[WIP] (1.9.1 - 1.12+) TrekDrive - a Star Trek-like Warp Drive by ShadowWorks v0.99.1w NX-Class (10/08/2021)

[TheShadow1138]

2 hours ago, Kenobi McCormick said:

Just once, and just to that craft. I just got done with a 30 minute round trip to Jool in a MUCH larger craft(Too large to really be practical with chemical rockets go figure) and did not have the issue.

Some of it may also be my controller. I'm using a Futaba 10J as an input device and with the throttle stick fully down it's still something like 1%. That may be enough to cause some wierdness with regard to coming out of warp. And that solution is simple enough; stick to keyboard controls outside of the atmosphere.

I usually MechJeb around space anyway.

That does seem like what the issue might have been, especially since it only happened the once.  If you could map the "kill throttle" key to some part of the controller, you might be able to get it to work that way, if that is the ultimate cause.

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To be perfectly frank the thing flies better than some of my real world RC planes do hahahaha. I.....kinda want to build a replica of it as such.

If you do, let me know how it flies.

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Ooohhh. Proper impulse drives. Be perfect for us to set up our orbits with. Using chemical rockets is tricky and I'm sorta hesitant to use some of the Phoenix rocket engines due to needing that LD/AM for the warp drive itself.

Yeah, the LD/AM fueled thruster was a stopgap to keep from having to use LF/O as well.  The impulse engines will consume Liquid Deuterium as efficiently as I can and still justify to myself.  This is part of my revamp of the power system.

In making the NX-class model I've looked at a lot of schematics, and deck plans, and came to the realization that the warp plasma/EPS grid is a closed system, as far as I can tell.  So, the approach I am going to take with the power system is that the reaction ratio of matter-to-antimatter is very matter rich such that if the ratio were 50:1, then 49 units of warp plasma are created.  This makes the warp plasma, for the purposes of the mod, a highly energized neutral deuterium plasma.  Neutral in this case means that the overall charge is neutral, there's an equal amount of positive and negative charges, (equal numbers of electrons and positive ions).  Neutral plasmas will neutralize back to their original gaseous state as they cool/lose energy.  So, that 49 units of warp plasma will be converted over time back to 49 units of Liquid Deuterium.  This way your liquid deuterium supply lasts longer.  The impulse engines will, of course consume liquid deuterium as they are at their core fusion rockets, but the bussard collectors on the nacelles will be working in 1.0 to provide some underway replenishment of deuterium.  I still have some calculations to do to settle on ratios and whatnot.  I'll probably write up a quick program to simulate the system to evaluate parameters.  Hopefully it all works out.

[bjornadri]

14 hours ago, TheShadow1138 said:

That does seem like what the issue might have been, especially since it only happened the once.  If you could map the "kill throttle" key to some part of the controller, you might be able to get it to work that way, if that is the ultimate cause.

If you do, let me know how it flies.

Yeah, the LD/AM fueled thruster was a stopgap to keep from having to use LF/O as well.  The impulse engines will consume Liquid Deuterium as efficiently as I can and still justify to myself.  This is part of my revamp of the power system.

In making the NX-class model I've looked at a lot of schematics, and deck plans, and came to the realization that the warp plasma/EPS grid is a closed system, as far as I can tell.  So, the approach I am going to take with the power system is that the reaction ratio of matter-to-antimatter is very matter rich such that if the ratio were 50:1, then 49 units of warp plasma are created.  This makes the warp plasma, for the purposes of the mod, a highly energized neutral deuterium plasma.  Neutral in this case means that the overall charge is neutral, there's an equal amount of positive and negative charges, (equal numbers of electrons and positive ions).  Neutral plasmas will neutralize back to their original gaseous state as they cool/lose energy.  So, that 49 units of warp plasma will be converted over time back to 49 units of Liquid Deuterium.  This way your liquid deuterium supply lasts longer.  The impulse engines will, of course consume liquid deuterium as they are at their core fusion rockets, but the bussard collectors on the nacelles will be working in 1.0 to provide some underway replenishment of deuterium.  I still have some calculations to do to settle on ratios and whatnot.  I'll probably write up a quick program to simulate the system to evaluate parameters.  Hopefully it all works out.

i genuinely cannot wait for this mod to fully release. can't wait to fly that beauty. thanks so much for your hard work Shadow!

[TheShadow1138]

Shuttlepod Complete!!!  Just need to do the landing bays, which shouldn't be too difficult as they don't need to be much more than boxes with textures.  Then I can really get down to getting everything in-game.  There are, as you can see two stripe color variants.  I'm still thinking about registration markings.  I could set it up so it uses the same name and registration textures, then it would need secondary pod numbers, or seal(s)/flag(s).  I'm going to look at the decals mod to see if it would be a good solution, maybe not only for the shuttlepods, but also the NX and future starship classes.

