[WIP] Mass Relay - Warping all over the place

[Xentoe]

But real only the name.

Dannys "MassRelais" is more a Jules Verne Cannon.

:-)

[Umlüx]

bumping to show there are still people waiting for this awesome mod

in the meantime i am using giant (functionless) built in orbit structures and hyperedit in an lame attempt to simulate a warpgate but this isn't the same...

[Xentoe]

Yes I wait still even a regular kind of report of progress would be kind for the still hopeing people.

[Molybdene]

ok, here's my update of my progress so far.

I've checked the hyperedit code and what I'm doing to teleport vessels is very (almost identical) close to the "rendez-vous" functionnality of the mod. But the hyperedit mod have the same issue as I have right now when teleporting vessels: it just mess with the physics of other close vessels.

SO, here is what I'll do to release a first version (at last) of the mod:

I'll change the way the teleportation works. Instead of targeting the mass relay vessel on the other planet/moon, I'll just change the reference body, keeping the orbital values. Meaning that if you are at a 80km orbit from Kerbin when you warp, you'll get to a 80km orbit around the target body. if it's the moon, you'll be fine, if it's jool.... boy you are in trouble

By changing only the reference body of the vessel, I'll not have to load the target vessel to get all target values (orbit height, epoch, etc...) and that way I may avoid the issue hyperedit & I have.

It will make the warping a little more difficult as you'll have to be carefull on FROM where you warp, so it may mean several wapring station around Kerbin to get to the others planets, and several warp needed to get to a big body from a small one as you can't have a 80km stable orbit around the smallest body.

I like this idea

stay tuned!

[Xentoe]

Hmmmm can you not simple use the Orbithigh of the MR as Orbitscale?

I mean that you get automatical the orbitscale of the MR ?

You must not apear at the MR directly (for the moment).

[Angelo Kerman]

This looks like an interesting idea. Sounds like there are challenges you're working on. Maybe what you could do is require line of sight between relays, and do something like Kerbal Interstellar's warp speed. Once you reach the target, do hyper-edit's orbit helper, which changes the orbit info of the vessel... unless that's what hyperedit does to rendezvous with the target..

[Xentoe]

And again a month gone. *looks curious for a report*

[Molybdene]

I'm having some other issues than the teleportation bug with my current plugin, and I really don't like how I've made it.

So I've started anew (don't worry, it does not mean that it will take me 1 year to get to the same state, I've just created a blank project and I'm pasting piece of code here and there).

I changed the way the parts are getting the info/the way the GUI is displayed, etc. It will be less laggy (not that the plugin was laggy, but it will have less "check every x milliseconds if the situation have changed"), and more stable.

I had a "bad" month at work (deadline to meet), but now I'm working every evenning/night on this!

Edited June 26, 2014 by Molybdene

[Molybdene]

Ok, here it was I come up with for now.

I've redesign the way it'll work in order to try to avoid the teleportation glitch from KSP. In short: keep it simple, keep it vague.

- Mass Relay will not be precise to the meter, but will have a +-20% random "error" variation from the target orbit. Meaning that if the target relay is at a stable 150km 0° orbit, you can get to a non circular 140km - 155km, 10° inclination orbit.

"Close enough", would say the Kerbal engineers.

==> That way I'll make sure I'm not too close to the target and won't (hopefully) interfer with it after the warp.

- No more heavy computing to make sure I'm at less than 100m of the relay and that my speed with the relay is less than 0.5m/s to allow a warp. The window with the list of warp available will be loaded with a right click on the relay from the vessel to warp (kinda like you right click a meteor to make science from EVA).

==> If you are able to click on the relay from the target vessel, it means that you are close enough (in fact I set this distance at 25m by default in the config) and slow enough. I had some crash with the findWorldCenterOfMass() function from Unity, and couldn't exit the game after that without ALT+F4, so it'll be better that way.

- Energy cost for warping will be proportional to distance between planets of origin and planets of destination (regardeless of the current orbits), and mass of the target vessel.

- I'll add a 1/100th chance of having you ship "lost" after a warp (high orbit around the sun) because I found that funny. But don't worry, this "feature" will be disabled by default on the config.

Maybe some more things, I have to see with Frizzank before saying anything more

Edited June 26, 2014 by Molybdene

[wwwjr]

Good to hear from ya. I am really excited for this!

