[Airships in 1.12.3] HooliganLabs Mods

[JewelShisen]

Ok so the rework parts are now waiting for Mon review and then they will be good to go!

[Neowulf]

That may be possible. I'd need to code a custom module for it but I don't see why that shouldn't be possible. However at the moment that won't be happening as I am working on adding TweakScale support and doing a part design overhaul.

To that extent what does everybody think of me adding a new drone control part that will fit the envelopes? Something made to fit seamlessly with them.

Awesome.

You just turned cloud cities and helicarriers from dreams to something to look forward to in the future.

[JewelShisen]

Awesome.

You just turned cloud cities and helicarriers from dreams to something to look forward to in the future.

Thanks. Now to just figure out C# and then get some practice making modules.

[Neowulf]

Thanks. Now to just figure out C# and then get some practice making modules.

I've been meaning to learn C#. But every time I take a look at other people's source to see what I'm getting into I see liberal use of those lambda expression things and my brain just goes kaput and begs to go back to nice and easy pointers from my C++ days.

[JewelShisen]

I've been meaning to learn C#. But every time I take a look at other people's source to see what I'm getting into I see liberal use of those lambda expression things and my brain just goes kaput and begs to go back to nice and easy pointers from my C++ days.

Lambda expressions?

[Neowulf]

Lambda expressions?

Those => things. Best I can tell you're creating a quick little function inside another function, but when I read the articles on how they work I get flooded with marketing jargon and examples of "x fun x => x + x (*) => x x;", which apparently equals 2 but all I see is pickle...

[JewelShisen]

Those => things. Best I can tell you're creating a quick little function inside another function, but when I read the articles on how they work I get flooded with marketing jargon and examples of "x fun x => x + x (*) => x x;", which apparently equals 2 but all I see is pickle...

Ah. I don't think Hooligan has that in his code

[Smurfalot]

That may be possible. I'd need to code a custom module for it but I don't see why that shouldn't be possible. However at the moment that won't be happening as I am working on adding TweakScale support and doing a part design overhaul.

To that extent what does everybody think of me adding a new drone control part that will fit the envelopes? Something made to fit seamlessly with them.

What would be the purpose of the new drone control part?

If it would make station keeping possible then, very interested.

[JewelShisen]

What would be the purpose of the new drone control part?

If it would make station keeping possible then, very interested.

Well as it stands now the new rework parts don't have a pod that really fits them. Now I could just make an adapter and I may do that as well but I would also like to have them with their own part that can give the vessel control.

Station keeping won't come for a while until I can dig into the code and start learning how to set it up.

[Smurfalot]

Well as it stands now the new rework parts don't have a pod that really fits them. Now I could just make an adapter and I may do that as well but I would also like to have them with their own part that can give the vessel control.

Station keeping won't come for a while until I can dig into the code and start learning how to set it up.

You might see if you can find some of the old source code for the KerbTown mod to see if you can figure out how to make a "static/not-static" toggle. Just a thought.

[Neowulf]

Ah. I don't think Hooligan has that in his code

Yay no lambdamines! I can actually parse the source.

Pretty simple stuff actually, most of the complicated code deals with the buoyancy asymmetry for pitch control. The actual "make slow to save" code is 90% in the gui area, determining if the vessel meets the speed, buoyancy requirements, and landed/splashed requirements. That could easily be copy/pasted into a new module for the station keeping logic.

The vessel slowing is done in persistentParts(), but that's just a simple vector damping. It would kinda work for station keeping, but attaching another would most likely add enough speed to cause it to exit out of the persistentParts code and leave it unlanded. I can see a lot of people forgetting to re-enable station keeping and losing crafts when they change scenes.

I don't know exactly what could be used to anchor a part to a world coordinate, but it looks pretty simple otherwise. Adding options to a part's right click menu in unity looks pretty simple, and most of the logic could be piggybacked from the HLenvelope code. Just a minor alteration to HLenvelope, add an if to the onUpdate and add a couple public methods to expose some info/toggle the state.

Sorry if this seems like I'm poking you to hurry on it. I'm just rambling happily since I found some source I can actually read.

[JewelShisen]

Actually I am rather happy because I could use somebody that understands the code to help me with it. I can read it but to me it doesn't make much sense because I don't understand it. So if you want to send me a PM I would be happy to talk with you about some ideas I have that would be put into the code.

[JewelShisen]

You might see if you can find some of the old source code for the KerbTown mod to see if you can figure out how to make a "static/not-static" toggle. Just a thought.

That is smart but wouldn't work. That would turn it into a static mesh that would then no longer count as a ship making it impossible to control and undo.

Also I was talking about making a pod, as in something like the Octo probe body, but made to fit the new Airship parts.

[Iforgotthis]

I think your submarine mod is really interesting, far more so than the aircraft parts. There is an abundance of aircraft parts, but only one (as far as I can tell) submarine mod. Even if it doesn't get the most votes on the poll, it'd be much appreciated if you could add a few more parts at some undetermined point in the future.

