[WIP][1.3] Modular Pod Extensions

[Mechtech]

I noticed that you have a lit of 'generic' tanks- have you considered rolling those into a single part using mesh-switching like B9? might be handy,since it'd cut down on partslist clutter.

 

other than that, 10/10 love new commandpod stuff. it's a sadly neglected field honestly.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

4 hours ago, Mechtech said:

I noticed that you have a lit of 'generic' tanks- have you considered rolling those into a single part using mesh-switching like B9? might be handy,since it'd cut down on partslist clutter.

 

other than that, 10/10 love new commandpod stuff. it's a sadly neglected field honestly.

I considered it, but I try to aim for maximum compatibility.  So if I have to choose between a bit of extra work/parts and having a module dependency, I usually choose to not have the dependency.  If it's not essential (eg colour changes that don't go with fuel/resource changes) then I include things as options using module manager.

[Mechtech]

fair enough. this is very much quality content and dead useful (particularly as I use MKS, and these fit rather nicely on Scout bases.)

 

while we're on the topic of mods, have you given any thought to having assorted extras fro commonly used mods like KAS/KIS, major LS mods, and so on?

 

actually, a few other ideas for pod bases- 3.5 to 5m crew cabin, shielded solar panel (with battery storage), docking hub (perhaps with three ports on extenders?), larger antennas in a bay, Science Experiments of some sort (I'm sure we can finds SOMETHING that'd fit in that formfactor to base an experment on.

actually, there's a thought. SC-20000 Science SR- high-tech experiment bay that carries all the stock experiments. if you wanted to be super fancy, you could code in upgrades so it gets each new experiment as it gets unlocked, since that's easy enough to code for.

 

 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

34 minutes ago, Mechtech said:

fair enough. this is very much quality content and dead useful (particularly as I use MKS, and these fit rather nicely on Scout bases.)

 

while we're on the topic of mods, have you given any thought to having assorted extras fro commonly used mods like KAS/KIS, major LS mods, and so on?

 

I have but I'm not sure they belong here.  As I'm intending quite a few IVAs by the end of this, just about everything is a prop, rather than a part of the interior mesh.  So, I keep making these things that'd be nice KIS bits.  AND, although I thought the props would be a bit tedious, they're awesome little micro projects.  I've really enjoyed making them.  So, I may make a sub-mod for KIS/KAS bits when I figure out things I actually want.  :-)

 

Quote

actually, a few other ideas for pod bases- 3.5 to 5m crew cabin, shielded solar panel (with battery storage), docking hub (perhaps with three ports on extenders?), larger antennas in a bay, Science Experiments of some sort (I'm sure we can finds SOMETHING that'd fit in that formfactor to base an experment on.

actually, there's a thought. SC-20000 Science SR- high-tech experiment bay that carries all the stock experiments. if you wanted to be super fancy, you could code in upgrades so it gets each new experiment as it gets unlocked, since that's easy enough to code for.

 

The 3.75m-to-5m crew/command pod is absolutely on my to-do list.  Everything in the 2.5m-to-3.75m size will have a matching version in the larger sizes.  And I haven't really finished all the options I wanted for the 2.5m-to-3.75m as well.  EG: I keep meaning to make an Ore storage unit.  A reactor. etc etc.

Antennae.  I was kinda hoping the larger stock antennae would fit in the science bay, but the damned things don't.  So, I probably will add one that's a bit smaller than the large stock dishes, but larger than the "built-in" antenna.  It'll be just an extra part though, not integrated into anything.

I'm a bit dubious about extending the science options when there's already so many good mods doing that.  Although, like with the antenna, I might (OK, probably will) do a few variants of stock science parts that are bashed around a bit to fit in the science bays.  The Size 3 to 4 science lab's bay is bigger.  Gotta see what that'll hold yet.  :-)

To check out what I'm intending, the spacedock page has the list.  I should pop it on the topics as well.  After reviewing and editing, and probably adding explanations.

[CaptKordite]

Thirty six seats. Too bad you have to load them one at a time.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

16 minutes ago, CaptKordite said:

Thirty six seats. Too bad you have to load them one at a time.

Cattle class to space!  BYO squeeze food tubes.  And brown pants.

[Gaultesian]

I have been using this mod for about 2 weeks now.  Love the modular design. 

