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

[stupid_chris]

So are the new ground activated chutes in response to a request from wile. e. coyote?

Nah, althought that would be funny

But as Starwaster said, they're for drag chutes/planes. By setting this in the editor, without even needing to arm/deploy your chutes, they will automatically deploy when you touch the ground

[SilentGunner13]

Ah. That's a great help. Didn't realise that change had occurred! thanks!

[AlphaAsh]

Getting some odd behaviour from the inline/stacking chute part and trying to track down the cause. Basically on launch there's a massive delay coming out of the VAB, then the stack chute 'falls' out of the stack and explodes. Doesn't happen reliably but seems more often when any other part is attached to the chute radially. Anyone else seen this?

[stupid_chris]

Getting some odd behaviour from the inline/stacking chute part and trying to track down the cause. Basically on launch there's a massive delay coming out of the VAB, then the stack chute 'falls' out of the stack and explodes. Doesn't happen reliably but seems more often when any other part is attached to the chute radially. Anyone else seen this?

Try removing your mods, that sounds a lot like a bad interaction with something else. Otherway, without your output_log.txt I can't tell much.

[Honeybadga]

I have a couple of questions:

I set the texture of my stack chute part to combo and the model to triple. What do these settings actually do?

Also, can someone explain what secondary chutes are/do? Thanks in advance.

[stupid_chris]

I have a couple of questions:

I set the texture of my stack chute part to combo and the model to triple. What do these settings actually do?

http://i.imgur.com/PUpX15S.png

Also, can someone explain what secondary chutes are/do? Thanks in advance.

The number of parachutes used at the same time. Let's say you are landing a craft on Duna, with, say, five chutes. Well you'd write five in there (in numbers, that is).

And secondary chutes are simply a second chute on the same part. That's all. It's the same thing as the main chute. Does whatever you want it to really.

[Honeybadga]

The number of parachutes used at the same time. Let's say you are landing a craft on Duna, with, say, five chutes. Well you'd write five in there (in numbers, that is).

And secondary chutes are simply a second chute on the same part. That's all. It's the same thing as the main chute. Does whatever you want it to really.

Awesome, thanks!

[stupid_chris]

Alright, so I've been doing some work tonight and...

So basically, the background work is done. The objects are there, the data management is there, the GUI is there.. all I really need to write is the actual creation of those presets from the current data of a chute, and also importing the data of a preset into a chute.

Not sure when I'll be releasing this, but it'll ease up a lot on the complexity of the GUI

EDIT:

Also, after banging my head against the wall a lot, I gave up resizing stock canopies and others. Turns out that the canopy for the mk16 at normal scale (1, 1, 1) is flat. So instead of bending my brains over this, I decided to just go ahead and replace stock canopies on the fly for mine:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

This means the ability to change from a single/triple canopies on all stock chutes, as well as switching between main/drogue textures.

Hopefully that pleases a few people

Cheers!

Edited April 22, 2014 by stupid_chris

[Geschosskopf]

Please forgive my ignorance and inability to find the answer in this massive thread even with the linked posts in big red capital letters. But what exactly is supposed to be tweakable and procedural in this mod?

When I put one of these chutes on a rocket, a right-click just brings up a box that says "Toggle Info". So I do that and another box comes up full of green text saying what the chute's stats are. However, nothing there is at all interative. There are no buttons to push, no boxes to type inputs, no sliders, not even the stock ability to change opening altitudes.

This is my 1st time ever using this mod, just downloaded 1.0.5 with no older versions lying around. I installed the mod itself and also the ModuleManager stuff. I already had the latter as a standalone anyway.

Now, I originally got RealChute not for itself but because the docking port chutes in SDHI and Aerojet Kerbodyne require it. The parachute function of those parts doesn't even appear in the game without RealChute installed. But with RealChute, those docking port chutes not only work just fine but are also fully tweakable. Right-click brings up a long list of sliders for their various properties, which looks nothing at all like the RealChute UI shown in some of the screenshots here (and which I don't get at all).

So what am I doing wrong here? Thanks.

[Mokmo]

When I put one of these chutes on a rocket, a right-click just brings up a box that says "Toggle Info". So I do that and another box comes up full of green text saying what the chute's stats are. However, nothing there is at all interative. There are no buttons to push, no boxes to type inputs, no sliders, not even the stock ability to change opening altitudes.

Action Group Mode: click parachute, a window will appear. That's your tweakable thing

[ghimb2000]

*snip*

Didn't notice the post above

Edited April 23, 2014 by ghimb2000
Redundant

[stupid_chris]

Please forgive my ignorance and inability to find the answer in this massive thread even with the linked posts in big red capital letters. But what exactly is supposed to be tweakable and procedural in this mod?

*snip rest of the post*

Now for the big feature, the editor window. You can access it by going in the action group panel and clicking on a RealChute part. The window will show on it's own and everything will be there. Most things are self explanatory. If you see a label turn red, it's because the value you entered is not correct. Either it's out of the accepted range, either there's a mistake somewhere. This means change it, else application will not work.

So yeah, as the others said, go in the action groups panel, and click on a chute. Voila.

What SDHI uses is the oudated method, and I'll have to send an updated config to sumghai, I just haven't had the time really.

[Z3R0_0NL1N3]

Homegrown Rockets has a parachute for its SoyJuice module. How does one make that compatible with RealChute. Or, can RealChute come with a Module Manager file for it in the future?

