[0.90]Kerbal Isp Difficulty Scaler v1.4.2; 12/16/14

[Amazingteknique]

Kinda just wierd, Sometimes I enter the VAB and have the scaled ISP's like it should. Sometimes I enter and the standard ones are back haha. I have a lot of mods though dunno if that is mucking it up.

[ferram4]

Well, then don't use it with MFS. I'm not going to bother bugfixing until the official, non-experimental version of MFS comes out so I have something stable to work with.

[NathanKell]

RF v4 is out, finally.

[ArterC]

Is it possible to change engine thrust factor and keep fuel consumption at stock level?

[DasBananenbrot]

Any work done on KIDS Considering Real Fuel support? Guess not considering you had enough to do working on FAR

[wasmic]

Hmmm, since Isp is pronunced Specific Impulse, should this mods title be pronounced KSIDS, KSDS or just KIDS?

[DasBananenbrot]

Hmmm, since Isp is pronunced Specific Impulse, should this mods title be pronounced KSIDS, KSDS or just KIDS?

I guess for the sake of not start a debate about the name we just stick with KIDS

[NathanKell]

We'd lose the awesome acronym, too.

backcronym?

[ferram4]

@ArterC: You should be able to do that by setting the Isp multipliers to 1 and activating thrust correction.

@DasBananenbrot: I've been somewhat distracted from working on this; it's also less of a priority because I don't actually use KIDS as much as FAR and KJR, especially since RSS took away the need for the real-life difficulty setting.

I'm also still not sure exactly how the RF / MFS engines work exactly, so I'll have to trawl through the code until I have a good understanding of how it functions before I can add proper support.

And the name is entirely due to the acronym, which came about in a conversation with a friend, and I named the project that in a fit of whimsy.

[MedievalNerd]

I'm also still not sure exactly how the RF / MFS engines work exactly, so I'll have to trawl through the code until I have a good understanding of how it functions before I can add proper support.

I'm pretty sure Nathan would be more than happy to chat you up on those!

But I wouldn't want to speak in his stead. lol

[NathanKell]

I'm also still not sure exactly how the RF / MFS engines work exactly, so I'll have to trawl through the code until I have a good understanding of how it functions before I can add proper support

You rang?

Happy to provide anything you need. But re: KIDS interaction, it's pretty simple. So you have only one interface, I'll fix up the other two modules for RFv4.2 so they work like ModuleEngineConfigs. For that, just set the public static Isp multipliers and the public static bool correctThrust. Then invoke SetConfiguration() on each module you find. That's it.

(Since I also don't use KIDS due to RSS, it's also not first in my mind either...)

[Raptor831]

I think StretchySRB doesn't play nice with KIDS. When I use a stretchy SRB it reverts to the 52 default thrust and then KIDS scales thrust further down due to its sea-level Isp. Which makes my big Ares I launch SRB rather useless. Is there a way to get KIDS to read the generated info?

[ferram4]

Understood. There's a lot of compatibility stuff that needs to be done with StretchySRB and RealFuels. With the former, I'll have to look at when the thrust is set so that I don't break things, since it's the only kind of engine where the thrust is procedural.

[Raptor831]

Understood. There's a lot of compatibility stuff that needs to be done with StretchySRB and RealFuels. With the former, I'll have to look at when the thrust is set so that I don't break things, since it's the only kind of engine where the thrust is procedural.

I figured that was the reason. I haven't tried it yet, but the Advanced SRB mod probably behaves similarly, since it's thrust is determined independent of the "engine" nozzle.

BTW, thanks for the mod, it's quite useful!

[amo28]

... especially since RSS took away the need for the real-life difficulty setting.

I was under the impression that this is only the case if you use Realism Overhaul. If you don't use RO, then you absolutely need KIDS, amiright?

[ferram4]

No, RealFuels and the related engine configs should cut it for use with RSS, even if you're not using RO.

[bs1110101]

Would a patch to make it so it just does nothing with Stretchy SRBs at all be quickly doable so i can just edit the isp in the config by hand and use them like that?

Edit: What about making them have a stupidly large amount of thrust and using stock tweakables to change thrust? Would that make the conflicts stop happening?

Edited February 9, 2014 by bs1110101

[paradoxh]

Hi all,

It sort of feels like i've come to the party a little late and everyone else has headed off to RSS but I have a couple of questions which may well make me look like a dumba**!

