[1.0.2] NovaPunch 2.09. - May 6th - 1.0 Compatibility Update

[feanor]

Either the numbers are good, and we should all be using them as our yardstick; or the numbers are bad, and we are all just building on sand, and (IMO) we are NOT at the point where people should be asked to, let alone required to pay.

We\'re only talking about the one single part ( stock SRB) not scaled compared to all other stock parts. That stuff can be as solid as concrete. It\'s just that the solids next to it are on sand. All the 'realistic' - ie no doctor who, flying ufos - packs are modelled on the stock liquid parts. They are on solid ground, pun not intended.

I\'d say, all is fine. Theres a reason i\'m not screaming this from the rooftops for the last 3 months. It\'s not a big deal, modders look at what works, make their own solids and they fly well. Harvester hasn\'t changed a single cfg value in a long time -hasn\'t even made 2 parts that do the same thing, just one 'archetype' of each function ( except perhaps 2 liquid engines, one with gimbal ) . It clearly is not high on the list of things to do that require urgent fixing.

Just have patience, it\'s not such a big deal right now.

[Commander Zoom]

On topic? Fine.

Parts look good. Might clean up your textures a bit, though - I\'ve noticed a lot of fuzzy-looking 'KSA's, especially compared to SP\'s original stencils.

[Tiberion]

Yeah my texture skills aren\'t great - working on it

Some of it is a result of having to use the original UVMaps, rather than converting, cleaning and importing the old DAE files in to remap.

[Andras]

.... so anyway.

Yeah, 0.7, neat stuff bro!

...

See picture of Avenger I, and note the frankly terrifying see-through SAS joints. The booster-less A-I is actually unstable outside atmospheric stabilization pressures, because 1 nanoSAS on capsule nose, 1 SAS on lander pedestal (inside fairing), 3 2m sas and 2 3m SAS don\'t cut it unless the gymballing engines are running. If I use 3/4 3m SAS, that\'s where the rocket tears itself apart during mid-atmosphere wobble phase, thanks to pronounced junction flex + having all that SAS force in one spot.

Amusingly, I\'ve had a 4x3m SAS stack in testing Avenger-x rockets bend all the way to 90 degrees without structural failure ...

...

Hey, it say Wobbly right on the thread title, Truth in advertising!

(Uh, Tib, yeah, might want to look at that!)

[Tiberion]

.... so anyway.

Yeah, 0.7, neat stuff bro!

Still getting component separation on the 2->3m decoupler, but its manageable with heavy struts now.

the 2, 3m SAS are nice, but need a little tweaking:

- they feel a little weak compared to how much effect a 1m sas has on a similarly-proportioned 1m stack, and that\'s when stacking multiples together. this will probably be easier when we can insert them in between tanks and run some garden hose fuel pipes around them, but for now I\'m eyeballing them at double/triple for 2m and triple/quadruple for 3m, and that\'s on a relatively squat well balanced rocket.

- The models are a little short. Or, the collision models are a little long. Either way, I can see the sky through them.

- The 2m model is a little narrower than actual 2m stack stuff.

See picture of Avenger I, and note the frankly terrifying see-through SAS joints. The booster-less A-I is actually unstable outside atmospheric stabilization pressures, because 1 nanoSAS on capsule nose, 1 SAS on lander pedestal (inside fairing), 3 2m sas and 2 3m SAS don\'t cut it unless the gymballing engines are running. If I use 3/4 3m SAS, that\'s where the rocket tears itself apart during mid-atmosphere wobble phase, thanks to pronounced junction flex + having all that SAS force in one spot.

Amusingly, I\'ve had a 4x3m SAS stack in testing Avenger-x rockets bend all the way to 90 degrees without structural failure ...

Anyhoo, this static instability makes the middle stage separation interesting, as it tends to spin and collide with the spent lower stage. ASAS-driven RCS doesn\'t help, as the fairing unbalances it, such that pitch and yaw also have a small but measurable lateral translation effect ...

Yes, I\'m 'cheating' by using Intrepid main boosters

Whoa, I missed this earlier during the other conversation.

I didn\'t test them stacked together, just stacked all the new parts together to see if they worked. Silly me.

Poking it with a stick now.

[BadManiac]

if you have shakiness post the part

All 1.75m shrouds, hollow adapters and decouplers.

Easy test:

Put a 3m fuel tank and one of the 3m engines, put 4 or more of the new longer SRB\'s, and then ANY 3m to 1.75m adapters, then take off with max throttle and watch the wobble.

[Tiberion]

I got busy finishing the 2nd version of my booster system, but I did take a look

It seems that the issue isn\'t weight, but too much upwards force. Gonna change some stuff tomorrow and see if I can solidify it before I go digging in the meshes to see whats what.

Part of the issue is the hacky nature of the decouplers, where the connection nodes are nowhere near the collision meshes - especially when the node that asthetically lines up for you keeps the bottom colliders from being tight as well. But I think we can do better, nonetheless.

The 2m SAS thing.. I dunno what happened there. I guess I was rushing too fast yesterday.

[Taverius]

The 2m SAS thing.. I dunno what happened there. I guess I was rushing too fast yesterday.

Its ok, its much better than not having a 2m sas

[Tiberion]

Well I\'ve tweaked and tested stuff today, a few decouplers had some old values or something, most of them should be better. If not, I\'ll need a craft file to play with so I can reproduce and test fixes.

