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

[Drew Kerman]

50 minutes ago, The-Doctor said:

@Nertea Hey, so I'm trying to build a big ship but the structural components don't allow tweakscale to increase their size, can you help me out with that? Any patches?

Nertea does not ship any tweakscale patches for any of his mods, because he doesn't like them being scaled. You can add support yourself (some one wrote some basic Tweakscale documentation, it may be in the OP of that thread otherwise check the Github for a wiki entry) or seek out configs that others may have written (don't recall any myself). Also if this is why you posted in the Tweakscale thread then nothing is broken on that end either.

[The-Doctor]

1 hour ago, Drew Kerman said:

Nertea does not ship any tweakscale patches for any of his mods, because he doesn't like them being scaled. You can add support yourself (some one wrote some basic Tweakscale documentation, it may be in the OP of that thread otherwise check the Github for a wiki entry) or seek out configs that others may have written (don't recall any myself). Also if this is why you posted in the Tweakscale thread then nothing is broken on that end either.

Why doesn't he like it being scaled? How could we build a massive ship then? I really am lost in finding it

[Drew Kerman]

2 minutes ago, The-Doctor said:

Why doesn't he like it being scaled?

Personal artistic preference. He's covered it numerous times here - there might be something about it in the OP.

[Urses]

6 minutes ago, The-Doctor said:

Why doesn't he like it being scaled? How could we build a massive ship then? I really am lost in finding it

The easiest ansver may be the parts are designed to work best in their format. The best example may be the endcaps. I use them Massively and had a behavior if they are scaled up and configured as EC storage you will never need  a battery again

Edited May 29, 2017 by Urses

[The-Doctor]

Just now, Urses said:

The easiest ansver may be the parts are designed to work best in their format. The best example may be the endcaps. I use the Massively and had a behavior if they are scaled up and configured as EC storage you will never need  a battery again

Do you have a config for it? I really want to build the ISV Venture Star

[Urses]

Just now, The-Doctor said:

Do you have a config for it? I really want to build the ISV Venture Star

Not personaly writen. After i installed The Mark2 Part mode the tweckscale ability was autoapplied as dependency for this mod and the most parts are tweckable then.

[The-Doctor]

9 minutes ago, Urses said:

Not personaly writen. After i installed The Mark2 Part mode the tweckscale ability was autoapplied as dependency for this mod and the most parts are tweckable then.

well I lack those stuff. Should I install the Mark2 mod? Is that a mod?

[Urses]

7 hours ago, The-Doctor said:

well I lack those stuff. Should I install the Mark2 mod? Is that a mod?

Here you go:

I am not good as programmer, i am a technician. But this one brough MM-Patches with it with your desired functionality. But as said before, Nertea's parts are top edge as they are and scaled they are way to OP.

Urses 

Edited May 30, 2017 by Urses

[Streetwind]

@Urses It's not really that much about balance. If something becomes unbalanced when scaled up or down, then it was not scaled correctly. Tweakscale's automatic scaling feature attempts a best guess, but sometimes guesses wrong, or encounters something it cannot understand (plugin-added part modules, for instance). In that case, only a hand-written patch will be able to do it right.

It's about 1.) the effort involved to make sure that everything scales correctly, stat-wise; remember, Nertea has over ten different part mods to support at this point. Also, 2.) a scaled model and texture never looks quite as good as a model and texture specifically designed for a particular size. As an artist, Nertea is very concerned with the looks of his parts. He has a history of remodelling, re-remodelling, or flat-out discontinuing parts just because he stopped liking them.  

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by Streetwind

[Urses]

@Streetwind it was not a offense! I love the parts of thus modes and Nertea build all to work great together. And as said he would not provide tweack support and this means if somebody use the parts in an uninvented way have to be clear that the parts go "crazy"

Thus said it has to be clear that if somebody "mess around" with the parts need to be clear he is on his own if he use tweackscale as example and don't have to be surprised if he do not get support, because the parts works other way as intended.

If you use additional modes, invest your own energy to balance all out. And show your social capabilities by sharing your MM-patches to support the mode inventor. I would only warn that you can tweack the parts, but they are not specificaly balanced this way.

In my named example with endcaps they give a smooth look for RD's Tundra modules on space stations after scalling up, but they have something around 1/8 million EC if you don't patch this you have a OP-Part!

Hope i could clarify my position. And i know how much work Nertea invest in KSP not only with his own modes but with many colaborations in Community branches. And i hope he will stay this way much longer. I personaly am realy pleased to see that he gets support from other community members like you.