I would love to eventually (note the word eventually....you have quite the workload of pods to complete yet) see aset or rasterprop ivas in these boats.

Cheers,

Gaultesian

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Just thought I'd share this.  I discovered Blender's Cycles rendering recently.  This is two mod pod parts, stacked, no extra polygons, using the texture maps as is, just replaced the material for the ladder rungs with a PBR copper.

[DanHeidel]

Just wanted to say that I've been using the crap out of this mod lately!  As someone that like to make stations out of 3.75 parts, this has been incredibly useful.  The service modules have also been great for reducing part counts.

I was wondering if you were close to another release for the 3.75 to 5 basic parts.  I was mulling an orbital lab that could really use the lab module in that size. 

If there's anything I can do to assist with some of the grunt work on getting these parts made, I'd love to help.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

5 hours ago, DanHeidel said:

Just wanted to say that I've been using the crap out of this mod lately!  As someone that like to make stations out of 3.75 parts, this has been incredibly useful.  The service modules have also been great for reducing part counts.

I was wondering if you were close to another release for the 3.75 to 5 basic parts.  I was mulling an orbital lab that could really use the lab module in that size. 

If there's anything I can do to assist with some of the grunt work on getting these parts made, I'd love to help.

I've actually been mostly working on the Orion mod, which has made most of my others a bit parked. There's a couple of  3.75-5m parts in partly done limbo. Fixing those up would free me from starting at the c# horrors. 

[DanHeidel]

4 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

I've actually been mostly working on the Orion mod, which has made most of my others a bit parked. There's a couple of  3.75-5m parts in partly done limbo. Fixing those up would free me from starting at the c# horrors. 

I started poking around with some basic modeling last year but never got very far.  I could give a hand with at least getting the base models with skins on them.  I left Windows a long time ago so C# coding is a bit tricky for me. (though I could install Mono, I suppose)  About a decade back, I did professional C# software dev for a few years so I might be able to at least be a second set of eyes for the coding side of stuff.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

On 5/15/2017 at 11:23 AM, DanHeidel said:

I started poking around with some basic modeling last year but never got very far.  I could give a hand with at least getting the base models with skins on them.  I left Windows a long time ago so C# coding is a bit tricky for me. (though I could install Mono, I suppose)  About a decade back, I did professional C# software dev for a few years so I might be able to at least be a second set of eyes for the coding side of stuff.

thanks for the offers.

A lot of the work I need to get done for the half finished parts is in Unity, which still doesn't work too well in 'nix.  And pretty much why I still use Windoze

The C# stuff is for the Orion.  And I'm fairly sure I know what I need to do, I'm just reluctant to start.  It needs to move from extending "Part" to extending "PartModule", which will break most of it, but enable fixing it.

 

All that said, if you want to do up a crew module going from 3.75m to 5m, feel free.  At that size, there's pretty much no existing guides for style.  I'm at work at the moment, but I can get the heights if you'd like.  The crew/control modules aren't generally animated, so shouldn't bee too much of a mess.  If you're interested in doing an IVA, I'm trying to keep all furnishings as independent props for re-use.  But obviously, there's a loot of internal shape for cupboards etc that would be specific.  Props are in the props folder.  You should feel free to do some props as well if you feel that way inclined.  They make for nice practice parts, and nice still-life renders;

Placing them is all Unity though.

My partly done part, which is one I should finish, is a science lab.  So, animated door for the experiment bay. IVA, etc.  And I'm not 100% happy with its layout.  But, I don't like dumping unfinished stuff on others.

Edited May 18, 2017 by TiktaalikDreaming

[DanHeidel]

Sorry for the slow response, got crazy busy these last few days. 

So, I'd be limited to pretty basic help.  I last took a stab at modding almost a year ago.  I wasn't ever able to get past the Unity install.  Though at the time I was able to get Unity 5 running on Linux, just not the version KSP was using at the time.  I got familiarized with Blender and felt reasonably comfortable with the work up to the point it gets pushed into Unity.

I'd be happy to help, I might need a bit of help getting up to speed to be of much value, though.  Is there a decent place to go to these days to get up to speed on modding?  Last time I did it, a lot of the tutorials and links were really outdated and obsolete.  In particular, I was never able to get a handle on how IVAs were supposed to work - saw a lot of conflicting info that I assume had to do with varying old KSP versions.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

7 hours ago, DanHeidel said:

Sorry for the slow response, got crazy busy these last few days. 

