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

[akron]

Update

I modeled 3 new antenna: Pioneer's stick, a Russian dome sensor/antenna, and a deployable ground-plane antenna. I felt like playing with some animations so I finished the GPA and a new solar panel so I can start learning those. The Solar panels are inspired by Mariner but fold at the middle and do not track the sun, like the earlier Mariner mission. These are high-power but early tech so they are bulky. Making these made me want to make a small Mariner probe core to have available early tech as well but I think @CobaltWolf is making one for BDB. I am thinking about making a second, upgraded version with solar tracking and a built-in rcs, like the later Mariner.

The antenna is supposed to be partially spring loaded, folded down to about a communotron 16, so I started playing with options to make it unable to be retracted, but the stock isOneShot setting did not work. I resorted to using @DMagic's ScienceAnimate and that worked, but now I have a "toggle experiment" button in the r-click menu that I cannot figure out how to turn off. I will revisit this and fix it with whichever option works best. I am leaning towards using DM's module because I will likely need it for my science stuff anyway, and it had better success with what I wanted.

I also figured out why the Voyager RTG was not working with my Maya expressions! I ran into the issue again with the antenna, which does not use expression-script animations, so it got me thinking...  I found the culprit to be the DAE exporter in Maya. It could just be my export settings, but using FBX exporter resulted in the animation playing exactly in Unity as it was in Maya!  To test this, I used an expression script to animate the solar panel and it exported fine! Mystery solved. I'll be darned if I'm redoing the Voyager RTG though.

~Cheers

 

[CobaltWolf]

@akron I was planning on making the remaining parts for Mariner, yeah. The core itself is pretty much just a stock Octo so I didn't see much point to it. Watch out, I'm focusing on my probe stuff now too.

EDIT: Oh, also - I really love those solar panels. The design and texture is great. I just wanted to point out that I reuse Beale's solar panel texture to make it so all the panels fit together. Sometimes I like to mix and match panels, like having a couple flat radials to cover angles that fixed panels don't. Just wanted to raise it, I don't necessarily think you should change it.

EDIT2: Can you post screenshots of the other two new antennas?

Edited March 23, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[akron]

56 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

@akron I was planning on making the remaining parts for Mariner, yeah. The core itself is pretty much just a stock Octo so I didn't see much point to it. Watch out, I'm focusing on my probe stuff now too.

Hurry up and finish those. I am trying to learn from you.

56 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

EDIT: Oh, also - I really love those solar panels. The design and texture is great. I just wanted to point out that I reuse Beale's solar panel texture to make it so all the panels fit together. Sometimes I like to mix and match panels, like having a couple flat radials to cover angles that fixed panels don't. Just wanted to raise it, I don't necessarily think you should change it.

Thanks! I did not have plans to change it, I am not sure what you mean. The other panel I was thinking about making will be a separate part based on Mariner 10-ish. How would you feel if I add solar wind panes to this one?

56 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

EDIT2: Can you post screenshots of the other two new antennas?

Yeah I forgot to take a picture. I should have them textured today so I will screenshot then. They are pretty simple (non-animated) though. Just these two:

 

EDIT: Did you have a Mariner 4-ish antenna dish planned? If not, I will use that design for my Small dish. I don't have that size covered yet

Edited March 23, 2016 by akron

[CobaltWolf]

2 hours ago, akron said:

Hurry up and finish those. I am trying to learn from you.

Thanks! I did not have plans to change it, I am not sure what you mean. The other panel I was thinking about making will be a separate part based on Mariner 10-ish. How would you feel if I add solar wind panes to this one?

Yeah I forgot to take a picture. I should have them textured today so I will screenshot then. They are pretty simple (non-animated) though. Just these two:

EDIT: Did you have a Mariner 4-ish antenna dish planned? If not, I will use that design for my Small dish. I don't have that size covered yet

Fine, gawd. Only if you settle on a finalized gold foil. I have some things that will need it.

I was just bringing it up for consideration. It irks me if I can't mix and match solar panels because they don't fit together, but the texture on yours is so beautiful I don't want it to change. I just wanted to raise the idea.

Insert via edit: The vanes would be cool!

Those look pretty cool!

I was going to model the Mariner 4 dish this afternoon. I feel obligated since I already have the Mariner 4 omni antenna.

Edited March 23, 2016 by CobaltWolf

[CobaltWolf]

Small bug report - the advanced New Horizons RTG has a stack node, but is not marked as stack attachable.

[akron]

@CobaltWolf is one steely-eyed bug finding man

[akron]

11 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Small bug report - the advanced New Horizons RTG has a stack node, but is not marked as stack attachable.

