (although the RAPIER and similar multi-mode engines do receive a thrust buff to their rocket modes).

[Jacke]

58 minutes ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

You could maybe tinker with some of the internal math that SMURFF does (i.e. not just the three 'lever' variables, but the 'factor' variables further down), but you're probably better off just writing a patch for the RLA boosters to make them lighter.

You're correct that fuel tanks are adjusted, but nothing else -- air-breathing engines are at about the right TWR, so they don't get adjusted (although the RAPIER and similar multi-mode engines do receive a thrust buff to their rocket modes).

Thanks for the reply.  Did a quick test.  It was a small rocket so little seemed to changed, but the performance was noticeably better.  SMURFF is definitely interesting, but as said is rather overpowered for the stock scale solar system.

Will think on how much to fiddle with the RLA SRBs and other parts.  There's other ills like an AV-R8 Winglet costing more than many small LF engines, so once you go down that rabbit hole, there's a whole dammn large warren of things to untangle.

[SilentWindOfDoom]

I had a quick question. I am looking to nerf the global atmospheric isp for all rocket engines in order to offset Ferram Aerospace's thinner atmosphere while using the stock-size solarsystem. Could I potentially use this mod to achieve that?

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

No, but you could do it with a patch like this (similar to several constructs within SMURFF):

@PART[*]:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleEngines*]]
{
  @MODULE[ModuleEngines*]:HAS[@PROPELLANT[Oxidizer]] // Only affect engines that burn oxidizer == rocket engines (not jets, ions, mono)
  {
    @atmosphereCurve
    {
      @key,1[1, ] -= 20 // Or use "*= 0.9" for a 10% reduction, etc.
    }
  }
}

The idea is that you're calling for the second (computers start counting from zero, recall) key ("@key,1", the one in the atmosphere), and then looking at the second space-separated number in the key ("[1, ]") to do math on it ("-= 20" or , "*= 0.9", etc.).

[metalpoetza]

Thank you for this mod  I'm having a blast with it right now.

I wanted to suggest two mods for the realish list which I think fit in very well - and seem to play nicely with SMURFF as well. For your consideration:

• CareerEvolution - this is a very, very nice career-mode contract pack with realish progression, requires some kind of unmanned first tech-tree - but works well with stock parts. Since using SMURFF on RSS instead of RO means RP0 is not an option - I think this is a great alternative. The developer, PAP is actually an RP0 dev as well.  I use SETI-unmanned-before-manned with it, but you can use others (suggestions listed on the mod page). Personally I like it much better than the SETI-ContractsPack though.
• SurfaceExperimentPack - you want realish experience mods, and you list some good ones (I've installed the whole list) but they don't include much in terms of science packs. There are a few realish science mods out there, based on actual scientific experiments done in space, but this one is one of my favorites. It's a set of experiments that have to be set up by Kerbals on EVA (uses KIS/KAS) and are some of the same experiments the actual Apollo astronauts did on the moon  - such as placing big reflective plates which can be hit by lasers from earth to measure the exact distance of it's orbit. It's a lot more interactive than most science experiments, which is cool for the realish factor, and certainly hits the "real" part of realish as it's experiments that we've actually done in the real world space programs. 

 

I don't know if you'll like them as much as I do (maybe check out Kotabo's video reviews if you're not familiar with them) but I thought I would make the suggestion. 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2017 by metalpoetza

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

I've sometimes thought about disentangling the RO dependencies from RP-0, but it looks like pap's got it covered!  I hesitate to add it (or other career/tech overhauls) to the list of suggestions, though, because this one in particular imposes some requirements on the solar system and tech tree, and many nice tech trees are mutually exclusive.

SEP (and other packs that add real experiments, like DMOS and NEOS) is definitely going on the list!  Thanks for the reminder.

[raxo2222]

Can we have SMURFF lite? That is without changing fuel tank masses, as Interstellar Fuel Switch already does that.

 

Setting this line in smuff cofing:     tanklever = 1 to     tanklever = 0 causes pods to have infinite mass.

Edited September 15, 2017 by raxo2222

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

SMURFF was made to be 'lite' to begin with; I'm not going to make (and support) an even liter version.

I see where a divide-by-zero error will occur with setting that lever to zero exactly; I'll see if I can fix it, but in the meantime it should work if you set it to 0.001 or the like.

[raxo2222]

34 minutes ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

SMURFF was made to be 'lite' to begin with; I'm not going to make (and support) an even liter version.

I see where a divide-by-zero error will occur with setting that lever to zero exactly; I'll see if I can fix it, but in the meantime it should work if you set it to 0.001 or the like.

That worked - now SMURFF almost doesn't touch fuel tanks.

[Guest]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but is this mod fine with AJE engines?

The OP says it will adjust engines, so does this do something like turning off its own configs for AJE engines?

nvm

 

Edited October 28, 2017 by Murican_Jeb

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

On 10/28/2017 at 4:32 PM, Murican_Jeb said:

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but is this mod fine with AJE engines?

The OP says it will adjust engines, so does this do something like turning off its own configs for AJE engines?

nvm

 

For anyone else curious, SMURFF and AJE don't really interact.  It's not by any intention; it's just that AJE only patches jet engines, while SMURFF only patches rocket engines.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

For anyone else curious, SMURFF and AJE don't really interact.  It's not by any intention; it's just that AJE only patches jet engines, while SMURFF only patches rocket engines.

