[1.1.3] KSO (Kerbin Shuttle Orbiter) Legacy Packs & Development Updates

[smotheredrun]

On 4/1/2017 at 7:25 AM, NISSKEPCSIM said:

My Space Centre Vehicles wheels don't have any friction with the surface. They can't move at all. It's no big deal, as I have different wheels that are the same size, but I was disappointed when I put one of the cars I needed to photograph a scene in my novel, 'Kontakt,' on the runway, and it didn't move.

Yeah, I don't think the wheels have been working well since the Great Wheel Breakage of 1.1.3.  Sorry

[Raptor22]

Any news reports?

[smotheredrun]

Not sure. Just working on some patches that will (should) make the station parts appear in the proper categories in the VAB/SPH.  Time is my enemy right now.

Reorganized the patches that someone made a while back so they are in locations that make sense and added some descriptions to them. There may just be some bug fixes to do now (a good chunk of which are self induced when I reorganized the patches into some folders). Not sure, we'll have to see.

I'm just having trouble finding/making time to sort through the patches another user made in order to see exactly what changes were made and more importantly why.  The last time I did anything that resembled coding was almost 20 years ago.

[smotheredrun]

With blessings from @Spike88 over in the Cormorant Aeronology thread, I have with great care and precision (copied and pasted) created (renamed some parts) a pair of TAC-LS patches for the KSO Dauntless (Resolute) and the Super 25 (Ascencion) orbiters.

Here they are:

KSO Dauntless

KSO EWBCL Super 25

I will be looking at the station parts Soon^TM 

Credit for the patch 100% goes to @Spike88.  I just literally changed the part names.

 

Edited April 14, 2017 by smotheredrun

[shdwlrd]

After a couple weekends of testing, messing with configs, and some in game tweaks, I've gotten both the shuttles to the point where MJ can control them through assent and orbital maneuvers. The only real issue is both shuttles have way too much roll authority during launch and in flight.  PA does hold control over these very well during flight though. (I should say glide.)

@smotheredrun During the process of getting the shuttles to work, I changed the categories and added some basic tags for both shuttles and the station parts. (I wanted to be able to find them in my heavily moded main game.) If you like, I can create a MM patch for you.

[smotheredrun]

3 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

After a couple weekends of testing, messing with configs, and some in game tweaks, I've gotten both the shuttles to the point where MJ can control them through assent and orbital maneuvers. The only real issue is both shuttles have way too much roll authority during launch and in flight.  PA does hold control over these very well during flight though. (I should say glide.)

@smotheredrun During the process of getting the shuttles to work, I changed the categories and added some basic tags for both shuttles and the station parts. (I wanted to be able to find them in my heavily moded main game.) If you like, I can create a MM patch for you.

Cool about the MJ ascent guidance I never really did much with respect to autopilot.  As far as the roll, "Something" happened to reaction wheels when KSP went to 1.2.2, but I have yet to find anything in the KSP forums or SubReddit that mentions anything specific about them.

I already did make a MM patch for the station parts, but thanks.  How are you with MM by the way?

[shdwlrd]

17 hours ago, smotheredrun said:

Cool about the MJ ascent guidance I never really did much with respect to autopilot.  As far as the roll, "Something" happened to reaction wheels when KSP went to 1.2.2, but I have yet to find anything in the KSP forums or SubReddit that mentions anything specific about them.

Yeah, I can barely fly using a keyboard. Forget landing where I want, it either ends in an explosion, or a severely damaged craft. Hence the reason I use autopilots and wanted to get this working with MJ.

I'm figuring it's a combination of the sas, gimbaling, and control authority for the rudder and elevons. I haven't found a sweet spot for the settings yet. I do vaguely remember something was mentioned in the dev notes (or the discussion thread) about them. I think it was during the push to 1.0 or a little after it was released. I don't think Squad made any changes to the though.

19 hours ago, smotheredrun said:

I already did make a MM patch for the station parts, but thanks.  How are you with MM by the way?

As for MM patches, I understand the MM syntax enough to know what it's suppose to do by looking at one. But I can't write one off the top of my head. I know where to look to find an example of what I want to do and work off that.