So, I'd be limited to pretty basic help.  I last took a stab at modding almost a year ago.  I wasn't ever able to get past the Unity install.  Though at the time I was able to get Unity 5 running on Linux, just not the version KSP was using at the time.  I got familiarized with Blender and felt reasonably comfortable with the work up to the point it gets pushed into Unity.

I'd be happy to help, I might need a bit of help getting up to speed to be of much value, though.  Is there a decent place to go to these days to get up to speed on modding?  Last time I did it, a lot of the tutorials and links were really outdated and obsolete.  In particular, I was never able to get a handle on how IVAs were supposed to work - saw a lot of conflicting info that I assume had to do with varying old KSP versions.

For some strange reason I've been flat out at work since Saturday too.  

I can do the Unity thing.  I've fought getting Unity onto an ubuntu machine a few times (they recommend that flavour of nix), and although from time to time I've succeeded, it's never been totally satisfactory.  And KSP can be picky about which version you use.

For IVAs, I usually make them as separate meshes within the same blender file and do all the re-orienting in Unity.  It helps that that means you can use boolean modifiers to drill windows through both outside and inside meshes using the same object, and line things up in other ways.

I'll share my mess of Mod Pod work.  It has some stuff to get started on at least.  Including my "blanks" for the size, and the base collider mesh.  I'll pop it up on the dev.spacedock.info place once I get around to a non-work computer.

[captinjoehenry]

I love this mod but the big aerospike engines have a pretty sever thrust offset that makes them nigh unusable as well as them having using just mod pod fuel tanks about 17 Gs of acceleration to start with!  It is a bit excessive but not an issue but I just cannot use the engine due to the thrust offset.  

[TiktaalikDreaming]

3 hours ago, captinjoehenry said:

I love this mod but the big aerospike engines have a pretty sever thrust offset that makes them nigh unusable as well as them having using just mod pod fuel tanks about 17 Gs of acceleration to start with!  It is a bit excessive but not an issue but I just cannot use the engine due to the thrust offset.  

There should be no thrust offset.  

And sometimes there isn't.  Weird.

I checked the blender model, then the unity build, and the config for the part.  I had the wrong transform name for the ground effect, but that would just lead to no exhaust fancy effects as it interacts with the ground.

Then, I built a 3 stacker, mk1-2 pod, sz2-3 crew pod, sz3-4 service module and then the rombus style engine.  Stuck some legs on it and took off.

First flight was weird.  The engine effects came out as they should, but the smoke effect definitely had an angled offset, right at the root, and the thrust was offset as you've been experiencing.  So, I reverted, and did a more gentle take off (the first was a "how much G does it pull when still fully fueled?" take off).  And the thrust was dead centre.  Throttled to full, still dead centre.  Cut the engines and then back on, still OK.

 

So, I can, sometimes replicate the issue.  I'll reiterate, the engine should not have an offset.  There's a lifting body effect on the base so it behaves like a normal re-entry shield, but that should not effect the engine, as they're different modules.  At a guess, I would assume it has to do with the engine effect being spread across 36 nozzles, all with their own thrust vector, and the game may struggle with that.  maybe, sometimes it just does some of those thrust vectors, at random.  I'll make a more minimal version and see if I get the same issue.  If so, I may halve the nozzles or nozzle effects.

 

Can you try dropping the mu file from https://dev.spacedock.info/TiktaalikDreaming/ModPods/src/master/Parts/Mk3to4/Rengine into your install? See if the off-centre thrust gets any better?

Edited May 18, 2017 by TiktaalikDreaming

[TiktaalikDreaming]

12 hours ago, DanHeidel said:

Sorry for the slow response, got crazy busy these last few days. 

So, I'd be limited to pretty basic help.  I last took a stab at modding almost a year ago.  I wasn't ever able to get past the Unity install.  Though at the time I was able to get Unity 5 running on Linux, just not the version KSP was using at the time.  I got familiarized with Blender and felt reasonably comfortable with the work up to the point it gets pushed into Unity.

I'd be happy to help, I might need a bit of help getting up to speed to be of much value, though.  Is there a decent place to go to these days to get up to speed on modding?  Last time I did it, a lot of the tutorials and links were really outdated and obsolete.  In particular, I was never able to get a handle on how IVAs were supposed to work - saw a lot of conflicting info that I assume had to do with varying old KSP versions.

