[0.22] Ion Hybrid Electric Pack 30.08.13 --- Soon FKSP!!! See Development Monitor

[Sokar408]

Does this work in 0.21?

[punkgod03]

Does this work in 0.21?

I dont think so. I installed the mod but it didnt appear in my game.

[brians200]

This works in .21. However, the large battery seems have some colliders in the wrong spot

[EPD]

Yup, any mod without plugins will work, but i've fixed nodes for large battery and updated posts, also SpacePort. Enjoy

[EPD]

Hey Folks! I got some great news for you who are using Ion Hybrid Mod.

We all gonna get some new models and parts!

It is very unfinished side xenon tank. Maybe xenon tank...

Complete pack of new and modified parts will contain:

- New models for Larger Ion and Hybrid Engines (probably with new specs)

- New models for Battery banks

- Side mountable Xenon Tanks

- New Generator part

- New Side mountable Hybrid Engine (for VTOL)

If everything will go smooth, we will release new engine with Two working Modes: Ion / hybrid. Why use 2 different engines when you can attach one ?

[sirkut]

Hey Folks! I got some great news for you who are using Ion Hybrid Mod.

We all gonna get some new models and parts!

It is very unfinished side xenon tank. Maybe xenon tank...

Complete pack of new and modified parts will contain:

- New models for Larger Ion and Hybrid Engines (probably with new specs)

- New models for Battery banks

- Side mountable Xenon Tanks

- New Generator part

- New Side mountable Hybrid Engine (for VTOL)

If everything will go smooth, we will release new engine with Two working Modes: Ion / hybrid. Why use 2 different engines when you can attach one ?

2 in one? This will be awesome!

[EPD]

&

Joint Venture

I don't know if you are waiting impatiently for new release of Ion Engine Pack...

... but we do.

EPD & Yorik

[Nazari1382]

looks very nice. I use these radial batteries all the time.

[Ratzap]

I made a Minmus to Kerbin kethane tanker with the large hybrid. It seems to use quite a lot of normal fuels, prohibitively so. For the massively descreased TWR, it seems to burn a lot of fuel. Coupled to a kethogenic generator the charge is no problem and it even creates xenon as a byproduct. I think you'll need to tune them a bit yet, heavy electric use, xenon and normal fuel coupled with very low thrust makes them just not attractive enough.

On the bug side, I noticed it never draws fuel bars for the engines - that's a bit unhelpful.

[Sapphire]

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes. I'm very excited!

[JeBuSBrian]

I think the breakiningForce and breakingTorque need to be increased significantly on the engines. They're falling off before I even get them into orbit... before I even get to the upper stage, really. I'm going to test a bit with 500 or so to see if that keeps them attached. Will report findings...

Yep, setting both to 500 worked to keep the engines attached during ascent. Don't know if the number could safely be lowered or not, but since it works, I'm going to leave it at that. Your mileage may vary.

Edited August 6, 2013 by JeBuSBrian

[EPD]

New Ion engines, hybrid engines, xenon side and in-line tanks are not everything we will implement in new release.

There will be also new ElectricCharge generators... ;>

Below one of them. (very unfinished)

[OopsThatNotWork]

&

Joint Venture

I don't know if you are waiting impatiently for new release of Ion Engine Pack...

... but we do.

EPD & Yorik

Lol i wasnt. BUT I AM NOW!

[gary.townsend]

Dear Lord...my orbital freighters would like their new engines please.

[Yorik]

Patience... I'm on a 3 weeks tour right now, so I can't do any modelling. And we want to release a big batch of parts, all with the same look and feel, that requires time. I promise it will be worth the wait.

[Exangels]

holy , thos engines look amazing cant wait!

[Tw1]

Looks.. interesting.

Part of me is saying too sci-fi and not enough yellow. Part of me is saying this will make sure people know that's not a stock part being used.

But I haven't used an ion engine since 0.20, so we'll see.

[OopsThatNotWork]

Part of me is saying this will make sure people know that's not a stock part being used.

thats my interest in them, .

[EPD]

Pretty finished Large Generator (2.5m), there will be also Medium Generator (1.25m) for probes. Pics soon.

Right now i can tell you one thing - engines will be more useful, especially hybrid engines.

I don't want them to replace stock LV-N atomic engines, but to be used as many times as LV-N.

More thrust, balancing other specs so people will like to chose them for their interplanetary crafts.

Also hybrid side mountable engines that you will use for normal and VTOL landings.

