Frameshift and FTL Drives– Puffin Technologies

[Mekan1k]

So, everyone- I have a cool idea for another engine. (actualy, it would be a re-imagining of this thing)

[OrbitusII]

Got Mek's models in yesterday and the code is finished! All that needs to be done is config files and then we can do the test release!

Little bit of a preview:

Blackbody

Conventional

Edited May 12, 2013 by OrbitusII

[OrbitusII]

Update on the Pre-release:

The Spaceport appears to have either rejected or forgotten about my initial upload, so I'm waiting for it to try again. If it doesn't go through I'll use something like dropbox.

I'm also working on the more realistic heating system, so once I get the equation for the heat based on distance worked out that will be added to the plugin with some powered coolant systems.

Update 2: There's definitely problems with Spaceport at the moment-none of my submissions have gone through. I'm working on setting up dropbox so I can still do the test release. Sorry for the unnecessary delays.

Edited May 17, 2013 by OrbitusII

[OrbitusII]

Pre-release of the heat sinks have been out for 3-ish days, as of this post.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/29567

I'm currently studying for exams and finishing out this year, so not much has been done code-wise, but I have gotten the solar heating code written. It's currently being debugged since the only temperature I'm getting is -10 C; this will come out with the full release after Frameshift 2.0.

As for Frameshift 2.0, I have the general idea for the plugin ready, all I have to do is add it into the Puffin Technologies dll file for it to be usable.

General Idea:

Originally I was planning on having the drive disable all rigidbodies on the ship, but that's a very bad idea (no physics? duh!)

Instead I decided to have the drive apply a force to the

entire

vessel, not just the engine. This is very easy for me to do, so it'll be done quickly.

Update

Er, well, nothing really... Besides the fact that we are currently working on setting up a Puffin Technologies website!

Not much news for that, and I'll post the link as soon as we are at a good point to publicize it. What the site will have is an update blog-thing for addons (I'd like to move the development "thread" to there once it's done) and some publicity videos once 3_bit gets time for that.

I think I have an idea of what's wrong with the solar heating code, but I'll have to investigate the sun object I have the code finding... Either it's not the actual sun or the scene is scaled weird in Unity...

Edited May 21, 2013 by OrbitusII

[OrbitusII]

Now for an actual progress update!

Note how the distance displayed (Straight-up numbers in the log) is ridiculous. Reason? I forgot to convert the distance to AU from Kerbol's center... Thus the temperature is a constant -10 or so Kelvin, a ridiculous value for how close we are to Kerbol! (Not to mention that negative Kelvin is impossible, so far as we know...) It's a quick fix, so I'll have it fixed in a jiffy!

Edit: And now there's the problem where getting too close to Kerbol (like within Eve's orbit) will result in a NaN error...

Time to fine-tune the code! At least it's working like it should, though!

Edited May 22, 2013 by OrbitusII

[Mekan1k]

Now- We must make a SUN BASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sounthernrebel78]

Preview of the Frameshift 2 for tonight. Be sure to go to http://www.twitch.tv/orbitusii tonight at 19:00 MDT, 03:00 GMT for the livestream with Mekan1k, Ariuss (Not So Parallel Studios), and myself! Definitely going to be a good show!

Idk what it is suppose to do, but it looks like one of my cat's toys. So if the space kraken is a cat I so want It. "Space cat off starboard side captain".... Jeb-"deploy cat toy"

[Mekan1k]

Idk what it is suppose to do, but it looks like one of my cat's toys. So if the space kraken is a cat I so want It. "Space cat off starboard side captain".... Jeb-"deploy cat toy"

Think massivly overpowered engine to get your largest and heaviest ships where they need to go, at massive G's, without obliterating your craft. (This WILL be epic.)

It is a FrameShift engine, an engine where the force will be equaly applied to all components of the ship, to make space travel that much more cool.

To make a comparison- this engine has 50,000 units of thrust, and an ISP of over 500,000. It will get you from one orbit to another, or, well, make the kraken eat your ship.

(Release date: after it stops eating our ships)

[techno65535]

Oh, so it's basically just Kraken bait? You should release it under that name then!

[OrbitusII]

Oh, so it's basically just Kraken bait? You should release it under that name then!

That might be a little thing we put in the description once Frameshift 2 is finished.

We'll also be working on updating the part folders for 0.20's new loading system. I don't think we'll do that for Frameshift 1 since it'll be obsolete, but the rest will be updated as soon as we can do that.

[OrbitusII]

Just me thinking out loud here, but I might go with a weekly update thing since it's a lot easier to summarize news for each week rather than random updates every few days...

Anyway:

-Working on an improved, working equation that models the solar heating accurately. The solar heating thing won't be complete until 0.3, but the powered thermostats (not just coolant systems anymore!) will be ready to go as soon as they finish testing.

-Mek is working on a model for the thermostabilizer (I like that name... I'll use that for sure) so once that's finished and I get the code tested it can be released. Should be sometime in the next few days.

-The universal animator was having some issues with getting the animations so that it can animate the part, but I think I have those ironed out. Testing will commence today or tomorrow.

-I'm also going to finish up the textures for the Quest Joint Airlock for Bobcat's community project. I previously had no intentions of doing so, but WCOLE360 convinced me to finish it. For more info you'll have to check out the official thread.

Livestream Update:

I haven't done streams the past two weeks for multiple reasons, notably a lack of updates here at PT and also a lack of major news from Squad until this week. I'll be doing one on Friday, 7:30 MDT, like always. Hopefully I'll have the sound issues from the last stream dealt with...

