[WIP] Coatl Aerospace ProbesPlus Dev Thread [Beta] 10/19/2020 (1.8-1.10)

[Deimos Rast]

I vote push it and go all out. (Although, maybe only on the signature pieces.) We have 64bit now, ksp...rumor has, it barely uses GPU's any ways, so why not? Besides, you're getting featured on spacedock, kattobos, probably modding monday soon (if not already?)...life in the fast lane baby

Worst case you get some show pieces for promo pics, no?

And is C.East just Russian or broader than that (China, JP, KR, etc)?

Edited June 20, 2016 by Deimos Rast

[CobaltWolf]

Are those... Cubeballs? I've never used them in Maya, didn't even know you could generate them. Anyways, it looks awesome.

[akron]

3 hours ago, Deimos Rast said:

I vote push it and go all out. (Although, maybe only on the signature pieces.) We have 64bit now, ksp...rumor has, it barely uses GPU's any ways, so why not? Besides, you're getting featured on spacedock, kattobos, probably modding monday soon (if not already?)...life in the fast lane baby

Worst case you get some show pieces for promo pics, no?

And is C.East just Russian or broader than that (China, JP, KR, etc)?

Oh I don't want the lane to be too fast. Don't wanna get too far ahead of myself there. About the engine thought, while we do have more overhead resources, I'd like to keep reasonable. 3500-4000 is okay for an engine. In this case though, the engine isn't even in there yet . This is a 1.25m part so the engine won't be too detail anyway.

I guess I can use CAE for all of those manufacturers. I just hadn't thought of it. Might still do HTV under CA though

2 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Are those... Cubeballs? I've never used them in Maya, didn't even know you could generate them. Anyways, it looks awesome.

Thanks. Yes, they are. They're what happens when you have unprotected smoothing. I don't recall Maya's default settings but on mine I can generate them by smoothing a cube twice.

~Cheers

Edited June 20, 2016 by akron
Make CobaltWolf happy

[Jeb1969]

17 hours ago, akron said:

Новости

It's been a great release week, thank you for downloading! The tiny RCS modules are mostly fixed and balanced *I think* and have been uploaded to the Github Repo for testing. First upload on the road to BETA 14! The RST was setup as both an RCS nozzle and a monoprop engine when all three nozzles fire.

 

I will list all the Russian parts under the CAE division. Speaking of those... oh what have I done... so I started tackling the most challenging of the new service modules, based on the Russian Fregat upper stage. This is a difficult thing to model even taking the liberty of not producing a replica. Its coming out great but WAY over the polygon budget and I don't know where to reduce it (Nozzles are probably too dense). I am going to take a little break from it and come back to it. Maybe someone has some suggestions. Right now it is 3500+ polygons without any of the structural assembly and with no engine yet!

Feedback welcome

~Спасибо!

How Exciting, Will Coatl Aerospace East also include among other things Stockalike Soviet/Russian Probe Cores and Experiments? Or is someone else going to do that? 

Edited June 20, 2016 by Jeb1969

[akron]

9 minutes ago, Jeb1969 said:

How Exciting, Will Coatl Aerospace East also include among other things Stockalike Soviet/Russian Probe Cores and Experiments? Or is ColbaltWolf going to do that? 

To be clear, this is all the same mod, ProbesPlus. I am just having a little fun with the in-game manufacturers by having a "separate" R&D Division do the Soviet parts. There will be Soviet probe cores, antenna, RCS, and Service Modules. Probably not science experiments though. I also graciously inherited two parts from Beale that were originally in Tantares. These will be "manufactured" by CAE as well.

I can't speak for @CobaltWolf's plans, but I believe his BDB mod will concentrate on US parts. Kinda like a Western equivalent to Tantares

Edited June 20, 2016 by akron

[CobaltWolf]

2 minutes ago, akron said:

I can't speak for @CobaltWolf's plans, but I believe his BDB mod will concentrate on US parts. Kinda like a Western equivalent to Tantares

We are getting dangerously close to releasing Saturn 1...