1) The talk of an engine being atm or vac rated - does this effect which multiplier is used on the KIDS options page and how is this applied if the actual isp of an engine in game straddles the 'cutoff'

e.g. 385 isp is the atm / vac border but the in-game isp's for a particular engine are 350 atm / 400 vac

2) if using FAR and KIDS and in KIDS using FAR to Real adjusted mode should i make changes to weights of the fuel tanks and / or engines so that they represent realistic (relatively) values as well? If so what? - I think i've seen somewhere that dry fule tank mass should me reduced to 1/3 and engine weight to 1/6 or something like that but can i find it now!?!??!

Any / all help is welcome!

[Raptor831]

Hi all,

It sort of feels like i've come to the party a little late and everyone else has headed off to RSS but I have a couple of questions which may well make me look like a dumba**!

1) The talk of an engine being atm or vac rated - does this effect which multiplier is used on the KIDS options page and how is this applied if the actual isp of an engine in game straddles the 'cutoff'

e.g. 385 isp is the atm / vac border but the in-game isp's for a particular engine are 350 atm / 400 vac

2) if using FAR and KIDS and in KIDS using FAR to Real adjusted mode should i make changes to weights of the fuel tanks and / or engines so that they represent realistic (relatively) values as well? If so what? - I think i've seen somewhere that dry fule tank mass should me reduced to 1/3 and engine weight to 1/6 or something like that but can i find it now!?!??!

Any / all help is welcome!

Ferram can correct me if I'm wrong, but:

1) That setting affects how the thrust is scaled. If an engine is atm rated, the thrust on the tin will be what you get a 1 atm pressure, and it will increase on the way up. If it's vac rated, you'll need to be in space before you see the stated thrust. And I think it's the final ISP that matters, but I'm not 100% sure on that one.

2) If you want realistic engine/tank/fuel weights, according to the RealFuels mod, stock engines are about 3.2 times heavier than normal, and tank dry mass is about 4 times as heavy IIRC. the "FAR to Real Adjusted" mode though includes a fudge factor to "include" the extra mass. If you change the mass to normal (i.e. make it lighter) I think you can use the "FAR to Real, Raw" mode for added realism.

[ferram4]

1) The talk of an engine being atm or vac rated - does this effect which multiplier is used on the KIDS options page and how is this applied if the actual isp of an engine in game straddles the 'cutoff'

e.g. 385 isp is the atm / vac border but the in-game isp's for a particular engine are 350 atm / 400 vac

That just controls whether the given thrust value is what the engine makes in vacuum or at sea level. For example, a vacuum rated engine that makes 60 kN of thrust will make 60 kN in vacuum and less in the atmosphere. One that is atmo-rated for 60 kN will make 60 kN on the pad and more in vacuum. The multipliers are still the same, it's just how the thrust is set. The cutoff is set based on the original Isp, not the adjusted Isp.

2) if using FAR and KIDS and in KIDS using FAR to Real adjusted mode should i make changes to weights of the fuel tanks and / or engines so that they represent realistic (relatively) values as well? If so what? - I think i've seen somewhere that dry fule tank mass should me reduced to 1/3 and engine weight to 1/6 or something like that but can i find it now!?!??!

Real adjusted is a sort of hacky way around that where the Isps are slightly higher to account for the fact that the dry masses of engines and fuel tanks is higher than it should be. If you use real adjusted you don't need to make any more changes to get realistic-ish behavior; if you use real raw then you need to make those mass changes.

[borisperrons]

Hi everybody! I've got a little problem: I'm looking into RSS for a future AAR, but I'm trying to avoid using ralism overhaul (weird rescaling of things, and some mods I want to use arent' supported) so I was wondering, has anybody worked out some configuration to make engines work at reasonable levels in RSS? I tried myself, nut either my rocket sticked to the pad like it was glued, or it zoomed in orbit with a ridocously low amount of fuel...

Thanks everybody in advance for their help!!

[bs1110101]

I've done this, somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6 seems to be good, though balancing it is kinda hard.

I think it would be best in a career mode to start at 1.3 and raise it with every tech level, or something roughly like that.

The main problem with using this is that to get realistically big rockets for smallish stuff, you get game-brakingly huge rockets when you need to launch something big.

[borisperrons]

Well, tried those configurations with a Bobcat's Soyuz for simplicity, and it reached a 200 km 20° inclined orbit with a little more than fumes in the last stage, so I think those are the right settings.

Thank you!

[Makrond]

I think I found a bug, if a rocket has the same sea level and vacuum Isp and "Extend Curve to Zero Isp" is on, the rocket gets set to zero Isp. It's an edge case at worst and easy to work around but I figured I'd mention it.

[KerbMav]

Is it working correctly in .23.5 ?