[1.12.x] MissingHistory v1.9.3: Handy parts to complement Making History.

[lordcirth]

So, I just started a test playthrough in Normal Career with PBC 2.0 and a few other mods.  Since my first orbital rocket is basically an OKTO with a heat shield and chute, have you considered moving the 0.625m rocket parts earlier, and the 1.25m ones a bit later? This seems like a rather odd upper stage. A Spark would be more suitable.

[Tyko]

57 minutes ago, lordcirth said:

So, I just started a test playthrough in Normal Career with PBC 2.0 and a few other mods.  Since my first orbital rocket is basically an OKTO with a heat shield and chute, have you considered moving the 0.625m rocket parts earlier, and the 1.25m ones a bit later? This seems like a rather odd upper stage. A Spark would be more suitable.

Don't you have the structural cone that's .625 at the top and 1.25 at the bottom? 

I agree that many parts are oddly organized in the stock tech tree, but I think this time there's an easy fix without modding.

[lordcirth]

1 hour ago, Tyko said:

Don't you have the structural cone that's .625 at the top and 1.25 at the bottom? 

I agree that many parts are oddly organized in the stock tech tree, but I think this time there's an easy fix without modding.

That part is a bit further down, but that's not the point. The point is that the Terrier is at least 5 times too heavy and powerful for the obvious first-orbit payload. The 1.25m parts are first in stock because the mk1-pod is the starting payload; but as that's not the case, why should we start with medium-sized rockets?

[rwilkinson]

On 10/19/2018 at 2:37 PM, Snark said:

Hi all,

I'm very pleased to announce the release of MissingHistory v1.4.1, which restores the 1.25m engine plate to its former glory. 

Minor thing, but the "broken in 1.5, do not use" warning in the part description is still there

[Snark]

1 hour ago, lordcirth said:

That part is a bit further down, but that's not the point. The point is that the Terrier is at least 5 times too heavy and powerful for the obvious first-orbit payload. The 1.25m parts are first in stock because the mk1-pod is the starting payload; but as that's not the case, why should we start with medium-sized rockets?

Um, please forgive me if I'm being dense, but what the dickens does any of this have to do with MissingHistory? "PBC"? I'm guessing that's some mod I've never heard of, but if you've got PBC suggestions, shouldn't you be posting them in the PBC thread?

Did you accidentally post in the wrong thread, or are there some dots I'm failing to connect, here?

5 minutes ago, rwilkinson said:

Minor thing, but the "broken in 1.5, do not use" warning in the part description is still there

Whoops, really? Oh dear. Thanks for the heads up, I'll have a look!

[EchoLima]

1 hour ago, lordcirth said:

That part is a bit further down, but that's not the point. The point is that the Terrier is at least 5 times too heavy and powerful for the obvious first-orbit payload. The 1.25m parts are first in stock because the mk1-pod is the starting payload; but as that's not the case, why should we start with medium-sized rockets?

Are you sure you're in the right thread? 

[MaverickSawyer]

On 1/9/2019 at 10:04 PM, MaverickSawyer said:

Okay, I'll look into what's involved in making such a patch.

Turns out, Nertea has it covered if you get Kerbal Atomics. Swtiches it to LH2 only, but I'm sure I could kludge together a modified MM patch that'd allow dual mode...

[lordcirth]

8 hours ago, Snark said:

Um, please forgive me if I'm being dense, but what the dickens does any of this have to do with MissingHistory? "PBC"? I'm guessing that's some mod I've never heard of, but if you've got PBC suggestions, shouldn't you be posting them in the PBC thread?

Did you accidentally post in the wrong thread, or are there some dots I'm failing to connect, here?

No, you're right, I meant to post in the Probes Before Crew thread.  Sorry!

[Tyko]

@Snark Been really loving the mods you're creating. Thanks!

Question about this one...I noticed you converted several of the structural adapters into fuel tanks. You left their weight alone so if there was no fuel they were back to their adapter weights, so in a way I can still use them as adapters. The problem is they are still empty fuel tanks which means that if I want just a structural adapter I get a fuel tank whether I want one or not. 

