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

[Snjo]

Hi Snjo, Thanks for great mod&plugins, But however, My WLS won't work.

I searched all the threads and tried changing coordinate and timer. However, Changing coordinate worked but though i changed the timer, it seemed nothing changed and the real problem is that, When i launch at sea, It just put back me to the runway and often occurs BIG explosion. I want another solutions. plz help me.

There isn't another solution I'm afraid. The whole thing has always been held together with bobby pins and duct tape. Most of the time it works, the rest it doesn't.

[InfiniteDice]

Hi Snjo, Thanks for great mod&plugins, But however, My WLS won't work.

I searched all the threads and tried changing coordinate and timer. However, Changing coordinate worked but though i changed the timer, it seemed nothing changed and the real problem is that, When i launch at sea, It just put back me to the runway and often occurs BIG explosion. I want another solutions. plz help me.

This happens with many people using my BoatParts as well, usually this is lag related.

Try to get your framerate up any way possible.

a) check your terrain detail setting, lower = more FPS

make sure you don't have multiple vessels parked near the KSC, (within 3km or so) this can contribute to lag.

c) you can try editing snjos cfg where it lengthens the launch to water timer.

d) you can try altering the physics-time setting under the options menu, I've had people say this helps.

Hopefully this helps you!

Edited October 23, 2013 by InfiniteDice

[Payload]

a) check your terrain detail setting, lower = more FPS

I would like to point out that if you change this setting you will not be able to drive a rover on the Mun/other planets.

This setting must stay at default. Any lower and it causes invisible cracks in the terrain that will eat your rolling vehicles.

If you need more FPS you should change the game resolution and the texture settings. Though those two things are likely to have little impact.

KSP requires a powerful CPU. Unless you Overclock or buy a new CPU, you are probably not going to see any significant gain in FPS.

[InfiniteDice]

I would like to point out that if you change this setting you will not be able to drive a rover on the Mun/other planets.

This setting must stay at default. Any lower and it causes invisible cracks in the terrain that will eat your rolling vehicles.

I only mentioned this as I changed mine to max... and once I started seeing 10fps while recording with fraps, I changed the setting back to normal and it was back up to 30 fps. He could have it set to max... so there is possibly some gain to be had.

[Hodo]

So out of shear boredom I made one of my favorite aircraft from WWII.

The De Havilland Mosquito

[Senshi]

Short question: Is it possible to add an air intake to the "FS1OF Oblong Nose"? I always have trouble getting some form of intake that looks decent with my small fighters. The only real choice is the stock radial intake, but even that is horribly oversized sometimes (especially given the usual range of operating altitudes for the FS engines). So maybe an adapted Oblong nose that features a small "slit" at the bottom which serves as an intake? Doesn'T have to big as big as the real-life P40 had, but something along those lines. That would be just awesome . And given the entire shape of the oblong series, there should be enough room for that on the nose, right?

[Snjo]

I tried to model in the radiator or air intake hole in the front of the nose cone when I made it, but never got it to look good. And I was making it with a Mustang in mind, which has that big thing on the bottom anyways, so I skipped it.

I'll see how I did the geometry in the new engines and see if that would make sense in this case...

[Senshi]

As I was always told: If you don't get what you want, do it on your own .

Honestly, it simply was a nice excuse to finally start exploring KSP asset creation a bit.

http://p3d.in/9TR8L

It's inspired by the intake of the P-40 Warhawk, but using the blender files you provided in the OP, I custom-tailored your regular nose to suit the Firespitter look. I only touched the bottom half, the rest remains unchanged.

Not certain about the level of detail to strive for...while some mods like KW Rocketry or Kosmos certainly have parts with >1000 tris, Firespitter parts seem to follow the "maximum effect with minimum number of tris" doctrine very thoroughly. No matter, really, it's neither hard to make the model more simple or more complex.

