[1.12] Extraplanetary Launchpads v6.99.3

[GokouZWAR]

I have released version 5.2.1 of EL. Links in the first post.

Changes from 5.2.0:

• Fix doubled resources on partial fills (thanks to GokouZWAR for the heads-up and initial stabs at finding the bug).
  
• Fix early completion of build teardown when out of storage for the resources.
  

Np glad I could help (even if it wasn't much). Love the mod! Installing the new version now!

[mkrco]

Hi, I've noticed a problem with my rocketparts. Specifically, when I design a ship in the VAB the little EL tool will say I need ~200 rocketparts to build it, but then when I go out to actually construct it at my station it needs ~1000 rocketparts. I'm using tweakscale on some of my parts, as well as procedural parts. Could that be the problem?

[taniwha]

mkrco: yes, that will be the problem, though I do not know if it's TS, PP, or both. Does the RocketParts requirement at your station seem reasonable (400u per ton of dry mass)? If so, I might be able to fix it.

[edit] An easy way to check the dry mass is to build the ship, set all of the resource sliders to zero, and release it. You can then get the mass from the info panel in the map view.

Edited July 1, 2015 by taniwha

[mkrco]

mkrco: yes, that will be the problem, though I do not know if it's TS, PP, or both. Does the RocketParts requirement at your station seem reasonable (400u per ton of dry mass)? If so, I might be able to fix it.

[edit] An easy way to check the dry mass is to build the ship, set all of the resource sliders to zero, and release it. You can then get the mass from the info panel in the map view.

Hi taniwha, thanks for the quick response. I did some testing, and I'm pretty sure it's not TS. But PP is the cullprit. If you take just a cylindrical Procedural Liquid Tank with Diam 1.25m and Length 1.0m filled with LFO it'll have:

Drymass 133.6 kg

Resource Mass: 1.069t

Total Mass: 1.203t

the EL tool's masses in the VAB agree with the PP masses when you right click the part. And the correct RP estimate is 53.46u. However, when I go to build it it actually requires 400 rocketparts exactly. Seems odd that it'd be exactly 400.

EDIT: It seems that no matter what dimensions I use on the procedural tank, or whether it's full of resources or not EL always requires 400 rp for it when it's time to build. However, EL does always estimate the correct rp amount in the VAB.

Edited July 1, 2015 by mkrco

[taniwha]

Sounds like PP waits a frame or two before setting the part mass. This will be a messy fix and I'm feeling rather demotivated right now due to KSP deciding that z1k batteries should explode due to thermal bugs

[GokouZWAR]

Hey I figured out my bug I had when I loaded 5.2.0 into the game originally where the pad wouldn't show the UI buttons to open the UI for the build window.

Feel bad now too...

The problem was that there were no kerbals in the control module :/

I spent nearly 2.5 hours looking at the save file, reloading Ksp from scratch reloading all my mods...I even got hyper edit to basically rebuild and relaunch the ship. When I got into the station to move it I put Valentina into the cockpit and started to fly it over to the relaunched station to transfer people over then I realized the menu worked.

I was thinking that it would help to put an error message in the pad control window that says "not enough crew" or something so users won't have to go through that.

At least now I'm on the latest versions of stuff and my new station was built.

One other bug I need to test more though is leaving a ship on the pad without releasing it then close the game out and come back into the game. The vehicle on the pad doesn't seem to be defined as a vehicle in post build/ pre-launch phase. It became part of the actual vehicle and the orbital dock module part wouldn't identify it as a launchable ship. I had to build another ship on the pad and release it (which promptly caused much fire and destruction) but it actually left a floating portion of the ship that wasn't near to the released ship (still attached To the primary station mind you) so I had to Eva out a kerbal and literally dismantle the "ship" into its separate parts then terminate each of the floating parts to get rid of it. Quite annoying but I was able to clear it at least. A larger ship may have not been so lucky. The parts were small enough one kerbal could move them around using KAS. But someone without KAS would have been royally shafted. :/

[kStrout]

Hello I've just started using this mod and love it except for one thing, I don't have a part which lets me construct ships in orbit, I only have the launchpad and runway and those look silly on a space station, any idea what's going on?

[goldenpsp]

Hello I've just started using this mod and love it except for one thing, I don't have a part which lets me construct ships in orbit, I only have the launchpad and runway and those look silly on a space station, any idea what's going on?

Bad install? Haven't unlocked it yet? Just can't find it? It should look like this

[GokouZWAR]

If you're not already check in sandbox mode.

If you're in career mode and you can build the workshops then you can build the orbital dock and the el survey station that looks like the hitchhiker module that holds 4 kerbals. Either will launch ships in orbit. The latter requires the spikes but you can attach them to the side of a ship and I assume launch a vehicle on them as well in a pinch (though I've never tested it before). They work on the ground but beware of explosions. I always F5 before finalizing any builds just in case.

