[1.11.x] RCS Build Aid v1.0.6

[m4v]

oh please, you all already waited for like 3 weeks, surely another two are no problem.

[Galenmacil]

Sorry m4v, did not mean to rush or anything... Take your time. Since someone mentioned that it was fixed on GitHub and I do not have the skill required to compile it myself... well, you know, I thought... Sorry again.

[inigma]

oh please, you all already waited for like 3 weeks, surely another two are no problem.

My shuttle waits for RSC BuildAid to tweak its values to perfection... it can wait:

In the meantime I eyeballed the torque values...

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[etheoma]

oh please, you all already waited for like 3 weeks, surely another two are no problem.

NOOOOO!!! WE CANNOT WAIT!!! XD

No but seriously I'm not trying to rush you or anything seriously, But Just under FAR and Editor Extensions this is my must have mods and if even if your looking for a stock like experience Editor extensions and your mod are a must have.

You have done a brilliant job even coming up with this concept never mind implementing and maintaining it thank you.

And I am glad to know RCS build aid is coming to 1.0.2. This is the last thing I'm waiting for before I will start my Career mode now I know that its coming.

Edited May 15, 2015 by etheoma

[Neutrinovore]

You know, everyone, this DOES work in 1.02, it's just not OPTIMIZED for it. I've been using it ever since 1.02 came out, and while some things don't work quite right the basic core functions still work the same as always: balancing the craft for both RCS translation and thrust torque.

Just sayin'.

[m4v]

Version 0.7
-----------

* Update for KSP 1.0.2
* Add Vac/ASL toggle for use vacuum or at sea level thrust in engine mode.
* Remove DCoM offset readout, never used it.
* FIX: add mass of physicsless parts to its parent's CoM.
* FIX: account gimbal's limit tweakable.
* FIX: rocket's and jet's thrust wasn't right.
* FIX: keybindings catching editor's rotate shortcuts.
* FIX: disable RCSBA when the editor disables the CoM marker.

[futrtrubl]

/me bows with great reverence.

[inigma]

*gasp* yea! ty m4v!

[Eleven]

I never used the DCom either

[futrtrubl]

I never used the DCom either

I use DCom almost all the time. Quite often RCS matters once you have gotten somewhere and at that point you have probably used a lot of fuel.

The offset readout... not so much. I don't think I ever looked at it.

[Core21]

Can we please have the offset back? It hurts no one beeing there and i allways used it to build planes or VTOLs, where the CoM stays in the same place regardless of fuel level.

[T-Pilot395]

Can we please have the offset back? It hurts no one beeing there and i allways used it to build planes or VTOLs, where the CoM stays in the same place regardless of fuel level.

Pretty much what he said. Although I hope it can be improved to show just lateral offset. Helps a ton when aligning COMs for my VTOL craft.

[Core21]

Pretty much what he said. Although I hope it can be improved to show just lateral offset. Helps a ton when aligning COMs for my VTOL craft.

Maybe separate readouts for every axis, for i.e. a jet that takes off vertically, but flies horizontally.

It could also be made a togglable option to not clutter the UI.

[Wanderfound]

Thanks for the update, m4v; essential mod.

I'm another who misses the dCoM offset figure, though.

[smjjames]

Awesome, thanks m4v.

As for the Dcom, I also found it useful to try and balance between the CoM and Dcom, though I mainly used the Acom. However, I agree with the Dcom being useful in some situations, even if m4v doesn't generally use that part.

Not to mention that the Dcom is extremely helpful for balancing a cargo hauler when you're planning on having it make runs between two locations. Not that I do it, just a situation that I just thought of since you're going to have the cargo empty at some point.

Edit: Did he do a stealth update and put the Dcom back in? Because it's still there, never went anywhere.

You know, everyone, this DOES work in 1.02, it's just not OPTIMIZED for it. I've been using it ever since 1.02 came out, and while some things don't work quite right the basic core functions still work the same as always: balancing the craft for both RCS translation and thrust torque.

Just sayin'.

The previous versions toolbar button wouldn't even show up for me in the VAB/SPH. Version 0.7's toolbar button shows up though.

Edit2: Minor bug, though not with the mod itself, the changelog and readme files in the folder are asciidoc files (whatever those are) for some reason.

Edit3: Oh, I realize now that m4v meant the Dcom readout, the numbers showing the offset, not the marker, which I think some people also thought he meant. I didn't use that specific readout myself, although it usually confused me more in that I wasn't sure if it was the horizontial offset or vertical offset.

Edited May 17, 2015 by smjjames

[inigma]

hmmm... I'm running into an issue. RCSBuildAid torque values do not seem to be calculating correctly. testing.

[Neutrinovore]

I just very briefly checked out v0.7 ingame, and the RCS Translation controls didn't seem to be responding to keyboard inputs. That is, I could click the button in the RCSBA window to change between 'right', 'left', 'up', 'down', etc., but using my keyboard input for those same translations (i.e. the default 'IJKL' keys) wasn't changing anything on the RCSBA display overlay. Although, since I don't have those default keys bound as MY translation controls, I didn't try the actual default keys to see if they would work.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this real quick, I need to do more testing, and if I can't figure out what the deal is or whether it's me that's doing something wrong, I'll report back.

Later! Oh, and thanks, m4v, for updating this 'must-have' mod!

Update: Yep, for some reason the new version isn't recognizing anything other than the game's default keyboard inputs for RCS translation. I double-checked my settings, and my keys are still bound to my own preferences, so...

This isn't a horrible game-breaking glitch, I can use the other keys if I have to, lol. But I just thought I'd let you know the situation.

Everyone enjoy the rest of your weekend. Later!

