[1.02] KW Rocketry v2.7 Available - 1.02 Compatibility! - 16/05/2015

[B787_300]

has there been any discussion of adding a KW small engine like the LV909? i really like the small package of the 909 but there is no KW equivalent except the Vesta which is really tall

[Alewx]

Awesome 5m parts, they make life really a lot easier

Is the 5m Radial SAS design still open for changes? It looks a bit boring compared to the 2m and 3m version.

[Kickasskyle]

Awesome 5m parts, they make life really a lot easier

Is the 5m Radial SAS design still open for changes? It looks a bit boring compared to the 2m and 3m version.

It's design was made to be abit less attention drawing, the 5m series of rocket parts have been made to flow into each other better. That, plus the result of fitting into the 5m tank shaft texture instead of giving it a new texture file is why it's as it is.

[Winston]

Could I request a tutorial video on the intended use of that 4-petal lander bay? Something like the video you guys made for your fairing system.

hope that's helpful

Edited July 22, 2014 by Winston

[Alewx]

It's design was made to be abit less attention drawing, the 5m series of rocket parts have been made to flow into each other better. That, plus the result of fitting into the 5m tank shaft texture instead of giving it a new texture file is why it's as it is.

Yeah I noticed that the new parts are made more in a complete design line. Just a little bit Apollo style?

Not so Attention driven, hmm ok, but currently they are just a ring, to me they lack a bit of shape or optical mass, but the do indeed fit into the style.

But that is just me, you made it andyou like it, that Counts

[biohazard15]

Thanks for the video!

K&W, is it possible to make petals open in VAB via tweakables?

[Winston]

Thanks for the video!

K&W, is it possible to make petals open in VAB via tweakables?

I hope so. Ideally it would open and decouple when you stage it, leaving the lander inside to be detached manually after docking, and be opened in the VAB for easy access.

Using the stock part modules I couldn't figure out a way to have it do these things, but I hope to be able to improve it at some point and have it work in a more intuitive way.

Suggestions welcome on that.

Edited July 22, 2014 by Winston

[Eddy514]

Whenever I create a rocket using KW Rocketry parts, at somepoint in the atmosphere the camera leaves the space ship and I just see smoke trails and lose control of the entire ship.

[LostOblivion]

I have the same issue only loading a ship that is orbiting the mun, the entire mun disappears and the camera stops following the ship. I suspect it is related to the LFT as root bug since I have many such cases. Speeding up to rails focuses the camera again, but the mun is still invisible...

[Xenon2462]

Well the closest equivalent really is the F1 used on the Saturn V, which took about 8 seconds from the turbines being spun up to reaching full thrust, so we thought we'd try using the thrust lag from the jet engine modules to replicate this somewhat, which also meant I could play with more interesting sound effects.

.

i thought so and the sound effects are just epic 10 out of 10 for it and thanks for anssering the question i know your buissy at times

[LostOblivion]

I cannot seem to get around this problem. I've narrowed it down to the new version of KW Rocketry, though.

I started my 0.24 instance of the game with as few mods as possible for the vehicle to work (required parts). It works just fine with these five mods (not 0.24 mods), including KW Rocketry 2.5.6B:

000_Tool

B9 Aerospace R4.0C

Deadly Reentry Cont 4.7

Procedural Fairings 3.05

KW Rocketry 2.5.6B

This works fine on my 0.24 version of the game (x86, with the old mod versions above), but when changing KW Rocketry to 2.6B, the debug log and output_log.txt starts to get filled with "NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object" and "ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.", everything goes bananas: in the flight view the Mun disappears below me and the camera whoops away from the craft, also the vehicle seems to stop dead in its orbit in the map view where the Mun shows. When the camera whoops away, some docking ports goes in one direction and the rest of the craft goes in another direction. This is in the 1x speed mode/physics mode. When speeding up and putting the craft "on rails" again, things seemingly go back to normal, camera slowly fades back to the ship (like center of mass changing), but still no Mun, and I cannot click some parts like docking ports. Also, nothing appears in the log when going to and from 1x speed/physics mode after this point.

I copied my output_log.txt to pastebin. It starts from where going from tracking station into flight.

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=nBch6eTa

Note that this is my mun space station, and that it consists of several seperate launches with payloads docked together. ALL of those payloads were rooted with the (old, red) KW Rocketry SA-1 LFT fuel tank before subassemblied (from a docking port attached to this part). The subassemblies were then fitted to a rocket which had another KW Rocketry fuel tank as root.

Edited July 23, 2014 by LostOblivion

[cxg2827]

Awesome update!

Should the Vesta VR-9D be grouped under Heavy Rocketry instead of Heavier Rocketry? Skipper is under Heavy Rocketry so I would have thought the Vesta would too since they have similar stats.

[SkyHook]

This update is sick!

