The Solar Panel Problem

[craigp]

I always hate asking for help on something that other people have obviously accomplished, but I simply can't find a thread that helps with this. And I've read a LOT of threads.

After I put out a little part mod ( http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/51710-Parts-Concave-Construction-Kit ) I decided to try and make a more extensive mod specifically for high-part-count starships and starbases. I've made a lot of parts... but the solar panels are not working quite right.

I made a video to be really clear about it:

Basically, the extending solar panel never "finishes" extending - it just pauses forever at the end of the animation. There's no errors printed to the log.

The exact same object works fine if I use ModuleAnimateGeneric instead of ModuleDeployableSolarPanel - it completes and can be retracted just fine.

Is there something basic I'm missing? I've read lots of threads, but none of them seem to address this problem. It certainly isn't covered in any of the "compilation of tutorials" posts I've found floating around.

The biggest help, of course, would be a Unity project that contains an example of a working solar panel. I can't find anything like that, though.

Advice would be appreciated!

Edited October 10, 2013 by craigp
Added info

[Faark]

Have you checked your debug consol / KSP.log? You might have a transform missing. At least here the game used strings to find parts of a parachute model.

- "animationName" shouldn't be a problem, since the animation does play

- "resourceName" sounds like the output resource and i guess you copied "ElectricCharge" from a stock config

- "stateString" / "state" sound like sth internal & state related

The 2 remaining public strings would be "raycastTransformName" and "pivotName". Does your Model have sth like that? The stock "solarPanels5" (aka the small non-deployable panel) uses custom values for it, btw.

[craigp]

There are no related errors I can see, either at load or during play.

I guess I'll play around with the two variables you've mentioned. I saw them mentioned in other places, but since no errors were being thrown and I don't really care if it tracks or not, I just ignored them.

[craigp]

Problem SOLVED: You do need the raycastTransformName/pivotName, even though it doesn't actually throw an error if you don't include it.

Thanks, Faark.