Buoyancy Mod

[Redshift OTF]

I was wondering how feasible it would be to create a mod that adjusts a crafts buoyancy while piloting the craft in game. I made a mod some time ago that added extra parts you can fill with ballast in the game that worked well at sinking vessels however all that extra mass made moving the vessel a bit difficult and warranted specialist engines and thrusters etc.

Recently I found this mod by @Xyphos which is excellent as it allows parts buoyancy values to be changed in the craft editor through tweakables however it is a little inconvenient to have to set this value for every part and it cannot be altered when the craft is being played in game. My idea would be a simple GUI interface in game that allows the user to input a value that changes the buoyancy value of every part on the craft by that value with some presets so the user can add values for Float on surface, Neutral buoyancy, Sink, Default values (i.e. off) etc. Trim, (balancing nose up or down), shouldn't be necessary if every part has the same buoyancy value but if it was needed there could be another editable value that adds a small amount of extra buoyancy to parts in front of the centre of mass and removes some from parts behind the centre of mass on top of the other set values, (or reverse this for opposite trim). Don't need anything fancy for any values, just user set values, (which would be decimal numbers between 0 and 2 from testing the mod above).

I've seen quite a bit of demand for something that would make it easier to submerge vessels without having to add a ton of ore tanks to the design. I don't think I have the skills to make a mod with a GUI and a bit of programming though. Would this interest anyone?

[Nightside]

I'm pretty sure I've seen something like this around the forums, but I can't think of it right now. Maybe ask around in one of the boat/sub mod threads.

 

[Redshift OTF]

Hmmm, I haven't seen any mods that directly adjust buoyancy except for the mod that Xyphos created. It would be nice if one existed that could do this on demand.

[DoctorDavinci]

So playing with the buoyancy of a part directly would lead to some shenanigans I would think, however you could take a look at the following link which may help achieve your end goal .... I've seen it used to control depth of a submarine so should at the very least give you an idea of how to proceed

 

[Redshift OTF]

30 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

So playing with the buoyancy of a part directly would lead to some shenanigans I would think, however you could take a look at the following link which may help achieve your end goal .... I've seen it used to control depth of a submarine so should at the very least give you an idea of how to proceed

HullBreach is a good shout. It looks like they are changing the Buoyancy value for different parts which makes things sink.

Xyphos's mod already works. It changes the buoyancy value for selected parts with a value between 2 and 0. 2 is extra floaty and 0 sinks fast with values between that giving different buoyancy levels. There are no side effects that I have seen unless you start using negative values. The requirement I would like to see is to change this value in game for all the parts of the vessel on demand using a simple GUI, (MechJeb style if you know what I mean).

[DoctorDavinci]

1 minute ago, Redshift OTF said:

HullBreach is a good shout. It looks like they are changing the Buoyancy value for different parts which makes things sink.

Xyphos's mod already works. It changes the buoyancy value for selected parts with a value between 2 and 0. 2 is extra floaty and 0 sinks fast with values between that giving different buoyancy levels. There are no side effects that I have seen unless you start using negative values. The requirement I would like to see is to change this value in game for all the parts of the vessel on demand using a simple GUI, (MechJeb style if you know what I mean).

The only real issue I can see happenning is if Xyphos' mod is used with any of the BDAc oriented ship parts such as anything from SM Marine, LBP or any of the other sea vessel/BDAc oriented mods out there

For anything other than that then sure, should work great ... however many parts in the aformentioned mods are set up to work a certain way and manipulating the buoyancy of said parts will lead to things not working as intended

[Redshift OTF]

10 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

The only real issue I can see happenning is if Xyphos' mod is used with any of the BDAc oriented ship parts such as anything from SM Marine, LBP or any of the other sea vessel/BDAc oriented mods out there

For anything other than that then sure, should work great ... however many parts in the aformentioned mods are set up to work a certain way and manipulating the buoyancy of said parts will lead to things not working as intended

I think it would be ok. The mod would be off by default and only be on when you want to change all the part values of a craft that is being controlled and not permanently change any values in the craft file. It would only be used for submarines, underwater bases, VTOLs that also want to dive underwater, that kind of thing.

[DoctorDavinci]

12 minutes ago, Redshift OTF said:

I think it would be ok. The mod would be off by default and only be on when you want to change all the part values of a craft that is being controlled and not permanently change any values in the craft file. It would only be used for submarines, underwater bases, VTOLs that also want to dive underwater, that kind of thing.

