Firespitter propeller plane and helicopter parts v7.1 (May 5th) for KSP 1.0

[Xzabath]

Awesome work snjo

[ultrasquid]

I think you absolutely made the right decision to make the biplane parts lift at relatively low speeds. After all, they are supposed to be made of linen stretched over wood frames, which ought to be very light up to a certain limit. They should consequently also be relatively weak, and collapse and break apart when going TOO fast. Anyone foolish enough to use these wings and control surfaces on a rocket would see them rip off almost instantly.

I don't know if there are ways to express all this that the game would understand. If only it were possible to add tech tree nodes before the start.

Darn it. I let that sit there for hours and now it reads like a rant, maybe. Anyhow, great job on the mod!

[Snjo]

I think you absolutely made the right decision to make the biplane parts lift at relatively low speeds. After all, they are supposed to be made of linen stretched over wood frames, which ought to be very light up to a certain limit. They should consequently also be relatively weak, and collapse and break apart when going TOO fast. Anyone foolish enough to use these wings and control surfaces on a rocket would see them rip off almost instantly.

I don't know if there are ways to express all this that the game would understand. If only it were possible to add tech tree nodes before the start.

Darn it. I let that sit there for hours and now it reads like a rant, maybe. Anyhow, great job on the mod!

It's been pointed out to me that the wings will hold up without struts at any span length, which seems a bit silly. I'll experiment with lowering the break torque from infinity to a number where they will break during excessive maneuvers if un-strutted.

For a max speed rating, I could probably do that too, just have to be careful how I delete or detach the part from the vessel. It would also effectively stop you from orbiting with it. However, I suspect some people want to use these things on other planets for kicks, and I've never wanted to discourage that, so maybe the max speed is undesirable.

late edit: maybe max speed * Atmospheric density would be a good check. You can go fast in a vacuum, or high up, but try to go 300 m/s at the ground, and say goodbye to your wings.

Edited December 21, 2013 by Snjo

[Snjo]

Just got some good feedback from Ferram on what the cfg values mean, and I've been tweaking them a bit. With some more lift due to a better understanding of Mean Aerodynamic Chord, there is of course more drag on the oddly shaped wings. I'm gonna play with them a bit more, but expect to have to move the wings around if you are using FAR with pre-built craft.

[Darren9]

Christmas is here! What better way to spend a cold winter night than to re-create Santa's Sleigh with Firespitter parts (thanks Snjo) in your favorite space game.

• Nine red nosed "reindeer" engines in classic sleigh layout
  
• "Rudoph" lead engine has a glowing nose to show the way
  
• Precision roof VTOL capabilities (requires skilled pilot!, or MechJeb)
  
• Room in the back for the sack of gifts (Warning - heavy gift sack may effect VTOL capabilities)
  
• Authentic Christmas look and feel (requires some imagination)
  

Here's a screenshot and some top-secret footage of the early flight testing - Merry Bloomin' Christmass

[Snjo]

Christmas is here! What better way to spend a cold winter night than to re-create Santa's Sleigh with Firespitter parts (thanks Snjo) in your favorite space game.

• Nine red nosed "reindeer" engines in classic sleigh layout
  
• "Rudoph" lead engine has a glowing nose to show the way
  
• Precision roof VTOL capabilities (requires skilled pilot!, or MechJeb)
  
• Room in the back for the sack of gifts (Warning - heavy gift sack may effect VTOL capabilities)
  
• Authentic Christmas look and feel (requires some imagination)
  

Here's a screenshot and some top-secret footage of the early flight testing - Merry Bloomin' Christmass

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/8739/el1w.png

http://youtu.be/HZJQMN5SR_0

That is awesome! And it might just be a tiny bit better if you get:

v6.1.1

Download

-Fixed some FAR Values. Included two example craft re-tweaked for FAR.

-A surprise

[Djolox]

just discovered the surprise

santa Hat!

[Snjo]

[Camacha]

I am not too sure about the smoke effects, but the sound seems good!

[Madrias]

Looks good to me! Anything that adds a little more to the sounds and ease of landing (like knowing you've landed... Built a few planes in my time where I couldn't tell I'd already landed cause it was dark), as well as happens to be cool is good in my book.

[Snjo]

I am not too sure about the smoke effects, but the sound seems good!

Yeah, I've tweaked the falloff and smoke fx location since, so it actually happens on the bottom of the wheel, and is not tube shaped column of smoke.

