[0.22] UbioZur Welding Ltd. 2.0 Dev STOPPED

[rsgm123]

Sorry to post it again, but how do you delete test parts that you create for testing purpose? Delete them from plugin parts folder? but they still appear in game...

Don't forget to reload th database in the debug menu(I forget which tab, it should be there is you are on the space center screen).

[UbioZur]

Great tool for my laggy PC I have a question thou, how can I delete welded parts?

Sorry to post it again, but how do you delete test parts that you create for testing purpose? Delete them from plugin parts folder? but they still appear in game...

You know I don't live on the forum, you can give me at least a day to answer.

There is at the moment no in game way to delete welded part, you need to go to the plugin folder /GameData/UbioWeldingLtd/Parts/ to do it. If the game is still loaded, then go to the space center, database tab and relead all.

There is an annoying bug while using this on linux. Any time you create a weld, it puts the part in ~/Desktop/GameData/UbioWeldingLtd/Parts/... with ~ being the home directory. Probably either a bug with file paths, or it could be due to linux using '/' as a path seperator instead of '\'.

Humm that's annoying. I don't have a linux system to try (I may pm you with some version to ask you to try some stuff), and I will look into it. (thanks for the report)

When I get the files/folders moved to the correct places under /UbioWeldingLtd/Parts/... and hit reload all, the welds loose kw-rocketry fuel tanks. kw-rocketry engines are fine, but float in the air a bit away from what they are connected to. Everything else works.

humm that seems like the MODEL url is not good.

can you pm me the log, the part.cfg, as well as the part.cfg of the kw tank, and the path of the .mu please.

Are stretchy tanks supported with this? Or for that matter normal tanks that use Modular Fuel System?

For strechy tanks, I did not try.

For the modular fuel system, depending how it's done, It should work.

[ronmccall]

i need suport 4 http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/modular-girder-system-awt/

[mrflybykid]

But will the parts re-separate when broken? Or will it act like one pig part and explode all at once...

I want it to be stable, but I want it to destruct properly aswell, because this plugin would make it A LOT easier to make massive ships fight to the death in space if it works like I hope.

[KerbMav]

But will the parts re-separate when broken? Or will it act like one pig part and explode all at once...

I want it to be stable, but I want it to destruct properly aswell, because this plugin would make it A LOT easier to make massive ships fight to the death in space if it works like I hope.

It creates one new part, all former individuality is lost, resistance is futile.

[UbioZur]

But will the parts re-separate when broken? Or will it act like one pig part and explode all at once...

I want it to be stable, but I want it to destruct properly aswell, because this plugin would make it A LOT easier to make massive ships fight to the death in space if it works like I hope.

As KerbMav said, you create a new part that cannot be broken in pieces. This is where the performance come from: lowering the part count and therefor the amount of physics the cpu need to process.

[Zephram Kerman]

However, I think you could build the ships out of several welded assemblies. This way, the part count is reduced, but the ships are still modular.

[praise the suuun]

i welded a bunch of structural panels and structural supports together in playtest 3, updated to playtest 4 and now the same part has changed; its has a strange effect on the center of lift and ive never seen structural pieces have lifting capabilities. where ever i place it on the craft it places the center of lift at random locations for every move and it never points straight up anymore. tested it with the non welded subassembly and the problem is gone, but thats 50 pieces to add on..... :/

FAR is installed. how many factors are in play here so that i can remedy the issue?

Edited November 26, 2013 by praise the suuun

[praise the suuun]

welded a bunch of rockomax 64's together, seems to have done something to a bunch of parts that they cant be used anymore.... good thing i have a save! :S

*edit* i restarted the game and everything is back to nominal.

Edited November 26, 2013 by praise the suuun

[DaMichel]

Nice Plugin! However, strut connectors didn't work properly for me.

They are there just for esthetic reasons. I know they are useless when welded.

[rsgm123]

Nice Plugin! However, strut connectors didn't work properly for me.

They are there just for esthetic reasons. I know they are useless when welded.

Put the struts on the welded part, instead of welding them. This may use a bit of cpu though.

