[1.3.0] Kerbal Engineer Redux 1.1.3.0 (2017-05-28)

[IMLL1]

What's the difference between relative speed and relative velocity?

[Brigadier]

7 minutes ago, IMLL1 said:

What's the difference between relative speed and relative velocity?

Technically, speed is a scalar (i.e. just a magnitude) and velocity is a vector (i.e. magnitude and direction).  In what context are you asking?

[IMLL1]

2 minutes ago, Brigadier said:

Technically, speed is a scalar (i.e. just a magnitude) and velocity is a vector (i.e. magnitude and direction).  In what context are you asking?

I mean in the Rendezvous section. I'm trying to do formation flying using an autopilot for one of the craft, and using KER for readouts (I still want to know my groundspeed which is why I don't want to use the stock option)

[Brigadier]

1 hour ago, IMLL1 said:

I mean in the Rendezvous section. I'm trying to do formation flying using an autopilot for one of the craft, and using KER for readouts (I still want to know my groundspeed which is why I don't want to use the stock option)

I see only speeds in the Rendezvous section (orbital speed & speed at Ap/Pe) but I do see "terminal velocity" elsewhere.  It's the only use of "velocity" that I can see.

I don't mean to be obtuse, but I'm still not sure what you're getting at.  There are a number of autopilot mods (of which KER is not one) that might provide ground speed.

[Brigadier]

@jrbudda, It's just occurred to me that while we have access to post-burn Ap, Pe, Inclination and Period, there is no post-burn eccentricity.  Is it possible to add it to the display parameters?

[jrbudda]

7 hours ago, Brigadier said:

@jrbudda, It's just occurred to me that while we have access to post-burn Ap, Pe, Inclination and Period, there is no post-burn eccentricity.  Is it possible to add it to the display parameters?

Sure its like 3 lines of code. Anything else to add while I'm in there?

11 hours ago, IMLL1 said:

I mean in the Rendezvous section. I'm trying to do formation flying using an autopilot for one of the craft, and using KER for readouts (I still want to know my groundspeed which is why I don't want to use the stock option)

Relative Velocity accounts for direction. Relative Orbital Speed (I recently renamed it to that for clarification) does not. 2 objects in opposing orbits would have 0 relative speed but high relative velocity most of the time.

[Mark Kerbin]

@jrbudda thanks for doing all this btw. Glad to see that I don’t have to eyeball things.  Pun intended? Maybe?

Have you given any thought to making a new thread to allow you to keep everyone a bit more up to date?

 

 

[Brigadier]

3 hours ago, jrbudda said:

Sure its like 3 lines of code. Anything else to add while I'm in there?

Thank you.  And thanks for continuing KER development.  I've found the mod highly useful and relevant to the way I play KSP.

Things to add:  In terms of parameters, not that I can think of.  Something missing appears obvious only when I need it .  I haven't noticed anything else and while I've been playing for a couple of years with KER, I still occasionally find features and display techniques that I'd not considered before.

But since you asked (and I interpreted "Anything else to add..." as not just parameters, so I may be overstepping my bounds here), in no particular order, I would like to see a way to:

1. export KER settings in-game (I know that I could copy a .cfg somewhere but I keep forgetting to do it and where it is, then I update the game and lose my carefully crafted display settings.  I'm just lazy);
2. change the colour of a parameter's text (even better, change it based on value, e.g. if Ap or Pe is in the atmosphere).  I appreciate that this a) is not a trivial implementation request, and b) could generate some pretty crappy displays (caveat emptor);
3. quick keys to show/hide all KER displays and/or individual sections.  Case: I have two sections - Landing and Rendezvous - which never need to appear simultaneously.  To save screen space, I've overlapped the sections.  A quick way to turn them on/off would be nice;
4. when editing a section, move a parameter right to the top / bottom of the installed list;
5. insert a blank separator as an alternative to a line separator (I know that this has been raised recently; I just wanted to add my support); and,
6. speaking of separators, to have a separator disappear if there is nothing on either side.  In my case, I have maneuver node (MN)-related parameters (particularly the post-burn and node ones) displayed in two dedicated sections.  When there is no MN, the parameters "disappear", effectively hiding the sections, freeing up screen space and showing me there is no MN scheduled, but any separators remain visible.

Disclaimer: All of my sections have transparent backgrounds, so this colours (pun intended) my view of KER displays.

I'll gladly raise GitHub issues if you would entertain any of these.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Brigadier

[jrbudda]

12 hours ago, Brigadier said:

Thank you.  And thanks for continuing KER development.  I've found the mod highly useful and relevant to the way I play KSP.

Things to add:  In terms of parameters, not that I can think of.  Something missing appears obvious only when I need it .  I haven't noticed anything else and while I've been playing for a couple of years with KER, I still occasionally find features and display techniques that I'd not considered before.

