[1.12+] Less Real Than Real(ism) - RP-1 With Less 'R' [v2.0.6]

[mateusviccari]

On 4/21/2021 at 12:49 PM, Pehvbot said:

Sure, but I don't have a current save that has one.   I can put one together in sandbox but it'll take a few days before I can get to it.  In the mean time a few 'tricks' that may make it work:

• Use 6 Mastodon engines on the first stage instead of 5.  The KSP version of the F-1 is slightly smaller and weaker than the real F-1 when scaled up and I don't want to hand tune any of the parts (I'm lazy and it's just too much work).  This gives a good approximation for the S-IC stage.  Try for around 2m30s burn time.
• Use the Wolfhound for the S-II and S-IVB stages instead of the Skiff.  The Skiff looks like a J-2 but it's performance doesn't match it at all.
• The S-IC plus S-II stages should give you about 8000m/s of dV and the S-IVB should give you about 4500dV (use vacuum for all values)

I'll post a link to the craft file when I can.

You are totally right. I don't know why I didn't look at the engine specs, I thought the mod would change them to their real life counterparts... Thinking about it now it doesn't even makes sense since it runs on generic fuel types. Anyway, changing to the wolfhound did the trick, but I ended up installing cryo engines and now I'm using a very similar Saturn V (quite better actually hahaha). I didn't know you could use fuels like methane and liquid hydrogen without the real fuels mod, this is even better integrated into the game. Speaking of which, I could never get the RO suite of mods 100% right, there was always something missing or broken. With LRTR with very few dependencies, everything works, and I can launch KSP in way less than 20 minutes now, thank you so much for this mod dude.

[Pehvbot]

7 hours ago, Yoochem said:

@Pehvbot starting a new KSP career after a long break from the game, with a modlist built around LRTR + some of my own favourites (e.g. PreciseEditor). Looks and works great so far (especially in combination with EVO), thanks for making this amazing mod!

Thanks!

2 minutes ago, mateusviccari said:

You are totally right. I don't know why I didn't look at the engine specs, I thought the mod would change them to their real life counterparts... Thinking about it now it doesn't even makes sense since it runs on generic fuel types. Anyway, changing to the wolfhound did the trick, but I ended up installing cryo engines and now I'm using a very similar Saturn V (quite better actually hahaha). I didn't know you could use fuels like methane and liquid hydrogen without the real fuels mod, this is even better integrated into the game. Speaking of which, I could never get the RO suite of mods 100% right, there was always something missing or broken. With LRTR with very few dependencies, everything works, and I can launch KSP in way less than 20 minutes now, thank you so much for this mod dude.

Very cool. Yeah half the reason I built it was my MacPotato Pro tried to set itself on fire every time I tried to run RP-1. 

[mateusviccari]

Dude, how many science points should I transmit for the first scientific satellite contract to complete? I have achieved all the required orbital parameters, and transmitted about 0.3 points (because it takes 90 days to run and I don't have enough electric power to last this long). Could this be an issue with kerbalism?

[Pehvbot]

40 minutes ago, mateusviccari said:

Dude, how many science points should I transmit for the first scientific satellite contract to complete? I have achieved all the required orbital parameters, and transmitted about 0.3 points (because it takes 90 days to run and I don't have enough electric power to last this long). Could this be an issue with kerbalism?

It's a combo of Kerbalism and how contracts work.  Kerbalism won't tell the contract system you have done the science until you have done 100% (so 90 days).   In practice this means you need solar panels to complete the contract.  

Historically this makes sense since the early satellites that this contract models had solar power (Vanguard 1 and Sputnik 3). I debated locking the contract until early solar panels was researched because it's such an important requirement, but RP-1 doesn't do this and there are some very early command parts in some mods with solar panels built in so it's possible to complete it without early solar panels researched.

I think it's fair to use the cheats menu to complete this contract if you can't research solar panels in time since you didn't know this.

If you complete it normally just be sure to visit the satellite after it completes all the science, otherwise the contract system won't know it's done.