[Stavinsky]

Hello, I like the mod a lot, as I'm Trying to build a space station without killing my gameplay.

While doing that, I wanted to add some parts of the KAS mod, to let me 'strengthen' the whole assembly once up there.

But when I try to weld even the simpliest part, I end up on some strange message telling me

-> Directory not found Exception

It then point to my game directory, and seem to be looking for the part in the following directory (I used the 'container' part to this test)

Kerbal Space program/KSP_DATA/../Gamedata/KAS/Parts/containerBay1/containerBay1/KAS_ContainerBay1

Just before this I get a warning about a Mesh values that don't link to a mesh file.

Here is a screen of the Debug Console.

Don't know if that was already reported, or if it can help point something that need to be adressed.

[cy-one]

Feature Request: It would be awesome if we could change the value of the resources added to a welded part. If one wants to make "empty" parts, we still have to change the file and either reload or restart.

[Galane]

What seems to chew up the CPU time in KSP is it calculates the position and rotation of every part to multiple decimal places, even going into scientific notation. Welding a bunch of parts together drops those calculations down to one set for the welded assembly.

Open your quicksave or persistent file in a text editor and you'll see how far out it's running those numbers. The power of your CPUs ability to handle huge numbers of floating point calculations is what determines how many parts the computer can have visible at once before it begins to lag.

If there was a way to have the game only calculate to four decimal places on everything, I bet it wouldn't affect accuracy but it should speed things up.

[UbioZur]

i welded a bunch of structural panels and structural supports together in playtest 3, updated to playtest 4 and now the same part has changed; its has a strange effect on the center of lift and ive never seen structural pieces have lifting capabilities. where ever i place it on the craft it places the center of lift at random locations for every move and it never points straight up anymore. tested it with the non welded subassembly and the problem is gone, but thats 50 pieces to add on..... :/

FAR is installed. how many factors are in play here so that i can remedy the issue?

welded a bunch of rockomax 64's together, seems to have done something to a bunch of parts that they cant be used anymore.... good thing i have a save! :S

*edit* i restarted the game and everything is back to nominal.

Humm, I dont touch any lift information yet, I do have some tips from yargnit to weld the wings and other but I didn't had time to play with them.

And normaly the same config file shouldn't change between update 3 and 4.

May be can you send me the welded part please by pm.

Nice Plugin! However, strut connectors didn't work properly for me.

They are there just for esthetic reasons. I know they are useless when welded.

I did not managed them yet.

Hello, I like the mod a lot, as I'm Trying to build a space station without killing my gameplay.

While doing that, I wanted to add some parts of the KAS mod, to let me 'strengthen' the whole assembly once up there.

But when I try to weld even the simpliest part, I end up on some strange message telling me

-> Directory not found Exception

It then point to my game directory, and seem to be looking for the part in the following directory (I used the 'container' part to this test)

Kerbal Space program/KSP_DATA/../Gamedata/KAS/Parts/containerBay1/containerBay1/KAS_ContainerBay1

Just before this I get a warning about a Mesh values that don't link to a mesh file.

Here is a screen of the Debug Console.

Don't know if that was already reported, or if it can help point something that need to be adressed.

so here is what happen, the KAS have in the config file a mesh=something.mu, and there is actualy not something.mu in game, so I try to get another mu.

It try to get to /KSP_DATA/../Gamedata/KAS/Parts/strut1/strut1/KAS_Strut1 does this exist?

Feature Request: It would be awesome if we could change the value of the resources added to a welded part. If one wants to make "empty" parts, we still have to change the file and either reload or restart.

It is plan in future version once the welding is actually polished. There are currently mod that should allow you to do it, plus tweakable that will come with .23 may do it too.

What seems to chew up the CPU time in KSP is it calculates the position and rotation of every part to multiple decimal places, even going into scientific notation. Welding a bunch of parts together drops those calculations down to one set for the welded assembly.

Open your quicksave or persistent file in a text editor and you'll see how far out it's running those numbers. The power of your CPUs ability to handle huge numbers of floating point calculations is what determines how many parts the computer can have visible at once before it begins to lag.