This isn't ideal though. If I'm refueling the vehicle I can pump fuel into it magically turning my structural piece into a fuel tank after launch which breaks immersion a bit - this is much the same issue you prevented in SimpleFuelSwitch by not letting users reconfigure a part after launch.

Just a suggestion, but if you used +Part and created a new part based on the same model you could accomplish your goal of adding fueled adapters without removing the standard structural adapters. You could also then up the dry mass a bit to reflect the extra components/plumbing needed for a fuel tank.

Thanks again for all the work   

Edited January 11, 2019 by Tyko

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Tyko said:

I noticed you converted several of the structural adapters into fuel tanks.

If by "several" you mean exactly one, then yes, that's correct.

3 hours ago, Tyko said:

You left their weight alone so if there was no fuel they were back to their adapter weights, so in a way I can still use them as adapters. The problem is they are still empty fuel tanks which means that if I want just a structural adapter I get a fuel tank whether I want one or not.

Sure, but you can just empty it of fuel and then it's physically exactly the same as if I hadn't touched it.  So, if you just want a structural adapter, there you go.

3 hours ago, Tyko said:

This isn't ideal though. If I'm refueling the vehicle I can pump fuel into it magically turning my structural piece into a fuel tank after launch which breaks immersion a bit - this is much the same issue you prevented in SimpleFuelSwitch by not letting users reconfigure a part after launch.

Shrug.  Yes, "don't reconfigure after launch" because "things are set up the way they are in the factory, before building the ship."  So, this part ain't a structural adapter anymore.  It's a fuel tank.  If you don't want to put fuel in it, then don't put fuel in it, and it acts exactly the same as before, so where's the harm?

Note that there's precedent for this.  The stock 2.5m-to-3.75m adapter didn't have fuel in it... until Squad came along and recently turned it into a fuel-bearing part.  Frankly, if it's okay for Squad to do that, then I have absolutely zero qualms doing the same thing, especially since that's how I want the part to act.

And, if someone (for reasons that are unfathomable to me, but hey, it takes all types) really really wants this part to not be able to add fuel... then okay, just delete the relevant .cfg file from this mod and it'll go back to stock behavior.

3 hours ago, Tyko said:

Just a suggestion, but if you used +Part and created a new part based on the same model you could accomplish your goal of adding fueled adapters without removing the standard structural adapters.

Yes, but since that's the exact dictionary definition of "What I Really Don't Want", then that's not what I'm going to do.  Reasons why that option is a total non-starter for me:

• It means there would be multiple parts in the game with the same model and appearance.  This is anathema to me.
• It would leave a (to me) totally useless and pointless structural adapter cluttering up the "structural" parts tab.  And I loathe clutter.  I didn't want to add a part, I wanted to give a more useful purpose to an existing part.
• It would be inconsistent with the rest of the game, and inconsistency is another pet peeve of mine.  Show me the "structural only, not a fuel tank" adapter for going from 1.25m to 1.875m.  Or from 1.875m to 2.5m.  Or from 3.75m to 5m.  You can't, because there aren't any, because Squad has decided (and frankly, I agree with them) that only one part-- a fueled one-- is needed.  The only inconsistent "gap" there is from 2.5m to 3.75m, where the adapter is just a structural-- oh wait, never mind, Squad fixed that and now it has fuel. 

To be clear:  My goal in this case wasn't to add a fueled adapter.  My goal was to make the existing part into a fueled adapter, for all the above reasons.  If you don't like that, then that's fine, just delete the .cfg. 

3 hours ago, Tyko said:

You could also then up the dry mass a bit to reflect the extra components/plumbing needed for a fuel tank.

Nope, that wouldn't be needed even if I did.  Because the standard wet-dry mass ratio is 9:1 for fuel tanks, and the FL-A10's mass ratio is already worse than that simply by adding fuel (the structural part is unreasonably heavy).  Therefore, when I added fuel to it, I didn't feel any need to raise its dry mass.

