Is there a mod to construct/modify vessels in space?

[felcas]

Lets say I have a space station and I built it with a Docking Port Jr. but now I have access to new techs and I want/need to upgrade that port to a standard docking port (larger).

Another example: the same station does not have RCSs in the earlier built but now I need to fit in those RCSs.

Is there any mods that allow me to change/add parts? 

FYC (C stands for Curiosity) Here is the situation:

Some time ago when I had access to just a few tech parts I had a contract to built a Space Station and so I created it, very simple just for the sake of the contract, then I upgraded it 2 times for more contract purposes, now my station is pretty darn interesting so I don't want to waste it or leave it useless in orbit. I have this new contract asking for a space station in Mun and I plan to use the old station for that contract. But I want to make upgrades to compensate for the lack of technology and also the lack of interest when I earlier built it and one of this things is to change the port, another is to fit in more RCSs, in the near future I may want to send it to Minmus.

 

[Tex_NL]

Take a look at Kerbal Inventory System and Kerbal Attachment System.
You might also be interested in ExtraPlanetary Launchpads.

Edited July 10, 2017 by Tex_NL

[Aegolius13]

Yeah,  I would second the suggestion of KAS/KID.  It's a  little fussy to use but you can do a lot with it. 

However,  you probably cannot complete the Mun station contract with your existing station.  The game requires craft to be newly launched after the contract is accepted to compete these contracts.   Adding new parts to an existing craft will not satisfy this. 

Though you could always use the alt-f12 menu to complete the contract, if you're satisfied with what you have. 

[Spricigo]

 

For small modification (e.g. changing a docking port Jr  for a regular one) KIS/KAS may suffice but it become very unwieldy for more extensive modifications.

ExtraPlanetaryLaunchpads let you build entire new vessels and recycle old. If you feel that all the new parts added  by EPL is a bit overwhelming, if consider simple contruction (what the name suggest)

You may also take a look at Kontruction for the its construction docking ports, pretty convenient when you want modules launched/contructed separately to be united permanently.

 

and don't forget the Alt+F2 option:

-Design the Upgraded Station in VAB

-Deploy it with the cheat menu

-Remove the old one

-If you are concerned about the cheating part, launch a dummy mission to account for the costs and time it takes to do it "fairly". (but there is no cheat in a single player sandbox)

[Galileo]

There once was a mod in development that would let you do this. The VAB gui would open while in flight, and you could edit the vessel like you would normally. However, it was very buggy and the development was dropped and removed. With that being said, there isn't a mod that works the way you want it unfortunately, but, like above, kis/kas and the construction mods will have to do. It may not be in flight, but it's the closest thing.

[Tex_NL]

21 minutes ago, Galileo said:

It may not be in flight, but it's the closest thing.

What do you mean 'it may not be in flight'? KAS (dis)assembly IS in flight! In fact it's on EVA.

[Galileo]

1 minute ago, Tex_NL said:

What do you mean 'it may not be in flight'? KAS (dis)assembly IS in flight! In fact it's on EVA.

Yeah, but it's not what the op wants exactly. He wants a VAB style editor. I know what KIS/KAS does and its an extremely slow process in comparison to the VAB.  More realistic? Sure. Just slow. And limited. 

[Tex_NL]

1 minute ago, Galileo said:

Yeah, but it's not what the op wants exactly. He wants a VAB style editor. I know what KIS/KAS does and its an extremely slow process in comparison to the VAB.  More realistic? Sure. Just slow. And limited. 

OK, that's true. And it made me think of another option: HyperEdit. HyperEdit the revised craft into orbit with the rendezvous feature to put into nearly the orignal place. Then HyperEdit the original to land and recover at KSC.

[Spricigo]

2 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

OK, that's true. And it made me think of another option: HyperEdit. HyperEdit the revised craft into orbit with the rendezvous feature to put into nearly the orignal place. Then HyperEdit the original to land and recover at KSC.

I usually don't mention Hyperedit because in my mind it is basicaly "debug menu plus". I don't have something against it, rather rationalize (a mod is not necessary to do it, alt+F12 is enough. 

That said is a rather powerful solution for a myriad of 'issues' with the stock game, that one should consider if immersion breaking is not a problem.

 

BTW; find another option for editing the Station, Save Ship Splicer*. I think the fact that you can can copy the in flight version of the station, open in the VAB for edition, and then import the revised version into the desired orbit is a huge advantage IMHO.

*If you find the other mods useful, that is a bonus.

[felcas]

34 minutes ago, Galileo said:

Yeah, but it's not what the op wants exactly. He wants a VAB style editor. I know what KIS/KAS does and its an extremely slow process in comparison to the VAB.  More realistic? Sure. Just slow. And limited. 

Actually I didn't say that, and I would preffer a gameplay style space station refit, like taking an engineer with the parts up there and actually do the EVA and have somekind of procedure to exchange the dock ports and place the RCSs in place. It would be complexe and difficult but I guess thats how it is to work in space. No fund to just open up a VAB like window and easily modify the vessel. Dont you think  

Anyway I thank you for your suggestion.