[kerbalk]

Just now, TheShadow1138 said:

Shuttlepod Complete!!!  Just need to do the landing bays, which shouldn't be too difficult as they don't need to be much more than boxes with textures.  Then I can really get down to getting everything in-game.  There are, as you can see two stripe color variants.  I'm still thinking about registration markings.  I could set it up so it uses the same name and registration textures, then it would need secondary pod numbers, or seal(s)/flag(s).  I'm going to look at the decals mod to see if it would be a good solution, maybe not only for the shuttlepods, but also the NX and future starship classes.

Oohhhh, nice! Will it be able to land, like a VTOL? Looks great!

[TheShadow1138]

17 minutes ago, kerbalk said:

Oohhhh, nice! Will it be able to land, like a VTOL? Looks great!

I may have a solution for this, which doubles as a solution for getting the starships into orbit without cheating.

It may be possible to give the impulse engines a "Takeoff" and "Landing" mode that will gently lift off the ground vertically, and softly land the same way, unless of course you've run out of propellant.  I would set it up so that the CFG defines a "hover altitude" and maybe a "takeoff time", so you could say 1000m in 20 seconds, or something like that.  So on the takeoff mode, the pod/starship would lift off the ground automatically once the impulse engines were staged/activated, and would, in theory hover at the altitude designated in the CFG.  All you would have to do is to throttle up the impulse engines to gain more altitude.  I may have to designate a cutoff altitude that would also be configurable that would render the takeoff and landing modes inoperable.  I would use whether the vessel is in atmosphere, but obviously that won't work on airless worlds, so a set altitude would be needed as a cutoff.

This solution would mean that if one went to land the shuttlepod without switching modes, there would be a resistance to flying below the "hover altitude", but switching to the landing mode would allow the ship to gently lower to the ground.  This is, of course, assuming that I can get the behavior to work in-game.  Once the parts are all in-game, the impulse engine code is the next thing on the list.

[kerbalk]

3 hours ago, TheShadow1138 said:

I may have a solution for this, which doubles as a solution for getting the starships into orbit without cheating.

It may be possible to give the impulse engines a "Takeoff" and "Landing" mode that will gently lift off the ground vertically, and softly land the same way, unless of course you've run out of propellant.  I would set it up so that the CFG defines a "hover altitude" and maybe a "takeoff time", so you could say 1000m in 20 seconds, or something like that.  So on the takeoff mode, the pod/starship would lift off the ground automatically once the impulse engines were staged/activated, and would, in theory hover at the altitude designated in the CFG.  All you would have to do is to throttle up the impulse engines to gain more altitude.  I may have to designate a cutoff altitude that would also be configurable that would render the takeoff and landing modes inoperable.  I would use whether the vessel is in atmosphere, but obviously that won't work on airless worlds, so a set altitude would be needed as a cutoff.

This solution would mean that if one went to land the shuttlepod without switching modes, there would be a resistance to flying below the "hover altitude", but switching to the landing mode would allow the ship to gently lower to the ground.  This is, of course, assuming that I can get the behavior to work in-game.  Once the parts are all in-game, the impulse engine code is the next thing on the list.

Wow, very ambitious, i love it! Can't wait for that.

Edit: Are there going to be Weapons, like Photon Torpedoes, Phasers, and Disruptors?

Also, will there be other factions ships, like Romulan? And will there be Shields? Lots of cool stuff!

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by kerbalk

[TheShadow1138]

On 6/29/2021 at 8:51 PM, kerbalk said:

Wow, very ambitious, i love it! Can't wait for that.

Edit: Are there going to be Weapons, like Photon Torpedoes, Phasers, and Disruptors?

Also, will there be other factions ships, like Romulan? And will there be Shields? Lots of cool stuff!

 

I'm not planning on any weapons or shields, I've actually not modeled, or even placed on the textures the torpedo tubes of the NX.  Granted, the torpedo tubes are the only visible evidence of weapons on the NX, but I have no plans for weapons.  Shields would also be a bit difficult, I think, especially if I were to go for a show-accurate behavior.  Each shield would have to be 8 meshes, and I'm not sure that they could be easily scaled to fit a given ship, and would decrease the amount of customizability of the ships.  For example, an ovoid shield mesh that would encompass the NX, may encompass a variant with the nacelles mounted downward, or the four nacelle configuration, but may not encompass the refit configuration.  This would mean that the refit NX would require a separate shield mesh.  I suppose one could have a generic spherical shield mesh setup in generic sizes that might do the job for the most part.  You'd also have to be able to disable the collider(s) for the shield in flight, or else you wouldn't be able to dock with, or leave the ship.  I don't know if a shield has been implemented in the game, so I'm not sure if it can be done.  I'm not quite comfortable enough with C# and how to interface with the game though plugins to try and tackle that right now.

