5m Service/Cargo Bay with Iris Door?

[NightmanX]

Hi folks,

I was looking around a few mods to try to find a Service Bay with an Iris door but came up empty so please recommend if it exists, on second thought petal door would work too even though the petals opening would make placing the engines on the side a bit more difficult

Scenario is that I want to have this under my rocket to store a reusable rover. Basically have a telescoping hydraulic cylinder with a docking port attached to the rover  (makes sense to have just one iris door because the other end is attached to the rocket)

• open the iris door
• lower my rover
•  undock and go collect science
• come back
• dock
• pull it back in
• close the iris door
• fly away

Also is there a way/place where I can see what parts (preferably with photos) a mod contains? It's quite tedious to install each one, load the game, try it, uninstall and repeat

 

Thanks a lot!

Edited May 10, 2020 by NightmanX

[Xyphos]

it is often better and more satisfying to make your own parts rather than request them and wait for someone to make it, if anyone bothers at all.

to do this, you will need to download a 3d modeling application such as Blender which is a free, open-source application.
There are tons of YouTube Tutorials that will teach you the basics of 3d modeling as well as a few advanced techniques.

once your part has been modeled, with colliders (very important)
you need to import it into [Unity], which is the game engine that KSP uses.
As of this post, you should use the one labeled: Unity 2019.2.21 10 Feb, 2020 which is what KSP 1.9.x is currently using.

with your 3d model imported into Unity, you now need to export it into a .mu file that the game can load and use, but Unity can't do that on it's own;
there are some custom Part Tools addons for Unity that the game developers created, use, maintain and publish for their use and ours. (Thanks Devs!)
and finally, with your 3d model exported to a .mu file, KSP needs some additional information about the 3d model in order for it to be a usable part.
so you need to fire up your favorite text editor such as Notepad++ and create the .cfg file that will describe your part to the game engine. [More info]

Also, please note that DDS texture format is no longer supported beyond KSP 1.8 but DXT1 and DXT5 still work.

good luck, have fun, safe landings!

I would also like to point out that due to the way Iris mechanics work [Shown Here]
the opening for the bay would be much smaller than 5m as the shutters have to move somewhere;
matter just doesn't disappear at the press of a button.
the smaller opening than the actual enclosure wouldn't be a very suitable as a service bay or cargo bay, but still might have other uses.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Xyphos