[0.23.5] Spherical and Toroidal Tank Pack (Updated 05/02/14) (New download link)

[Talisar]

Will ships and stations held together by docking ports attached to the ends of the tanks be fine with the update? Rebuilding my stuff is not just a matter of detach/attach in the VAB, but a lot of orbital construction (much of it around 2-3FPS).

Yes, the problem is that the way I had to set up the cfg files in order to make all the tanks of the same size share the same model. Doing this caused the attachment nodes to be mis-scaled (exactly the same way that some old mods behaved when the game was updated to 0.20). I was able to correct this problem on new builds, but things that were built using v1.6 of the tanks have the nodes screwed up. I'm going to do some research to see if there is a way to fix this before uploading the new version, and if not I'll set up a place to download the old version for people who want to stick with that one.

I definitely don't want to break anyone's builds unnecessarily. I've seen some awesome (and HUGE) things people have done with these tanks

Edited June 11, 2013 by Talisar

[taniwha]

Hmm, built with 1.6. I guess I'll just have to try.

[Talisar]

There is still weirdness going on with the new system. not only are the nodes screwy, but all the parts seem to be upscaled a small amount. As I'm getting a bit frustrated with it, I'm going to walk away from the problem for a bit and just leave the current (working) version of the tanks in place.

[Mihara]

Hmm, I wonder.

As the craft with altered parts get launched, the concept of a node disappears -- everything that was in a specific position when the ship was launched, stays in that position if the model changes. (This happened to my ships that used the ASAS from B9 pack, which I use a lot. The model was flipped in the 3.0 release, it remained in the same position - but flipped - on every ship that used it.) It even stays the same when it's still part of a craft file, you just can't reattach it in the same position if you move it. (Case in point, the generator from the UDK structural parts changed while I was midway through the design of a ship making use of it. Upon loading, the new model blended into the edges of other parts, and parts attached to it on the sides remained attached, even though it no longer allowed side attach. When I started readjusting the ship, the parts could not be attached in the same position again.)

I.e. I'm not sure that altering the model in this particular way will significantly wreck anyone's work, unless the model is changed visually so much that parts attached to it will end up within it or floating above it's surface.

This needs actual testing to determine, I'd think.

[Talisar]

Hmm, that may be so. If that is the case, then any craft already launched would (should?) be fine. I'll build and launch a few using the current setup and then install the new one and see what happens

[Mihara]

Oh, and speaking of huge things.

Sucks a deposit dry in one sitting more often than not. Doesn't do it particularly fast, but there's usually little point doing it fast.

[taniwha]

Mihara: I like your design. I didn't have much luck with using spherical tanks for my miner, but I didn't think to do the legs that way (especially the way you attached the landing legs to the trusses).

[scottholio]

Great kethane miner you have there Mihara. May I ask what the heatsink dealie at the top is?

[Mihara]

Great kethane miner you have there Mihara. May I ask what the heatsink dealie at the top is?

It's a heavy RTG that comes from this nice pack which I can't recommend enough, since it goes so nicely with large tanks in general.

[scottholio]

Nice, thanks. Grabbing it right now

[Mihara]

Just showing off.

The entirety of my second Duna expedition in one place, 250 parts. If my space agency had a nickname, it would definitely be "Overkill".

[Talisar]

That is just awesome

[Scotius]

Very cool mothership What did you use as radial attachment plates for engines on that small lander on the upper left?

[Awaras]

Very cool mothership What did you use as radial attachment plates for engines on that small lander on the upper left?

I believe those radial attachments are part of this pack:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/rla-stockalike-0-1/

[Mihara]

Yep, that's the plates from RLA stockalike pack. I keep trying to find new ways to side-mount engines and keep going back to this one.

And it's not actually a mothership, it's four parts which actually arrived in four separate launches pushed through the same transfer window - my standard station core, a kethane mining robot, an airship and a more traditional lander.

[maackey]

I really like the spherical tanks, but is there a version without all the empty junk tanks? My parts list is already unbearably large without empty tanks that I'll never use. I wouldn't mind if I could just delete the folders of the respective parts but it looks like multiple parts are defined in each folder and I'd have to manually edit a dozen files to get rid of them...

[Virtualgenius]

How did you pair up the atomic engines on the kethane lander i would like to build one on your design

Edited June 17, 2013 by Virtualgenius

[taniwha]

Those look to be a mod part, but you can use the stock bi-coupler (found near the end in structural).

[Mihara]

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/double-nerva-3/

It's these atomic engines.

[scottholio]

How did you pair up the atomic engines on the kethane lander i would like to build one on your design

Those are Kommit-Nucleonics Double Nerva Engines I think

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/double-nerva-3/

[pantheis]

How in the heck do you manage to even take off with that kethane miner? The big tank the miner is built around seems to be the largest Kethane tank. Filling that up would make your ship extremely heavy and I don't think 480Kn of thrust is enough to lift that from anything but the lightest gravity areas... Does that actually work?

[Scotius]

You do not have to lift-off with full tanks My miners just sit on biggest deposit i can find until they deplete last drop of kethane, in the meantime smaller fuel haulers take over the duty of delivering fuel from surface to orbit. When deposit is strip mined i leave enough fuel in the miner to get to orbit, and land on another deposit.

[not-a-cylon]

i could stare at the smooth texture tanks for days! one thing though- I feel that the mass of the couplers are unbalanced. 2.5 tons for all sizes- did you mean to do that?

[Mihara]

How in the heck do you manage to even take off with that kethane miner? The big tank the miner is built around seems to be the largest Kethane tank. Filling that up would make your ship extremely heavy and I don't think 480Kn of thrust is enough to lift that from anything but the lightest gravity areas... Does that actually work?

Slowly. The TWR of the full miner is actually over 1 on Mun, Vall and Ike, I tested if it can actually take off on each of those moons. With the latest changes to kethane, kethane itself is heavier, but still lighter than the equivalent volume of fuel, and conversion efficiency now exceeds 100% -- so converting kethane actually increases the ship's mass. So you just do it as late as possible.

[wasmic]

i could stare at the smooth texture tanks for days! one thing though- I feel that the mass of the couplers are unbalanced. 2.5 tons for all sizes- did you mean to do that?

You can change it in the config file, that's what I've done. You can look at the stock version for inspiration