 

[EchoLima]

On 3/14/2018 at 1:30 AM, Snark said:

• Q: Hey! Didn't Porkjet release two versions of each engine, one "bare" and one "boat-tail"? Why don't you make these engines do the variant-switching thing between those two, like all those cool new engines in Making History?
• A: Short answer is "because I couldn't figure out how, in the hour or so I spent tinkering with it." First, the whole "variant switching" thing is brand new to KSP, and I don't have any documentation to go by, so after a certain amount of futile trial-and-error effort, I gave up. Also, it's worth noting that Porkjet modeled these "variants" as separate parts, over a year ago when variant-switching wasn't a thing yet, and I don't know if it's actually physically possible to get them to work together as a single part with variants. If anyone else manages to figure this out, please let me know-- I'm all ears, and I'd happily add it to the mod.

PartVariants were just added for the Porkjet engines here:

 

[klesh]

On 3/14/2018 at 11:40 PM, Snark said:

However... when I go look at the config, ugh.  They've got custom drag cubes, which are needed for proper aerodynamics.  And those drag cubes are big complicated walls of numbers like this:

DRAG_CUBE
{
	cube = default, 0.7813,0.7782,0.7051, 0.7813,0.7782,0.7051, 1.217,0.9582,0.1003, 1.217,0.9582,0.1003, 0.7813,0.7778,0.7051, 0.7813,0.7778,0.7051, 0,-0.3125,0, 1.25,0.625,1.25
	cube = 0, 0.7813,0.7782,0.7051, 0.7813,0.7782,0.7051, 1.217,0.9582,0.1003, 1.217,0.9582,0.1003, 0.7813,0.7778,0.7051, 0.7813,0.7778,0.7051, 0,-0.3125,0, 1.25,0.625,1.25
	cube = 1, 1.563,0.7779,0.7051, 1.563,0.7779,0.7051, 1.217,0.9582,0.1024, 1.217,0.9582,0.1024, 1.563,0.7777,0.7051, 1.563,0.7777,0.7051, 0,-0.625,0, 1.25,1.25,1.25
	cube = 2, 2.362,0.7719,0.6767, 2.362,0.7719,0.6767, 1.217,0.9582,0.09765, 1.217,0.9582,0.09765, 2.362,0.7717,0.6767, 2.362,0.7717,0.6767, 0,-0.9375,0, 1.25,1.875,1.25
	cube = 3, 3.125,0.7774,0.688, 3.125,0.7774,0.688, 1.217,0.9582,0.09529, 1.217,0.9582,0.09529, 3.125,0.7775,0.688, 3.125,0.7775,0.688, 0,-1.25,0, 1.25,2.5,1.25
	cube = 4, 4.724,0.7711,0.5971, 4.724,0.7711,0.5971, 1.217,0.9582,0.09294, 1.217,0.9582,0.09294, 4.724,0.7712,0.5971, 4.724,0.7712,0.5971, 0,-1.875,0, 1.25,3.75,1.25
}	

...24 numbers per line, and clearly they're dependent on size in some fashion, and I suppose given sufficient time and elbow grease I could deduce how they vary and come up with a set of numbers for a 0.625m tube.  But it would be a big hairy tedious undertaking that I don't have the gumption for, right now.

Of course, if someone else were to figure it all out and save me the trouble, then I'd have to reconsider. 

 

Hi Snark, I was wondering (admittedly without checking through all 14 pages of the thread) if any sense had been made of the drag cube walls of numbers since you posted that.  I wonder, if we know those values are for say a 1.25m part, could you simply multiply them to get proper values for 1.875m, 2.5m etc?  I wonder out loud for instance what does Tweakscale do with the dragcubes of scaleable parts?

The reason I ask is I quite enjoy using the "Size 1.5 Decoupler" and would love to see it available across all sizes.  I figure this is something that could potentially be a part of Missing History.

In it's cfg there are 2 lines worth of drag cubes numbers.

Food for thought. 

Edited January 25, 2019 by klesh

[OhioBob]

4 hours ago, klesh said:

Hi Snark, I was wondering (admittedly without checking through all 14 pages of the thread) if any sense had been made of the drag cube walls of numbers since you posted that. 

I don't know what everything means, but...

* For each cube, the first three numbers are the surface area, the drag coefficient, and the depth of the X+ face.
* Every group of three numbers that follow are the same for the X-, Y+, Y-, Z+ and Z- faces.
* I don't know what the last six numbers are.

