[0.21.1] KAS v0.4.3 - Struts, pipes, part storage, containers, merged winches & more

[Blaylock1988]

Nothke, I have actually had this problem with a clampotron sr. It was stuck on another one and wouldn't undock. I spent an entire day building and testing my first space-fighter with some dumbfire rockets to take care of the problem. A hammer would have been much easier.

[johnsonwax]

It work the same way as cable, the plugin pick the texture from a file. Just change it and it will be ok.

What I figured. That's perfect. Very easy to do now.

[nothke]

Nothke, I have actually had this problem with a clampotron sr. It was stuck on another one and wouldn't undock. I spent an entire day building and testing my first space-fighter with some dumbfire rockets to take care of the problem. A hammer would have been much easier.

Yeah, I designed a ship whose nose I used to knock off the clampotrons xD It was a disaster of course.. It was very very hard to knock it off without destroying both ships xD

[elind21]

ok, i am shifting in my seat!!!! PLZ PLZ PLZ release the test version! this will open up a world of oppertunities!

[Ratzap]

ok, i am shifting in my seat!!!! PLZ PLZ PLZ release the test version! this will open up a world of oppertunities!

Although horribly spelt and grammatically butchered, this is a very accurate statement I think it can easily be said that without KAS several other mods would be impossible and a good dozen others a lot more difficult to use. I won't lie, I'd love to see KAS in KSP proper, it's so important and useful it needs to be a core function in the official game.

[Moon Goddess]

Not sure of what you mean. Normal strut don't move for me ?

However, parts can move a little if a lot of force are exercised on the joint. Nothing I can do about this, it's related to the way Unity engine handle physics.

Yes that's generally what I was referring to. If I rendezvous with 2 ships in orbit, matching velocities still will never be exactly 0m/s relative velocity. So when I link them by cable over time they will wander either closer together or farther apart.

I'm hoping these placeable structs act the same as squad struts and remain rigid so that the resulting linked crafts act like one craft,

[elind21]

Although horribly spelt and grammatically butchered...

Sorry, had to type quickly before leaving for school. Also, this is well below my usual standard of work, but for unimportant things, I favour time over correct punctuation.

[elind21]

Ok, i have already said this, but could you please make a larger, "Heavy Edition" winch with a longer cable for large scale operations (e.g. reusable launcher recovery). This would be extremely useful because I am fed up with having to make adapters and radial nodes for the probe sized winches. I would like a 1.25m with a 100m cable and a 2.5m with a 200m cable. Also, maybe some advenced textures for the larger parts? Different sized attachments? More attachments that only work with the larger winch? Maybe a new model to accomodate the existing sized connector and attachments? Higher breaking strain?

Please tell me what you think.

elind21

[KospY]

Yes that's generally what I was referring to. If I rendezvous with 2 ships in orbit, matching velocities still will never be exactly 0m/s relative velocity. So when I link them by cable over time they will wander either closer together or farther apart.

I'm hoping these placeable structs act the same as squad struts and remain rigid so that the resulting linked crafts act like one craft,

Linking pipes from one vessel to another will dock them, like any docking port do. It also remain rigid.

Ok, i have already said this, but could you please make a larger, "Heavy Edition" winch with a longer cable for large scale operations (e.g. reusable launcher recovery). This would be extremely useful because I am fed up with having to make adapters and radial nodes for the probe sized winches. I would like a 1.25m with a 100m cable and a 2.5m with a 200m cable. Also, maybe some advenced textures for the larger parts? Different sized attachments? More attachments that only work with the larger winch? Maybe a new model to accomodate the existing sized connector and attachments? Higher breaking strain?

Please tell me what you think.

elind21

I agree. I asked myself the same questions as you about differents sized attachments.

However, I'm really bad at modeling (mainly texturing) so I can't do that alone and I want to avoid to simply resize current one.

Didn't have any news from Winn75, and as modding is based on voluntary, I don't want to insist if he didn't have the time or the motivation to make new models.

Anyway, I decided to stop working on KAS starting October, as I will need to focus on my professional project at this time (working to get a new diploma)

So I'm finishing to work on the last features and I hope to get the time to finish the new integrated winch.

I'm also working to move to Github and will start looking for someone to take over the project.

Edited September 4, 2013 by KospY

[rottielover]

Sorry to hear that you won't be able to continue the project. I'm sure the community is strong enough to have someone take this over though. Heck this mod is good enough that I would start teaching myself C# if no one else takes it over! LOL (yea that wouldn't be good)

[PringleMan]

Anyway, I decided to stop working on KAS starting October, as I will need to focus on my professional project at this time (working to get a new high-school diploma)

So I'm finishing to work on the last features and I hope to get the time to finish the new integrated winch.

