[1.3.1 <= KSP <= 1.12.5] KAX - Kerbal Aircraft Expansion KAX — Under Lisias' Management — v2.8.1.1 [2024-0704]

[kcs123]

I will just left this here:

 

[FellipeC]

On 5/14/2019 at 10:01 PM, Lisias said:

Oh, yes. The Vintage Propelators!

It's some months since I tried them, so...

KAX + Firespiter + TweakScale. Will be included on the Ships/SPH on the next release.

I think they're a bit overpowered, but given the weight of the stock parts, it's understandable. I'm optimistic enough to believe we will have some wooden and canvas parts to match them.

 

Where do you get the tiny wings and the fuel tank?

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, FellipeC said:

Where do you get the tiny wings and the fuel tank?

Firespitter using TweakScale to trim the size.

Note that this aircraft is unbalanced - onde the fuel tank is depleted, the CoM will change somewhat. I think I should had added a new one between the front wheels  to keep it balanced as fuel is consumed - or perhaps just clip the current one on the truss between the wings?

[Ruedii]

On 6/12/2019 at 11:44 PM, Lisias said:

Me too. Had Airplane Plus fixed that terribly overpowered engines (the small props has more power than an F18 engine!)? It's a long time since I used A+ engines, as I found KAX more reliable on this! 

The airplane plus engines need more tweaking.  The nature of prop engines are tricky.  A prop engine has a HUGE amount of stationary thrust, but as it moves faster it loses thrust substantially, meanwhile, jet engines maintain their thrust quite well at high speeds.

Still, Airplane Plus' maximum speed and maximum thrust are too high.  Especially the maximum speed.  Depending on the model, most propeller and impeller systems max out at between Mach 0.25 and Mach 0.85.   Many of the Airplane Plus propellers have top speeds between Mach 1.5 and Mach 2.1.  That is way too fast.

As of power that's also an issue, even by KSP's overpowered standards.

[Lisias]

11 hours ago, Ruedii said:

The airplane plus engines need more tweaking.  The nature of prop engines are tricky.  A prop engine has a HUGE amount of stationary thrust, but as it moves faster it loses thrust substantially, meanwhile, jet engines maintain their thrust quite well at high speeds.

Every engine has this thrust issues, but on propellers they bite stronger due the propellers.: they are just rotary wings, with all the consequences including stall, sound battier issues and drag.

 

11 hours ago, Ruedii said:

Still, Airplane Plus' maximum speed and maximum thrust are too high.  Especially the maximum speed.  Depending on the model, most propeller and impeller systems max out at between Mach 0.25 and Mach 0.85.   Many of the Airplane Plus propellers have top speeds between Mach 1.5 and Mach 2.1.  That is way too fast.

I think this happened while transitioning out from FireSpitter (what was a bad move in my humble opinion - even if necessary, I can tell).

FireSpitter models the haw stationary engine power (usually measured in horse-power) and this torque being applied to the propellers, considering all the factors above (even on a simplified way) and the net result is thrust (measured in Newtons).

Stock engines just handles thrust and call it a day. It appears to me that AirplanePlus plain used the haw power directly into Newtons.

 

11 hours ago, Ruedii said:

As of power that's also an issue, even by KSP's overpowered standards.

I don't exactly think the KSP engines are overpowered. The KSP atmosphere are somewhat more viscous than real life, what probably  was done this way to compensate for the smaller size of the planet.

Stock KSP engines appears to match exactly their real life counterparts, by the way.

It worths to mention that KSP airplanes are usually heavier than the real-life equivalents. Fuel is way heavier than the same amount of Real Life Jet Fuel.

In the end of the day, I do decisions by comparisons. I take the stats of a real life equivalent of a stock engine, then compare with the stats of the thing I'm modelling. Whatever is the result (weight, size, power, consumption, etc), is mimicked on the part being develoiped while compared with that stock engine.

A lot of learning and research are involved on this. Not a easy and dirty task.

[willwill2will]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

In the end of the day, I do decisions by comparisons. I take the stats of a real life equivalent of a stock engine, then compare with the stats of the thing I'm modelling. Whatever is the result (weight, size, power, consumption, etc), is mimicked on the part being develoiped while compared with that stock engine.

A lot of learning and research are involved on this. Not a easy and dirty task.

Perhaps you could put what research you have so far on a spreadsheet and let the community help you fill in the gaps. It's just a suggestion, but I and (if I haven't misread the room) a lot of other people here would love to lend a hand.