Edited July 1, 2015 by GokouZWAR

[taniwha]

One other bug I need to test more though is leaving a ship on the pad without releasing it then close the game out and come back into the game. The vehicle on the pad doesn't seem to be defined as a vehicle in post build/ pre-launch phase. It became part of the actual vehicle and the orbital dock module part wouldn't identify it as a launchable ship. I had to build another ship on the pad and release it (which promptly caused much fire and destruction) but it actually left a floating portion of the ship that wasn't near to the released ship (still attached To the primary station mind you) so I had to Eva out a kerbal and literally dismantle the "ship" into its separate parts then terminate each of the floating parts to get rid of it. Quite annoying but I was able to clear it at least. A larger ship may have not been so lucky. The parts were small enough one kerbal could move them around using KAS. But someone without KAS would have been royally shafted. :/

Hmm, I do that quite often without any problems. Are you doing anything to the built ship between finalizing and releasing? (docking, KIS stuff, etc) I have had some issues caused by docking, though not for a while. However, I suspect that's because I've been making my orbital docks stations and thus they win the docking lottery (note: no such lottery for EL, just for docking via docking ports).

[kStrout]

Well after some more checking I was able to find the file, but it still doesn't appear in the game, neither does the first launch pad. The runway and launchpad 2 as well as all the other parts appear though.

[taniwha]

kStrout: the first launchpad not being there is to be expected: it has been deprecated. The orbital dock is in Utilities in the O section, or you can look in the part filter: filter by module, EL Launchpad. Since the cfg file is there, and presumably the data files, if you still can't find it, either you didn't "purchase" it in R&D, or some other mod has disabled it.

[GokouZWAR]

Hmm, I do that quite often without any problems. Are you doing anything to the built ship between finalizing and releasing? (docking, KIS stuff, etc) I have had some issues caused by docking, though not for a while. However, I suspect that's because I've been making my orbital docks stations and thus they win the docking lottery (note: no such lottery for EL, just for docking via docking ports).

I'll test it out again. I had it happen on the stream a few nights ago I'll have to go back and watch them to see specifics as to what happened and what I did. I'm pretty sure it was on the pad I logged out for the nigh with it on the pad then came back the next day and it was part of the ship. It had not been "released" but I did "finalize" it.

I've been getting around this by never leaving an unreleased ship on the pad. I don't launch it until I'm ready to use it. I also f5 before any finalize so I can roll back in the event of a failure.

Unrelated to the above:

I was a little disappointed though and maybe you can figure this out and make it so it'll work:

Career mode gives you missions to launch space stations in orbit and land ground bases on the ground, but whenever I launch them from orbit the career contract does not give the ship "credit" as a "new" ship so I don't get credit for completing the contract. I have double and triple checked the minimum requirements but it never allows it to complete. I even tried the flag too on a new crew module (coupla and a science pod with docking port and antenna and solar power). The only thing I haven't got credit for so far is that last part that usually requires a "new ship, antenna, docking port and ability to generate power" part. Everything else registers. The only thing I can come up with is because it's launched from another ship it doesn't count it as "new".

My bet is that it counts it like an undock instead of a new ship. If you can fix that I would love you long time!!

Edited July 2, 2015 by GokouZWAR

[taniwha]

GokouZWAR: I'm actually in the process of testing "new" myself. One thing I know is that if any part of the vessel is older than the contract, it won't be accepted. The question is whether the launchID of the parts is getting set correctly (that's how "new" is detremined: part.launchID > contract.launchID).

I know that KIS fixed an issue where it was setting launchID of placed parts to 0. EL uses ShipConstruction.AssembleForLaunch() to initialize the built ship, so launchID should be getting set correctly (and looking in my persisten.sfs, it seems to be). I think I need only to get an antenna on my new station, undock it (I docked it to the parent station so it wouldn't float away) and then I'll find out, so I expect I'll know tonight.

To check the required launchID, look in the CONTRACTS section, find the relevant contract, then check FacilitySystemsParameter. Mine says 67, and all the new parts I've built are around 140, but docked to a station mostly in the 50s (with a few 0s due to placing the parts with an older KIS).

[GokouZWAR]

GokouZWAR: I'm actually in the process of testing "new" myself. One thing I know is that if any part of the vessel is older than the contract, it won't be accepted. The question is whether the launchID of the parts is getting set correctly (that's how "new" is detremined: part.launchID > contract.launchID).

I know that KIS fixed an issue where it was setting launchID of placed parts to 0. EL uses ShipConstruction.AssembleForLaunch() to initialize the built ship, so launchID should be getting set correctly (and looking in my persisten.sfs, it seems to be). I think I need only to get an antenna on my new station, undock it (I docked it to the parent station so it wouldn't float away) and then I'll find out, so I expect I'll know tonight.

To check the required launchID, look in the CONTRACTS section, find the relevant contract, then check FacilitySystemsParameter. Mine says 67, and all the new parts I've built are around 140, but docked to a station mostly in the 50s (with a few 0s due to placing the parts with an older KIS).