But since you asked (and I interpreted "Anything else to add..." as not just parameters, so I may be overstepping my bounds here), in no particular order, I would like to see a way to:

1. export KER settings in-game (I know that I could copy a .cfg somewhere but I keep forgetting to do it and where it is, then I update the game and lose my carefully crafted display settings.  I'm just lazy);
2. change the colour of a parameter's text (even better, change it based on value, e.g. if Ap or Pe is in the atmosphere).  I appreciate that this a) is not a trivial implementation request, and b) could generate some pretty crappy displays (caveat emptor);
3. quick keys to show/hide all KER displays and/or individual sections.  Case: I have two sections - Landing and Rendezvous - which never need to appear simultaneously.  To save screen space, I've overlapped the sections.  A quick way to turn them on/off would be nice;
4. when editing a section, move a parameter right to the top / bottom of the installed list;
5. insert a blank separator as an alternative to a line separator (I know that this has been raised recently; I just wanted to add my support); and,
6. speaking of separators, to have a separator disappear if there is nothing on either side.  In my case, I have maneuver node (MN)-related parameters (particularly the post-burn and node ones) displayed in two dedicated sections.  When there is no MN, the parameters "disappear", effectively hiding the sections, freeing up screen space and showing me there is no MN scheduled, but any separators remain visible.

Disclaimer: All of my sections have transparent backgrounds, so this colours (pun intended) my view of KER displays.

I'll gladly raise GitHub issues if you would entertain any of these.

1. prolly not, like you said, back up the Gamedata\Kerbal Engineer\Settings directory.

2. Customizable text color is a popular request and I will make it happen. Having said color be context sensitive is not going to happen. Too many potential scenarios for sanity.

3. Maybe. I'll look into it. What would be good keys? I do not personally play extensively modded and am not well-informed on what keys are taken by popular mods.

4. Sure I guess. This would be alongside the ^ v buttons?

5. Already done.

6. Trim off trailing separators, no problem.

[Brigadier]

25 minutes ago, jrbudda said:

1. prolly not, like you said, back up the Gamedata\Kerbal Engineer\Settings directory.

2. Customizable text color is a popular request and I will make it happen. Having said color be context sensitive is not going to happen. Too many potential scenarios for sanity.

3. Maybe. I'll look into it. What would be good keys? I do not personally play extensively modded and am not well-informed on what keys are taken by popular mods.

4. Sure I guess. This would be alongside the ^ v buttons?

5. Already done.

6. Trim off trailing separators, no problem.

Whatever you can do would be great.  I understand there are constraints and happy to play within them.

3.  Hmmm, key assignment.  The ones I know are taken, apart from the standard game assignments, are P (Precise Maneuver) and Y (NavHud).  Not knowing what you can access, I can suggest perhaps tab, semi-colon (;), keypad * or keypad /.

4. Yup.

5. Great...thought so but I haven't seen a release on CKAN.  Do I need to install from GitHub?

Edited May 26, 2018 by Brigadier

[IMLL1]

Can you add a Post-Burn Relative Inclination?

[Gordon Fecyk]

Assistance with jet-like engine delta-v needed

I started using Kerbal Engineer to design space planes that can get from Eve's surface to low orbit with modded jet engines. These jets use oxidizer instead of liquid fuel, and an atmospheric resource harvested using modded air intakes. I go over the chemistry and other science involved on the ExV Wiki on GitHub.

What I'm finding is KER is not calculating correct delta-v values for these engines. It seems to be calculating delta-v based on the amount of atmospheric resource stored in the atmospheric harvesters, not withstanding that this resource gets constantly replenished as long as the atmospheric harvesters are harvesting.

It isn't intake air, but is there some way I can make KER treat this resource like intake air? I've already set IgnoreForISP = True for this in all of the engines, just like it is for intake air on the stock jets.

[jrbudda]

On 5/27/2018 at 12:16 AM, IMLL1 said:

Can you add a Post-Burn Relative Inclination?

Yea, this is more of a Rendezvous thing but I can stick it in there if you have a target selected.

 

On 5/27/2018 at 1:21 AM, Gordon Fecyk said:

Assistance with jet-like engine delta-v needed

I started using Kerbal Engineer to design space planes that can get from Eve's surface to low orbit with modded jet engines. These jets use oxidizer instead of liquid fuel, and an atmospheric resource harvested using modded air intakes. I go over the chemistry and other science involved on the ExV Wiki on GitHub.

What I'm finding is KER is not calculating correct delta-v values for these engines. It seems to be calculating delta-v based on the amount of atmospheric resource stored in the atmospheric harvesters, not withstanding that this resource gets constantly replenished as long as the atmospheric harvesters are harvesting.