FIXED: It was actually marked correctly, but the node was not oriented correctly.

update

Not that much time spent today. I finished the antenna mentioned last time and got them in-game. I also modeled some solar wind vanes for my "Mariner" solar panels. Let me know if you think I should have it with or without the vanes. I would do both but unless I can make something different in the stats I don't see the point.

Next is the last static dish antenna, the "small" one, so I can be mostly done with them. BDB already has the Mariner dish so I am looking at other candidates. This would be a good chance to use a Russian or ESA design. I am thinking about something inspired by Mars-2 but I am open to non-NASA suggestions. After that, probably back to science parts. Next release probably this Friday.

I also started working on a Github page so I could maybe do dev builds after every work session but I got confused and overwhelmed after about 5 minutes. If someone has a Github guide for "KSP mods" or can help, let me know.

~Cheers

 

[thunder175]

I almost spit my coffee on my work computer yesterday when I stumbled upon this thread. Been looking for something along these lines that was in active development for a while now. Well done sir! Love the mod! Please keep up the excellent work as I can't wait to get the rest of the probe parts. I was wondering though what the point of the AACS was? Its just a SAS module no? The probe cores already have SAS so it seems redundant, unless I am not seeing something (which is probably the case). I was thinking of adding built in MJ and KER support to the AACS part config  to give it more use cases in my game.

[akron]

4 minutes ago, thunder175 said:

I almost spit my coffee on my work computer yesterday when I stumbled upon this thread. Been looking for something along these lines that was in active development for a while now. Well done sir! Love the mod! Please keep up the excellent work as I can't wait to get the rest of the probe parts. I was wondering though what the point of the AACS was? Its just a SAS module no? The probe cores already have SAS so it seems redundant, unless I am not seeing something (which is probably the case). I was thinking of adding built in MJ and KER support to the AACS part config  to give it more use cases in my game.

Thank you! You are not the first to miss it. I don't have the mod super publicized so I feel it sits in the dark corner sometimes. It's ok, because I am not that far into development. I will try and fix that. If I can get a good set of parts finished this week for a decent test release, I may advertise it on the KSP Subreddit page or something. Help me spread the word! I could use more feedback!

The AACS can do prograde/retrograde hold (SAS Level 1), which not all probes can do. It just upgrades the SAS module of the probe. I am actually considering boosting the AACS a little higher (SAS 2 or 3) so it is more useful later on. Some of my probes, like Barquetta have built-in star trackers and do not need the AACS module.

I didn't even think about MechJeb/Engineer support. Mostly because I use the modlet that adds it to all command pods. I will add this to the next release.

[CobaltWolf]

8 hours ago, akron said:

I also started working on a Github page so I could maybe do dev builds after every work session but I got confused and overwhelmed after about 5 minutes. If someone has a Github guide for "KSP mods" or can help, let me know.

 

More cool stuff btw. Nice to see your style settle in.

[akron]

2 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

<helpful video>

More cool stuff btw. Nice to see your style settle in.

Thank you very much! I am also now officially changing the Mod's name to Kwattle Aerospace JK

I feel my style is still a little amorphous, but I'm getting there. For one, I care much less about poly count now so my new stuff is looking a little more detailed. I am also far too inconsistent with texel density . Maybe I'm too critical

 

What did you think about the solar panel? Vane or no Vane?

[hraban]

11 hours ago, akron said:

FIXED: It was actually marked correctly, but the node was not oriented correctly.

update

Not that much time spent today. I finished the antenna mentioned last time and got them in-game. I also modeled some solar wind vanes for my "Mariner" solar panels. Let me know if you think I should have it with or without the vanes. I would do both but unless I can make something different in the stats I don't see the point.

Next is the last static dish antenna, the "small" one, so I can be mostly done with them. BDB already has the Mariner dish so I am looking at other candidates. This would be a good chance to use a Russian or ESA design. I am thinking about something inspired by Mars-2 but I am open to non-NASA suggestions. After that, probably back to science parts. Next release probably this Friday.

I also started working on a Github page so I could maybe do dev builds after every work session but I got confused and overwhelmed after about 5 minutes. If someone has a Github guide for "KSP mods" or can help, let me know.

~Cheers

 

More detailed on the Antenna please. Like this:

[akron]

5 minutes ago, hraban said:

More detailed on the Antenna please. Like this:

<cool antenna picture>

That looks nice! where is that from? (Though it looks little more like a drill-bit) I don't know if I will add more detail to mine, it is already about 350 polys or so. I can be polygon-generous, but not for such a tiny part. We'll see though.

