[1.4.x-1.8.x] Airplane Plus - R26.4 (Fixed issues/Github is up to date) (Dec 21, 2019)

[Kerbal410]

not exactly sure if this is the right place to be asking, but is there a mod that adds a tail with a ramp/staircase, like on the MD-87?

[Caerfinon]

2 minutes ago, Kerbal410 said:

is there a mod that adds a tail with a ramp/staircase

There are quite a few ramps in various aircraft part mods but they are just that... ramps. I have not seen a staircase like the one in your picture. It would be a nice addition if some part maker was inclined to look into it.

[Lisias]

39 minutes ago, Kerbal410 said:

not exactly sure if this is the right place to be asking, but is there a mod that adds a tail with a ramp/staircase, like on the MD-87?

This kind of stairs on KSP is tricky, because on KSP the crafts use ladders, that relies on a different code to do the job. 

So you will need to do a stair with the step large enough to induce KSP physics ot think it's something like a ground stairs, like the stairs on the top of the VAB - and, then, I don't think such device would fit on a 1.5 or even 2.0 bulkhead profile as I would use on a MD-87.

I think this is exactly the reason the "Size 1.5 Air Ramp" is a ramp, by the way.

[Kerbal410]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

This kind of stairs on KSP is tricky, because on KSP the crafts use ladders, that relies on a different code to do the job. 

So you will need to do a stair with the step large enough to induce KSP physics ot think it's something like a ground stairs, like the stairs on the top of the VAB - and, then, I don't think such device would fit on a 1.5 or even 2.0 bulkhead profile as I would use on a MD-87.

I think this is exactly the reason the "Size 1.5 Air Ramp" is a ramp, by the way.

would a ramp work instead of stairs work, then? or is that still a no-go?

[Lisias]

22 hours ago, Kerbal410 said:

would a ramp work instead of stairs work, then? or is that still a no-go?

A ramp will do. As a matter of fact, is how boarding parts were implemented on AP+!

The problem I see is doing a ramp that would fit a size1 or size1.5 tail cone without being too steep for a Kerbal to use when extended. The MD-85 stairs is more or less 45 to 50º degrees, and I don't think a Kerbal will climb it without some kind of help.

On the other hand, you can extend the ramp to allow it to be less steep, trading angle for length. It~s how the AP+ ramp were implemented, by the way.

It will not be exactly as the MD-85 you want to mimic, but it may be near enough!

Cheers

[Rutabaga22]

I don't know if this mod is still getting parts, but I think SOFIA parts would be awesome.

[Ilya_G]

On 8/10/2022 at 3:09 AM, Lisias said:

Using the trick done on KAX is far from being really good - what was done was to replace the helicopter module from FireSpitter with a Stock Engine, virtually transforming the thing into a high altitude hovercraft. The engine doesn't induces torque, and it's virtually uncontrollable without heavy use of Stabilisers - and I mean the word heavy. The tail rotor became merely decorative, as it would screw up controllability without setting the engine to 0%.

On 8/25/2022 at 11:38 PM, 610yesnolovely said:

Whatever needs to be done to make helicopters so they work reasonably well and a bit easier, then do that. It'd be best if having the rotor lift part somewhere reasonably close horizontally to CoM and definitely above would give you a stable helicopter, and that there would be no rotational torque (ie. rear blades are merely for turning assistance).  That way anyone could build them.

In my opinion, helicopter engine modeling, which is currently in this mod and Firespitter mod, is the best option. It's so simple that a beginner can lift his helicopter into the air and control it without any problems.
And if you need more hardcore, install AJE and a config to it. There is a torque simulation there, which automatically forces you to use a tail propeller or another two-propeller scheme of your helicopter.

On 3/29/2022 at 7:04 AM, Drag0nD3str0yer said:

Alright that might be useful... I had an idea of sorta taking the procedural armor code from BDA for Runway Project and adapting it to make a procedural wing panel that would be easier to use (and simpler) than proc wings, but still allow more custom wing shapes. That idea is not really high priority though so ima just keep it on the backburner.

