FusTek Station Parts Dev Thread (continuation of fusty's original work)

[sumghai]

Progress Report, 22 June 2014

As requested, the Payload Bay is now a separate model with wider bay doors, plus internal control panels for any Kerbals that accidentally get stuck inside:

Fig 66 - (WIP) FusTek Karmony Warehouse / Payload Bay - separate models

I originally wanted to have the upper door panels on the Payload Bay lift out slightly and then slide on curved rails right over the lower panels, but that would require doing some faux textures for the sliding rails too. Since I'm trying to reuse textures where possible, I settled concertina-style folding ones instead.

I've also tweaked the door textures slightly, and now I'm 100% happy with them.

Now, back to IVAs...

[sharpspoonful]

Jeez, dude. You are quick. When will these edits become available?

[Rockstar04]

Progress Report, 22 June 2014

As requested, the Payload Bay is now a separate model with wider bay doors, plus internal control panels for any Kerbals that accidentally get stuck inside:

Jeez, dude. You are quick. When will these edits become available?

That was indeed fast. I honestly don't play KSP much at all anymore, but I still check the progress of this mod almost every day.

[cpast]

Should there also be an emergency open button on the inside doors of the Warehouse module? Kerbals shouldn't be able to get stuck inside, but just in case one did somehow, it would make sense to have a way to either open the doors, or maybe just unlatch them from the motors allowing the Kerbal to push them open. The button wouldn't have to have any function, but it would be a nice touch.

[BFGfreak]

Well isn't there supposed to be machinery in the warehouse module? I'd imagine that if a kerbal got stuck there, opening the doors are the least of his worries.

[cpast]

Exactly. There's lots of machinery, so if he gets stuck, he needs to get out ASAP.

[Starwaster]

Well isn't there supposed to be machinery in the warehouse module? I'd imagine that if a kerbal got stuck there, opening the doors are the least of his worries.

Exactly. There's lots of machinery, so if he gets stuck, he needs to get out ASAP.

LOL you guys...

[BFGfreak]

Well then I think Kethane found a new model for their KE-WAITNOSTOP-1 Kerbal blender with that kind of thinking

[sumghai]

Jeez, dude. You are quick. When will these edits become available?

The cutting-edge stuff is already on GitHub, albeit not pre-packaged into an official release (dev or otherwise). You may need to read the individual commits to figure out which files to download, though.

Sticking bits and pieces on GitHub before an actual release acts as an insurance policy in case I get trampled by a llama, so that someone else can pick up right exactly where I left off.

Should there also be an emergency open button on the inside doors of the Warehouse module? Kerbals shouldn't be able to get stuck inside, but just in case one did somehow, it would make sense to have a way to either open the doors, or maybe just unlatch them from the motors allowing the Kerbal to push them open. The button wouldn't have to have any function, but it would be a nice touch.

Well isn't there supposed to be machinery in the warehouse module? I'd imagine that if a kerbal got stuck there, opening the doors are the least of his worries.

Exactly. There's lots of machinery, so if he gets stuck, he needs to get out ASAP.

LOL you guys...

The Warehouse module will have a rotating drum magazine to hold 16 payload racks, so I doubt any Kerbals would get stuck in there.

Well then I think Kethane found a new model for their KE-WAITNOSTOP-1 Kerbal blender with that kind of thinking

LOL.

[sharpspoonful]

I think I pulled all the right parts from the GitHub commits. I'll be testing here in a few minutes.

[Starwaster]

The Warehouse module will have a rotating drum magazine to hold 16 payload racks, so I doubt any Kerbals would get stuck in there.

Well. Not for long, anyway.

[StEligius]

I'll keep that in mind for the distant future, since animated lights can be pretty resource-intensive.

I suggest that they might be out of scope for Fustek Station Parts considering that it is possible to add via third party addons.

Just my IMNSHO

Wasn't thinking of it on the door (wasn't even sure if that was a possibility with them moving). Maybe 4 total above and below seam of the door inside and out.

Here is a Wikipedia page for common industrial signal light color codes (which doesn't completely support my suggestion of amber): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_light

The Warehouse module will have a rotating drum magazine to hold 16 payload racks, so I doubt any Kerbals would get stuck in there.

LOL.