If there was a way to have the game only calculate to four decimal places on everything, I bet it wouldn't affect accuracy but it should speed things up.

I am not sure there is a performance difference for calculating multiple decimal places, because I don't think you can ask a processor to only calculate a certain amount (it's either 32bit float or 64bit double). The processor will still process the 32 or 64 bits of the number.

It is possible to choose between a 32b number or 64b, I think Squad use 64bits for precisions.

[KerbMav]

If there was a way to have the game only calculate to four decimal places on everything, I bet it wouldn't affect accuracy but it should speed things up.

I take that bet and double!

[jpfx1342]

Hello, I like the mod a lot, as I'm Trying to build a space station without killing my gameplay.

While doing that, I wanted to add some parts of the KAS mod, to let me 'strengthen' the whole assembly once up there.

But when I try to weld even the simpliest part, I end up on some strange message telling me

-> Directory not found Exception

It then point to my game directory, and seem to be looking for the part in the following directory (I used the 'container' part to this test)

Kerbal Space program/KSP_DATA/../Gamedata/KAS/Parts/containerBay1/containerBay1/KAS_ContainerBay1

Just before this I get a warning about a Mesh values that don't link to a mesh file.

Here is a screen of the Debug Console.

Don't know if that was already reported, or if it can help point something that need to be adressed.

This appears to be the same problem I've already reported. The problem occurs because the config file for that part is named "containerBay1.cfg", and not "part.cfg", as the mod expects.

On a side note, I've used KAS, and I doubt that container bays will weld very well. You may want to just leave them off of your weld and add them later.

[UbioZur]

This appears to be the same problem I've already reported. The problem occurs because the config file for that part is named "containerBay1.cfg", and not "part.cfg", as the mod expects.

On a side note, I've used KAS, and I doubt that container bays will weld very well. You may want to just leave them off of your weld and add them later.

It's the model (the .mu) that have the wrong name, not the actual cfg. I don't look for the cfg file.

[jpfx1342]

It's the model (the .mu) that have the wrong name, not the actual cfg. I don't look for the cfg file.

Yeah, I know you don't read the cfg, but you use the UrlConfig objects from the game, and the path defined on them is derived from the name of the config.

The code that loads models tries to find the location of the config so it can locate the models. It looks at the path defined on the UrlConfig object, and expects there to be a "/part/" element in that path, when instead the game actually uses "/<nameofconfig>/". Because the code is expecting "/part/", it fails to manipulate the path correctly, causing it to look in the wrong location for the model files. In the case I presented to you (with ExLaunchpads's hexcans), the part config was named "Huge.cfg", unlike the code expects, and the model was named "model.mu", which is the standard, as well as what the mod looks for by default.

At least, that's what I got from reading the code.

[UbioZur]

Yeah, I know you don't read the cfg, but you use the UrlConfig objects from the game, and the path defined on them is derived from the name of the config.

The code that loads models tries to find the location of the config so it can locate the models. It looks at the path defined on the UrlConfig object, and expects there to be a "/part/" element in that path, when instead the game actually uses "/<nameofconfig>/". Because the code is expecting "/part/", it fails to manipulate the path correctly, causing it to look in the wrong location for the model files. In the case I presented to you (with ExLaunchpads's hexcans), the part config was named "Huge.cfg", unlike the code expects, and the model was named "model.mu", which is the standard, as well as what the mod looks for by default.

At least, that's what I got from reading the code.

Humm I see what you mean, I will have a look if I can have the actual config name inside the part class.

[jpfx1342]

Humm I see what you mean, I will have a look if I can have the actual config name inside the part class.

I've been looking at the API exposed by KSP, and UrlDir.UrlConfig objects have a "parent" variable of type UrlDir.UrlFile that might be useful for determining the path. UrlFile objects in turn have a "parent" variable of type UrlDir.