I remember one of the mods for procedural wings, like it's called "B9 Aerospace Prodecural Wings". In this case, I don't see the point of copying it if you don't want to modify it or rework it radically.

 

I was thinking, maybe I should abandon Firespitter altogether, and transfer the propeller engines to something else?

[Glimmerglint]

Is the github fork you made stable @Lisias ? Wondering if it should be the go-to option now. Also have you fixed the issue of wheels spawning underground?

[Lisias]

On 10/24/2022 at 4:32 PM, Ilya_G said:

I was thinking, maybe I should abandon Firespitter altogether, and transfer the propeller engines to something else?

Did this on KAX, and I'm not satisfied with the results. The only real improvement is being able to use auto-pilots, as they only support Stock engines.

It's a way out of the problem, but IMHO a less than ideal one.

 

On 10/28/2022 at 3:04 PM, Glimmerglint said:

Is the github fork you made stable @Lisias ? Wondering if it should be the go-to option now. Also have you fixed the issue of wheels spawning underground?

Yes, but wait a bit - I'll distribute a new release in the next 24 hours (not sure exactly when yet) with some needed changes to avoid conflicts with a new add'on from @Drag0nD3str0yer.

— — POST EDIT — — 

Of course, while overviewing thing before shipping it, I found some horrible merge mistakes I let passed trough. I'm eye picking everything and, since I'm here anyway, I'm adding some more nice to have features (but nothing really new). This will take one day more at least, sorry for frustrating expectations!

I will let you know as soon as I have something decent to kick trough the door.

— — POST POST EDIT — — 

I'm fighting a weird and completely unexpected problem, apparently (but pending confirmation) caused by something on KSP that really caught me with my pants down even after so many years on modding.

It's weird, it's unexplainable, and I'm spending all my available time on it.

My apologies for yet another delay.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Lisias
post post edit.

[Grenartia]

If you don't mind my asking, what's the issue?

[Manul]

On 10/2/2022 at 8:07 PM, Lisias said:

So you will need to do a stair with the step large enough to induce KSP physics ot think it's something like a ground stairs, like the stairs on the top of the VAB - and, then, I don't think such device would fit on a 1.5 or even 2.0 bulkhead profile as I would use on a MD-87.

Stairs are a myth, they don't exist. There are no stairs on the VAB or anywhere else, just ramps in disguise.

[Lisias]

5 hours ago, Manul said:

Stairs are a myth, they don't exist. There are no stairs on the VAB or anywhere else, just ramps in disguise.

There're no ramps neither, all we have are colliders shaped like ramps!

(but, hey, we don't need to go down so deep to explain some problems to the users, right?)

 

11 hours ago, Grenartia said:

If you don't mind my asking, what's the issue?

Well… That was a weird one, and one that got me worried for a couple days (and, so, I screwed up the scheduling).

Right now, A+ needs Firespitter on some of the parts. Yes, I know that there're replacements, but I would need to ask the user to install more than one add'ons to do the FS job - and yet, it will not be good enough (I know what I'm talking, replacing Firespitter on KAX wans't satisfactory). But most people forget to install dependencies anyway, and so I shove on every add'on of mine a WatchDog that barks on you everytime you fire up KSP missing dependencies my add'ons need, and while coding it into A+ I got this weird message on my KSP.log:

[ERR 12:27:47.935] Exception handling event onGameSceneSwitchRequested in class Startup:System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at AirplanePlus.MonkeyPatching.Execute () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at AirplanePlus.Startup.OnGameSceneSwitchRequested (FromToAction`2 data) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at EventData`1[GameEvents+FromToAction`2[GameScenes,GameScenes]].Fire (FromToAction`2 data) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