Nice to hear about the magazine once again after that short exploratory thread way back when. <3

PS: A lot of mobile equipment and robots (funny the point at which some people will draw a line and say a machine is or isn't a robot) I've been around have rotating yellow or white light.

Edited June 23, 2014 by StEligius

[CptRichardson]

PS: A lot of mobile equipment and robots (funny the point at which some people will draw a line and say a machine is or isn't a robot) I've been around have rotating yellow or white light.

Well, they thought about putting a klaxon on it, but it turns out that in Space, No-one can hear Bill scream. So, they just stick with obnoxiously huge lights.

[sumghai]

Progress Report, 26 June 2014

With the internals roughly blocked out, it was time to start thinking about the actual panels and frames that would make up the majority of the module interiors.

The aesthetic would be inspired by the USOS white-with-blue-trimmings style found on the real ISS, but obviously with less clutter. I'm also going to make these structural elements into props, to take advantage of memory savings from asset-reuse.

As mentioned previously, the majority of FusTek internals are (usually) built around a system of standardized 550 x 1000 mm wall panel sections, each customisable depending on their intended application. Some of these panels will actually be sub-compartments requiring wall partitions (e.g. sleep stations, showers, toilets), and so assuming that the partitions are made from a 25 mm thick aerospace-grade aluminium-composite honeycomb sandwich panel, this leaves an effective usable area with dimensions of 500 x 950 mm. This can then be subdivided further to form individual modular experiments, subsystems and other doodads:

Fig 67 - (WIP) FusTek IVA Panels Development Process

Fig 68 - (WIP) FusTek IVA Panels Development Process 2

[SebFierce]

Thanks for all those detailed explanations sumghai Love those sneak-peeks into the development process!

[Mihara]

Fig 68 - (WIP) FusTek IVA Panels Development Process 2

Blocks marked 'stuff' in Avionics should instead be marked 'Classes', 'Methods', 'Variables', 'Constants', 'API Calls' and 'Garbage collector'.

[Tommygun]

Wow, you really have put a lot of thought into this.

Looking forward to seeing it.

I wonder if the new guys get to sleep next to the zero g toilet.

[sharpspoonful]

Would it not make more, for the lack of better words, interior design sense to move the shower and toilet stations towards the center of the Habitation modules? Generally speaking, you don't want to mix actual berthing with anything to do with the station's plumbing in case of pipe or facility failure. As for the aft-deck-fore layout of the science module, I would rather have the deck lined with containers storing completed experiment results, surface/atmosphere samples (it would be somewhat realistic and very kerbal-esque to have jars of "air" from Laythe), clean or new scientific equipment, etc. rather than just stuff. Semantics, I know, but I can be picky with textures and models and I'm more vocal than most.

As for some of the extraneous props (the hand/foot holds, breaker switches, fire extinguishers and whatnot), why not see if Alexustas is willing to put some of the props on loan to you? It would cut down dev, modeling, and texturing time to the process, and would help you get the IVA to a very high standard.

Edited June 26, 2014 by sharpspoonful
GRAMMER'D!

[Kanddak]

As for some of the extraneous props (the hand/foot holds, breaker switches, fire extinguishers and whatnot), why not see if Alexustas is willing to put some of the props on loan to you? It would cut down dev, modeling, and texturing time to the process, and would help you get the IVA to a very high standard.

Asset reuse of this nature would also offer some additional memory savings to those of us who play with both FusTek and ALCOR.

[sumghai]

Thanks for all those detailed explanations sumghai Love those sneak-peeks into the development process!

Wow, you really have put a lot of thought into this.

Looking forward to seeing it.

I wonder if the new guys get to sleep next to the zero g toilet.

Thanks for the kudos, guys

Blocks marked 'stuff' in Avionics should instead be marked 'Classes', 'Methods', 'Variables', 'Constants', 'API Calls' and 'Garbage collector'.

LOL.

Would it not make more, for the lack of better words, interior design sense to move the shower and toilet stations towards the center of the Habitation modules? Generally speaking, you don't want to mix actual berthing with anything to do with the station's plumbing in case of pipe or facility failure.

I would be tempted to agree - the main problem, however, is the arrangement and spacing of the exterior windows, as it would look a little weird to have the majority of them clustered toward one end.

As for the aft-deck-fore layout of the science module, I would rather have the deck lined with containers storing completed experiment results, surface/atmosphere samples (it would be somewhat realistic and very kerbal-esque to have jars of "air" from Laythe), clean or new scientific equipment, etc. rather than just stuff. Semantics, I know, but I can be picky with textures and models and I'm more vocal than most.

