[1.5.1] Kerbal Star Systems [v0.8.2] August 18, 2018

[A_beholder]

9 hours ago, StarCrusher96 said:

@A_beholder

Without logs to prove this is caused by kss. I can only assume you had a structural problem.

I also advice you for future bugreports to add logs. (No logs = no bug/issue)

Thanks for the advice.

 

also, I apologize for over reacting, and it wasn't even the mod that made by craft blow up, I forgot to add struts and had a service bay chock full of physics less parts.

 

[StarCrusher96]

18 minutes ago, A_beholder said:

Thanks for the advice.

also, I apologize for over reacting, and it wasn't even the mod that made by craft blow up, I forgot to add struts and had a service bay chock full of physics less parts.

no prob

[jhonny]

How much memory does the mod usually use? I have only KSS Basic + Kelnis + Kerolon installed (no other mods except Kopernicus, ModularFlightIntegrator and ModuleManager ofc) and KSP uses ca. 12GB of RAM.

[Galileo]

1 hour ago, jhonny said:

How much memory does the mod usually use? I have only KSS Basic + Kelnis + Kerolon installed (no other mods except Kopernicus, ModularFlightIntegrator and ModuleManager ofc) and KSP uses ca. 12GB of RAM.

There are over 80 different bodies in this mod so that seems right. There are a lot of textures in this pack.. like, a lot. And not all are dds. If the texture is PNG it caches itself on the ram. 

Edited April 28, 2017 by Galileo

[TheSpacePotato]

1 hour ago, jhonny said:

How much memory does the mod usually use? I have only KSS Basic + Kelnis + Kerolon installed (no other mods except Kopernicus, ModularFlightIntegrator and ModuleManager ofc) and KSP uses ca. 12GB of RAM.

If you really need to save RAM, I recommend not installing the visuals (except maybe DistantObject). The game will run much more smoothly that way.

[RobFalcon]

@Galileo, I've seen you mention that a couple times, having textures in dds form vice PNG and how dds files take less ram.  Do PNG textures allow for more/better detail, or is there some other benefit to using them over dds?

I'm not a modder, but I've become curious. 

[Galileo]

1 hour ago, RobFalcon said:

@Galileo, I've seen you mention that a couple times, having textures in dds form vice PNG and how dds files take less ram.  Do PNG textures allow for more/better detail, or is there some other benefit to using them over dds?

I'm not a modder, but I've become curious. 

There is bit of a difference, usually DDS is smaller but not always (depends on the format, image, if you've chosen the best compression format for the image, etc). 

The big benefit of using DDS is the DXT Compression, which the GPU can work with directly. That means you don't have to decode the color information before you send it to the gpu, and the hardware has to fetch less data, since its using the compressed data (a performance win). Other benefits, compared to using PNG (or similar image formats), I would say is the fact that you can store mipmap level data or store all the faces of a cubemap in a single DDS file.

Although, it depends on your needs. Here's a nice little article on DXT texture compression via Shawn hargreaves. Note the last bit of information in that link, not everything looks great with DXT compression...but usually they do.

All of this is pretty important in regards to KSP, as KSP depends heavily on the CPU and ram. So, why not get better performance with dds textures by utilizing the power of your graphics card? Hope that helps explain it a little.

Edited April 29, 2017 by Galileo

[EricL]

The nuclear engine is a bit overpowered...

Spoiler

This is happening at only 1/3 throttle and a thrust limiter of 26.5 (and the nuclear engine is generating 465 kN of thrust).

[TheSpacePotato]

36 minutes ago, EricL said:

The nuclear engine is a bit overpowered...

  Reveal hidden contents

This is happening at only 1/3 throttle and a thrust limiter of 26.5 (and the nuclear engine is generating 465 kN of thrust).

If you connect struts from the bottom tank to the engine, it'll stop moving ahead of everything

[EricL]

2 hours ago, TheSpacePotato said:

If you connect struts from the bottom tank to the engine, it'll stop moving ahead of everything

Ok, I'll try that.

[JadeOfMaar]

3 hours ago, EricL said:

The nuclear engine is a bit overpowered..

I'd like to know what mod buffs that engine. Your situation is most curious,

[EricL]

Just now, JadeOfMaar said:

I'd like to know what mod buffs that engine. Your situation is most curious,

The only mods I have installed other than KSS is the Alcubierre mod and Extraplanetary Launchpads.

[StarCrusher96]

3 hours ago, EricL said:

The nuclear engine is a bit overpowered...

  Reveal hidden contents

This is happening at only 1/3 throttle and a thrust limiter of 26.5 (and the nuclear engine is generating 465 kN of thrust).

