[1.12.x] Near Future Technologies (September 6)

[LatiMacciato]

I also enjoy the new ones! .. besides its good to hear your working on it

.. beeing human is not an excuse ..its a reason to keep on!
what I wanted to say is .. making mistakes is totally fine with me, even when that results in learning from them

[DerekL1963]

12 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Now that this time has passed, if you don't like it, there are other mods out there in the world with other engines.

For most engines, yes.   For the LV-T95-8?  Not so much.

[Tyko]

@Nertea  I love your work and follow your forum pretty consistently. I missed the part about deprecating old parts..I'm not going to picket or complain. I was asking...whatever you decide I'll still love your work.

As far as the old parts...it's easy enough to copy them to a new directory and keep using them. So if you want to keep them deprecated. I'm not going to worry.

For those that want to keep the parts. Just move them into another folder within GameData. I call mine TykoMods. Then change the model reference line in each model so it points at the new location like this...

<SNIP>

// --- general parameters ---
    name = orbitalEngine-25
    module = Part
    author = Chris Adderley
    MODEL
    {
        model = NearFutureSpacecraft/Parts/Engine TykoMods/orbitalEngine/orbitalEngine-25
        position = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
        scale = 1,1,1
        rotation = 0, 0, 0
    }
    rescaleFactor = 1

<SNIP>

I'll probably also rename the parts so they don't conflict with anything Nertea does in the future. Just change the "name =" for each engine to something unique.

No muss, no fuss

NOTE: Nertea has these published under "all rights reserved", so the art assets shouldn't be redistributed in any way, but nothing wrong with using them locally as far as I know.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Tyko

[Omnipius]

1 hour ago, Nertea said:

To everyone complaining:

I floated the idea to convert the engines ages ago (October 2016). I asked for opinions. I got positive opinions. I posted WIP images with clear statements that they were monopropellent engines that would replace the other ones. If, at that point ( a 2 month period, before the old thread disappeared), you didn't want this to occur, you were welcome to voice your opinion. Now that this time has passed, if you don't like it, there are other mods out there in the world with other engines. Don't come here to picket a particular design decision. 

 

Some of us, such as myself, had not even started playing KSP back in October and therefore were blindsided by this. I think the moral of the story here is that forcibly taking away functionality will always anger users of any system. Such changes should be done in a way that makes them an install-time option for the user. This would avoid episodes like this.

[Bored971]

No screaming here Nertea!  I had the same problem as anyone else, was frustrated, went back to the old mod (which seems to work fine to me) and figured it'd get fixed.  I'd love to see the LFO engines kept as well but I've been looking for an excuse to play with monoprop more anyway so whatever winds up happening is ok with me.  I guess the important thing for all of us to remember is that these are mods; I think it's really easy to forget that when, without the mods, KSP is about 10% of what it could be with them.  I'll look forward to the patch!

Edited February 4, 2017 by Bored971

[tan620]

Is the link to the imgur album for Near Future Spacecraft broken for anyone else? It leads to Near Future Propulsion for me. 

[sjbuggs]

4 hours ago, Bored971 said:

No screaming here Nertea!  I had the same problem as anyone else, was frustrated, went back to the old mod (which seems to work fine to me) and figured it'd get fixed.  I'd love to see the LFO engines kept as well but I've been looking for an excuse to play with monoprop more anyway so whatever winds up happening is ok with me.  I guess the important thing for all of us to remember is that these are mods; I think it's really easy to forget that when, without the mods, KSP is about 10% of what it could be with them.  I'll look forward to the patch!

Here here, and NFT is absolutely a must-have mod for me and a whole lot of people.

 

[Nertea]

This should resolve some issues. The issue was that Unresearchable is spelled correctly. It should be spelled incorrectly (ksp.. :S)

• Fixed incorrect part names on some engines
• Fixed swapped FL-R-B3000 and FL-R-B750 costs
• Fixed accidentally included skirt node of mk4 pod
• Updated deprecated part loading
• Added an optional Extras patch to make the orbital engines use LFO!