And i love his art Choices. My KSP look is defined by 4 modders and Nertea is one of them!

Godspeed

Urses 

[The-Doctor]

14 hours ago, Urses said:

Here you go:

I am not good as programmer, i am a technician. But this one brough MM-Patches with it with your desired functionality. But as said before, Nertea's parts are top edge as they are and scaled they are way to OP.

Urses 

so this would allow me to tweak the size of Near Future Construction parts?

[Urses]

12 minutes ago, The-Doctor said:

so this would allow me to tweak the size of Near Future Construction parts?

There is twecskale bundeled in and it enable twecking for the most parts, yes. But... it is than tweaked by guesing not by balancing needs. If it is okay with you this works fine.

Urses 

Best advice is try out and decide for yourself. 

[Nertea]

Work on the 1.3 NFT (note that this is just NFT, not KA/CE yet) updates is proceeding very well so far. I've pretty much completed the initial testable builds for NFElectrical, NFConstruction and NFSpacecraft, with NFPropulsion following some time today or tomorrow and NFSolar brining up the rear (some art issues) probably by the end of the week. 

Considering the large scope of the changes, I would like to get some testing done before an official release. If anyone is interested in privately testing some of these builds, drop me a PM.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Nertea

[Spaceception]

Oooh, I can't wait for the update, are there going to be any more parts?

[Nertea]

I'll post the preliminary changelogs here.

Now is probably the time to let me know if there's a bug that's not addressed so I can add it to my todo list

NF Propulsion

• KSP 1.3
• Updated bundled MM to 2.8.0
• Updated bundled B9PartSwitch to 1.8.0
• Updated bundled CRP to latest version
• Switched to 1.3 string localization
• Fixed thrust transform on 1.25m VASIMR
• Rebalanced all Xenon tanks to have a mass ratio of 4 (including stock Xenon tanks)
• Modified the effective volume of all Xenon tanks to be closer to stock effective volumes
• Rebalanced all Argon tanks to have a mass ratio of 4
• Rebalanced all Argon tanks to contain a similar fuel mass to Xenon tanks
• Rebalanced all Lithium tanks to have a mass ratio of 4
• Slightly rebalanced the contents of lithium tanks to match stock volumes
• Changed nomenclature of thrust/Isp slider on VariableIspEngines
• Plugin performance optimizations

NF Electrical

• KSP 1.3
• Updated bundled MM to 2.8.0
• Updated bundled B9PartSwitch to 1.8.0
• Updated bundled CRP to latest version
• Full localization support for parts and plugins
• New sub-plugin: DynamicBatteryStorage
  • Dynamically adjusts EC storage to combat KSP crap resource mechanics at high timewarp
  • Should dramatically reduce instances of EC loss at high timewarp
• Revised many part descriptions, tags and names
• Revised costs of batteries to correctly match stock batteries
• Revised costs of capacitors to be slightly more expensive (~1.5x) than before
• Battery and capacitor mass values are now 100% consistent
• Reactor numbering system revised for better sorting
• All reactors are now their inline variant by default
• MX-3L Hermes reactor now generates 6000 kW, up from 5000 kW. All other stats adjusted to match
• Rebalanced cost and mass of all reactors
• Rebalanced mass and cost of all nuclear fuel containers
• Reduced price of PB-AS-NUK RTG
• Increased mass of Whirlijig Nuclear Reprocessor
• Adjusted recipes for Whirlijig reprocessing/extraction to be less weird
• DecayingRTGs patch now cuts price of affected RTGs by 50%
• Changed CLS patch to behave better when CLS is not around
• Cleaned up FissionReactor config blocks for clarity
• Significant improvements to KA integration code

NF Construction

• KSP 1.3
• Updated bundled MM to 2.8.0
• Updated bundled B9PartSwitch to 1.8.0
• Normalized some part internal names
• Improved naming of most truss parts
• Converted to KSP 1.3 localization string methods
• Small tweaks to masses and costs of many parts

NF Solar

• KSP 1.3
• Updated bundled MM to 2.8.0
• Converted all part name/descriptions to localization system
• Rebalanced solar panel masses and costs for more consistency
• Removed retractable part search tag from parts that are not retractable
• Renamed some solar panels to increase consistency and ease of inter-panel comparison
• Reworked manufacturer names to reduce the number of new manufacturers
• Adjusted position of suncatcher transforms on SOL-A, NIV-3 and NIV-16 panels
• K7R 1x4 Concentrating Photovoltaic Panels are no longer retractable
• Adjusted shaders for many panels to improve looks
• Added K7R 1x4 Concentrating Photovoltaic Panels and K5R 1x3 Concentrating Photovoltaic Panels, variants of two current panels with added shrouds and retractability
• Added SOL-B Expanding Curved Solar Array (3.75m to 10m expanding curved solar array)
• Added OKEB-125 Blanket Solar Array (based on NASA asteroid tug concept)
• Added OKEB-75 Blanket Solar Array (based on SpaceX ITS solar array concept)