[Molybdene]

Ok, so the plugin is working with the new architecture and warp engine. (Yay)

I still have to

- Put back up the power consumption (already done in the old plugin)

- Add weight cost for warping

- Duplicate the current mass relay part so that I add a "low tech" un-precise and faulty one, and a high tech good tech one, work on the look of the low tech one.

- Do some tests & energy cost balance

- Prettying the code

[Space Scumbag]

I'm really excited. There are now multiple modders working on warping mods. But yours is most like the Mass Relays form ME.

[Molybdene]

I realized I mention a low tech and high tech mass relay, without explaining.

Here is what I come up with:

I'll make two mass relays:

- One low tech with a [5-20]% error (and 5-20° for the inclinaison) when warping. It means that if you try to get to a 100km orbit around mun, at a 0° inclinaison, you can be somewhere between [80;95km]U[105;120km] orbit, and [-20;-5°]U[5;20°] inclinaison. Plus, you'll get 1% chance of having your ship "lost in space" (orbit around the sun, close to the body of reference's one to not be too mean).

- The Hight tech one, that you'll get later in the game is more precise (5%/5°) and won't loose your ship.

Keep in mind that I maintain the fact that you can't Warp a Vessel with a mass relay on it (both the vessel you try to warp and the mass relay that was supposed to send you will explode!), and you can't use a mass relay that is landed on Kerbin as a way to easily teleport vessels. If you want to do that, use Hyper Edit ^^.

The principle of this Warping plugin is not to give you an overpowered tool to get anywhere, but to allow you to fast travel somewhere you already went to with an heavy load.

Now, I have another idea to render the first low tech relay more experimental. Those are ideas that I will NOT put on the first release, without first consulting some testers.

- No Kerbals allowed: only drones. If you try to Warp, the kerbals will die

- Overheating (1% chance?) Mass Relay part will explose due to overheating while warping the vessel. 20% chance of loosing the vessel to a random orbit too during the process.

- Jamming. Sometimes (5% of chance?) the mass relay will jam. No warping, and require a Kerbal to right clic on the part to fix it (like wheels)

- Recoil. Chance for the mass relay vessel to get a recoil that will de-orbit him. Need to fire the engine to fix the orbit after a warp.

Again, I will NOT add those ideas right now, just writing it down. Tell me what you think. I know that having to fix the orbit after a warp or loosing the parts will be a pain, but keep in mind that the warping feature is very very powerfull, so I'm trying to balance it a little. For example, the power cost for warping will me very high, Frizzank & I already put some bigger batteries as parts for powering the relay.

Edited July 11, 2014 by Molybdene

[wwwjr]

I like the error chances. It would be nice to be able to turn off those percentages to a point (you said earlier that you need the error so it wont kill things). Also the percentage seems a bit high for the chance of loosing a vessel to a random orbit. It looks like it is coming together!

[Umlüx]

i don't like error chances. there is nothing like 'chance' in KSP yet, everything that can go wrong is your own fault.

id' rather you find something other to define low tech. like jump range, jump frequency, maximum mass or so.

a chance to fail/jam is ok too, but to loose crew or the whole craft? not a fan of it.

Edited July 15, 2014 by Umlüx

[Space Scumbag]

flywlyx is also working on a Mass Relay mod for some time. Now he finally made a thread, look here. Maybe you guys could exchange your work and/or work together.

[Xentoe]

Yes but to be true I like this new one not.

I like more to build my Warpportal my own (lookstyle)

Mass Effect was nice but I want this look not in my Kerbalverse.

So hope you let us notmore wit so long, you have now concurence *spooky music*

[Molybdene]

No sweat here, concurence is good.

Plugin is going nicely. I not sleeping much those days (again a big month at work )

I don't want to delay the first version of this plugin much more.

An Alpha version will be release before the end of august, I guarantee it.

EDIT: hey, holidays. alpha release postpone to august.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Molybdene

[Mikare12]

I cant wait

[Xentoe]

And again a month gone...

[Molybdene]

Sorry, busy doing some interviews to find a new job.

Still, will upload a beta soonish

[Umlüx]

good luck with that, i know its hard!

[Molybdene]

Ok, got the job, will start on October, sooo, I need to finish that first, hehe.

[Umlüx]

congratulations

[Isabelle.V.Fuchs]

Now we have Version 0.90.0

I am wondering if this mod will do?

Molybdene, you're okay?

I would like so much see it working. This 'mass relais'-methode is much more fun than the warpdrive. That would be too easy.