4 hours ago, Omnipius said:

Some of us, such as myself, had not even started playing KSP back in October and therefore were blindsided by this. I think the moral of the story here is that forcibly taking away functionality will always anger users of any system. Such changes should be done in a way that makes them an install-time option for the user. This would avoid episodes like this.

Nah. You always have the option of reversions. This isn't a project that I need to hold to software release standards. I have enough of that at work. 

[tsaven]

Are there plans for more Ion engines in larger sizes?  Right now it only seems to be 0.625m units, which is sending my part counts through the roof for larger Ion ships.

[Stratickus]

@Nertea Thanks for the quick fix. I for one appreciate the hard work that goes into your mods. For free. 

Cheers,

[DStaal]

2 hours ago, tsaven said:

Are there plans for more Ion engines in larger sizes?  Right now it only seems to be 0.625m units, which is sending my part counts through the roof for larger Ion ships.

Technically, there is one in the 1.25m size, though it still fits fairly well in the 0.625m size.  And then there's the easy-to-overlook 'HT16 'Noon' Gridded Ion Engine Cluster'.  In the 2.5m size - one of my favorite parts in the mod. 

[septemberWaves]

I love the new parts in Near Future Spacecraft. I've found some good potential uses for them so far.

[tsaven]

1 hour ago, DStaal said:

Technically, there is one in the 1.25m size, though it still fits fairly well in the 0.625m size.  And then there's the easy-to-overlook 'HT16 'Noon' Gridded Ion Engine Cluster'.  In the 2.5m size - one of my favorite parts in the mod. 

Not seeing these?  Are you sure they're in this mod, not from something else?

[Streetwind]

@tsaven - They are in this mod. Or rather, were. They too are soft-deprecated due to old models and very little usage. You can, however, reactivate them as normal (give them a category and a research node). Their stats may or may not be slightly off, as they haven't been touched in a year or so.

If you have part count issues, though, could I recommend the 2.5m PIT? Part of the idea of NF Propulsion's engine variety is that you always have nultiple choices, among which you can select the optimal solution for your current design needs. The KX-XK can be overcharged to 9,375s Isp, which is among the highest of all non-gridded-ion thrusters in the pack. Puts out more thrust than 13 HI-SNAPs too, at comparable power draw... all in just one single part. That sounds like a better option for you than clustering gridded ions. Unless you're locked into using xenon, for some reason. Then you can still get 7,000s with a large VASIMR, but if Isp is what you're looking for, perhaps reactivating the old Noon cluster will serve you better.

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by Streetwind

[tsaven]

18 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

@tsaven - They are in this mod. Or rather, were. They too are soft-deprecated due to old models and very little usage. You can, however, reactivate them as normal (give them a category and a research node). Their stats may or may not be slightly off, as they haven't been touched in a year or so.

If you have part count issues, though, could I recommend the 2.5m PIT? Part of the idea of NF Propulsion's engine variety is that you always have nultiple choices, among which you can select the optimal solution for your current design needs. The KX-XK can be overcharged to 9,375s Isp, which is among the highest of all non-gridded-ion thrusters in the pack. Puts out more thrust than 13 HI-SNAPs too, at comparable power draw... all in just one single part. That sounds like a better option for you than clustering gridded ions. Unless you're locked into using xenon, for some reason. Then you can still get 7,000s with a large VASIMR, but if Isp is what you're looking for, perhaps reactivating the old Noon cluster will serve you better.

 

Ah, darn.  Thanks for the info.  I prefer using Xenon because the Octo-girders have Xenon storage tanks as one of their options, and the insane ISP is nice.

Currently I've got 48 of the Jewel-4s powering a long-duration research ship that's intended to visit every Joolian body in a single mission, and probably Sarnus at some point too.  26,000 dV should be enough to get me into and out of low orbit of every body, and get back home.  Damn thing costs 1.1mil specos just to fuel though...

[mikegarrison]

20 minutes ago, tsaven said:

Ah, darn.  Thanks for the info.  I prefer using Xenon because the Octo-girders have Xenon storage tanks as one of their options, and the insane ISP is nice.

Currently I've got 48 of the Jewel-4s powering a long-duration research ship that's intended to visit every Joolian body in a single mission, and probably Sarnus at some point too.  26,000 dV should be enough to get me into and out of low orbit of every body, and get back home.  Damn thing costs 1.1mil specos just to fuel though...

