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

[Tiberion]

I imagine some plugin could do it, but they shouldn't - it works as it does in real life, as you lose atmospheric pressure, the smoke/vapor trail no longer show up.

Cannot do with the config.

[Mecripp]

I imagine some plugin could do it, but they shouldn't - it works as it does in real life, as you lose atmospheric pressure, the smoke/vapor trail no longer show up.

Cannot do with the config.

Think you miss understand me the smoke stopping is great but, I want the flames to stop too and change the flames FX to the FX you have for the RMA-3 so it looks real.

Why shouldn't they it's more real looking ? I don't want flames in space LOL, I want it to look real.

EDIT But there is still not much if any flame in space.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Mecripp2

[HeadHunter67]

Why not? "Because there's no air in space"? Remember that the oxidizer is included with the fuel.

[Tiberion]

No, he's right that rocket engines don't produce flames after a certain altitude.

Check out Falcon 9's recent launch of CRS-3:

KSp doesn't really model the changes to flames, only the smoke. But there are other things it doesn't model too, like engine power varying by altitude/atmo pressure. Maybe they'll change it later, or maybe it'll stay that way for simplicity.

Plugins can certainly change those things, but Novapunch isn't the right place to look for those. It's beyond configuration, or even what I could do when creating custom FX.

So, no feedback on the new things yet?

[Mecripp]

O man forgot about that video clip that was a better 1 and the new parts look great ever one is making the N1 now lol the only problem, I had was, I made a new install for NP and copy over some mods from other install that had HotRockets in it and didn't think about zipping up the NP.cfg in it so it double the FX on 2 of the Engine other then that great job love the new boosters you did have 1 engine thought the bell should have been bigger but no big deal they all look great.

Edit and think the Delta II will be my new SAT launcher

Edited April 25, 2014 by Mecripp2

[BudgetHedgehog]

Silly question: does this pack have 5m fairings? I see one file in the fairings folder that has 5m in its name but it's a plate and there are no others.. I've downloaded this, just waiting for my current save to be done so I can start afresh with different mods (using KW at the moment).

[biohazard15]

First of all: me and my heavy lander projects want to thank you for Micro Mother engine. She is truly the best.

Okay, impressions.

1) The Micro Mother: "Micro Mommy" suits better, I think Anyway, as I said earlier, it's a great low-profile engine (and I like low-profile engines!).

2) K1 2.5 to 1.25 tank: "Attach Mini Mother" in description. (As a side note: we need a silver-colored pod for K1. Black pods look uncool on it.)

3) SLS parts: "heavy" variant of ARM parts. That SLS example craft is frickin' overpowered, it can achieve 100 km LKO without activating 2nd stage - but hey, ARM parts can do that too!

- Adv. Liquid Booster: why is it labeled as "3.75 m"?

- Adv. Lifter Engine: add more weight - right now it's just a K2X cluster with added 2000 kN of thrust. I suggest something about 22.5-23 tons. Isp also should be lower than cluster, but there is a very little window for adjustments. Maybe 265-320?

4) Segmented SRBs - their stats are... unusual, at least. Why is 4-segment SRB has 25% more thrust than 3-segment SRB, if only difference between them is amount of fuel? I suggest identical stats (4800 kN from 4-segment SRB, maybe slightly less) - and tweak them to suit your needs. KW had two large SRBs before 0.23, X-5 and X-5HT - one at half-thrust and one at full-thrust. Last update removed half-thrust SRB and noted that "you can tweak the full-thrust variant".

5) Soyuz-style boosters - they might look slightly overpowered, but again - you can tweak them to suit your needs. Would be nice to have this engine as separate part (I remember that someone once asked for 1000 kN engine in KW topic)

6) CMM-158 - I like new model, although old CMM-96 had its charm with these fuel ducts.

7) PAMs - I don't know. I've never used the old PAMs as PAMs - I prefer precise throttle controls in space. They excel as unguided rockets and RATO pods, though.