[Lisias]

37 minutes ago, willwill2will said:

Perhaps you could put what research you have so far on a spreadsheet and let the community help you fill in the gaps. It's just a suggestion, but I and (if I haven't misread the room) a lot of other people here would love to lend a hand.

Nice suggestion, I will do it on my next "part development" time window!  

[OPBlue]

Any plans for making MK2 parts? When I come back to developing Add-On's, maybe I could try and make some.

[Lisias]

11 hours ago, OPBlue said:

Any plans for making MK2 parts? When I come back to developing Add-On's, maybe I could try and make some.

I think that Mk2 Extensions would be a better place for them. It's a very good Add'On, I use it in combination to KAX and get good results. Check the Mk2 Extensions licensing terms and if you do agree with them, check with the Maintainer about your ideas for new parts.

But if you are talking about militarized parts, then Mk2ext probably would not be the best place. But neither KAX to tell the true. Then we can talk on that idea you gave earlier!  (I plan to use KAX for "not or demilitarized parts", even if that parts can be used on military vehicles. The militarization is to be accomplished by a sister Add'On).

 

[OPBlue]

Yeah, I actually had downloaded the MK2 Extensions mod for a while now and it is becoming one of my favorites. But i did not mean militarized parts when I asked.

But the reason I asked is that almost all of your parts are built for 2.5m fuselages and it would be nice for a bit of variety in sizes, but I don't know if this Add'on was geared towards 2.5m parts.

Edited July 6, 2019 by OPBlue
Adding more stuff

[Lisias]

On 7/6/2019 at 2:47 PM, OPBlue said:

Yeah, I actually had downloaded the MK2 Extensions mod for a while now and it is becoming one of my favorites. But i did not mean militarized parts when I asked.

But the reason I asked is that almost all of your parts are built for 2.5m fuselages and it would be nice for a bit of variety in sizes, but I don't know if this Add'on was geared towards 2.5m parts.

With TweakScale available, I didn't care too much about the current part's size. I just scale them and call it a day.

This will not work very nice with parts with crew due a glitch on the KSP User Interface (yeah, things works fine on the game engine, it's the User Interface that blows up!)

What I would like to avoid is to colide with existing Add'Ons "just because". If there's a better place for a part (as a new MK2 part into the MK2 Extensions), and the maintainers accept it, I think this would be logical - new MK2 parts came from MK2 Ext, new Early Cold War and Pre WW1 eras parts go into KAX. (Electras. I love Electras, by the way. Had flown on one as a kid!).

So people don't have to install a whole basket of undesired parts just because they want that extra one. People wiling to use Mk2 spaceplanes usually are not interested on Electras and PeaceMakers.

Edited July 14, 2019 by Lisias
tyop! Surprised?

[Ruedii]

On 6/21/2019 at 4:41 PM, kcs123 said:

I will just left this here:

 

Absolutely cool.

We need new higher torque electric propellers and some high capacity batteries to go with them.   Hmm, maybe Community Tech Tree needs to add an "Efficient Flight" branch for a place we can put these . . .

Edited July 13, 2019 by Ruedii

[kcs123]

There is several mods that provide batteries along with stock ones. It is not absolutely necessary to have high capacity batteries. Engine should suffice, and with combination of existing parts, it is up to player to create capable craft. Kind of interesting challange to player. There is rumors in PW thread for solar powered/textured wings, so when that comes out, some interesting crafts will be more than possible to create.

[Lisias]

Not exactly a surprise  but KAX is working fine on KSP 1.7.3 (with Making History and Breaking Ground).

[TheKurgan]

@Lisias

pssst... Lisias... you need a signature with links to the mods you are currently maintaining

Edited July 14, 2019 by TheKurgan

[Lisias]

KAX 2.8.0.2 is on the wild!

• https://github.com/net-lisias-ksp/KAX
• https://github.com/net-lisias-ksp/KAX/blob/master/CHANGE_LOG.md
• https://github.com/net-lisias-ksp/KAX/blob/master/INSTALL.md
• https://github.com/net-lisias-ksp/KAX/releases

Changes:

• Embedding KSPe.Light services for KAX 
  • KAX now works also on KSP 1.3! #HURRAY
• TweakScale support is now native to KAX
  • Patches were built to be compatible from TweakScale 2.7.3 to the future 2.5.0.
  • Vintage Propelators patches were updated.
  • Vintage Propelator Super Sport is now scalable.

— — — — 

This is a maintenance minor release, internalizing TweakScale's patches for KAX on the distribution. That poor guy  is working his SAS out to keep TweakScale oiled, and taking the KAX Patches to me will make things easier for both of me  .