[rasta013]

@akron PR issued for the updated AR patches and directory syntax.  Just an FYI...

[akron]

13 hours ago, rasta013 said:

@akron PR issued for the updated AR patches and directory syntax.  Just an FYI...

Many thanks. I saw. I will try and take a look and merge those tonight!

[akron]

Новости

Some progress has been made. Since I started doing the hard stuff first, I went ahead and tackled the UV/texture of those tanks. Poly count dropped to 2052 with just the two rcs assemblies. Not sure if it really needs all four. Still no engine. I want to set a hard limit of 3500 polys for engine parts. This leaves me about 1500 in the budget for the engine, nozzle, and structural pieces, I think it's doable. Thoughts?

~Cheers

EDIT: Thinking about another stream this Friday. Actually I may just do every Friday at 7 pm EST. This week is pending a dentist visit though. I may not be able to talk. 

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by akron

[Virtualgenius]

i like it alot well done

[rasta013]

2 hours ago, akron said:

Thoughts?

I love the look.  RE: the RCS ports - With that orientation we'll lose two axes of control for the most part.  I know the vertical axis provides some thrust along the path of the missing ports but it will be far, far lower than what's provided by the horizontals.  This will create unbalanced torque along the starboard/port or fore/aft axis so if any of these pieces are used on docking craft it could prove challenging or requiring a couple extra nozzles to be thrown on.  There's also no down thrust at all making any kind of approach maneuver tricky since you have to judge your approach speed, flip the craft to slow down, and flip it back to rendezvous. Just a thought...

[akron]

3 hours ago, rasta013 said:

I love the look.  RE: the RCS ports - With that orientation we'll lose two axes of control for the most part.  I know the vertical axis provides some thrust along the path of the missing ports but it will be far, far lower than what's provided by the horizontals.  This will create unbalanced torque along the starboard/port or fore/aft axis so if any of these pieces are used on docking craft it could prove challenging or requiring a couple extra nozzles to be thrown on.  There's also no down thrust at all making any kind of approach maneuver tricky since you have to judge your approach speed, flip the craft to slow down, and flip it back to rendezvous. Just a thought...

Thanks. Good feedback. The yaw axis (or pitch, depending on how it is attached) is essentially crippled with a dual-RCS setup. I'll have to think on this... This is a Service Module so it is really not intended to be used for docking. It is mostly for putting payloads in a particular orbit. I can add a reaction wheel to help over come the yaw limitation or move up to 4-RCS. Now, I have a 3-way RCS nozzle that can handle the "down thrust" but it will have to be attached to payload. Essentially you'll have to compensate the RCS limitations by adding the appropriate nozzles to the payload if you intend to dock with this.

Edited June 22, 2016 by akron

[rasta013]

Just now, akron said:

Thanks. Good feedback. The yaw axis is essentially crippled with a dual-RCS setup. I'll have to think on this... This is a Service Module so it is really not intended to be used for docking. It is mostly for putting payloads in a particular orbit. I can add a reaction wheel to help over come the yaw limitation or move up to 4-RCS. Now, I have a 3-way RCS nozzle that can handle the "down thrust" but it will have to be attached to payload. Essentially you'll have to compensate the RCS limitations by adding the appropriate nozzles to the payload if you intend to dock with this.

I can dig it.  In a way I kind of prefer it.  I'm a nutcase when it comes to balancing my RCS and having the ability to move portions of the system is beneficial to my designs.  

[akron]

Just now, rasta013 said:

I can dig it.  In a way I kind of prefer it.  I'm a nutcase when it comes to balancing my RCS and having the ability to move portions of the system is beneficial to my designs.  

Okay, great! Now that I have more or less finalized what the scale is going to be for those nozzles, I can actually finish those up instead. I don't have my sketches in front of me, but IIRC I have a 4-way, 4-way 45^o, 3-way "T shape", and a directional one planned for this type.

[CobaltWolf]

6 hours ago, akron said:

<image snip>

~Cheers

Oh baby...