This weekend I'm going to go through the configs I touched and catalog the changes I made. Then start writing MM patches for the changes I want to keep.  

[smotheredrun]

54 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Yeah, I can barely fly using a keyboard. Forget landing where I want, it either ends in an explosion, or a severely damaged craft. Hence the reason I use autopilots and wanted to get this working with MJ.

I'm figuring it's a combination of the sas, gimbaling, and control authority for the rudder and elevons. I haven't found a sweet spot for the settings yet. I do vaguely remember something was mentioned in the dev notes (or the discussion thread) about them. I think it was during the push to 1.0 or a little after it was released. I don't think Squad made any changes to the though.

As for MM patches, I understand the MM syntax enough to know what it's suppose to do by looking at one. But I can't write one off the top of my head. I know where to look to find an example of what I want to do and work off that.

This weekend I'm going to go through the configs I touched and catalog the changes I made. Then start writing MM patches for the changes I want to keep.  

Oh, I definitely agree about the SAS, gimballing, etc having a massive impact.  I am in the same boat when it comes to the MM patches, it has been several centuries (computer time centuries, kind of like dog years only worse) since I did any programming, but so far I have muddled through a bit.

Let's share notes then:

A while back, several pages anyways (November) @Deimos Rast asked for some help to test out some patches he made.  Deimos hasn't been around since November, so I passed them on to Nazari, after we had done all of the testing we could do.  I know Deimos' patches did take a (big) whack at the SAS on both vehicles, but I don't think they touched the engine gimbals - only the thrust of the SSME's was altered... Stock atmo changed significantly with 1.2.x.

If you can PM me anything you have patch-wise when you have finished your checks, I'd like to compare them to what Deimos came up with.  After that, let's see if we can get something that works better than what we have now.  FYI, the patches I have do make both orbiters fly, glide, land/crash fairly well.  The post launch behaviour is a bit finicky*, and the orbital operations can be, shall we say... fun?, but on the whole they do both work well.

One thing I want to do (after I am done this session of school) is look at the station parts, in particular I find the solar panels to be very overpowered when compared to mass vs electrical output....  Looking at making some patches to balance them against stock/something like NFE, while keeping in mind the whole "Advanced" part of the big Advanced Solar Array/panel (may mean advanced enough that it's made of super light material?)

Just a quick question, are you testing your patches on a clean KSP install, with only maybe KER and MJ installed?

 

*LRB placement on both ETs needs to be adjusted, they're both a little bit off centre and account for some of the instability on launch.

[shdwlrd]

@smotheredrun I'll PM you when I get all the changes cataloged and patches written. Just let you know, made a lot of changes to the Dauntless. Did some changes to the Super25. The station parts didn't do to many changes though, just enough to bring them up to 1.2.1 standards. For the orbiters I fixed a bunch of CoM and CoL issues, drag inconsistences, a few broken modules, dry mass issues, and adding comms to them. I'm still messing with the eleavons, rudders, and SAS settings though. The ETs I adjusted the CoM. The CoM isn't moving to the right spot when I add the orbiter and boosters though.

My next steps are nerfing the gimbals and balancing the thrust of the boosters to match the combined thrust of the SSMEs. I noticed that MJ and TCA was reducing the thrust of the SSMEs to between 25-30% while the boosters were running. I'd rather see them reduced only to about 70-80% thrust. After that, work out the DVs and payload caps and adjust as needed.

After that, then I was planning to adding a few things to fall inline with the current game environment. Trying to correct the RPM errors I'm getting with the current release. And bringing the USI LS patch inline with the current release. (If Roverdude doesn't do any major changes in the time being.)

I'm testing basically vanilla. I have the dependencies installed, along with KER, MJ, PA, TCA, & MM. I'm also using a few quality of life mods. AYA, KJR, Hangergrid, MinAmbience, NavHud, PC Continued, & Tac FB. The only MM patch I'm using is my fix for the Squad wheels and gear. 

[smotheredrun]

10 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

(A whole bunch of detailed info)

Wow that is detailed.  Ok, I'm gonna have to look up some of those acronyms but that all sounds good.

