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

[kball]

3 hours ago, Padishar said:

Yes, others have encountered it.  See the posts by tg626 and my replies further up this page.  As mentioned there, I'm planning to add some detailed debug logging to the code concerned and release a test version to gather more information but I've been too busy to get around to it...

Cool. I'll keep an eye out.

Is there a dev thread for KER?

Edited December 29, 2016 by kball

[doktorstick]

Howdy. Great mod. I live by it now.

I have a feature request--remember the positions of the windows for a given resolution. I move between laptop and connected display and the resolutions are different. This causes the KER HUDs to be correct half the time. I don't mind setting up the windows for each resolution I play, but I would like them to be sticky. Added bonus would be the font size as well.

Thanks!

[Quadkiller]

Hey. Thanks for the awesome mod.

I noticed a very specific bug. I 'launched' a dummy craft and left it on the launchpad. Then I targeted it from another craft in orbit (I was trying to figure out the phase angle from KSC). When I tried to open the rendezvous tab on KER the game froze. To try to narrow it down, I created another tab where the only data being shown was the phase angle, but the game still froze.

Later on, I moved the dummy craft off the launchpad (it landed at R&D) and it worked fine. It seems to only apply when the craft is on the launchpad.

[Padishar]

15 minutes ago, Quadkiller said:

I noticed a very specific bug.

This bug isn't specific to the launchpad and it has already been reported (see the post at the top of this page and follow the chain of quotes).  It can actually happen randomly any time you switch vessel with the rendezvous panel open or open the panel after switching.  I've still not yet had time to look into it in detail...

[Fwiffo]

I'm using 1.1.2.8p with KSP 1.2.1, and noticed it occasionally gets confused about my staging.  I haven't tracked down exactly how to reproduce and correct the problem yet, but here's an example of two craft which are virtually identical.  One shows the correct stages / delta-V, the other doesn't.

I know there's a docking port, but I seem to get the same behavior if I replace that with a decoupler with crossfeed enabled - so I doubt the docking port has any bearing on the issue.

I think it has something to do with the order in which I attach my parts.  i.e. I suspect you can build two identical craft, but if you connect the parts in a different order in one of them it will cause the problem.

I know these aren't the best samples, but I'm hoping someone can have a closer look and help track down this annoying problem.  (If it does turn out to be something I'm doing wrong, then you should be able to show me how to modify MunBasey1b to yield the same staging info as MunBasey1)

Spoiler

Both craft files (in a zip): http://tinyurl.com/MunBasey1

 

Edited January 8, 2017 by Fwiffo

[Padishar]

38 minutes ago, Fwiffo said:

I think it has something to do with the order in which I attach my parts.  i.e. I suspect you can build two identical craft, but if you connect the parts in a different order in one of them it will cause the problem.

I'll try to take a closer look tomorrow but the first obvious thing that stands out is that the vessels have different root parts.  The first one appears to have the engine as root and the second one has the crew cabin as root.  Why this appears to stop the simulation from staging correctly isn't clear yet though it might help if you could repeat the second screenshot with "All Stages" turned on...

[Fwiffo]

2 hours ago, Padishar said:

I'll try to take a closer look tomorrow but the first obvious thing that stands out is that the vessels have different root parts.

Yeah sorry about that.  I was trying different things to fix it and forgot to switch the root part back before uploading one of the files.  If you make the crew cabin the root, it doesn't seem to change anything.

That's why I apologized for not uploading the best samples - there might be other subtle differences, but I don't think anything that explains the staging differences.  I've seen the problem here and there, just haven't managed to capture a better, more isolated "before/after" reproduction of it on a simple craft (since I don't tend to notice right away).

If I turn on All Stages, I just see a bunch of 0m/s ones:

Spoiler

It's also on my todo list to investigate whether the KSP Undo feature is a potential trigger for this.

EDIT: Also, I noticed if I drag the engine up into the next stage (4) a bunch of the stages come back.  Note sure if that helps you.

Edited January 8, 2017 by Fwiffo

[renhanxue]

First of all, thanks for a great mod that would be hard to live without!

I do have a feature request, though. Since the new fuel feed system was introduced, I no longer use external fuel lines at all. There's simply no need, since the game does the right thing for you automatically now (by default, without you having to touch anything, tanks staged to drop first are also set to be emptied first via the fuel feed priority system). The problem with this though - as far as staging and dV calculations go - is that while KER does understand and account for crossfeeding through decouplers, it does not agree with me on when I'm going to use those decouplers. With external fuel lines set up and crossfeeding through the decouplers disabled, it correctly calculates fuel drain and very reasonably assumes that tanks attached to decouplers will be dropped when they are empty. On the other hand, if I implement the exact same thing without external fuel lines and instead just enable crossfeeding through decouplers, from what I can tell it just assumes I'll be hanging on to everything until the entire tank pool is empty, which is obviously not what actually happens.

I can work around this easily enough, but it would be nice if KER did it automatically. Again, thank you for your work!

edit: I guess things are complicated by the fact that although the tanks on decouplers are emptied first, fuel can still flow "backwards" from the inner stages to the outer engines. The dV calculations seem correct if I don't put engines on the tanks that are going to get decoupled.

Edited January 11, 2017 by renhanxue

[Tyko]

16 hours ago, renhanxue said:

First of all, thanks for a great mod that would be hard to live without!

