[WIP][TechTree @ 0.23.5] - [MS19e] - Realistic Progression LITE

[MedievalNerd]

About the planes: keep in mind that many people consider planes incredibly hard in ksp. That's because they are.

While some may love the idea of planes (I support plane experiments fully), some may not like the idea. I would suggest keeping the plane experiments optional, especially if you choose to balance them with AJE (ever tried to merely reach mach 4 with just AJE's jet engines?).

With MCE, it's fairly easy to keep the plane mission tree separate from the rest, while with custom experiments, it's hard to keep balance for all players due to some skilled pilots exploiting the science from the atmospheric flights, while others shun it and try to avoid any atmospheric level flight altogether.

I can't build a plane to save my life. It will be optional.

D:

[kasperhangard]

UUhm guys??? i think i have installed this correctly, but i probably haven't. cause i get this tiiinie tiny probe with GINORMOUS engines. it is kinda wierd. what have i done wrong?

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

Can someone make a working build with all the mods and upload it to somewhere maybe? i REALLY wanna play RPL!

[Visari]

AIES is your best source of small engines, I recommend you install it.

[MedievalNerd]

UUhm guys??? i think i have installed this correctly, but i probably haven't. cause i get this tiiinie tiny probe with GINORMOUS engines. it is kinda wierd. what have i done wrong?

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

Can someone make a working build with all the mods and upload it to somewhere maybe? i REALLY wanna play RPL!

That would violate licenses I'm afraid. I'm going to do the hotfix this weekend, got a date with NathanKell Ouuu! Once the hotfixe is done, i'll also update the OP and instructions to match the current state of things. I'll also do a dev blog video on how to install and get started with RPL. As well as to a little overview of the tree and where to look for what.

Hang in there,

[kasperhangard]

That would violate licenses I'm afraid. I'm going to do the hotfix this weekend, got a date with NathanKell Ouuu! Once the hotfixe is done, i'll also update the OP and instructions to match the current state of things. I'll also do a dev blog video on how to install and get started with RPL. As well as to a little overview of the tree and where to look for what.

Hang in there,

This. Sound. Sexy! Looking forward to it!

[Mirean]

Yes, uploading all mods together in one pack isn't possible because of some license regulations, BUT there is a java application which will download them all for you and compile into a GameData folder, which you then only copy into your KSP folder and you are good to go.

The application is called ModBundler and you can find it here http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67668-Mod-bundler-for-Real-Solar-System-%28DEFUNCT%29

It says it is defunct now (updated few hours ago), but I used it few days ago and it works as advertised. As long as you grab it soon enough before any of the mods goes through a major update, it will work just fine.

[Guest]

to repost this (as i feel its an important point)

Humm, someone really needs to talk with all these mod authors... I know everyone wants control over their own work, but this "oh hey you, dont distribute my mod in a package! or else!!" mentality is causing lots of issues and steep learning curves.

not to be a tyrant, but, but a notice of "allow redistribution (with work credited) or face dis-inclusion and replacement" might rattle some cages. Like really if author "X" is being uncooperative how hard would it be to re-write their code and banish them to the nether?

Like i said, i dont want to sound like a tyrant... but if they wont play nice...dont invite them out to play at all....

[MedievalNerd]

to repost this (as i feel its an important point)

Humm, someone really needs to talk with all these mod authors... I know everyone wants control over their own work, but this "oh hey you, dont distribute my mod in a package! or else!!" mentality is causing lots of issues and steep learning curves.

not to be a tyrant, but, but a notice of "allow redistribution (with work credited) or face dis-inclusion and replacement" might rattle some cages. Like really if author "X" is being uncooperative how hard would it be to re-write their code and banish them to the nether?

Like i said, i dont want to sound like a tyrant... but if they wont play nice...dont invite them out to play at all....

We've already tried to do a pack with the cooperation of many mod authors, but the uneven progress of each mod makes it a huge pain to maintain. It's not worth it.

There are mod packagers that have popped up a while back, where you could select the mods you want and it would download them etc. I'm a bit of a manual installation type of person, so I'm not that keen in investigating those options.

[Guest]

well, manual installs for all then

with abit of time given there will be nice easy step by step instructions for not only this package but anyothers that come into existence. I hope everyone that is having issues isnt shy to ask questions or for help... there are so many helpful people in the KSP community THAT WILL HELP YOU, if you ask

[Sternface]

Quick note: X-20 was similar to Mercury in that it carried one person for a few orbits. It was similar to Orion in that it massed seven freaking tons dry, and ten wet. Which would be why it was canceled, since it would offer "Mercury with a tiny bit of cargo" in 1965, and need a more powerful booster than Gemini to reach orbit.

It was mostly based on the hilariously optimistic estimates of what reentry heating would be like that Saenger, and followers, made; and even then it's not super-clear that DynaSoar *was* shielded enough, IIRC.

<Snip>

Sternface: Heh, that reminds me of the various Minuteman (etc) patches and graffiti.

