[1.12.3+] RealChute Parachute Systems v1.4.9.5 | 20/10/24

[lodestar]

If you think that this is the most unrealistic things with stock parachutes, you need to have a good talk with aerodynamics.

Are you saying things disappearing isn't more unrealistic than weird aerodynamics?

Besides, I'm not exactly sure what you would want them to do if they don't dissapear that doesn't involve cloth and strings physics (aka killing Unity)

I'm not exactly sure either. As long as they don't simply disappear and I have to plan ahead to avoid them landing over the payload itself, what exactly happens is open to implementation details/constraints.

[lodestar]

Wow, it really is the most simple requests that have the most complex solutions.

I can`t even imagine how to do that without writing some serious custom code and having gravity affect the chute and other parts (i.e. the lander).

I guess the short answer is no, it`s not possible

Yeah, I'm sure it isn't simple, hence why I'm just asking if it would be possible.

I would suggest roleplaying it and having the autocut altitude set at a suitable height so you can do a powered landing after the chutes have slowed you down to a reasonable speed.

Sure, I'm already doing that. I'm playing with Deadly Reentry and Remote Tech, so I try to come up with a fully automated reentry/landing sequence with timed action groups for every step, like deploying the chutes, decoupling the heatshield and decoupling from the aeroshell, etc, until I finally land on engines or airbags. I often don't cut the chutes at all, as they help moving the aeroshell away from the lander. The first time I used autocut the aeroshell fell exactly over it.

Sometimes it would be much easier to simply decouple from the aeroshell and land on parachutes alone, but it feels like cheating when it disappears on touchdown.

[stupid_chris]

Are you saying things disappearing isn't more unrealistic than weird aerodynamics?

That's exactly what I'm saying. Considering the impact on your actual mission, how parachutes behave in regards to the atmosphere has much more impact than how the parachute behaves on the landed craft. On most manned pods, it falls to the side of the pod and is usually kept attached to be refactored and reused. Pretending is just not there anymore is a close simulation of what happens considering the impact on your flight.

I'm not exactly sure either. As long as they don't simply disappear and I have to plan ahead to avoid them landing over the payload itself, what exactly happens is open to implementation details/constraints.

No, I'm literally asking what you would want it to do. Like what do you expect the ingame chute to do once it's landed. Because I literally cannot think of anything that doesn't involve cloth and/or string physics.

Edited December 2, 2014 by stupid_chris

[lodestar]

That's exactly what I'm saying. Considering the impact on your actual mission, how parachutes behave in regards to the atmosphere has much more impact than how the parachute behaves on the landed craft. On most manned pods, it falls to the side of the pod and is usually kept attached to be refactored and reused. Pretending is just not there anymore is a close simulation of what happens considering the impact on your flight.

No, I disagree with that. What you're saying about measured impact makes sense for manned pods, but they are irrelevant, since it can always be assumed that the crew will remove the parachute after landing.

The problem is with unmanned pods. The point isn't accuracy for the sake of realism, but how it changes things. The accuracy of the aerodynamics isn't a binary choice between magic and realistic simulation, and even the stock simulation is good enough for enjoyment. I don't know how accurate the simulation is, and I don't care. All I care is that a parachute works somehow in an atmosphere and there's a difference between using the parachute and not using it. The same happens with Deadly Reentry, for instance. I don't know how accurate it is, but I know that I need a careful reentry and a heatshield most of the time, and that makes it better than stock for me. The same happens with the life support mods. It's not accurate, but at least now I need some life support resource and resupply missions, I can't simply stay in space or on the surface of another world forever.

On the other hand, the parachute disappearing by magic on touchdown completely changes the final steps of reentry and landing. I don't need to decouple from the parachute and make a powered descent or use airbags, like they do in the real world. I can simply land with one or several huge parachutes that would certainly fall over my lander and affect its mission, if they didn't disappeared on touchdown.

