[1.12.x] IndicatorLights v1.8.3: Small, convenient, informative.

[macgufo]

51 minutes ago, Snark said:

IndicatorLights 0.10 works just fine on KSP 1.1.2; actually, I wrote it on 1.1.2.  No changes were required for it to work on 1.1.3, so I just updated its compatibility flag.

  From the mod's main page, click on the "Changelog" tab, which will not only list all the previous versions (with descriptions of what changed in each one)

Thank for replay Snark and for the hint, i totally missed changelog tab ( i'm becoming old ).

 

 

[THX1138]

Are these retroactively added to previously-launched craft when the mod is installed or only newly-launched?

Edit: Answer is that they are added to previously-launched craft.

Edited June 25, 2016 by THX1138

[brusura]

@Snark could you allow customization outside of VAB? I want to tune the frequency of blinking lights ( I am using KIS )

[Snark]

On 6/24/2016 at 3:28 PM, THX1138 said:

Are these retroactively added to previously-launched craft when the mod is installed or only newly-launched?

Edit: Answer is that they are added to previously-launched craft.

Glad to see your question's already answered.    Yes, it's retroactive.  The mod is tweaking the stats of the stock parts, so it's all initialized when KSP is loading up and isn't dependent on the ships' data written to .sfs or .craft files.  It's just that if you have already-launched ships, then anything that might be customizable at editor time (e.g. the color of the BL-01 lights, etc.) will have whatever the default value is.

Another thing that you won't get retroactively is action groups.  If you're running DefaultActionGroups, then the BL-01 light and the docking port lights are added to the Light action group by default in the vehicle editor.  However, if you install IndicatorLights on an already-running save, then any pre-existing ships won't get the action groups set up that way.

9 hours ago, brusura said:

@Snark could you allow customization outside of VAB? I want to tune the frequency of blinking lights ( I am using KIS )

Yah, that's a tricky design choice.  On the one hand, I can see how users (such as yourself) would want that in certain situations.  On the other hand, I was leery of making the lights have a complex UI all the time in-flight.  Lots of IndicatorLight functionality is tweakable via config (e.g. with ModuleManager), but that particular aspect is part of the source code and would need a code change to alter.  I suppose one possibility would be to add a configuration setting (e.g. "not available in-flight" by default, but can be configured to be available in-flight for users who want it).

I'll keep that feature request in mind for a future update.  In the meantime... you can tinker with it in-flight by editing your .sfs file with a text editor (make a backup copy first, in case you munge the file!)  If you're tuning the blink frequency, the module to search for is ModuleCustomBlink.  There are two fields of interest, onMillis and offMillis.  These determine the length of the "on" and "off" segments of the blink cycle, in milliseconds (both of them default to 500, i.e. half a second each).  You can set those values to whatever you like.

[therealcrow999]

I am having issues with the Indicator Part, as you can see the issue in the photos. I narrowed it down to Texture Replacer 2.4.13. I pulled out all my mods except that mod and mod manager and I get the black part. I am running KSP 1.1.3 x64

I am running KSP through x64 in Steam, I use set launch option: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\KSP_x64.exe" %command%

My system specs are:

PU:         AMD FX-8320 FX-Series 8-Core Black Edition (3.5GHZ)
Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+ AMD 970
Memory:      Corsair Vengeance DDR3 (16GB)
OS:          Windows 7 X64 
Graphics:    Nvidia Geforce GTX 950 FTW (2GB Memory)
Main Drive:  Western Digital Black Edition (1TB)
Monitor:     Acer 1920X1080 (60HZ)

And here is my output log:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzbehcHSiVJlbENIY00tNVpMUG8

Edited July 2, 2016 by therealcrow999
More Info

[Snark]

24 minutes ago, therealcrow999 said:

I am having issues with the Indicator Part, as you can see the issue in the photos. I narrowed it down to Texture Replacer 2.4.13. I pulled out all my mods except that mod and mod manager and I get the black part. I am running KSP 1.1.3 x64

Yes, that's a known issue, first pointed out by @Beetlecat.  Something about the way IndicatorLights is set up doesn't play nice with TextureReplacer, or vice versa.

