Long-term Laythe Mission (pic heavy) - ^_^ With Part 45 ^_^

[Brotoro]

...Your misshapen Birddogs remind me somewhat of the SR-71. The Blackbird was built for flight tolerances, where its shell and airframe expanded considerably from the heat. As a result certain seams and seals just didn't match up on the ground... deliberately... and the poor things leaked fuel (and who knows what else) when not flying. Even the one at the Air & Space has some odd looking gaps here and there. So maybe the Bird Dog is just jealous?

The JP-7 fuel used by the Blackbird had a very low flash point, so it wasn't dangerous when it leaked out of the SR-71's gaps and onto the runway. If you threw a lit match in a puddle of JP-7, the match would go out. The coolest story (some museum guy told us) was that a tanker plane carrying JP-7 crashed on a runway, and that plane's fuel burst into flame...until the JP-7 tank spilled its contents all over the fire...and put it out!

Because of the low flash point of the fuel, the SR-71 had to use triethylborane (nasty stuff) injected into the combustion chamber to ignite the engine.

[Brotoro]

Not sure what's going on with the fuselages, I haven't noticed that myself. (Don't like that new part much though.)

Perhaps you could edit the position of the fins and flaps manually?

If the changes are consistent across all of them, you should be able to find an adjustment that works, then repeat it on all the planes.

It seems the old and new ones determine where and how they attach differently.

Yeah, I've done part position editing before, so I'm not afraid of that. In fact, here I replaced the tiny SAS with the standard size one on the RASSTO:

...and here I've moved the small control surface closer to the vertical stabilizer:

But I'm not sure what I can do about the shrunken fuselage tank. Comparing BirdDog 1 (which does not have the problem) with BirdDog 4 (which does), I see that whereas BirdDog 1 starts with the cockpit part, BirdDog 4 starts with the shrunken Mk1 Fuselage as its root part. I assume this came about because I initially built the BirdDog 1 as a plane and then stuck a rocket under it...but the later incarnations were made by adding/changing parts of a BirdDog that was already part of a launch vehicle. Because the BirdDog is attached to the rocket via a decoupler that attaches the rear tank to the supports on the main vehicle, it must have gotten made into the root part when the later BirdDogs separated from their rockets. Or something like that.

In any case, I don't know how to edit the parts in the sfs file to change the root part (since it's all a long, messy tree about what connects to what).

None of this explains why a ship that starts with a Mk1 Fuselage part as its root worked fine back in 0.23.5, but does the shrunken part thing in 0.25.

And the big question is: Do I want to bother going through and changing all those parts? Or do I just finish up what I'm doing in 0.23.5 and call it a day for the original Save game file?

Edited October 9, 2014 by Brotoro

[Tw1]

But I'm not sure what I can do about the shrunken fuselage tank. Comparing BirdDog 1 (which does not have the problem) with BirdDog 4 (which does), I see that whereas BirdDog 1 starts with the cockpit part, BirdDog 4 starts with the shrunken Mk1 Fuselage as its root part.

In any case, I don't know how to edit the parts in the sfs file to change the root part (since it's all a long, messy tree about what connects to what).

None of this explains why a ship that starts with a Mk1 Fuselage part as its root worked fine back in 0.23.5, but does the shrunken part thing in 0.25.

And the big question is: Do I want to bother going through and changing all those parts? Or do I just finish up what I'm doing in 0.23.5 and call it a day for the original Save game file?

That's interesting, it reminds me of a similar bug that once affected the spherical tanks mod. On mobile, so can't add pics now, but there's something about it in my. Minmus base thread. It was fixed with an update to the model.

I think manually changing the root would be nigh impossible due to all the things that would have to change.

Perhaps you could join me in switching back to the older model- if you don't want to replace them.

If you do decide to wrap this up- your call, most things end eventually- better make sure they get a nice ending.

[billbobjebkirk]

It looks like there might be a rescale factor issue with the fueselage.

[RocketPilot573]

Looks like saves did indeed take a hard hit in .25. I'm not sure if you should start a new save yet. What you have here is the oldest save possible in KSP, as .18 was the last save breaking update, so I guess it has been through a lot a wear and tear from all the little things that updates can do like .25...

My old career save from .22 probably has similar issues (I haven't really tried it yet). Thing is this really isn't the time that I wanted to restart. I was waiting until career got more things to do around Kerbin, like space stations and satellite contracts, and of course bases too.

[KerballianDummy]

Brotoro, a possible solution would be to recreate the affect ships in 0.25, then use Hyperedit to get them to Laythe. With some config file tweaks, they'd all have the same crew, fuel and other resources that they do now. Think this might work?

[Brotoro]

Brotoro, a possible solution would be to recreate the affect ships in 0.25, then use Hyperedit to get them to Laythe. With some config file tweaks, they'd all have the same crew, fuel and other resources that they do now. Think this might work?

Yes, that's an option. But my concern is that a BirdDog rebuilt with new wing parts might not have the cubic octagonal struts + rear landing gear attach to them in the same positions as the old wings did (since the new wings are thicker and seem to obey different attachment rules). This could result in the BirdDog no longer having the correct height to fit the docking ports of the older GasStations deployed at various places around Laythe. (The BirdDogs that now have the newer, thicker wing replacing the older wing when converted to 0.25 are still at the same height because the original spacing numbers are still in the craft files despite having the newer parts dropped in.) So The new BirdDogs would require lots of docking testing. The tolerances on that docking method are pretty tight.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Brotoro

[RocketPilot573]

Also, to fix the tiny SAS issue you just need to replace the name of the tiny SAs with the "advanced" one right? So cant you use notepad's find and replace all function (or something similar) to fix all the SASs in one go?

