totm sep 2021 [1.12] Stockalike Station Parts Redux (August 14, 2024)

[JadeOfMaar]

18 minutes ago, sabreheim said:

So this may have been touched on already. I see that the containers are compatible with USI-LS, but are the habitation modules and all? Or do they just act as structural parts

The USI LS patch (not the MKS Extra patch) contains the stuff for hab value and recyclers. You're good to go.

[NightSky]

On 11/2/2018 at 7:07 PM, Nertea said:

Yeah there was little to no point to those parts anymore. They were back from 0.25 KSP or so, where joint strength was proportional to the mass of the parts. So those were theoretically high strength ports, which had mono inside them to kinda justify the mass increase. I didn't scope these for the revamp because they didn't feel very useful or much fun to make. Instead I concentrated on making this and this, which I hope will be released in a "new" project fairly soon and should resolve the "stock docking ports look nasty" problem.

  

Hello @Nertea

I can totally understand your point and the fact that, after a long way with the old mod, you got a little bit fed up with it. The new restart is great btw.

Point is, though, that some of us are not so fed up yet with their bases and craft created with the old parts that are not loading anymore (like crewtube-docking-25). After coming back to KSP after a while I found myself with half of you ships deleted by the game with no chances to change the not-anymore loaded parts. So, question (extended to everyone): is there any way to get them back through some trick just to have the chance to replace them? Would you be keen to let someone else just maintain your old mod in a legacy-sort-of mode?

Thake care!

Edited November 11, 2018 by NightSky

[Nertea]

12 hours ago, NightSky said:

Hello @Nertea

I can totally understand your point and the fact that, after a long way with the old mod, you got a little bit fed up with it. The new restart is great btw.

Point is, though, that some of us are not so fed up yet with their bases and craft created with the old parts that are not loading anymore (like crewtube-docking-25). After coming back to KSP after a while I found myself with half of you ships deleted by the game with no chances to change the not-anymore loaded parts. So, question (extended to everyone): is there any way to get them back through some trick just to have the chance to replace them? Would you be keen to let someone else just maintain your old mod in a legacy-sort-of mode?

Thake care!

You can always keep using them. The old mod just won't get updates . It can be installed alongside very easily and cleanly with no overlap or conflicts, this was done for exactly your situation so you have an easier time making a transition.

[NightSky]

7 hours ago, Nertea said:

You can always keep using them. The old mod just won't get updates . It can be installed alongside very easily and cleanly with no overlap or conflicts, this was done for exactly your situation so you have an easier time making a transition.

And that was really a great! The problem is that the old mod is aging quite fast and quite badly (due, probably, to changes by Squad in the main game): a lot of parts are not beeing loaded in the game after 1.3. This basically make your precaution unusefull since all the ships and stations costructed with broken parts are doomed. Solving the problem would probably require some maintenance to the old parts, but you made really clear that this is not your intention. Here comes my question: are you keen to delegate the maintenance to someone else?

[CobaltWolf]

23 hours ago, NightSky said:

And that was really a great! The problem is that the old mod is aging quite fast and quite badly (due, probably, to changes by Squad in the main game): a lot of parts are not beeing loaded in the game after 1.3. This basically make your precaution unusefull since all the ships and stations costructed with broken parts are doomed. Solving the problem would probably require some maintenance to the old parts, but you made really clear that this is not your intention. Here comes my question: are you keen to delegate the maintenance to someone else?

There shouldn't be anything preventing them from being loaded, parts are usually fairly bulletproof. Even if they have bugs they typically still load. Are you sure the old mod is installed correctly?

[Nertea]

I would also be interested in knowing about this. It's as standard a mod as I have and should be quite future proof. 

In this way I am not really interested in having someone else continue maintenance. If a lone user want to keep in running in their install no worries, it is robust and barring major KSP changes, it will be compatible. However, I don't want my garbage models floating around in any kind of operational way.

[NightSky]

4 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

There shouldn't be anything preventing them from being loaded, parts are usually fairly bulletproof. Even if they have bugs they typically still load. Are you sure the old mod is installed correctly?

There is a lot of parts that don't load, others have some texture missing (especially the docking zones). I'm currently not at home, so I have to check to submit a complete list. The mod appears to be correctly installed (I also reinstalled it) and the parts are showing up in the correct folders.