There's no known fix, since I don't run TextureReplacer myself and don't have the time to debug the issue.  If someone else could figure out what's going on (more specifically, how to avoid this), I'd happily add a fix to IndicatorLights to avoid it.  (Is there some way to add a config flag that will tell TextureReplacer "please don't tinker with my parts"?)

However, until and unless that happens, it's just gonna be a problem.  I'm sorry about that. 

[therealcrow999]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

Yes, that's a known issue, first pointed out by @Beetlecat.  Something about the way IndicatorLights is set up doesn't play nice with TextureReplacer, or vice versa.

There's no known fix, since I don't run TextureReplacer myself and don't have the time to debug the issue.  If someone else could figure out what's going on (more specifically, how to avoid this), I'd happily add a fix to IndicatorLights to avoid it.  (Is there some way to add a config flag that will tell TextureReplacer "please don't tinker with my parts"?)

However, until and unless that happens, it's just gonna be a problem.  I'm sorry about that. 

No worries, I didn't know it was a current issue. I saw the problem and reported the problem. Thanks for reply. 

[Snark]

Hi all,

I've posted pre-release v0.10.1 of IndicatorLights.

No new features with this one (sorry folks, been kinda busy IRL lately), just a minor bugfix.  The indicator lights on the goo canister and Science Jr. materials bay weren't properly registering the low/medium/high status (e.g. were still showing as "medium" even after returning science to KSC; were still showing as "high" after transmitting).

Also, fixes a potential null reference exception bug in ModuleControllableEmissive.

Enjoy!

[Snark]

Hi all,

I've posted pre-release v0.11 of Indicator Lights.  New in this release:  resource scanners!

• Indicator on the orbital survey scanner:
  • Intermittent blinking if you're in a not-yet-scanned SoI, but not currently in an orbit where you can scan.
  • Bright, rapid blinking when you can take a scan right now.
  • Solid dim glow if you've already completed a scan for this body.
  • Bright red blinking if you're missing an antenna!  (But not in the editor where it would be really useful, sorry. More code to write.  May add this later.)
  • Off if you're in an SoI where scanning's not really relevant (e.g. the Sun, Jool).
• Indicator on the surface scanner:
  • Bright green flashing if it's ready to take a surface measurement now.
  • Off if you're out of range (e.g. too high) or there's no ore available at all.
  • Red / yellow / green light to indicate ore concentration of low (up to 2.5%), medium (up to 5%), or high (over 5%).
  • When showing ore concentration, gives a solid glow if you're in an unlocked biome, blinking if it hasn't been unlocked yet.

Enjoy!

 

[DStaal]

Since it'll be a while before I really get a chance to test: How do the survey lights interact with ScanSat?  (Which can have partial scans of bodies.)

[Snark]

1 hour ago, DStaal said:

How do the survey lights interact with ScanSat?

They don't.

I don't run ScanSat myself, haven't tested it with them.  All that my new indicators do is to read the outputs of the standard stock sensors and show you the information.  It's essentially the same info you could get from looking at their right-click menus, just made visible on the part itself.

[THX1138]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

^ That.  Was my first thought when I saw you've got a science lab on there.

Looks like you're running IndicatorLights... hmm, maybe I should make the "currently doing research" animation on the lab's lights be more dramatic and in-your-face?

Some WOPR-style blinkenlights would be cool  I don't know whether everyone else would feel that way.

[Snark]

29 minutes ago, THX1138 said:

Some WOPR-style blinkenlights would be cool  I don't know whether everyone else would feel that way.

Heh, great minds think alike.  I actually already had something like that in mind, in a few options. 

Main reason I haven't done it yet is,

1. I'm still working through implementing my various ideas for "functional" lights related to actual gameplay, and have been prioritizing that over purely-cosmetic features
2. I've got some ideas around just how the WOPR-style blinkenlights would work-- i.e. not just completely random, but work in some clever bits so that they actually appear to alter their behavior in response to what the ship is doing.  Am still mulling that one over.