[Drew Kerman]

I'm attaching a probe drop to the wing of my aircraft, and it needs a chute. Can't auto calculate because I built it while the plane was loaded, so it can't exist on its own. When I manually input the weight, am I inputting the weight of *just* the object the chute is being attached to? Because the chute itself adds weight depending on the size of the canopy needed to lower the object at a given rate. I would assume you give the chute the object weight and it factors in its own weight when you tell it how slow to descend but just want to make sure

[Starwaster]

I'm attaching a probe drop to the wing of my aircraft, and it needs a chute. Can't auto calculate because I built it while the plane was loaded, so it can't exist on its own. When I manually input the weight, am I inputting the weight of *just* the object the chute is being attached to? Because the chute itself adds weight depending on the size of the canopy needed to lower the object at a given rate. I would assume you give the chute the object weight and it factors in its own weight when you tell it how slow to descend but just want to make sure

No, add up the weight of every part that will be on the thing you're dropping. If your probe thing that you drop has 6 parts including the parachute module then you want to add the weight of all six parts. And... I guess you want the weight local to the planet you're going to be deploying this too.... not sure.

[stupid_chris]

I'm attaching a probe drop to the wing of my aircraft, and it needs a chute. Can't auto calculate because I built it while the plane was loaded, so it can't exist on its own. When I manually input the weight, am I inputting the weight of *just* the object the chute is being attached to? Because the chute itself adds weight depending on the size of the canopy needed to lower the object at a given rate. I would assume you give the chute the object weight and it factors in its own weight when you tell it how slow to descend but just want to make sure

Add the full mass of the object, plus the case mass of the parachute, the mass of the parachute itself won't have a large enough influence to get past the rounding. IIRC, it doesn't show case mass, but for a cone chute, dry mass is 0.3 for 1.25m, 0.1 for 0.625m and 0.7 for 2.5m.

And no, Starwaster, as it says on the tin, you put in "mass", not weight, and that doesn't change with gravity

[Geschosskopf]

Thanks for the help on how to adjust things via the action groups.

To prevent wastes of space like my question, and confusion amongst other idiots, it might be helpful if the text boxes when you mouse over parts in the editor said they were adjustable via action group instead of being tweakable, which mean different things at least to me

[stupid_chris]

Thanks for the help on how to adjust things via the action groups.

To prevent wastes of space like my question, and confusion amongst other idiots, it might be helpful if the text boxes when you mouse over parts in the editor said they were adjustable via action group instead of being tweakable, which mean different things at least to me

"This RealChute part can be tweaked from the Action Groups window."

I'm...not sure how I can make it more clear that it's from the action group window you do it :/

EDIT:

Homegrown Rockets has a parachute for its SoyJuice module. How does one make that compatible with RealChute. Or, can RealChute come with a Module Manager file for it in the future?

I'll see about adding one for next update.

Edited April 23, 2014 by stupid_chris

[Taki117]

I've run into an interesting bug with the drag chutes. This might just be me, but when landing with a deployed chute my surface speed actually increased. Going from a "safe" landing speed of about 180m/s to well over 300m/s at touch down resulting in rapid unplanned disassembly.

[Starwaster]

I'm...not sure how I can make it more clear that it's from the action group window you do it :/

I recommend flashing neon lights.

[Starstrider42]

I've run into an interesting bug with the drag chutes. This might just be me, but when landing with a deployed chute my surface speed actually increased. Going from a "safe" landing speed of about 180m/s to well over 300m/s at touch down resulting in rapid unplanned disassembly.

That sounds like you're using the April Fool's edition of the mod. Download the current version instead.

[Taki117]

That sounds like you're using the April Fool's edition of the mod. Download the current version instead.

So that's what setting "jokeActivated = True" does... Thanks for clearing that up. I thought all it did was add the Plastic Bag and Potato sack materials.

Edited April 26, 2014 by Taki117

[Sufficient Anonymity]

So that's what setting "jokeActivated = True" does... Thanks for clearing that up. I thought all it did was add the Plastic Bag and Potato sack materials.

Heh. I'm totally going to have to mess around with that this evening. Sorry, Jeb, t'was nice knowing you.

[stupid_chris]

I recommend flashing neon lights.

Bill doesn't like them :/

So that's what setting "jokeActivated = True" does... Thanks for clearing that up. I thought all it did was add the Plastic Bag and Potato sack materials.

Huehuehue

Also guys, just wanted to tell you all that the next update is just about to hit!

And hold tight to your seats, because this is a big one. A lot of content in this update, it's going to be quite awesome

[stupid_chris]

Alright guys, v1.1 released

Changelog:

April 27th 2014
v1.1
-Extensive code refactoring in both PartModules to clean up a little (no, a lot really)
-Augmented FAR support: when FAR is installed, RealChute will now fetch it's density values
-New size nodes allow changing the attach nodes size when cycling through the different selections
-Presets are now a thing: You can create them, apply them, delete them, but not eat them
-A wide selection of presets are included by default to mimick all the past chutes and allow for quick parachute modification
-Stock chutes will now use the RealChute canopies, and will have procedural size according to their diameter
-Better support for the settings file
-Cleaned the editor GUI a little
-Now uses ModuleManager v2.0.3

The changelog is rather small, but the amount of work and changes actually implied by those things are huge.

The refactoring of the code is a huge thing in itself. Presets are as well, and most of my work for this last update went into making sure this works as well as possible. A lot of work was also done laying foundations for future features I have in mind.

Now for presets: I believe the UI is rather simple. I've included some basic presets to simplify you guy's life. Also, I've worked out some reflection code to access FAR's density code, so for those of you using it, you should see some much better behaviour

That's about it, cheers!

EDIT:

I'm judging you ಠ_ಠ

Edited April 27, 2014 by stupid_chris