To be honest, no it won't ... this has been tested extensively and I guarantee that wonkiness will prevail if Xyphos' mod is used with any mod that uses BDAc since the hp calculation rely's on the density if the unity gameobject which is integrally hooked to the buoyancy of a part

Parts are painstakingly gone over, sometime up to 100 reloads of ksp to get that one part set up to perform properly as advertised on the tin, and once you start playing with a variable that is integral to how a part works, said part doesn't work as intended and users start getting flustered which leads to users asking about a solution which leads to users being told not to use that mod with BDAc or BDAc add on parts

There's more than meets the eye in this situation 

As I mentioned above, if using mods that aren't geared towards BDAc I don't expect any issues ... on the other hand it is a definite guarantee that things will go wonky otherwise

Edited July 28, 2018 by DoctorDavinci

[Redshift OTF]

10 minutes ago, DoctorDavinci said:

To be honest, no it won't ... this has been tested extensively and I guarantee that wonkiness will prevail if Xyphos' mod is used with any mod that uses BDAc since the hp calculation rely's on the density if the unity gameobject which is integrally hooked to the buoyancy of a part

Parts are painstakingly gone over, sometime up to 100 reloads of ksp to get that one part set up to perform properly as advertised on the tin, and once you start playing with a variable that is integral to how a part works, said part doesn't work as intended and users start getting flustered which leads to users asking about a solution which leads to users being told not to use that mod with BDAc or BDAc add on parts

There's more than meets the eye in this situation 

Well my proposed version of the mod would only affect the craft being controlled and only when the user wants it to be affected. No permanent change to any parts in the editor so it shouldn't affect any other craft that might be using BDAc parts. Perhaps a simple solution would be to make a new small part, called for example a Buoyancy Control Unit, that you add to the craft you want to submerge and the mod only works on the craft with this unit. Kind of like how the AR202 case works for MechJeb.

[DoctorDavinci]

2 hours ago, Redshift OTF said:

Well my proposed version of the mod would only affect the craft being controlled and only when the user wants it to be affected. No permanent change to any parts in the editor so it shouldn't affect any other craft that might be using BDAc parts. Perhaps a simple solution would be to make a new small part, called for example a Buoyancy Control Unit, that you add to the craft you want to submerge and the mod only works on the craft with this unit. Kind of like how the AR202 case works for MechJeb.

And as stated, this will mess with the BDAc hp and armor calculations so any user trying to use a mod that uses this method will not work as intended ... if you want to refute the findings of 5 prominent KSP modders as well as the test information received from the test group then be my guest ... as stated, doing this will irrefutably affect BDAc, no questions asked as what I have repeatably said in this regard is what is the case

Whether you think it will affect a vessel or not doesn't detract from the fact that it will affect BDAc, period, no passing go and collecting your $200, said and done, this is the way it is 

Other than BDAc associated mods or user trying to use this mod or a mod that uses the same method you will have no issues ... as soon as a user trys to use this method/mod with BDAc then all bets are off ... I'm not suggesting that this might happen, I'm am telling you this will happen

Edited July 28, 2018 by DoctorDavinci

[Xyphos]

@Redshift OTF Speak of the mod maker, and s/he shall appear.
(...eventually.)

Your idea of adding GUI support for every part, reminds me of the problem FullAutoStrut faced before I added a GUI to that, and so I got to thinking, maybe I could add a similar GUI and functionality to Buoyancy Control too.

I'll work on it, but understand it might not happen anytime soon, I'm mostly involved with my career and only play/mod in my spare time, if any.

[Redshift OTF]

23 hours ago, Xyphos said:

@Redshift OTF Speak of the mod maker, and s/he shall appear.
(...eventually.)

Your idea of adding GUI support for every part, reminds me of the problem FullAutoStrut faced before I added a GUI to that, and so I got to thinking, maybe I could add a similar GUI and functionality to Buoyancy Control too.

I'll work on it, but understand it might not happen anytime soon, I'm mostly involved with my career and only play/mod in my spare time, if any.

Wahey! Thanks for replying. I was thinking of trying it myself but haven't had a great deal of luck finding information on making GUI's. I need to look at more people's source code but when you don't know a lot about mods or coding it can be difficult to separate the GUI code from the rest of a mods code.

No pressure at all on yourself if you are thinking of trying it. I understand the pressures of real life and they have forced me to come and go from KSP a few times in the past so only attempt it if you have the energy.