[mateusviccari]

I've been playing with this mod after your tips, and everything works nice. I've encountered some issues though, where when you have the NearFuture Launch Vehicles it removes some of the DLC tanks to use the respective tanks from NearFuture. That by itself is not a problem, the thing is that the NearFuture tanks' dry masses are almost 3 times higher than their relative stock/dlc counterparts, let me give you an example:

I don't know if LRTR makes changes to the dry masses. If it doesn't the "problem" is with NearFuture mod, but even so, is there a way to not remove the default part from the tech tree? 

Edited May 15, 2021 by mateusviccari

[Pehvbot]

21 minutes ago, mateusviccari said:

I've been playing with this mod after your tips, and everything works nice. I've encountered some issues though, where when you have the NearFuture Launch Vehicles it removes some of the DLC tanks to use the respective tanks from NearFuture. That by itself is not a problem, the thing is that the NearFuture tanks' dry masses are almost 3 times higher than their relative stock/dlc counterparts, let me give you an example:

I don't know if LRTR makes changes to the dry masses. If it doesn't the "problem" is with NearFuture mod, but even so, is there a way to not remove the default part from the tech tree? 

It's a bug in my rescale.cfg file.  The rescaler increases the dry mass to account for the size change to the part minus some for the too high Kerbal default mass fraction.  At the end of it all this increases the dry mass by 2.4 from the stock part.

The rescaler is applying this mass change twice to NearFuture parts (and possibly others using the B9PartSwitch mod).

I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to fix this bug but I'll definitely add it to the next update.  You can temporarily fix this with a custom MM patch.

@PART[nflv-fueltank*]:AFTER[zLRTR]
{
	@mass /= 2.4
}

It's a bit of an ugly hack, but it will work until the next version is updated.  Just be sure to remove it for the next update.

NearFuture removes these overlapping parts.  If you want both sets you can delete the 'GameData/NearFutureLaunchVehicles/Patches/NFLaunchVehiclesOverlappingParts.cfg' file

Oh and thanks!  It's super helpful to get bug reports like this.

[Pehvbot]

v1.7.1 has been released and should appear on CKAN soon.  It makes the following changes:

• Support for Modular Launch Pads
• Support for Shuttle Orbital Construction Kit
• Fixes a bug with B9PartSwitch fuel tanks that could double the dry mass of these parts

[emiliofloris]

On 5/1/2021 at 1:59 AM, Pehvbot said:

It's a combo of Kerbalism and how contracts work.  Kerbalism won't tell the contract system you have done the science until you have done 100% (so 90 days).   In practice this means you need solar panels to complete the contract.  

Historically this makes sense since the early satellites that this contract models had solar power (Vanguard 1 and Sputnik 3). I debated locking the contract until early solar panels was researched because it's such an important requirement, but RP-1 doesn't do this and there are some very early command parts in some mods with solar panels built in so it's possible to complete it without early solar panels researched.

I think it's fair to use the cheats menu to complete this contract if you can't research solar panels in time since you didn't know this.

If you complete it normally just be sure to visit the satellite after it completes all the science, otherwise the contract system won't know it's done.

I came here because I had exactly the same issue. The main problem with this contract is that it explicitly requires only one day of electric power, which can be provided by a battery, even though implicitly the satellite needs to be powered permanently. Perhaps the best way to go would be to remove the one-day power requirement altogether. Without Kerbalism power consumption for unloaded spacecraft is zero anyway, and with Kerbalism the condition is redundant.

[Pehvbot]

9 hours ago, emiliofloris said:

I came here because I had exactly the same issue. The main problem with this contract is that it explicitly requires only one day of electric power, which can be provided by a battery, even though implicitly the satellite needs to be powered permanently. Perhaps the best way to go would be to remove the one-day power requirement altogether. Without Kerbalism power consumption for unloaded spacecraft is zero anyway, and with Kerbalism the condition is redundant.

Sounds good.  I'll be cleaning up things for 1.12.x and can make changes then.  I'll likely start separating LRTR from RP-1 a bit more over time in any case.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Pehvbot

[Sesshaku]

Does this support Principia?

[Pehvbot]

4 hours ago, Sesshaku said:

Does this support Principia?

I've never tested it, but it should be fine.  LRTR doesn't do anything with orbital mechanics and RSS is supported.

