official Stress out the Devs! (and KSP)

[Cunjo Carl]

19 hours ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Got a save with like 40 crafts... is that enough?

And it's been used since .20 or so...

We've got our bases covered with just the ships, but we don't have any continuously-used, well-lived-in save files yet. I'm just another forum goer, but anything that's been in continuous use since 30 versions ago sounds stressful to me.

 

Just to keep things easy for me, I separated my ideas into glitchy ones and non-glitchy ones. This week, I drummed up a few of the useful glitches into a compilation of ships that make unexpected (and hopefully technically interesting) effects in stock KSP. For any of these cases, the interesting thing is not the glitch itself, but the highly complex situations they create. We could create similarly complex situations without glitches, too, but it would be much more time consuming. You know, in the end, I think glitches is much too pejorative a term for these. I prefer 'developer unintended features'. They're endearing to the seasoned player and unnoticeable to the neophyte. These are not the glitches you are looking for </jediMindPowers> . If anyone happens to be interested in these glitches or others, feel free to message me directly to keep the thread clean and on-point.

On to the meat! Here's the involved ships and effects, in the order as seen in the video. Most ships come in different sizes ranging from 500 parts to 2000, the upper limit of my hardware.

Spoiler

1. Confetti: A huge number of light-weight radial parts get flung individually off the launch pad. It's fun, and uneventful. Besides the 2000 dappling explosions, that is.

2. Second Plague: Any number of small rovers can be remotely controlled and caused to cross the KSP physics bounds. I originally induced a hell kraken this way, but after removing mods and setting ksp's process priority to high, I was unable to replicate it. An odd graphics glitch is created apparently linked to the many spinning crafts, which causes everything to go ghostly. Can't describe it better than that, I'm afraid.

3, Eighth Plague: Along the same lines but with different physics bounds mechanics, any number of small planes or space vessels can be remotely controlled and caused to fly around in formations. I was hoping that planes flying into and out-of the area near the focus would cause mischief. It didn't

4. Bloom: A much greater-than-normal amount of SRB is packed onto the launch pad, and set to burn upside-down. By putting the craft on rails during the burn we can remove the fire/physics effect and enjoy just the smoke effects. I originally induced an instant crash-to-desktop this way, but after removing mods and setting ksp's process priority to high, I was unable to replicate it.

5. Thermoset Iccarus: A bunch of solar panels and empty batteries are hauled out to the surface of the sun. The instantaneous charging of so many empty batteries should have been harder for ksp! It didn't even flinch. . Extremely high heating rates are induced on two gigantor solar panels, which explode uneventfully.

(Honorable mentions that didn't make the cut. Let me know if they're of interest)
1. 3-20km/s speeds are achieved by a kerbal or a light ship at very low altitudes. Convective cooling outweighs the shock/frictive heating.
2. A ladder-drive ship (infinite ISP, and thrust ~ the ant) is loaded with a Klaw and launched into space. I even got one up to orbit before I realized I had no idea where to send it :/
3. Parachutes are made to survive reentry effects, and may be all simultaneously destroyed.

 

 

I've attached the save file. Please forgive the typos! Here's the use and care instructions: All of the ships are as seen in the description above, with different varieties noted as different marks, and different sizes noted in the final number. Many ships work better from the runway and are loaded into the SPH as well. This save is career to avoid stock ships cluttering the ship-open menu. For any situations that are difficult to recreate or of interest size-wise, I made a save. Though cheats aren't required to use the Thermoset Iccarus, they are required to load its saves. Just before loading, turn on the ignore heat cheat. Just after loading, you can turn it back off. To setup the Simon Says glitch, turn on SAS and hold mod+Q,A,W to set the trim full (or near it), then separate and use Q, A or W to move in tandem with the probes. S, D and E can also be used, but will cause the movement to desync.

Save link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4VfTCvq4M80UkdvVEhLOXBCek0

If there's anything you'd like expounded on, let me know! Otherwise, next week I'll be bugging KSP without glitches. Please look forward to it!

 

Edited August 1, 2016 by Cunjo Carl

[sal_vager]

Wow good stuff guys, keep em coming

[RocketSquid]

My "Spinning engine tower of doom" had little overall effect but did slow the game to a near-stop during launch.