Edit: So there's obviously an issue with something in either my code or the KSP plugin loading system, so I'm scrapping the universal animator for now. I'll be doing research (looking at other people's code and finding lots of useful info) to figure out what exactly is going on.

Edited May 30, 2013 by OrbitusII

[Mekan1k]

---Right after 0.20.1 came out.... Whoo!

[OrbitusII]

I accidentally used the wrong case for the config file, so I wasn't getting the effects I wanted for the Solar Heating while I was testing. I fixed the config file for my test part, then reloaded my ship and BOOM! (this test ship is in a 75k Hyperedited Kerbolar orbit for testing purposes)

It's working.

All I need to do is get the raycasting done (and fix the saving for stableTemp for the Thermostabilizer) and then I can release it.

[BigFatStupidHead]

Neat to see you've taken up the challenge of the magnetosphere plugin. Does this mean solar/magnetic sails and electrodynamic tethers might be a future puffin project?

[OrbitusII]

Indeed it does! What I might do is combine both PT threads into this one since the frameshift & magnetospheres will use the same .dll file as solar heating/heat sinks/coolant systems/everything, so there's no need to split up the plugin and have different versions out there.

Edit/Update: Having a minor issue with actually changing the temperature, but I can fix it easily. Raycasting appears to be working, but I can't really test it with the temperature change not working properly.

Edited June 4, 2013 by OrbitusII

[OrbitusII]

Posted the In-Development plugin code on the OP.

[OrbitusII]

Figured out a major issue with the raycasting: it didn't take into account the fact that colliders may be on the children of the object that the script itself is attached to! All that needs to be done is a check throughout the children of the object and it'll work!

[OrbitusII]

In-Development Code is now version 2. Solar heating works to an extent, I'll do some more testing on my own along with adding some debug GUI.

[Mekan1k]

Should the plugin work for all command pods by default? I mean, a simple command pod should have enough heat-radiators to handle it's own heat if in orbit, alone. (The gemini pods and mun mission had the radiators built-into the command module, and the lander, so should all command pods not have this functionality?)

Same with unmanned pods.

Sort of like an automated system.

[OrbitusII]

It's just a PartModule, so you can add it to any part.cfg like adding in an RTG (just add the module name and the settings, et voila!). This applies to both the Thermostabilizers (heat sinks and powered systems) and the SolarHeating modules. The one thing that SolarHeating does require on a part is a collider set up in Unity.

I have been experiencing a little bit of a bug where the heating and cooling on parts with SolarHeating is jumpy, most likely due to some raycasting derp, so I'll look into it but I'm not quite sure why it's doing that... I'm implementing some GUI to improve debugging of the code, but for now I'm not quite sure what the problem may be besides weirdness in the Log...

What I can do at the very least is combine all the Debug.Log() methods into one, thus ensuring that all the data for the part is spit out at once, but a window would help clean up the Log a lot and allow for a more open screen, since the Log takes up a lot of space. All I really need is to see whether or not the part is hit by the raycast when it's lit up visually, so either will work.

[MGUARN]

Orbitus i was wondering if you knew that the config for your parts are mixed up.It looks likes there sharing the same line of a comment.

Edit:Seems like notepad was a little wonky ,but wordpad fixes the everything.

Edited June 11, 2013 by MGUARN

[OrbitusII]

I can check the configs real quick to see if something might be messed up.

InDev3 should be out sometime in the next few days. All I have to do is a part check to prevent GUI glitching and then add in the window method.

Update on the raycasting (as much as I can provide it)– for some reason KSP doesn't seem to like the raycasting, since it works fine in regular Unity... I may talk to Mu to see what's going on if I still can't get it figured out by the time the rest of the plugin is finished.

-One solution I am considering is a periodic check every 5 seconds or so which sets a boolean value that either enables or disables the temperature change induced by illumination and distance from the sun...

-Another could be to set the collider during OnStart or OnLoad, making it stay the same as opposed to getting the collider(s) every frame; but I think that the problem is the raycasting, not the collider detection...

I also figured out why PTanimateUniversal wasn't working– as with the raycasting, I needed to access the Animation component on the child of the object that had PartTools on it when the part model was exported from Unity so that I would get the expected result; it wasn't a problem with Unity.

[OrbitusII]

Apologies for a lack of updates, I've been needing a break from coding and KSP for a little while, but I should be able to put new stuff out sometime in the next two weeks. Considering the issues that have been present with the raycasting, I'll probably release the solar heating module without the check to see if the part is illuminated. That feature will come later, once I figure out what's going on with the jumpiness (I'll see if I can get some info on how the solar panels check to see if they're illuminated since it appears that they work (mostly) flawlessly). The one downside to that is the fact that heatshields won't do anything, but since it's still in development it's to be expected that something will go wrong.

Edited June 18, 2013 by OrbitusII

[Pigbear]

Try working on one thing at a time in a specific order. It may help you get them done faster (to clarify how this would work is that you would not be trying to code two different things at the same time thus increasing the speed at which one thing gets done)

[OrbitusII]

I have been working on the Heat Sinks, Coolant Systems, and Solar Heating plugin exclusively (more specifically, just the solar heating aspect of it), I just needed a break to cool down and work out solutions subconsciously (seriously, leaving things alone for a little while works wonders for my problem solving). Thanks for the advice!

One thing that has been consuming some of my time is research for buying new computer parts and how to put them together, etc. It'll be a lot nicer and more powerful than a weak old laptop, plus I won't have family taking it over so they can play Minecraft, so I'll be able to get more done.