[Eddy514]

I cannot seem to get around this problem. I've narrowed it down to the new version of KW Rocketry, though.

I started my 0.24 instance of the game with as few mods as possible for the vehicle to work (required parts). It works just fine with these five mods (not 0.24 mods), including KW Rocketry 2.5.6B:

000_Tool

B9 Aerospace R4.0C

Deadly Reentry Cont 4.7

Procedural Fairings 3.05

KW Rocketry 2.5.6B

This works fine on my 0.24 version of the game (x86, with the old mod versions above), but when changing KW Rocketry to 2.6B, the debug log and output_log.txt starts to get filled with "NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object" and "ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Argument is out of range.", everything goes bananas: in the flight view the Mun disappears below me and the camera whoops away from the craft, also the vehicle seems to stop dead in its orbit in the map view where the Mun shows. When the camera whoops away, some docking ports goes in one direction and the rest of the craft goes in another direction. This is in the 1x speed mode/physics mode. When speeding up and putting the craft "on rails" again, things seemingly go back to normal, camera slowly fades back to the ship (like center of mass changing), but still no Mun, and I cannot click some parts like docking ports. Also, nothing appears in the log when going to and from 1x speed/physics mode after this point.

I copied my output_log.txt to pastebin. It starts from where going from tracking station into flight.

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=nBch6eTa

Note that this is my mun space station, and that it consists of several seperate launches with payloads docked together. ALL of those payloads were rooted with the (old, red) KW Rocketry SA-1 LFT fuel tank before subassemblied (from a docking port attached to this part). The subassemblies were then fitted to a rocket which had another KW Rocketry fuel tank as root.

sounds like the exact same problem Im having but in more details.

[kanelives]

Anyone have engines which don't get fairings? Mine never have the shrouds when i attach a decoupler. I have the instant throttle response installed. Also I deleted the fairings and their bases folders. are they in there? I thought I had engine fairings with decouplers after I deleted them before...

Edited July 23, 2014 by kanelives

[kendoka15]

Whenever I create a rocket using KW Rocketry parts, at somepoint in the atmosphere the camera leaves the space ship and I just see smoke trails and lose control of the entire ship.

I have the same issue only loading a ship that is orbiting the mun, the entire mun disappears and the camera stops following the ship.

I removed my mods one by one until I finally found these posts (I have a loooooooot of mods)

I launched a regular ship for orbit with 2 stages, 1 KWR engine each and procedural fairings on the top. At first, the rocket launched just fine but the camera stopped following at approximately 7km and soon I'd read that the G's were too high and that Jeb died (Deadly Reentry I believe) but the ship was under 2G's max

I took out some mods (not KWR) and now when I launch it spams in the logs :

"[Exception]: NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object"

and the time (usually green when at x1 time warp) is yellow and the game stutters.

I've tried with stock parts only and the problem doesn't appear

EDIT: I'm using KSP 0.24 64bit btw

[Creat]

Since Squad has changed/rebalanced their 2.5m engines significantly with 0.24, I wanted to ask if you guys had already taken a look at the balance of the pack in regards to these changes. I'll just draw some comparisons, to point out the newly arisen issues. Basically, all stock engines were brought closer together in terms of ISP, upping this significantly for 2.5m and 3.75m models. This was needed, as some engines basically had no use cases. Now they all do (though they have arguable overdone it a little).

new "Poodle": 220 mn, ISP: 270-390, 2.5°, 2t

new "Skipper": 650 mn, ISP: 320-370, 1°, 3t

new "Mainsail": 1500mn , ISP: 320-360, 1°, 6t

[3.75m]: KR-2L: 2500, ISP: 280-380, 1°, 6.5t

[3.75m]: S3 KS-25x4: 3200, ISP: 320-360, 1°, 9.75t

And for easy comparison, the stats of the same-sized KW engines:

Hypergolic: 200 mn, ISP: 240-410, 1°, 2t (MONOPROPELLANT!)

Vesta VR-9D: 600 mn, ISP: 310-380, 1.5°, 5t

Maverick-V: 1400 mn, ISP: 285-335, 1°, 6t

Griffon-G8D: 1900, ISP: 280-325, 0.5°, 8t

Note: I tried highlighting stats in color when a comparable stock engine exists. And all engines provide 8-15 'electricity'/s, but I don't think that it's a critical stat and don't want to clutter the list any more. After all, it can be made basically irrelevant by adding batteries weighing less than 0.1t...

The Hypergolic compared reasonably well with the Poodle now I think. You effectively lose 10% thrust, sea-level-performance and some gimbal for the ISP boost in space and the oddity that it uses Monopropellant.

The Vesta also still compares nicely to the skipper. It's once about 10% less powerful, but gains some efficiency for quite a bit of extra weight. If it's worth it from a performance standpoint would probably depend mostly on the vessel.