NF Spacecraft

• OLD ORBITAL ENGINES FULLY DEPRECATED
• KSP 1.3
• Updated bundled MM to 2.8.0
• Updated bundled B9PartSwitch to 1.8.0
• Full localization support for all parts
• New textures for Mk4-1, Mk3-9 and PPD-1 pods
• New model and texture for PPD-24 Itinerant
• Improved textures for all monopropellant tanks and service tanks
• Mk4-1 pod now has toggleable shroud "skirts" that change attachment options and slightly increase thermal tolerances
• Checked the exhaust transforms on all RCS parts
• Reduced vacuum Isp of all monopropellant engines by 10-20s
• All RCS parts have been set to physicsless
• Many IVA-related fixes
• Fixed USI-LS patch for Mk4-1 pod

Edited May 30, 2017 by Nertea

[budda]

looks good (cant wait )

[Nergal8617]

4 minutes ago, Nertea said:

Now is probably the time to let me know if there's a bug that's not addressed so I can add it to my todo list

I was getting NullReferenceException spam with NFElectrical when using it in conjunction with USI mods (specifically MKS).

[Nertea]

1 minute ago, Nergal8617 said:

I was getting NullReferenceException spam with NFElectrical when using it in conjunction with USI mods (specifically MKS).

That's captured here, note it's still in the testing label, which means the fix has been deployed but I haven't confirmed it yet. It still needs to be tested. 

 

[Nergal8617]

4 minutes ago, Nertea said:

That's captured here, note it's still in the testing label, which means the fix has been deployed but I haven't confirmed it yet. It still needs to be tested.

Good to know, thank you.  How I never found that when I went looking to see if anyone else was having the same problem I'll never know.

Edited May 30, 2017 by Nergal8617

[Spaceception]

There's EC timwarp fixes? Yay!

[Streetwind]

Note on NF Propulsion changes:

Since the mass ratios of all xenon, argon and lithium tanks (including stock) are increasing from 2.2727 to 4.0, that means that vessels with the same amount of propellant than before will have less dry mass. This means that these vessels will have more dV and more TWR than before.

To counteract this, engine stats are going down on average - both thrust and Isp. This is not a nerf, this is a compensation for a buff elsewhere.

However, different engines may change in different ways. Some engines lose a bit of both. Some engines maintain their thrust and lose more Isp as a result. Some engines maintain their Isp and lose more thrust as a result. The MPDTs and Hall thrusters even gain a small bit of thrust because their Isp drops so far (generally, the better mass fractions make it possible in the first place to stat engines up with lower Isp values). There are also some mass changes, which is to say, larger engines are getting a bit lighter overall. Finally, two gridded ion thrusters now consume more power than before, with stats going up to match; this will help them to be more easily matched up with a suitable reactor.

Oh, and the underlying formula that decides how much thrust and Isp an engine is allowed to have for a given power input also changed. This fixed some inconsistencies in stat distribution.

Once we have a test build out, I'm going to solicit feedback on these changes from people who can compare their trusted designs between the versions and how the changes affect them. The goal is to stick fairly close to the level of power we already have right now. But between the high number of interconnected changes, it's hard to test broadly on our own. Hopefully I'll get more than one reply this time...  

[Kertech]

These mysterious changes sound mysterious @Nertea

is the NFT stuff going to change much?

[Streetwind]

10 minutes ago, Kertech said:

is the NFT stuff going to change much?

Expect this update to be save breaking, especially where Construction and Spacecraft packs are concerned.

It won't play much different, though.

[brumby]

Cant wait for the 1.3 Patch. I'm planning on doing a new playthrough on Galileo with lots of tasty mods. This is the pinnacle of 50+ mods. Consider disabling tweakscale for NF Nuclear Reactors. The construction parts are mint.I'd like to show off my Super cruiser that uses 8 of the 1.25m Lithium engines and an Excalibur Reactor. Has the engines on Infernal Robotics bearings for landing horizontally for 6 seater rover wheeled rover. Happy modding I'm keen for the rebalance. It feels 95% complete and I'm sure this will just about polish it off.

[Psycho_zs]

Will LFO patch for orbital engines bring back those 10-20s of Isp?