[0.22] UbioZur Welding Ltd. 2.0 Dev STOPPED

[noonespecial]

Compatibility Report (Thus Far)

Tested and Working: KW Rocketry, B9, KSPX, MechJeb, LLL(?), THSS, Kethane (Mostly)

Tested and Not-Working: Parts Catalog, FAR

Notable Bugs present in all tests:

1.) Lights. If more than one Light is present in a weld (including those pretty togglable cockpit lights in B9), then the weld will break.

2.) Animations. If more than one part with Animation is present in the weld, then the weld will break.

These are known KSP issues, not issues with this Plugin. (As far as I know).

3.) There is an issue that if things are radially attached, the welded part becomes unattachable.

Fix for 3.) I've figured out that the error is do to the plugin not knowing what to do with many attachment nodes, so far I think this is limited to upward facing nodes. To fix this error, simply "cap" the nodes you aren't going to use. Nose cones work well, in this picture I used parachutes.

Mod Specific Notes.

B9: Some parts in combination will break (see notes 1 and 2)

LLL: Previous posters have commented that these are unweldable. However, I haven't had an issue. So, broken?

Kethane: All non-animated parts work fine. But I've found that all animated parts generate an error, even if used alone. They still seem to "work", minus animation though.

Parts Catalog: Will not display new parts in the catalog (even if All is chosen). Only fix that I've found is exiting the game, deleting the catalog.txt in the PluginData folder and relaunch. Not a workable fix, because it would mean having to relaunch the game each time you weld.

More testing tonight.

[noonespecial]

I hope so. B9 hit my memory cap

If you go into Graphics Settings and set the Texture resolution to Half-Res or Quarter-Res, this will greatly reduce or eliminate Memory Cap related crashes. On my primary save, I run 45 mods, including B9, NovaPunch, Fustek, DSM, KW Rockety, LLL, THSS, and many many parts heavy mods. I very rarely see crashes.

Give it a try.

[K3-Chris]

Just tried it a bit after seeing scott's video, it has potential but I'm also a bit confused by it, new parts don't appear for me after the re-load of the database, welded a KW fuel tank and engine together (Griffon XX + SC-4 LFT) and the resulting part is an engine with a connection node on the top at the tank's distance, it has the right amount of fuel etc but the fuel tank's model isn't there at all. Tried again with stock squad fuel tank and engine (FL-T800 + LV-T45) and that works even does the engine cowling etc as it should.

Also not sure I like that it adds these combined parts into the regular part list, feels like they could go into their own separate list/category, it's fairly annoying having to find these parts in my really long part list especially because they can look almost or exactly identical to other parts, would be nice if after the database re-load you automatically got the part you just made to place, some quick way to remove non-working ones would also be nice.

Edited October 15, 2013 by K3|Chris

[UbioZur]

so I downloaded and welded 4 trusses and 4 radial connector ports to a tank. I select the part and it wouldn't let me connect my command pod to the 2.5m tank that's part of the weld. BUT it does let me connect the truss that's part of the welded part.

so basically: I create a welded part, won't let me connect it normally, only lets me connect if I flip it to the right

I could use either the part.cfg or a screen or even better both. So I can try

Very interesting mod.

Are there plans to allow EVA kerbals to use a "welder" to merge parts on launched ships? This would be VERY useful on space stations.

I thought of it for docking port, but nothing on the plan so far, because I want the editor one to be robust

I hope so. B9 hit my memory cap, so LLL is the only other option with a significant amount of "spacey sci-fi" parts, other than "KSP Interstellar" which I also have. My guess is that the plugin probably doesn't recognize the texture bits in the model, and so tries to spit out the closest approximation of what it thinks it is. It's possible that the collision meshes are where they should be for the parts, but the placement of the texture or what you see isn't properly translated.

Granted, I know nothing about coding or how the guts of things work, but if you fix the compatibility issues with the textures in the model files, maybe the rest of the data will fall in line, and things will line up. If not, well, it sucks, but them's the breaks...

Either way, thanks for this mod. Truly awesome. =D

LLL is the first mod I know of that use fully the MODEL{} node. I just have to complete the welding with parts that use them, and then hopefully it will work.

Awesome work!

