[v0.24] Tarsier Space Technology (v4.5c Now with GALAXIES!!!)

[Dielos]

Ok. Thank you very much for looking into it. This mod is awesome even without the science!

Is it possible to see a kerbal floating in space through the telescope? I have one floating around and would love to see from afar if he's still screaming. I suppose objects get unloaded at a certain distance?

[tobyb121]

I think, from memory, that objects get unloaded at 2 km, you should be able to see anything within this range but any further and you are right they will be unloaded (plus trying to focus on them from any further will be tricky).

[Boamere]

I haven't enabled any science lab functionality for 2 reasons:

1. I don't think it makes much sense for a kerbal to be able to improve the amount of science in the pictures by processing them in a lab.

2. I don't get how Squad have implemented the science labs, it seems quite complicated.

I see what you mean, but not being able to process them (maybe for extra details?) means i have to keep spamming the transmit button, oh well i can keep on spamming

[tobyb121]

I see what you mean, but not being able to process them (maybe for extra details?) means i have to keep spamming the transmit button, oh well i can keep on spamming

You could always give the Hard Drives a go and bring all that science home at full value

[Voidi]

Two questions about storing the science result:

where are the reports from telescope stored?

I stored the result from picture take another of the same planet and stored this just as the first. But first one seems to be gone overwritten?

Secondly can the hard discs only store one result per science subject?

Oh and the weight of the telescope should be reduced, when i toggle the state my satellite begins to rotate

[tobyb121]

Two questions about storing the science result:

where are the reports from telescope stored?

I stored the result from picture take another of the same planet and stored this just as the first. But first one seems to be gone overwritten?

Secondly can the hard discs only store one result per science subject?

Oh and the weight of the telescope should be reduced, when i toggle the state my satellite begins to rotate

At the moment the telescope only stores one result per planet, the existing one is just overwritten, it does this because otherwise you could just keep clicking the button loads and generate loads of science.

The science HDDs currently only store 1 piece of data per subject. It doesn't overwrite old data and it can store new data for that subject if you transmit or delete what's on the drive. I will probably remove this limitation in a future release.

The reason it rotates is because the control point is on the front of the arm of the telescope so when you close it animates shut so your reference transform changes position and SAS tries to keep that point looking in the same direction. If you turn off SAS or take control from your command pod/probe core then this won't happen.

[MaverickSawyer]

The science HDDs currently only store 1 piece of data per subject. It doesn't overwrite old data and it can store new data for that subject if you transmit or delete what's on the drive. I will probably remove this limitation in a future release.

So... is it that I can't carry more than 1 piece of data per drive, or that I can only 1 piece of data per experiment type?

[tobyb121]

It's one per experiment subject which is a mixture of the experiment type and location. The experiment system has experiment ids, which identify the device that did the experiment, and experiment situations/results, e.g. KerbinFlyingLow or MunSrfLanded; these are joined to create an experiment subject, e.g. eva report from the surface of the Mun. The science hard drives will store one up to 1 piece of data per experiment subject.

Hope this explains things better

[ddenis]

After installing this super new part which was just invented by scientists I want to ask engineers about few things:

1) Somehow I wasn't able to collect data from the telescope when I was in EVA. Is I missed it or is it unavailable?

2) Can these super smart engineers improve stability of the image? Some sort of image stabilization to lock on target.

3) If only the space texture wasn't scaled with zooming... or it was scaled, but with much less ratio.

[tobyb121]

After installing this super new part which was just invented by scientists I want to ask engineers about few things:

1) Somehow I wasn't able to collect data from the telescope when I was in EVA. Is I missed it or is it unavailable?

2) Can these super smart engineers improve stability of the image? Some sort of image stabilization to lock on target.

3) If only the space texture wasn't scaled with zooming... or it was scaled, but with much less ratio.

In EVA I wouldn't have thought that it should be possible to collect data, I haven't looked at EVA at all to be honest, did the GUI still show up etc. when on EVA?? I wouldn't have thought it makes much sense to control in EVA, as you can't control the ship and so there is no way to look at stuff.

