[Old Thread] KRE - Kerbal Reusability Expansion

[EmbersArc]

7 hours ago, Patrykz94 said:

Would you be able to make them more suitable for Realism Overhaul for real-life sized Falcon 9 (3.66 meters diameter)? I built a Falcon 9 with accurate dimensions and everything and the 3.75m legs look a bit too big and they stick out a little bit from the rocket (as in there is a little bit of empty space between the rocket and the legs) so I need to move it manually.

Other than that, the mod is awesome!

BTW. Having them in white would be great as well

I'd like to avoid making them in more than 3 different sizes. Although you can play around with the scale parameters in the config file.

Edited May 26, 2016 by svendii

[Qwarkk]

Getting a 404 Error on the spacedock download link

[EmbersArc]

Update 1.2.1

• Improved textures and materials 
• Adjusted cost for inflation

Hoping the real ones will survive the landing later...

Next up: A white version

39 minutes ago, Qwarkk said:

Getting a 404 Error on the spacedock download link

SpaceDock is having some trouble today, try Curse

[EmbersArc]

Update 1.2.2

• Improved model
• Added white variant

(moved attachment node so existing crafts need to be adjusted)

Update 1.2.3

• Quick fix of white texture

Edited June 5, 2016 by svendii

[EmbersArc]

Update 1.3

• Texture overhaul: Now based on stock textures
• Adjusted model to look more like the real thing

 

[DasCostaNix]

Tried to update via CKAN to version 1.3, but the file was not found on spacedock.info:

The requested URL /svendii_2817/SpaceX_Landing_Legs/SpaceX_Landing_Legs-1.3.zip was not found on this server. 

 

Edited June 16, 2016 by DasCostaNix

[EmbersArc]

Apart from the Unity wheel problems which should be fixed in 1.2 I'm quite happy with the legs now.

So on to new things! I've spent some time working on grid fins, here's a WIP:

Ideally ModuleAeroSurface and ModuleControlSurface should work together because the fins are in some way both airbrakes and control surfaces. I haven't tried it yet but I assume that they won't work together the way they should.

Maybe there will be a workaround with reaction wheels or RCS but at least at first they will only act as airbrakes.

[DerpyFirework]

45 minutes ago, svendii said:

Apart from the Unity wheel problems which should be fixed in 1.2 I'm quite happy with the legs now.

So on to new things! I've spent some time working on grid fins, here's a WIP:

Ideally ModuleAeroSurface and ModuleControlSurface should work together because the fins are in some way both airbrakes and control surfaces. I haven't tried it yet but I assume that they won't work together the way they should.

Maybe there will be a workaround with reaction wheels or RCS but at least at first they will only act as airbrakes.

One option is setting them up like the ones in the USI Sounding Rocket pack, I use those (Plus a quick plugin to stop them working when not deployed) on my current kOS controlled F9. Not sure if there is a way to make them deployable properly without plugins though, but the control surface action is the most important part of the grid fins IMO, so hopefully there is a proper solution for this.

Also, great work on this! You have no idea how badly I've been wanting F9 landing gear and grid fins, and these are perfect! 

Edited June 19, 2016 by DerpyFirework

[EmbersArc]

3 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

One option is setting them up like the ones in the USI Sounding Rocket pack, I use those (Plus a quick plugin to stop them working when not deployed) on my current kOS controlled F9. Not sure if there is a way to make them deployable properly without plugins though, but the control surface action is the most important part of the grid fins IMO, so hopefully there is a proper solution for this.

You're right, control surfaces are probably more important. Your solution sounds great. I'd love to add a plugin to disable the control surfaces when not deployed. I'm more of a modeling and texturing person though and don't have a lot of experience with programming. Do you have some tips on where to start with that?

[DerpyFirework]

15 hours ago, svendii said:

You're right, control surfaces are probably more important. Your solution sounds great. I'd love to add a plugin to disable the control surfaces when not deployed. I'm more of a modeling and texturing person though and don't have a lot of experience with programming. Do you have some tips on where to start with that?

I'll see if I can make my plugin a little less hacky (right now it sets the range, area and drag to 0 when stowed and reverts to normal when not, instead of just shielding from airflow), although it'd be great if there was a way in stock for this...