Edited May 17, 2015 by Neutrinovore
Additional Information

[m4v]

Can we please have the offset back? It hurts no one beeing there and i allways used it to build planes or VTOLs, where the CoM stays in the same place regardless of fuel level.

Just eyeball the red marker into the yellow one, just by doing that even with their normal size you have a "DCoM offset" of less than 0.05, and less than 0.02 if you dial the markers' size to 50%. Unless you're trying to balance an inverted pendulum you will be fine.

The readout was just a magnitude without direction anyway, VTOL builders seem to only want to align them vertically.

Edit2: Minor bug, though not with the mod itself, the changelog and readme files in the folder are asciidoc files (whatever those are) for some reason.

Asciidoc is just a documentation format for text files, you can open then with notepad or any text editor and read it normally, the .asciidoc extension is just there so github can recognize it and do all the pretty formatting.

I just very briefly checked out v0.7 ingame, and the RCS Translation controls didn't seem to be responding to keyboard inputs. That is, I could click the button in the RCSBA window to change between 'right', 'left', 'up', 'down', etc., but using my keyboard input for those same translations (i.e. the default 'IJKL' keys) wasn't changing anything on the RCSBA display overlay. Although, since I don't have those default keys bound as MY translation controls, I didn't try the actual default keys to see if they would work.

Anyway, I just thought I'd mention this real quick, I need to do more testing, and if I can't figure out what the deal is or whether it's me that's doing something wrong, I'll report back.

Later! Oh, and thanks, m4v, for updating this 'must-have' mod!

Update: Yep, for some reason the new version isn't recognizing anything other than the game's default keyboard inputs for RCS translation. I double-checked my settings, and my keys are still bound to my own preferences, so...

This isn't a horrible game-breaking glitch, I can use the other keys if I have to, lol. But I just thought I'd let you know the situation.

Everyone enjoy the rest of your weekend. Later!

In 1.0 KSP bound the translation keys to either WASDQE or JKILHN so you would always activate a gimbal or RCS in RCSBA when rotating a part in the editor. Thus I just hardcoded the keys back to JKLIHN and ignore KSP settings, now I realise I could have done it better but for the current release is stuck that way.

[Core21]

Just eyeball the red marker into the yellow one, just by doing that even with their normal size you have a "DCoM offset" of less than 0.05, and less than 0.02 if you dial the markers' size to 50%. Unless you're trying to balance an inverted pendulum you will be fine.

...

I really dont like eyeballing, thats pretty much the reason why i use your mod: To get precise numerical information.

Especially for spaceplanes with docking capabilities i aim for an offset of 0.00.

Are there any technical reasons why you cant provide the offset readout any longer?

...

The readout was just a magnitude without direction anyway, VTOL builders seem to only want to align them vertically.

...

Therefore my suggestion of adding seperate readouts for evey axis to improve it.

[m4v]

I really dont like eyeballing, thats pretty much the reason why i use your mod: To get precise numerical information.

Well, that's just semantics, call it "eyeball" or reach specification within tolerance limits, just like engineering is pretty much a profession about eyeballing stuff, but a lot technical about how you do it.

The plugin originally had no numerical information at all, it was just stuff I added later and honestly most of the numbers aren't useful, the only one I use all the time is the TWR readout, I pretty much ignore everything else, torque being the most useless since you need to know the moment of inertia for that axis for make some sense out of it, and all the angular movements quirks that KSP has such as angular drag makes it less accurate.

Especially for spaceplanes with docking capabilities i aim for an offset of 0.00.

no, you aim for an offset of less than 0.005, since 0.00 could be anything below 0.0049999... why do you need an error of 0.005 anyway? why is it better than 0.05? how do you know it will be a problem if you don't know the moment of inertia that RCSBA doesn't provide? did you study that your plane becomes uncomfortable to control when its CoM deviates 0.005 m out of its place or it's just that you're zeroing the two decimals that I rather arbitrarily put in the readout?

In the end is all for naught since RCSBA can only tell you about the position of the CoM in two instants of time, it doesn't show what happens in between, you need to guarantee that all fuel tanks are consumed evenly or any imbalance will throw the CoM out of place. I made vessels with large offsets and still easy to dock, so the need of that level of precision is overblown and unnecessary.

Are there any technical reasons why you cant provide the offset readout any longer?

If you want to get technical is really just because I didn't like it.

Therefore my suggestion of adding seperate readouts for evey axis to improve it.

if it the marker offset returns it will be likely in this form or something similar. Edited May 17, 2015 by m4v

[Neutrinovore]

-Snip-

In 1.0 KSP bound the translation keys to either WASDQE or JKILHN so you would always activate a gimbal or RCS in RCSBA when rotating a part in the editor. Thus I just hardcoded the keys back to JKLIHN and ignore KSP settings, now I realise I could have done it better but for the current release is stuck that way.

Ah, okay, that explains it. No worries, like I said, it's an easy workaround for me to use the default keys, so it's all good.

However, yes, in future versions it would be nice for RCSBA to recognize reassigned key inputs. But unless there's something else majorly borked with this version, I see no need to rush a fix for this one issue.

Thanks for explaining things, m4v. As always, your mod is absolutely necessary for me to have in GameData. I hope you have a great day!

Later!

[ZobrAA]

Remove DCoM offset readout, never used it.

That's unfortunate, I was using DCoM all the time for complicated crafts (shuttles for example)...

Any hope to see it back again?

[blowfish]

That's unfortunate, I was using DCoM all the time for complicated crafts (shuttles for example)...

Any hope to see it back again?

The DCoM is still there, just the field in the GUI that told you the offset in meters is gone.

[toric5]

kerbalstuff? thats all I'm saying...

[Superfluous J]

kerbalstuff? thats all I'm saying...

sorry, I don't want to release in two places and I don't use CKAN so I'm not concerned over all this.

That's all m4v is saying...