ModPod assets;

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v4lua8t89qr54j9/AABMKwld7gNYe-LQaU_-_cqna?dl=0

It's not the whole lot, just wading through all the pngs and .meta files looking for the xcf and blend files.

[DanHeidel]

4 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

ModPod assets;

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/v4lua8t89qr54j9/AABMKwld7gNYe-LQaU_-_cqna?dl=0

It's not the whole lot, just wading through all the pngs and .meta files looking for the xcf and blend files.

Awesome!  I probably won't have a ton of time in the next week or two but I'll start working my way through those.

[captinjoehenry]

9 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

There should be no thrust offset.  

And sometimes there isn't.  Weird.

I checked the blender model, then the unity build, and the config for the part.  I had the wrong transform name for the ground effect, but that would just lead to no exhaust fancy effects as it interacts with the ground.

Then, I built a 3 stacker, mk1-2 pod, sz2-3 crew pod, sz3-4 service module and then the rombus style engine.  Stuck some legs on it and took off.

First flight was weird.  The engine effects came out as they should, but the smoke effect definitely had an angled offset, right at the root, and the thrust was offset as you've been experiencing.  So, I reverted, and did a more gentle take off (the first was a "how much G does it pull when still fully fueled?" take off).  And the thrust was dead centre.  Throttled to full, still dead centre.  Cut the engines and then back on, still OK.

 

So, I can, sometimes replicate the issue.  I'll reiterate, the engine should not have an offset.  There's a lifting body effect on the base so it behaves like a normal re-entry shield, but that should not effect the engine, as they're different modules.  At a guess, I would assume it has to do with the engine effect being spread across 36 nozzles, all with their own thrust vector, and the game may struggle with that.  maybe, sometimes it just does some of those thrust vectors, at random.  I'll make a more minimal version and see if I get the same issue.  If so, I may halve the nozzles or nozzle effects.

 

Can you try dropping the mu file from https://dev.spacedock.info/TiktaalikDreaming/ModPods/src/master/Parts/Mk3to4/Rengine into your install? See if the off-centre thrust gets any better?

Initial testing shows that it works!  One other addition that would be nice would be some sort of landing legs for the capsules as with the aerospike engines there aren't really any landing gear long enough to reach the ground while being mounted out of the way of reentry heat.

[Wadusher0]

10 hours ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

There should be no thrust offset.  

And sometimes there isn't.  Weird.

I checked the blender model, then the unity build, and the config for the part.  I had the wrong transform name for the ground effect, but that would just lead to no exhaust fancy effects as it interacts with the ground.

Then, I built a 3 stacker, mk1-2 pod, sz2-3 crew pod, sz3-4 service module and then the rombus style engine.  Stuck some legs on it and took off.

First flight was weird.  The engine effects came out as they should, but the smoke effect definitely had an angled offset, right at the root, and the thrust was offset as you've been experiencing.  So, I reverted, and did a more gentle take off (the first was a "how much G does it pull when still fully fueled?" take off).  And the thrust was dead centre.  Throttled to full, still dead centre.  Cut the engines and then back on, still OK.

 

So, I can, sometimes replicate the issue.  I'll reiterate, the engine should not have an offset.  There's a lifting body effect on the base so it behaves like a normal re-entry shield, but that should not effect the engine, as they're different modules.  At a guess, I would assume it has to do with the engine effect being spread across 36 nozzles, all with their own thrust vector, and the game may struggle with that.  maybe, sometimes it just does some of those thrust vectors, at random.  I'll make a more minimal version and see if I get the same issue.  If so, I may halve the nozzles or nozzle effects.

 

Can you try dropping the mu file from https://dev.spacedock.info/TiktaalikDreaming/ModPods/src/master/Parts/Mk3to4/Rengine into your install? See if the off-centre thrust gets any better?

Can confirm; RCS Build Aid shows the heat shield variant inducing huge amounts of roll, and the exact angles of each individual engine. All of them seem to be very slightly sideways facing on that, but the non-heatshield engine is properly aligned. No idea why the heatshield engine only sometimes rolled though.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 hour ago, captinjoehenry said:

Initial testing shows that it works!  One other addition that would be nice would be some sort of landing legs for the capsules as with the aerospike engines there aren't really any landing gear long enough to reach the ground while being mounted out of the way of reentry heat.