It isn't intake air, but is there some way I can make KER treat this resource like intake air? I've already set IgnoreForISP = True for this in all of the engines, just like it is for intake air on the stock jets.

So it looks like ElectricCharge and IntakeAir are hard-coded by name to be left out of the dV calculations. I could hard-code additional names, as hacky as that is. Would have to come up with a better kind of system.

[Gordon Fecyk]

3 hours ago, jrbudda said:

I could hard-code additional names, as hacky as that is. Would have to come up with a better kind of system.

What about ignoring engine propellants that have "IgnoreForISP = True" set? This might mean editing the ion engine to add this value to Electric Charge, via a Module Manager patch or outright replacing the part. Or just leave ElectricCharge as hard-coded and then require IgnoreForISP = True for any others.

[jrbudda]

2 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

What about ignoring engine propellants that have "IgnoreForISP = True" set? This might mean editing the ion engine to add this value to Electric Charge, via a Module Manager patch or outright replacing the part. Or just leave ElectricCharge as hard-coded and then require IgnoreForISP = True for any others.

Yea that last suggestion might be the way to go. I'm gonna have to do some looking around at popular mods and make sure that doesn't break... something.

[jrbudda]

If you vote for me all your wildest dreams will come true.

[jrbudda]

Pushed out version 1.1.5.0 with the custom colors, new readouts, and some fixes.

I looked into hotkeys, it's do-able but I will need to make a whole configuration section for it. I'm not just gonna hard-code some buttons in, so it may be a while.

Trimming off unnecessary separators is actually a total pain because I have no way to know if a readout is going to print anything or not. I'd have to go and edit all 160 readouts to add that functionality and I'm lazy.

OK known bug: the post-burn relative inclination readout only updates when another Rendezvous readout is visible.

[Gordon Dry]

@jrbudda At launchpad, the target readout still says "On launchpad" after launching, I had to go back to the target selector and re-choose the target (The Mun in this case).

[jrbudda]

1 hour ago, Gordon Dry said:

@jrbudda At launchpad, the target readout still says "On launchpad" after launching, I had to go back to the target selector and re-choose the target (The Mun in this case).

Can't reproduce. Any errors in logs?  Can I see a screenshot of your readout setup when it happens?

[jrbudda]

Oooh wait, do you have the Target Selector visible all by itself with no other Rendezvous readouts anywhere? Apparently the target selector by itself does not cause the rendezvous calculations to occur. This is an old bug that long predates me. Adding any other Rendezvous readout to the screen should fix it. I will update for next release.

[Gordon Dry]

2 hours ago, jrbudda said:

Oooh wait, do you have the Target Selector visible all by itself with no other Rendezvous readouts anywhere?

Yes.

[Drew Kerman]

14 hours ago, jrbudda said:

If you vote for me all your wildest dreams will come true.

my vote is locked. This is great cause sometimes it's hard to pick out immediately that one readout you want to really monitor the most while your eyes are darting about the screen keeping tabs on other stuff as well

[Sewer Urchin]

Thank you, jrbudda for picking up development on my (and everybody else's) favorite mod!  There's been a few things on my wishlist for a long time, but you've already ticked off most of them and more.  If you're still looking for votes, a couple of my wildest dreams are: 

• Trip Odomoter - For tracking all the delta v you use.  Something like the g-force readout with a little reset button on the HUD would be amazing.  I feel like I'm spending a lot of extra delta v when  I split my burns, it would be nice to see a readout.
• Antenna Range - I just never know where I stand with comms until I get where I'm going and look at the icon in the upper right.  Having a number would be great, especially if we also had a 'target antenna range' readout to go with it
• edit - also, if you're looking for a good way to toggle all on/off - maybe it could be a right-click on the toolbar icon?  
• being able to rearrange the order the buttons appear on the menu would be nice. 

Edited June 3, 2018 by Sewer Urchin

[AVaughan]

@Sewer Urchin For antenna range I always use a google spreadsheet.  There should be a forum topic somewhere.   Google "KSP CommNet Signal Strength Calculator Antenna Selector".

 

@jrbudda One thing I've wanted a few times in a node category, with containing the maneuver node info, and the post maneuver orbit info.  I'm not sure if we could squeeze 5 buttons into each toolbar row, but that would be preferable to adding a third row.

[jrbudda]

13 hours ago, AVaughan said:

@Sewer Urchin For antenna range I always use a google spreadsheet.  There should be a forum topic somewhere.   Google "KSP CommNet Signal Strength Calculator Antenna Selector".

 

@jrbudda One thing I've wanted a few times in a node category, with containing the maneuver node info, and the post maneuver orbit info.  I'm not sure if we could squeeze 5 buttons into each toolbar row, but that would be preferable to adding a third row.

you know you can make your own sections, right?