[WIP] RogueTech 0.4 [July 10th]- New Fuel Transfer Duct!

[The Lone Wolfling]

RogueTech

Screenshots

Download

RogueTech v0.4

Source

GitHub

Version History / Old Versions

• RogueTech v0.4
  
  • Added a fuel transfer line
    
  • Removed modular SRBs (See [thread=38597]here[/thread] for a better version)
    

  [*]RogueTech v0.3

  • Added two new fuel balancers - a large one and a small one that uses RCS.
    
  • Added ability for fuel balancer lines to use other resources
    
  • Tweaked power draw of the fuel balancer
    
  • Misc. internal changes
    
  • Fixed fuel balancer module not loading configuration from part.cfg ([KSPField] doesn't work with double for some reason?)
    

  [*]v0.2:

  • Added modular SRBs!
    
  • Changed fuel balancer to balance percentage of fuel, not absolute amount.
    

  [*]v0.1:

  • Initial release.
    

Parts

FTX-3b External Fuel Duct

This reconfiguration of the FTX-3 uses monopropellant instead. Note that it is slightly faster than the FTX-3.

Model/texture wanted.

FTX-3 External Fuel Duct

This fuel duct attempts to balance the fuel levels (or rather, the fill percentage) of the parts it is attached to. Note: it uses electricity!

Model/texture wanted.

FTX-2c External Fuel Duct

This fuel duct actively attempts to move fuel into its target.

Model/texture wanted.

FTX-4 External Fuel Duct

This is a larger version of the FTX-3. It is more efficient per unit of fuel transferred, but uses more electricity overall, as its flow rate is much higher.

Model/texture wanted.

Place-Anywhere 8 Fuel Dumper

This part (rapidly) dumps fuel when activated. Useful for larger planes that can't land at full weight, or for giving Jeb a shower.

Model/texture (Something along the lines of this, just the nozzle.) wanted.

Todo

• Get proper textures / models.
  
• Make stock-like payload fairings (models / textures wanted!)
  

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Edited July 10, 2013 by The Lone Wolfling

[pilotdes]

Id love to help with the modular SRB system!! I was going to work on that mod and make it myself, but i can give you a hand if you want

[The Lone Wolfling]

Id love to help with the modular SRB system!! I was going to work on that mod and make it myself, but i can give you a hand if you want

I don't think I need much help other than texturing/modelling, but thanks for the offer!

Although, that being said, currently it's rather hackish. If you have any suggestions on that, please let me know. The source is included.

[pilotdes]

cool, ill have a look at the source for you (I LOVE PROGRAMMING!!!!)

[abrr2000]

interesting... one of the mods I use is conflicting with this one.... I shall en-devour to find out which one by a process of trial and error

[abrr2000]

after restarting KSP a whole lot, I have determined that it is the popular B9 pack which is causing conflicts.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-20-2-b9-aerospace-pack-r3-1/

in particular it is the "ExsurgantEngineering" folder of the B9 pack that causes the problem. (which houses exactly 1 file)

perhaps they share some variable names or something. Either way it would be worth u having a look to see if you can fix this issue. as there will be a lot of people out there who have this as part of there KSP environment. (for the moment, this folder has been removed from mine)

BTW. now that this mod is working properly for me, I can say with even greater joy, that this is a great mod... though perhaps the power draw is just a fraction too high.

[pilotdes]

ill have a look into it for you

[abrr2000]

if someone can direct me to tutorials on how to texture KSP models, I'll have a go at texturing some of these as a thank you. I've got the art skills and programs, I just need to know how to get at the image files I need to modify.

[pilotdes]

well, i found that ExsurgantEngineering.DLL and the RougeTech.DLL both have a class called FuelBalancer. could this be the problem?

[LaydeeDem]

Cool! I can make some models if you wish.

[The Lone Wolfling]

interesting... one of the mods I use is conflicting with this one.... I shall en-devour to find out which one by a process of trial and error

after restarting KSP a whole lot, I have determined that it is the popular B9 pack which is causing conflicts.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-20-2-b9-aerospace-pack-r3-1/

in particular it is the "ExsurgantEngineering" folder of the B9 pack that causes the problem. (which houses exactly 1 file)

perhaps they share some variable names or something. Either way it would be worth u having a look to see if you can fix this issue. as there will be a lot of people out there who have this as part of there KSP environment. (for the moment, this folder has been removed from mine)

well, i found that ExsurgantEngineering.DLL and the RougeTech.DLL both have a class called FuelBalancer. could this be the problem?

Urgh. Of course there's a conflict. I'll look into it.

FuelBalancer shouldn't conflict, because of namespacing, but due to the way that modules load I think they are conflicting with the module names anyways.

I'll rename it to FuelBalancerLine.

BTW. now that this mod is working properly for me, I can say with even greater joy, that this is a great mod... though perhaps the power draw is just a fraction too high.

Thanks for the feedback, and yes, balancing is still needed, no pun intended.

Cool! I can make some models if you wish.

zekew11 has already said that he'd give the fuel dump port and fairings a try. That being said, go ahead if you wish, especially with the modular SRBs. I'm never opposed to more models

[abrr2000]

speaking of balancing. I was thinking (got loads of time to do that at work)

u could achieve a good balance by including 2 instances of the balancing fuel line with something like the following statistics

MODULE {

name = FuelBalancer large

flowRate = 100

powerUsage = 0.09

}

MODULE {

name = FuelBalancer small

flowRate = 20

powerUsage = 0.07

}

this way the player can either use the slow, but efficient pipe, or if there problem is REALLY bad, they can use the heavy duty fuel balancer and suffer the extreme power draw that goes with it.

[The Lone Wolfling]

speaking of balancing [snip]

The only issue with that is that then people would use a bunch of the small pipes instead.