[hraban]

32 minutes ago, akron said:

That looks nice! where is that from? (Though it looks little more like a drill-bit) I don't know if I will add more detail to mine, it is already about 350 polys or so. I can be polygon-generous, but not for such a tiny part. We'll see though.

Well, i used 502 Polygons and the part is fictional. Only the colorscheme is typical for spiral dipol antennas.

[CobaltWolf]

1 hour ago, akron said:

Thank you very much! I am also now officially changing the Mod's name to Kwattle Aerospace JK

I feel my style is still a little amorphous, but I'm getting there. For one, I care much less about poly count now so my new stuff is looking a little more detailed. I am also far too inconsistent with texel density . Maybe I'm too critical

What did you think about the solar panel? Vane or no Vane?

One of my old gaming clans had someone named Quetzocoatl and we all just called him 'Kwattle' or 'Kwattlekwattle' since none of us could pronounce it right.

Texel density is a PITA but I err on the side of keeping it lower. A lot of people I know play on low end laptops with a small amount of RAM, so I'd rather keep the mod as efficient as I can.

I think it looks really cool with the vane, possibly cool enough to justify having it. I didn't notice the little battery in the mount before, that's a nice touch.

[akron]

32 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

One of my old gaming clans had someone named Quetzocoatl and we all just called him 'Kwattle' or 'Kwattlekwattle' since none of us could pronounce it right.

Texel density is a PITA but I err on the side of keeping it lower. A lot of people I know play on low end laptops with a small amount of RAM, so I'd rather keep the mod as efficient as I can.

I think it looks really cool with the vane, possibly cool enough to justify having it. I didn't notice the little battery in the mount before, that's a nice touch.

Thanks. I am now officially changing the mod's name to Huitzilopochtli Aerospace  jk (God of the sun, iirc)

I agree on the efficiency. I am happy to still be at only 3 textures! Sure, some detail will be lost, but I can map probably 20+ parts on only one 1024 texture. Back in my early days of modding, we had to cram everything on a 256 texture, AND WE LIKED IT!

I am going to have both versions of the solar panel for the beta. One will likely be removed for release.

[akron]

I don't know if I will get chance to work some more tonight so here is a quick semi-textured WIP of the new small dish (0.625m). I chose ESA's Ulysses probe for inspiration and may do an XSmall dish based on Mars-2 later on.

[CobaltWolf]

Man I can't wait for 1.2 to be able to make the gold foil look 1000x better.

[akron]

39 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Man I can't wait for 1.2 to be able to make the gold foil look 1000x better.

Yes!!!

Although, like @hraban said, a normal map can help enhance it too (Or spec). I just don't want to dedicate the texture resources to it right now. I am not UV a lot of things with PBR in mind so there may be a big texture re-work in the future to make some things look a little better

[akron]

Small dish done and in-game! I also added the Solar-vane version of the Mariner Solar panels, as you can see below. I am aiming to have 0.12 ready this weekend. Maybe tonight if I can get just a couple of more parts finished.

[CobaltWolf]

22 hours ago, akron said:

Small dish done and in-game! I also added the Solar-vane version of the Mariner Solar panels, as you can see below. I am aiming to have 0.12 ready this weekend. Maybe tonight if I can get just a couple of more parts finished.

I'm liking everything about that probe. You're making me feel guilty though - from the writing on your dishes I assume you are unwrapping the whole thing out flat? All of mine are broken into 6 or 8 segments and repeated to save texture space.

[akron]

3 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

I'm liking everything about that probe. You're making me feel guilty though - from the writing on your dishes I assume you are unwrapping the whole thing out flat? All of mine are broken into 6 or 8 segments and repeated to save texture space.

Muahaha. No, actually I didn't. I used a cheat!  I cheat a lot, cuz I'm lazy

By the way, I have a problem with my part exports. I was wondering if you had encountered it too. I opened a thread here.

Edited March 27, 2016 by akron

[CobaltWolf]

1 minute ago, akron said:

Muahaha. No, actually I didn't. I used a cheat!  I cheat a lot, cuz I'm lazy

By the way, I have a problem with my part exports. I was wondering if you had encountered it too. I opened a thread here.

You had an extra face floating above with transparency?

It has happened to me too sometimes, specifically with the BDB solar antenna. Never could figure out why.

[akron]

1 minute ago, CobaltWolf said:

You had an extra face floating above with transparency?

It has happened to me too sometimes, specifically with the BDB solar antenna. Never could figure out why.

For that dish, I actually mapped 1/4 of it separate from the rest and was just really careful around the edges so you couldn't see them.

Were you ever able to fix those orientations? I am about to pull my hair out because it messes up the attachment nodes too

[Table]

amazing. *presses download link*