Currently, the intake has a small bulge downwards, though I took care to leave a sufficiently large flat, horizontal area for potential attachments. This was also mostly inspired by the P-40, but it also allowed for a bit more vertical space for the intake, giving it a nice round look, despite its width. Not sure if this should be kept, however, as the bulge might prove to make plane design a tad more difficult.

I haven't downloaded, set up or ever worked with Unity before, so I haven't brought it ingame yet to further examine, but the link above should give a nice idea. I'll see if I can get Unity and learn the ropes of creating Unity KSP assets. Am curious to see how it'll turn out ingame .

[Snjo]

As I was always told: If you don't get what you want, do it on your own .

Honestly, it simply was a nice excuse to finally start exploring KSP asset creation a bit.

http://p3d.in/9TR8L

It's inspired by the intake of the P-40 Warhawk, but using the blender files you provided in the OP, I custom-tailored your regular nose to suit the Firespitter look. I only touched the bottom half, the rest remains unchanged.

Not certain about the level of detail to strive for...while some mods like KW Rocketry or Kosmos certainly have parts with >1000 tris, Firespitter parts seem to follow the "maximum effect with minimum number of tris" doctrine very thoroughly. No matter, really, it's neither hard to make the model more simple or more complex.

Currently, the intake has a small bulge downwards, though I took care to leave a sufficiently large flat, horizontal area for potential attachments. This was also mostly inspired by the P-40, but it also allowed for a bit more vertical space for the intake, giving it a nice round look, despite its width. Not sure if this should be kept, however, as the bulge might prove to make plane design a tad more difficult.

I haven't downloaded, set up or ever worked with Unity before, so I haven't brought it ingame yet to further examine, but the link above should give a nice idea. I'll see if I can get Unity and learn the ropes of creating Unity KSP assets. Am curious to see how it'll turn out ingame .

That looks sweet! Something about it is kind of... Art Deco? I don't know, have a hard time remembering art styles.

If you need anything else, let me know, happy to help a beginning modder.

[Patupi]

Hi Snjo.

I'm attempting to add Ioncross plugin to the cockpits of this mod, and I seem to remember some comments on this thread a little while ago about a mismatch between folder names and the names inside the cfg messing up module manager. Do you know which of these names I should change that won't break existing ships using these parts in game?

(EDIT: by trial and error (more error than trial) I found that you change the folder to the part name... tried the other way first of course and lost the ship on Duna.... not that important, but about my luck today. However, this didn't get Ioncross to work for the apache cockpit. Even newly made ships don't have oxygen (apart from that which comes with seperate ioncross oxygen tanks) and the Kerbals don't consume any oxygen, and though the resourse bar now has CO2 it's at 0/0. I could understand 0/20 as 20 was the max I set. This was what I added in for a cfg:

@PART[FSapacheCockpit]

{

MODULE

{

name = IonModuleCrewSupport

}

RESOURCE

{

name = Oxygen

amount = 200

maxAmount = 200

}

RESOURCE

{

name = CarbonDioxide

amount = 0

maxAmount = 20

}

}

all in the ioncross folder along with the other mod cfgs. Any idea why this isn't working?

Edited October 26, 2013 by Patupi

[Snjo]

Hi Snjo.

I'm attempting to add Ioncross plugin to the cockpits of this mod, and I seem to remember some comments on this thread a little while ago about a mismatch between folder names and the names inside the cfg messing up module manager. Do you know which of these names I should change that won't break existing ships using these parts in game?

You'll see that all my folder names are mismatched with the part names in the cfg. the folder are called FS_something, while the parts are called FSsomething. If you need the correct names, there's no harm in renaming the folders to whatever is listed in the part.cfg.

[Patupi]

After errors (see edit in previous post) I did manage to figure that out. Thanks for the response (and quick too ), I know the rest of the problem is more to do with Ioncross than your mod. I'll see if I can ask there if there are problems with adding it to other pods with module manager.

[KhaosCorp]

I haven't downloaded, set up or ever worked with Unity before, so I haven't brought it ingame yet to further examine, but the link above should give a nice idea. I'll see if I can get Unity and learn the ropes of creating Unity KSP assets. Am curious to see how it'll turn out ingame .