The 3-1.75m issue, and frankly any issue with the 1.75m rockets is not related to the decouplers as far as I can tell, as I was testing, I found that the joint between the HH78 long tank and ANY of the 3 Bertha engines was acting up. Under heavy acceleration (and likely under supermassive weight) the engine 'dances' across the end of the tank quite severely. All of the connections tremble slightly, but this one connection is very harsh.

It doesn\'t happen if you use the 2m tank, or either of the shorter 1.75m tanks to connect to the engine, only the long tank, and only the Berthas.

I simply cannot figure out why, or stop it, short of using less acceleration, or adding struts.

I changed the collision node in the DAE file, I tweaked the connection stats in both configs up and down, and I made sure the config top/bottom nodes were as tight as possible.

I\'m at a loss, here.

Here\'s the models in Blender - everything is technically correct.

Anyway, I\'ll finish up some testing and get a new version out with the fixes - that is when I\'ll need the craft files to see whats still having issues.

[BadManiac]

Thanks for working on it! The pack is excellent otherwise, much improved from the originals.

[NovaSilisko]

Thanks for working on it! The pack is excellent otherwise, much improved from the originals.

Not sure if insulted or flattered :u

[BadManiac]

Not sure if insulted or flattered :u

Haha, this one fixed all the random texture issues.

[Zephyr]

Hi, Sorry I\'ve been somewhat MIA: work\'s been gnashing at my heels... I should be able to get some stuff done this coming weekend.

[Tiberion]

Cool, Zephyr

]

I didn\'t have any luck solving the tank/engine issue yet, but I have the other fixes packed and uploading for a minor release version (0.7.1a)

changes:

NovaPunch v0.7.1alpha

-Tweaked 2m and 3m SAS modules - they now stack better. Also raised max torque slightly to buff them up.

-Made 2mSAS module actually be 2 meters in diameter

-Tweaked connections on 2m and 3m shrouds. Still need craft files and screens of offending parts

-Tweaked bottom node on 1.75m radial stack decoupler - should be easy to connect to now

15 minutes or so and it\'ll be up.

[Guest Flixxbeatz]

2m and 3m SAS modules

You\'ve just done my request before... ???

[Tiberion]

You\'ve just done my request before... ???

Heh, someone requested them in this thread a few pages back - should have SAS and RCS tanks in all three tank sizes now.

New release is up: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46506740/KSP/NovaPunch0_7_1alpha.zip

[Taverius]

Thanks! I\'ll give it a test in the next couple of days, and if I find stuff I\'ll try to make a version of the Avenger I and Hazard I purged of non-NP parts so you don\'t need 5-minute load times to test them out

[nlancaster]

Love this Mod package.

Look what I built, I was bale to place an empty 3m fuel tank, with 3/4 of the fuel left in the strap on engines, on the MUN and return my Kerbals to Kearth.

Only problem is the first and second stages cause huge lag. Hopefully the new version of KSP will fix that issue.

Used this pack of course. and also AVK landers. - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=4395.0

Here is the craft file if you want to play with it.

http://lancastercustom.com/upload/KSP/3%20Meter%20to%20the%20MUN.craft

[Tiberion]

Wow, very nice!

Sorry for the quietness over the last few days - been doing some work on my shuttle stuff - hopefully we\'ll have some new shroud textures soon.

Never heard much about how the new tank/engine balance worked, so I assume its okay? Any more issues with wobbly connections (aside from the 1.75m long tank)?

[nlancaster]

Wow, very nice!

Sorry for the quietness over the last few days - been doing some work on my shuttle stuff - hopefully we\'ll have some new shroud textures soon.

Never heard much about how the new tank/engine balance worked, so I assume its okay? Any more issues with wobbly connections (aside from the 1.75m long tank)?

not that i noticed.

edit: I take that back. mose of the solid boosters seem to cause my rocket to arc over, when they are attached to the long decoupler. havent tried the regular one yet.

[thorfinn]

Guys, I just wanted to thank you because you made this possible:

Click to enlarge

It\'s actually SAFE to fly! That terrifying 'staging event' on the top left goes off without a hitch every time! (Well, that\'s the fault merit of Harv\'s simplistic aero model, but anyway... )

The K2-X engine should really become an official part....

(I actually modified it .cfg to make it exactly like it was before.)

[nlancaster]

you\'re playing with x13-2!!

I have not done a huge amount of expermineting yet. but the textures and collision models from this pack are messed up in x13-1. I will have to try x13-2 later.

[Tiberion]

but the textures and collision models from this pack are messed up in x13-1.

Whoa, what now?

Did you rebuild a ship from scratch?

There were some general bugs that affected all ships, but nothing that should have affected the parts themselves

Please elaborate if you are still having issues in 13x2

[nlancaster]

Whoa, what now?

Did you rebuild a ship from scratch?

There were some general bugs that affected all ships, but nothing that should have affected the parts themselves

Please elaborate if you are still having issues in 13x2

I will elaborate later tonight with 13x2.

So have you been testing in 13x1-2? If so this is great from a users point of view. Your working out any issues before 13 hits the regular download THANK YOU!!!

I first tried to load my super heavy lander, and that just blowwed the F up on the pad. LOL, parts flying all over the place.

I then tried to rebuild in 13x1 and couldnt attach anything to the 3m tanks, textures were also messed up on the 3m tanks.

I will try again tonight with 13x2.

[Tiberion]

Something for people to look at and report back on:

Harv updated how heat transfers in 13x3, its now by direct contact and not proximity.

We\'ll want to test and see if any engines are generating too much heat since they can only dissipate into the things connected to them, and also check things like the quadcouplers and 5x1m adapter plate to see if they overheat now.

I have limited time tonight to test, so we\'ll see.