 

3 hours ago, Aegolius13 said:

However,  you probably cannot complete the Mun station contract with your existing station.  The game requires craft to be newly launched after the contract is accepted to compete these contracts.   Adding new parts to an existing craft will not satisfy this. 

I am skeptical about your comment, because once I open up the contract window, some elements for completion are ticked green. I will try anyway because this Station is perfect for Mun. It have 2 vehicles, one for orbital and suborbital missions like rescue and scientific contracts and another for landing purposes, it have lots of space and a big tank enought to go to mun or minmus. So I am not wasting anything trying that.

-----------------------

As always, I got great answers and participation. One of the great things I like with this game is the nice and always helpfull community around it.

Thanks guys and girls!

Edited July 10, 2017 by felcas

[Galileo]

4 minutes ago, felcas said:

Actually I didn't say that, and I would preffer a gameplay style space station refit, like taking an engineer with the parts up there and actually do the EVA and have somekind of procedure to exchange the dock ports and place the RCSs in place. It would be complexe and difficult but I guess thats how it is to work in space. No fund to just open up a VAB like window and easily modify the vessel. Dont you think  

Anyway I thank you for your suggestion.

 

Yeah, I reread the the OP and got that. I think I read threw the other comments and came to that conclusion on my own. KIS and KAS are good, but it's limited and slow like I said, but, if all you want is to add an RCS here and there, it's good for that for sure.

[Spricigo]

19 minutes ago, felcas said:

I am skeptical about your comment, because once I open up the contract window, some elements for completion are ticked green.

 

The important bit, when you open the contract window while in control of the station the "build a new station ..." is checked? If yes that vessel are considered new. Otherwise well, you can change a lot of things but not how old a station is.

Another point: there is build a Station contracts and expand [Station] contracts. While I didn't check it for myself nothing says, in the later cases, the modules you need to add need to be new.

 

[felcas]

27 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

 

The important bit, when you open the contract window while in control of the station the "build a new station ..." is checked? If yes that vessel are considered new. Otherwise well, you can change a lot of things but not how old a station is.

Another point: there is build a Station contracts and expand [Station] contracts. While I didn't check it for myself nothing says, in the later cases, the modules you need to add need to be new.

 

I guess, Once you annex some new part it understand it is a new vessel???

What you see is not all original, only the  lowest part with the triple command module and fixed solar panels is the original. The upper part with all those round propelant tanks is new. I annexed this newer part AFTER I got the contract to the right. 

 

Edited July 10, 2017 by felcas

[Spricigo]

Green mark on build a new station, seems good to go. Odd that it appears for a station supposedly built before the contract was accepted, but if the game is counting as new I don't see reason to not use it.

Some considerations(of course, just my opinnion):

• Seems like you have about 2000 units of monopropellant. That is a pretty good amount of monopropellant IME, maybe you should, at this point, to consider to maneuver the other ship instead of the station.
• off course if for whatever reason you want a big reserve of RCS, Mk3 or/and FL-R1 are much more convenient than Stratus-V
• Consider removing all RCS/RW  from the station. and use separated thugs that can dock and maneuver to different modules. This way you don’t need to add RCS/RW to each single module you launch in the future.
• In my experience RCS works way better if each thruster can only affect only translation along a given axis with reaction wheels dealing with rotation. Consider to Add Angled Docking Ability to Docking Ports to keep RCS aligned (there is a module manager patch supposed to do this there, and this mod and the already mentioned Konstruction). If you are not patient enough for the small torque provided by reaction wheels, an other possibility is a set of Rotation Only RCS that you can turn on/off with a action group.
• while there is advantages for a single big station that do a lot of things, there is also the incentive for multiple more specialized stations.*
• You may take a look at what other player did to plan the next module of your station.

*well, as far as there is reasons to use stations. IMHO, there is no big incentive in the stock game (Science farm research, refuelling, somewhere to change vessels)

 

[Vanamonde]

Modding question moved to the modding subforum. 

[Jas0n]

Or as an alternative to using a mod, you could just launch the parts you need and dock it to the station. It should count.

[Spricigo]

24 minutes ago, Jas0n said:

Or as an alternative to using a mod, you could just launch the parts you need and dock it to the station. It should count.

He also want to remove obsolete parts. 

Granted that decommissioning obsolete modules is also possible  Maybe not ideal if one is concerned with just a few parts, but doable in several ways. *

*personally, I'm found in collision course with a Celestial Body. 

[Jas0n]

14 hours ago, Spricigo said:

He also want to remove obsolete parts. 

Granted that decommissioning obsolete modules is also possible  Maybe not ideal if one is concerned with just a few parts, but doable in several ways. *

*personally, I'm found in collision course with a Celestial Body. 

Ah my bad I didn't read it carefully. 

[psychogre]

Repeating the others' suggestions of the KAS/KIS mods, I'd also like to show of an example of what you were asking about.

I've been working on assembling a large ship to be able to transport multiple landers (mining/fuel production base) from initial location on Minmus to Ike, but all in one ship.  Basically I built two medium sized rockets, then connected them together with girders, adding docking ports for later docking the multiple landers to it.