As for other factions' ships, I hadn't given it much thought.  I'm certainly not against adding other factions' ships, it just may require more hands.  Others are more than welcome to create models of other ships.  I'm going to include a guide for other modders on how to setup their models so that they will work well with the TrekDrive plugin with the 1.0 release.  The biggest thing right now is what is necessary to get the glow on the nacelles during warp coil charging.  Other than that, it's really just a matter of adding the modules to the parts.

[kerbalk]

18 hours ago, TheShadow1138 said:

I'm not planning on any weapons or shields, I've actually not modeled, or even placed on the textures the torpedo tubes of the NX.  Granted, the torpedo tubes are the only visible evidence of weapons on the NX, but I have no plans for weapons.  Shields would also be a bit difficult, I think, especially if I were to go for a show-accurate behavior.  Each shield would have to be 8 meshes, and I'm not sure that they could be easily scaled to fit a given ship, and would decrease the amount of customizability of the ships.  For example, an ovoid shield mesh that would encompass the NX, may encompass a variant with the nacelles mounted downward, or the four nacelle configuration, but may not encompass the refit configuration.  This would mean that the refit NX would require a separate shield mesh.  I suppose one could have a generic spherical shield mesh setup in generic sizes that might do the job for the most part.  You'd also have to be able to disable the collider(s) for the shield in flight, or else you wouldn't be able to dock with, or leave the ship.  I don't know if a shield has been implemented in the game, so I'm not sure if it can be done.  I'm not quite comfortable enough with C# and how to interface with the game though plugins to try and tackle that right now.

As for other factions' ships, I hadn't given it much thought.  I'm certainly not against adding other factions' ships, it just may require more hands.  Others are more than welcome to create models of other ships.  I'm going to include a guide for other modders on how to setup their models so that they will work well with the TrekDrive plugin with the 1.0 release.  The biggest thing right now is what is necessary to get the glow on the nacelles during warp coil charging.  Other than that, it's really just a matter of adding the modules to the parts.

Understandable, still a great mod nonetheless. Looking forward to possible Warbirds sometime, weather by you or someone else!

Edited July 2, 2021 by kerbalk
Typos

[Kenobi McCormick]

On 6/29/2021 at 7:51 PM, kerbalk said:

Wow, very ambitious, i love it! Can't wait for that.

Edit: Are there going to be Weapons, like Photon Torpedoes, Phasers, and Disruptors?

Also, will there be other factions ships, like Romulan? And will there be Shields? Lots of cool stuff!

 

I'm more looking forward to the modular parts that we put on our own builds rather than the ships from the show itself. The latter's lookin' boss but I'm of a mind to rock my own designs heh.

[kerbalk]

So, i found a small thing, not serious, lust a little bit odd.

The Warp Nacelles have an Odd symmetry, only for mirror, it makes it a little odd to build ships.

[TheShadow1138]

37 minutes ago, kerbalk said:

So, i found a small thing, not serious, lust a little bit odd.

The Warp Nacelles have an Odd symmetry, only for mirror, it makes it a little odd to build ships.

That is a bit odd.  Try going into the CFG for the Phoenix Warp Nacelle and below 

bulkheadProfiles = size1, srf

add the following line

stackSymmetry = 1

See if that helps.  I'm not sure it will make a difference, but other than that I'm not sure what could be causing this behavior.  It looks like you're attaching them to a stack decoupler.  Does this happen if you try to attach them to a fuselage piece also?

[Kenobi McCormick]

I don't get any symmetry at all with them. Not the first time I've encountered that and I just put it in snap mode while placing to get around it. I get the feeling it doesn't really matter for purposes of actually warping around due to how warp actually works, but it does look nicer when they're on straight.

Edited July 4, 2021 by Kenobi McCormick

[TheShadow1138]

1 minute ago, Kenobi McCormick said:

I don't get any symmetry at all with them. Not the first time I've encountered that and I just put it in snap mode while placing to get around it. I get the feeling it doesn't really matter for purposes of actually warping around due to how warp actually works, but it does look nicer when they're on straight.

Yeah, it really is just aesthetic since the drive just changes the position of the vessel, and I agree sometimes it's just nice to have a good looking ship.  I didn't set any kind of symmetry for the nacelles, so I'm not sure if setting the stackSymmetry in the nacelle's CFG would fix that or not.

