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

[Crimson_Pride14]

Ah ok gotcha. Well I like to try and design my rockets like I would in real life, with just enough fuel to reach orbit with about margin for ullage and such. That gives me just enough fuel to get it back into the atmosphere. What about having a lil reference window for Delta-V's to get to other planets from a given parking orbit? That would be extremely useful.

Btw, love your mod cause it makes me feel like I'm at work. Just way more fun.

[cybutek]

Btw, love your mod cause it makes me feel like I'm at work. Just way more fun.

That made me chuckle...

I like the idea of a window with useful information and statistics, which can be used like a reference manual. So it saves alt+tabbing out to a wiki or the like.

[martscht]

I don't know if this is a problem that is specific to this mod, but when I'm in IVA-view and right-click to pan the view the Space-Engineer Window vanishes and I can't get it back. The last time this happened the only way I could help myself was a complete "re-install". Now it's happened again... any ideas on how I can get it back?

[MaverickSawyer]

Thank you! Now I can ensure my Duna Excursion Module's ascent stage has enough thrust to actually lift off and climb!

[Nukesnipe]

Not sure if this is just me, but for some reason, it just started to not work. As in, I start the game, it starts loading the part, and then stops at "EngineerChip". If I delete the Engineer Chip item but keep the one with the flight computer, it still doesn't work.

Help?

[Lifeforce87]

Sooo much thanks for this mod!

[MaverickSawyer]

I've been using this extensively, and love it dearly. However, there are a few things that I think could be added:

-Drag for each stage

-All-up stats for mass, cost, drag, and dV at the bottom of the list or as a seperate tab.

-Estimated dV losses for an ascent to a 100 km X 100 km orbit under good piloting.

I know that the last one may prove hard, but if yo can mke it work, it'll make SSTO design MUCH easier.

[Eric S]

While the forums were down, I found something that is either a bug or a misunderstanding on my part. I was doing a mission to Duna, and using KER to plan the transfers. Going from Kerbin to Duna worked as well as can be expected, since Duna has an elliptical orbit.

The Duna to Kerbin transfer, however, was bad. Rather than giving me a transfer orbit where the apoapsis is near Duna's orbit and the periapsis is near Kerbin's orbit, the apoapsis was well above Duna's orbit, and the periapsis was just a bit below Duna's orbit.

After checking KER against http://ksp.olex.biz/, I think I figured out where it went wrong. It seems that the ejection angle is getting measured in the wrong direction in the case of an anti-clockwise orbit transfer from Duna to Kerbin. It may affect all transfers to lower orbits, but I haven't had time to test it out.

Basically, if you follow KER the way I think you're supposed to, you'd place your maneuver node at about 123 degrees after Duna's retrograde, so you're still on the night side of the planet. However, the referenced web site shows the burn happening at 121 degrees before Duna's retrograde, so on the day side.

The 2 degree difference in ejection angle isn't an issue, but if I used (360-123) = 237 degrees as the ejection angle as measured by KER, I got the kind of transfer orbit I'd expect, with the apoapsis near Duna's orbit and the periapsis near Kerbin's orbit. The elliptical Duna orbit was still throwing off the intercept, but by a manageable amount provided you've got some fuel to spare.

And yes, some day I'd like a transfer planner that can compensate for elliptical source/destination orbits, but until I can show the math myself, I don't expect anyone else to try to solve that problem.

[Amaroq]

Hmmm .. yeah, I saw the same thing on my Kerbin-to-Eve transfer, exactly as you described, but I thought it was "user error" on my part. Simple sign error?

[cybutek]

I think it was caused by a simple error. The next version has been re-written though, and all of the angle clamps are done a bit differently now. It's taking longer than expected to get this new version out due to time issues at the moment, so I may release an in-development build at some point. It's not really fit for wide release yet though as people will inevitably think of it as a full release when it clearly isn't. Some features and readouts are not implemented or fleshed out etc. (just doing a bit of damage control).

[Sleipnir]

Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but Kerbal Engineer Causes massive freezes and sometimes even crashes both in VAB and in flight when put on ships that have very high thrust and ISP. I was using modded engines (1000+ ISP and thrust) on a 120 part ship and every time I called up the Engineer window it would freeze up the game. I am guessing it has to do with the calculations the mod has to make, hopefully this can be fixed sometime, as I had to remove the engineer part from that ship to stop the lag

[cybutek]

Are you sure it is related to high thrust and Isp? Have you managed to replicate it with 3 parts? Lately I've been getting bug reports containing ships that are so overly complex that it is impossible to re-create these bugs people are having. Example being that someone told me that they had a re-creatable bug with their space station, but didn't tell me it had 300 odd parts. It looked fine with no obvious reasons so there's absolutely no way for me to narrow down what was causing the issue. I even sent up a few crafts myself to dock together, which worked perfectly. If it's not re-creatable with only a few parts then it is pure speculation as to what is causing the bugs. Re-creatable means that the bug can be re-created on its own with only a few parts and doesn't rely on building a 120 part ship, in which case it could be absolutely anything. It might not be the thrust or Isp causing the bug, it could be anything contained in that ship, or a bug caused when certain parts are put together in a specific order.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm actually getting a little frustrated with all these "it don't work on my 1,000,000 part ship, because of this..." bugs. Then I try and re-create the "because of this..." bug and it works perfectly fine, so that's not the bug. I also do not have the time to dismantle a 300 part space station 1 part at a time, test, take another part off, test. Pure facts are what I need... If it is caused by the thrust and Isp; does it bug out when you use a command pod, 1 fuel tank and 1 super big and efficient engine? Or does the bug only happen with your 120 part ship?