[Sesshaku]

3 hours ago, Pehvbot said:

I've never tested it, but it should be fine.  LRTR doesn't do anything with orbital mechanics and RSS is supported.

I ask because it says this mod rescales RSS. Also, is RSS mandatory or can I play with other mods like JNSQ?

Finally, is this basically RP1? I mean, will I have procedural parts, real fuels, avionics, transmitting science over time, etc? Because I am basically in search of the same rocket design as RO/RP1, but without the hardware pressure+long burning times. And honestly, I can't go back to the stock rocket design.

[mateusviccari]

39 minutes ago, Sesshaku said:

I ask because it says this mod rescales RSS. Also, is RSS mandatory or can I play with other mods like JNSQ?

Finally, is this basically RP1? I mean, will I have procedural parts, real fuels, avionics, transmitting science over time, etc? Because I am basically in search of the same rocket design as RO/RP1, but without the hardware pressure+long burning times. And honestly, I can't go back to the stock rocket design.

No, it does not mess with any solar system setting, only rescales parts.

And no, this is different from RP1. You will not get avionics. You can install real fuels, and kerbalism for science over time though. And if you do not want long burn times you don't want to play RSS at all. I think you can play with JNSQ but maybe the rescaled parts will give you overkill delta-v (can't personally confirm that).

[Pehvbot]

1 hour ago, Sesshaku said:

I ask because it says this mod rescales RSS. Also, is RSS mandatory or can I play with other mods like JNSQ?

Finally, is this basically RP1? I mean, will I have procedural parts, real fuels, avionics, transmitting science over time, etc? Because I am basically in search of the same rocket design as RO/RP1, but without the hardware pressure+long burning times. And honestly, I can't go back to the stock rocket design.

 

1 hour ago, mateusviccari said:

No, it does not mess with any solar system setting, only rescales parts.

And no, this is different from RP1. You will not get avionics. You can install real fuels, and kerbalism for science over time though. And if you do not want long burn times you don't want to play RSS at all. I think you can play with JNSQ but maybe the rescaled parts will give you overkill delta-v (can't personally confirm that).

To add a bit to what mateusviccari said, you may want to take a look at KSRSS.  It's a stock scale version of RSS, although I think it's currently bound to KSP version 1.8.1.  It won't work with LRTR, at least not without some serious modifications to everything time related such as it's Kerbal Construction Time settings, contracts, and crew training.  One of my back-burner projects is to make a KSRSS compatible version, but that will need to wait until KSRSS is updated for 1.12.x.

 

[talchas]

Two minor issues I've run into so far:

I was looking for the ScienceValue multipliers, and realized that while LRTR/LRTRKerbalism have BodyScienceParams.cfg with values set, "LRTR" comes before "RealSolarSystem", so they never get used. Now, it's probably been like that for a while, so maybe it makes sense to leave it, but up to you.

The lrtr-sciencecanister-625-1B with RestockPlus still has a vanillaish goo experiment show up (and at least mostly not work with kerbalism active and not linked with it, as I'd sorta expect), because RestockPlus uses DMModuleScienceAnimateGeneric when possible, the LRTR configs only delete the vanilla ModuleScienceExperiment.

[Pehvbot]

11 hours ago, talchas said:

Two minor issues I've run into so far:

I was looking for the ScienceValue multipliers, and realized that while LRTR/LRTRKerbalism have BodyScienceParams.cfg with values set, "LRTR" comes before "RealSolarSystem", so they never get used. Now, it's probably been like that for a while, so maybe it makes sense to leave it, but up to you.

The lrtr-sciencecanister-625-1B with RestockPlus still has a vanillaish goo experiment show up (and at least mostly not work with kerbalism active and not linked with it, as I'd sorta expect), because RestockPlus uses DMModuleScienceAnimateGeneric when possible, the LRTR configs only delete the vanilla ModuleScienceExperiment.

Thanks for the feedback and info.  Yeah, those problems have probably been there since forever, but it probably needs to be fixed.  I'm currently working on a more or less complete rewrite for 1.12.x so I'll try to roll the fixes into the new version.

