Interstellar\Firespitter Mesh Switching integrated into tech tree?

[Daishi]

Hi all,

I've been out of the game for quite a while, and the few times i've really jumped in were to test developments to my own mod. My last proper game (with mods) was 0.23. Apologies in advance for any ignorant statements about mods that do what i'm after, or plugins that could help. 

I'm currently re-tooling Universal Storage for a few reasons...

1.  To respect stock aero and switching to a cargo bay\shroud model; with the wedge parts inside gaining a "stowed" status. 
2.  To revise all my modelling and texture work, ultimately halving texture use and the mods memory footprint with heavy atlasing. 
3.  To reduce part clutter, by having all parts tweakable with Firespitter or Interstellar Mesh Switcher. Capacities and size of wedges and shrouds increase on the vertical axis, avoiding craft partcount spam if you want large amounts of supplies. Instead of attaching four O2 tanks, just tweak the tank into a single 4X high cylinder, for example. 

 


This is where i'm stuck - i'm unsure how to integrate this into the tech tree. Ideally you don't want access to the larger variants straight away, nor do i want to split up every size to its own unique part, and spam the VAB parts list (where i can then have them individually unlockable, but contribute to major clutter).

The only mod i know that gradually unlocks features of a single part through the stock tree, is mechjeb. And that relies on its own .dll, with the unlocks being more for interface functionality than actual part appearance or resource capacity.

Does anyone know how I could do this? I'm not really a coder so i couldn't easily write my own plugins, but if there's one alreadyout there that could do the job, i'm all ears  

Edited April 3, 2016 by Daishi

[FreeThinker]

Well, one feature I could add is interstellar fuel/mech switch it tech onlocking, meaning you need to have certain tech researched before you can switch to it in the VAB or in flight.

Note that adding tech checks is actualy realy easy, it's the whole interaction with existing functionaity which can make it tricky

 

Edited April 5, 2016 by FreeThinker

[Daishi]

20 hours ago, FreeThinker said:

Well, one feature I could add is interstellar fuel/mech switch it tech onlocking, meaning you need to have certain tech researched before you can switch to it in the VAB or in flight.

Note that adding tech checks is actualy realy easy, it's the whole interaction with existing functionaity which can make it tricky

 

That would be a perfect addition, I'd be very grateful!

What kind of interactions? I (personally) wouldn't worry about using the functionality during flight though - once its set in the hanger, that's it.