[drakesdoom]

I have been doing some tests comparing data readouts of this mod and Mechjeb 2.0 and the results have me confused.

There are two readouts that do not correspond to any readout in mech jeb and I do not understand how they are arrived at or what their use is. These are under vessel as TWR(current) and TWR(throttle). I understand the TWR(throttle) is accounting for current engine thrust not max thrust. What I don't understand is why does current TWR increase as my altitude increases? My mass has not changed so how can TWR?

[shand]

Sorry for the rant, but I'm actually getting a little frustrated with all these "it don't work on my 1,000,000 part ship, because of this..." bugs.

if the "because of this" was actually true, then it would be fine.

i'm getting quite a lot of odd behaviour (in all mods) that quicksave+quickload or drop to spaceport and back will fix. worst case if something REALLY odd happens, close the game and reload it.

@drakesdoom: you are right, your mass has not changed (hyperedit i assume?), but your weight has. weight is proportional to the gravity you are under. as you climb altitude your weight decreases. look at it this way. if its greater then 1 you will accelerate up, less then 1 you will accelerate down.

I cant remember what its set to be in the version you are using, i think (current) is actually (current max) if that makes sense. then of course you have (surface) to allow you to see what it would be on sea level.

Edited April 28, 2013 by shand

[Eric S]

I have been doing some tests comparing data readouts of this mod and Mechjeb 2.0 and the results have me confused.

There are two readouts that do not correspond to any readout in mech jeb and I do not understand how they are arrived at or what their use is. These are under vessel as TWR(current) and TWR(throttle). I understand the TWR(throttle) is accounting for current engine thrust not max thrust. What I don't understand is why does current TWR increase as my altitude increases? My mass has not changed so how can TWR?

Two things come to mind.

The regular TWR number goes up as you burn fuel, since that does decrease your mass, but since you're talking about TWR (current), I think you're already aware of that.

TWR (current) goes up because the force of gravity decreases as you get farther away from the mass that's causing the gravity. This is why higher orbits have lower orbital velocities, you wind up needing to counteract a lot less gravity. The W in TWR is weight, not mass, so your weight can change even if your mass does not.

[drakesdoom]

I can see where you are coming from with your explanation. However the local gravity field does not affect the rockets ability to accelerate. It is exerting a constant acceleration towards the orbited mass and would effect burn directly away from it as you describe. However a pro-grade burn in any orbit in vacuum will provide orbital velocity acceleration at the same rate (excluding oberth effect). I suppose it would be useful if you wanted to hover at high altitudes, but for orbital maneuvers I don't see the use.

[Eric S]

I suppose it would be useful if you wanted to hover at high altitudes, but for orbital maneuvers I don't see the use.

Pretty much the only point of it I see is that it tells you how much of your thrust is spent fighting gravity assuming you have no orbital velocity yet, and that is not a strong point. I can't say that I've ever tried to use that stat for anything.

[brienne]

I put the part on my rocket, but the usual window doesn't appear.

Known bug, ok. But I really can't activate the "Build engineer".

I dld and put last redux mod version (the same one in fact), just to be sure. Doesn't fix it.

Any tips plz?

Edited April 29, 2013 by brienne

[brienne]

I build a kethane shuttle meant to land/takeoff on Mun. I need to optimize TWR on Mun.

Do Redux can help me?

(Noob question, first time I work for a non-Kerbin planet vessel and for some reasons, I don't see anymore build engineer window see above)

[cybutek]

Try deleting the files in the PluginData/engineer directory and see if that helps

[shand]

Pretty much the only point of it I see is that it tells you how much of your thrust is spent fighting gravity assuming you have no orbital velocity yet, and that is not a strong point. I can't say that I've ever tried to use that stat for anything.

I use it for ascent/descent manoeuvres. it gives you a quick indication of how much of your thrust is going to fighting gravity. generally if its higher then 1.4 you can follow norminal ascent pathing. between 0.7 and 1.4 you'll need to think carefully where to point to get to orbit. if its lower then 0.7 you better be practically in orbit

it doesnt give you an accurate rate of acceleration, but then neither does TWR surface. the moment you change body it shows a completely different number. the acceleration stats are far more useful if that is your concern.

[brienne]

Try deleting the files in the PluginData/engineer directory and see if that helps

Deleted the files and installed V0603.

And... it works.

Thank you. And congrats to the devs.

[Aeshi]

I just updated my copy of the plugin from 6.0.2 to 6.0.3 and now the Engineer window is just empty whenever I place it in the VAB/SPH, but only for craft created after I updated it (i.e. If I place the Engineer part on my old rover it displays the weight just fine, but when I put it on my new Rover that I made after updating the plugin, it displays nothing)

Any idea as to how to fix that? (or failing that is there anyway I can download version 6.0.2 again?)

EDIT: Tried going back to 6.0.2, but the bug seems to be here for good now.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Aeshi

[unWinged]

It's probably known problem, but my vessel readout freezes in almost every flight.

Other displays work fine.

[Nyksy]

A suggestion:

It would be cool if the Flight engineer could show some orbit predictions when re-entering atmosphere. Just showing an estimated apoapsis would lessen the amount of guess work when aerobraking. Also, if it predicts impact, it could show the location, so it could be used also when landing.