I'm gonna start near the bottom of the list you gave.  What do Pilot Assistant and Throttle Control Avionics do exactly?  Specifically are they actively managing your flight profile (autopillot) or somethibg else? I haven't used either.

Is TAC Fuel Balancer actively shuffling fuel around between the ET and shuttle or doing something else?  Or is it an on demand thing  (I want my nose down so I press this button, instead of opening 2 context menus and hitting the In/Out buttons)

Which craft is your wheel fix for and what does it do?

What RPM errors are you getting? I haven't found any yet... Screenshots?

The payches we tested had more adjustments made to the Dauntless than the Super 25 too.

How are you adjusting the CoM with the ETs?

With the current patches we have we do need to adjust the throttles quite a bit (like in real life) after booster separation. Same again after ET sep (usually around 10-40% throttle on the OMS. This helps the patched SAS keep up with the off centre thrust, but they're both still squirrely.  I am eager to see your solution!

[shdwlrd]

Pilot Assistant is an atmospheric autopilot. Think MJ's spaceplane guidance but with better controls and the ability to better control the crafts behaviors.

Throttle Control Avionics is an autopilot primarily made for VTOL crafts. It handles off center and miss matched thrust very well. The only reason I have it installed is to see how the SSMEs and boosters were throttling while hovering and doing a really slow accent. Basically confirming what I was seeing with MJ's differential throttle settings.

I'm using Tac Fuel Balancer to keep the boosters fuel levels the same and to dump fuel to try and see where the instability starts. Using differential throttle settings will cause the boosters drain unevenly if there is any yaw during accent.

The RPM errors are for missing props. I'm thinking I may have overwrote something when I updated the packaged version to the current version. That's low on my priority list since it don't do IVA flights often.

My MM patch for the wheels and gears gets rid of the bouncing and osculation. Basically it increases the damping value for the suspension.

There are three different offsets you can use in a config file. CoM, CoL, & CoP. The usage is "CoMOffset = y,x,z" as seen in the VAB. You can see the usage in the 2.5m heat shield.

[smotheredrun]

2 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Pilot Assistant is an atmospheric autopilot. Think MJ's spaceplane guidance but with better controls and the ability to better control the crafts behaviors.

Throttle Control Avionics is an autopilot primarily made for VTOL crafts. It handles off center and miss matched thrust very well. The only reason I have it installed is to see how the SSMEs and boosters were throttling while hovering and doing a really slow accent. Basically confirming what I was seeing with MJ's differential throttle settings.

I'm using Tac Fuel Balancer to keep the boosters fuel levels the same and to dump fuel to try and see where the instability starts. Using differential throttle settings will cause the boosters drain unevenly if there is any yaw during accent.

The RPM errors are for missing props. I'm thinking I may have overwrote something when I updated the packaged version to the current version. That's low on my priority list since it don't do IVA flights often.

My MM patch for the wheels and gears gets rid of the bouncing and osculation. Basically it increases the damping value for the suspension.

There are three different offsets you can use in a config file. CoM, CoL, & CoP. The usage is "CoMOffset = y,x,z" as seen in the VAB. You can see the usage in the 2.5m heat shield.

Ok. I'm away from desk at the moment, but I'll be home again in an hour or so. If I can't sleep (likely) I'll take a look at the patches Deimos made, I'm pretty sure that the CoM etc were never addressed.

The rest sounds good.

[Voyager1Fan5213]

Does this work in 1.2.2?

[smotheredrun]

5 hours ago, Voyager1Fan5213 said:

Does this work in 1.2.2?

Welcome to the forums!  Glad to have you hear!  Your question will be best answered if you start reading from here and read through up to your post.  That way you'll be up to speed.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2017 by smotheredrun
added smiley because why not? :)

[Raptor22]

*here

 

Sorry. Grammar pedant.

But really, will a patch ever come out? It works okay in 1.2.2, but not great. It's not as stable. When you pitch too far back, you can't pitch forward again.

A patch with updated physics and the such would be appreciated.