Now the Maverick is where it gets tricky. In it's primary stats it is now noticeably inferior to the Mainsail, which has ~7% more thrust and, more importantly, significantly better ISP (ASL and Vac) with the rest of the stats being equal.

Finally the Griffon is a bit of an outsider as it has no direct comparison, the only reasonable option would probably be the larger KR-2L. The stock engine is lighter (despite the fact that's its a 3.75m variant) and provides more thrust at significantly better ISP in space (at ASL it's equal). Yes, the KR-2L is an upper stage engine, but the comparison to the S3, which is a launch stage, doesn't work much better: While the Griffon is now finally a bit lighter (but not much), it's missing almost 70% thrust and it's space ISP is almost equal to the S3s ASL ISP.

I know that the KW pack can be seen as a replacement pack, but what I've always loved about it was the fact that it perfectly fit into the stock balance model. Now the real question becomes: Is KW not officially no longer balanced against stock and meant to be played separately, or will you restore the balance somehow? It would also be perfectly fine to include a module manager config that re-adjusts the stock engines as an alternative to reworking the KW stats (but I'd still prefer the latter).

Lastly (and unrelated to the above) I'd like to join B787_300 and his request for a lander-capable, flatter engine. I love the fact that all KW engines are incredibly detailed and pretty, the only exception is the Hypergolic. While still nicely textured, it lacks model details (which probably makes sense for the propulsion type it represents). Would you consider replacing it with a flatter model (or adding one with equal stats), possibly even a small 4- or 5-cluster, with low enough height to allow for an easier attachment of landing legs with some ground clearance? Especially now that it uses mono it seems like a good fit!

In any case, thank you very much for your hard work on this, I really do love the pack (and should you decide to not change the balance I'll probably just ditch stock parts entirely).

Edited July 23, 2014 by Creat
Clarification

[Winston]

Anyone have engines which don't get fairings? Mine never have the shrouds when i attach a decoupler. I have the instant throttle response installed. Also I deleted the fairings and their bases folders. are they in there? I thought I had engine fairings with decouplers after I deleted them before...

Due to how textures and models are unified in some cases (different parts use the same ones to save on file size) deleting folders as you have done will probably break things that you didn't expect.

The shrouds are tied in with the fairings that you deleted, so that's your reason.

I love the fact that all KW engines are incredibly detailed and pretty, the only exception is the Hypergolic. While still nicely textured, it lacks model details (which probably makes sense for the propulsion type it represents). Would you consider replacing it with a flatter model (or adding one with equal stats), possibly even a small 4- or 5-cluster, with low enough height to allow for an easier attachment of landing legs with some ground clearance? Especially now that it uses mono it seems like a good fit!

Firstly, thank you for your concern about the balance, though I'm not going to attempt to address your issues as the balancing is handled by Kyle these days and I expect he will provide you with a satisfactory response, but I can say that he does indeed pay close attention to the stock engine stats and referred to the new (0.24) ones for this update.

Regarding the SPS, the reason the model is simple is that it was based on the Apollo Service Module SPS engine which was hypergolic, this means it creates thrust basically by dumping two reactive "hypergolic" fuels into a combustion chamber where they react with one another, explosively, and the exhaust gasses leave the nozzle.

This is the most popular system for reaction control systems and propulsion systems for unmanned spacecraft and was particularly prevalent in Apollo where every engine/thruster on both spacecraft was of this type because of how simple and therefore reliable it is; it's just two valves.

We're not going to replace it, but we will probably add some low-profile lander engines at some point.

Edited July 23, 2014 by Winston

[problemecium]

Guess what?

x_x

I just bought a RAM expansion and KSP is STILL throwing AccessViolationExceptions. So commenced a long, tedious, and rather confusing bug hunt. But I think it bore some useful fruit:

With KW Rocketry and my usual mod set installed, the game frequently crashes with Access Violations. So I swapped a bunch of other mods in and out to see what happened, until I'd investigated every single one and not isolated the error. Until, that is, I removed the built-in NASAMission folder. And who'da thunk it - KSP became completely stable even with KW and all the other mods (at least based on my simple experiment: load save, go to VAB, slap some KW and stock parts together, exit VAB, see if I can "Reload All" in the debug menu without crashing).

SO LONG STORY SHORT: On my system at least, KW doesn't get along with NASAMission for some reason and makes the game go bananas.

For posterity, here's my experimental notes:

- All KW and PFairings:

CRASH (on attempt to spawn KW parts)

- All KW, no PFairings:

CRASH (on attempt to spawn KW parts)

- All KW except fairings, with PFairings:

CRASH (inconsistently, on attempt to spawn KW parts)

- All KW except fairings, without PFairings:

CRASH (on exit VAB)

- PFairings alone:

okay

- All KW except fairings, with PParts:

okay

- All KW with PParts:

CRASH (on initial loading completion)

- PParts alone:

should be okay

- All KW with no other mods:

okay. Hmmm......