I'm also working to move to Github and will start looking for someone to take over the project.

Good luck to you! I hope to see at least those storage modules come out before then :3

If nothing else, please at least leave permission for someone to pick it up and make a fork as long as they leave proper credit for your content.

[johnsonwax]

Will miss your work on this, but that's a very good decision Kospy. 100% support.

[elind21]

I agree. I asked myself the same questions as you about differents sized attachments.

However, I'm really bad at modeling (mainly texturing) so I can't do that alone and I want to avoid to simply resize current one.

Didn't have any news from Winn75, and as modding is based on voluntary, I don't want to insist if he didn't have the time or the motivation to make new models.

Anyway, I decided to stop working on KAS starting October, as I will need to focus on my professional project at this time (working to get a new high-school diploma)

So I'm finishing to work on the last features and I hope to get the time to finish the new integrated winch.

I'm also working to move to Github and will start looking for someone to take over the project.

If you want someone to take over, I am happy to do models and textures if someone else can do the plugin.

Also, why not make it a community project?

[Arrowstar]

If you want someone to take over, I am happy to do models and textures if someone else can do the plugin. Also, why not make it a community project?

Community projects are doomed to fail. The mod should be left to a sole individual who has full authority over it (and may subsequently hire on additional developers as he/she sees fit). If this mod goes to a "design by committee" philosophy, I'm not sure it'll ever get any better. Nope, the solution is to give one talented person with vision the keys and let them take it from there. Mind you, I don't want to completely remove the idea of forking KAS, but I think the "unforked" version should go exclusively to someone else.

[sumghai]

A real shame to hear that you will no longer be maintaining this add-on, KospY - best wishes for the future (as well as whoever decides to take over)

Community projects are doomed to fail. The mod should be left to a sole individual who has full authority over it (and may subsequently hire on additional developers as he/she sees fit). If this mod goes to a "design by committee" philosophy, I'm not sure it'll ever get any better. Nope, the solution is to give one talented person with vision the keys and let them take it from there. Mind you, I don't want to completely remove the idea of forking KAS, but I think the "unforked" version should go exclusively to someone else.

Agreed wholeheartedly. As the adage goes - Too many cooks spoil the broth.

[FaceDeer]

Whichever way you decide to set up your successor, I'd at least suggest sticking with a copyleft license of some sort. That way if whoever picks it up doesn't "work out" for whatever reason it'll be easy to change things up and try again. And folks will be able to take the mod in unexpected new directions, too. This started out as just a thing for winches but these days I use it more as a means of offworld construction and repair. Never can tell where these sorts of things can wind up.

[Crater]

Whichever way you decide to set up your successor, I'd at least suggest sticking with a copyleft license of some sort. That way if whoever picks it up doesn't "work out" for whatever reason it'll be easy to change things up and try again. And folks will be able to take the mod in unexpected new directions, too. This started out as just a thing for winches but these days I use it more as a means of offworld construction and repair. Never can tell where these sorts of things can wind up.

Replying to this as it is at least the second person who has said something along these lines.

If you read the first post, you will see that it is already released under GNU GPL 3. It has been for quite some time now, so there is no danger at all of the project being lost forever once KospY leaves (best of fortunes in the professional project that you're going to be focusing on, and thanks for the incredible work you've shared with us here).

[elind21]

If you want someone to take over, I am happy to do models and textures if someone else can do the plugin.

If this is ok with everyone, (i.e. KospY) could I put my name forward to take over modelling and texturing? Also, would anyone be interested in working on the plugin?

(P.S. KospY: I do not intend to take over or create a fork until such a time as you give explicit permission)

elind21

[KospY]

Community projects are doomed to fail. The mod should be left to a sole individual who has full authority over it (and may subsequently hire on additional developers as he/she sees fit). If this mod goes to a "design by committee" philosophy, I'm not sure it'll ever get any better. Nope, the solution is to give one talented person with vision the keys and let them take it from there. Mind you, I don't want to completely remove the idea of forking KAS, but I think the "unforked" version should go exclusively to someone else.

I added a GPL licence recently to follow the rules, and I must say I choosed GPL as "default" because I wanted to move on Github and this is what is recommended on the website. I looked at creative common too but after some search it seem this licence is not suited for a software with source code.

I'm hope that this licence will be ok for KAS. I like the fact that anyone can contribute, but I must agree that I don't want ten version of a forked KAS, that will not be good for the KSP community.