No, I'm literally asking what you would want it to do. Like what do you expect the ingame chute to do once it's landed. Because I literally cannot think of anything that doesn't involve cloth and/or string physics.

That's not so important as much as I would want them to do something that affects the mission. For instance, if their physics is completely innacurate, and they act like a solid with the shape formed during the fall, but they block solar panels and get entangled in wheels, that would be better than completely disappearing, because now I have an ingame reason to clear the payload from the parachute.

[Climberfx]

Hey Chris, i'm using the last version on Mac KSP .25 and is working seamlessly. And i manage to edit the source code to "remove" that version incompatibility we mac users receive.

The way i did, is to put an "or" clause on the CompatibilityChecker.cs to recognise the version of Mac OSX. (82 return Application.unityVersion.Equals("4.5.2f1") || Application.unityVersion.Equals("4.5.3p2")

Can i share with other mac users here?

Edited December 2, 2014 by Climberfx

[stupid_chris]

For instance, if their physics is completely innacurate, and they act like a solid with the shape formed during the fall, but they block solar panels and get entangled in wheels, that would be better than completely disappearing, because now I have an ingame reason to clear the payload from the parachute.

Good, you answered the question. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way I can make that happen in KSP. Not now, not ever, unless the devs plan to change to another game engine than Unity. Because what you are asking for is literally cloth and strings physics. Even though it is /possible/ to do them in Unity, it is insanely complex, and ridiculously computationally heavy. Really, that can't happen in KSP. Unless you want me to autocut parachutes 100m away from. The ground on unmanned crafts to prevent anyone to land them solely on parachutes (spoiler alert: not happening), then the best you get is magically dissappearing parachutes, because its the closest I can get. Though you should remember that the mod is extremely flexible for a specific reason: so it can do exactly what you want it to do. If you think unmanned crafts should not land on parachutes only, then just dont do that on your side. Set the parachutes to autocut at a certain altitude, land on rockets, profit. My mod enforces no method of landing on you. Just do your thang.

If you have any ideas that dont involve cloth physics/string physics go ahead.

Hey Chris, i'm using the last version on Mac KSP .25 and is working seamlessly. And i manage to edit the source code to "remove" that version incompatibility we mac users receive.

The way i did, is to put an "or" clause on the CompatibilityChecker.cs to recognise the version of Mac OSX. (82 return Application.unityVersion.Equals("4.5.2f1") || Application.unityVersion.Equals("4.5.3p2")

Can i share with other mac users here?

No, because you literally defeat the purpose of the check. It is totally intended that you see this warning each time you boot. RealChute is only tested on Unity 4.5.2f1, I have no way of testing correctly on the mac version. So yes, im warning that there might be problems. Maybe not. I literally cannot know. And bypassing the check like this defeats the purpose of it.

[Kerbas_ad_astra]

Even if cloth physics were used, there's still the matter of most KSP equipment being so powerful that they'd either power through any chute or explode. That gave me this idea: what if the cut parachute spawned a disk that drifted to the ground and exploded any part that it touched? No fabric physics required, and it provides a good reason to get out from underneath (or ditch the chute early).

I feel like this would be out-of-scope for RealChute, but implemented as its own mod, it could make for an entertaining video or two. Call it "Ditch Your Chutes!" or something.

[Climberfx]

Ok. I will keep using for myself.

[Guest]

There's a plugin floating around that disables such dialogs from showing up. I think it works on Mac.

[lodestar]

Good, you answered the question. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way I can make that happen in KSP.

Good, you answered the question.

[lodestar]

Even if cloth physics were used, there's still the matter of most KSP equipment being so powerful that they'd either power through any chute or explode.

Yes, but that is not so important, since it means the mission failed. Sure, you can try to get out of it, as you may try to get your craft upwards when it tilts by accident during landing, but you're more likely to revert the game and try again.

[Starwaster]

.