Sadly, it as some compatibility issues with ModuleManager wich is another essential plugin, IMHO... D':

Don't know if something can be done, see here:

Yeah we do reload the database, but you do have an option in the config file to not reload it. It could make it compatible with ModuleManager.

Compatibility Report (Thus Far)

Tested and Working: KW Rocketry, B9, KSPX, MechJeb, LLL(?), THSS, Kethane (Mostly)

Tested and Not-Working: Parts Catalog, FAR

Thanks for the report.

Notable Bugs present in all tests:

1.) Lights. If more than one Light is present in a weld (including those pretty togglable cockpit lights in B9), then the weld will break.

2.) Animations. If more than one part with Animation is present in the weld, then the weld will break.

These are known KSP issues, not issues with this Plugin. (As far as I know).

Welcome to my world, there is a lot and lot of things that ksp can't do if there is 2 object in the model with the same name, so animation/light/gear/etc.... it all doesn't work.

3.) There is an issue that if things are radially attached, the welded part becomes unattachable.

Fix for 3.) I've figured out that the error is do to the plugin not knowing what to do with many attachment nodes, so far I think this is limited to upward facing nodes. To fix this error, simply "cap" the nodes you aren't going to use. Nose cones work well, in this picture I used parachutes.

I will have a look for that

Just tried it a bit after seeing scott's video, it has potential but I'm also a bit confused by it, new parts don't appear for me after the re-load of the database, welded a KW fuel tank and engine together (Griffon XX + SC-4 LFT) and the resulting part is an engine with a connection node on the top at the tank's distance, it has the right amount of fuel etc but the fuel tank's model isn't there at all. Tried again with stock squad fuel tank and engine (FL-T800 + LV-T45) and that works even does the engine cowling etc as it should.

Looks like a texture error, may be similar than the LLL bug. I'll try my best for the mods to work, but I can't support all the mods out there (check OP).

[quote name=K3|

Also not sure I like that it adds these combined parts into the regular part list' date=' feels like they could go into their own separate list/category, it's fairly annoying having to find these parts in my really long part list especially because they can look almost or exactly identical to other parts, would be nice if after the database re-load you automatically got the part you just made to place, some quick way to remove non-working ones would also be nice.

I am trying to get it to work with PartCatalog, but at the moment it doesnt.

For the deleting them, sadly you will have to go to the folder and delete them there (for now)

[HoY]

I wonder if 2 animated parts would be weldable if they used the firespitter animation module instead of the stock animation module... It's worth a try if someone gets to it before I get home in 8 hours

[K3-Chris]

Makes sense UbioZur.

I wonder if 2 animated parts would be weldable if they used the firespitter animation module instead of the stock animation module... It's worth a try if someone gets to it before I get home in 8 hours

Same animation system as b9 right? tried it and I get an error about unsupported modules.

[HoY]

B9 only uses firespitter for a few parts not all of its animations. I'll try it soon.

[greg12]

We want to have a separate Tab for the part that we weld together. For example: Utility, Science, Weldings

Just think about it!

[Guest]

I have a question, don't have time to read 26 pages, and cannot easily find the FAQ. I hope you are still reading lol:

I have been sticking with no mods recently. The reason is for ease of use by the end user, and compatibility with most people's installs.

If I make a CRAFT with this mod, to reduce parts count, I create new parts in my parts browser, and have to use them. Will these parts need to be distributed with the craft, in order for it to work on another system, even thought the user may not have the Weld It MOD? Thank you!

Edited October 15, 2013 by UbioZur
Removed the reaction image with "bad" language

[HoY]

Welded 2 HL cargobays together, they use the firespitter animation module. One bay opens and closes, the second one stays open unfortunately. It still "works" to the point where it loads and doesnt break, but just 1 animation for now. will try with some other parts but dont get your hopes up

EDIT:

Ok, so it Does work. You can have multiple modules with DIFFERENT animations. you can NOT use the same or similar sized cargohold pieces, as the animations are named the same in unity, but using 1 cargohold, and for example 1 tail ramp the 2 animations will work properly.

You can get around this by making a duplicate part in Unity with a renamed animation, then using the firespitter module to call on each animation in the welded part individually.