[gary.townsend]

Patience... I'm on a 3 weeks tour right now, so I can't do any modelling. And we want to release a big batch of parts, all with the same look and feel, that requires time. I promise it will be worth the wait.

Looking great. Keep us posted on how it's going.

[InfinityArch]

Mother.

Of.

God.

Want. So much want.

I really cannot wait for this stuff to be released. The engines look fantastic, and while I'd prefer the nuclear reactors to look, you know, like a real world design, the model is brilliant nevertheless. Out of curiosity, how far into this 3 week tour are you Yorik?

On a more negative note, there's just one small issue I have with this pack; there's not much research going into chemical-ion hybrid rocket engines in real life as far as I know. A more realistic technology with a similar effect would be a magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) arcjet, which is an electric propulsion system that uses enormous amounts of power (to the point of more or less requiring nuclear reactors), but would be capable of thrust on par with chemical rockets. There's also VASMIR, though that'd require a relatively simple plugin to get the "switch gears" thing to work.

Finally, I'm wondering if you guys have ever considered possibly approaching hoojiwana, whose also working on an ion engine pack, with the possibility of collaborating on this, given that your work overlaps a great deal.

[EPD]

Mother.

Of.

God.

Want. So much want.

I really cannot wait for this stuff to be released. The engines look fantastic, and while I'd prefer the nuclear reactors to look, you know, like a real world design, the model is brilliant nevertheless. Out of curiosity, how far into this 3 week tour are you Yorik?

On a more negative note, there's just one small issue I have with this pack; there's not much research going into chemical-ion hybrid rocket engines in real life as far as I know. A more realistic technology with a similar effect would be a magnetoplasmadynamic (MPD) arcjet, which is an electric propulsion system that uses enormous amounts of power (to the point of more or less requiring nuclear reactors), but would be capable of thrust on par with chemical rockets. There's also VASMIR, though that'd require a relatively simple plugin to get the "switch gears" thing to work.

Finally, I'm wondering if you guys have ever considered possibly approaching hoojiwana, whose also working on an ion engine pack, with the possibility of collaborating on this, given that your work overlaps a great deal.

-You know, in KSP community there are different types of people: There are some who actually are interested in every single subject about space travels, physics, engine developments etc, and they want KSP to be as REAL as possible. On the other hand you got people who like the idea of KSP, and play for fun - giving them selfs new goals to achieve, creating crazy or great looking planes and spaceships, or just testing something on little green guys that we can control.

I think Hoojiwana is one of the first type, and I with Yorik are second type. We actually like how new parts will look. However to be honest Hoojiwana never has written to me about collaboration, nor do I to him. Anyway we want give little Sci-Fi in the game, but using resources given by Squad.

ETA of first release? ONE WEEK. And it's not dependable on Yorik return. (no offence )

I needed someone who will help me with thing, not make for me. Yorik has explained me things i didn't understand, or just didn't find the answer. He is a great teacher, and I'm grateful that we've met. He also made models from my sketches, and his own (like side mountable ion and hybrid engines), we worked on them, exported to KSP. Considering ion engines he made like 90% of work (model + texture) with only my guidelines, considering other parts (generators, xenon side tank, side adapter) I've made them myself with his hints.

Inline generators in different sizes, xenon side tanks, side adapters reacting on throttle if engine attached is active.

First release, which will come soon will completely rebuild Ion Hybrid Engine Pack. New models, new stats, few new parts (like generators and tanks)

For second release we will have to wait for Yorik, because I want to work with him more often like before his "trip", not like one email per day XD, but it will be worth waiting.

Sorry for my english

Edited August 16, 2013 by EPD

[AlmightyR]

I could create basic models and textures, but i dont know (yet) how to create animated textures mbm for engines.

I would do your modelling and texturing if I could, but unfortunately I'm in the last semester of System Analysis and Development college, and at least for now, I just can't.

What I can do, however, is post a brief "get-started" guide on the texturing you seem to need, to get things going faster for you and/or anyone willing to learn the stuff to help you. Here goes!

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For 3D games, you don't create animated images for textures; Or at least I have never heard of any game that uses animated images for textures; Instead, games use "Materials".

When you need an "animated texture", you combine two different "static" textures into a "complex material", which "animates" a transition between them based on parameter variables.

Here is a brief explanation of how materials work:

1. Lets start with the basics: There is a difference between an image and a texture (in the 3D modelling definition of "texture"). That difference is that a texture is fit for an specific 3D-environment's "UV-Map".
   Yes, if you model something very simple, like a box, it can be UV-Mapped automatically with something like planar projection, and the texture can be set from an untouched image, but it's still an UV-Map and a texture.
   