[rasta013]

Just now, akron said:

Okay, great! Now that I have more or less finalized what the scale is going to be for those nozzles, I can actually finish those up instead. I don't have my sketches in front of me, but IIRC I have a 4-way, 4-way 45^o, 3-way "T shape", and a directional one planned for this type.

Awesome!   Speaking from an RCS nutcase perspective I have a tendency to use the 45^o, the 3-way T's and directionals more than anything else.  I've just found that off-prime axis placement for RCS gives me much better precision balance control than cardinal orientations so those 3 nozzle setups play into my builds much better.

[Balrog]

I put both a CA-A01 and CA-A02 antenna on a Kerbin Space station; My contract would not complete, saying I had no comms device on the station.

[akron]

4 minutes ago, Balrog said:

I put both a CA-A01 and CA-A02 antenna on a Kerbin Space station; My contract would not complete, saying I had no comms device on the station.

Weird! Was it a stock contract or a mod contract? What other mods do you have installed? Do you have a log I could look at?

Thanks! 

Edited June 22, 2016 by akron

[Balrog]

Just now, akron said:

Weird! Was it a stock contract or a mod contract? What other mods do you have installed? Do you have a log in could look at?

Thanks! 

Probably Contract Pack: Bases and Stations. I have a _TON_ of mods installed - including AntennaRange...

[akron]

16 minutes ago, Balrog said:

Probably Contract Pack: Bases and Stations. I have a _TON_ of mods installed - including AntennaRange...

Can you post that log so I can track down what the conflict is?

[akron]

16 minutes ago, Balrog said:

Probably Contract Pack: Bases and Stations. I have a _TON_ of mods installed - including AntennaRange...

Can you post that log so I can track down what the conflict is?

[Balrog]

42 minutes ago, akron said:

Can you post that log so I can track down what the conflict is?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4fi1qsddzc3rw5n/KSP.log?dl=0

The antennas were on "Space Station 6"

Here's the .craft file using the antennas: https://www.dropbox.com/s/czkt6n7koyhy922/Space Station 6.craft?dl=0

Edited June 22, 2016 by Balrog

[Drakenex]

Pioneer 10, powered by @akron and @CobaltWolf

 

[akron]

5 hours ago, Balrog said:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4fi1qsddzc3rw5n/KSP.log?dl=0

The antennas were on "Space Station 6"

Here's the .craft file using the antennas: https://www.dropbox.com/s/czkt6n7koyhy922/Space Station 6.craft?dl=0

Agh! I prowled that log file and I can't find anything about the contract you mentioned. The only contract I see is a bout launching a Space Station with a ScienceLab and a Cupola.

Looking at my install instead, it looks like the default Squad contract definition already has parameters for mods, I found this defining what passes as an antenna for contracts. It covers AntennaRange and RemoteTech:

		Antenna = ModuleDataTransmitter // Part module considered to be an antenna by career
		Antenna = ModuleLimitedDataTransmitter // Part module considered to be an antenna by career
		Antenna = ModuleRTDataTransmitter // Part module considered to be an antenna by career
		Antenna = ModuleRTAntenna // Part module considered to be an antenna by career

What does the debug menu say? Alt+F12 and then go to the contracts tab. I am trying! I'm not super smart like some folks at figuring thingns like this out. To me KSP and ModuleManager load things way too weird

 

1 hour ago, Drakenex said:

Pioneer 10, powered by @akron and @CobaltWolf

 

You beat me to it. Looks fantastic. How did it fly? Does it feel well balanced?

[akron]

Update

Some updates to the Linkor Service Module. Changed the fuel tank color to white, added monoprop tanks, remaining RCS, structure parts and S5.92 engine. It is sitting at 3564 polys and is still missing some structure bits and the fairing adapters, UGH. 

I'd like to add a tiny bit more to the top of the engine. It just looks VERY plain right now... not sure if I'll have the budget for the exhaust so I'll not add a proper one.

Anyway, this will be the Orbital version. I also plan to have a landing version as part of Ground Ops with the grey tanks and no RCS, which you can also use to deliver rovers (like Lunokhod) with an add-on ramp. None of the newly modeled bits have textures

~Cheers