[smotheredrun]

9 hours ago, Raptor22 said:

*here

 

Sorry. Grammar pedant.

But really, will a patch ever come out? It works okay in 1.2.2, but not great. It's not as stable. When you pitch too far back, you can't pitch forward again.

A patch with updated physics and the such would be appreciated.

First... haha yeah, I don't usually make that kind of an ugly grammar mistake.  That kind of mistake costs me a contract or a few thousand dollars in the real world.

Well, now that 2 of us are playing around with patch making (note: I am a complete rookie) hopefully something will come out soon (Trademark).

Since two of us are working on them, and I am getting feedback from Nazari as needed, this means that something that is "1.2.2 stable" is more likely.  The patches that Deimos Rast built are good, but not close to "Release into the wild" ready (yet).  As mentioned above, SAS, and stability on general should be addressed.  If you have any suggestions, please share so that I or someone else can try to make some kind of a patch and then test it.

 

*Deliberate space*

I am doing some research too... again, hopefully having 2 users working on getting these birds flying again will bear fruit. 

 

 

Edited April 25, 2017 by smotheredrun
added the word "yet"

[Raptor22]

Thanks for the honest feedback.

I'll do a few test flights with the shuttles when I get home. 

The pitch problems might have been because of the weight of the cargo. What are the shuttles rated for?

I'll try some clean (no payload) tests later on.

[smotheredrun]

1 hour ago, Raptor22 said:

Thanks for the honest feedback.

I'll do a few test flights with the shuttles when I get home. 

The pitch problems might have been because of the weight of the cargo. What are the shuttles rated for?

I'll try some clean (no payload) tests later on.

If memory serves, the Mini was about a 2 ton max, or basically the heaviest part from the KSO Space Station Pack/whatever you can cram into the cargobay.  The Super 25 had about a 12 ton(?) payload I believe.  Using the testing patches, the largest payload so far was about 10-11 tons, which to me was perfect based on the size.  With that one, I've been able to launch some pretty bulky parts, ranging from the smaller SETI greenhouse, pieces from Orbital Material Science, and for no really good reason, a large Near Future fuel tank full of lithium (12 tons I believe).

The test patches do work, but in orbit, the shuttles are kind of squirrely when it comes to stability, especially the Mini.  The current versions have both shutlles with tricked out reaction wheels, and it helps, but only really on ascent and descent.... under some circumstances, you'll use a dung ton of RCS fuel just to dock....  

Reasons why I haven't shared any current patch files here:

Spoiler

One big reason that I haven't shared anything that Deimos made yet is that the flight characteristics of the shuttles in 1.2.x are so different from 1.0.5 and 1.1.3 that users won't likely enjoy the steep learning curve that is imposed on them.... for now....  Also, some mundane things, like part sorting have been done, but why release a bunch on individual patches one at a time, when we could potentially drop out a whole suite of patches to complete the package?  

Finally, the biggest and definitely the most important reason I haven't shared anything is due to the mod itself:  @Nazari1382, @helldiver have put a huge amount of work into making this project what it is.  The original testing team put in a dung ton of work into making sure that the suite as a whole worked together and was able to be integrated with other mods, almost seamlessly.  To drop a bunch of "not-quite-ready" patches on the community saying "here you go, it mostly works, have fun.." just doesn't sit well with me, and would be unfair to them.  It's getting there, but it's a process.

 

As for the pitch issue you mentioned, yeah, the ETs get hit hard by Atmo drag in 1.2.2.  It's best (even without the patches) if you actually do the intitial 10-15 degree pitch back at 1000m, and then (mostly) let gravity do the rest as described in the pdf that is in the downloads.  If you stray too far from prograde your ET will become a ginormous (haha no spellcheck flag on that last word) sail/airbrake and "you won't be going to space today".  

 

 

[Raptor22]

Well it's officially 1.3 and it still hasn't got past 1.1.3.

Is this mod even still alive? Is it dead or just on hold until futher notice? We haven't heard from the lead developers (i.e. helldiver) for around a year.

Since they haven't been able to do any work (I guess that they're having to deal with a lot of IRL work, or maybe just lost interest) for a year, should this thread be considered on hold?