2. 3D objects don't receive textures per-see; They receive materials.
   
3. Materials are a set of textures and parameters; A game's materials' textures usually include, but aren't limited or obligated to include:
   
   • Ambient color: Is the natural color of an object where illuminated by ambient light rather than direct light. (Google 3D lighting if you don't know the difference between direct and ambient lighting.)
     
   • Diffuse color: Is the intuitive, instinctive meaning of the color of an object. It is the color that the object reveals under pure white light. It is what you usually see in terms of colors, in games. The texture used here determines what the object is "painted" as. It's "skin" and/or it's "texture".
     
   • Specular color: Is the color of the light perceived from a specular reflection. Specular reflections are the type of reflection that is characteristic of light reflected from a shiny surface. It is often used in pair with the "Specular Level" material parameter to balance and optimize the player's perceived specular reflection's flare.
     
   • Emissive color: This is the self-illumination color an object has. This, controlled by the material's variables, is how KSP's electric engines glow blue when turned on, and how liquid engines' nozzles glow red when hot, for example.
     
   • Filter color: Is used to "filter the opacity" of an object. Black meaning all colors are transparent, and white, all colors opaque. This is very often used to create hair, foliage, and all sorts of details, in a way that is not poly-heavy; Because noone's PC would manage to run all those Crysis' nature if it was actually 3D-detailed; It's just simple planes with a texture-based filter; Much easier on the CPU and graphics card!
     
   • Normal map: Also known as "Bump map" (actually different techniques for the same goal) and/or "Dot3 bump map", it is a texture used to fake the lighting of bumps and dents in the surface of a 3D model, simulating the bumps and wrinkles on the surface without actually using any extra vertices or changing existing ones.
     
   • Displacement map: Similar to Normal-mapping, but actually changes the position of the underlying vertices, and often needs a high amount of polys to give a good result. This is basically a 3D model's version of what would be "Height-mapping" for a 3D terrain's mesh.
     
   • Reflection map: Is used to create reflective areas in an object's surface. It differs from the "Specular color" in that specular color only "reflects" a color (glare-like), not the image of the actual surrounding environment.
     
   • Refraction map: Don't mistake this refraction with that reflection! Refraction-mapping is used in transparent or semi-transparent objects to change the perception of the environment on the other side of the object. It's hard to explain, but...Do you know how water "deviates" light between above the surface and under it? It's basically that. It's used to give nice effects to liquids, glasses and force-fields. Remember those cool-looking glasses in Half-Life 2? Don't think for a single moment they were actually 3D-modeled with that much detail! It's all refraction-mapping magic!
     

Oofh! *wipes sweat off the forehead* That was a long list baby! But believe it or not, it's just the tip of the iceberg! I didn't even mention other maps that are common in 3D animations but that are not often used for games, like "Glow map", "Glossiness map", "Incandescence map", "Polynomial Texture map", ... *awkward pause of realization* ... Well, I guess now I did at least mention them.

Anyways, here is a link that will helped you understand and visualize the stuff I just listed!

[*]As implied by the previous item, a material can have multiple instances of each type of texture (/map), and it can then apply all sorts of controls to change which and how those textures are displayed onto the objects that material is assigned to.

[*]What effects happen, what can be controlled and, more importantly to games, how it can be controlled, is all defined by a flow-chart. For "simple materials", that flow-chart is usually just the texture instances, such as Diffuse and Normal, connected to their respective nodes in the material instance.

For "complex materials", those nodes receive the result of a chain of instances of resources (incl. textures) and functions. Functions being responsible for changing between different sets of textures and/or applying algorithm-generated effects that don't need any second texture.

Because the 3D-Editor's material's functions might not be compatible with the game engine's, it's recommended to create all the textures and maps in your 3D editor of choice (usually, and recommended by me, Blender or 3DS Max), and maybe also do some testing there, but to actually make the final version of the material's flow-chart in the game engine's "Development Kit" editor.

[*]After your material is ready on/for the game's engine, all you need to do is follow the instructions on how to export that material/object/both for mod-use. In KSP's case, this seems to require a special addon, called PartTools, for the game's engine's development kit.

[*]Profit!

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Took me a while to write this, so I hope I helped!

Edited August 16, 2013 by AlmightyR

[Yorik]

I'm halfway done with my tour, but the joint venture is progressing smoothly without me, thanks to EPD's outstanding work. And I concur with him on the look and feel of our parts. It's fun to have a bit of sci-fi in KSP.

[khalidibn]

I'm so looking forward to the coming update to this pack