Not sure how but I managed to get credit for the "new" station finally. I had launched it without a control module initially and installed it after the fact but didn't get credit. I went and did some mun missions and flew the crew back to the orbiting station and ended up designing a new station I was going to put in orbit as a test with all the minimum requirements, but I needed more metal supplies so i took a fuel tanker to the station and when I did it fueled it up and it gave me credit for it when I refueled it. (or at some point near to that it did, i didn't see exactly when it came up). Any rate, I had already launched this entire station after I got the contract so I was about to dismiss your assumptions about the ID numbers, but it may be correct. The current system does allow for it so no need to change anything. It just takes a little work to get it to work. So now it looks like I'll use my minimalist station for my Mun orbital station instead. It takes about 10k rocket parts less as well which is great.

[kStrout]

kStrout: the first launchpad not being there is to be expected: it has been deprecated. The orbital dock is in Utilities in the O section, or you can look in the part filter: filter by module, EL Launchpad. Since the cfg file is there, and presumably the data files, if you still can't find it, either you didn't "purchase" it in R&D, or some other mod has disabled it.

The only other mods I am using are Interstellar and tweakscale, and I am looking for it in sandbox mode and it still isn't there.

[taniwha]

Ok, try searching your logs for ExOrbitalDock. There may be an error while loading the part.

[taniwha]

GokouZWAR: I have established that it is (or would be) fairly easy to get an EL built vessel to qualify... so long as KIS doesn't interfere. KIS's choice of laucnID for parts taken from containers seems to be unreliable. Container->KerbalEVA-inventory sets it to 0, dropping the part first seems to depend on the rest of the ship to which the container is attached. However, if I edit that one part, the contract clears. If I had put an antenna on one of the modules in the first place, I'm pretty certain the contract would have cleared.

[TheGroovyMule]

@taniwha

A quick question for you! I'm pretty new to the mod but I was wanting to modify it so I can fly and "store" parts in space for building as opposed to using generic rocket parts. I figured the best way to do this was to modify the recycle bin to recycle 1:1 for rocket parts as opposed to metal. I've been poking around in the .cfg files and I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. What would I need to modify to get this effect? Thanks!

[taniwha]

TheGroovyMule: The target resource can be set in GameData/ExtraplanetaryLaunchpads/Settings.cfg via HullRecycleTarget, but the 80% recovery is currently hard-coded in Recycler.cs, so you will have to modify the code too (make, git, mono, and (if using windows) msys are required to build EL).

[Mitchz95]

Hello, I have two questions.

1) How do I break down parts into Scrap Metal?

2) I came back to the game after a brief hiatus, and found that each planet now has a lot of different resources on it: Karbonite, Minerals, Substrate, etc. I don;t use Karbonite, and I haven't installed or updated any mods in a while. Do you know where all these came from? Also, what's the difference between MetalOre and MetallicOre?

[taniwha]

Mitchz95: It sounds like you have either MKS or ORS installed (thus the extra resources). MetalicOre is, I believe MKS (or maybe ORS).

As for parts into scrap metal: see my reply to TheGroovyMule (the post immediately before yours). Just set HullRecycleTarget to ScrapMetal.

[Mitchz95]

It sounds like you have either MKS or ORS installed (thus the extra resources). MetalicOre is, I believe MKS (or maybe ORS).

Pardon my ignorance, but what do MKS and ORS stand for?

As for parts into scrap metal: see my reply to TheGroovyMule (the post immediately before yours). Just set HullRecycleTarget to ScrapMetal.

I mean, where is the button to recycle parts? I can't seem to find the prompts.

[taniwha]

Mitchz95: iirc, MKS is Modular Kolonization System (RoverDude's USI stuff), and ORS is Open Resource System.

You have to get the parts you want recycled into a recycling bin (for a large vessel, even just the tip of an antenna is sufficient), switch to the vessel with the recycling bin, and activate the recycling bin (via the right-click menu). I highly recommend evacuating any Kerbals from the ship to be recycled. I also recommend deactivating the recycling bin straight away.

BTW, the default target is Metal, and the recovery rate is 80% by mass (hard-coded).

BTW2: the recycling bin can be set as target, just like a docking port (and the docking alignment mods recognize it).

[goldenpsp]

Hello, I have two questions.

1) How do I break down parts into Scrap Metal?

2) I came back to the game after a brief hiatus, and found that each planet now has a lot of different resources on it: Karbonite, Minerals, Substrate, etc. I don;t use Karbonite, and I haven't installed or updated any mods in a while. Do you know where all these came from? Also, what's the difference between MetalOre and MetallicOre?

Metallic ore is used in MKS for it's production path to rocket parts and is defined via the open resource system. Metal ore is EPL's version of sort of the same thing used in EPL's production chain to rocket parts.