Probably the next "purely cosmetic" feature I'll add will be to provide some additional blinking-mode options for the BL-01 light, i.e. the ability to set phase and such, which will allow people to set them up in interesting patterns rather than just "everything is synchronized" as it is now.

But yes, panels of blinkenlights are on my radar. 

(It's a pity there's no nearby-object-scanning part in stock KSP, because then, panels of blinkenlights could literally be on my radar.)

(And extra bonus points to you, good sir, for working in a reference to one of my favorite movies as a kid.)

[Tyko]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

 

1. I'm still working through implementing my various ideas for "functional" lights related to actual gameplay, and have been prioritizing that over purely-cosmetic features
2. I've got some ideas around just how the WOPR-style blinkenlights would work-- i.e. not just completely random, but work in some clever bits so that they actually appear to alter their behavior in response to what the ship is doing.  Am still mulling that one over.

 

It would probably be a challenge to code, but some old style 7 segment digital displays on sides of parts would looks awesome. They could go dark when there's no power being used. The fact that they are lit up would draw attention to the module using power, then you could zoom in to read the actual display

[Snark]

1 minute ago, tjt said:

It would probably be a challenge to code, but some old style 7 segment digital displays on sides of parts would looks awesome. They could go dark when there's no power being used. The fact that they are lit up would draw attention to the module using power, then you could zoom in to read the actual display

I'd actually thought about it.  It wouldn't be all that hard to code.

However, I decided "nah."  Aside from being very fiddly and tedious to model (getting all those segments placed just so), it's also not the right place for such information, IMHO.  Textual display belongs in the right-click menus.

However, I have thought about adding some more information-rich display-- not actual text, but a "bar chart" kind of display (e.g. a row of segments, such that the number of them that light up indicates a relative amount from "zero" to "full", for whatever the definition of "full" happens to be).  Such a display can convey useful information without needing to zoom in so much.  Whether I actually end up doing that or not will depend on how it looks-- I expect I'll eventually get around to trying it out, but I'd need to play around with it and get a feel for how useful and/or attractive it is before deciding whether to release such functionality in the mod.

[Tyko]

Yea, good points. I guess it would also unnecessarily increase part-count, but it would look COOL

[DeepSlayLP]

What about having square or rectangle looking external lights like the circle one? That would maybe help with making indicators for cars or similar

[Snark]

1 hour ago, DeepSlayLP said:

What about having square or rectangle looking external lights like the circle one? That would maybe help with making indicators for cars or similar

Yep, adding a variety of shapes and sizes of standalone lamps (like the circle one) is definitely on my roadmap for new IndicatorLights features.  You'll note that "add more standalone lights" is right at the top of the list.    (One caveat:  the fact that it's at the top of the list just means that I consider it really important... not that it's what I'm going to add next.)

I've currently just got the BL-01, for two main reasons:

• I've had my hands full with adding various features
• I really suck at modeling (I'm a programmer, not an artist) ... so I've been holding off on modeling additional standalone parts until I can take time to develop better Blender skills and make things that (hopefully) aren't quite so amateurish-looking as what I have now.  (I'm a realist; I know I'll never be able to model stuff as cool-looking as what folks like NecroBones or Nertea can turn out... but I'll settle for something better than "childish scrawl", which is where I'm currently at.)

So the TL;DR is:  yes, I'll definitely be doing what you suggested.  But it'll likely be a while, I've got other stuff to do first.

That said:  because of the way IndicatorLights is implemented, for any enthusiastic and public-spirited individual who can model their own parts, it would be trivially easy to make them IndicatorLights-enabled.  Would be a great add-on mod, and if anyone wants to do that I'd happily link to it from the IndicatorLights page.  Technobabble (of interest only to modders) in spoiler section below.

Spoiler

To anyone who wants to make their own standalone indicator lights, which work like the BL-01, here's how to do it:

1. Model your part however you like, it its own .cfg file as part of your mod.
2. Make sure that your part has an emissive texture on it somewhere.  It could be that the part itself is just a single material with some emissive bits that are masked out, or you could do what I did with the BL-01 and make the part out of separate meshes (non-emissive and emissive), where the emissive part is unmasked.
3. Enable it to work with IndicatorLights.  The IndicatorLights config language gives you a lot of flexibility in setting up exactly how it works (you can "program" your light in lots of different ways).  But the simplest and easiest thing, if you want your light to just act exactly the same as the BL-01, is to just copy the relevant BL-01 config verbatim.  The only thing you'd need to change at all would be the name of the indicator mesh, if you've given it a different name than "light" which is what the BL-01 uses.

