[1.12] Extraplanetary Launchpads v6.99.3

[maranble14]

@taniwha I took your advice about building on a flat surface instead of the mun slope I had my base on before. Observe the results
 

 

[Jasseji]

8 hours ago, taniwha said:

From EL's point of view, there should be no problem, but I don't know how the other mods will handle it, though I imagine Simple Construction shouldn't have any trouble.

There are make vars for the switches, too, but there's still the paths and libraries.

 

Not those exact symptoms, but any time something like that happens when loading a ship, it is an exception being thrown by some PartModule or other addon. The way to find the culprit is to look for getBuildCost in KSP.log: that is the EL function under which the exceptions usually occur. The culprit will be in the first few lines of the stack trace below the ***Exception.

Eg, from the other day:

[EXC 17:13:04.909] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
        PersistentRotation.Main.OnVesselWillDestroy (.Vessel vessel)
        EventData`1[Vessel].Fire (.Vessel data)
        Vessel.Die ()
        ExtraplanetaryLaunchpads.ExBuildControl.getBuildCost (.ConfigNode craft)
        ExtraplanetaryLaunchpads.ExBuildControl.LoadCraft (System.String filename, System.String flagname)

PersistenRotation was the culprit in this case.

Hey taniwha, any idea at which side the problem occurs - on EL or PersistentRotation ?

I have exactly these symptoms, trying to load a vessel in the build menu -> vessel gets built immediately and shoots away at high speed, after deleting PersistentRotation the problem goes away...

[Warezcrawler]

2 hours ago, taniwha said:

As the launch clamp issue was caused by EL not loading properly, and that has been fixed, there should be no issues with the launch clamps that can't be fixed by removing and attaching them in the VAB or SPH.

 

1 hour ago, Marstiphal said:

Hmmm, strange that I sill don't have them working. I'll try deleting and re-downloading the mod again

I can confirm that launch clamps are working properly again after the update of EL 

[goldenpsp]

@maranble14 Looks like the build finalizes with the landing legs retracted, so it's sitting on a crapton of drills.  I'm not surprised at the results personally.

[maranble14]

23 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

@maranble14 Looks like the build finalizes with the landing legs retracted, so it's sitting on a crapton of drills.  I'm not surprised at the results personally.

aren't the drills meant to clip into the planet's surface though? why should that be an issue?

[Marstiphal]

1 hour ago, Warezcrawler said:

 

I can confirm that launch clamps are working properly again after the update of EL 

 

thank you, must be something to do with my install.

Edited July 4, 2016 by Marstiphal

[goldenpsp]

1 hour ago, maranble14 said:

aren't the drills meant to clip into the planet's surface though? why should that be an issue?

Exactly.  Unlike a landing leg, where the colliders should be well defined, you have a craft dancing around while KSP tries to figure out what is supposed to be IN the ground vs ON the ground.

[taniwha]

3 hours ago, maranble14 said:

I took your advice about building on a flat surface instead of the mun slope I had my base on before. Observe the results

That wasn't my advice. My advice was to use stakes appropriately to ensure no part of your build (possibly other than the augers) spawned in the ground. Also, I believe I mentioned that using two (or more) origin stakes as advisable for builds with low parts below the root part: it may well be that something spawned in the survey stake.

Another possibility (which I think I've seen myself) is EL may not get to see landing leg colliders in the extended state when determining the bounding box of the vessel. If this is the case, then the build will be spawned such that the legs teleport their colliders into the ground when they start up. This is a good reason to build on or near a slope: you can put a -Y stake uphill to raise the build and let it fall to the ground.

Another option is to use launch clamps (click on image for full size):

Which, btw, is 95% of the work that went into creating EL's survey build system, and also happens to be why EL broke launch clamps for 1.1.3 (and a few other KSP versions).

Edited July 4, 2016 by taniwha

[maranble14]

Ahh so launch clamps are the best solution then it sounds like

[gamerscircle]

Could someone tell me what I should check as to why "EL" shows up twice in the VAB categories?  I did do the standard manual install and I only keep the mallet and the survey stakes.

http://imgur.com/VAQLjV3

Thank you for the support.

[taniwha]

Sounds like you have two Launchpad.dlls installed.

[gamerscircle]

Thanks ... I will look for those.. appreciate it.

47 minutes ago, taniwha said:

Sounds like you have two Launchpad.dlls installed.

I do, in EPL and SimpleConstruction , if I remove one will they both work?

[tsaven]

I'm having a problem with UKS and EL, and I'm not sure where to start with it.

I have a Space Station using the UKS Spacedock to build ships using EL, but the build ships seem to spawn with many modules in the "Broken" state, and they seemingly can't be repaired.  The usual UKS methods of performing maintenance does nothing, everything on the spawned ship is stuck at "Broken!" as soon as it's released.