10 minutes ago, Nertea said:

I would also be interested in knowing about this. It's as standard a mod as I have and should be quite future proof. 

In this way I am not really interested in having someone else continue maintenance. If a lone user want to keep in running in their install no worries, it is robust and barring major KSP changes, it will be compatible. However, I don't want my garbage models floating around in any kind of operational way.

Don't know what to say: it had the same problem with 1.4.x. I thought it was just a question of stability, but nothing changed in all this time. Texture problems?

Maintenance would just be done to solve this minimal problems, since what you call "my garbadge models" are very precious for many of us that appreciated them and used them in their crafts. Otherwise I shall – litteraly – review all my universe.

[Nertea]

I reviewed the last post in the thread and realized that something changed between 1.3.x and 1.4.x wrt to texture replacement, all the placeholder textures had to be upscaled from 2px wide to 4 px wide. I guess I could make an update to this only to preserve capability, but really... it will be the absolute last. I know you enjoyed some of the models, but they need to die. 

 

[NightSky]

38 minutes ago, Nertea said:

I reviewed the last post in the thread and realized that something changed between 1.3.x and 1.4.x wrt to texture replacement, all the placeholder textures had to be upscaled from 2px wide to 4 px wide. I guess I could make an update to this only to preserve capability, but really... it will be the absolute last. I know you enjoyed some of the models, but they need to die. 

 

You are the best. I swear I will replace them in my craft as fast as I can

[Gurki]

I wonder if you already have considered to swap B9 to the stock ModulePartVariant for textures and mesh switching ?

I just tested it on few of your parts and it work nicely.

It would be useful with stock themes management as it allow us to apply a style on the entire vessel in one click.

[Nertea]

7 hours ago, Gurki said:

I wonder if you already have considered to swap B9 to the stock ModulePartVariant for textures and mesh switching ?

I just tested it on few of your parts and it work nicely.

It would be useful with stock themes management as it allow us to apply a style on the entire vessel in one click.

I'd still need B9PS for fuels and the other things that the stock switcher is incapable of. Not worth having 2 different switchers with different UIs in the mod. 

[Gurki]

That make sense

I also noticed through testing that the theme selection work only for one ModulePartVariant when there is two on one part ... Which is not that good after all.

[Krik]

Hello, I have such a problem: the centrifuge is inflated only once. I make a ship, I launch it, I pump it up with air (nitrogen), I blow it off and ... end. After that, the centrifuge is not inflated, and even if I cancel the launch, everything remains in place - it does not work. You need to restart the game so that you can start the centrifuge. Why is that? Can this be fixed?

[Nicky21]

Is there some trick to docking with the B-EX-2 Extensible?

I've tried to dock to that thing for 30 mind now, at different speeds. I tried to get it to attach to a mk2 fuselage, or to an opt stail tanker. Nothing. I've tried differnet speeds an angles.

KSP 1.4.5
https://imgur.com/a/4CqcJyj
 

[NHunter]

59 minutes ago, Nicky21 said:

Is there some trick to docking with the B-EX-2 Extensible?

I've tried to dock to that thing for 30 mind now, at different speeds. I tried to get it to attach to a mk2 fuselage, or to an opt stail tanker. Nothing. I've tried differnet speeds an angles.

KSP 1.4.5
https://imgur.com/a/4CqcJyj
 

Dunno about the big one, but the small one will 'dock' only if it hits a surface that it is more-or-less perpendicular to. So, yeah, curved mk2 and OPT will have some trouble getting 'docked' with extensible crew tubes.

[Nicky21]

I used the small one for docking before, i know it works. It just doesn't have the connection strength to keep my big ships from krakening out. I'll try again with a flat surface to see if that does it.

EDIT:

I have tried slamming into the b-ex-2 with the flat surface of the service bay several times. That is as flat as it gets in ksp. It simply doesn't connect .

Edited November 16, 2018 by Nicky21

[MaverickSawyer]

1 hour ago, Nicky21 said:

I used the small one for docking before, i know it works. It just doesn't have the connection strength to keep my big ships from krakening out. I'll try again with a flat surface to see if that does it.

EDIT:

I have tried slamming into the b-ex-2 with the flat surface of the service bay several times. That is as flat as it gets in ksp. It simply doesn't connect .

It's using the same code under the hood as a Klaw, meaning you have to approach VERY SLOWLY, i.e. under 0.1 m/s, iirc. Slamming into it won't make it work.