That raises an issue -- with all the (relatively) new kinds of reaction masses, the tank options are rather limited. Lots of tank options for Lqd Hyd and Xenon, but fewer for the others.

[tsaven]

13 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

That raises an issue -- with all the (relatively) new kinds of reaction masses, the tank options are rather limited. Lots of tank options for Lqd Hyd and Xenon, but fewer for the others.

Well I play with MKS so I have plenty of other tank options, but I really like the tanks in the Octo-girders because . . . well they just look so cool . . .

[Streetwind]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

That raises an issue -- with all the (relatively) new kinds of reaction masses, the tank options are rather limited. Lots of tank options for Lqd Hyd and Xenon, but fewer for the others.

What do you mean? There should be plenty of tanks for all propellant types.

[Guest]

New crew pod IVA is WIP or I have some RPM or prop install problems? Not a single switch or screen there...

[Tyko]

15 hours ago, Nertea said:

This should resolve some issues. The issue was that Unresearchable is spelled correctly. It should be spelled incorrectly (ksp.. :S)

• Fixed incorrect part names on some engines
• Fixed swapped FL-R-B3000 and FL-R-B750 costs
• Fixed accidentally included skirt node of mk4 pod
• Updated deprecated part loading
• Added an optional Extras patch to make the orbital engines use LFO!

Nah. You always have the option of reversions. This isn't a project that I need to hold to software release standards. I have enough of that at work. 

Thanks for the update. In KER the 2.5m and 3.75m engine clusters appear to be creating torque on the ship. 

Just snapping each of them onto the bottom of a Mk 3-9 command pod. The 2.5 creates 0.14 kNm and the 3.75 creates 1.94 kNm of torque.

[Wyzard]

FWIW, I like the engines having been switched from LFO to monoprop.  There are plenty of LFO engines already, and the NearFutureSpacecraft ones were similar to existing stock ones.  There aren't many monoprop engines (as opposed to RCS thrusters), so these new ones fill a new niche and open up new design options.

BTW, I notice that in the science center, some of the nodes don't correctly show a number badge indicating new parts that haven't been purchased yet.  For example, I'd previously purchased everything in "Heavier Rocketry", but now the new LV-601-4 engine is there, and the node doesn't show a little "1" in a circle to represent the unpurchased part.  (I'm guessing it may be because the old LV-T95-8 still appears there, since I'd unlocked it there in the past, even though it's no longer actually in that category.)

[TheRagingIrishman]

@Wyzard that's a stock bug related to how the tech tree is saved. You'll notice it if you add any parts to any unlocked node. It's because KSP doesn't actually track nodes as being purchased, but tracks the individual parts status. 

[Wyzard]

I hand-edited my save and removed the "part = orbitalEngine-25" line (the old LV-T95-8) from the heaverRocketry tech node, and now I see the little "1" circle in the tech tree representing the unpurchased new LV-601-4 engine.  So it looks like the game is just looking at how many parts are currently "supposed to be" in the tech node (based on current .cfg files), vs. how many "part =" lines the node has in the save.  Having a part that's purchased in the save, but not actually in the category according to the part's .cfg, throws off the comparison.

No problem, though — I'm going to manually remove the other deprecated parts from my tech tree too (so I can't use them anymore), refund myself the entryCost from each (can't have paid for a part that doesn't exist), and use those funds to unlock the new engines instead. 

[mikegarrison]

12 hours ago, Streetwind said:

What do you mean? There should be plenty of tanks for all propellant types.

Not as many big ones, though. Not many 3.75m tanks, for instance. And nothing like the big round LH2 tank.

Back in the day I used to be able to put together some ships using nuclear reactors and VASIMR engines and really big hydrogen tanks that had many thousands of m/s dV. Now it's not so easy.

And also, yeah, why not Octogirder tanks for all the NFP fuels? Just no time to make them?

[MemeBeam]

Could this mod get more support for kerbalism, such as radiation coming from reactors, possible malfunctions that require highly skilled engineersto fix to make them more unique and less care free on long missions. Love the mod btw