An Imgur album showing a few points of its construction: http://imgur.com/a/2k1Vi

It took quite a bit of time for the the numerous EVAs needed to do this construction (and some frustration in there too), but I feel the effort was worth it.  A sense of accomplishment.  There were a few follow-up supply flights to bring up specific parts, like extra heat shields, parachutes, docking ports, NRV engines, RCS units, extra struts, etc.

During the construction, a few of these 'rescue' contracts popped up around Minmus.  Using KAS/KIS, I was able to easily collect these Kerbals and their derelicts, salvage a few odd rocket stages left in orbit from my earlier flights, assemble them into a ship (and refuel them), and send them back to Kebin.

I added a recent shot to the Imgur album - I docked all seven landers to the ship, escaped from Kebin, and nearing Duna.

[felcas]

@Spricigo just to let you know, the contract worked after all, just adding a new piece on an old station and placing it on a new celestial body allowed me for completion of the contract. soo it works

 

[steedcrugeon]

@Fendrin was working on a good compromise between KIS/VAB editor/Immersion breaking play with his ShipYards mod.

It worked very well in 1.2.2 (I built many a thing in orbit). it doesn't get enough visibility in my eyes because he was not as established as other, more renown modders. I Built a couple of parts compatible with his plugin in SpaceDock but the simplicity of building stuff in an orbital dockyard was ace. I don't think it detracted too much from the gameplay either as you first had to get the parts up to the orbital shipyard (unless you used OSE which I wasn't at the time) before you could assemble the vessel. It also meant you could repurpose space tugs or unspent stages as vessel further down the line.

Edited July 18, 2017 by steedcrugeon

[Spricigo]

56 minutes ago, steedcrugeon said:

@Fendrin was working on a good compromise between KIS/VAB editor/Immersion breaking play with his ShipYards mod.

It worked very well in 1.2.2 (I built many a thing in orbit). it doesn't get enough visibility in my eyes because he was not as established as other, more renown modders. I Built a couple of parts compatible with his plugin in SpaceDock but the simplicity of building stuff in an orbital dockyard was ace. I don't think it detracted too much from the gameplay either as you first had to get the parts up to the orbital shipyard (unless you used OSE which I wasn't at the time) before you could assemble the vessel. It also meant you could repurpose space tugs or unspent stages as vessel further down the line.

Hey @XLjedi that is closer to your idea of an Orbital construction mod.

Sadly seems development is stopped since he is inactive since december.  

[XLjedi]

4 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Hey @XLjedi that is closer to your idea of an Orbital construction mod.

Sadly seems development is stopped since he is inactive since december.  

Thanks, I was not aware of the mod... glanced at it and it seems closer to what I'm looking for.  Now that I've seen that I would not be reinventing the wheel I may move ahead with developing the idea a bit more as a mod.  One thing I did not like about what I saw is that the mod piggy-backed on the KIS mod, which IMO is a poor implementation. Mods that rely on other mods put their fate in the hands of someone else.  I also don't seem to be hung-up on this concept of having to transfer parts into another container before building with them.  I generally frown on the "Magician Bag" that would let me fit a part, that obviously should not fit, inside of a given container.

If I build it, 1) it will need to stand alone, 2) avoid using mod parts, 3) avoid intermediary containers.  I haven't thought it through far enough yet to determine if possible... but that's how I will approach it.

Edited July 18, 2017 by XLjedi

[steedcrugeon]

8 hours ago, XLjedi said:

- Snip -

The piggy back implementation was used to prove the concept, unfortunately there was insufficient feedback from the general community for fendrin to want to invest any more time in it (understandable really) as there wasn't  any input on a a good way to Balance ShipYard/Spacedock against the more established EPL. 

Not quite sure what you mean about the "magician's bag". How KIS storage works you can't really put things inside a container that wouldn't fit them?

8 hours ago, XLjedi said:

If I build it, 1) it will need to stand alone, 2) avoid using mod parts, 3) avoid intermediary containers.  I haven't thought it through far enough yet to determine if possible... but that's how I will approach it.

If you can pull it off that would be quite something to see! I will follow the progress of your development.

[XLjedi]

3 hours ago, steedcrugeon said:

The piggy back implementation was used to prove the concept, unfortunately there was insufficient feedback from the general community for fendrin to want to invest any more time in it (understandable really) as there wasn't  any input on a a good way to Balance ShipYard/Spacedock against the more established EPL. 

Not quite sure what you mean about the "magician's bag". How KIS storage works you can't really put things inside a container that wouldn't fit them?

If you can pull it off that would be quite something to see! I will follow the progress of your development.

Like when a magician pulls a ladder out of a small bag.  Some stuff just isn't the right dimension to fit in the container.

If I can pull it off indeed... I'm sure it's far easier said than done and I haven't even looked at the object model to see what I have access to.  But from what I've seen people are able to do with various mods, I'm optimistic.  A basic window gadget with some clickable listbox type items is all I'm looking to do for now.  Something to automate what I might do manually with Hyper-Edit for instance.