AJE also patches firepsitter props, and firespitter props are liquid fuel so...

But i can just solve that problem by making the engine lever to 0, so don't worry too much about it.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

On 10/30/2017 at 6:12 PM, Murican_Jeb said:

AJE also patches firepsitter props, and firespitter props are liquid fuel so...

But i can just solve that problem by making the engine lever to 0, so don't worry too much about it.

Do they burn oxidizer?  That's what SMURFF looks for.  If Firespitter's engines don't burn that (or solid fuel...) then SMURFF won't touch them.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

Do they burn oxidizer?  That's what SMURFF looks for.  If Firespitter's engines don't burn that (or solid fuel...) then SMURFF won't touch them.

Nope...

[danfarnsy]

Edit: Pretty much everything I said below is wrong or useless, but I'll leave the post here.

Any chance we can get SMURFF to address Nertea's Kerbal Atomics? SMURFF It seems to be looking for ModuleEngines of various sorts, but some of the Kerbal Atomics engines are multi-mode beasts and their configs contain no reference to ModuleEngines, instead using this:

MODULE
	{
		name = MultiModeEngine
		primaryEngineID = LH2
		secondaryEngineID = LOxAugmented
		primaryEngineModeDisplayName = #LOC_KerbalAtomics_Multimode_LH2
		secondaryEngineModeDisplayName = #LOC_KerbalAtomics_Multimode_LH2OX
	}

25 ton aerospike with oxidizer mode gives engine TWR of less than 2:1, which makes me feel like crying on my 10.625x scale GPP. Maybe I'll try adding the tweaks myself and give a PR, but I haven't fully wrapped my head around what you're doing in your configs. Simply copying and pasting another @PART for other engines and modifying the @Module[ModuleEngines*] to point to this other module would be my best guess, but we all know what assuming does.

Edited November 8, 2017 by danfarnsy
Full of wrongness

[Aelfhe1m]

@danfarnsy Actually the module MultiModeEngine is just the switcher. Right below it in the parts' configs are two ModuleEngineFX modules (one fore LH only mode and one for the LH+Ox mode). 

Just checked my own install with 6.4x and SMURFF - the Sctlla aerospike gets its augmented mode thrust buffed from 4350 kN (vac) to 6525 kN (vac) with engine mass unchanged.

The unaugmented mode (LH only) was unchanged at 1450 kN - is this supposed to be untouched?

Edited November 8, 2017 by Aelfhe1m

[danfarnsy]

13 hours ago, Aelfhe1m said:

Just checked my own install with 6.4x and SMURFF - the Sctlla aerospike gets its augmented mode thrust buffed from 4350 kN (vac) to 6525 kN (vac) with engine mass unchanged.

The unaugmented mode (LH only) was unchanged at 1450 kN - is this supposed to be untouched?

Hmm... yeah, this seems to be inline with @Kerbas_ad_astra's intent, from the front page. I probably need to stick my foot in my mouth for not knowing how to calculate TWRs when I posted my comment. I was off by a factor of over 100. Oxidizer in vacuum mode with a 25 ton engine is still TWR of 266, perfectly reasonable, no reason to further change it. And you're right that HAS[@MODULE[ModuleEngines*] also references ModuleEnginesFX. It was late and I should have been trying to sleep instead of thinking I knew what I was looking at.

Nothing to see here, move along!  

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

On 11/8/2017 at 4:39 AM, Aelfhe1m said:

@danfarnsy Actually the module MultiModeEngine is just the switcher. Right below it in the parts' configs are two ModuleEngineFX modules (one fore LH only mode and one for the LH+Ox mode). 

Just checked my own install with 6.4x and SMURFF - the Sctlla aerospike gets its augmented mode thrust buffed from 4350 kN (vac) to 6525 kN (vac) with engine mass unchanged.

The unaugmented mode (LH only) was unchanged at 1450 kN - is this supposed to be untouched?

That is correct.  All oxidizer-burning modes get their thrust buffed, but the engine mass is decreased if and only if there are no non-oxidizer-burning modes.

[Ant432]

Module Manager gives me 2 config errors from this mod. Is this an issue?

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

There's a couple of parts from various mods that I need to figure out how to handle better.  Can you get me the errors?

[tawny]

Hi, I'm trying to use SMURFF and Interstellar Fuel Switch at the same time for a 6.4x scale game on 1.3.1. As soon as I install IFS (or any other fuel switching mod), SMURFF's fuel tank changes stop applying. (they appear to have the adjusted masses when hovered over in the editor's part selector but not once placed, if that means anything). I looked at the mod files and through this thread but it looks like SMURFF has a patch for IFS included in it already? Did I need to do something I overlooked, like add a patch for SMURFF through module manager? Am I missing something obvious here?

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Interstellar has its own fuel tank mass adjustment patches and fuel tank switching patches that it applies to all parts.  I thought I had a patch to adjust those, but it may have changed.  If someone comes up with a fix, I might accept a pull request, but I don't use IFS's parts and patches anymore, so it's not a priority for me to get into the weeds to debug.

[tawny]

Alright, thanks anyway. I might see if I can figure something out, though that'll probably depend on whether I can figure out how IFS works.

[HoveringKiller]

This mod is a life saver for a re scaled play-through! My rockets were getting to big and un-weildy, this brought them back down a tad notch. Thank you for this!