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

[biohazard15]

11 hours ago, Nertea said:

There's no issue with that really - you would just make the origin point the deployed location. The no variants thing is related to Restock, which I want to always support (because I never have it not installed), having antennas that have PartVariants that actually point in different directions depending on variant selected. 

Got it, thanks! Still, it's a visual issue IMO - a beam that emits out of nowhere looks rather silly in editor. That can be "fixed", though - make beam visible only when antenna is deployed (it would be always visible on fixed antennae).

WRT PartVariants - this is also Tantares issue (I ran into it when trying to make a MM patch).

[flart]

@Nertea 

• What criteria did you use, when gave or gave not to stock antennas the Antenna Feed Module?
• Also probably moving Feed and ModuleDataTransmitterFeedeable for the mod's antennas to patches is better,
  because people could easily remove all Feedeable and Feed patches (if they want to)
  and could try to stick in before the patches, when all antennas is ModuleDataTransmitter (through ModuleDataTransmitte* should work)
   
• 

 

 

 

Edited January 10, 2020 by flart

[Okhin]

@flart the last point have been solved with 1.0.1 (and I think Nertea sid that 1.0 is actually borked, so use the 1.0.1) I think. I had it in 1.0, not in 1.0.1.

Edited January 10, 2020 by Okhin

[flart]

8 minutes ago, Okhin said:

and I think Nertea sid that 1.0 is actually borked, so use the 1.0.1

I have v1.0.1, installed via CKAN , in the KSP.log NearFutureExploration v0.4.0.0. Will try manual reinstall

[Eriksonn]

17 hours ago, Nertea said:

Check out this chart:

hmm, so you are saying that i should use the large stock relay antenna to relay from kerbin to jool(for example) and then use NFE antenns in-system? works for me now that i know the intention.

Also, what are those 3 last NFE antennas(or antenna-reflector combos) to the right of the diagram? are those some of the huge foldable reflectors coupled with something else?(would imagine so, as i didnt see any single antenna having at or above stats compared to the 88-88)

[Nertea]

1 hour ago, Eriksonn said:

hmm, so you are saying that i should use the large stock relay antenna to relay from kerbin to jool(for example) and then use NFE antenns in-system? works for me now that i know the intention.

Also, what are those 3 last NFE antennas(or antenna-reflector combos) to the right of the diagram? are those some of the huge foldable reflectors coupled with something else?(would imagine so, as i didnt see any single antenna having at or above stats compared to the 88-88)

Yes that is generally correct. It's harder to predict exactly because antenna requirements are nonlinear.

Those are the three foldable reflector bonuses without any feed. The bonus is additive but multiplied by the feed efficiency - only the special feed antennae have 100% efficiency so get perfect use of the bonus. Most other antennae get 75% of the bonus at the moment. 

7 hours ago, biohazard15 said:

Got it, thanks! Still, it's a visual issue IMO - a beam that emits out of nowhere looks rather silly in editor. That can be "fixed", though - make beam visible only when antenna is deployed (it would be always visible on fixed antennae).

WRT PartVariants - this is also Tantares issue (I ran into it when trying to make a MM patch).

It's easy to do with parts that I control the model of, see some of the NFX where the antenna moves and the path moves. Other ones need to have static points and directions defined. Will eventually improve this, but it's not really high on the docket.

Luckily most of the stock moving antennae wouldn't make the best feeders anyways so I can defer it

2 hours ago, flart said:

@Nertea 

• What criteria did you use, when gave or gave not to stock antennas the Antenna Feed Module?
• Also probably moving Feed and ModuleDataTransmitterFeedeable for the mod's antennas to patches is better,
  because people could easily remove all Feedeable and Feed patches (if they want to)
  and could try to stick in before the patches, when all antennas is ModuleDataTransmitter (through ModuleDataTransmitte* should work)
   
• 

 

 

 

1. Check the comments in the patch files, it will explain why
2. I'll think about it.
3. I'll look into it. 

[Eriksonn]

2 minutes ago, Nertea said:

The bonus is additive but multiplied by the feed efficiency - only the special feed antennae have 100% efficiency so get perfect use of the bonus. Most other antennae get 75% of the bonus at the moment. 

so if i get this right this means that for a single antenna aimed at a single reflector the total range = antenna base range + antenna reflector bonus * reflector range, where the 3 rightmost dots on the diagram are the range of the large foldable reflectors?

[Nertea]

Yes that is correct. 

[Dr. Omicron]

stop making me download so many mods, Lol

[zer0Kerbal]

congrats:

 

[klgraham1013]

7 hours ago, zer0Kerbal said:

congrats:

 

About time Nertea found his way out of obscurity. 

[biohazard15]

After playing with NFEX in career, I've noticed a rather major balance problem.

Which is: all the new stuff is available too late to make a difference (we're talking about stock tech tree). Especially if you run other mods that add antennae (BDB, Tantares, Coatl etc). Why would I need to build a feeder+reflector commsat when I already have several ones, made from stock (SIC!!!) parts without any patches that affect the antenna range? Because I, like, needed these sats for my Mun program.

That doesn't really make sense. NFEX is all about "get a bunch of small antennae and reflectors to boost their range". This should be available during early-to-mid career, not at the end.

