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

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Looking over the new Cryogenic Engines update, I will need to add support for B9PartSwitcher and adjust the CryoEngines patches accordingly.

[Ciko]

How can can I change fuel mass ( examp - 1l lox= 1.1 kg ) via config ?

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

I'm not sure what you mean -- "lox" as in Liquid Oxygen already is that density in the Community Resource Pack (0.001141 tons/unit = 1.141 kg/L).  If you want to change the stock oxidizer resource, you could do that by something like this:

@RESOURCE_DEFINITION[Oxidizer]
{
	@density = 0.0011
	@volume = 1
}

You'll then want to modify all oxidizer-containing parts to have the appropriate number of units (now that 1 unit is 1 liter instead of 5):

@PART[*]:HAS[@RESOURCE[Oxidizer]]
{
	@RESOURCE[Oxidizer]
	{
		@amount *= 5
		@maxAmount *= 5
	}
}

 

[FreeThinker]

I wonder, how does SMURFF interact with IFS

Notice for IFS, there is now a simply way to change the mass fraction of a fuel tank called baseResourceMassDivider  which work in conjunction with the exisitng tnak mass but it is often easiers to simply remove tankMass entirely

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

2 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

I wonder, how does SMURFF interact with IFS

Not very intelligently -- it divides mass by 2 across the board if the tank is switchable in-flight, and by 4 if it's not.  If the tank variants contain nothing but LFO and Monoprop, this will be the correct thing to do, but different substances have very different fuel mass fractions, so I'm not sure how useful that baseResourceMassDivider variable will be.  I'd probably need to write a plugin (or individual adaptor patches for each part) to get them all exactly right for tanks that have Liquid Hydrogen and Argon as options, for example.

B9PartSwitcher's approach is a lot easier for me to work with, since each possible tank variant is called out in a config somewhere, so I can call them individually by name in Module Manager alone.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

3 hours ago, blowfish said:

Not 100% sure it works well with RF but I think there's a good chance it will.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that it doesn't "work well" with RF, in the sense that it doesn't modify RF tanks at all, and that's not a planned feature ever.  Stock fuels (and a few "stockalike" fuels, like CryoTanks and Near Future Propulsion) only.

2 hours ago, Dermeister said:

It dosent seem to affect the game it's like it's not changing anything,

It won't change anything if you use Real Fuels.  If you use the master version of Cryotanks direct from Nertea's repos (from the "Download ZIP" button), and the master version of SMURFF direct from my repo, it'll work.

[Dermeister]

5 minutes ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

I can tell you with 100% certainty that it doesn't "work well" with RF, in the sense that it doesn't modify RF tanks at all, and that's not a planned feature ever.  Stock fuels (and a few "stockalike" fuels, like CryoTanks and Near Future Propulsion) only.

It won't change anything if you use Real Fuels.  If you use the master version of Cryotanks direct from Nertea's repos (from the "Download ZIP" button), and the master version of SMURFF direct from my repo, it'll work.

That explains it then. i'm using RF

[blowfish]

49 minutes ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

I can tell you with 100% certainty that it doesn't "work well" with RF, in the sense that it doesn't modify RF tanks at all, and that's not a planned feature ever.  Stock fuels (and a few "stockalike" fuels, like CryoTanks and Near Future Propulsion) only.

That shouldn't matter though - RF already specifies realistic masses for tanks and engines.  I was more wondering if the patches actually conflict in some way.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

I'll wait on making a full release until CryoEngines has a full 1.1.2 release, but those interested can grab the master from the repo (via the "Download ZIP" button, or browsing directly to SMURFF.cfg and downloading that).  New features include support for IFS's default tank-switching setup, lithium tanks (I don't have any hard data on lithium storage efficiency, so I went with a mass-per-volume between argon and ZBO LH2 tanks so that they're not left out in the cold), and B9 Part Switcher.  (If you're using the B9-based pre-releases of CryoEngines or Kerbal Atomics, be sure to grab the master copy of the CryoTanks repo, so as to have the latest revisions to the mass and cost of each tank type, which SMURFF uses as a baseline.)

[Dermeister]

10 hours ago, blowfish said:

That shouldn't matter though - RF already specifies realistic masses for tanks and engines.  I was more wondering if the patches actually conflict in some way.

It's actually  Not that hardto reach LEO in RSS no RO. But that's not LEo that worries me.... its Geosync orbits and Mars ect.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Dermeister

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

17 hours ago, blowfish said:

I was more wondering if the patches actually conflict in some way.