See the images here!

[Cunjo Carl]

I've made my next round, but haven't quite finished the testing/documentation. I kinda had my heart set on posting it this evening though, so I'll put up save and descriptions tonight, and edit in the more time consuming video later. I'll also be adding different models of a few of these crafts and doing some more in-depth stress testing with them next week.

I had 5 or 6 ships in mind for this week, and decided to go with 5 or 6 completely different ones instead! This week's focus has been on piling up object collisions, which is a fun way to ramp up the lag. Ultimately, I'm pretty happy with the lineup.

 

Slak (Linear collider)

Spoiler

Named after the Standford Linear Akcelerator, the SLAK uses the exhaust push of many vector engines to slam things into eachother very fast. Pods work well (unmanned of course) but the version in the present save has service bays which can be filled with loose sepratrons by activating the first stage. The Mk3 muzzle-brake makes the launch much more reproducible for some reason. The wings and things are just for looks.

Slak has two accelerators pointed directly at eachother. I haven't gotten the payloads to collide yet...       A launch at half power caused lots of weirdness including this wing trying its best to twist upright.

For whatever reason, the first stage (releasing the sepratrons) causes a full minute of lag for a single physics frame on my system, which is a good sign. Activating similar numbers of engines is typically much quicker, so it's a point of interest. Launching at half-power has caused some minor physics breaks (things landing and rolling in bizarre ways), which I'm excited to explore more.

Sepratron Sinker

Spoiler

Lifting off from the runway, the sepratron sinker can land gently on the water and sink sepratrons! Why? Eh...

After the initial staging, Pressing 1-4 causes sepratrons to drop out in a clump.                                      Because of drag cubes, the more vertical sepratrons fall faster. As single pieces they don't torque.

It's interesting to notice how the sepratrons move relative to eachother. Because they don't twist at all, each is like its own drag cube experiment. Sometimes you get one that leads the pack by a mile! I wonder why...

A Ball of Unusual Size

Spoiler

A 100 meter tall sphere can slowly roll around KSC and hopefully into the ocean. It has a top speed of 25m/s, driven by countless reaction wheels inside.

The Ball can gently roll around at 6m/s and cause wanton destruction in its wake.                                          It's tough enough to survive explosions, so I took it on a walk....

It looks very amusing to see this ball roll gently around but have things burst into flame around it. Anything beyond 6-ish m/s causes KSC structures to explode, so it's actually difficult to roll off the runway without having the runway explode. Very fun!

Rock Polisher

Spoiler

The same basic sphere as in part 3, but it can be loaded with many different kinds of things to spin around inside.

Jeb is introduced into the sphere by transferring into this convenient pod and dropping                            Slow rotation allows Kerbals to stick or slowly slide down nearly vertical surfaces before tumbling.

The sphere can be loaded with 30-ish (?) tons of payload to be twisted and churned about. Kerbals are an obvious choice for their many connected pieces, light weight and complex shape. I tend to find it a bit disturbing because they tend to turn into spaghetti. This seems to be a thing introduced since 1.1, along with the reduction in joint strength. Spaghetification can be caused by a piece being caught on geometry, but it can also be caused by a piece colliding with a geometry and taking the brunt of an impact. That piece then oscillates divergently, causing the rest of the Kerbal to destabilize and increase in speed until the Kerbal is despawned.

It works nicely with big struts and fuel tanks, too. They roll around as expected but it's fun to watch all the collisions. I'll make another version with some example materials staged up to separate inside.

Ball Pit

Spoiler

A Short mk3 bay is filled with 1000ish loose sepratrons for the purposes of playing, and excitement during reentry.

Val and Bob jump into a ball pit of sepratrons, much deeper than a Kerbal. They float!                                Up in space, Bob splashes the Sepratrons around. They're fun to knock around

The first stage of this craft causes the sepratrons to seperate and fall loose into the bay by overheating a few dozen basic fins all the sepratrons are attached to. This stage launches 100-200ish engines and takes a very long time to compute. Because they're considered debris, the sepratrons don't save and should float through the hull on rails time acceleration. They jostle and move gently like brownian motion, implying the collisions are occurring continuously. It seems to be well-damped thought because I haven't seen anything rocket off yet. During reentry, the sepratrons cloud and slowly drift seperate as expected. Other objects could easily be used in the place of these sepratrons.