I do have a feature request, though. Since the new fuel feed system was introduced, I no longer use external fuel lines at all. There's simply no need,

<SNIP>

edit: I guess things are complicated by the fact that although the tanks on decouplers are emptied first, fuel can still flow "backwards" from the inner stages to the outer engines. The dV calculations seem correct if I don't put engines on the tanks that are going to get decoupled.

I tried this and went back to using fuel lines for a handful of reasons

• Backward feeding that you mention above
• No clear indication of when it's time to stage - it's really easy with fuel lines because your droppable engines cut out
• DV calculations are correct in KER - the point you're bringing up above.
• The yellow external fuel lines make it a lot easier for me to visualize how the staging will happen.
• Lastly though, crossfeeding from droptanks with their own engines is really complex - so much so that in real life it hasn't actually been used (IIRC). I don't mind the idea that Kerbals have mastered a technique that humans haven't, but I feel that having a special part and having to do special planning that enables the fuel transfer makes it more plausible.

Just my 2 cents 

Edited January 11, 2017 by Tyko

[renhanxue]

On the other hand, I find external fuel lines to look ugly and they add a surprisingly big amount of drag. I don't find it a problem to keep track of when to stage - just right click the tank and see when it's empty.

[fourfa]

Ugly? They can be critical fashion items:

https://kerbalx.com/Kamuchi/KSA Sleigh MkIV

[JayPee]

sorry, can somebody please remind me which file in GameData/KerbalEngineer contains the KER HUD settings?  I'm trying to restore a borked install

[Warezcrawler]

28 minutes ago, JayPee said:

sorry, can somebody please remind me which file in GameData/KerbalEngineer contains the KER HUD settings?  I'm trying to restore a borked install

just restore the entire settings library, that usually works for my.

The custom tabs are in the file "SectionLibrary.xml".

[Fwiffo]

Is 1.1.2.8p still the latest one which I should be using?

[TheRagingIrishman]

16 minutes ago, Fwiffo said:

Is 1.1.2.8p still the latest one which I should be using?

yes unless @Padishar is keeping a secret from us 

[Fwiffo]

1 minute ago, TheRagingIrishman said:

yes unless @Padishar is keeping a secret from us 

Thanks!  Oh how lovely it would be if his enhancements could make it into mainline and from there to CKAN ;-).

[Padishar]

6 hours ago, Fwiffo said:

Thanks!  Oh how lovely it would be if his enhancements could make it into mainline and from there to CKAN ;-).

They're getting there.  The version on GitHub mentioned in this post:

...should have my latest tweaks and the disabling mouse over on the KER button feature but will still say 1.1.2.8.  You should just need this file:

https://github.com/CYBUTEK/KerbalEngineer/blob/master/Output/KerbalEngineer/KerbalEngineer.dll

Hopefully cybutek will get a chance to do another release soon.

[Kobymaru]

Hey, @cybutek and 

@Padishar  ,

I wanted to implement readouts for Surface Distance and Heading to a target Vessel and Surface Distance and Heading to an active Waypoint.

However, I'm not quite sure where the processing Code is supposed to go. There are two simple static (math) functions that are shared between Vessel targeting and Waypoint targeting.

I wanted to put the vessel targeting in the Rendezvous category and the Waypoint targeting in the Surface category - but I feel like duplicating code is not a great option. I haven't found any math-related "Utility" class or such.

Do you have any tips?

[MonsterBenny]

Hello,

firstly thanks for the gread mod. I love how it's possible to customize everything but especially the hud elements are a very helpful improvement to the game.

I have also 2 questions regarding KER.

1. The "Time to Rendevouz" from KER isn't the same as the time showed in the map view at the separation marker. How do I have to interpret the time given by KER correctly?

2. Is it possible to show the separation (distance) between the two vessels at the rendevouz time? Like the separation distance in the map view?

Thanks in advance.

(Sorry for my bad english, because it's not my native language. )

[flatbear]

I just installed this, does anyone know why mechjeb and ker display different total craft delta v numbers? ker being lower and mechjeb displaying a higher figure?

[Red Iron Crown]

3 minutes ago, flatbear said:

I just installed this, does anyone know why mechjeb and ker display different total craft delta v numbers? ker being lower and mechjeb displaying a higher figure?

A bit more information is needed here. Is this in flight or in the VAB? Can you share a pic with both mod's window showing dV? And a craft file? Have you tried calculating by hand and seeing what is correct?

[flatbear]

2 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

A bit more information is needed here. Is this in flight or in the VAB? Can you share a pic with both mod's window showing dV? And a craft file? Have you tried calculating by hand and seeing what is correct?

In flight, the numbers are different in vaccum

[Padishar]

5 hours ago, flatbear said:

In flight, the numbers are different in vaccum

I suspect that KER is simulating burning all the fuel before decoupling anything but MJ is probably decoupling one of the next stages before burning (hence getting more deltaV).  Without a craft file (or a verbose simulation log from KER) it is difficult to tell...

[sarbian]

Also, setting MJ dV display to "Full stats" instead of short would explain it a little more.

[Padishar]

1 minute ago, sarbian said:

Also, setting MJ dV display to "Full stats" instead of short would explain it a little more.

Indeed, as could showing the KER Vessel window which shows per-stage figures, not to mention not drawing on the screenshots obscuring potentially helpful values...