Looking at the ModularFuelSystem repo, it looks like the RealFuels patches don't remove the resources from tanks, so SMURFF should still act on them in theory, but I don't know if RF actually pays attention to the "mass" of a part (which may explain what Dermeister was seeing) -- it has its own internal baseMass variables and such.

[NathanKell]

If a ModuleFuelTank is added and basemass=-1 is not specified then RF (or MFT, we share this module) will set the mass, yes.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Thanks for clarifying! So, @Dermeister, there's your answer -- RF does its own mass thing, so SMURFF won't do you much good if you use it.  You would see reduced command capsule masses, but since RF engines don't run on "Oxidizer" they won't get TWR buffs, and the fuel tanks calculate their own mass separate from the stock "mass" variable, so your fuel tank mass fractions won't change.

[curiousepic]

Quick question. In the OP, it is suggested that if we want real-ish ISP to go along with real-ish mass fractions and thrust, to use CryoEngines. Is there something about CryoEngines+SMURFF that scales ISP across the board, or is that just a suggestion that the engines that come along with CE have somewhat real-er ISPs?

Edited May 14, 2016 by curiousepic

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Maybe I should clarify that language some.  KSP engines have Isps comparable to real-world non-cryogenic engines (e.g. RP-1/LOX -- well, LOX is cryogenic, but RP-1 isn't -- or hydrazine/NTO), which top out in the neighborhood of 350 s.  If you want engines with higher Isps, 400 s or better, you're getting into cryogenic (LH2/LOX) territory.  Neither set of of engines is real-er than the other; CryoEngines just stands out from the crowd and offers a new bunch of design choices.

Do bear in mind that LH2 is fluffy stuff, even when liquified, so the tank mass fraction and required tank volume may be worse, and it will boil off over time (unless you use zero-boil-off tanks and some electric charge generation, but then the tank mass really starts to mount).  Your mileage may vary, consult your local Kerbal Engineer readout for details.

Edited May 14, 2016 by Kerbas_ad_astra

[curiousepic]

17 minutes ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

Maybe I should clarify that language some.  KSP engines have Isps comparable to real-world non-cryogenic engines (e.g. RP-1/LOX -- well, LOX is cryogenic, but RP-1 isn't -- or hydrazine/NTO), which top out in the neighborhood of 350 s.  If you want engines with higher Isps, 400 s or better, you're getting into cryogenic (LH2/LOX) territory.  Neither set of of engines is real-er than the other; CryoEngines just stands out from the crowd and offers a new bunch of design choices.

Do bear in mind that LH2 is fluffy stuff, even when liquified, so the tank mass fraction and required tank volume may be worse, and it will boil off over time (unless you use zero-boil-off tanks and some electric charge generation, but then the tank mass really starts to mount).  Your mileage may vary, consult your local Kerbal Engineer readout for details.

I see, yes the current language is confusing.  So, can you say that with RSS and SMURFF, ISPs are as real-ish as I'll get without RO and/or RF?

Edited May 14, 2016 by curiousepic

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

That is true, with the caveat that SMURFF only changes the Isp of solid-rocket motors (which are typically in the 250-280 second range, rather than the 150-220 s of stock).  LFO, monoprop, jet, ion, and nuclear engines are all left alone (although the LFO rocket engines do get a boost to their TWR).

The major change that SMURFF makes is to reduce the dry mass of a rocket, playing with the other part of the rocket equation (i.e. the part in the logarithm), which produces the large improvement in payload fraction.

[curiousepic]

Would there be an issue with SpaceY parts if I'm using the current version of SMURFF (pre-1.1) with KSP 1.1.2 and no CryoEngines? I'm having trouble getting useful dV for SpaceY launch vehicles, whereas roughly equivalient vehicles using tweakscaled stock parts get much better dV. Speaking of which, is Tweakscaled actually supported? I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the thread.

Edited May 16, 2016 by curiousepic

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

SpaceY is balanced like stock parts, so it should be fine.  I can tell you for sure if you get me the (modified) mass, fuel capacity, and thrust of a SpaceY fuel tank and engine.