Klaw Blossoms

Spoiler

Roughly 600 Klaws are mounted on the same (stationary) craft, and all primed by pressing the '1' key.

600 Klaws slow the editor to a krawl... It's late.                                                             The Klaws all bloom in prefect simultaneity. It's 1 part strikingly beautiful and 1 part nauseatingly creepy.

The Klaw blossoms create huge amounts of lag, even in the editor. Surprisingly, cycling the animation doesn't slow it down by that much more.

Reloader Exploder

Spoiler

A large 600 part plane flies nicely and reloads with a bang.

The Reloader Exploder is a standard, garden variety 5 stage airplane. It's a bit clipped but flies fine.            Boom! When reloading a quicksave, the Kraken tears it to shreds.

   Most large airplanes have trouble with saving and reloading during flight, and this one is a particularly ludicrous case in point. It appears that things break from a kraken-like violent shaking starting right at the COM, and spreading outwards at a rate ~10-20m per physics frame. In particular, as physics are being re-applied to the peripheral wings, you can see a strange wave of violent non-physical shaking starting near the center and propagating outwards. Turning on the unbreakable joints cheat will allow it to survive the process, and shows that the shaking lasts only a brief moment. A save is already available given the ship's name.

As a wild unfounded guess: During the reload process, the plane first experiences a second-ish of rails physics before aerophysics are applied. I wonder if the change in velocity during the rails physics (gravity) has anything to do with it? I'll have to test it out.

 

Save File:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4VfTCvq4M80bGtzMDZ5MnZuN0U

All of the above ships are available in the SPH. For convenience sake, they've simply been added to the save file from last week. Enjoy!

 

Edited August 8, 2016 by Cunjo Carl

[Gman_builder]

Heres a good one fore you to consider optimizing.

 

Multi-craft.....craft.

I.E. turboprop aircraft and other various things that utilize part to part collision meshes to make something work. Like tank tracks and complex collective pitch helicopter rotor heads.

 

Currently the part collisions are actual trash and it takes TONS of tweaking and changing just to make something as complex as these things function without breaking the physics or the game let alone make them move or even fly. I would like to request upping the normal RPM limit to 50+ rad/s. Or around 500 RPM to better suit turbo-nerds like myself and @Azimech. Along with that, make the stock joints stronger and make the PhysX not go absolutely crazy at high RPM. Just start spinning up a stack of reaction wheels in space and you'll see what I mean. its ridiculous.

Thanks!

-Gman

 

 

Edited August 8, 2016 by Gman_builder

[Azimech]

3 minutes ago, Gman_builder said:

Heres a good one fore you to consider optimizing.

 

Multi-craft.....craft.

I.E. turboprop aircraft and other various things that utilize part to part collision meshes to make something work. Like tank tracks and complex collective pitch helicopter rotor heads.

 

Currently the part collisions are actual trash and it takes TONS of tweaking and changing just to make something as complex as these things function without breaking the physics or the game let alone make them move or even fly. I would like to request upping the normal RPM limit to 50+ rad/s. Or around 500 RPM to better suit turbo-nerds like myself and @Azimech. Along with that, make the stock joints stronger and make the PhysX not go absolutely crazy at high RPM. Just start spinning up a stack of reaction wheels in space and you'll see what I mean. its ridiculous.

Thanks!

-Gman

 

 

To tell you the truth, I don't think the devs consider our engineering inside the scope of KSP. Maybe for a different, future product. We're operating in a niche and probably a very small user base. Some choices made in the early part of development are fine for spaceflight and building relatively simple craft. Changing certain parameters today to fit our needs will probably create unwanted behaviour with the rest.

But if Squad ever decides to create a separate product aimed at engineering, I'd love to help them.