[Snark]

16 hours ago, klesh said:

Hi Snark, I was wondering (admittedly without checking through all 14 pages of the thread) if any sense had been made of the drag cube walls of numbers since you posted that.  I wonder, if we know those values are for say a 1.25m part, could you simply multiply them to get proper values for 1.875m, 2.5m etc?  I wonder out loud for instance what does Tweakscale do with the dragcubes of scaleable parts?

The reason I ask is I quite enjoy using the "Size 1.5 Decoupler" and would love to see it available across all sizes.  I figure this is something that could potentially be a part of Missing History.

Thank you for the suggestion, it's a reasonable one.    However, I have no plans to add this, for the following reasons:

First, at this point I am violently allergic to anything that involves even a hint of doing anything at all with manually specified drag cubes.  Outcast unclean.  Do not want.  Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 funds.  I've still got PTSD about this from trying to get the 1.25m engine plate added; I wanted that part badly enough to go through the hell of getting it working, and I seriously do not want to do that ever again.  Ever.  Under any circumstances whatsoever.  Any part that has any manually specified drag cubes need not apply.  Period, full stop.

The reason it's such hell to work with:

• Cryptic beyond belief.  @OhioBob's helpful analysis above notwithstanding (thanks for that, Bob) ... one can't do anything with it until/unless all the numbers are perfectly understood.  And it's not at all clear how those numbers scale with varying dimensions.  I've already sunk too much time into trying to fiddle to get this sorted out.  Enough is enough.
• Stupefyingly awful from a testing perspective.  The game provides very little insight into how much drag is coming from where, and how much drag it should have, and the practical effects of the drag are very hard to spot sometimes because a chunk of drag that's an unnoticeable inconvenience to one ship launching in some circumstance, could be a total mission-failing showstopper on another ship that's designed and launched differently.  Which means I have no way of really knowing whether I got it "right" or not-- the best I can hope for is "well, with the slapdash ad hoc testing that I did, I didn't see anything so pathologically wrong that it immediately and obviously broke the game."  And then I'll ship it, and then some user will say "hey, my ships are not working", and it will cause a lot of randomized flailing around as various people try to help while being unaware of the root cause, and eventually someone will figure out "oh, it must be the drag on this MissingHistory part", and then it'll show up here, and then I'm stuck in a crack because on the one hand I'm too OCD about the quality of my mods to just shrug it off with an "I dunno, just live with it", but on the other hand I have no idea how to fix it or what "correct" looks like and it ends up sucking up endless amounts of my personal time while stressing the hell out of me.
• Multiple-drag-cube parts have not exactly covered themselves in glory-- this feels like a kind of half-baked feature for me.  For example, the stock structural tubes are hopelessly broken, as far as I'm concerned-- the aerodynamic drag on those things is utterly insane, it's as if I've just stuck an air gap in my rocket and I've got not one but two big flat surfaces directly perpendicular to the airflow.  They do this even when they're in-line in the middle of a nice smooth cylindrical stack.  I can't imagine that Squad actually intended for them to be that unusable, so I assume that this is some sort of buggy behavior around their drag cubes.  My point is... if even Squad can't reliably get multiple drag cubes to work reasonably on stock parts, then I sure as heck am not gonna try to be the one to solve that.

So no.  Will not do, not for this or any other part, ever again.  The "fix" for this is for KSP to work some sort of magic so that parts "just work" and never have to manually specify their drag cubes in config.  If they ever do this, then this problem will go away.  But until they do-- and they might never-- then nope, ain't gonna happen.

The other reason is that I myself have no use for this part at all.  If other folks like it, more power to 'em.    But personally, I've just never found any point in the part.  It's... a... stack decoupler?  ...but, taller, for some unspecified reason?  We already have stack decouplers-- and ones that are (for me) "better" than this one, because in my world their purpose is to be small and unobtrusive. So for me, the lack of other sizes isn't a "hole" in the game-- rather the fact that this part even exists (and clutters up the part tab) is kind of a wart.

Again-- not at all criticizing anyone who likes the part, I'm sure you have excellent reasons.    Just that I really don't see a need for this in MissingHistory.  People who want to rescale it themselves with a simple MM patch, and take their chances with the drag cubes, are welcome to do so.