That is looking damn nice sir! You should run it through Unity and post...I wants. Honestly, for most parts the Unity build is the easy part of the process.

[Senshi]

I have modded for a larger variety of games, but the Unity pipeline for KSP with the PartTools must be the first time it simply just worked on the first try...well, almost: I messed up the scaling, but that originated in the conversion horrors from Blender to 3ds Max to Unity to KSP, I guess.Though I'm not sure how I managed to get it to exactly 50% of the desired scale...

Precisely placing attachment nodes seems to be an art in itself using the old method...very tiring trial&error approach...there seems to be a new way to do it using nodes in the model, but apparently that's still buggy, I read?

Javascript is disabled. View full album

I wanted to do the exhaust pipes as an open "tube" with a simple double-sided mesh, but I cannot figure out how to achieve that in Unity with the KSP shaders. Googling tells me that doublesided textures requires a custom shader to be written (mostly the "Cull:Off" toggle is important), but we have to stick with KSP's default shaders, right? I decided now on giving them some fake depth using the usual inverse cone approach, but I'm still curious.

I think the part is about done. Some cfg-tuning might be needed to get it better in line with the other parts. Currently it simply uses the parameters of the FS Oblong Intake (which is intended for jets) , maybe they're a bit too powerful for the prop engines? Then again the intake is about the same size, despite the prop mount.

I tested it on some single- and multi engine fighters and it runs nicely.

Feel free to give it a try yourself, guys:

Download, then unpack to your GameData folder. Doesn't overwrite anything..

[nothke]

I have modded for a larger variety of games, but the Unity pipeline for KSP with the PartTools must be the first time it simply just worked on the first try...well, almost: I messed up the scaling, but that originated in the conversion horrors from Blender to 3ds Max to Unity to KSP, I guess.Though I'm not sure how I managed to get it to exactly 50% of the desired scale...

Precisely placing attachment nodes seems to be an art in itself using the old method...very tiring trial&error approach...there seems to be a new way to do it using nodes in the model, but apparently that's still buggy, I read?

That's true about KSP, everything worked for me the first time I exported models xD that NEVER happened with other games!

KSP automatically scales everything by 1.25; if you want to keep it at 1.0 add a line in .cfg: rescalefactor = 1.0

but it might be modeling software too, set units to meters and check the export (I prefer .fbx) that it is 1.0 scale.

There is a way to place attachment nodes via dummies, but I've never used it. I just took all the attachments from modeling software directly by reading the coordinates. Also make sure Scale in .cfg is 1.0 (which scales nodes only, not to be confused with rescaleFactor which scales everything), if it's not 1.0 messes up your attachment node coordinates.

- snip -

I wanted to do the exhaust pipes as an open "tube" with a simple double-sided mesh, but I cannot figure out how to achieve that in Unity with the KSP shaders. Googling tells me that doublesided textures requires a custom shader to be written (mostly the "Cull:Off" toggle is important), but we have to stick with KSP's default shaders, right? I decided now on giving them some fake depth using the usual inverse cone approach, but I'm still curious.

There is no need for double sided shaders, just duplicate the faces you need to be double sided and flip them in modeling software. (in max: detach as clone > flip)

[KhaosCorp]

Unity will open a .blend just FYI. For KSP its best to make sure scale (and when possible rotation) are reset to default (thats 1 for scale and 0deg for rotation) for all mesh before export to unity.

Also something I do that REALLY helps. In Unity scene make an extra EmptyGameObject and name it 'yardstick'. Once you are done with a part and and working on config, you can pop back in unity and move the yardstick to where the node needs to be on the part, those co-ords are gonna be real close to what node definition needs to be. Make sure you keep yardstick EGO top lvl or it will mess with the numbers.