The Plasma engine is still in a testing phase ... -> not finished

17 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

I'd like to know what mod buffs that engine. Your situation is most curious,

It's not a buff, just my ridiciulously overpowered plasma engine

[JadeOfMaar]

11 minutes ago, StarCrusher96 said:

It's not a buff, just my ridiciulously overpowered plasma engine

Oooooh. I thought your engine used the model of the Rhino or Mainsail since that's what's attached to your DSEV in your screenshots. I know what to do to possibly fix that problem. The stock Nuke is known to have abyssmal joint strength so your buff provokes that weakness. Add breakingForce and breakingTorque to the engine's config with reasonable numbers.

@EricL Save this somewhere in your GameData then delete it when the next KSS update comes. If it's not enough, bump the numbers. 2000 should be a good maximum.

@PART[PlasmaEngine]
{
	%breakingForce = 1200
	%breakingTorque = 1200
}

 

 

Edited April 29, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[StarCrusher96]

8 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Oooooh. I thought your engine used the model of the Rhino or Mainsail since that's what's attached to your DSEV in your screenshots. I know what to do to possibly fix that problem. The stock Nuke is known to have abyssmal joint strength so your buff provokes that weakness. Add breakingForce and breakingTorque to the engine's config with reasonable numbers.

@EricL Save this somewhere in your GameData then delete it when the next KSS update comes. If it's not enough, bump the numbers. 2000 should be a good maximum.

@PART[PlasmaEngine]
{
	%breakingForce = 1200
	%breakingTorque = 1200
}

 

 

Thx!!

[Voodoo8648]

@StarCrusher96 Would you please tell us your recommended method of traveling to another star system and provide the detailed specific procedures? Please assume that we are using ion or nuclear propulsion or some near future technology... 

I am around the SOI of Kerbol (not within any planet's SOI) and I aim directly at the target star system and the trajectory never get's anywhere close to being on the path to intersect the star. Traveling to another star is new territory and NASA doesn't even do it in real life. How do you intersect a star?

Edited April 29, 2017 by Voodoo8648

[TheSpacePotato]

2 hours ago, Voodoo8648 said:

@StarCrusher96 Would you please tell us your recommended method of traveling to another star system and provide the detailed specific procedures? Please assume that we are using ion or nuclear propulsion or some near future technology... 

I am around the SOI of Kerbol (not within any planet's SOI) and I aim directly at the target star system and the trajectory never get's anywhere close to being on the path to intersect the star. Traveling to another star is new territory and NASA doesn't even do it in real life. How do you intersect a star?

Because of the low gravity of The All, the best method would be aiming directly at the star system. This is very costly, however. A craft moving towards Nova Kirbani would need to be going at least 100,000 meters per second just to get there within a relatively reasonable amount of time, so long as you have something to do while your craft is in timewarp. If you want to get to a nearby star system within a couple years, it would require you to be travelling at least a million meters per second (still a fraction of the speed of light) pointed right at the star. My recommendation is either to install a mod that can achieve fast speeds (quite a few mods can achieve this) or put together a massive spacecraft. Another good tip is to take into consideration the fact that sometimes the encounters don't show up until you're near the system, even if it appears that you don't have an encounter. If the line passes over the system and your travel time is reasonable, then just quicksave and assume that you're going in the right direction.

[Voodoo8648]

1 hour ago, TheSpacePotato said:

Because of the low gravity of The All, the best method would be aiming directly at the star system. This is very costly, however. A craft moving towards Nova Kirbani would need to be going at least 100,000 meters per second just to get there within a relatively reasonable amount of time, so long as you have something to do while your craft is in timewarp. If you want to get to a nearby star system within a couple years, it would require you to be travelling at least a million meters per second (still a fraction of the speed of light) pointed right at the star. My recommendation is either to install a mod that can achieve fast speeds (quite a few mods can achieve this) or put together a massive spacecraft. Another good tip is to take into consideration the fact that sometimes the encounters don't show up until you're near the system, even if it appears that you don't have an encounter. If the line passes over the system and your travel time is reasonable, then just quicksave and assume that you're going in the right direction.

I removed the hideOrbit_Stars.cfg as instructed by StarCrusher and I must say that it makes seeing the star's orbital trajectories MUCH easier. Much easier to see what is going on relative to The All. Without those orbit lines, you have no idea what your ship is doing because there is nothing to compare it to. 

Edited April 30, 2017 by Voodoo8648

[JacuZ]

Hello, I've encountered an issue in career mode.

I just completed the contract to do my first orbit, and normally at this point in career mode your next contract is suppose to be to do a Mun fly by. However, it seems that what would normally be the Mun in the contract has been replaced with Kerbol, as you can see in the screenshot below. This is a pretty big issue, as I currently don't have the technology to do a Kerbol fly by, and I can only assume that my next contract would be to land on Kerbol (not sure Jeb would like that one ).