Really, it just needs to act as a control surface when in the deployed position, and have an animation for deployment, then the plugin I can throw together (and maintain if needed) can handle it.

[EmbersArc]

3 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

I'll see if I can make my plugin a little less hacky (right now it sets the range, area and drag to 0 when stowed and reverts to normal when not, instead of just shielding from airflow), although it'd be great if there was a way in stock for this...

From what I've gathered it's probably not possible in stock. A stock solution with reaction wheels and RCS would be somewhat hacky too.

3 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

Really, it just needs to act as a control surface when in the deployed position, and have an animation for deployment, then the plugin I can throw together (and maintain if needed) can handle it.

I've done some more work on it and it now has a deployment animation and works as control surface. Quite happy with how it's coming along. It would be awesome if you could contribute the plugin!

[DerpyFirework]

1 hour ago, svendii said:

From what I've gathered it's probably not possible in stock. A stock solution with reaction wheels and RCS would be somewhat hacky too.

I've done some more work on it and it now has a deployment animation and works as control surface. Quite happy with how it's coming along. It would be awesome if you could contribute the plugin!

Here it is! It still uses the hacky method, but it should work fine. I did some testing with it earlier and it seems to work fine, but I can't really confirm any issues with it. It's also released into the Public Domain and I can keep it updated and patched for as long as needed.

Hope this works until a better solution comes along, and can't wait to start using these!

Edited June 20, 2016 by DerpyFirework

[EmbersArc]

18 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

Here it is!

Well that was quick  Seems to work great so far.

I'm having a problem with the control surface transforms though:

Not sure where the problem lies yet, will have to do some more testing...

[DerpyFirework]

1 hour ago, svendii said:

Well that was quick  Seems to work great so far.

I'm having a problem with the control surface transforms though:

Not sure where the problem lies yet, will have to do some more testing...

I recall seeing this issue somewhere before, but don't remember where it was or how to fix it. I'll do some poking around too, I have one idea on what it could be.

EDIT: Could you post a picture of the unity setup, showing the hierarchy and local orientation of the control point? I get the feeling this is just KSP being strange.

Edited June 21, 2016 by DerpyFirework

[EmbersArc]

1 hour ago, DerpyFirework said:

EDIT: Could you post a picture of the unity setup, showing the hierarchy and local orientation of the control point? I get the feeling this is just KSP being strange.

Nevermind, was probably just me being strange. I rotated the root part by 90° so that it would attach with a correct orientation but apparently KSP didn't like that. I've now changed the orientation in the config. Now tweaking variables and working on the texture.

[DerpyFirework]

Just now, svendii said:

Nevermind, was probably just me being strange. I rotated the root part by 90° so that it would attach with a correct orientation but apparently KSP didn't like that. I've now changed the orientation in the config. Now tweaking variables and working on the texture.

Great! That was one of my possible concerns, but I dismissed that as all part I could see were the correct orientation.

[EmbersArc]

22 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

Great! That was one of my possible concerns, but I dismissed that as all part I could see were the correct orientation.

This also happened to be the reason for some strange behavior in flight (the "wing" was basically pointing in the wrong direction). All because of the root part coordinates.

The system so far works pretty much as it should. Two things though:

• Reloading a quicksave of a vessel with deployed fins breaks the animation (redeploying fixes that).
• One drawback of this system is that the fins barely increase the drag so terminal velocity is quite high. Increasing dragCoeff in ModuleControlSurface only changes the drag when steering. Simultaneously using ModuleAeroSurface seems to lead to conflicts and doesn't look too nice with all the options in the right-click menu.

Apart from that it's ready for testing.

[DerpyFirework]

2 hours ago, svendii said:

This also happened to be the reason for some strange behavior in flight (the "wing" was basically pointing in the wrong direction). All because of the root part coordinates.

The system so far works pretty much as it should. Two things though:

• Reloading a quicksave of a vessel with deployed fins breaks the animation (redeploying fixes that).
• One drawback of this system is that the fins barely increase the drag so terminal velocity is quite high. Increasing dragCoeff in ModuleControlSurface only changes the drag when steering. Simultaneously using ModuleAeroSurface seems to lead to conflicts and doesn't look too nice with all the options in the right-click menu.