Its something to go on at least

Edited October 15, 2013 by HoY

[Ryugi]

If you go into Graphics Settings and set the Texture resolution to Half-Res or Quarter-Res, this will greatly reduce or eliminate Memory Cap related crashes. On my primary save, I run 45 mods, including B9, NovaPunch, Fustek, DSM, KW Rockety, LLL, THSS, and many many parts heavy mods. I very rarely see crashes.

Give it a try.

Oh, I've already been down that road. I'm running the game on a 32bit version of Windows XP on a system with 4GB of RAM and a very overworked Pentium 4 (Yes, I'm one of those "low-end" people you hear about lol). The fact that the game runs at all is a small miracle. Granted, before the .20 revision of parts and such I could run TONS more parts and plugins and the game ran just fine. I've got everything on Half-Res already, I believe. But dropping to Quarter-Res might be worth trying to see if things work any better. I'm just hoping .22 will remove some of that stress on the system with the new tweaks.

_____________________________________________________________________________

On the topic of LLL again, to the previous poster, it isn't that the parts don't weld. It's that the parts don't weld in the correct orientation. The part that comes out of the plugin has them all wonky. It's possible that it could be due to the large variety of attachment possibilities of the LLL parts, since they can be attached radially, or on the surface, or via the nodes, and in all sorts of complex ways (which is part of why I like them). But, again, I know nothing of how this stuff actually works in the guts of things. Hopefully Ubio can fix the texture thing he was talking about with LLL, and it'll fix the orientation problem at the same time.

[noonespecial]

Hey UbioZur,

I see more than one complaint about "too many parts" or "wanting a different section" for the Welded Parts.

If you can't figure out the Parts Catalog conflict or other solution, I have a suggestion.

Take a peak at Subassembly loader. Instead of dropping subassembly parts into the parts list, it has a save and load function. You could do something similiar. It would help keep track of loaded parts.

Just a suggestion.

[Guest]

As a manual method - the parts can easily be relocated to a place KSP does not see (in the folder system). You need to re-boot KSP, I found that reloading all the parts in the Alt-F12 dialog was insufficient.

The parts I have made are uncontrollable in the hangar. In snap mode or not in snap mode, the part is jumping around to wherever it wants to go. The system logic is too sensitive, for searching for connect nodes. HELP

I'm fried.

This is as close as I can get my parts, before they attach at horribly chosen nodes:

This is the best I could do, trying to attach them. I would get the parts within single digit pixels, by manipulating the base part (the highlit part, the chassis) but as soon as you touch the red part, with zero mouse input, it flys off to some ridiculous node and attaches. This pic was taken to demo FRAPS framerate, but neither KSP nor Windows captured the FRAPS yellow framerate readout, and I am so fried I forgot FRAPS itself has the snapshot capability. It was reading about 9 fps. I have no engines on yet and they are bad for frame rate. Discouraging day to say the very least.

The benefits of reducing parts count are not linear. The performance gains in FPS are not directly proportionate to the reduction in parts count.

Just a minute.

Massive human error - the chassis hadn't been compiled into a welded part. Sorry for the Millennium Monologue I'll stop till something positive happens.

Edited October 15, 2013 by UbioZur
6 posts in a row?

[UbioZur]

I wonder if 2 animated parts would be weldable if they used the firespitter animation module instead of the stock animation module... It's worth a try if someone gets to it before I get home in 8 hours

Welded 2 HL cargobays together, they use the firespitter animation module. One bay opens and closes, the second one stays open unfortunately. It still "works" to the point where it loads and doesnt break, but just 1 animation for now. will try with some other parts but dont get your hopes up

EDIT:

Ok, so it Does work. You can have multiple modules with DIFFERENT animations. you can NOT use the same or similar sized cargohold pieces, as the animations are named the same in unity, but using 1 cargohold, and for example 1 tail ramp the 2 animations will work properly.

You can get around this by making a duplicate part in Unity with a renamed animation, then using the firespitter module to call on each animation in the welded part individually.

Its something to go on at least

I would guess that if the animation name is different it would work. And you answerd yousrself. (I need to manage the check of the name of the animation if the names are different that's why it's still considered as not managed.

Same animation system as b9 right? tried it and I get an error about unsupported modules.

Note that it is not an error but a warning. It mean I did not know what to do with them so I just copy/pasted the whole MODULE{}, that way it's not lost and may work.

We want to have a separate Tab for the part that we weld together. For example: Utility, Science, Weldings

Just think about it!