 

[Jognt]

There there. It’s ok. We won’t send you back in there. *gestures towards drag-cube darkroom*. 

This is a safe space now. *humms in a soothing manner*

[_Zee]

Thank you for this mod. Ever since I picked up Making History this is a must for me now. 

[Tonka Crash]

@Snark I don't know if you are aware of an decent engine model from an old mod ripe for pillaging re-purposing. 

I've been running into a need for an engine for a 1.875m single stack rocket with performance between a Skipper and Mainsail at around the same tech level (5-6). Both the Vector and Mastodon fall in this gap, but a couple tech levels later (8). A 4-ton engine with performance like a 2/3 scale Mainsail or double Bobcat.

I could make due with a Skipper variant in 1.875m diameter and suspect it would have been a better suited as a 1.875 engine if that diameter had existed when it was introduced. But, I would prefer a little more thrust at around 700-800 ASL Thrust. The heaviest 1.875m engine at these tech levels is the Bobcat (375 ASL Thrust).

Just throwing this out as a suggestion.

[Espatie]

1 hour ago, Tonka Crash said:

@Snark I don't know if you are aware of an decent engine model from an old mod ripe for pillaging re-purposing. 

I've been running into a need for an engine for a 1.875m single stack rocket with performance between a Skipper and Mainsail at around the same tech level (5-6). Both the Vector and Mastodon fall in this gap, but a couple tech levels later (8). A 4-ton engine with performance like a 2/3 scale Mainsail or double Bobcat.

I could make due with a Skipper variant in 1.875m diameter and suspect it would have been a better suited as a 1.875 engine if that diameter had existed when it was introduced. But, I would prefer a little more thrust at around 700-800 ASL Thrust. The heaviest 1.875m engine at these tech levels is the Bobcat (375 ASL Thrust).

Just throwing this out as a suggestion.

Have you tried pairing the truss-variant Bobcat on a twin-node 1.875m Engine Plate?

[Tonka Crash]

1 minute ago, Espatie said:

Have you tried pairing the truss-variant Bobcat on a twin-node 1.875m Engine Plate?

It's too wide. The one Bobcat is centered on a 1.875m stack. Two side by side stick out more than would be realistic. They fit about right under a 2.5m stack.

[SpinkAkron]

The mod fits so perfectly, I sometimes forget the parts aren't stock. Excellent work!

[scottadges]

This seems like an awesome mod (that I can't believe I've never seen before!). I'm wondering about integration with Community Tech Tree, though?

Do these parts fall within the tech tree appropriately? Note that I don't have an opinion on "appropriate" other than that they actually show up somewhere. 

In other words, do I have to worry about the parts not showing up if I'm using CTT?

[lordcirth]

49 minutes ago, scottadges said:

This seems like an awesome mod (that I can't believe I've never seen before!). I'm wondering about integration with Community Tech Tree, though?

Do these parts fall within the tech tree appropriately? Note that I don't have an opinion on "appropriate" other than that they actually show up somewhere. 

In other words, do I have to worry about the parts not showing up if I'm using CTT?

CTT only adds new tech tree nodes, it does not delete stock nodes or change their ID. So anything that works in stock will work in CTT, though they may be oddly bunched up.

[Snark]

1 hour ago, scottadges said:

Do these parts fall within the tech tree appropriately?

Yes.  They all fall on stock tech nodes, quite often on the same nodes as the original part they're copied from.

Community Tech Tree shouldn't affect them, I wouldn't think.

[scottadges]

3 hours ago, Snark said:

Yes.  They all fall on stock tech nodes, quite often on the same nodes as the original part they're copied from.

Community Tech Tree shouldn't affect them, I wouldn't think.

Perfect, thanks for confirming!

[scottadges]

On 3/14/2018 at 12:30 AM, Snark said:

New models for some 1.25m engines:

• Reliant
• Swivel

I'm liking a lot of the mod so far, but I'm wondering if there's a way that I can go back to the stock versions of the Reliant and Swivel? I actually prefer those models, but I'd rather not drop the whole mod.

Alas, I'm only marginally familiar with KSP under the hood, but I can find lines of text in a .cfg file, if there's something to tweak? If not, I totally understand. Appreciate any help you can provide!