I'm not much of a programmer or modder, but is there any kind of log files generated when a craft is built, any way I can attempt to troubleshoot this?

[Mekan1k]

Is there any way to have a construction part (that usually requires kerbals to function) not need kerbals to function?

[taniwha]

Mekan1k: not currently. I have plans for something, but I haven't had the time to work on it.

[spacetackle]

Hey everyone,

If I choose not to use the toolbar mod, will I lose functionality in this mod or does this mod fully utilize the stock toolbar?

Toolbar is great though these days I find it a little superfluous and that it just adds to screen clutter.

Can I use this mod and completely avoid using toolbar?

 

 

[tsaven]

2 hours ago, spacetackle said:

Hey everyone,

If I choose not to use the toolbar mod, will I lose functionality in this mod or does this mod fully utilize the stock toolbar?

Toolbar is great though these days I find it a little superfluous and that it just adds to screen clutter.

Can I use this mod and completely avoid using toolbar?

 

 

You can, but then I don't think you get the useful build window in the VAB.

[tsaven]

@taniwha, I've figured out my problem mentioned above.  I'm not sure there's an elegant way to fix it, but there's a work-around.  Don't know if you want to put this in the first post of this thread, so others don't have to spend two weeks banging their heads against the wall like I have?

• If using UKS, craft built with EL will launch with most of their parts in the "Broken!" state.  Launching a craft may also cause many of the parts on the building station to become "Broken!" as well.  The parts are all fixable via UKS's repair methods.

The reason for this is that UKS uses a hidden resource of ReplacementParts to implement the Wear mechanic.  Most parts, stock and UKS, have a specified capacity for ReplacementParts which is never shown to the player.  These ReplacementParts are consumed over time, and how full of ReplacementParts each part is determines how worn it is (Ex: 90% full of ReplacementParts will show as 10% worn, 60% full will show as 40% worn, 30% full will show as 70% worn, completely out of ReplacementParts will show as "Broken!").  More ReplacementParts are created from MaterialKits via the "Perform Maintenance" option on a right-click on the part with an Engineer EVAed, and MaterialKits are either shipped in from Kerbin or built on-site using UKS's various industrial production methods.

Anyway, so when a craft is build in EL, it still needs a full load of this hidden ReplacementParts resource.  But because this resource is essentially invisible and impossible to ship in (although it shows up on the EL build window requirements), the craft will not have any (showing all of it's modules as "Broken!") or will pull from the building station's stores (Which will cause some or all of the building station's parts to show as "Broken!", or at least highly worn).

So . . . yeah, I don't see an easy way of fixing the problem, but the work-around seems to be to have an Engineer EVA to all the parts on a freshly built vessel and repair them, as long as you've got plenty of MaterialKits around.

[taniwha]

(just to cover it here) As mentioned in the UKS thread, the solution is to create a resource recipe for ReplacementParts. This will cause EL to make ReplacementParts a required resource and thus part of the build rather than an optional (transferable) resource.

However, going by your description of the issue, my advice of making ReplacementParts self-dependent will cause problems, so definitely put more appropriate source resources in the recipe.

[Marstiphal]

On 04/07/2016 at 7:58 PM, Warezcrawler said:

 

I can confirm that launch clamps are working properly again after the update of EL 

I still seem to be having issues with this... I have deleted and made sure that the latest version is installed and I'm using the latest MM but still have clamps that don't work. Is there anything else I can check? Debug or log that might tell me what is going on?

 

[taniwha]

That is not a standard launch clamp. EL touches only the standard launch clamp. Wild guess: it's from Ven's revamp and there's some weird interaction.

Is that freshly placed, or loaded from a craft file? KSP.log might well help, though.

[Daveroski]

I am going to be starting a new career and would like to use this mod.

Are there any known bugs with this mod that affect the current version of KSP?

[taniwha]

It should work, though there has been a report of wonkiness with the launch clamps, but I suspect something odd is going on with the installation there.

[JohanMax]

I seem to run into an issue when I release ships I have built at my spacedock, and it has to do with resource transfer. I can select to transfer the resources I need, and then release, and they will not all be transferred. Also if I first transfer resources manually, it still happens.. I can end up with a full tank of liquid fuel, but no oxidizer for example. I do have a rather large space station I build at, dunno if that can mess it up?

 

[taniwha]

Station  size should not have any effect. Do you have sufficient resources to transfer to your built ships? Do you save and load (includes switching to a distant vessel or the space center and back) between finalizing and releasing? Do you get any exceptions when finalizing or releasing? Are you using any resource switching mods (MFT, IFS, FS)? MFT should be fine, but I haven't tested with the others.