There's no particular support for Tweakscale.  I haven't used it aside from trying it briefly in the 0.2x days, but from what I recall, it should be fine for fuel tanks (assuming that mass scales with volume, i.e. length^3, by default).  However, with engines, thrust scales with cross-sectional area, i.e. length^2, so TWR is increased when engines are scaled down and is decreased when engines are scaled up.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Kerbas_ad_astra

[MrMeeb]

1 hour ago, curiousepic said:

Would there be an issue with SpaceY parts if I'm using the current version of SMURFF (pre-1.1) with KSP 1.1.2 and no CryoEngines? I'm having trouble getting useful dV for SpaceY launch vehicles, whereas roughly equivalient vehicles using tweakscaled stock parts get much better dV. Speaking of which, is Tweakscaled actually supported? I don't see it mentioned anywhere in the thread.

 

38 minutes ago, Kerbas_ad_astra said:

SpaceY is balanced like stock parts, so it should be fine.  I can tell you for sure if you get me the (modified) mass, fuel capacity, and thrust of a SpaceY fuel tank and engine.

There's no particular support for Tweakscale.  I haven't used it aside from trying it briefly in the 0.2x days, but from what I recall, it should be fine for fuel tanks (assuming that mass scales with volume, i.e. length^3, by default).  However, with engines, thrust scales with cross-sectional area, i.e. length^2, so TWR is increased when engines are scaled down and is decreased when engines are scaled up.

On a kinda related point, I wouldn't recommend tweakscalling engines anyway. It messes with the balancing a lot, leading to potentially strange issues as mentioned here. If you're having trouble getting the TWR required with a large rocket, instead of tweakscalling the engine up to get more thrust, just make a cluster! Alternatively, if it's just for launch TWR, and the rocket is fine after burning off some fuel, then some SRBs will go a long way. Works for me  

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Now that CryoEngines and KerbalAtomics have updated with my tank mass and cost updates, it's time to officially update SMURFF! (Nertea thanks me in his release notes, but I confess I didn't contribute those changes for entirely altruistic reasons -- they made the math easier on me.  )

Version 1.4 is out!

• Handles B9 Part Switcher, and the corresponding updates to Cryogenic Engines.
  • Also changed patches to run FOR[zzz_SMURFF], so that it comes after the cryotanks patch.
  • Because the corresponding version of Cryogenic Engines was released for KSP 1.1.2, this version and later versions are not compatible with KSP 1.0.5, 1.1.0, or 1.1.1.
• Handles the tankResourceMassDivider variable from the generic IFS patch.
• Lithium tanks now get buffed.

[Jim Meillente]

Hello,

(KSP v1.1.2) SMURFF v1.4 is throwing three errors when the newest Near Future Construction v0.6.2 is installed, I have found the offending error(s) in my log:

[LOG 01:11:58.314] [ModuleManager] Applying node SMURFF/SMURFF/@B9_TANK_TYPE[LH2OCryo]:FOR[zzz_SMURFF] to NearFutureConstruction/Patches/NFConstructionFuelTankTypes/LH2OCryo
[LOG 01:11:58.316] [ModuleManager] Error - Cannot parse variable search when inserting new key lh2mass = #$@B9_TANK_TYPE[LH2]/tankMass$
[LOG 01:11:58.317] [ModuleManager] Error - Cannot parse variable search when editing key lh2mass = #$@B9_TANK_TYPE[LH2]/RESOURCE[LqdHydrogen]/unitsPerVolume$
[LOG 01:11:58.322] [ModuleManager] Cannot find key lh2mass in B9_TANK_TYPE
[LOG 01:11:58.323] [ModuleManager] Error - Cannot parse variable search when editing key tankMass = #$lh2mass$

I hope this helps, thank you for this wonderful mod!

JIm Meillente

Edited May 24, 2016 by Jim Meillente
clarified which version of SMURFF was used

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

The problem is that NFC has a different set of tank types than CryoTanks.  I'll have a new release out by the end of the week.  In the meantime, if you go to the "@B9_TANK_TYPE[LH2OCryo]" patch in SMURFF.cfg and change LH2 to LH2Cryo, that should fix the issue for you.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

And here we are with SMURFF v1.5, "Ore Rly?"

• Ore tanks are now adjusted, baselined against 55-gallon drums.
• Compatible with tank types included in Near Future Construction 0.6.2.
• Added new "Extras" folder for patches that are too part-specific to be included in the main distribution. The first Extra patch is for the CryoX and soft tanks from Ven's Stock Revamp. I make no promises about their balance when used with CryoTanks or other fuel-switching plugins...

[Jim Meillente]

Hello,

I wanted to say 'Thank You' for the quick reply and update!

 

Jim Meillente