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

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

So, Snjo... do you plan on working on anything new now that firespitter has become such a huge success? You've given us flyers great joy over the past year.

[Snjo]

Whatever I do is usually driven by wanting to take on new challenges, which is why I haven't done many new models. It's basically a solved problem. Coding is a constant barrage of new challenges, and it seems like a quick thing to do. (it actually always takes a lot more time than creating a part, so I'm just fooling myself). It's also about making stuff I feel like I'm missing. I missed propellers and wings so I made them. Now that I have them, the urge to create more is less.

That doesn't mean I won't make more of the kinds of parts that I've already done, it just means it tends to get neglected.

Right now all the modders are probably in damage control mode, I know I've been working with InfiniteDice for the last few days fixing float code and Move to Water code. (which I think I just nailed)

If you're talking about stuff outside Firespitter, I would like some more stuff in the world. I've been thinking about houses and stuff for a long time, and I've made some basic assets, but never threw it all together. I'd like there to be either player placed or pre-placed cities, refuel stations, NPCs, fetch quests and all of that.

Basically, a game is never good enough until you can exit your apartment, enter an elevator, go into the street, get in your car. Drive over to a farm outside the city, get in your crop duster and spray the corn fields.

Pick up a crate of goods, put it onto a truck, and deliver it to a mountain hermit.

After that you hang glide off the mountain, Far Cry style.

Don't hold your breath

[KhaosCorp]

~snip~

Don't hold your breath

May not be as far off as you think =P

Some of what your talking about is already possible with the KerbTown plugin.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/40374-WIP-KerbTown-Beta-available!-Place-static-buildings-cities-objects-in-game

Edited July 29, 2013 by KhaosCorp

[Snjo]

Oh cool! I had heard rumors of that thing, but never found it.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Hey Snjo! I love the propeller blur animation, but it never shows up on the FS1PEE electric engines, or any of the helicopter blades.

[Snjo]

Yeah, I haven't made the blur mesh for those parts yet.

[colmo]

More electric or Kethane prop variants please, and make them deployable. Just recoloured from your fuel props would do.

[colmo]

Apologies for the previous abrupt post, my phone lost a longer and more considered post.

With Kerbtown, you could build a rustic mid-20th century style airbase at a location of your choosing. With the Launchpad integrated, you can launch there too. I'm looking forward to the dock being worked on.

For deployable engines, the Procedural Fairings mod opens up practical ways to get craft to other atmospheric bodies while still looking like a rocket. I'm still planning my spacecopter mission!

[Snjo]

Engines that run on pure Kethane aren't very efficient though. Kethane weighs more than the fuel produced from it last I checked. And I already don't require oxygen, just atmosphere for the intakes. a folding electric propeller is a good thing though.

Gotta play with Kerbtown now for sure. Does the Launchpad allow you to launch directly from the hangar to the new location, or does it require you to load the craft while looking at the launchpad still? Cause if so, you would need to fly the first launcher out to the alternate runway first.

I really do want more air strips for sure!

[colmo]

There's nothing that says "this is a serious mod" quite like an entire ground facility dedicated to it!

I recall you mentioned trying different methods of deploring chopper rotors, the accordion style of the electric ones never sat well with me. Real choppers use a Swiss army knife folding method for stowage.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Just seconding that idea, as I've been hoping for a folding electric propeller ever since you made the folding rotor.

[Snjo]

If you do a google search for folding propeller, they all look pretty much as you expect, they either fold back towards the body, or forwards like odd protruding spears.

I only saw on vague reference to something crazier, so I mocked up that idea for fun:

[tackeart]

You know, I actually quite liked the bug with the launch-to-water module spawning you at the bottom of the ocean, it made it considerably less frustrating to work on this submarine I was trying to make. The only problem is that even though I can use Firespitter engines underwater to propel myself around, it refuses to point anywhere but up, no matter how much RCS I fit on it. Speaking of that, anybody know of a way to let the camera rotate underwater? It continually points downwards and only lets me move a bit left or right.

[BigFatStupidHead]

That's actually pretty awesome.

[KhaosCorp]

You know, I actually quite liked the bug with the launch-to-water module spawning you at the bottom of the ocean, it made it considerably less frustrating to work on this submarine I was trying to make. The only problem is that even though I can use Firespitter engines underwater to propel myself around, it refuses to point anywhere but up, no matter how much RCS I fit on it. Speaking of that, anybody know of a way to let the camera rotate underwater? It continually points downwards and only lets me move a bit left or right.

Engines and rcs are only good for getting you down, nit keeping you down. KSP makes parts have a insane amount of float, you need alot of ballast to counter that, even for small craft. And no, there is no way to counter the camera issues, thats just how underwater is. Even things like the lazor hull cam only help a little, or IVA view...still does not look like your underwater. I have done alot of sub testing lol.

