[1.0.5] PWB Fuel Balancer v0.1.2 (3rd November 2015)

[codepoet]

i'm not saying your mod was the cause, its just when it showed up. its a common bug, the MK1 command pod becomes greyed out and "requires purchase in R&D" but buying it does nothing and it stays that way. ive already fixed it by creating a dummy duplicate as a mod part.

OK, well unless anyone else turns up with some other evidence that adding PWB fuel balancer caused this to happen, I will not worry aboiut it for now.

[Hodo]

Exactly what I was looking for and perfect for my huge SSTO's, I think.

Tac fuel balancer actually works better for SSTOs.

[KeithStone]

As far as getting it to activate at a certain stage, can you make it appear as maybe an engine or some other part that has an "active" place on the stage order as a button that can be moved up and down stages? Just an idea.

[LE TEINTURIER]

first of all, thank you for this mod, very very, VERY usefull. Basically after the first try, it became indispensable.

This message is in reaction to what you said :

"However I would welcome feed back from other users - would it be better if this aspect of its functionality was developed somehow, and if so how do you suggest I make it work?"

to begin with, how about you change the "USAGE" section of your post, because

Usage:

To set the CoM position -

1. add the PWB Fuel Balancer to your craft
   
2. remove any stages that will not be present when using RCS
   
3. turn on the CoM indicator
   
4. mouse over the PWB Fuel Balancer part
   
5. press 'M' to set the CoM position.
   
6. press 'D' to display the CoM position
   

doesn't work with a one staged spacecraft, maybe the way it really works is a bit difficult to explain... try us !

you say :

"it only starts moving fuel around once the stage that it is in has become active (more specificly it depends how far up the stack you attach the unit)"

When does a stage become "active" ?

when you say "how far up the stack" do you mean on the arborescence of the vessel .cfg file ? or physically how far up, which doesn't really give a clue when you are building a rover for example.

as for suggestions, I don't know, would it be possible to make this work with an "activate mass error calculation" button on the pwb fuel balancer control contextual right click menu ?

thank you again for sharing your mod, and for being interested in the feed back

please be clement with my english as it is not my mother tongue.

LE TEINTURIER

[codepoet]

Thanks for the feedback. When I get other projects I am working on to a stable state I will address the issues that have been raised with this mod, but it will likely be a week or so at least.

[Frederf]

A (not small) suggestion. Instead of having a preset CoM location is it possible to discover the center of RCS thrusters (currently activated, weighted for various thrusts) like RCSBuildAid on the fly and then have PWB pump fuel (selectable subset?) around to move the CoM to this CoT? I imagine having a preset CoM location isn't terribly compatible with docking and reconfiguring the craft to not resemble the previous craft so much. An "auto" function like this would be the most useful to the user, perhaps with a readout if full alignment isn't possible.

Another notion that pops into my head is that if this balancer can shift the CoM intelligently to some zero point, it can also shift it to a point with a known offset from zero. Orbital docking prefers no offset in any situation I can imagine but aerodynamic flight would absolutely love to set a CoM position relative to CoL for a selectable stability. For example perhaps it's known that a CoM 3m ahead of the CoL makes the plane fly nice.

These destination points are hard to calculate but perhaps RCSBuildAid and other mods like FAR (or stock) could supply these points externally for (optional) extended functionality.

[codepoet]

Thanks for this. When I get to looking at this project again I will take it into account and see what is possible within my limited skill set!

[Frederf]

The best of luck and Bobspeed to ya.

[codepoet]

Ok, I think I am in a position to do some work on this mod now. Here is what I have in mind:

1) provide a GUI of some kind.

2) allow the user to move the target location in flight and in the editor.

3) allow the user to save more than one target location, and to give then names.

4) (maybe) get target location from RCS build aid mod if it is installed.

5) make the balancer always available regardless of staging.

6) rework the actual balancing logic to make it work better and more acurately.

7) take into account some sort of concept of fuel flow rates.

Anything else. I know other ideas have been suggested, but this seems to be a reasonable scoping exercise for a next step.

[Quiana]

I especially like #3, I can see it becoming a very handy thing to set several variations of balancing. Good for landers on descent for example (bottom heavy, good for ensuring no roll-over) and then balance out evenly in the lander to center it better when ascending/orbital maneuvering.