[Redleg1]

Hey Pehvbot,

I saw your post in the KSRSS thread and I would definitely be interested in a version designed for that especially if it would work at 2.5 scale. On that note, if it were possible for it to work with JNSQ that would be even more awesome!

[Pehvbot]

11 hours ago, Redleg1 said:

Hey Pehvbot,

I saw your post in the KSRSS thread and I would definitely be interested in a version designed for that especially if it would work at 2.5 scale. On that note, if it were possible for it to work with JNSQ that would be even more awesome!

I did some quick and dirty experiments and it seemed to work well for KSRSS.  So the only real issue with JNSQ are the RP-1 style contracts.  The contracts are hard coded for RSS bodies so it would take some surgery to get them to work in a different solar system.   That may be a 'project for later'.  The next version is a more or less ground up rebuild and I'll be adding full KSRSS support.   In that case JNSQ would definitely work if you used a different contract tree.  

[talchas]

Hmm, another gotcha I've run into: it's easy enough to unlock the supersonic x-planes contracts with the unpressurized cockpit, but kerbalism will kill kerbals after 3min above ~10500 (unlike the 16000 of the extra unpressurized module), and all supersonic x-planes contracts require 11000+ for 3min. Of course, losing the small amount of x-plane money is hardly a disaster, but it's definitely a surprise that you need all three supersonic flight nodes to do the repeatable.

[Pehvbot]

On 9/1/2021 at 12:05 AM, talchas said:

Hmm, another gotcha I've run into: it's easy enough to unlock the supersonic x-planes contracts with the unpressurized cockpit, but kerbalism will kill kerbals after 3min above ~10500 (unlike the 16000 of the extra unpressurized module), and all supersonic x-planes contracts require 11000+ for 3min. Of course, losing the small amount of x-plane money is hardly a disaster, but it's definitely a surprise that you need all three supersonic flight nodes to do the repeatable.

Yeah, that's one of my 'known problem' problems.  Given this mod needs to work with basically stock KSP parts there's a big gap along the spaceplane branch of the tech tree.  There are only two single seat cockpits but 3-4 technical leaps.  Right now it is configured to go from Bell X-1 equivalent to X-20 Dyna-soar equivalent.  Solutions include: 

• Keeping it as is and maybe add some text in the contract to warn folks about the technology gap.
• Setting the service ceiling for the first cockpit to say 40,000m which would put it somewhere around the Bell X-2.  
• Adding upgrade options to the existing parts to increase service ceiling.

They all have some issues.  Setting the service ceiling higher makes it easy to run some of the early X-Plane contracts, adding upgrades creates quite a bit of complexity when my goal was to keep things a simple as possible, and keeping things as they are has the problems you mentioned.

One extra wrinkle is that the new RP-1 contract tree requires air breathing jets for the level flight supersonic contracts and I'm not sure yet whether stock parts as they are set in the tech tree can even do this.

I'll need to give this a good think.  If you have any ideas or suggestions on this let me know.

[talchas]

Yeah, and on top of that kerbalism doesn't make it easy to increase the ceiling - the 25 kPa limit for non_breathable is hardcoded (I have no idea how easy it is to add custom modifiers or do this a different way). Increasing the time it takes to die one way or another is easy but more confusing.

 

For the repeatable level supersonic contracts, I'm not sure if you can do it with the starter engines (though I haven't tried just sticking like 5 on a plane), but you can with the second engine that is in the second flight tech. (And with the base RP-1 contract tree it looks like you're still allowed to use a rocket plane for "Break the Sound Barrier")

[Pehvbot]

2 hours ago, talchas said:

Yeah, and on top of that kerbalism doesn't make it easy to increase the ceiling - the 25 kPa limit for non_breathable is hardcoded (I have no idea how easy it is to add custom modifiers or do this a different way). Increasing the time it takes to die one way or another is easy but more confusing.