I know everyone give me this idea! and it is definitly a good one, I will try to get part catalog working asap, as it would be more flexible than just one tab.

If I make a CRAFT with this mod, to reduce parts count, I create new parts in my parts browser, and have to use them. Will these parts need to be distributed with the craft, in order for it to work on another system, even thought the user may not have the Weld It MOD? Thank you!

All parts are saved in the plugin folder, and so are not distributed with the craft file unless you include them. I want to keep all the plugin files inside the plugin folder so it is easy to backup/install/share.

Hey UbioZur,

I see more than one complaint about "too many parts" or "wanting a different section" for the Welded Parts.

If you can't figure out the Parts Catalog conflict or other solution, I have a suggestion.

Take a peak at Subassembly loader. Instead of dropping subassembly parts into the parts list, it has a save and load function. You could do something similiar. It would help keep track of loaded parts.

Just a suggestion.

It is easy for sub ass to save/load craft file, it is 2 in game function already existing. for the config file, it is "ok" to save them, but loading them on the fly is a bit hard (else I wouldn't make reload the whole database).

I am sure for Part Catalog it's a matter of changing the sub category. I will have a look asap on it. and it it doesn't work I will have a look to ad my own tab.

As a manual method - the parts can easily be relocated to a place KSP does not see (in the folder system). You need to re-boot KSP, I found that reloading all the parts in the Alt-F12 dialog was insufficient.

The parts I have made are uncontrollable in the hangar. In snap mode or not in snap mode, the part is jumping around to wherever it wants to go. The system logic is too sensitive, for searching for connect nodes. HELP

This is the problem with lot of small parts, there is lot of nodes, and so the game can get confused about where to attach it. You can try to delete some of the nodes in the config file especially if you are not using them.

However once it is done, I would be happy to have a screen of it and how mch performance gain you have

[Guest]

This is the problem with lot of small parts, there is lot of nodes, and so the game can get confused about where to attach it. You can try to delete some of the nodes in the config file especially if you are not using them.

However once it is done, I would be happy to have a screen of it and how mch performance gain you have

Most definitely, and also this craft will not be possible without your mod.

[NeoAcario]

UbioZur

Absolutely amazing mod concept that's obviously still heavily in early development. Don't get discouraged. Many of us have very high hopes for this mod.

Keep up the good work!

~Steve

[ahd1601]

Parts with RCS thrusters don't work...

[Guest]

Major progress. This is a picture of 1 part ! (ignore the engines)

Might have it flying tonight.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Guest

[enki]

The fact that the game runs at all is a small miracle

Have you looked into the stock part texture reducer? It may help squeeze a bit more performance out of your hardware as well.

[Bezzier]

Hey Ubio, I know you're not supporting mods, but I wanted to make a note. Fustek and SDHI parts aren't weldable for me. I get a message saying there's a missing config file with either. Also trying with Kosmos Parts gives a null parameter error.

[BLUAV8R]

Hey this might have been answered already but i'm having an issue where when i'm trying to build a big truss segment (composed of structural fuselages and docking nodes with ports) it welds fine but when o go to load the piece it doesnt appear in the VAB at all. am i missing something or is there a max welded part limit or something?

[jaked122]

Let me just say, this is beautiful.

You deserve so many cookies that I can barely stand it.

That aside, I enjoy what you've done, and it works quite a bit better than those other things that I tried to maintain FPS

[Guest]

Got something strange going on. My huge Falcon is currently at 55 parts - which is excellent - but the physics seems broken or something.

[Ryugi]

Have you looked into the stock part texture reducer? It may help squeeze a bit more performance out of your hardware as well.

I did, actually. It helped a little bit, but, when I tend to use more mod parts than default parts, not a lot. I tend to enjoy flying a "Sci-Fi" space program. My little internal universe was actually interesting. Summary of my little story is below if you're interested... I would have spoiler'd it, but that functionality doesn't exist anymore, apparently...

My Kerbals were largely warlike, developing more and more powerful means to blow each other up.  
The surface got so bad that no one lived there (on the surface), and when they did, they wore 
radiation/atmospheric suits just to be safe.  So, they built up advanced technologies in a race to 
wipe their enemies out, but never got to explore their solar system because anything would always 
get shot down, break apart, or get blown up somehow.