[Nicky21]

You sure? Cuz' I clawed things at 0.6 m/s like 3 days ago. I will test it again, though, maybe i'll get lucky.

[Starwaster]

7 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

It's using the same code under the hood as a Klaw, meaning you have to approach VERY SLOWLY, i.e. under 0.1 m/s, iirc. Slamming into it won't make it work.

Looking at the part, it's configured for a max relative velocity of 1.  (the code actually compares squared velocities but 1 squared... well, you know)

So it should be pretty tolerant.

[Nicky21]

I looked at the cfg file myself. I' pretty sure the attachment node is somewhere inside the collider mesh, so the ship hits the mesh before it hits the attachment node. However i have no idea what to change where to move the node a bit outwards.

[Starwaster]

14 hours ago, Nicky21 said:

I looked at the cfg file myself. I' pretty sure the attachment node is somewhere inside the collider mesh, so the ship hits the mesh before it hits the attachment node. However i have no idea what to change where to move the node a bit outwards.

If you're talking about what's actually checked for contact then you're talking about a transform and from a practical standpoint it's not something you can change. 

Also, it does not have to make physical contact with anything. Whether it attaches depends on whether the range between the transform and the surface of the thing being grappled is shorter than captureRange which is something you can change in the config file if you really feel like the collider is what's keeping you from attaching. (captureRange is one of the fields in ModuleGrappleNode)

[Nicky21]

On 11/17/2018 at 8:56 PM, Starwaster said:

If you're talking about what's actually checked for contact then you're talking about a transform and from a practical standpoint it's not something you can change. 

Also, it does not have to make physical contact with anything. Whether it attaches depends on whether the range between the transform and the surface of the thing being grappled is shorter than captureRange which is something you can change in the config file if you really feel like the collider is what's keeping you from attaching. (captureRange is one of the fields in ModuleGrappleNode)

I just tested things. I changed captureRange  fron 0.06 to 0.6 and then to 2. still no grapple. I think this is somethign Nertea has to fix himself.

[Starwaster]

2 hours ago, Nicky21 said:

I just tested things. I changed captureRange  fron 0.06 to 0.6 and then to 2. still no grapple. I think this is somethign Nertea has to fix himself.

Definitely. And its issues are even worse than what we've been talking about.

@Nertea

1. It has a collider that extends when the arm button is clicked, just as though the tube had extended. It stays extended even if the tube is disarmed.
2. It has no control transform which combined with its starting orientation causes issues if you click 'control from here' on the part. (uses the Y axis as the control vector which points out the SIDE of the tube) 
3. Either there is NO node transform or it does not have the right transform name configured. 

Number three is why it's not connecting. ModuleGrappleNode can't find a node transform for it to raycast from to see if it can connect to anything.

Number two isn't a showstopper but these tubes could really use a control transform. (the config will accept controlTransformName to tell it what transform to use; Y axis should point out along the direction  of the grapple node)

No idea what causes number one; something about the model hierarchy maybe... definitely dangerous though if you get too close to the target with the tube with it retracted and then press Arm. I wonder what would happen if I stuck a Kerbal in front of it first... must try this.... (the collider issue can be easily seen if you use MechJeb. Open the Docking Autopilot window and enable Draw Bounding Box. Close docking window. Then click arm on the B-EX-2 tube and watch the collider jump out. Disarm and the collider stays extended. Click Extend and the collider will conform to the extending part the way it should be)

Edit: My Kerbal experiment resulted in extreme disappointment. I was hoping that the collider bug would let me SPLAT! a Kerbal but not only was my 'volunteer' unharmed but the 6 ton shuttle cockpit was catapulted away and into the air as though the volunteer had been a 10 meter thick titanium wall instead of a soft squishy Kerbal. Oh well, better luck next time.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Starwaster

[Nicky21]

A shame, though, as there tube extenders are the only way to make a decent station that can dock almost anything on it. By using docking ports you have to make sure that all the ports are in the correct positions on all your ship classes.

[Wyzard]

11 minutes ago, Nicky21 said:

A shame, though, as there tube extenders are the only way to make a decent station that can dock almost anything on it. By using docking ports you have to make sure that all the ports are in the correct positions on all your ship classes.

…which seems a lot more reasonable than making the kerbals cut a hole in their ship's hull to get out into a tube.