 

For the repeatable level supersonic contracts, I'm not sure if you can do it with the starter engines (though I haven't tried just sticking like 5 on a plane), but you can with the second engine that is in the second flight tech. (And with the base RP-1 contract tree it looks like you're still allowed to use a rocket plane for "Break the Sound Barrier")

 I removed oxygen from the first cockpit part to model altitude limits because I didn't like how RP-1 did things but RP-1 has updated their module.  I haven't looked at it closely yet but it should allow parts to be set to arbitrary altitudes.   I think the best approach is to raise the max altitude to 40km and return the oxygen.   It does make X-planes slightly easier but the new RP-1 removes low altitude science, so it's a good tradeoff.  Good to know you can get supersonic using second tier engines. 

[talchas]

Hmm, I just noticed a more subtle issue - some parts don't have their drag cubes properly scaled, eg the 1.25m decouplers (both stock and restock(+)) have Y+/- of 1.95 instead of 3.11. Just making a simple fairing|tank(locked)|decoupler|tank|engine vs removing the decoupler (and if you want to be exact, adding a bit of weight to the locked tank or such) shows an obvious difference in drag/max-altitude, so it's not just an info bug.

I believe that the issue is that the DRAG_CUBE area entries (1/4/7/10/13/16) should be multiplied by 1.6^2=2.56, not just 1.6, since they're area rather than length. Making this change gives a much more appropriate 3.12 in game and no noticeable increase in drag losses from adding a decoupler.

[Pehvbot]

22 hours ago, talchas said:

Hmm, I just noticed a more subtle issue - some parts don't have their drag cubes properly scaled, eg the 1.25m decouplers (both stock and restock(+)) have Y+/- of 1.95 instead of 3.11. Just making a simple fairing|tank(locked)|decoupler|tank|engine vs removing the decoupler (and if you want to be exact, adding a bit of weight to the locked tank or such) shows an obvious difference in drag/max-altitude, so it's not just an info bug.

I believe that the issue is that the DRAG_CUBE area entries (1/4/7/10/13/16) should be multiplied by 1.6^2=2.56, not just 1.6, since they're area rather than length. Making this change gives a much more appropriate 3.12 in game and no noticeable increase in drag losses from adding a decoupler.

Thanks!  It's great getting a second pair of eyes on this.  I took these numbers directly from the original RSS rescaler and never dug into them at all.  I think you are right.

I know very little about drag cubes but yeah, if I understand them correctly it breaks down into 8 sets of three numbers.  The first 6 sets are area, drag coefficient, depth for each 'facing' so yes it should be  area*2.56, drag coefficient unchanged, depth*1.6 for each set. 

The last two sets are  bounds center and bounds extents which I think are correctly calculated at * 1.6 per axis.  But a lot of this is black magic for me, so I could be wrong.

 

[Pehvbot]

For anyone who is interested, I've just finished the first beta version of what is basically v2.0 of LRTR [now with even less realism!]  This is a ground up rewrite using the latest branch of RP-1.  This includes lots of bug fixes and several new features.  It's different enough that it will likely break previous saves and it also requires KSP 1.12.x.  This is definitely a beta release.  It should be feature complete but there are likely some rough edges, specially for KSRSS.   Also, not all of the dependencies are updated to 1.12 yet.   Use with caution.

https://github.com/pehvbot/LRTR/releases/tag/v2.0.0-beta.1

The biggest changes are:

• Uses the RP-1 branch of KerbalConstructionTIme, so stock KCT now conflicts with this version.
• Supports both RSS and KSRSS, with partial support for other solar systems (no contract support yet)
• Better support for 'unsupported' mods, helped with some under the hood changes to the tech tree.
• Added optional support for the stock alarm clock.
• Updated how X-Planes work
• A different dependency list
  • ModuleManager
  • ClickThroughBlocker
  • CustomBarnKit
  • ContractConfigurator
  • DMagicScienceAnimate
  • MagiCore
  • ModularFlightIntegrator

 Some of the major bug fixes:

• Fixed support for part upgrades (including RealFuel-stock, and Bluedog parts)
• Fixed rescaled drag cubes
• Fixed BodyScienceParams.cfg so it gets properly applied
• Cleaned up the science parts a bit.

If you are using Real Solar System, the RSS Datetime formatter isn't ready for 1.12 yet.  User PiezPiedPy has created an unofficial version, but keep in mind this is not supported by the current devs.  The official version will likely need to wait until RealismOverhaul goes to 1.12

 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Pehvbot