[WIP]Escape Pod Mod - REKT development thread

[steedcrugeon]

Moved my development stuff into proper 1.2 and the last build of the mk1D (the one above) has managed to completely screw up the animations for deploying the solar panel and comms. I think its just that I failed to disable the physics on the non active parts but I'll have to test and check some more.

Last night was spent building/modelling the mk1N, so far its the most complex part but potentially is the prettiest (with each successive model I get better with blender/Untiy/Photoshop. My techniques and methods with using blender has certainly improved to say the least!.

I have been sat on the less complex models (the ones with no moving parts) as I don't think they will take me as long to produce.

Blender shot of the surface mounting 'Decoupler-Type EP' or 'Surface Hardmount - REKT' again its up for popular vote...

Edited October 14, 2016 by steedcrugeon
added a pic

[steedcrugeon]

This evening has mostly been spent playing around with IndicatorLights, LanderTron and re-tweaking my model. i'm closer but not quite there yet.

Here is the top of the crop REKT line; the mk1N, in the VAB with its goodies on show. i'm very pleased with how the animation turned out. Also i took the recommendation of @akron and have gone for a much brighter colour for this version.

on the pad ready for test:

up we go...

Shortly after this point i experienced extreme discomfort (i managed to time the screen grab very well) as I believe i have the thrust transforms round the wrong way:

Well it's behaving as though all the Global y-axis for the model are the thrustTransform, something to get my head round later. That's enough for one day.

[steedcrugeon]

a bit more has been done, I've figured out the thrust transform stuff so the 3 mini SRBs do their thing. he's a pic from this evenings testing, i quite like this one:

after much head scratching i manged to figure out and hone some attachment nodes so now the radial decoupler works as it should and the pod snaps the hatch to it in the VAB (very happy about that one).

Next thing it to get back to the mk1D and work out its many issues...

[steedcrugeon]

right, i'm in need of a few more testers. I was hoping i'd have more time to play around with parts and tweak them myself but its is almost as time consuming as the building in the first place! 

@TheKurgan has bravely volunteered to test some parts for me but seems to stuck behind the 1.1.3 unfortunately. this mod has been built in unity 5.4 so it's 1.2 on?

if there are any willing victims brave testers i'll send the first few a link to the test parts and from there we can gather feedback and tweak the parts to make them work best for the game.

also I managed to figure out how to GIF my screen (after searching on here funnily enough!)

[komodo]

I would test if I had the time to commit... I just wanted to say that it's looking awesome, and I love each and every time landertrons are used! That might be my favorite mod since i've played KSP. It's working a treat here, for sure!  

[MaverickSawyer]

12 hours ago, steedcrugeon said:

right, i'm in need of a few more testers. I was hoping i'd have more time to play around with parts and tweak them myself but its is almost as time consuming as the building in the first place! 

@TheKurgan has bravely volunteered to test some parts for me but seems to stuck behind the 1.1.3 unfortunately. this mod has been built in unity 5.4 so it's 1.2 on?

if there are any willing victims brave testers i'll send the first few a link to the test parts and from there we can gather feedback and tweak the parts to make them work best for the game.

also I managed to figure out how to GIF my screen (after searching on here funnily enough!)

Count me in! ODST Kerbals time!

[MaverickSawyer]

Okay, field report time:

Test vehicle was a RT-5 Flea, three TweakScale'd AV-R8s (50% scale), a stock 1.25 meter fairing, a stock 0.625m decoupler, and the Mk1N pod.

Vehicle was punted up to ~550 m/s before I ejected the fairing and sent the pod on a ballistic free-flight to ~9.3 km. Once on my way down, I armed the retrorockets via the action menu, and set the SAS to follow the retrograde vector. Max velocity reached was 266.7 m/s at ~2 km. Drag buildup after that slowed it somewhat, but the rockets had their work cut out for them.

End result? It killed the Kerbal via over-G (29.5G). Pod landed just fine on the first flight. (Booster broke the launch pad, but that's not pertinent to this mod.  )

Reflight? Same performance, same Kerbal salsa result... but the pod did NOT survive.

Second reflight: put some lateral tipover on it at about 200 m/s on the way up.  Max altitude was 8800m, max speed on descent was 278.8m/s at 700m. Repeat ending of last flight.

 

Moral of the story? Put a drogue 'chute on it at the very least, to help keep the speed down somewhat.

 

EDIT: Yup. Keeping terminal velocity below 200 m/s seems to be the ticket for survival. Recommend using RealChute or CONTARES 'chutes for that.