I would really like to see this mod be updated, but considering that nothing has been done (or at least released or even made public) for nearly a year now, I'd say that this mod may be dead. Unless the lead devs come back or someone else takes the mod up on their shoulders, I'd say that it's either on hold indefinitely or just simply dead.

[Damaske]

1 hour ago, Raptor22 said:

Well it's officially 1.3 and it still hasn't got past 1.1.3.

Is this mod even still alive? Is it dead or just on hold until futher notice? We haven't heard from the lead developers (i.e. helldiver) for around a year.

Since they haven't been able to do any work (I guess that they're having to deal with a lot of IRL work, or maybe just lost interest) for a year, should this thread be considered on hold?

I would really like to see this mod be updated, but considering that nothing has been done (or at least released or even made public) for nearly a year now, I'd say that this mod may be dead. Unless the lead devs come back or someone else takes the mod up on their shoulders, I'd say that it's either on hold indefinitely or just simply dead.

To put it simple, 

On 4/24/2017 at 10:19 PM, smotheredrun said:

Finally, the biggest and definitely the most important reason I haven't shared anything is due to the mod itself:  @Nazari1382, @helldiver have put a huge amount of work into making this project what it is.  The original testing team put in a dung ton of work into making sure that the suite as a whole worked together and was able to be integrated with other mods, almost seamlessly.  To drop a bunch of "not-quite-ready" patches on the community saying "here you go, it mostly works, have fun.." just doesn't sit well with me, and would be unfair to them.  It's getting there, but it's a process.

Sorry if blunt but it is what it is. Just because there is nothing posted in a mod thread does NOT mean there is no work being done on it. Give it time they are doing this for free and on there spare time. 

 

I HAVE been waiting for this whole mod pack to be updated since 1.1.3 was updated. Please just wait for it belive me the wait will make it on so much sweeter once it is done. 

 

But aside form all that is there a snowball's chance in hades that just the space station part modpack is ready for release? 

[DStaal]

6 minutes ago, Damaske said:

But aside form all that is there a snowball's chance in hades that just the space station part modpack is ready for release? 

Just wanted to echo this.  I love the station parts - but I really don't care about the shuttle, and it does sometimes feel like the station parts get a back seat to the shuttle in this pack.

That said, I'm using the current station parts pack with little issue under 1.2.2, so unless something broke with it in 1.3, I don't see a major problem.

[Raptor22]

I am not saying that nothing has been done. I'm saying that simply we haven't been shown any results, either through a release or a screenshot or another method. It would be nice if one of the lead devs could drop in and give us a sitrep. While some people like @smotheredrun have been relaying some things, it would be nice to see the big man @helldiver himself come in. It's rather annoying that the person in charge of the thing hasn't been able to talk to us. I know that they're busy IRL and that we can't do anything about it.

All I was suggesting is that they put a "ON HOLD" in the title, so that people will know that there's not much going on in terms of releases for the time being. Other than occasional assurances that there is stuff being done (yet the people in charge say nothing and there's no tangible evidence of the things that have been done other than "things"), there has been no real progress in terms of releases or some form of evidence that says "Yup. Stuff's rolling along." I have to stress that. 

This whole thread has degenerated into the stereotypical situation with a 5-year old on a car trip:

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

However they do not give us any ETA. Even if it's rough, just some estimate. Will it be days, weeks, months, or years? Is it soon or far away?

Perhaps you can simply add a "ON HOLD" in the title, and perhaps have Helldiver at some point in the next century draft a quick reply along the lines of "Progress has been ____, so the mod is currently ____, and an update may come out in/on _____."

I'm starting to think that helldiver himself has lost interest. It has taken me 10 minutes to draft this. To not have 10 minutes to spare in a year is rather hard to believe. It is my opinion that @helldiver may have simply lost interest in KSP, which pretty reasonably explains how helldiver hasn't replied in over a year now.

It's sad to see developers abandon mods due to lack of interest. If they seriously do not have the time to work on it, then they could at least say "hey, I can't work on this any more because my work IRL is too much." I used to try updating a few mods, but after I realized that I barely know more than how to mess around with some config files, I said "hey, I can't do this any more. PM bobcat [I was updating his DEMV rovers] if you want to take over."