[Gman_builder]

50 minutes ago, Azimech said:

To tell you the truth, I don't think the devs consider our engineering inside the scope of KSP. Maybe for a different, future product. We're operating in a niche and probably a very small user base. Some choices made in the early part of development are fine for spaceflight and building relatively simple craft. Changing certain parameters today to fit our needs will probably create unwanted behaviour with the rest.

But if Squad ever decides to create a separate product aimed at engineering, I'd love to help them.

true. but a simple addition like raising the stock RPM limiter or removing it all together is simple and could benefit us greatly

[swjr-swis]

4 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

Most large airplanes have trouble with saving and reloading during flight, and this one is a particularly ludicrous case in point. It appears that things break from a kraken-like violent shaking starting right at the COM, and spreading outwards at a rate ~10-20m per physics frame. In particular, as physics are being re-applied to the peripheral wings, you can see a strange wave of violent non-physical shaking starting near the center and propagating outwards.

It's not limited to large/heavy craft; tiny craft can show this too. Here's an example of an almost minimally small craft that will violently shake itself apart as soon as physics kick in. Nothing particular about it, other than some radial symmetry and clipping to create one wing out of multiple basic fins.

craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2w111xmhrt682ks/TIE-wing-shaker1.craft?dl=0

video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/q9i85rhkax43wt7/KSP113-TIE-wing-shaker1.mp4?dl=0

 

(And yes, there is something weird about the symmetry. The original tiny TIE fighter I made has it correct, but using just the wing as a subassembly will cause an incorrect mirroring. Probably the editor getting confused about applying mirror symmetry on a radial symmetry subassembly, but like I said, the original uses the same wing assembly and even the same Oscar B as a root, and it mirrors fine there.)

[sal_vager]

@Gman_builder, does your craft work in stock? We'll need the save file containing it.

[Azimech]

2 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

@Gman_builder, does your craft work in stock? We'll need the save file containing it.

Any turboprop will do the trick and a save file is not really applicable.

Shameless promotion, this is the aircraft I used to fly around kerbin yesterday: https://kerbalx.com/Azimech/77I-Azi13-Stock-Turboprop-Flight-Around-Kerbin

But you really need to follow the instructions or it won't fly or worse.

[sal_vager]

1 minute ago, Azimech said:

Any turboprop will do the trick and a save file is not really applicable.

Shameless promotion, this is the aircraft I used to fly around kerbin yesterday: https://kerbalx.com/Azimech/77I-Azi13-Stock-Turboprop-Flight-Around-Kerbin

But you really need to follow the instructions or it won't fly or worse.

Well I can't pass it to the devs without the file

[Azimech]

Just now, sal_vager said:

Well I can't pass it to the devs without the file

Allright, I'll give you guys something.

[Azimech]

1 hour ago, sal_vager said:

Well I can't pass it to the devs without the file

Here's the link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qxtje0riih8putv/Trip around Kerbin%2C start second leg.sfs?dl=0

Some info for the devs:

 

Spoiler

Instructions can be found here: https://kerbalx.com/Azimech/77I-Azi13-Stock-Turboprop-Flight-Around-Kerbin

It's possible to fly the plane with the global drag modifier at standard but ... you won't like it. Put at minimum for a better experience.

It's going to be hard not to overrev the engine and cause spaghetti joints without a proper readout, which happens around 51 rad/s. This is the current (PhysX/Unity/KSP?) limit, we don't know what's causing it. Remember, without giving line 89 in Physics.cfg a value higher than 60 you'll never see the effect.

• Stage 1 blowers are used for starting, stage 2 blowers kick in around 35 rad/s due to the turbine blades magically expanding from the turbine shaft.
• While taking off, keep an eye on the propeller. Enable "thermal data in action menu's" and make one of the propeller blade action menu's a sticky or the sticky disappears when changing focus. Change authority to keep the propeller spinning between 48 and 50 rad/s. No need to control the aircraft while taking off, it does it automatically around 45 m/s. Watch out for the famous physics bubble when changing focus between turbine shaft and airplane, the fuel truck is near ...
• Use both stages for take off, climbing and high speed, disable stage 1 for economy mode but be ready to compensate with throttle immediately or turbine speed drops below 35 rad/s.
• When enabling stage 1, make sure the turbine has a speed of less than 41 rad/s or you'll risk overrevving.