[EXC 12:27:47.941] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
        AirplanePlus.MonkeyPatching.Execute ()
        AirplanePlus.Startup.OnGameSceneSwitchRequested (FromToAction`2 data)
        EventData`1[GameEvents+FromToAction`2[GameScenes,GameScenes]].Fire (FromToAction`2 data)
        UnityEngine.DebugLogHandler:LogException(Exception, Object)
        KSPe.Util.Log.UnityLogDecorator:UnityEngine.ILogHandler.LogException(Exception, Object)
        ModuleManager.UnityLogHandle.InterceptLogHandler:LogException(Exception, Object)
        UnityEngine.Debug:LogException(Exception)
        EventData`1:Fire(FromToAction`2)
        HighLogic:SetLoadSceneEventsAndFlags(GameScenes, Boolean)
        HighLogic:LoadScene(GameScenes)
        <SetupSystem>c__Iterator0:MoveNext()
        UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine:InvokeMoveNext(IEnumerator, IntPtr)
[LOG 12:27:47.942] [HighLogic]: =========================== Scene Change : From LOADING to MAINMENU =====================

The Exception was not raised from my code, and the testbed I was using was a pretty clean one, nothing but my supporting add'ons (KSPe, my fork of MM, and some utils). And I know all that code I forked or created, I inspected them (or wrote them from scratch), and there's no MonkeyPatching class/method/string anywhere on my repositories.

So this stunt appears to be coming from KSP itself. I reproduced it down to KSP 1.3.1, by the way. Yep, this is lingering with us for a very long time.

So I had something injecting code into AirplanePlus' WatchDog and causing it to bork. How I would release it this way? So I spent the weekend trying to locate it, understanding it and then trying a workaround for it (without breaking some Forum rules about modding, what's a bit of a challenge). And then the damned thing vanished!

A bit after 31th Oct 00:00 AM (don't remember if 00:40 or 1:40 or something like that), the problem ceased to happen out of the blue. Right now I'm guessing (and guessing wildly) that this may be related to some Easter Egg code that was never finished and was forgotten on the codebase. But, again, this is a wild guess because I don't really have the slightest clue about why in the Name of the Krakens this krap fell on me on the last weekend.

Oh, well. Now you know. Assuming nothing more happens (on KSP or Real Life™), I hope to publish something on this weekend - but I'm unsure I should had disclosed that, Murphy is between us...

Edited November 2, 2022 by Lisias
Grammars... (Sigh)

[DeadJohn]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

A bit after 31th Oct 00:00 AM (don't remember if 00:40 or 1:40 or something like that), the problem ceased to happen out of the blue. Right now I'm guessing (and guessing wildly) that this may be related to some Easter Egg code that was never finished and was forgotten on the codebase. But, again, this is a wild guess because I don't really have the slightest clue about why in the Name of the Krakens this krap fell on me on the last weekend.

Maybe you already thought of this, but try changing your clock to a time before that and see if it occurs again.

[Lisias]

4 hours ago, DeadJohn said:

Maybe you already thought of this, but try changing your clock to a time before that and see if it occurs again.

Yep, but this is a task for the weekend now -after releasing the thing.

It's worth to mention that even by doing that, the thing may not be triggered if the programmer took extra cautions. For example, on the time I used to cra… hum… "study" some protected programs on my youth, one way to defend your self against clock mangling is to "touch" the configuration file before exiting the program: if the current time is less than the configuration file timestamp, you know the clock was mangled and so you can do something about (as not running the hidden code).

Okey, I know I may be going a bit over the board now - but, hey, something injected code and broke my DLL and I don't have the slightest clue about who or why, I think I'm entitled to be a bit jumpy on the matter!

[Ilya_G]

What do you think, maybe in Airplane Plus is it worth adding and expanding this mod? The author has not been online since 2018...