I'm not at ease with licences, but what I want is to be sure that the project will be continued by a team and not be split. In fact, I hope that the KSP modder community will be smart enough to work together for enhancing KAS instead of working separatly.

For now, I will just wait and see if some people are interested. The most difficult part will be to find a plugin maintener (someone like Majiir will be nice).

However, I think KAS can even be improved without coding, by adding more winches (radial, larger, etc..), stackable storage bays, fixed hook support, etc... or by configuring stock part grab definition (I will come back on this). There is also a module that are not used because I didn't have any models (timedbomb)

If this is ok with everyone, (i.e. KospY) could I put my name forward to take over modelling and texturing? Also, would anyone be interested in working on the plugin?

(P.S. KospY: I do not intend to take over or create a fork until such a time as you give explicit permission)

elind21

I can be interested, I will PM you.

Edited September 4, 2013 by KospY

[Torminator]

I can contribute models if needed. My texturing abilities are subpar, however.

[Majiir]

I added a GPL licence recently to follow the rules, and I must say I choosed GPL as "default" because I wanted to move on Github and this is what is recommended on the website. I looked at creative common too but after some search it seem this licence is not suited for a software with source code.

I wrote a short guide (link in my signature) on choosing a license if you haven't seen it. Since you've GPL'd your code, anyone can fork the current version, but since you are the copyright holder, you're allowed to violate your own GPL, so you could release your own version of KAS (with new features) under a more restrictive license. Just a fun fact in case you were feeling regretful.

For now, I will just wait and see if some people are interested. The most difficult part will be to find a plugin maintener (someone like Majiir will be nice).

I can't promise much in the way of feature development since things are a little busy for me right now, but I can definitely work on fixes and other maintenance.

[EDIT] I should mention that as with Kethane, I'm willing to do a bit of personnel management if that's desired. There are some good plugin developers out there, but it might help to have someone dedicated to organizing the project and managing code quality (be it me or someone else).

Edited September 4, 2013 by Majiir

[KospY]

I wrote a short guide (link in my signature) on choosing a license if you haven't seen it. Since you've GPL'd your code, anyone can fork the current version, but since you are the copyright holder, you're allowed to violate your own GPL, so you could release your own version of KAS (with new features) under a more restrictive license. Just a fun fact in case you were feeling regretful.

Didn't see your short guide, nice work. So I could have chosen a "All Rights Reserved" licence and think later and even write my own license, and it's what you did.

I must say that I choosed the licence a bit in a hurry, because a moderator tell me nicely to provide a licence within 48hours otherwise it will remove the thread

In fact, I might be preferred to write my own license too if I had known. It's too late to change so ? Otherwise maybe I can release KAS v0.4 on github with my own licence as I actually only put the GNU GPL on the old version ? Also, maybe there is a withdrawal period ? I put the licence two days ago

I can't promise much in the way of feature development since things are a little busy for me right now, but I can definitely work on fixes and other maintenance.

[EDIT] I should mention that as with Kethane, I'm willing to do a bit of personnel management if that's desired. There are some good plugin developers out there, but it might help to have someone dedicated to organizing the project and managing code quality (be it me or someone else).

Ho, I would not have thought that you will be interested as you already have a lot of work with Kethane. I will be surely really interested if you can do even a basic maintenance of KAS during my absence.

I will PM you later about that, as I need to think what I will do precisly with KAS.

[Majiir]

I must say that I choosed the licence a bit in a hurry, because a moderator tell me nicely to provide a licence within 48hours otherwise it will remove the thread

In fact, I might be preferred to write my own license too if I had known. It's too late to change so ? Otherwise maybe I can release KAS v0.4 on github with my own licence as I actually only put the GNU GPL on the old version ? Also, maybe there is a withdrawal period ? I put the licence two days ago

You can definitely release 0.4 under a different license, since you haven't yet released 0.4 under GPL. I think you can revert the GPL on 0.3.1, too, because you didn't actually include it in your source files as the GPL requires. (In other words, you didn't really license it under GPL yet so it doesn't have legal force, and I think the forum moderators will understand that you were pressured.)

[KospY]

You can definitely release 0.4 under a different license, since you haven't yet released 0.4 under GPL. I think you can revert the GPL on 0.3.1, too, because you didn't actually include it in your source files as the GPL requires. (In other words, you didn't really license it under GPL yet so it doesn't have legal force, and I think the forum moderators will understand that you were pressured.)

Really thank you for the clarification. So I will revert to a more restrictive licence for now. That will let me time to think about what I want to do exactly.

At last, do you know if you Github licence and wiki text are licencied ? I wanted to take it as a base for making mine (so it will be pretty similar)

[Mekan1k]

Pics of 0.4 please?