Edited October 16, 2016 by MaverickSawyer

[komodo]

It may be possible to adjust the fuel/thrust of the retro rockets for landertron; it just demands that enough dV is present, but any twr over 1 will work... I wonder if just simply lowering the thrust of the retros would help? The chunky salsa effect is likely due to the fact that if it fired the retros any higher, it'd, well, not land, slowly at least.

[steedcrugeon]

All good feedback! I had upped the thrust from the Retros as it had originally been to little to slow It down. I might have to delve deeper into how the Landertron does its business so I can adapt it to suit. I really need to get this one to work as it is the trickiest one. Although it would not be the one recommended for use on kerbin, that'd be the mk1A (hoping to put that one into the test parts folder this evening when I get the nodes sorted).

7 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

Okay, field report time:

Up for some more testing when the parts have been updated?

[njmksr]

13 hours ago, steedcrugeon said:

All good feedback! I had upped the thrust from the Retros as it had originally been to little to slow It down. I might have to delve deeper into how the Landertron does its business so I can adapt it to suit. I really need to get this one to work as it is the trickiest one. Although it would not be the one recommended for use on kerbin, that'd be the mk1A (hoping to put that one into the test parts folder this evening when I get the nodes sorted).

Up for some more testing when the parts have been updated?

What you've done so far looks awesome!

BTW I think I could get you the GET-REKT over the weekend.

I can help with testing too.

Edited October 17, 2016 by njmksr

[steedcrugeon]

okay so i've done a few tweaks but only so much i can do in the time i have this evening. I've manged to reduce to liquefying and a single pod can perform a controlled descent from approximately 15000 orbit of mun (needed a solar panel otherwise the EC would run out) and it successfully killed about 400 m/s and dropped the speed to zero about 10-8 meters from the surface. it still needs work though so be gentle (but also a little bit realistic, we are not quite in ODST drop pod territory, that'll be a much later, bigger more Heavy Duty part, not a mk1).

I've put up early MK1A (the mk1D is still not ready yet) for flavour. the triple inline stack adapter is in there but the nodes are not co-operating so they have been commented out for the testers, just strap a SHREKT to it in it's place. Screen shot of your creations would be appreciated to!

[nascarlaser1]

57 minutes ago, steedcrugeon said:

okay so i've done a few tweaks but only so much i can do in the time i have this evening. I've manged to reduce to liquefying and a single pod can perform a controlled descent from approximately 15000 orbit of mun (needed a solar panel otherwise the EC would run out) and it successfully killed about 400 m/s and dropped the speed to zero about 10-8 meters from the surface. it still needs work though so be gentle (but also a little bit realistic, we are not quite in ODST drop pod territory, that'll be a much later, bigger more Heavy Duty part, not a mk1).

I've put up early MK1A (the mk1D is still not ready yet) for flavour. the triple inline stack adapter is in there but the nodes are not co-operating so they have been commented out for the testers, just strap a SHREKT to it in it's place. Screen shot of your creations would be appreciated to!

The ODST drop pod could be the mk2 version lol.

[MaverickSawyer]

On 10/16/2016 at 11:38 PM, steedcrugeon said:

All good feedback! I had upped the thrust from the Retros as it had originally been to little to slow It down. I might have to delve deeper into how the Landertron does its business so I can adapt it to suit. I really need to get this one to work as it is the trickiest one. Although it would not be the one recommended for use on kerbin, that'd be the mk1A (hoping to put that one into the test parts folder this evening when I get the nodes sorted).

Up for some more testing when the parts have been updated?

May be a few days... Had an emergency appendectomy yesterday, and I'm still in the hospital and will be for the next few days.

Edited October 18, 2016 by MaverickSawyer

[steedcrugeon]

7 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

May be a few days... Had an emergency appendectomy yesterday, and I'm still in the hospital and will be for the next few days.

wow, that's not good. Well feel better soon and take it easy!

So i have made some fine tuning revisions to the triple adapter and the mk1N configs. Despite it not being the intention for this pod the mk1N is now capable of performing repeatable orbital drops onto kerbin although the conditions are quite strict. You'll need to add the 0.625m ablative shield (stock) otherwise it will burn up. The Ap this has been tested from is about 90K with Pe of approx 30K in order to save EC just let the aerodynamics do their thing on the descent, do not dith the heatsheild or enable SAS yet. Now once you have passed through into the thicker atmosphere (approx 15k or lower) engage SAS to hold retrograde. Shortly after the retrorockets fire jettison the heatshield (the added weight was needed whilst landertron is doing its impact calculations) and you should kill your velocity just above the surface with a small drop down afterwards. Also it should be smooth enough not to liquefy the kerbal occupant now.