Second: I haven't tested this yet, but what actually happens when you sink below 600m?

[JewelShisen]

I think your submarine mod is really interesting, far more so than the aircraft parts. There is an abundance of aircraft parts, but only one (as far as I can tell) submarine mod. Even if it doesn't get the most votes on the poll, it'd be much appreciated if you could add a few more parts at some undetermined point in the future.

Second: I haven't tested this yet, but what actually happens when you sink below 600m?

I will be updating the subs next but they shouldn't be that hard. As for going below 600m? It implodes due to pressure.

[Iforgotthis]

I will be updating the subs next but they shouldn't be that hard. As for going below 600m? It implodes due to pressure.

How deep do Kerbin's oceans go? Is there any way to go below 600m without imploding?

[JewelShisen]

How deep do Kerbin's oceans go? Is there any way to go below 600m without imploding?

Kerbin's Oceans go far deeper than 600m and at the moment no. Physics go rather insane at that point.

[Smurfalot]

Kerbin's Oceans go far deeper than 600m and at the moment no. Physics go rather insane at that point.

I am pretty sure this is a KSP limitation because they never expected people to be in the water as opposed to on the water. It is not a fault of the HL mod. Strictly speaking you can go a deeper than 600m, but if you do anything that would cause the scene to reload like-- leave the flight and come back or save/re-load with a ship below 600m, the ship will glitch badly and explode on when the flight reloads. I do not know if that applies to time warping or not, never tried that.

Summary:

I have never had them just blow up from being too deep...has only happened to me if I do something that causes the game to suddenly reapply the physics to the ship.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Smurfalot

[JewelShisen]

Strictly speaking you can go a deeper than 600m, but if you do anything that would cause the scene to reload like-- leave the flight and come back or save/re-load with a ship below 600m, the ship will glitch badly and explode on when the flight reloads. I do not know if that applies to time warping or not, never tried that.

Tl;DR

I have never had them just blow up from being too deep...has only happened to me if I do something that causes the game to suddenly reapply the physics to the ship.

Actually i was speaking in relation to this mod and it's effects.

[RuBisCO]

I would like to make a floating base above Eve or Jool, is it possible to make a modification to the ballon code that allows for freezing a ship in mid air and declaring it "Landed" even though it is floating kilometers above the surface?

Edited August 8, 2014 by RuBisCO

[JewelShisen]

I would like the make a floating base above Eve or Jool, is it possible to make a modification to the ballon code that allows for freezing a ship in mid air and declaring it "Landed" even though it is floating kilometers above the surface?

Actually I have been wanting to do that but I would have to find the code part and see if I can make it toggleable. For now it is not possible though. On Eve perhaps once KAS is updated you'll be able to do it with grapple hooks.

[RuBisCO]

Oh I can do it with KAS, but not beyond the KAS cable length. I did once make modified KAS cables that were kilometers long but that didn't work so well for the hook/anchor and floating base would become dis-entangled as one ship after their distance passed the physics mode distance, perhaps a mod that allows for things to stay in physics mod over ranges of several dozen kilometers and not just ~2.

I've tried changing the "sit=FLYING" to "sit=LANDED" and "landed = True" but that only sort of works: the ship is no longer active, none of the parts respond, it is frozen, so clearly I'm missing what other changes being Landed does in the quicksave.sfs

Edited August 8, 2014 by RuBisCO

[JewelShisen]

Yea I will have to make a new module and make a new part that will allow the user to fake it. I am working on it but it will take some time.

[Neowulf]

Yea I will have to make a new module and make a new part that will allow the user to fake it. I am working on it but it will take some time.

I've been thinking about this and had an idea from smurfalot's kerbtown suggestion. It reminded me of a trick I used in a tribes mod to help players build floating bases.

Create a static object at coordinates relative to the stationkeeping module part with collision turned off and no texture. That would work as an anchor for joints to keep the craft locked in place without having to change the state of any vessel parts or be within range of the ground mesh.

Delete the anchor and joint when the module is turned off.

[RuBisCO]

I've been thinking about this and had an idea from smurfalot's kerbtown suggestion. It reminded me of a trick I used in a tribes mod to help players build floating bases.

Create a static object at coordinates relative to the stationkeeping module part with collision turned off and no texture. That would work as an anchor for joints to keep the craft locked in place without having to change the state of any vessel parts or be within range of the ground mesh.

Delete the anchor and joint when the module is turned off.

Sounds great because something going wrong simply declaring a ship landed when it is in the air. Technically in the mean time I could try to build a base just floating less then KAS cable length above the ground, sort of defeats the idea on Eve of staying at room temp altitude (22500-23500 m) and is grossly unrealistic on Jool where room temp altitude is 44-45 km and "surface" temps are beyond anything realistically survivable.