That's not so important as much as I would want them to do something that affects the mission. For instance, if their physics is completely innacurate, and they act like a solid with the shape formed during the fall, but they block solar panels and get entangled in wheels, that would be better than completely disappearing, because now I have an ingame reason to clear the payload from the parachute.

except that you can't do that except in a manner that is either ugly as crap or prohibitively expensive in terms of both development time AND processing power.

[Guest]

Never say never. Remember what everyone (except physicists who usually knew better) said about n-body? There's a plugin for it now, not quite playable yet, but getting there. You saying "prohibitively expensive" and "impossible to do" only means you won't be the one to write this plugin. They said the exact same thing about n-body, until someone came along and implemented it. Surprisingly enough, it actually turned out not to melt anyone's computer. I suspect that would be the case for cloth physics, too. PhysX can do that, Unity can do that, so it's probably very much feasible in terms of processing power (especially that you shouldn't need too many parachutes with a plugin like this). As for development time, that varies from person to person. If someone wants something badly enough, there is no such thing as "too long dev time". Principia isn't moving along quickly, either, but it's getting there.

While I certainly would be interested in cloth physics-enabled chutes, I suppose it'd be better if someone else did that (if nothing else, it'd have a chance of not being 64bit locked...). It would certainly require pretty deep knowledge of both Unity and actual parachute physics. It'd be a huge leap for realism, and (if well written), it'd also allow things like Rogallo wings and steerable parachutes. RealChute is good, but it simply can't do that, being pretty much limited to extending stock parachute functionality (not even FAR-based aerodynamics). It's the best parachute plugin 32bit users can get, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to make a better one. Also, RC has the advantage of working with existing parachute models, which are unsuited for real physics treatment. Any mod that would make PhysX chutes would need completely new models.

[Starman4308]

Dragon, the problem is that while both N-body physics and cloth physics are wickedly difficult to implement in a mod, the sole effect of cloth physics is to force people to cut chutes early. You know a much easier way to solve that problem?

Cut your chutes early!

You're one of maybe a tiny handful of people who would care, and programmer time is limited. Why bother with this, when there is such an easy in-game workaround? It's not like N-body physics, which would have to be integrated directly into the game engine, because there's no way for a player to mimic the effects of N-body.

You are asking for a modder to spend a huge amount of time catering to a very niche audience who have a very easy in-game workaround. Hell, if you wanted, you could write an addon which disables probe cores if you land with uncut parachutes: that'd be a much easier hack than cloth physics.

Edited December 2, 2014 by Starman4308

[stupid_chris]

There's a plugin floating around that disables such dialogs from showing up. I think it works on Mac.

Which also completely defeats the purpose of the check.

And in regards to cloth physics: It is not happening. I'd rather not see that debate here, my stand is clear.

[lodestar]

You are asking for a modder to spend a huge amount of time catering to a very niche audience who have a very easy in-game workaround.

Nobody is asking for anybody to spend time doing anything. I asked if it would be possible to do such a thing in KSP, and for some reason people understood it as a feature request for cloth physics, which is not the point at all.

[Guest]

We're not asking RealChute to do it. It'd be a completely different mod. RC is fills a different niche.

Dragon, the problem is that while both N-body physics and cloth physics are wickedly difficult to implement in a mod, the sole effect of cloth physics is to force people to cut chutes early. You know a much easier way to solve that problem?

And N-body physics are all about lagrangian points. No. Just no. That you fail to realize the potential of a feature doesn't mean it's automatically worthless. Cloth physics would allow, for example, realistic parachute deployment simulation. It would be independent of animations. You could have a pilot chute, proper drogues, proper reefing, aerodynamic occlusion (in case of two parachutes in a stack, the upper canopy would collapse), vents opening and closing to steer the chute... KSP can currently simulate (poorly) the simplest kind of parachute. The challenges of reliable chute extraction, aerodynamic stability and efficiency are all thrown out. Yes, it is wickedly difficult to implement. It'd also be immensely rewarding if implemented properly.