I, also, finally finished and tested a way to use the same distribution for every KSP from 1.3 to 1.7.3, what includes the new Category Filter:

See the GITHUB's main page for KAX for details (you can have the old Category back, or plain disable the whole thing if  you want).

This thing will probably works too on KSP 1.8, as I updated KSPe to learn how to handle Unity 2019.2 - pending testing, of course, as all I could do was to check the 2019.2 documentation for the Unity functions KSPe (and KSPe.Light for KAX) use.

A flying weirdness was made to test KAX 2.8.0.2 with TweakScale 2.3.7.0 on KSP 1.3.1 . This thing also worked on 1.7.3, or course.  Observe the KSP version watermark, and also the Category Filter for KAX on the left.

Link for KerbalX craft: https://kerbalx.com/Lisias/KAX-131-+-Vintage-+-TweakScale

Good luck landing this thing!

Cheers!

On 1/22/2019 at 6:55 PM, Numberyellow said:

so your latest release will work in 1.3.1, no worries?

Well… It took me only NINE MONTHS, but I finally got your 1.3.1 working version.

KSP 1.3.1 is not fully tested, I'm going to play a bit with it in the next days. I could use some help on it!

Cheers!

Edited October 6, 2019 by Lisias
Slightly less entertaining grammars =D

[Numberyellow]

On 10/6/2019 at 12:52 AM, Lisias said:

Well… It took me only NINE MONTHS, but I finally got your 1.3.1 working version.

KSP 1.3.1 is not fully tested, I'm going to play a bit with it in the next days. I could use some help on it!

Cheers!

lol, i thought you died.

what do you need help with? sorry i dropped off the radar.....life has gotten in the way, in a lot of very big, very bad ways.

[Lisias]

Just now, Numberyellow said:

what do you need help with? sorry i dropped off the radar.....life has gotten in the way, in a lot of very big, very bad ways.

You had asked for a 1.3.1 working version of the thing.

Well, it came in time to be overshadowed by a new release working on KSP 1.8, what I have to cook on the weekend! =D

[Numberyellow]

So, then, i guess you need help testing the thing?

I can't make any promises. I literally JUST built a new gaming rig, like a month ago. I haven't touched KSP, in any meaningful way, in close to 2 years, i've forgotten most of the in's and out's, and lately, i have practically no enthusiasm for anything.

However, since you expended the effort to create this thing, at my behest, i suppose i owe it to you to at least TRY to test your creation.

It will take time, but i WILL try.

[Beetlecat]

On 10/5/2019 at 9:52 PM, Lisias said:

A flying weirdness was made to test KAX 2.8.0.2 with TweakScale 2.3.7.0 on KSP 1.3.1 . This thing also worked on 1.7.3, or course.  Observe the KSP version watermark, and also the Category Filter for KAX on the left.

Link for KerbalX craft: https://kerbalx.com/Lisias/KAX-131-+-Vintage-+-TweakScale

I *SO* want to tweak the model for those wooden props. They look like they'd snap under the slightest load.

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Beetlecat said:

I *SO* want to tweak the model for those wooden props. They look like they'd snap under the slightest load.

That's something I'm trying to work on.

[Beetlecat]

5 minutes ago, Lisias said:

That's something I'm trying to work on.

I recently poked around with blender to figure out how to position indicator lights on command pods (and build a shiny hammer with video tutorial!), but I'm not sure what the workflow is to modify an in-game model like that.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Beetlecat

[Lisias]

22 minutes ago, Beetlecat said:

I recently poked around with blender to figure out how to position indicator lights on command pods (and build a shiny hammer with video tutorial!), but I'm not sure what the workflow is to modify an in-game model like that.

I think it will be same as the animated propellers on Firespitter: you register more than one mesh, and then switch them on runtime.

[flart]

@Lisias, looks like you forgot to add 2.8.0.2 to spacedock, so it isn't on CKAN

[Lisias]

10 hours ago, flart said:

@Lisias, looks like you forgot to add 2.8.0.2 to spacedock, so it isn't on CKAN

It is not on CKAN yet, there are a fez adjustments I need to do first. I'm trying to resurrect the gears, and I originally planned to launch it on CKAN with the gears. I didn't planned it would take so much, however. And I`m not even sure this works on KSP 1.8 yet, because I didn''t had time to test it yet!

— — POST EDIT — — 

It should be a better idea not answering support questions late night after a full day of hard work.

I registered KAX on CKAN on May, damn it. And completely forgot about….

Edited October 28, 2019 by Lisias
I'm getting old. (where is my glasses?)