Also just wanted to say how awesome the Beechcraft replica is! That thing is just a pleasure to fly, brilliant job on that Snjo =)

[Senshi]

There is no need for double sided shaders, just duplicate the faces you need to be double sided and flip them in modeling software. (in max: detach as clone > flip)

The "just" in there made me flinch...probably because I modded for games where every poly/tri saved meant a perfomance gain. And I don't think KSP differs there too much, right? That approach would easily bump the tri count for this part to 150% of what it has now, achieving the same result every other engine does with a simple twosided shader toggle.

I know Unity opens .blend, but I'm just more experienced in 3ds Max than Blender. That's what happens when you fall for the "free student licenses" trap they hand out...

EDIT: Stumbled over the 3ds Max Vector tool from the old KSP SDK, that should make the node positioning very easy as well. I still think I'll give the new node placement method a try next time. If that works, it'd be a much more precise solution. Who knows, might get on that to fix the small offsets some of the FS parts have (fighter cockpit... ).

Edited October 27, 2013 by Senshi

[Snjo]

The "just" in there made me flinch...probably because I modded for games where every poly/tri saved meant a perfomance gain. And I don't think KSP differs there too much, right? That approach would easily bump the tri count for this part to 150% of what it has now, achieving the same result every other engine does with a simple twosided shader toggle.

I know Unity opens .blend, but I'm just more experienced in 3ds Max than Blender. That's what happens when you fall for the "free student licenses" trap they hand out...

EDIT: Stumbled over the 3ds Max Vector tool from the old KSP SDK, that should make the node positioning very easy as well. I still think I'll give the new node placement method a try next time. If that works, it'd be a much more precise solution. Who knows, might get on that to fix the small offsets some of the FS parts have (fighter cockpit... ).

Considering the exhaust ports have quite a few tris on them relative to their size, and since they are so small, I just used a black end cap. They are however not unique meshes. Each exhaust port in the unity project is a duplicate of the first one, so that's eight gameObjects using a single mesh.

But on the other hand, the argument could be made that several gameObjects are worse than a single united one in terms of rendering time. I saw this clearly in the cockpit monitors. Four monitors with a total of almost 1600 separate identical gameObjects, with two tris each, kills the frame rate way, way more than thousands of tris in a single part ever could.

Unity will open a .blend just FYI. For KSP its best to make sure scale (and when possible rotation) are reset to default (thats 1 for scale and 0deg for rotation) for all mesh before export to unity.

Also something I do that REALLY helps. In Unity scene make an extra EmptyGameObject and name it 'yardstick'. Once you are done with a part and and working on config, you can pop back in unity and move the yardstick to where the node needs to be on the part, those co-ords are gonna be real close to what node definition needs to be. Make sure you keep yardstick EGO top lvl or it will mess with the numbers.

Also just wanted to say how awesome the Beechcraft replica is! That thing is just a pleasure to fly, brilliant job on that Snjo =)

Thanks for compliments on the beech!

For figuring out the node positions, I just keep the whole part on 0,0,0. I then create an empty gameObject outside the part and place it where I want the attach node. I read the xyz values off it, and input it into the cfg.

[InfiniteDice]

[colmo]

(reposted from YT) I can definitely see me building another old-school biplane with an engine that requires constant fettling using this engine plug-in - could make for interesting voyages. It's definitely an option for an alt tech tree where aeroplanes come well before rockets, and different aircraft tech appears in appropriate order.

[Guest]

Yeah. A tech tree that start with what's essentially a Wright Flyer and only introduces rocketry and jets mid-game (and even that with a V-2 equivalent) would be an interesting variation.

[Railgunner2160]

Cool engines InfiniteDice!!!! I'd really like to see Snjo incorporate them as an official option!!!

[NathanKell]

Yeah. A tech tree that start with what's essentially a Wright Flyer and only introduces rocketry and jets mid-game (and even that with a V-2 equivalent) would be an interesting variation.

Prop planes (and unguided sounding rockets) are where it's at, early game.

[qwertyx2y]

I really hope those engines are implemented, I NEED THEM NOW!!!!

[Guest]

[Deleted by user]

Edited November 25, 2019 by Guest