rescaleFactor ignored?

[Kurld]

I'm trying to kludge a tiny radial de-coupler by rescaling the stock part, e.g. rescaleFactor = 0.5 in the part.cfg. However this has no effect in the VAB. Am I misunderstanding something?

Thanks!

[astropapi1]

You have to change it's name in the config file.

[Tiberion]

To be more specific - are you creating a NEW copy of the decoupler in a new folder, or editing the old one?

If its a new copy, then you need to change the name at the top of the config file so it doesn't match the original

[Kurld]

To be more specific - are you creating a NEW copy of the decoupler in a new folder, or editing the old one?

If its a new copy, then you need to change the name at the top of the config file so it doesn't match the original

I copied the part from my regular KSP "install" to one that has 90% of the parts stripped out so it will load quickly. It was unique within that instance of KSP. I am mostly sure I renamed it as well, but perhaps not. Would it be important in that case?

[NoMrBond]

If there are two (or more) parts sharing the same 'name=' argument, only one of them will show up in game

[Kurld]

I know this. It's not the problem. The modified part shows up in the VAB. But it is clearly not rescaling. I added the original unmodified part. Now there are two parts in the menu in the VAB. They are both the same size when I stick them on a fuel tank.

[sirkut]

You need to make sure that the names of both parts are unique.

[Kurld]

They'd have to be, if they both show up in the VAB menu wouldn't they? I'll check when I am back at the machine.

[Gristle]

They'd have to be, if they both show up in the VAB menu wouldn't they? I'll check when I am back at the machine.

No - they will both show up in the parts toolbox, and in some instances you can even pick the modified part out and use it in it's modified form. But upon launching or reloading the .craft it's a crap shoot as to which part you get, modified or not modified.

[sirkut]

What Gristle said. They both will load "fine". Sometimes it may even show the correct size until you go to the launch pad. Just for quick testing purposes just add a 1 to the end of the name in the CFG. Make sure you also change the title to something so you can spot the different.

[Gristle]

Squad really should put some validation code in to ensure their unique identifier is actually unique to the DB before it loads the parts.

[Kurld]

That would be handy, as we can chalk this one up to PEBKAC. Not sure what I was doing wrong, but apparently as I got frustrated when I was looking at this before, I deleted everything. Upon CAREFULLY recreating it today, things work as expected.

Thanks for everybody's responses (and patience!)

And, now I have another question. After re-scaling the parts, I notice that the decoupler no longer sits "flush" against the fuel tank. As I'm looking at the config, it looks like I might need to adjust the node_attach by the same amount. Is this correct?

Thanks again folks.

[Gaius]

It's confusing, tbh. You may or may not have to adjust node positions, depending on what else you changed and how you did it. In theory, rescaleFactor adjusts node positions proportionally. In practice, it kinda depends on what other numbers you may have fiddled with. I think that if the only thing you changed was rescaleFactor, and the model's scale isn't weird, monkeying with the node position numbers shouldn't be necessary, they are scaled with the rescaleFactor, in theory -- it used to work that way but I'm not sure that it still does. I do know that now, if you changed any of the other scale numbers... the interaction gets weird. Particularly if you monkeyed with the MODEL scale numbers. In one particular resize I did, I had to modify the scale numbers by 0.5 to cause a rescaleFactor of 2 to place the nodes in the intended position using their original numbers -- this is because the model was rescaled by the square of rescaleFactor, whereas the node numbers are simply multipled by the rescaleFactor, when I was monkeying with the MODEL scale. Or maybe they were interacting with both. Still not exactly sure, if you don't monkey with the MODEL scale -- I'm not honestly sure what it does -- could work the same way, but I've never tried it; I'm always playing with the MODEL. It's weird, but the point is, you don't have to modify the node numbers if you play with scale and rescaleFactor in such a way that the numbers balance out. Whether that's easier or harder than just adjusting the node numbers depends...

Edited September 9, 2013 by Gaius

[Kurld]

All I did was change rescaleFactor from 1 to 0.5, and rename the part.