- KW alone with NASAMission removed:

okay

- All KW and PFairings with NASAMission removed:

okay. Wait wut?

[Sunshine]

Winston,

I'd like to ask if we, in the future, might see "naked" engines like that:

Without...uhm...how you call that... these base-plates like here:

While I totally LOVE KW Rocketry since day 1, I never really liked these sometimes huge plates with that red ring marking, it seems so random (the marking).

Of course, auto-shrouding wouldn't work with these, I guess?

Just my weird taste, not meant as criticism or something.

Cheers!

[CERVERUS]

We're not going to replace it, but we will probably add some low-profile lander engines at some point.

Oh this is awesome,lander engines from KW!!!

[Voculus]

The new tanks and engines are gorgeous! Thanks for your hard work!

[smunisto]

Guess what?

x_x

I just bought a RAM expansion and KSP is STILL throwing AccessViolationExceptions. So commenced a long, tedious, and rather confusing bug hunt. But I think it bore some useful fruit:

With KW Rocketry and my usual mod set installed, the game frequently crashes with Access Violations. So I swapped a bunch of other mods in and out to see what happened, until I'd investigated every single one and not isolated the error. Until, that is, I removed the built-in NASAMission folder. And who'da thunk it - KSP became completely stable even with KW and all the other mods (at least based on my simple experiment: load save, go to VAB, slap some KW and stock parts together, exit VAB, see if I can "Reload All" in the debug menu without crashing).

SO LONG STORY SHORT: On my system at least, KW doesn't get along with NASAMission for some reason and makes the game go bananas.

For posterity, here's my experimental notes:

- All KW and PFairings:

CRASH (on attempt to spawn KW parts)

- All KW, no PFairings:

CRASH (on attempt to spawn KW parts)

- All KW except fairings, with PFairings:

CRASH (inconsistently, on attempt to spawn KW parts)

- All KW except fairings, without PFairings:

CRASH (on exit VAB)

- PFairings alone:

okay

- All KW except fairings, with PParts:

okay

- All KW with PParts:

CRASH (on initial loading completion)

- PParts alone:

should be okay

- All KW with no other mods:

okay. Hmmm......

- KW alone with NASAMission removed:

okay

- All KW and PFairings with NASAMission removed:

okay. Wait wut?

Are you running the x64 bit exe? Steam does not do that by default. Using x64 bit should allow you to use RAM way beyond your computer's capability, so any crash is not related to that.

If your game crashes with a KSP error window(the one that has only Ok as a button and the date of the output folder), then the error is probably caused by a mod or the game itself. If, however, you crash with windows errors - it means you are not running the 64-bit game and the 32-bit is running out of memory.

You also did not include a single KSP output log. Just stating random stuff does not really help mod devs help you.

Edited July 23, 2014 by smunisto

[problemecium]

I'm not using Steam; I have a desktop shortcut directly to KSP-x64.exe. Also while I haven't repeated the whole battery of tests with the 32-bit, I did notice similar crashes earlier today with both versions.

And yes, there isn't an output log. I have about 28394952 output logs that all say the same thing: KSP_x64.exe caused an Access Violation.

Anyway, my investigation has continued and I've (I think) narrowed it down further: Something is up with the Wildcat XR and Titan I 3-meter engines. KW seems to work fine, even alongside NASAMission, without these two, but crashes when they are present, especially when I try to spawn one of them.

More data (the investigation is ongoing):

- All KW except engines:

okay

- All KW except 5m engines:

CRASH (delayed, on attempt to spawn stock parts after spawning KW parts)

- All KW except 3m engines:

okay

- All KW except Griffon XX:

CRASH (delayed, after spawning stock parts after spawning KW parts)

- All KW except Titan I:

CRASH (on attempt to spawn stock parts after spawning KW parts)

- All KW except Wildcat XR:

CRASH (you get the idea here)

- Griffon XX alone: okay

- Titan I alone: CRASH immediately on spawning Titan I

- Wildcat XR alone: CRASH on attempt to spawn a second Wildcat XR

EDIT:

I've caught it! The bug is in the .mu files for both the Titan I and Wildcat XR 3-meter engines. KSP was stable (cough) when I replaced these models with some copied from other engines, but crashed when I used either of the original models, even if I replaced or removed the .mbm and other texture files.

I'm going to try using Blender and PartTools to recompile the models and see if I can fix it.

Edit again: nope, I couldn't fix it. Unity got all fussy about animations and despite my best efforts KSP still crashed when I used the intended model. You guys at KW must be wizards.

Edited July 23, 2014 by parameciumkid

[orangewarning]

hey hey!

Great mod! Finally figured out what buggy parts to avoid(x64 problem) using...

Hehehe didnt notice SPS was changed to monoprop, I was so confused over why it ran out so fast XD