Apart from that it's ready for testing.

Amazing work! These are simply the best grid fins I have ever seen! Even my kOS script likes them: (Your legs and grid fins, Tundra exploration rocket body, stock droneship)

As for the issues: I'm not too sure about the animation issue (Does it stow itself after load?). and I (or rather, my kOS script does) counteract the lack of drag with a longer landing burn, but I think there is a way to change the drag on it. I'll take a look.

EDIT: Oh, I see what's going on with the deployment. I have this issue with the SoundingRockets ones too. This bug actually happens on vessel load, but if they start stowed with my plugin, it disables them anyway. It actually made me think they worked properly as they were, but the drag and lift was still working. In short, I think it's a stock bug (maybe with animated control surfaces?).

Edited June 22, 2016 by DerpyFirework

[DavidHunter]

13 hours ago, svendii said:

This also happened to be the reason for some strange behavior in flight (the "wing" was basically pointing in the wrong direction). All because of the root part coordinates.

The system so far works pretty much as it should. Two things though:

• Reloading a quicksave of a vessel with deployed fins breaks the animation (redeploying fixes that).
• One drawback of this system is that the fins barely increase the drag so terminal velocity is quite high. Increasing dragCoeff in ModuleControlSurface only changes the drag when steering. Simultaneously using ModuleAeroSurface seems to lead to conflicts and doesn't look too nice with all the options in the right-click menu.

Apart from that it's ready for testing.

Tested it on the launch pad under v1.1.3.

Seems to work great. (Didn't have time to actually launch and try to steer something; I'm at work and probably should be working...)

 

Bravo on yet another set of great parts!

[EmbersArc]

14 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

Amazing work! These are simply the best grid fins I have ever seen! Even my kOS script likes them: (Your legs and grid fins, Tundra exploration rocket body, stock droneship)

Glad you like it! Do you have a video of an autonomous landing? It would be cool to see the whole thing in action.

14 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

I think it's a stock bug (maybe with animated control surfaces?).

Maybe there's a workaround for this for example by automatically redeploying when the ship is loaded (I'd love to help with this but it's not really my area of expertise..).

I'll do some more work on the texturing later today to make it look more stock-ish. Should be ready for release soon.

Edited June 23, 2016 by svendii

[EmbersArc]

Did some more modeling and texturing, pretty much finished now.

@DerpyFirework Any luck on adding drag to the module?

[DerpyFirework]

3 minutes ago, svendii said:

 

@DerpyFirework Any luck on adding drag to the module?

Sadly not. I thought setting useInternalDragModel in the ModuleControlSurface to false and dragModelType in the part itself to default would allow use of ModuleDragModifier, but the PartDatabase just shows Procedural=true, which means we can't up the drag for it when deployed. If the lack of drag becomes a problem, I could see if I can add it to my plugin, but I'm not too sure about how I'd do that.

Awesome work on the textures BTW!

[EmbersArc]

2 hours ago, DerpyFirework said:

Sadly not. I thought setting useInternalDragModel in the ModuleControlSurface to false and dragModelType in the part itself to default would allow use of ModuleDragModifier, but the PartDatabase just shows Procedural=true, which means we can't up the drag for it when deployed. If the lack of drag becomes a problem, I could see if I can add it to my plugin, but I'm not too sure about how I'd do that.

Just found a way to do it without programming magic  I copied the DRAG_CUBE module from the cargo bay config and changed all the variables in model B to 0. It now has zero drag when stowed and has significant drag when deployed, there even is a nice transition in the drag force. Never thought this would work but it did. Now I have to figure out what all those variables actually do to have some control over it.

[EmbersArc]

Update 1.4

•  Added Grid Fins in three different sizes. Special thanks to @DerpyFirework for contributing the module to make it work properly.
•  Adjustments to model and texture
•  Lowered cost for the legs
•  Changed required tech levels

[bradleyjh]

This mod is awesome for landing any of my first stages, the only way I can attempt to show my appreciation is by bringing your attention to my hoverslam kOS script which looks awesome using your legs and I can't wait to try out the new gridfin sizes with it too! Thanks heaps for the awesome mod, including the many laughs with bugs along the way

http://github.com/mrbradleyjh/kOS-Hoverslam/