Bugs:

When you take new SRBs from the parts list, the default "grab point" is at the bottom, near the nozzle, while it should be at part's CoM (sorry, my English doesn't allow better explanation, and it seems that I can't capture mouse cursor on the screenshot. I've made some photos with my phone, though)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

All in all - the "MOAR POWER!!!" update. I love it

[Tiberion]

ObsessedwithKSP: Yeah there are 5m fairings. There should be 3 half-nose, 3 full nose, 3 half wall, and 3 full wall pieces all together, in 2.5, 3.75, and 5m sizes (they look identical in the preview) - If they aren't showing up then you probably installed NovaPunch in the wrong place, the path should be: YourKSPFolder/GameData/NovaPunch2/Parts/Fairings (the parts folder should have many subfolders. You can't have another folder in the path like "GameData/Mods/NovaPunch2" or anything like that (if you open some of the config files, they have file paths near the top, if the paths are wrong they won't load, so you only get some parts in game)

bio:

- I called it "Mini" at first and changed my mind, forgot to edit the description.

- New Odin is supposed to be black/dark, but I might be able to do a silver variant, or maybe a third pod way down the road.

- That example craft has that stretched 1st stage tank so it could do that, its basically hauling 2 stages of fuel and the boosters are technically stage 1. The real SLS is basically stage 1 + boosters to orbit, stage 2 is the Earth Departure stage and that's it. You can build it 3 stage Saturn style too

- Funny story, that SLS liquid booster was originally 3.75m when I modeled it, and about 20% longer. A 5m stage big enough to use it basically wouldn't fit in the VAB. I shortened it, and it still looked strange, so I sized it back down. I wanted to make the parts a step bigger than the stock one, hence the engine being 5m, but I think it still works with it being 2.5m boosters + the 5m stage (and it lets the new SRBs be used for the Block 0 config too)

-Not sure what happened to the SLS engine config, I bumped it to 7500 thrust and 26 tons last night. Must have had the old version open in textpad. Try that out with your Isp recommendation and see how it works.

- The SRBs... in reality longer SRBs increases thrust, not burn time, so I worked out a Thrust, drymass, and fuel load per segment that ramped up the thrust but kept the burn between 50-60s with a pretty consistent TWR. It makes sense in my head anyway.. and its documented in the config file. In theory is should make each size functionally useful, and let them be tweakable for burn time per launcher (which is done with the shape of the fuel core in reality)

- Soyuz boosters - I thought I erred on the side of too-little fuel for their volume, but I could be off. I just finished it last night, so there is definitely room for tweaking. That litle quad engine doesn't have complete geometry unfortunately, I pulled it out of the Zenit(h) booster from Tiberdyne and used it on Soyuz and that radial booster. There's already so many 2.5m engines in the pack, I can probably tweak one.

- I liked the fuel ducts too. Tried some out (hence the orange lines) but they had the same issue the old one does, they don't look right when using a decoupler. Might try again and work on an ultra-flat radial decoupler as well (lots of things need them) - but decoupler colliders are annoying to get right.

-PAMs are cool for sats or long range probes where you anticipate a long Ion burn - just cut out X amount of dV using a PAM and then get rid of it. I've probably only used them twice ever, though

I think that attach node/mouse grip bug is an legit KSP bug actually. If you open up a config file for one of those, you'll notice it's modular, I load the bottom segment with the motor and then stack segments above them, and finally add the top node. So the part origin is where the origin of the motor segment is. I adjust the node_attach up so its roughly in the middle of the cylinder's height, and also adjust the CoMOffset lower in the config file (which works if you check it with the VAB tool.) So everything should be in the right place, but for some reason the mousepoint is still at the part origin. Luckily you can just drop the part in the VAB workspace and grab it again wherever you like.

And in the middle of typing this out, I figured out a blatantly obvious workaround, so I'll probably fix it.

Thanks for the report. Super useful!

[biohazard15]

K1 looks great with AIES pods

I've edited ALE according to your config. It looks a lot more balanced that way - example SLS can't easily SSTO anymore (with current payload at least). It feels somewhat more powerful and capable with SRBs instead of LRBs (Block 0).

One more note on Soyuz: its dry mass is merely 1.6t - which is small for a 2.5m quad engine and LFT (Compare that with 11t for SLS LRB)

Micro Mother with 1000 kN looks good - it allows to complete "Low-profile Mothers" tier. Their Isp and mass might need some tweak, though, try the following:

- Micro Mother: 1000 kN, 4.5t, 295-370

- Little Mother: 2000 kN, 8.5t, 285-350

- Matriarch: current stats (4000 kN, 13.8t, 275-330)

They don't ruin current balance, and on the same time form their own tier.

Max Temperature for them also needs some attention - Little Mother is kinda unsafe without SAS-radiator or small tank, and other Mothers probably can survive Deadly Reentry.