In terms of image stabilisation...This is the most requested feature, and I am not ignoring it, however the main issue is that when you are zooming in to high levels the angles you are talking about become tiny (10,000ths of a degree) so the constant adjustments that SAS makes, and even floating point errors cause things to look like they are jumping around. It becomes very complex to try and design a system that has this level of fine control within the constraints and mechanics of the game, for the moment all I can recommend is that you enable fine control (caps-lock) and make sure you set the telescope to "Control from Here" (the picture on the original post was reasonably stable and was taken using this technique). For more help you can try Mech-Jeb, and using Smart-ASS which will control your ship and look at the planet automatically.

Finally the sky texture If the sky texture doesn't scale with zooming, or scales differently things look very weird, and it just looks wrong. That said I'm looking into creating a procedural star field, so that even at high zoom you will have distant stars , rather than smeared blobs. It would also bring the possibility of new science, as distant constellations and galaxies could be added to the list of things to see. This would be quite a big task though, so please don't expect anything soon.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the mod though I'm hopefully going to add a new part, and some updates soon

[ddenis]

In EVA I wouldn't have thought that it should be possible to collect data, I haven't looked at EVA at all to be honest, did the GUI still show up etc. when on EVA?? I wouldn't have thought it makes much sense to control in EVA, as you can't control the ship and so there is no way to look at stuff.

Glad to hear you are enjoying the mod though I'm hopefully going to add a new part, and some updates soon

Not control the telescope, but "Collect data" button, so I can "take a memory card with image and bring it home" instead of transmitting it. Maybe I've missed this... like other science parts have.

Like Material Bay has:

MODULE
{
...
	dataIsCollectable = True
	collectActionName = Collect Data
	interactionRange = 1.2
}

And one thing more...

Could youú drivers don't touch data from command pods?

Or if the disk already has some kind of science experiment not to read it from the containing part.

For example I have two Goo aboard, I've done experiments... if I collect data from one Goo and store it in the crew pod, and after that I Fill hard drive - what will happened? The disc will read data from the second Goo and from the Crew cabin and save only one? But in that way I will lose science from the second experiment.

Edited January 9, 2014 by ddenis

[federicoaa]

I still find it very hard to focus distant planets, I even sent one "Kubble" outside Kerbin SOI to get rid of kerbin rotation but still, even with fine controls a single hit takes everything away from the screen. Any advice on how to fine tuning distant planets?

[tobyb121]

Not control the telescope, but "Collect data" button, so I can "take a memory card with image and bring it home" instead of transmitting it. Maybe I've missed this... like other science parts have.

Like Material Bay has:

MODULE
{
...
	dataIsCollectable = True
	collectActionName = Collect Data
	interactionRange = 1.2
}

And one thing more...

Could youú drivers don't touch data from command pods?

Or if the disk already has some kind of science experiment not to read it from the containing part.

For example I have two Goo aboard, I've done experiments... if I collect data from one Goo and store it in the crew pod, and after that I Fill hard drive - what will happened? The disc will read data from the second Goo and from the Crew cabin and save only one? But in that way I will lose science from the second experiment.

I have not used a science experiment module for the telescope so it doesn't have all the features of other experiments. I have no idea off the top of my head how to "give" Kerbals science, but I'll have a look and if I work anything out I'll add it to a future version.

The hard drives are going to change quite significantly in their next version because I'm going to make it so a window is shown with all the science data available and you can choose what to transfer in.

I still find it very hard to focus distant planets, I even sent one "Kubble" outside Kerbin SOI to get rid of kerbin rotation but still, even with fine controls a single hit takes everything away from the screen. Any advice on how to fine tuning distant planets?

It's always best to start from a low zoom, and centre your target marker as best you can then slowly increase the zoom adjusting at each stage. At high zoom when you make adjustments wait for the ship to settle after each small change, you will find the planet you are looking at "jumps" off the screen, but it will likely drift back after a few seconds.

[federicoaa]

It's always best to start from a low zoom, and centre your target marker as best you can then slowly increase the zoom adjusting at each stage. At high zoom when you make adjustments wait for the ship to settle after each small change, you will find the planet you are looking at "jumps" off the screen, but it will likely drift back after a few seconds.

I already do that part of starting with small zoom and centering, but I never waited for the ship to stabilize after each movement, guess I was too impatient.

Also, if the telescope is in low orbit, the rotation speed will make farther objects to appear moving relatively fast.