I think instead of doing the string manipulation, you could probably replace line 341 in Welder.cs with something like:

//UrlDir.UrlConfig cfgdir = <function parameter>;
UrlDir.UrlFile cfgfile = cfgdir.parent;
UrlDir cfglocation = cfgfile.parent;
string dir = cfglocation.path;

Or more concisely:

string dir = cfgdir.parent.parent.path;

Then url would be:

string url = string.Format("{0}/{1}", dir, mesh); //or something similar

[UbioZur]

I've been looking at the API exposed by KSP, and UrlDir.UrlConfig objects have a "parent" variable of type UrlDir.UrlFile that might be useful for determining the path. UrlFile objects in turn have a "parent" variable of type UrlDir.

Thanks for the info. As soon as I get a bit of time, I will have a go at it.

[xtremeqg]

What seems to chew up the CPU time in KSP is it calculates the position and rotation of every part to multiple decimal places, even going into scientific notation. Welding a bunch of parts together drops those calculations down to one set for the welded assembly.

Open your quicksave or persistent file in a text editor and you'll see how far out it's running those numbers. The power of your CPUs ability to handle huge numbers of floating point calculations is what determines how many parts the computer can have visible at once before it begins to lag.

If there was a way to have the game only calculate to four decimal places on everything, I bet it wouldn't affect accuracy but it should speed things up.

Scientific notation is a way of outputting floats/doubles to text files. Your CPU does not use decimals, it uses a binary system (there are actually some specific binary<>decimal instructions but I digress). Performing lots of calculations is not a problem for processors and they will easily perform millions of them every second. All consumer processors have a dedicated FPU (Floating Point Unit) for dealing with floats and doubles and modern processors have additional SIMD instruction sets such as MMX/3DNow/SSE/SSE2/SSE3/SSE4 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions) which allows several (identical) calculations to be performed in parallel on the same core.

Floating point variables do actually have a limit on their precision, in which doubles have enhanced precision but there is still a limit. This is what many people call the Kraken, caused by accumulation of errors as KSP uses very large numbers which always have low precision and a large amount of error. The KSP team has been trying hard to get rid of the Kraken by warping the coordinate system when values become too high, this works because floats and doubles are originally meant to describe values in the range of 0.0 to 1.0. I personally think it would be better to use fixed point arithmetic by using two 64-bit fixed point values (64 bits for fraction, 64 bits for integer) which would kill off the Kraken entirely by allowing both really small and really huge values to be represented accurately. It does come with its own problems though such as making arithmetic more complicated and demanding.

(3D astronomy program, official site seems to be down) for example uses this method to represent positions. You'd still perform physics calculations with floating points of course, but in a local coordinate system.

The loss of performance in KSP in regards to physics is not so much due to floating points being used but rather the large amount of calculations being performed. Performing proper physics on a single object requires quite a few formulas to be resolved. More importantly, when several connected objects require physics to be applied (ships, stations, bases) the number of calculations explode nearly exponentially. Additionally collision detection must also be performed and in regards to KSP, forces must be calculated to so that parts will break/explode when too much force is applied.

By welding parts together you shortcut these calculations by having a single physics-enabled object with one large rigid collision mesh. Truthfully, I don't quite understand why this is not being done by KSP already. Ships should not sway and oscillate all over the place like they do now, If objects were to be made rigid and only breaking forces were to be calculated it would not only make the game most aesthetically pleasing, it would also make struts obsolete and improve performance dramatically. Of course, you won't be able to make a giant snake anymore by linking 100 inline battery banks.

Edited November 30, 2013 by xtremeqg

[jpfx1342]

-snip- Of course, you won't be able to make a giant snake anymore by linking 100 inline battery banks.

And that's what KSP is really all about.

[Zephram Kerman]

Here's something I'm working on for my next space station. The cupola and engines are attached for a test flight, but those attach nodes will eventually be used for docking pylons, infrastructure, etc. The whole disk section is one part, thanks to UbioZur Welded Parts mod. But I've kept the original unwelded assembly, so as to continue editing. It weighs 280 tons, but it does fly. I hope to add a wing module to it, so that it can launch like a space plane. If you look closely in the background, you can see an earlier prototype where it came to rest on the wind tunnel.