Lol, nice. In general aviation we have our $100 hamburger (basically an excuse to fly somewhere). Seems like rocketry has its $7,000,000 pizza

Interesting bout the X-20 - never knew that!

MedievalNerd: That custom module sounds pretty cool if you ever find the time for that

Time to familiarize myself with the mechanics of your custom experiments!

Now, assuming everything works out and this turns into something you like, I could see a plane tech branch as being another alternative for how you currently have the supplemental branch using stock science to fill in the gaps. Assuming your tree keeps the alternate stock science, it could then be used as a replacement for stock science for those interested - making it optional without the annoyances of maintaining different trees.

well, manual installs for all then

It's not exactly rocket science

P.S. But it can be confusing. Are there any installation guides anywhere? Would be cool to have a single post containing all the links, patches, fixes, and problems.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Sternface

[romie]

am not sure if this been answered but am using ProceduralParts but the sizes are not getting bigger am i doing something wrong

[gutza1]

Will this work with the 10x rescaled stock planets?

[MedievalNerd]

Will this work with the 10x rescaled stock planets?

Yes, and no.

Yes because it's not dependent on any mod per say to 'work', except the RPL pluging & tree. But with a stock setup of the planets/moons, you'll get weird progression. Like Minmus is Saturn I think. Stuff like that.

[NathanKell]

Visari: am I weird for finding planes remarkably easy? Is the difficulty design or flying?

kasperhangard: you're comparing a 6.5 inch (16.5cm)-diameter probe with multiple-meter-diameter engines. Of course it's going to look like that. And the Vanguard satellites were of course designed just to be placed in orbit, not to actually act as controllable probes. If you use a decent-sized probe core (like the Hex or Cube) and, say, the LV-1 or LV-1R (LR11R and Equiso ® respectively) it should be a better match. Also AIES has tons of small engines, as Visari mentions.

Aazard: I'm in full agreement with many other mod makers who are skeptical of mod packs, for a variety of reasons, chiefly that it's a devil of a time keeping them up to date (and the mod pack maintainer often stops maintaining--casting no aspersions, RL is a pain!--), leading to multiple versions of mods floating around and support headaches; it leads to people posting support requests in the wrong threads (I installed this pack, and I heard FAR is hard, so I'm gonna blame ferram for this problem even if it has to do with parts breaking due to attach node issues); and the like. See this collection of threads on modpacks, featuring comments from a number of prominent modders.

That said, we *are* aware of how difficult RO/RPL etc is to install; I've posted on the Mod Bundler thread that if no one steps up to maintain it I will, and Medieval Nerd and I will be making some really good installation instructions (and he a video tutorial) this weekend, for manual installs.

Finally, I think the approach you advocate will be counterproductive. Most modders are not in it for the thrill of being supported by RO, let me tell you; and indeed many are on the edge of their patience as it is with constant requests and "is it done yet? is it done yet?" posts, and installation problems being reported as bugs (sarbian? patience of a saint), and the like. (And as above, even if they do permit inclusion in packs, that's likely to make their life harder, not easier!)

I mean, let me say that I appreciate the spirit in which you made that post, absolutely, and I'm glad you're trying to think of ways to make this work better. I just happen to disagree (somewhat) with the approach.

[Visari]

it leads to people posting support requests in the wrong threads (I installed this pack, and I heard FAR is hard, so I'm gonna blame ferram for this problem even if it has to do with parts breaking due to attach node issues)

This I always imagined to be the biggest moodkiller for any mod author. I have deep respect for those patient people who continue through it all and even help out people whose posting attitudes appear negative in the first place.

Visari: am I weird for finding planes remarkably easy? Is the difficulty design or flying?

Not weird. Experienced or lucky to have good intuition, or limiting yourself to general planes.

Many people have trouble just taking off without crashing at all. You got to mach 5.5, but could always optimize your plane.

The more specific a task you need your plane to accomplish, the harder it gets to design it. The worse you design it, the harder it gets to fly it.

If you want to challenge your plane building skills, try an STOL capable of horizontal landing on the VAB helipad without rocket assisted landing or vertical thrusters).

Many things that can make designing and flying a plane much harder, even for the experienced engineer.

[MedievalNerd]

What a night! Had an excessively productive chat session with NathanKell! Went over the fix list, so stuff like the patch cfg files, the tech levels, the width of fairings/tanks. All sorted!

Got a few more things I need to work on/fix, but the list grows short!

I'm quite confident I'll have the hotfix ready to fire come Sunday!

Hang in there everyone,

[NathanKell]

Visari: Challenge accepted.

(I have flown sims for, jeez, 25 years by now, and have a full HOTAS setup, so...)

Hmm. I wonder what would happen if I added a 175-degree gimbal range to simulate thrust-reversers?

[NathanKell]

Challenge completed!

Here's my electric STOL light plane. Stalls at 45kts (23.15m/s), cruises at about 60 (31m/s), max speed about 110 (57m/s). Uses Firespitter foldable electric thrust-limited to 5.5%

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Note that in the second pic I actually bounced on landing on the ledge right before the helipad; later I did land on the pad itself but didn't snap a pic. Doh!