I can definitely consolidate the Avionics racks down to one, since I was just following off the original Destiny rack configuration without putting much thought into things.

This would give me room for more sample lockers (note that completed, clean or new scientific equipment are either already stored in the general science lockers, or are self-contained self-running units).

As for some of the extraneous props (the hand/foot holds, breaker switches, fire extinguishers and whatnot), why not see if Alexustas is willing to put some of the props on loan to you? It would cut down dev, modeling, and texturing time to the process, and would help you get the IVA to a very high standard.

Asset reuse of this nature would also offer some additional memory savings to those of us who play with both FusTek and ALCOR.

This I would have to think about a little more - ideally, I would prefer to use some of Alexustas' excellent props for continuity, but I've been getting some snide remarks by certain folks for having too many dependencies (or dependencies they didn't like).

I've also been thinking about doing an art pass for the exterior anyway, and I'm trying to decide whether to base it on KONQUEST or the alt textures nothke did before he went AWOL.

[sharpspoonful]

You could split it between a MM config and actually providing the props. That way its a soft dependency. The MM would keep those that use the ALCOR pod from doubling on props and those that don't could use the provided prop file.

[sumghai]

You could split it between a MM config and actually providing the props. That way its a soft dependency. The MM would keep those that use the ALCOR pod from doubling on props and those that don't could use the provided prop file.

I see - I'm aware that ModuleManager allows folks to specify dependencies, but I'm a complete newbie when it comes to understanding the syntax and getting them to work.

[sharpspoonful]

I would ping the MM thread for assistance. Or ping MrWizard over in the LLL thread. He's a literal wizard at MM configurations.

[MOARdV]

I've also been thinking about doing an art pass for the exterior anyway, and I'm trying to decide whether to base it on KONQUEST or the alt textures nothke did before he went AWOL.

My K$0.02 - I prefer the alt textures in the dev pack for the simple reason that the default textures are too white. Yes, there are good IRL reasons for a purer white surface, but there are also good game play reasons not to use them: the alt textures are visually interesting (not monolithically smooth panels), and they don't have that "blowing out the camera" effect under full sunlight. On the interior, they're fine (especially with labels on them to indicate access panels, etc).

[sumghai]

I would ping the MM thread for assistance. Or ping MrWizard over in the LLL thread. He's a literal wizard at MM configurations.

Thanks for the heads-up - I'll look into this someday.

My K$0.02 - I prefer the alt textures in the dev pack for the simple reason that the default textures are too white. Yes, there are good IRL reasons for a purer white surface, but there are also good game play reasons not to use them: the alt textures are visually interesting (not monolithically smooth panels), and they don't have that "blowing out the camera" effect under full sunlight. On the interior, they're fine (especially with labels on them to indicate access panels, etc).

The current defaults were from fusty's original station parts, and I kept that in for compatibility in case someone was still using fusty's old stuff.

I'd prefer that the proposed art pass more closely resemble the real ISS (i.e. less bright), but I don't really like the dirtied up KSO station parts aesthetic either. And then, of course, there's this other problem of choosing an aesthetic that would work well with my upcoming Modular SEV pack...

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Progress Report, 28 June 2014

After taking a detour to deal with some other (not-so-pleasant) add-on authoring related issues, I've revised the panel layout for the Science Module:

Fig 69 - (WIP) FusTek IVA Panels Development Process 3

Before you folks start reaching for your pitchforks and blowtorches (again), please allow me to explain the changes:

- I added a second panel for oxygen storage/CO2 filter/transfer hose assemblies and moved both to the ceiling panels, to remain consistent with the other modules.

- I then realised the Science Avionics are going to be frequently used by Kerbals to store/process/retrieve data, so they had to be moved off the floor too.

- Finally, misc sci equipment and sample containers are best stored underneath the deck, as some of you suggested.

- Therefore, this admittedly doesn't leave much room for the self-contained experiment lockers, which also need to be ceiling mounted so that they don't accidentally get stepped on. The reduced number of experiment lockers will be countered by having externally-mounted experiments in the FLEXrack-style* payload rack system.

*My hands are currently tied with regards to nothke's FLEXracks, but I have a contingency plan.