By the way, when yo take a picture and get science, if you take another picture will it overwrite the science points or it store both?

[MaverickSawyer]

So, I've wound up using a "sounding rocket" approach with the telescope: kick it up on a high altitude ballistic path, take a photo, shunt it to the hard drive, and then eject the telescope. Arm the parachute on the way back down, land, recover the data.

[cardgame]

Currently this telescope is the only one working for .23 it seems, so thanks for that

The model looks awesome.

[LMA]

This is amazing works like a telescope and makes stations look cooler.

Thanks

I made a mounting for it using Magic Smoke Industries mod this lets me mount it on the side of a station and move it around to look at anything without moving the station.

Edited January 10, 2014 by LMA

[tobyb121]

This is amazing works like a telescope and makes stations look cooler.

Thanks

I made a mounting for it using Magic Smoke Industries mod this lets me mount it on the side of a station and move it around to look at anything without moving the station.

Sounds cool, would be nice to see a screen shot

[tobyb121]

Just added some much requested new features, servos have been added to the telescope to give fine control of the camera!!

[biohazard15]

Awesome!

Bug report:

- when you're looking at Sun, you get two identical science reports instead of one (at least from LKO, I didn't send telescope to another planet or heliocentric orbit yet)

- sometimes, servos doesn't work after launch - save-load fixes that

Pro Tip: if you still having troubles with camera control:

- Lock at your target, adjust zoom (keep SAS on all the time)

- Activate 5x warp for a second (this will disable physics and camera wobbling)

- Deactivate warp, now camera should be stable at least for several seconds. Adjust zoom and lock (use servos, don't touch WASD)

- Repeat until you get a good picture

Using this method, you can easily look at anything.

[Boamere]

Awesome!

Bug report:

- when you're looking at Sun, you get two identical science reports instead of one (at least from LKO, I didn't send telescope to another planet or heliocentric orbit yet)

- sometimes, servos doesn't work after launch - save-load fixes that

Pro Tip: if you still having troubles with camera control:

- Lock at your target, adjust zoom (keep SAS on all the time)

- Activate 5x warp for a second (this will disable physics and camera wobbling)

- Deactivate warp, now camera should be stable at least for several seconds. Adjust zoom and lock (use servos, don't touch WASD)

- Repeat until you get a good picture

Using this method, you can easily look at anything.

Or use mechjebs target feature, it actually points directly at the planet if you leave (even though it looks like it's not moving on the navball)

[tobyb121]

Awesome!

Bug report:

- when you're looking at Sun, you get two identical science reports instead of one (at least from LKO, I didn't send telescope to another planet or heliocentric orbit yet)

- sometimes, servos doesn't work after launch - save-load fixes that

Pro Tip: if you still having troubles with camera control:

- Lock at your target, adjust zoom (keep SAS on all the time)

- Activate 5x warp for a second (this will disable physics and camera wobbling)

- Deactivate warp, now camera should be stable at least for several seconds. Adjust zoom and lock (use servos, don't touch WASD)

- Repeat until you get a good picture

Using this method, you can easily look at anything.

Thanks for the feedback, the thing with the sun is a bit odd, I specifically had to add the sun to the list of celestial bodies that get checked, as I was sure it wasn't in that list, but it now seems to be there.

At least it should be an easy fix

[Boamere]

Oh yeah, what's new with the recent v2.4 update? I don't see any changelogs

Edit: Is it the stuff in green on the main page?

[tobyb121]

Oh yeah, what's new with the recent v2.4 update? I don't see any changelogs

Edit: Is it the stuff in green on the main page?

Yeah, that's the stuff

[federicoaa]

Awesome!

Bug report:

- when you're looking at Sun, you get two identical science reports instead of one (at least from LKO, I didn't send telescope to another planet or heliocentric orbit yet)

- sometimes, servos doesn't work after launch - save-load fixes that

Pro Tip: if you still having troubles with camera control:

- Lock at your target, adjust zoom (keep SAS on all the time)

- Activate 5x warp for a second (this will disable physics and camera wobbling)

- Deactivate warp, now camera should be stable at least for several seconds. Adjust zoom and lock (use servos, don't touch WASD)

- Repeat until you get a good picture

Using this method, you can easily look at anything.

what do you mean with servos?