My recommendation for flying:

• Watch out for jerky movements, if possible use a stick or autopilot and keep turbine speed close to maximum. At lower turbine speeds the shaft will easily break bearing elements. If unable to fly without wrecking the engine, enable "no crash damage". If flown properly, aerobatics are possible but it's better to have almost empty tanks for that. Besides, it will bleed speed quickly.
• You'll want to disable jet engine smoke and give the Juno's (actually all jets) a real life spool up/down time. The values in KSP are the realm of science fiction, no jet engine in the world produces big white contrails at sea level (except under specific weather conditions; black thin ones, that's a different story) and spools like a steam machine.

These are the values I use for the Juno:

engineAccelerationSpeed = 1.12
engineDecelerationSpeed = 1.5

Other things:

The log warns me it's not possible to create more than 20 wheelcolliders. Until now I've had no problems.
The log often mentions parts being heated by the juno's. Maybe it's worth a toggle?
Don't press F3 during or after running the engine. It will give you the impression the game hangs for a long time & make your life miserable. :-P

Any questions, just ask.

 

Have fun guys!

Is this agreeable?

If not stressful enough, I'll give them my giant cargoplane using two engines and 200 blowers. Talking about workload.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Azimech

[Gman_builder]

9 hours ago, sal_vager said:

@Gman_builder, does your craft work in stock? We'll need the save file containing it.

Heres a download link to my fastest turboprop. Works great with the RPM limiter turned off and the drag setting at minimum but it should fly, be it slowly in completely stock physics as well.

https://kerbalx.com/Gman_builder/Gremlin-Mk-3

[W. Kerman]

My dad just messed with my game... Oh no...

He ended up making a craft with two opposing SRBs pointing at each other 

What happened next was crazy, engines can't run with time warp, but under normal conditions, you can't have time warp on because of UNDER ACCELERATION.

My dad turned on/off the stationary SRBs with time warp 

[Cunjo Carl]

@sal_vager Say, could we get some feedback on the entries so far? I just realized I've been throwing entire pots of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and I should probably listen for a splat before boiling up another round. Also, just my thinking, but it doesn't feel like this challenge needs direct competition (vis-a-vis the leader board) to be interesting/instructional/funny. However in liu of that graded competition, we could definitely use your comments and observations. It'd be handy to hear either general high-level stuff (like "more ships like these" / "focus on save files not ships") or specific stuff (like "This ship is a good size" / "Could you put one in space"). If the only necessary comment is "Just keep posting things, plz", I'd be happy with that too . In any case, Thanks for hosting!

As for the documentation, I was just filming and writing talking points for the documentation of last week's ships. In the end was that first video helpful, or are the pictures/descriptions enough to go on?

As a teaser for next week's ships, I've made one that reproducibly explodes superlumnially and sends the camera tumbling into the cosmos. Trouble was, it was just supposed to decouple some engines for another challenge...

Finally, if you're still around @ZooNamedGames, I'll bet that old well-loved save would be handy if you still wanted to post it?

[sal_vager]

1 hour ago, Cunjo Carl said:

@sal_vager Say, could we get some feedback on the entries so far?

Well, today I round up all the entries in a zip file and give it to the devs

After that I wait for their screams and take notes...

Thanks to everyone who participated, I'll update the leader board after the devs have recovered.

Closing for now!

[sal_vager]

Extra entrant needed!

All the entrants so far have been great, but one kind of test was missing and the devs have asked for it specifically.

They need an ISRU setup that causes KSP to slow down, we're talking a big base here, multiple sections in close proximity (200m), lots of drills and converters, fuel cells and radiators, the works!

It can be anywhere you like, so lets see what you can do

[Azimech]

42 minutes ago, sal_vager said:

Extra entrant needed!

All the entrants so far have been great, but one kind of test was missing and the devs have asked for it specifically.

They need an ISRU setup that causes KSP to slow down, we're talking a big base here, multiple sections in close proximity (200m), lots of drills and converters, fuel cells and radiators, the works!