The larger pipes need to use more power than the smaller pipes, but be more efficient per unit of fuel moved.

Unfortunately, fuel pipes are physicsless, and as such don't contribute to mass, or I would just make the more efficient one heavier.

Also, update incoming later today - fixed the issues with loading parameters (it was silantly discarding doubles for some reason - I had to switch to floats for power efficiency and flow rate), tweaked flow rate / efficiency, added in-VAB part info, tweaked the GUI (I had forgotten that KSPField can format for you), and added a second larger fuel pipe.

Next step is properly applying a force to both connections so that momentum is conserved.

[zekes]

this is great, except you should retexture some of the SRB parts to look like they fit with an SRB.

[The Lone Wolfling]

this is great, except you should retexture some of the SRB parts to look like they fit with an SRB.

Models/textures wanted.

I'm not exactly a model/texture sort of guy, but yes, I agree.

[abrr2000]

after living with this mod a few days, both me and my friend are looking forward to the SRB having there own textures, and generally agree this is a good mod and will be well worth having in any KSP instillation.

I have 2 suggestions (if it is not too presumptuous of me)

firstly a pump powered fuel line. the vanilla pipe is great for take off. But as it is suction powered, should at any time an imbalance occur this pipe will never redress the balance of the ship. adding a one way pump powered fuel line would enable such a redress to occur once consumption goes below max flow rate as it would not be reliant upon suction. (I would advise it having a significantly lower flow rate than the vanilla pipe however for ballance reasons) this would also be useful for ships with ludicrous amounts of showy hull obscuring internal workings. (for refueling)

given how well you implemented the balancing pipe, I'm sure this will be easy for you to accomplish.

Secondly. I would like to suggest changing the mod's name on release to increase take up of the mod amongst the community, because "rogue tech" does not describe what the mod does. However something like "rogue tech, Fuel Solutions" would make it immediately obvious what the mod is about, and encourage further exploration of what the mod does, and thus dramatically improve your download count. (also it would be easier to remember where the parts came from if the mod name is self descriptive)

[The Lone Wolfling]

after living with this mod a few days, both me and my friend are looking forward to the SRB having there own textures, and generally agree this is a good mod and will be well worth having in any KSP instillation.

I have 2 suggestions (if it is not too presumptuous of me)

firstly a pump powered fuel line. the vanilla pipe is great for take off. But as it is suction powered, should at any time an imbalance occur this pipe will never redress the balance of the ship. adding a one way pump powered fuel line would enable such a redress to occur once consumption goes below max flow rate as it would not be reliant upon suction. (I would advise it having a significantly lower flow rate than the vanilla pipe however for ballance reasons) this would also be useful for ships with ludicrous amounts of showy hull obscuring internal workings. (for refueling)

given how well you implemented the balancing pipe, I'm sure this will be easy for you to accomplish.

Hmm...

Yeah, that should be possible. I'll give it a go tomorrow.

Although, that being said, the vanilla pipe has an infinite flow rate. Should the pump powered fuel line use power for fuel sucked by engines, or just fuel moved by the pump?

Secondly. I would like to suggest changing the mod's name on release to increase take up of the mod amongst the community, because "rogue tech" does not describe what the mod does. However something like "rogue tech, Fuel Solutions" would make it immediately obvious what the mod is about, and encourage further exploration of what the mod does, and thus dramatically improve your download count. (also it would be easier to remember where the parts came from if the mod name is self descriptive)

Good point. I'm going to be splitting up the mod anyways before release(Modular SRBs; Fuel lines; Ad-hoc RCS, etc.), so I'll do it then.

[abrr2000]

I would think pump powered with electric drain. possibly with a little bit of suction assist (but not necessary)

also, I'd stick with one mod release personally. as the more a mod contains, the more appealing it is to perspective downloaders. I always find packs more appealing than single component mods because they will contain more useful things that you hadn't gone looking for, or even thought of and they are much more likely to receive more love and be updated as KSP goes on through new versions.

if you still want to do individual releases, I'd suggest doing it like Lasor did. do them as a "here is the full mod with everything in it, but if you only want one part download this instead"

[The Lone Wolfling]

firstly a pump powered fuel line.

Added. Took a while, sorry.

I was trying to sort out some math, and finally just gave up and hardcoded it.

[abrr2000]

Took a while, sorry.

don't be. You've done so much.

If I make a .jpg file with textures for the pipes, would that be useful?

[abrr2000]

aww man. I hate to be a downer, but I discovered that the SRB's you linked to, cause this mod to behave irratically

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/38597-Advanced-SRB-WIP-v-3-by-Kerbal-Science-Foundation-20-2

it starts pumping unevenly and actively unbalances ships that without the SRB's installed, ballance propperly.

[The Lone Wolfling]

aww man. I hate to be a downer, but I discovered that the SRB's you linked to, cause this mod to behave irratically

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/38597-Advanced-SRB-WIP-v-3-by-Kerbal-Science-Foundation-20-2

it starts pumping unevenly and actively unbalances ships that without the SRB's installed, ballance propperly.

Example craft?

[abrr2000]

I had a central tank connected to 3 radial tanks with sail engines on the radial tanks only. balance pipes were connecting radial to central.

(I also had the ferram patch installed)

[The Lone Wolfling]

I had a central tank connected to 3 radial tanks with sail engines on the radial tanks only. balance pipes were connecting radial to central.

(I also had the ferram patch installed)

Can you post the actual craft file?

Also, sorry about lack of updates. I'm working on awsomeness but I'm running into issues with vector math.

[Greys]

Would it be possible to make a module to be included in surface attach parts that would make them behave as if they were connected to the thing they're on with a standard fuel line; so that radial fuel tanks don't have to have a fuel line to work?