So, if anyone has access to the page, could you perhaps slap a "ON HOLD" into the title, so that new people/people who haven't gotten the news don't ask "when's the update", and so that they'll know that there won't be one coming for quite a while (at least from what the previous year has showed us).

 

Additionally, while I'm not too great at modding, if someone with access to the current files (that have been worked on) could post them, along with some source code, I may try taking a crack at it. If I make any progress, I'll message one of you.

@DStaal It's not that much of a problem of compatibility (however I haven't tested it in 1.3 yet) but rather the infuriating slowness and lack of communication. To not have the lead person talk in over a year makes you lose hope that there's ever going to be an update. There's always promises, but they turn out to all be empty as the whole team (or what's left of it) has yet to deliver.

Imagine if you work at a company and everything the boss does is paraphrased by their secretary. "Oh, well they've been working on ___." Eventually you'd get sick of the boss hiding behind closed doors and not replying to emails, and begin wondering if they're even doing anything. While things may have been done here, we have yet to see any physical progress other than "we've been working". 

Even if it would be a while until another release, if someone in charge (such as helldiver or nazari) could tell us what's going on, whether they're working or not, and what the circumstances behind the one year delay of any release (i.e. work, lots of bugs, and other complications), then I'd be happy. If I could hear from the horse's mouth that there's actually progress, then I'd be happy. If they said a release was coming soon, I'd be ecstatic. If they said that they can't work on the mod any more, I'd be upset, but glad to have some closure.

It's the infuriating "waiting without any word of what's going on" sort of scenario, where you can hear noises behind a door, but you can't tell what's going on inside.

[smotheredrun]

 

22 hours ago, Raptor22 said:

It's the infuriating "waiting without any word of what's going on" sort of scenario, where you can hear noises behind a door, but you can't tell what's going on inside.

That one made me laugh actually.  That door was supposed to be sound proof!  I'm gonna have a chat with my contractor and supplier regarding that   

So..... 

I'll point to the OP here where Nazari1382 indicates that Helldriver is working on the KSO EX.  So pinging Helldriver regarding the two existing shuttles, station parts and vehicles may be unnecessary.

 @Damaske said it best in their response above.  Thank you, Damaske.  And to provide another example to Damaske's point, head over to Alexustas's Alcor thread and take a read through that one. There have been periods of several months at a time where there were almost zero status updates from the testers or the modder.  And that mod is still kicking.

EDIT:  Also remember how Blizzard operated regarding Star Craft and the old Warcraft games.  They totally followed the "It's ready when we say it's ready" rule.  I personally don't have an issue with that.

 @DStaal, @Damaske the station parts work in 1.2.2, however the categories are not up to date.  That is fixed in a patch, and I want to get that into the wild "Soon^TM".

 

I'm still on 1.2.2 in my main save, but IF I can get a few hours this weekend to grab 1.3 and try it out, I'll see what happens with the last batch of patches. 

 

 

Edited May 27, 2017 by smotheredrun
Added some more info.

[Damaske]

 

17 hours ago, smotheredrun said:

 @Damaske said it best in their response above.  Thank you, Damaske.

You are so welcome and thanks for the kind words! I don't hear them very much. 

17 hours ago, smotheredrun said:

@DStaal, @Damaske the station parts work in 1.2.2, however the categories are not up to date.  That is fixed in a patch, and I want to get that into the wild "Soon^TM".

They do? why didn't I get the memo? Is it because I don't have one of those printer phone things?

Anywho thanks I'll take a look at the 29 pages of stuff for the links. 

 

[smotheredrun]

2 hours ago, Damaske said:

 

You are so welcome and thanks for the kind words! I don't hear them very much. 

They do? why didn't I get the memo? Is it because I don't have one of those printer phone things?

Anywho thanks I'll take a look at the 29 pages of stuff for the links. 

 

For the station parts, just downlaod from Spacedock by following the link in the OP

Edited May 28, 2017 by smotheredrun
splellign