Infernal Robotics - Next

[Rudolf Meier]

7 hours ago, Clayel said:

I've been having a very consistent bug show up will all moving parts within this mod....

The one you describe is interesting. I had this one too.

In the video you see, that it's most likely not that it's not trying to move. It is just that  it cannot move because something blocks it. And what it was in my case (or all the cases I investigated) is, that the AutoStruts of the landing legs are the problem. KSP is activating them always for landing legs and wheels, no matter what you do. And even if you turn them off with a hack in the background with a custom module (I tried this with KJR next), the game did turn them on again (I don't know if that's still true for the latest version of KSP or if it is now respecting the rules).

But something I was able to do when it happened was, to set the AutoStruts to "Root part" instead of "Heaviest part" (I did it during the flight). And that solved it (if the IR part is not between the landing leg/wheel and the root).

By the way: If you install the debug version of KJR next, you will have a Gui where you can turn on and off the visibility for every joint. Like this you could find out more. And I would bet, that you will see an AutoStrut from the landing leg to the Pivotron or something like that.

Edited January 17, 2023 by Rudolf Meier

[ElonsMusk]

12 hours ago, Clayel said:

Based only on this screenshot, my guess it the Root Part auto strut. If you set that auto strut in the editor it will lock up. You need to leave it unstrutted and lock it first before using an autostrut. In-flight, an autostrut won't go above the parent of a robotic part unless said robotic part is locked.

[Rudolf Meier]

2 hours ago, ElonsMusk said:

Based only on this screenshot, my guess it the Root Part auto strut.

ups... didn't see that, but you're right... using AutoStruts with robotic parts doesn't work (that's why I recommend KJR next)

2 hours ago, ElonsMusk said:

In-flight, an autostrut won't go above the parent of a robotic part unless said robotic part is locked.

as far as I know this is not true for the "heaviest part" mode... in this case AutoStruts ignore unlocked robotic parts

and since this is the default setting for wheels and landing legs, we do always see those problems (even if you think you don't use AutoStuts)

Edited January 17, 2023 by Rudolf Meier

[Clayel]

2 hours ago, ElonsMusk said:

Based only on this screenshot, my guess it the Root Part auto strut. If you set that auto strut in the editor it will lock up. You need to leave it unstrutted and lock it first before using an autostrut. In-flight, an autostrut won't go above the parent of a robotic part unless said robotic part is locked.

Yep, this fixed it, but it wasn't just root though, it seems like any autostrut will reproduce the bug. Turning off autostrut fixed it immediately. Thanks!

[Clayel]

@Rudolf Meier By the way, you have the wrong link here for the IR sequencer:

It should be https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/181943-wip16-infernal-robotics-sequencer-next-301/, but it links to a broken page instead

[Rudolf Meier]

3 minutes ago, Clayel said:

@Rudolf Meier By the way, you have the wrong link here for the IR sequencer

ok, thanks... I remvoed it now, because nobody maintains it and it's no longer compatible with IR... today you could use a KAL-1000 to do this

[ElonsMusk]

29 minutes ago, Clayel said:

Yep, this fixed it, but it wasn't just root though, it seems like any autostrut will reproduce the bug. Turning off autostrut fixed it immediately. Thanks!

Heck ya I'm glad it was fixable!! Happy roboting!

[Rudolf Meier]

I've uploaded v3.1.4 with a lot of minor bugfixes and improvements

[Rudolf Meier]

On 1/4/2023 at 7:25 PM, ElonsMusk said:

Apologies I meant in the VAB/SPH. When you pickup a part you're building with.

I have added this to 3.1.5 now... I'm currently doing some testing, but the plan is to have this in the next release.

[dok_377]

1 hour ago, Rudolf Meier said:

I have added this to 3.1.5 now... I'm currently doing some testing, but the plan is to have this in the next release.

Can you by any chance also add a current position indication into the PAW? It would make it easier to see the actual position of the part, especially for the unpowered ones. 

[Rudolf Meier]

33 minutes ago, dok_377 said:

Can you by any chance also add a current position indication into the PAW? It would make it easier to see the actual position of the part, especially for the unpowered ones. 

ok, will be included

[Rudolf Meier]

3.1.5 is available... it contains every feature that has ever been planed up to now and it should also calculate power and mass in a reasonable way now

update: unfortunatelly the costs of those parts are all too high... that's a bug... I will fix that as soon as possible

Edited January 20, 2023 by Rudolf Meier

[dok_377]

10 hours ago, Rudolf Meier said:

3.1.5 is available... it contains every feature that has ever been planed up to now and it should also calculate power and mass in a reasonable way now

update: unfortunatelly the costs of those parts are all too high... that's a bug... I will fix that as soon as possible

Wow, that was fast. I see a lot of improvements in the UI, even apart from my request. Thank you. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by dok_377

[dok_377]

Just about the only thing that is missing now is the ability to completely disengage the motor. But I don't know how feasible it is, considering that we already have unpowered parts, even though there are just a few of them. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by dok_377

[Rudolf Meier]

3 hours ago, dok_377 said:

Just about the only thing that is missing now is the ability to completely disengage the motor. But I don't know how feasible it is, considering that we already have unpowered parts, even though there are just a few of them. 

well, it could be done (somehow, I think... didn't try, might be, that it still takes a bit more than just flipping some flags), but, when we designed it, the idea was, that an electric motor with no power is normally pretty hard to move... and that's why we did choose to lock the joint when it looses power

but... we could talk about this of course

[dok_377]

40 minutes ago, Rudolf Meier said:

well, it could be done (somehow, I think... didn't try, might be, that it still takes a bit more than just flipping some flags), but, when we designed it, the idea was, that an electric motor with no power is normally pretty hard to move... and that's why we did choose to lock the joint when it looses power

but... we could talk about this of course

I guess it depends on how realistic you want this mod to be. My idea was to have more variety in unpowered parts for different design choices. But to have, let's say, an unpowered piston will probably be an edge case use anyway and doesn't make sence to spend time on, especially if it's unneccesarily hard to code. All good, no need to do something that the magority of players will not even use. 