 

On 11/2/2022 at 11:04 AM, Lisias said:

Yes, I know that there're replacements, but I would need to ask the user to install more than one add'ons to do the FS job

As I know, there are few analogues of FS:
1. KSPWheel. It is also used in Kerbal Foundries. I don't know about the propellers, but it works on wheels
2. Wild Blue Industries (WBI Tools). It is also used in Heisenberg - Airships Part Pack.  It works better with propellers than FS, but if you need wheels, then I can't say anything
3. I can't say anything about KAX. It seems that FS is used there
By the way, about KAX. You can use a more realistic IntakeAtm instead of FSCoolant
4. The most difficult and unrealizable option (KSP2 will be released soon, so there is no need to try now for KSP1) is to write your own mod. Of course, I do not know what exactly the FS did not please you here (as I know, it is not used in wheels, and propellers more or less work with it)

On 11/2/2022 at 11:02 PM, Lisias said:

something injected code and broke my DLL and I don't have the slightest clue about who or why

As I know, the code of this game is written by amateurs in writing such projects. Therefore, it is not surprising that in this game something can break or fix itself ...
I think this is one of the reasons why the developers decided to get rid of this game

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Ilya_G said:

What do you think, maybe in Airplane Plus is it worth adding and expanding this mod? The author has not been online since 2018...

Damn. You blew up my surprise…    It's on the backlog, but I was keeping it in secret.  

(to tell you the true, for some time I was trying to decide if I would put it on KAX or AP,  due the date it was created - more or less the cutoff date I had set for KAX, but since it was asked here, so in AP it will be!).

 

1 hour ago, Ilya_G said:

As I know, there are few analogues of FS:
1. KSPWheel. It is also used in Kerbal Foundries. I don't know about the propellers, but it works on wheels

The main problem is reworking the meshes. Meshes made for FireSpitter have a internal structure different from the ones made for Stock. KSP Wheels is on my sight, Kerbal Foundries I didn't checked yet. Ideally I want to avoid forcing the user to download many different add'ons to do something that it was able to do before with only one, but things are the way they are.

I have absolutely no problem on adding support for 3rd parties PartModules later, if it adds value to the parts. It's the trend I'm going on KAX, by the way. I'm working on patches to allow the user to use FS if available, or Stock if FS is not available. Of course, the engines will behave well better with FS but, as I said, it will be user's decision about what's better for him.

I'm getting some help on "reverse engineering" some parts, once we have one part of each type migrated, all the others became "grunt work" and this I can do on meshes. So I hope things will work a bit faster on this holidays.

 

1 hour ago, Ilya_G said:

2. Wild Blue Industries (WBI Tools). It is also used in Heisenberg - Airships Part Pack.  It works better with propellers than FS, but if you need wheels, then I can't say anything

Humm… I completely forgot about this one. This is the problem on expending too much time coding and too few effectively playing the game.

I will give this a peek.

 

1 hour ago, Ilya_G said:

3. I can't say anything about KAX. It seems that FS is used there
By the way, about KAX. You can use a more realistic IntakeAtm instead of FSCoolant

I know. But the FSCoolant works better on propeller engines than Stock - I'm bashing my SAS the whole year (as time allows, RL™ is being a Sun on the Beach for me this year…), and I'm just can't get a satisfiable overheating model for the new D-45 engine. The RL™ counter part, Pratt&Whitney R-4360 Major Wasp, have terrible heating issues that I managed to reproduce on the game - but using FSCoolant made it easier to accomplish.

 

1 hour ago, Ilya_G said:

4. The most difficult and unrealizable option (KSP2 will be released soon, so there is no need to try now for KSP1) is to write your own mod. Of course, I do not know what exactly the FS did not please you here (as I know, it is not used in wheels, and propellers more or less work with it)

As a matter of fact, I'm thinking on going this lane exactly due KSP2. It's uncertain when it will be available for Mac and Linux, not to mention when if will be available at all. And I'm not going back to Windows on this life.

I think KSP1 still have some juice, and I'm going to probe some ideas on it before trying them on KSP2 - assuming I'll ever migrate to KSP2, as this is, at this point, highly uncertain.

 

1 hour ago, Ilya_G said:

As I know, the code of this game is written by amateurs in writing such projects. Therefore, it is not surprising that in this game something can break or fix itself ...
I think this is one of the reasons why the developers decided to get rid of this game

Being completely frank on the matter, looking on the Steam Charts and the huge amount of problems I detected in the last few years… I would trade the current KSP1 for the one made by the amateurs any time. My worst problems (by a mile) where the ones created on recent team's tenure.