[Virtualgenius]

@Nertea thanks for the exploration mod loving it any chance you would consider  adding some mirco solar panels to the pack 

Regards,

VG

[Okhin]

I'm not sure I compute the antenna power (or the electrical consumption of them) the right way, but I just fitted 200 feeders on one space telescope (along with, well, capacitor banks to feed them). Pointing at four reflectors. There's indeed antenna ready made in stock to reach the 5M of power, but it's less fun. Also, since the dishes are deploy-able, it's easier for me to use them from a drag perspective (because I can do folded stuff, running feeders all along the station structures). Don't look at the part count though.

However anything that I should do to configure an antenna must be done on all the feeders, one by one. So I'll probably won't use the "Transmit data" action button from any of those feeders now. I'm not sure that the mod is supposed to be used that way though, but aligning 200 feeders in the VAB was fun.  Will do it again (and I need to unlock the bigger reflector, those dishes are too small for anything big).

 

[Nertea]

23 hours ago, Virtualgenius said:

@Nertea thanks for the exploration mod loving it any chance you would consider  adding some mirco solar panels to the pack 

Regards,

VG

I added some smaller things to NF Solar last update. I definitely won't add any solar panels to NFX, because, yknow, other mod. 

On 1/11/2020 at 12:57 PM, biohazard15 said:

After playing with NFEX in career, I've noticed a rather major balance problem.

Which is: all the new stuff is available too late to make a difference (we're talking about stock tech tree). Especially if you run other mods that add antennae (BDB, Tantares, Coatl etc). Why would I need to build a feeder+reflector commsat when I already have several ones, made from stock (SIC!!!) parts without any patches that affect the antenna range? Because I, like, needed these sats for my Mun program.

That doesn't really make sense. NFEX is all about "get a bunch of small antennae and reflectors to boost their range". This should be available during early-to-mid career, not at the end.

I thought I put them in the sameish places as comparably-ranged stock product but I'll have another look. The largest reflectors should definitely be past the stock antennae because they allow larger distances for sure. 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Nertea

[Nertea]

NF Exploration 1.0.2

• Fixed MLT-10 RCS fuel option containing LFO instead of monopropellant
• FeedScale of most feeder antennas tuned: 75% efficiency -> 90%, 60% -> 75%
• Pushed up the ranges for the smaller side reflectors by ~5-10%
• Upped the range for phased array antennae by 10x
• Tweaked tech locations for a number of the weaker antennae (on average, 1 tier lower)
• Fixed a localization issue with the VAB info display for ModuleDeployableReflector
• Fixed a localization error with the PLTO core description
• Adjusted the shader settings of some probe cores to match with each other better
• Fixed large CHFR bus' silver foil texture
• Fixed a missing texture reference in some probe normal maps

[mrsinister]

thanks for the update! glad NFT is still going.

 

[Nertea]

Working towards the Rhino-ish engine, it's the Space Transportation Booster Engine - a paper design for updated STS liquid-fuelled boosters. Uses a lot of SSME stylings and hardware, with influence from the RS-68 as well.

Will come in our usual set of variants, likely 2.5m, 2.5m boattail, compact, and 3.75m.

I've also got most of the way through the unwraps for this engine and the RS84, so progress!

 

[zer0Kerbal]

sa-weet!

@Nertea

[Virtualgenius]

Very nice and a pic for you from my first NF Exploration Probe used an RTG for power couldnt find solar panels small enough that looked cool

Edited January 13, 2020 by Virtualgenius

[stefsilver]

3 hours ago, Nertea said:

Working towards the Rhino-ish engine, it's the Space Transportation Booster Engine - a paper design for updated STS liquid-fuelled boosters. Uses a lot of SSME stylings and hardware, with influence from the RS-68 as well.

Will come in our usual set of variants, likely 2.5m, 2.5m boattail, compact, and 3.75m.

I've also got most of the way through the unwraps for this engine and the RS84, so progress!

 

I forgot what mod these engines will be apart of again ?

[DeltaDizzy]

24 minutes ago, stefsilver said:

I forgot what mod these engines will be apart of again ?

Near Future Launch Vehicles

[Virtualgenius]

@Nertea does the RA-002- Micro Relay antenna have an animation I cant seem to see it do anything

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Dangit Nertea, now I've got to redesign all my probes because that new mod is gorgeous.

[Maurox]

LTL, FTP here

Is it just me, or are the normal maps on some of the solar panels borked? I don't have any screenshots ATM, but I am pretty sure on some of the panels, the light-shadow maps aren't properly mirrored - anyone else noticed that?

EDIT: I was just checking your screenshots and Copernicus and Nautilus are the two main offenders IIRC - specifically, the problem is with the strut/main axis going out from the connection point. Next time I will be in the game I will provide SS if necessary, sorry for being a little vague.

EDIT2: Here is the screenshot of what I was talking about
Copernicus was fine after all, it was only the Nautilus which had the problem. However, something else I've noticed is that KS-AR 1x3 acts a little strange when you retract it - if it is at the default angle (solar panels facing up), then there is no problem, but if it's rotated, especially by a large degree, then it rotates and folds at the same time, making the animation look really weird near the end. Not sure about the rest of panels, as I haven't tested them all against this. Love all of your work, and I hope this was helpful.

Edited January 17, 2020 by Maurox