[evilC]

Hi,

Just seen this mod - I originally used TAC FB, but recently moved to GoodSpeed Pump and was only the other day asking the author to provide the CoM fuctionality that this mod has.

However, there are some features of GoodSpeed that I would like to keep ("Pump level" settings) as they are useful in a wider array of situations.

Is there any chance you could maybe merge this mod with GoodSpeed pump? AFAIK the latest version of GSP includes code from other contributors, so I am pretty sure the author is open to this.

Regarding the different CoM targets - I think what would suffice would be some way to balance on the x/y as most fuel balancers do, but then be able to push CoM up/down on the Z axis by arbitrary amounts.

For example, when entering an atmosphere and coming in for a landing, having CoM as "low" as possible is probably desirable: When entering atmos, to help keep the right bit (eg heat shields) facing forwards, and when landing to give you the best chance of the craft not tipping over. For these cases, I do not think presets would be needed - you just need to say "as much below the designated point as possible".

[allista]

The Spaceport is offline for several days already due to migration to the Curse. Where may I download this brilliant plugin?

[codepoet]

I was just preparing a new release last night, which I hope to distribute from github within the next 24 hours. I have decided not to use curse - I don't know anything about it, but have heard lots of rumors of malware etc and I could do without the risk.

Sorry to make you wait.

[allista]

Not a problem)

Glad to hear you're not using Curse: it's filled with adds and painfully slow for "non-premium" users! Too bad KSP moved to this pit =(

Yet, users still need some searchable DB of mods...

[codepoet]

Yet, users still need some searchable DB of mods...

These forums? To be honest if a mod did not have an active support thread on these forums, I would not want to trust my main save with it anyway.

[codepoet]

Just released v.0.0.6 which is built against KSP 0.23.5, and added support for using the balancer right from launch rather than only once its stage is active.

NOTE: THE FILES HAVE BEEN MOVED AROUND A BIT AND RENAMED. IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMOVE PREVIOUS VERSIONS BEFORE UPGRADING.

[Syncaidius]

Will this be updated to 0.24.0 anytime soon?

[codepoet]

Does it work with 0.24? If not then what is the problem?

[Dale.s]

Im waiting for the 0.24 release also! Makes spaceplanes a lot easier to fly!

[codepoet]

Just to clarify - is there a problem using the current build in 0.24? I am not really planning to make any release at the moment as I do not have a gaming rig set up at the moment to develop on. However if there is a problem I will try to sort it - but I need to know if there is a problem or not. As I say - I can not test it myself as I do not have a computer to run KSP on at the moment.

[trnt]

Just to clarify - is there a problem using the current build in 0.24? I am not really planning to make any release at the moment as I do not have a gaming rig set up at the moment to develop on. However if there is a problem I will try to sort it - but I need to know if there is a problem or not. As I say - I can not test it myself as I do not have a computer to run KSP on at the moment.

No, I think there's no bug in 0.24. I tested if it works well in 0.24 64bit when it was updated.

[codepoet]

I am looking for a bit of feedback and suggestions for the user base....

I want the next change to be the ability to move the target location around inflight (as well as restore it to the design time location). I am wondering what sort of UI to use. I need to provide the inputs up,down,left,right,forward and back, but presumable all in a right click context menu. Any suggestions?

[desepticon]

I suggest a toolbar mod hide-able interface, with sliders for horizontal and vertical, and a numerical readout to the right of each that can be adjusted manually to a reasonable decimal level. Also, It would be useful for VTOL craft if you provided the location of the center of thrust and the center of mass (and maybe the targeted center of mass too) in decimal numbers so they can be compared.

[codepoet]

I think you are right - however I had hoped to be able to avoid a separate GUI (I hate GUIs in unity).

Adding a gui introduced a bunch of other considerations - such as more than one stored location per part, and even considering if we can dispense with the part all together and add the functionality to command pods instead.

[SmiteZero]

I'm not sure if mine is buggy somehow, but there are two buttons when I right click the part in flight. What's the difference? When I set it to enable via action group it says balance not possible in the right-click menu in flight. I watch fuel flow and it's doing something, but doesn't appear to be holding the set CoG. I have TAC-FB installed as well so are there any known conflicts? Should I fresh install everything?