[Commander Jebidiah]

Why not copy the parts missing from .25 that are in .24.2 into .25

Then change the names of the new modelled parts it's what I'm gonna do. If you want I can do it for you?

[Brotoro]

Also, to fix the tiny SAS issue you just need to replace the name of the tiny SAs with the "advanced" one right? So cant you use notepad's find and replace all function (or something similar) to fix all the SASs in one go?

Yes, you are correct. I have changed all of the old SAS units (which got changed to tiny size) into the new medium size units (the old ASAS units).

Edited October 11, 2014 by Brotoro

[Brotoro]

Why not copy the parts missing from .25 that are in .24.2 into .25

Then change the names of the new modelled parts it's what I'm gonna do. If you want I can do it for you?

I've seen where people are doing that, yes. But then you end up with a game that essentially has modded parts in it (even though the modded parts are old stock parts). I try to keep things as stock as possible with regard to parts, so I'd rather replace the now-smaller reaction wheel units with the standard medium sized one (what was the old ASAS unit). But I may go with just installing the old parts.

My bigger concern right now is the shrunken rear fuselage tank on my BirdDogs.

[Brotoro]

OK, I've been doing some testing with the BirdDogs in 0.25 to try and figure out why I'm getting the shrunken rear fuselage (see earlier messages).

I launched a BirdDog3+rocket into orbit, then separated the BirdDog from the rocket. Its tank looked fine. Hmmmm. So I spent some time comparing the ship data in the persistent.sfs files and couldn't see any important differences between that test BirdDog and the ones having problems on Laythe. They all were starting with the rear Mk1 Fuselage as the root of the plane (since that's the part that was attached to the rocket via radial decoupler). Weird.

But when I restarted the game and returned to that test BirdDog in orbit...its rear fuselage was now shrunken. Ah. So you won't see the problem until you restart the game.

Next I did the same test in a clean install of KSP 0.25 (to see if any of my installed mods were causing the problem). I copied the craft file of the test BirdDog + rocket into the fresh Save game, and then launched it into orbit. After separating the BirdDog, its fuselage looked fine. But after restarting the game and returning to the BirdDog, it had a shrunken rear fuselage.

OK...So this is a bug in 0.25 and not some problem with my old Save file or any of the mods I have installed.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Brotoro

[Brotoro]

Before restart of game (fuselage normal):

After restart of game (rear fuselage shrunken):

[The Error]

Huh. That's... different.

Maybe rebuild the BirdDog entirely with the new .25 parts and do some careful save-file-switcheroos? Or do .25-built BDs have this issue too?

[Brotoro]

Huh. That's... different.

Maybe rebuild the BirdDog entirely with the new .25 parts and do some careful save-file-switcheroos? Or do .25-built BDs have this issue too?

I haven't built any BordDogs new in 0.25 (since, as mentioned earlier, it would be difficult to get it to be the exact same height -- which is necessary if it's going to dock to its GasStations).

But my next step is to see if I can build a simple craft in 0.25 that demonstrates this bug.

[Brotoro]

OK... Here's the bug demonstrated in a clean install of 0.25 with a ship built in 0.25. My original BirdDog is attached to the main ship by a radial decoupler in such a way that the main part of the radial decoupler stays on the main ship...but it's not easy to build a ship this way (I originally built the ship in the SPH, then brought it over to the VAB as a subassembly and stuck it on the ship...and I may have fiddled with the SelectNode mod at some point to get that ship built) ...so I used a docking port to separate the parts of this new bug-test ship instead.

The ship on the pad:

Decouple from the docking port. Rear Mk1 Fuselage is fine:

Switch away from the ship to the KSC, then switch back to the ship...the rear Mk1 Fuselage has shrunk:

Another view with the shrunken Mk1 Fuselage:

The craft file of the bug-test ship is here.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Brotoro

[Jaxal1]

That's certainly a bug that Squad needs to fix, but are GasStations still a big deal now that you have the refueling Fido?

[Brotoro]

That's certainly a bug that Squad needs to fix, but are GasStations still a big deal now that you have the refueling Fido?

There are GasStations on some of the other islands where the Fuel Fido is not available.

[The Error]

A thought; while they tend to be meh aerodynamically and iffy ln range, a VTOL (jet or rocket) might be handy on Laythe, as runways or flat land aren't a requirement for a vertical-landing craft.

You said in a previous LToL that you hadn't really built any before, so maybe a chance to give it a shot?

[Brotoro]

Slumpie supplied me with a cfg file edit that fixes the shrunken Mk1 Fuselage. Thanks!!

Details here.

Hopefully SQUAD will fix their cfg files so I don't have to remember to install this fix in the future.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Brotoro, have you considered using TextureReplacer to save you of constantly having to photoshop the girls' hairs into the pictures and having to play the 'Make-believe' game regarding their hairs while you're playing? You'd also be able to give the guys unique hairstyles as well, although this part is mostly optional.

[macdjord]

Brotoro, have you considered using TextureReplacer to save you of constantly having to photoshop the girls' hairs into the pictures and having to play the 'Make-believe' game regarding their hairs while you're playing? You'd also be able to give the guys unique hairstyles as well, although this part is mostly optional.

That would require someone turning those hairstyles into textures.

[Brotoro]

My kerbals exhibit sexual dimorphism in that the females have a more gracile jaw. Also, the hair on my female kerbals is 3-dimensional, so it wouldn't look the same just painted on the standard kerbal cylinder head as a texture.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Ah, I see. Oh well, whatever floats your boat.

That would require someone turning those hairstyles into textures.

There are alterady some textures that look similar, I myself use some of them.

[Geschosskopf]

Slumpie supplied me with a cfg file edit that fixes the shrunken Mk1 Fuselage. Thanks!!

Thanks for the tip, too .

Anyway, best of luck getting this show on the road again in 0.25. I really enjoy reading it.