OK.  In that case, I'll do one with just less thrust transforms, rather than removing all the visible nozzles as well.  That was purely to get the thing done quickly, as the hierarchy in Unity made that really easy to do.

Legs.  I've been working on some really simple extending legs like they planned for the ROMBUS.  They'd be next to useless for a lot of craft, because they only really work if there's a taper on the side walls.  But they should work nicely for this

[TiktaalikDreaming]

1 minute ago, Wadusher0 said:

Can confirm; RCS Build Aid shows the heat shield variant inducing huge amounts of roll, and the exact angles of each individual engine. All of them seem to be very slightly sideways facing on that, but the non-heatshield engine is properly aligned. No idea why the heatshield engine only sometimes rolled though.

Each thrust vector is angled in 13degrees.   It should average out over all the nozzles.  It's so you get this effect;

That said, clearly the game chooses to simplify to a subset of nozzles at times, so I shall be dropping off probably half to two-thirds of the thrust vectors for the next release.  I don't think it likes 36 thrust vectors.

Oh, and checking Unity, there was a slight tilt to the thrust vectors (0.18d) on the heat-shield style as well, which would have (by virtue of copying it all around) introduced a rotation.  That will be being deleted as well.  Even if (unintentionally) it may have caused a cool, unrealistic spiral effect (but too subtle to really see).

Now, I have to go experiment with how many vectors seems stable with an issue that seems intermittent.  Yay!  I love diagnosing intermittent things.

[captinjoehenry]

3 minutes ago, TiktaalikDreaming said:

Each thrust vector is angled in 13degrees.   It should average out over all the nozzles.  It's so you get this effect;

That said, clearly the game chooses to simplify to a subset of nozzles at times, so I shall be dropping off probably half to two-thirds of the thrust vectors for the next release.  I don't think it likes 36 thrust vectors.

Oh, and checking Unity, there was a slight tilt to the thrust vectors (0.18d) on the heat-shield style as well, which would have (by virtue of copying it all around) introduced a rotation.  That will be being deleted as well.  Even if (unintentionally) it may have caused a cool, unrealistic spiral effect (but too subtle to really see).

Now, I have to go experiment with how many vectors seems stable with an issue that seems intermittent.  Yay!  I love diagnosing intermittent things.

Good luck with that!  I look forward to a fix as I love making huge pods but the engines are just a bit too unstable as it is.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Here's a view of the tilt on the heat shield engine,

The Z rotation doesn't affect anything as it's the Z vector that the game uses.  (or Y for RCS, 'cos reasons).  The 13.233 degrees beyond the 180 "pointing down" is intentional.  But that 0.182d off to the side will induce a roll.

On the left you can see I bundle the nozzles into 4, with child thrusts, and then copy the sets of 4 around.  So, I should be fine to just delete the copies, fix 4 vectors (already done, which is why this screen shot is of the second group of 4) and re-copy.  I just need to decide how many nozzles should have thrust vectors.  Gonna try half.

[TiktaalikDreaming]

OK, 1.0.3 released.  Half the nozzles are essentially off.  You get the same thrust, but spread over less thrust vectors (yay for KSP working that out for me).  

I'm not guaranteeing the 18 vectors will be OK, but it should be OK more often than 36.  I'm not really sure how low I should take this.  As the number drops, the visual effects get sparser, and it's not the sort of engine that would look right with just one big effect in the middle.  So, I'd like to keep some semblance of the multi-nozzle visual effect.  Obviously not at the cost of it being completely useless though.  Some time, hopefully this weekend, I'll load this up on the dodgy laptop and see how it goes.  I suspect the issue will escalate as CPU gets slower.  Thus testing with something slower than my desktop.

The test mu file linked a few posts above, has 12 nozzles if people want to test that (presumably only if they have issues with the 18).  I'll end up doing a series of different numbers if the dodgy laptop can't handle the 18, for testing.  Also, if you installed that test mu, and are running CKAN, I'm not sure if you might need to remove it before CKAN will let you update to 1.0.3.

Oh, and since I first made these parts I finally got around to adding the tags for hiding things in the VAB icons, so the fairing are now hidden in the icon view.  And I corrected the incorrect name of the thrust vector for surface effects, so you should get nice KSP ground scatter with associated drop in frame rate