Then, one day, some crazy nut named Jebediah is looking out at the night sky to stare at Minmus 
because he was hungry, and thought it looked tasty, and he thought he saw a glinting semi-metallic 
object circling it.  He checked to make sure it wasn't some sort of metal shaving on his lens again, 
and was surprised, and a little weirded out, to find that it wasn't.  After getting together some more
of his comrades, they determined that what they saw wasn't owned by any of the other sects, and 
wasn't anything Kerbal-made.  That could only mean it was extraterrestrial in origin, which was 
compounded when they turned a radio telescope to face it and started picking up faint signals.

So, Jeb called a meeting with the other Kerbal sects, and got them talking about the thing.  It was
decided that a mission would be sent to the "Unidentified Alien Craft" to examine it.  The KSA was 
formed (Kerbal Space Agency), and all this powerful weapons technology, computers, propulsion,
sensors, cameras, antimatter etc. was put on a probe and sent to intercept the UAC, which they
learned was actually orbiting Kerbin just outside of Minmus' orbit.  After all, maybe the ship was
hostile and wanted to blow up the planet like in those movies where the pink-skinned creatures
invaded.

So the probe gets there, homing in on the signal.  It gets pictures, takes readings, and learns
as much as it can about the strange craft (in case you're wondering, I used the USS Enterprise
mod to stand in for the alien ship).  It is determined that the only way to learn more is to send a 
manned mission.  Jeb and his buddies Bill and Bob stayed behind to develop and run the KSA, and
Milcal Kerman is selected to lead the charge in the KSS Genesis Zero spacecraft.  It has a power core
using matter and anti-matter to fuel a rocket-like engine.  Once used to blow things up, the 
technology was being used to create a new future for Kerbalkind.

So, Milcal pilots the ship and becomes the first Kerbal to ever go so far beyond the bounds of Kerbin.
He arrives and disembarks for the UAC via EVA.  He finds what appears to be a doorway inside. Against
a stream of shouts and warnings, Milcal enters the alien vessel and finds his way to the command 
center.  Most everything is shut down, but after some true Kerbal-style fiddling, Milcal activates the 
ship, and after some trial and error, somehow manages to fly it, not just in a straight line, but back
to Kerbin.  Also amazingly, he lands safely.

Milcal returns a hero for all Kerbalkind, and the KSA goes to work deconstructing and learning from 
the alien ship.  They then find something called a "Warp Drive" and find that it can run off of the same
power source as Genesis Zero did.  A mockup of the technology was created, and Jebediah himself
makes the first faster-than-light flight in Kerbal History.

Anyway, that was the initial basis of my little sandbox. From there they built orbital stations to make ships in orbit, and were going to go about exploring every body in the solar system. I never got that far because of constant crashes with large vessels and memory limits, but I was working on it, slowly. It's still lots of fun. Course I'll have to start over when .22 comes along since all the mods will probably be invalidated somehow. But, hey, it's a neat idea.

[UbioZur]

Parts with RCS thrusters don't work...

The problem with the RCS thruster is the impossibility to use them as rotation if they are welded together.

Hey Ubio, I know you're not supporting mods, but I wanted to make a note. Fustek and SDHI parts aren't weldable for me. I get a message saying there's a missing config file with either. Also trying with Kosmos Parts gives a null parameter error.

The first error mean than they have a MODEL node, but they don't use the model=pathofthemmodel, which is strange from them.

For the second one, are you trying to weld engine with fairing? is it blocking the game or kind of just spaming the log?

Hey this might have been answered already but i'm having an issue where when i'm trying to build a big truss segment (composed of structural fuselages and docking nodes with ports) it welds fine but when o go to load the piece it doesnt appear in the VAB at all. am i missing something or is there a max welded part limit or something?

I have had a few people where this happen, it looks like the recorded position is way out of the VAB/SPH, can you pm me the ksp.log and the config.cfg please?

Let me just say, this is beautiful.

You deserve so many cookies that I can barely stand it.

That aside, I enjoy what you've done, and it works quite a bit better than those other things that I tried to maintain FPS

Thank you

Got something strange going on. My huge Falcon is currently at 55 parts - which is excellent - but the physics seems broken or something.

What does it do?

Please enki and Ryugi, can you keep either to the subject and pm yourself for that kind of chat.