Looks good to me! Anything that adds a little more to the sounds and ease of landing (like knowing you've landed... Built a few planes in my time where I couldn't tell I'd already landed cause it was dark), as well as happens to be cool is good in my book.

It definitely helps when you are flying IVA with no good view of the runway! I have had some planes where I never really knew if I was on the ground or not, cause it's all so quiet. Of course you might sill bounce off and not know it, but your vertical speed indicator should tell you that

[HazelPine]

I found a bug on the PC version that makes it so the engines have no animation. I hope this new update fixes it. BTW awesome mod!

[BubbaWilkins]

Love the Santa Hat open cockpit!

[T-Pilot395]

Loving the tyre screech! But would be nicer if you add a small "thud" upon touchdown.

[sproginator]

Loving the tyre screech! But would be nicer if you add a small "thud" upon touchdown.

Agreed, and release it sooner, I have longed for this feature since the birth of ksp

[Snjo]

Tell you what, I've thrown it in the pre-release zip.

Here's also the very unfinished new helicopter engine I'm working on.

The exciting thing is the auto throttle mode it uses. By default a helicopter will hover. When you press Ctrl or Shift, it will descend or Ascend while the button is pushed. Press X and it stops lifting at all, allowing you to come to rest on the ground. It makes helicopters a whole lot easier to fly, and especially to land.

You can switch it to normal throttle mode on the right click menu for a comparison.

You can tell it's a prototype by the fact that it uses no fuel, works as well in space as on land, and has no animation at all. It has no pitch and roll control, so pack a reaction wheel for now. Oh, and there's an input visualizer on it

[Renousim]

that is beautiful

[g00bd0g]

1stly I love this mod!

I have a feature request. Multi-copter motors/props and associated flight controllers.

Ideally this would mean motors/props which can spin either way. And yaw, pitch, roll are all controlled by varying motor RPM. Additional awesomeness would include variable pitch control, allowing inverted flight and crazy acrobatics.

For inspiration here's my RC dodecacopter.

Edited December 27, 2013 by g00bd0g

[Snjo]

Been making sounds in my kitchen, scraping knives on wood and such

Did you know that finding isolated sounds of wheels rolling is almost impossible? Fun fact!
I wish I could find my skateboard...

edit: hahahaha

Edited December 28, 2013 by Snjo

[wasmic]

http://youtu.be/_5nWYKG_Zoo

Been making sounds in my kitchen, scraping knives on wood and such

Did you know that finding isolated sounds of wheels rolling is almost impossible? Fun fact!

I wish I could find my skateboard...

That sounds great, you're doing quite well

And that experimental helicopter rotor is gonna be really useful, helicopters are kinda hard to fly, currently.

[nickexists]

I have a question about the the B9 vtol engines, I know that's not this mod but I'm pretty sure the problem I'm having is with the firespitter plugin, in particular the FSvtolrotator module. For crafts that have vtol engines in front and back the roll and yaw steering work fine but the pitch steering is reversed which causes the craft to flip over. I've tried changing the line in the part.cfg from "steering direction=-1" to 1, this fixes the pitch steering but it ruins the roll and yaw steering. Any ideas?

[nickexists]

I was able to fix the problem by changing all the front engines to rear mode and all the rear engines to front mode. I guess there is something inverted in the module that shouldn't be?

[Tommygun]

Been making sounds in my kitchen, scraping knives on wood and such

Did you know that finding isolated sounds of wheels rolling is almost impossible? Fun fact!

I wish I could find my skateboard...

edit: hahahaha

Try Googling the words "free sound foley"

Also this:

http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=wheels

[Snjo]

I was able to fix the problem by changing all the front engines to rear mode and all the rear engines to front mode. I guess there is something inverted in the module that shouldn't be?

Aren't the b9 engines jets that thrust down? Maybe something in the code gets the wrong idea in that configuration, trying do give less force cause it thinks the engine is facing the opposite way. It could be something like the part being placed the opposite way give the wrong info to the code that detects alignment on the plane.

Try Googling the words "free sound foley"

Also this:

http://www.freesound.org/search/?q=wheels

Hadn't found that site. Found a couple of samples that might do some good. Thanks!

[ultrasquid]

A little suggestion, for when you have the time:

I was just watching Thunderbird 6: The Movie, and the title ship, a DH Tiger Moth biplane, could be easily built out of Firespitter parts. You'd just need some new textures and squared wingtips. It'd be fun! And I can't think of anything more Kerbal than having passengers clinging to the wing struts.

More photos at http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~eu3k-kbys/FAB2/toy_comet.htm