It can be anywhere you like, so lets see what you can do

Would you mind asking the devs if a different application of ModuleResourceConverter could be used too? I've programmed stuff using it, like electronics.
It's amazing how flexible ModuleEnginesFX and ModuleResourceConverter are. In the future I'll publish a programmable music machine using stock modules only.

Show them these video's, they'll understand. Ask them to contact me for more info. I do things with these modules never envisioned.

 

 

 

For someone not sure what I'm talking about: the ISRU and fuel cells use the same module: ModuleResourceConverter.

 

Edited August 16, 2016 by Azimech

[Adelaar]

11 hours ago, sal_vager said:

Extra entrant needed!

All the entrants so far have been great, but one kind of test was missing and the devs have asked for it specifically.

They need an ISRU setup that causes KSP to slow down, we're talking a big base here, multiple sections in close proximity (200m), lots of drills and converters, fuel cells and radiators, the works!

It can be anywhere you like, so lets see what you can do

Well, I have a mining setup on Minmus in one of my saves, where I test different mining vehicles. I believe there are currently four such vehicles present, one of which equiped with an ISRU. However, it has mods, KAS/KAX and Aviation Lights are present. So it doesn't fit the bill. If no one shares a save I can, but it will be modded... (I don't have time to remove all the modded elements, sorry.)

[sal_vager]

Just now, Adelaar said:

However, it has mods, KAS/KAX and Aviation Lights are present. So it doesn't fit the bill. If no one shares a save I can, but it will be modded... (I don't have time to remove all the modded elements, sorry.)

It does have to be an unmodded file, sorry about that.

[smjjames]

On 7/27/2016 at 7:25 AM, DoctorDavinci said:

I present for your approval the CANUKWorks 5583

This 5583 part monstrosity has 192 science satellites onboard, each with an Ion engine as well as power and Xenon.

There is one in a 100km orbit of Kerbin as well as one in a 100km orbit of the Mun

Turn on the lights then press Z - T - Space ... They will stage all at once creating 193 vessels instantaneously and you can watch the beautiful display of red and blue patterns as well as push the limits of the game in regards to vessel count and how the distance of each cluster of vessels affect the cluster of other vessels over time

Craft File: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ljxc0osrgpyx3wt/5583.craft?dl=0
Persistence: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7r85lhvf3vmtk2m/persistent.sfs?dl=0

Did you use hyperedit to launch this into orbit? Because I was able to load the ship after some time and I don't see it being launch capable.

[Cunjo Carl]

On 8/16/2016 at 1:31 PM, sal_vager said:

Extra entrant needed!
They need an ISRU setup that causes KSP to slow down, we're talking a big base here, multiple sections in close proximity (200m), lots of drills and converters, fuel cells and radiators, the works!

I'm starting work on one now, so if even if there's no other entries, I should have one ready to hog run-time by the end of the weekend. It'd be fun to build it all now, but things are being busy! Hmmm... I think I'll make multiple tightly-packed mining cores held ludicrously far apart from eachother. KSP hates that kinda thing.... wait was that the sound of my CPU whimpering? I'm on a laptop though, so no guarantee it'll bog down a Dev's machine.

Also, @ZooNamedGames, quick now's your chance to post!

[ZooNamedGames]

10 minutes ago, Cunjo Carl said:

I'm starting work on one now, so if even if there's no other entries, I should have one ready to hog run-time by the end of the weekend. It'd be fun to build it all now, but things are being busy! Hmmm... I think I'll make multiple tightly-packed mining cores held ludicrously far apart from eachother. KSP hates that kinda thing.... wait was that the sound of my CPU whimpering? I'm on a laptop though, so no guarantee it'll bog down a Dev's machine.

Also, @ZooNamedGames, quick now's your chance to post!

Well I got my old .21 save but it lacks anything to do with resources! 

Maybe @sal_vager?

[Castille7]

This craft file was not intended to be used for the devs but it is crashing the system. It's a large space dock and not even sure if the craft will launch. The file crashed when exiting the VAB. The craft is loaded with lights, batteries, photovoltaic panels...etc. The file can be found by clicking the title. Part Count is at 2886.

SpaceDock 7

Edited August 20, 2016 by Castille7