The other thing that I want to mention is a little bit of feedback on the current position indicator.  On hinges if the position is set to 34.4 it will show exactly 34.4. But on other parts (like a piston) if the position is 0.44, the position indicator will show 0.4, would be great if it was showing full digits on these parts too. 

[Rudolf Meier]

8 minutes ago, dok_377 said:

The other thing that I want to mention is a little bit of feedback on the current position indicator.  On hinges if the position is set to 34.4 it will show exactly 34.4. But on other parts (like a piston) if the position is 0.44, the position indicator will show 0.4, would be great if it was showing full digits on these parts too. 

ok, done... (included in next update)

9 minutes ago, dok_377 said:

I guess it depends on how realistic you want this mod to be. My idea was to have more variety in unpowered parts for different design choices. But to have, let's say, an unpowered piston will probably be an edge case use anyway and doesn't make sence to spend time on, especially if it's unneccesarily hard to code. All good, no need to do something that the magority of players will not even use. 

that's something I was experimenting with... but it made only sense with springs and we don't have or use springs... so, it was kind of a different concept... that's why we didn't continue to investigate this... but... well... in case of some interesting use cases, we could think about it again  

[Rudolf Meier]

version 3.1.6 is available (fixes the cost calculation bug)

[dok_377]

@Rudolf Meier

Is the power consumption correct? It seems a little bit too much and differs a lot from the value the editor is saying. 

Edited January 25, 2023 by dok_377

[dok_377]

Oh, also I think I found a bug from 3.1.5 fix for the positions of parts resetting when they're detached from the craft in the editor. At least I think that's what caused it. 

At first, when you detach the part, it detaches just fine. But when you save and reload the craft, the first click to detach the part causes a nullref in the console and doesn't detach the part, the second click breaks the part if the deployment angle has been changed from the default value. 

Video demonstration: https://youtu.be/iZ30K90iLmo
KSP.log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rlLTMpOCLxtwLvLA6ZDFFDmjiHamOLmC
Player.log: https://drive.google.com/file/d/17JuX7-j54Lw-039rbVSdDoRxDjllHKgO

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by dok_377

[Rudolf Meier]

21 hours ago, dok_377 said:

Is the power consumption correct? It seems a little bit too much and differs a lot from the value the editor is saying. 

oh yeah... that's a good one... I had a mini-bug and the balancing of those values... well, it's something I wanted to do for a long ... loong... looooooooong time already... but I forgot, that I should have had this on my list... I think I have to do it now...

 

20 hours ago, dok_377 said:

Oh, also I think I found a bug from 3.1.5 fix for the positions of parts resetting when they're detached from the craft in the editor.

I added a new feature in 3.1.6... it should be possible to detach parts that are rotated and they should now keep the rotation (but it doesn't work well in the current version)... it wasn't that easy because of the way how the editor works... let's say, this feature is still in beta state, but I have a much better version now... I will try to release something better with the next version

[Rudolf Meier]

try the new 3.1.7 ... I have rebalanced the values and fixed the editor behaviour

[dok_377]

8 hours ago, Rudolf Meier said:

try the new 3.1.7 ... I have rebalanced the values and fixed the editor behaviour

Seems to be working great now, thank you. If I see something down the road I will report it. 

I don't see the option to link parts anymore though, is this intended? 

Also in the IR editor window (the one that you open with the toolbar icon) if you click the button to remove a group, it will crash the game. I don't know if that thing is even supposed to be used anymore or if it's horribly outdated and absolete. The log doesn't say much either, it just abruptly ends. I can provide it anyway if you need it.

Edited January 27, 2023 by dok_377

[Rudolf Meier]

7 hours ago, dok_377 said:

Seems to be working great now, thank you. If I see something down the road I will report it. 

perfect 

7 hours ago, dok_377 said:

I don't see the option to link parts anymore though, is this intended? 

no, this should still work... I will check that

7 hours ago, dok_377 said:

Also in the IR editor window (the one that you open with the toolbar icon) if you click the button to remove a group, it will crash the game. I don't know if that thing is even supposed to be used anymore or if it's horribly outdated and absolete. The log doesn't say much either, it just abruptly ends. I can provide it anyway if you need it.

this should also work, but removing a group... I didn't check this for a long time... I'll check that too... but you're right, that's pretty old and today, I don't know if it is really needed

[dok_377]

21 minutes ago, Rudolf Meier said:

no, this should still work... I will check that

The button is not there anymore for some reason.

 

22 minutes ago, Rudolf Meier said:

this should also work, but removing a group...

Yeah, I don't know how it happens either. When I add a group manually, it deletes fine, but if it was automatically created, then the attempt to delete it crashes the game. I think the most reliable way to reproduce this is to add a group manually, so there will be two groups: the default one and the one that was just created, and then try to delete the default group. This does it for me.