If you have the patience (and the will) to check the immense historic of bugs on my github, you will find that except by one (the auto-struts problem), every single other nasty and hairy problem I had to cope with was created after KSP 1.4.0  — I really don't know where the problem laid, my perception is that (at least most of) the developers were capable professionals.

Clearly, something didn't worked as expected, and whoever was the one in charge of the development, failed on detecting the trend before it had grown too big to be reverted.

I'm not telling you the previous team would not wake up in the morning with burning ears - hell, they would (I have a big mouth, after all). But as far as I understand, the Life Cycle breakage and the memory problems (to stay on the more evident problems I detected) started on KSP 1.4.0 and later. KSP 1.3.1 and 1.2.2 worked beautifully on all my rigs (older or new) and, in the end of the day, this is all that matters for the die hard users that used to love the game.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Lisias
Hit "save" too soon.

[Ilya_G]

5 minutes ago, Lisias said:

to tell you the true, for some time I was trying to decide if I would put it on KAX or AP

As for me, it's better to forget about KAX, but important elements (engines, for example) transfer to AP. But this is my personal opinion.

8 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Damn. You blew up my surprise…

Do you want to make a surprise?
Make a functional IVA for this cockpit, preferably with configs for RPM (they still use it) and MAS. You can peek inside the cockpit in the DSC

 

19 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Pratt&Whitney R-4360 Major Wasp

Are you going to make a model of this engine and add it to this mod?

23 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I know. But the FSCoolant works better on propeller engines than Stock

I do not know what you meant here (sorry, I use a translator that does not always do its job correctly), but as I have established through experiments, IntakeAtm and FSCoolant are resources that can be found on ANY planet with an atmosphere, unlike IntakeAir, which is only on planets with acidic atmosphere
If IntakeAtm is more realistic, then does it make sense to use FSCoolant if IntakeAtm can be used? Or I don't understand something

 

I think you will be interested to see this. Yes, I know that half of the functionality is already in AJE, but the rest of the ideas should interest you

You can write in a personal account, if it will be so convenient for you

[Lisias]

14 minutes ago, Ilya_G said:

As for me, it's better to forget about KAX, but important elements (engines, for example) transfer to AP. But this is my personal opinion.

That would be a shoot on my foot. There're things I can try on KAX for R&D that I can't on AP.

[Manul]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

Humm… I completely forgot about this one. This is the problem on expending too much time coding and too few effectively playing the game.

I will give this a peek.

WBI tools are designed to deal with tiltrotors that are actually jets in disguise mounted on a pivot. They use a stock ModuleEnginesFX to do the engine stuff and WBI modules to rotate the engine. There is a module that spins the rotor like FSplanePropellerSpinner does but there is nothing to replace FSengineBladed with. And I'm 90% sure that it will require rebuilding the meshes to switch from FSplanePropeller to WBIPropSpinner since they use a different approach to do the spinning stuff.

[Birdman31]

Is this open for part suggestions?

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, Birdman31 said:

Is this open for part suggestions?

Yes, but with reserves - the focus is on making the existing parts working again.

 

3 hours ago, Manul said:

WBI tools are designed to deal with tiltrotors that are actually jets in disguise mounted on a pivot. They use a stock ModuleEnginesFX to do the engine stuff and WBI modules to rotate the engine. 

So this is not too different from what I have on KAX now. It's better than nothing, but barely…

[Rakete]

On 11/9/2022 at 10:26 AM, Lisias said:

Yes, but with reserves - the focus is on making the existing parts working again

How are things going? Looking forward to a stable release. 

[Zmeya]

On 11/14/2022 at 2:07 PM, Rakete said:

How are things going? Looking forward to a stable release. 

As am I, many of the wing parts look good but dont work properly with FAR

[Kerbal410]

Any good mod with the A-10s main landing gear?

[Caerfinon]

27 minutes ago, Kerbal410 said:

Any good mod with the A-10s main landing gear?

You could check out the examples on KerbalX and look at the mods each one is made from.  See -> Kerbal X: A-10 Thunderbolt crafts