Question: one-part ship conversion

[Jimbodiah]

Hi Guys,

In awe of what modders here do for the game, in awe about what KSP doesn't do for the game. Everyone knows what happens when you are approaching a colony/station with over 100 parts in it; the lag an cpu load is monstrous making the whole thing unplayable IMHO.

So that got me wondering, and by no means am I hindered by any knowlegde Say I make a ship, find that it is what I want after a few test flights, but it's 40-50 parts in total which is starting to stress out KSP.

Would it be possible to compile this ship into a 1 piece item that has all the functionality etc, but just one single part? Seeing as we often mirror things like solar panels, struts, landing gear, engines etc; part count will sky-rocket (pun intended). Would these things not combine into a single item with the same attributes? The only major thing I can think of would be generating the textures.

Am I just plain crazy for above train of thought?

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Above thought only applies to ships that remain as a single item and can not be altered or parts dropped, i.e. no lifter that drop boosters etc.

[Urgante]

As far as I know there is two methods to achieve something similar to what you want...or at least reduce part count.

You can weld several parts together using this mod:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/107273

It is very limited if you first build your ship as always and then weld it, but once you get the idea of the mod and build your ships with the intention to weld them at every chance is a great help.

Another method is to use this mod:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/130034-Part-BETA-SSTULabs-Low-Part-Count-Solutions-%28Orbiter-Landers-Lifters%29-Dev-Thread-10-17-15

At first glance is a part mod as any other, but it has several parts with built-in solar panel, legs, ligths ... etc

It's extremely good at redoucing part count ... as long as you use that particular parts to build your ship ... wich is not always what you want ... but it sure helps a lot.

Neither of this methods is a perfect solution but I don't know any better.

[Jimbodiah]

Hi Urgante,

Thanks for taking time! Those mods look great, and the welding mod seems to be a big step in the direction I am looking at, thanks!!!! I know a 1 part ship might be fantasy without resorting to modding myself, but this should a be step in the right direction.

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Wow, that weld mod is amazing. I've reduced part count from 39 to under 15 on a lander I made.

[Jimbodiah]

whaha, need to dive into the config files sometimes though as rotations get messed up. But loads of coolness reducing parts count this way.

[problemecium]

"unplayable"

A lot of people have been throwing this word around lately, but I've been perfectly happy docking at 2 FPS ;P

[Viragos]

A couple of other possibilities to consider are Roverdude's MKS/OKS mod (I think its in that one anyway) It gives engineers the ability to scrap parts on ships in flight so after you build a space station/base/interplanetary Tug or w/e you can go in and scrap the extra struts and rcs blocks you don't need any more reducing part count, and/or Ferram's Kerbal Joint reinforcement which can cut out the need for struts in the first place.

[Jimbodiah]

@Para: I run into 0.5fps if even that sometimes, it's hard to control anything manually if the update is so slow. I've reduced part counts by half now, deleted old ships and landers and replaced them. Making nice looking ships is like I did before (form before function) is a thing of the past...

@Viragos: I hardly use struts, never have, only if the load is so weird that you need some reinforcements, but I hardly use more than 1-2 struts then. Already running reinforced mod as I had issues with the Kraken and someone already pointed me there. Also using MKS/OKS but dont have anything I can remove from ships. Skipper on some small solar panels for backup on my landers (use microwave receivers for power) but had two of them become stranded without any power because of reasons unknown and no way to recharge the battery to start up the receiver again. So already keeping it to a bare minimum.

The weld mod is a step in the direction I was looking for, but has it's limitations and you really need to dive into the cfg files to correct stuff on pretty much every build.

[Mecripp]

You might play around with this and see if you can come up with something KSPBlender importing craft [url]http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/111483-KSPBlender-Blender-Addon-for-importing-craft-files-%28now-with-complete-mod-support!%29[/url]

[problemecium]

[quote name='Jimbodiah']@Para: I run into 0.5fps if even that sometimes, it's hard to control anything manually if the update is so slow. I've reduced part counts by half now, deleted old ships and landers and replaced them. Making nice looking ships is like I did before (form before function) is a thing of the past...[/QUOTE]

Mind telling me what sorts of part counts you're talking about here? I was sort of kidding, because the only place I have to dock at 2 FPS is with the Kidonia, which has about 1400 parts now. All of my "reasonably-sized" ships run just fine.

P.S. I know this isn't a thread about CFG optimization, but if you haven't looked into it, make sure that "Max Physics DT per frame" slider is all the way to the right, and if you have to, you can even do what I did and open the CFG file manually and type in a smaller value (mine is currently at 0.015). This will of course make time slow to a crawl around big stuff, but you'll preserve your framerate and thus controllability. Edited November 16, 2015 by parameciumkid