[Starman4308]

Nobody is asking for anybody to spend time doing anything. I asked if it would be possible to do such a thing in KSP, and for some reason people understood it as a feature request for cloth physics, which is not the point at all.

I think I may have conflated you with Dragon01, who was beating a dead horse. I apologize: on re-reading the conversation, you did indeed back down when Chris said "not really possible without a hugely complicated project involving cloth and string physics".

[Furious1964]

Why doesn't this work for the X64 Windows version? Can you please provide support? Or is this mod dead in the water for Win64 users?

[Furious1964]

The current version of RealChute includes a function (named, say, Win64MustDie) to detect if KSP Win64 is being used - if this is true, Win64MustDie will stop RealChutes from working in KSO Win64.

The aforementioned statement simply states that people can't disable the Win64MustDie checking function.

You are bloody kidding me!?!? What's the point in Reddit and Squad trying to fix the problems with Win64 if you have modders like this taking the DB "WIN64MUSTDIE" attitude? At least some people are willing to help them improve the game then abandoning it and telling everyone to "Install Linux". 0_o

[steve_v]

There is no win64 support because the win64 build is too buggy and unstable for modders to even test on, let alone support.

This and several other mods are disabled on win64, because people won't take the hint and stop reporting win64 bugs in mod threads expecting fixes for things outside the mod authors control.

This mod in particular came very close to being abandoned because people like you won't take the hint and stop bugging modders for win64 support.

You can: a) figure out how to defeat the check, and keep it to yourself. go do something else untill the win64 build is stable enough to be supported. c) use win32 or GNU/Linux64.

By all means, go help fix win64. DO NOT complain about it here.

To answer your question, NO. You are risking the ire of a great many people by even asking.

Edited December 3, 2014 by steve_v

[stupid_chris]

You are bloody kidding me!?!? What's the point in Reddit and Squad trying to fix the problems with Win64 if you have modders like this taking the DB "WIN64MUSTDIE" attitude? At least some people are willing to help them improve the game then abandoning it and telling everyone to "Install Linux". 0_o

Squad is trying to fix the problem? That's hilarious. Squad knows very well how broken the 64bit Windows version of the game is, and they've said it multiple times. The fact the builds are still public is staggering. I'm not going to support that, nor endure false bug reports that actually relate to KSP itself crashing. And do not tell me "don't lock it but don't support it either", because I, as well as the other modders who have locked their mods on 64bit Windows builds have tried it. We tried with 0.24, and the community showed us that it didn't work. And since it doesn't work, and I'm not willing to deal with Squad's crap, I'm locking it. End of the discussion. If you want to unlock it, feel free to get my source on Github and recompile it without the lock for your personal use, but from that point on expect no support at all from my part. 64bit or not.

EDIT: Also as usual, I really do not want this discussion to pick up again, I've had my dose of it in the past.

[kanelives]

I don't want to bother stupid chris with this, so he doesn't need to answer but for some reason I can't change the size of the chutes anymore. All they do is move up and down a bit when I change the size. It must be because of something I've installed recently but I'm not sure what it was. If anyone has a similar issue and knows what it is then that'd be cool. Otherwise I'll figure it out. I think all i recently installed was deadly reentry, those fasa launch towers, and time control. I'll try taking those out and see what happens.

Edited December 3, 2014 by kanelives

[Joshwoo70]

You are b***** kidding me!?!? What's the point in Reddit and Squad trying to fix the problems with Win64 if you have modders like this taking the DB "WIN64MUSTDIE" attitude? At least some people are willing to help them improve the game then abandoning it and telling everyone to "Install Linux". 0_o

Being rude does not solve anything. CALM DOWN.

I agree with squad and reddit thing.

BUT. It IS NOT squad's fault but ultimately unity. As 64bit versions of unity ARE buggy.

End of discussion!

lets get over it and continue on with our lives.

[Starwaster]

I blame Nibiru.