Edited April 30, 2017 by JacuZ
grammar

[TheSpacePotato]

54 minutes ago, JacuZ said:

Hello, I've encountered an issue in career mode.

I just completed the contract to do my first orbit, and normally at this point in career mode you're next contract is suppose to be to do a Mun fly by. However, it seems that what would normally be the Mun in the contract has been replaced with Kerbol, as you can see in the screenshot below. This is a pretty big issue, as I currently don't have the technology to do a Kerbol fly by, and I can only assume that my next contract would be to land on Kerbol (not sure Jeb would like that one ).

There is no land on Kerbol contract, sadly. However, it's about as easy to get to Kerbol as it is to the Mun, and Mun contracts do come up pretty quickly. The good thing is that the order of the contracts don't mess up career mode completely, so don't worry. Your carrer will still go on well.

[JacuZ]

6 minutes ago, TheSpacePotato said:

There is no land on Kerbol contract, sadly. However, it's about as easy to get to Kerbol as it is to the Mun, and Mun contracts do come up pretty quickly. The good thing is that the order of the contracts don't mess up career mode completely, so don't worry. Your carrer will still go on well.

Oh alright, that's good to hear. It's a bit of an odd progression order but I'll manage. By the way, do you happen to know what constitutes a Kerbol fly by? As in, what altitude do I need to be at for it to count?

[Krimverse]

17 minutes ago, TheSpacePotato said:

There is no land on Kerbol contract, sadly. However, it's about as easy to get to Kerbol as it is to the Mun, and Mun contracts do come up pretty quickly. The good thing is that the order of the contracts don't mess up career mode completely, so don't worry. Your carrer will still go on well.

The weirdest contract I've ever been offered was to mine ore from the surface of Kerbol. 

Edited April 30, 2017 by Krimverse

[Tekener]

22 minutes ago, TheSpacePotato said:

However, it's about as easy to get to Kerbol as it is to the Mun.

I doubt that - the delta V needed to get into a near Kerbol orbit is much much higher than flying to a near Mun orbit. It's impossible to do this with the tech available when you just reached Kerbin's orbit.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Tekener

[TheSpacePotato]

6 minutes ago, Tekener said:

I doubt that - the delta V needed to get into a near Kerbol orbit is much much higher than flying to a near Mun orbit. It's impossible to do this with the tech available when you just reached Kerbin's orbit.

The contract in the screenshot says fly by Kerbol. Getting near Kerbol is a completely different story, as far as delta V goes. I learned that the hard way.

I do have to say, however, that I have gotten a contract that says "enter the atmosphere of Kerbol" early on in the game, so it is a little bit weird.

20 minutes ago, JacuZ said:

Oh alright, that's good to hear. It's a bit of an odd progression order but I'll manage. By the way, do you happen to know what constitutes a Kerbol fly by? As in, what altitude do I need to be at for it to count?

Just get into the SOI of Kerbol. That's all

[Mr Betelgeuse]

Unfortunately, as for career mode with this mod, I chose to use the mod "Play Your Way", a mod that remove contracts entirely and gives money from science and merit. Now, I know a lot of people say that mod is a bit cheaty, but honestly, for KSS, it's perfect. It's not a work around for the current career mode, but I've noticed that playing vanilla career with KSS causes a stall. You'll start having trouble earning science to make your way down the tech tree to get engines that would allow you to go to other solar systems. In my first play through, I was having so much trouble keeping a positive balance of science and funding. Mainly because my current engines were outdated and couldn't do manned missions to Voon, and I pretty much racked all the science I could in the inner solar system. And since I was not making much money, I was limited to the amount of missions I could do, and if I unlocked something in the tech tree, I wouldn't be able to afford to purchase them. So there was no way for me to gain more science, to get better engines to go further and further. Perhaps, that was my fault for how I prioritized my missions, but I think there is that issue. If I were to continue doing the vanilla contracts, I would have to grind out the easy contracts until I could afford a better engine. 

I'm sure if there was a fix to prevent that "Send a probe around Kerbol" starting contract, it might be more playable, but honestly I still think that's not the case because I still managed to get in orbit around Kerbol easily, and I got tons of science. But I still had this strange power dynamic at around the mid-game (Jool-Voon area). 

So simply to end off, if you're playing Career Mode, I highly suggest getting the "Play Your Way" mod. You can configure it as you want it. I would suggest lowering the funding for science from 1,000 to 500 if you want the closest to Vanilla experience. I play at 1,000 since I simply enjoy putting up unnecessary satellites up and playing the game around some sort of historical basis where I create some story in my head and continue the game.