[Ratzap]

kasperhangard: you're comparing a 6.5 inch (16.5cm)-diameter probe with multiple-meter-diameter engines. Of course it's going to look like that. And the Vanguard satellites were of course designed just to be placed in orbit, not to actually act as controllable probes. If you use a decent-sized probe core (like the Hex or Cube) and, say, the LV-1 or LV-1R (LR11R and Equiso ® respectively) it should be a better match. Also AIES has tons of small engines, as Visari mentions.

You're right of course, the problem for him comes from the new probe tree layout in ML19a I think. You get WAC, explorer, sputnik and resizes thereof but nothing else. All the other probes which are easier to build with are in 'future probe bin' - which is fine since I love the progressive use of the probes in one-off experiments but it does mean having to use weird little things until you find that node.

PS: I also find planes really easy to build and fly. Follow some basic rules and it's simple.

[Visari]

Challenge completed!

A good start, I can see you have experience building planes, and with 25 years of experience and such a setup, piloting them is a cakewalk for you. If you truly want the hardest of plane challenges, Dirt_Merchant and I often challenge each other with some miscellaneous things in Kerbal Live Feed. Feel free to drop in!

Examples would be to get a plane to land the way you did it, but still allow the same plane to reach speeds of mach 3 and up. Another, and by far the one I learned from most, was building a helicopter using IR's free moving docking washer, with jet engines mounted on the Pwing rotors powering the thing. Had to actually get a swashplate working to steer the thing.

[CerberusRCAF]

What a night! Had an excessively productive chat session with NathanKell! Went over the fix list, so stuff like the patch cfg files, the tech levels, the width of fairings/tanks. All sorted!

Got a few more things I need to work on/fix, but the list grows short!

I'm quite confident I'll have the hotfix ready to fire come Sunday!

Hang in there everyone,

Great news! I'm just starting up an RPL/RO/RSS/etc. YouTube series and got a pro-tip to wait for 19b.

Challenge completed!

Here's my electric STOL light plane. Stalls at 45kts (23.15m/s), cruises at about 60 (31m/s), max speed about 110 (57m/s). Uses Firespitter foldable electric thrust-limited to 5.5%

<imgur gallery was here>

Note that in the second pic I actually bounced on landing on the ledge right before the helipad; later I did land on the pad itself but didn't snap a pic. Doh!

This is fantastic!

[MedievalNerd]

Great news! I'm just starting up an RPL/RO/RSS/etc. YouTube series and got a pro-tip to wait for 19b.

This is fantastic!

Awesome, PM me the link.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

First of all, thank you lots and lots for all that work and even though I didn't get it to work out, I'm very grateful for everything you did for us all.

Second, I did what Aazard and Sternface suggested (and for the record, the startup procedure for the LEM had fewer pages and steps!). But my guess is that still something is amiss. I still only have two tiny fuel tanks (Oscar-B and AIES T-60) after unlocking all the 0 cost items, I still only have WAC and Vanguard 1 as probe cores (shouldn't there be Explorer1 as well? I dimly remember seeing it back when M18 was in place), I still have a rather ... odd collection of engines available (what's the massive P4, a TL4 engine, doing in the mix of bottle rocket engines that makes up my collection), the engines still don't "fit" on the fuel tanks I have (they're either too small or WAY too large)...

I guess I'll do what I should've done in the first place, wait for the next milestone. Thanks for all the work and help, even though it seems I somehow didn't manage to follow it completely.

[Creature]

I guess I'll do what I should've done in the first place, wait for the next milestone. Thanks for all the work and help, even though it seems I somehow didn't manage to follow it completely.

I'm having the same problems than you, so either we're both noobing it up big time of there's something else going on.

Anyways, wanted to say I'm loving these realism mods even though I'm far from proficient in KSP so just getting to orbit is a huge challenge

Technical issues aside, one suggestion that I'd like to see at some point is a bit more informative VAB descriptions for the experiments. It's not a biggie, but it's a bit non-user friendly that you need to actually get outside to see what the experiments on a probe are and even then you're a bit unsure about the conditions.

[MedievalNerd]

I'm having the same problems than you, so either we're both noobing it up big time of there's something else going on.

Anyways, wanted to say I'm loving these realism mods even though I'm far from proficient in KSP so just getting to orbit is a huge challenge

Technical issues aside, one suggestion that I'd like to see at some point is a bit more informative VAB descriptions for the experiments. It's not a biggie, but it's a bit non-user friendly that you need to actually get outside to see what the experiments on a probe are and even then you're a bit unsure about the conditions.

Howdy!

With the hotfix, most of this stuff is history. (coming today most likely)

But for the VAB information. I'm actually stuck with some stupid problems of description lenght/size. I tried to put more info in the research nodes, but someone pointed out that my long winded description spills out of the boxes. D:

Going to have to find a clever fix for that one I'm afraid.