I'm still having issues with getting the aero to behave properly on the mk1A. i'm losing hope that the mk1D with have two deployable parts, I can't get the animations to stop interfering with each other.

Edited October 18, 2016 by steedcrugeon
tiny update

[steedcrugeon]

so i have honed the mk1A and revised how the model animation works. the config has been adjusted too. I'm happier to open it up to more testers and have adjusted the first post to reflect this. added the inline triple adapter to the alpha parts.

Feedback encouraged (need help on where these should live in the tech tree (don't take any of the current tech requirements as where they are supposed to be, just placeholders at the minute). I'd love to see how they could be/are being used.

[steedcrugeon]

No pic from tonight but I have removed the Solar Assembly from the mk1D (you'll have to add your own!) and re positioned the comms array, i have also tweaked its animation

Also this evening i have put up the CTT and Life Support MM patches along with the Landertron patch.

I've spent most of this evening trying to get indicatorLights to play nice.

Edited October 21, 2016 by steedcrugeon
spelling

[steedcrugeon]

So after a bit of thought I realised that with smaller crews you might not need 3 escape pods so set about making a REKT Kompatible Kontainer. seen below on the triple inline adapter

Then after i knocked that up i put them all together, and made a little freighter, seen below which could ship a little amount to mun/minmus and has one REKT mk1A and a REKT mk1D fitted alongside (this one is shipping Argon gas to station for no particular reason).

[steedcrugeon]

Well this evening has been exceptionally fruitful for me. I have finally managed to configure my initial IndicatorLights MM patch for the first part:

See here the mk1D with crew Illumination central to the hatch, colour dependent on occupant. The corner illuminations reflect the resources level., which in this case is EC. I will be implementing the respective patches to correlate to Life Support (so far i have preliminary MM patches for TAC-LS, Snacks! and USI-LifeSupport.  these are particularly pertinent to the mk1D 'lifeboat' variant of escape pod. The mk1A and mk1N will have slightly different light arrangements.

I really struggled with many typos and of course the dreaded colour/color issue (Brit here) but it has been resolved so now the easy bit is done and I've got it working I'll sweet talk @Snark and see how possible it will be to implement the other bits we have been talking about...

Edited October 24, 2016 by steedcrugeon
typos, due to sleepiness

[Spartan_MiniMe]

Still need part testers? I'm always willing!

[RedParadize]

I will convert a REKT into a kis delivery container. Will be perfect to send mails to land colony!

Edit: I am dumb, you already did this!

Edited October 26, 2016 by RedParadize

[steedcrugeon]

28 minutes ago, Spartan_MiniMe said:

Still need part testers? I'm always willing!

Yes please, the Beta version has been released and i'd love feedback:

REKT v0.2 (beta)

@RedParadize Not to worry, it just means that we were already thinking along the right lines. Although the freight pod is not setup as a KIS container, I'd love to see how I could implement that in the MM patch config for the next version if you have any ideas?

Edited October 26, 2016 by steedcrugeon
additional response

[RedParadize]

@steedcrugeon Its not that hard, I could send you a config, I won't be able to test it until the weekend but it should be self explanatory and easy to fix if need be.

[steedcrugeon]

REKT IVA is ready! after much tweaking and positioning and slight model rework. I grateful to @JPLRepo and @SpannerMonkey(smce) for their help and that very useful kerbalnaout DAE.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Hey, that's very smart especially for a first mod. Looks like you've got the feel for mod making already    (with you on the color/colour and others, damn this colonial spelling )

[wasml]

Just did a test run with this. The atmosphere pod (dropped from 90K plus a bit) didn't need SAS after the initial orientation for the deorbit burn, had left over mono after dropping the PE to 30K. Oriented nicely by its self when it hit atmosphere. Did have problems with the parachute clipping into the inline holder thing when I decoupled it, but it came free eventually. Ran out of EC the first time before I deployed the air brakes - second time deployed early and was OK. No heat shield and pod temperature reached about 75% max. The non atmospheric pod was dropped from 15K over the Mun - with the landerton mod it set down nicely - forgot to check how much fuel was left. The deep space pod will definitely need some solar panels - either built in or added in the editor. The only suggestion I have is to add the ability to exit the pod and have the Kerbal kiss the ground.