[Mecripp]

Is any 1 else having a problem with the landing leg's keep getting NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

[Orbit Targeter]: Target is null when trying to deploy them ?

[Tiberion]

... which landing gear?

[Mecripp]

All of them, there not working the just send a NullReferenceException it's doesn't spam just when, I click to lower them.

EDIT I was getting same error when clicking the gear button but will try G key thank biohazard15.

EDIT you where right Biohazard15 no error on clicking gear button and G key works thanks again happy landing now.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Mecripp2

[biohazard15]

Landing legs do not work in the following instances:

- trying to lower them via right-click menu (NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object appears in debug console if you're trying it)

- clicking to "gear" button in HUD (no error messages, they just don't work)

They DO work, if you push G key on your keyboard.

[Tiberion]

Great, it looks like they broke HLandingLeg

You'll have to get by with using the G hotkey for now until I have a chance to re-import all of them, animate them and figure out the bizzard Landingleg setup in Unity.

"Toggle" also works in action groups.

[biohazard15]

Some minor visual things:

1) Interstage fairing on Adv Lifter Engine looks really weird

2) Nosecones on 0.625 and 1.25 ASRBs looks somewhat out of place, they're slightly smaller than the booster itself.

This affects 2.5m size too, although it can be noticed only if you look really close.

EDIT: Some more strange light effects on SRBs:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

The rocket is flying towards the sun (i.e. it's morning on Kerbin).

Edited April 27, 2014 by biohazard15

[Tiberion]

Huh. I'll have to look at that.

[Guest]

Are you using ATM? It's not configured for the latest NP, probably resulting in this.

[Motokid600]

Is there a way to disabled auto-fairings on the engines?

[Tiberion]

Add another stack node like node_stack_fakenode and make sure its above the bottom node of the engine (so it won't be the one snapped to. If you make it barely higher, then you can choose which node you snap to, one with fairing or one without.

Then go to the bottom of the config and change the node name in the Jettison module from "bottom" to whatevr you named your new node, now the node will only activate when that node is snapped to instead of node_stack_bottom.

[Motokid600]

Thanks Tiberion I appreciate it.

[MaverickSawyer]

Encountering issues with the Freyja trunk.. it's not accepting electric charge from any source. Empty on the launch pad, and solar panels do NOT charge it.

[NathanKell]

Well, here's *why* ATM isn't configured for NP2. It turns out that normals need _NRM (that's with the underscore), and at the end of the filename.

So FreyjaNRM.png fails, as would Frejya_NRM_texture.png. Only Frejya_NRM.png will properly be detected.

(I got bit too, asked rbray, got clarification).

[Tiberion]

Since when does ATM require specific file names? What is it even trying to do?

Renaming a bunch of files across 2 or 3 Unity projects, reassigning materials and swapping them out in the distribution doesn't sound very appealing to me.

[MaverickSawyer]

Since when does ATM require specific file names? What is it even trying to do?

Renaming a bunch of files across 2 or 3 Unity projects, reassigning materials and swapping them out in the distribution doesn't sound very appealing to me.

How hard would it be to make a Module Manager file to do it?

[NathanKell]

Since, um, a long time ago, apparently. It's only just come to my attention, and I just noticed it's also affecting the Freyja.

Stock unity may be compressing PNGs that don't end in _NRM too; dunno. Anyway, this can be done via entries in the NORMAL_LIST{} node in the ATM config for NP2 so you don't have to rename existing files; I'd just suggest going forward naming things that way.

The point is detecting normal maps. Given how ATM works, it needs to know whether a file will be used as a normal map, since Unity stores normal maps internally as RGBA with R=G=B= Y axis color-inverted and A = X axis color-inverted (IIRC). (That's why many parts have those gray rather than purple normal maps btw; they're already in final form). The issue is that due to how ATM caches textures and override's Unity/KSP's normal loading, it needs to know what files should be stored as normal maps and what files shouldn't; if it gets it wrong, then a normal map is compressed (big whoop) but, much more relevant, it's stored in the wrong format and Unity can't use it as a normal map.

For example, a DRE shield texture I haven't fixed yet: "GameDatabase: Texture 'DeadlyReentry/Parts/deadlyReentry_1.25Heatshield/model001' requested as normal map but texture is not a normal map and is not readable"

This means, of course, that your normal maps won't get used by most people using ATM.