[GrizzlyJones]

That's actually pretty awesome.

I'll second that motion! Even though I haven't really used the electric motors (which I'm sure this is for) I really like this design.

[KhaosCorp]

I'll second that motion! Even though I haven't really used the electric motors (which I'm sure this is for) I really like this design.

Take an airship with Firespitter electric props to Duna and you will never want to go there any other way again =P In fact Snjo's engines drive 100% of my airships in game, seems like they were almost made for that.

[Snjo]

You know, I actually quite liked the bug with the launch-to-water module spawning you at the bottom of the ocean, it made it considerably less frustrating to work on this submarine I was trying to make. The only problem is that even though I can use Firespitter engines underwater to propel myself around, it refuses to point anywhere but up, no matter how much RCS I fit on it. Speaking of that, anybody know of a way to let the camera rotate underwater? It continually points downwards and only lets me move a bit left or right.

Boy, have I got good news for you!

Using the new move to water code, you can set the starting location using coordinates set in the launch systems cfg. Create a copy of the launch part for under water launches, and add the line

launchPosition = 0, 0, 0

where you replace the numbers with the coordinates you find on an earlier attempt. It has to be close to KSC, but when you have a nice underwater position, right click the water launch part and click Log Position. That will post the coordinates to use to the debug log.

For killing flotation on a part, any part, add this to its cfg:

MODULE
{
name = FSbuoyancy
    buoyancyForce = 12.0 // the force applied to lift the part, scaled by depth according to buoyancyRange
    buoyancyRange = 1.0 // the max depth at which the buoyancy will be scaled up. at this depth, the force applied is equal to buyoancyForce. At 0 depth, the force is 0
    buoyancyVerticalOffset = 0.1 // how high the part rides on the water in meters. Not a position offset inside the part. This will be applied in the global axis regardless of part rotation. Think iceberg/styrofoam.
        // for subs you could play with that value to make it think you are at sea level buoyancywisse at an entirely different depth. You could even change this value at run time to create the whole up/down code (Using your own code I mean)
    maxVerticalSpeed = 0.2 // the max speed vertical speed at which there will be a liftng force applied. Reduces bobbing.
    dragInWater = 1.5 // when in water, apply drag to slow the craft down. Stock drag is 3.
    debugMode = True // enables buoyancy control context menus
    waterImpactTolerance = 125
    // forcePointName = // you can set an alternate transform name to set up multi point float. Optional
    splashFXEnabled = False // on by default, cretes splashed even deep under water currently, so for subs, just turn it off.
}

Don't have a camera solution for you other than going IVA.

And finally, to use this stuff, take a more recent build of the plugin:

edit: full release out, see post below

Edited August 1, 2013 by Snjo

[Snjo]

New Official Version

Download

While I'm working on more stuff, I might as well update the official version to fix some KPS 0.21 compatability issues.

v5.4

KSP 0.21 compatibility update

- New landing gear functionality: motor, roll retracted, friction overrides, etc.

- VTOL steering (pitch and yaw through engine rotation, roll through thrust variation)

- Texture switcher module. Switch textures in the hangar for parts (Currently only implemented on Bomber nose art)

- New float code to combat the new KSP versions inability to float things.

- Updated Water Launch module to work with the new KSP version.

- Updated FAR values on the wings. Might allow for less bugginess. You still need to delete the FSwingletRangeAdjustment module in each wing cfg for full control though. (Thanks BubbaWillikins)

- Support for arrays of values in cfg files through FSnodeLoader

Edited August 1, 2013 by Snjo

[Dilin]

Woot woot!

[Climberfx]

Great Snjo!

[Snjo]

Give the new folding electric propeller a whirl, I put it in the pre-release file

The goal was to make the folded up version smaller in diameter than a 1m regular part, so it should fit inside a fairing.

(Blur texture isn't correct yet)

Also added brake lights to the bomber gears to bring the FSwheel module to parity with stock gear.

And someone pointed out to me how heavy the landing gears are, so they now have much less mass. helicopter may need some slight tweak to engine placement, but it mostly affects the fighter and bomber gears.

[Toyotawolf]

Awesome sauce!!!

[tackeart]

So the new version of the Launch to Water module isn't shoving your seacraft to the bottom of the ocean now, but at default settings pretty much everything splashes down hard and is destroyed when I launch. The only way I can fix this right now without adding floats is to mess with their impact tolerance, and that's a bit cheaty. So is this unavoidable, or is there any fix?

[KhaosCorp]

So the new version of the Launch to Water module isn't shoving your seacraft to the bottom of the ocean now, but at default settings pretty much everything splashes down hard and is destroyed when I launch. The only way I can fix this right now without adding floats is to mess with their impact tolerance, and that's a bit cheaty. So is this unavoidable, or is there any fix?

look a couple pages back, Snjo posted how to adjust the location the launch to water puts ya at