What kind of performance mods can be done to the craft file itself?

[Jason_25]

I am not having any luck modifying any of the game files any longer.  I can not find the JSON configuration for the stock parts.  Additionally, they appear to have removed the unused medium nuclear engine I was using as a modded engine.

Is there a way to upgrade engine thrust or ISP in the craft JSON file?  So far, changing the REALISPVALUE for engines does not work to change the ISP.  This is because the "real" ISP setting is the ATMOSPHERECURVE setting for the engine which is not available in the craft file.  Nice red herring thrown in there.  Similarly, I can find no way to increase engine thrust.

I have successfully modded the weight of the large wings because that is still bugged.  My large wings weigh 80 TONS a piece.  That is heavier than an Abrams tank on each wing.  I have reported the bug months ago and it is not going to be fixed.  Anyway the MASSMODIFIER setting can be changed to around 1 ton or so.  They should be heavier than this but I am trying to get all the performance advantage I can.  Unfortunately, this must be modified every time something is changed in the game so is ultra tedious.  A script could be used here to automate this I suppose.  It is easy enough to check if it works, the wings still simply fall right off without being modded so that bug has not been fixed either.  Wings still do not have integrated fuel tanks either which is something we have in KSP1 and would at least be an excuse for why wings are so heavy.

So you can see that it is quite pointless to post on the bug tracker and the only hope we have for this game is to take the problems into our own hands.  I cannot provide any meaningful feedback anymore either because I cannot work with 300 ISP deathtrap vehicles with no fuel reserves.  This was supposed to be the big upgrade to KSP where we do not have to worry about modding in better engines but here we are left with very little or nothing on that front.

[Jason_25]

It appears that they have moved the part configuration files into separate Unity addressables files instead of one large obvious file containing all the part configuration files in one.  There is no conspiracy here and they probably did it for performance or maybe organizational reasons.  It does not look like there is anything keeping anyone from adding fuel tanks to the wings and it would probably not be that hard.  Anyway I changed the density of the wings to like .01 from like .150 and that fixed it up nicely.  Now the wings weigh like 6 or 7 tons a piece which is reasonable.  Now there is really no more "room" for fuel tanks and thus nothing to complain about.  As a bonus the wings don't instantly fall off and require 50 struts like they used to.  Game performance is better and the vehicle is far more realistic.

 

edit: I wanted to mention that the weight edits to the wings did not work within the craft file itself.  It had to be modded.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Jason_25

[LuxStice]

unfortunatelly i dont think i can talk about the Hows to do it here, come to the KSP2MS discord server! we're more then open to help you there! https://discord.gg/ksp-2-modding-society-1078696971088433153

but about the parts JSON configuration, that is not yet as simple as modifying a file, you'd need to repack the files in unity, We on the KSP2MS are developing a ModuleManager a like for KSP2 tho!