Progress Report:

I have exported all of the NX parts from Blender into Unity and let me tell you I had a time getting all of the normals right, but I got it sorted out.  Getting the shuttlepod exported shouldn't be much of an issue, so I'm even closer to getting them in-game.

[kerbalk]

Just now, TheShadow1138 said:

Yeah, it really is just aesthetic since the drive just changes the position of the vessel, and I agree sometimes it's just nice to have a good looking ship.  I didn't set any kind of symmetry for the nacelles, so I'm not sure if setting the stackSymmetry in the nacelle's CFG would fix that or not.

Progress Report:

I have exported all of the NX parts from Blender into Unity and let me tell you I had a time getting all of the normals right, but I got it sorted out.  Getting the shuttlepod exported shouldn't be much of an issue, so I'm even closer to getting them in-game.

Ooohhh, nice, is there a rough estimate of the Release date?

[TheShadow1138]

1 minute ago, kerbalk said:

Ooohhh, nice, is there a rough estimate of the Release date?

Not really.  I will have to get the impulse engine code written and working before release, so that's the real limiting factor in the NX and 1.0 release.  So, I don't want to estimate, I'll just say: Soon™.

[kerbalk]

Just now, TheShadow1138 said:

Not really.  I will have to get the impulse engine code written and working before release, so that's the real limiting factor in the NX and 1.0 release.  So, I don't want to estimate, I'll just say: Soon™.

Lol, gotchu, i will be waiting patiently.

[Kenobi McCormick]

14 minutes ago, TheShadow1138 said:

Yeah, it really is just aesthetic since the drive just changes the position of the vessel, and I agree sometimes it's just nice to have a good looking ship.  I didn't set any kind of symmetry for the nacelles, so I'm not sure if setting the stackSymmetry in the nacelle's CFG would fix that or not.

Progress Report:

I have exported all of the NX parts from Blender into Unity and let me tell you I had a time getting all of the normals right, but I got it sorted out.  Getting the shuttlepod exported shouldn't be much of an issue, so I'm even closer to getting them in-game.

Symmetry working would be sweet for multiple nacelle setups though. Not gonna lie having them in an X or Y formation would look bad ass.

I also wouldn't mind a single 1.5m round part that does the same thing, but fits in a normal rocket stack/on the back of the AM/LD tank as if it were an aerospike or LT-V45 or sommat. Some creative designs could be built around that.  No deploy or retract on it of course.

[kerbalk]

On the topic of Impulse engines, will they work like Really powerful conventional rocket engines, or like a really weak warp drive?

[TheShadow1138]

9 minutes ago, kerbalk said:

On the topic of Impulse engines, will they work like Really powerful conventional rocket engines, or like a really weak warp drive?

My thinking, assuming that I can do what I'm thinking, is that it is a bit of both.  I will determine an acceleration imparted by the impulse engine, but instead of being applied along a thrust transform, I will have it added through vector addition to the acceleration of the vessel COM.  This should, if I can do it this way, allow for thrusting like a rocket engine, but that thrust is always applied through the center of mass, meaning no unwanted torques.  This would negate the worry of placing impulse engines off-axis.

[TheShadow1138]

All parts are in-game!!!!  Everything is finally in-game.  Still some small bugs to work out in the CFGs to make sure the stock behaviors are, well, behaving.  Now, I can begin work on the impulse engines.  In the meantime, here are some screenshots of the full NX-01 Enterprise in KSP!

Landing bay doors open revealing one shuttlepod in each.

The NX-01 cheated into orbit

[Puggonaut]

Holy sweet mother of god , that look amazing

[kerbalk]

3 hours ago, TheShadow1138 said:

All parts are in-game!!!!  Everything is finally in-game.  Still some small bugs to work out in the CFGs to make sure the stock behaviors are, well, behaving.  Now, I can begin work on the impulse engines.  In the meantime, here are some screenshots of the full NX-01 Enterprise in KSP!

Landing bay doors open revealing one shuttlepod in each.

The NX-01 cheated into orbit

What the..! This is amazing! i want to watch Enterprise now! This is just... Jeez!

[TheShadow1138]

18 minutes ago, kerbalk said:

What the..! This is amazing! i want to watch Enterprise now! This is just... Jeez!

Thanks!  If you haven't seen Enterprise before, I do highly recommend it.

[kerbalk]

1 hour ago, TheShadow1138 said:

Thanks!  If you haven't seen Enterprise before, I do highly recommend it.

Good to know, im just starting out, still watching TNG

[Puggonaut]

2 hours ago, TheShadow1138 said:

Thanks!  If you haven't seen Enterprise before, I do highly recommend it.

All good apart from the last episode , which sucks