There are a couple of ways to accomplish #3.  One way would be to put the relevant IndicatorLights config directly in your part's .cfg file.  The other way would be to put the config in a second .cfg file, which is ModuleManager syntax, using "NEEDS[IndicatorLights]" syntax so that it would be applied only when IndicatorLights is installed.

The first way would perhaps be slightly simpler, but would mean that your part would generate errors if for some reason somebody ran your mod without also running IndicatorLights.  Personally, I like the second way better.  Doing it that way would mean that your mod would run just fine, even if IndicatorLights is not installed.  (All that would happen would be that the lights wouldn't work.)

 

[Errol]

I'm getting a black none-texture for the BL-01, and it doesn't appear to work at all either. All the stock part indicators work just fine though.

[Beetlecat]

On 7/19/2016 at 9:28 AM, THX1138 said:

Some WOPR-style blinkenlights would be cool  I don't know whether everyone else would feel that way.

ha! 

 

If you check out the Ven's revamp version of the science jr. lab, it looks like they *should* be all blinkenlights.

[Snark]

21 hours ago, Errol said:

I'm getting a black none-texture for the BL-01, and it doesn't appear to work at all either. All the stock part indicators work just fine though.

Are you running TextureReplacer?

If so, that's what's causing it; it's a known issue.  Unfortunately, there is no known fix.  (Doesn't mean there isn't any fix, just that nobody happens to know one, and I'm not investigating it myself, which means it's never going to get fixed unless either TextureReplacer changes whatever it does that's making this happen, or else someone figures out what the fix is and hands it to me.)

If you read a few pages up this thread, you'll find a discussion of the issue.

My guess is that you are indeed running TR, since the symptoms you describe are exactly matching what's been reported there.  But if, by any chance, you aren't... would love to hear a list of what mods you're running, because one of them would almost certainly be the culprit.

[Beetlecat]

On 8/3/2016 at 9:29 AM, Errol said:

I'm getting a black none-texture for the BL-01, and it doesn't appear to work at all either. All the stock part indicators work just fine though.

Precisely Snark describes above. Try pulling Texture Replacer, and the parts should light right up.

[RoboRay]

Suggestion:  For docking ports, please consider making the one light at the top of the port yellow (maybe blinking). This way, you could see from a distance in the dark which way to roll your craft when approaching to be able to dock in the desired orientation.

[Snark]

3 hours ago, RoboRay said:

Suggestion:  For docking ports, please consider making the one light at the top of the port yellow (maybe blinking). This way, you could see from a distance in the dark which way to roll your craft when approaching to be able to dock in the desired orientation.

Not a bad idea!  You're not alone in wanting this-- @hab136 already suggested this idea in this thread, a while back:

I guess it hasn't really been on my radar, since when I play KSP I always use the Navball Docking Alignment Indicator mod.  (I absolutely adore that mod.  Not just for how useful it is, but how simple.  It provides maximum usefulness for a Zen-like minimalism of UI and necessary user interaction.  Its simplicity is brilliant, and is what inspired me to become a modder.  It's the gold standard that I aspire to whenever I write a mod.  But I digress.)  The mod provides an indicator on the navball whenever I'm docking, that shows the alignment and makes it easy to see how to roll my ship, like this:

...so I myself don't actually need such a visual indicator on the docking port itself.  For me, the right place to solve that problem is on the navball, not on the docking port, which is why I haven't done anything with this.

[RoboRay]

Oh, I use the same docking alignment indicator mod myself.  I just think putting an indication on the docking port itself would also be useful.  In night-time dockings, I'm often pretty close to the target before I select the docking port and target it (bringing the alignment indicator up on the NavBall).  The lights would let me orient the craft before closing in. 

Edited August 16, 2016 by RoboRay