[1.0.4] Smart Parts v1.6.6 | DDS Textures and Bug Fixes | July 5

[dtobi]

Firov has been working hard on this uodate:

V0.5 Improved parts and bugfixes

* Fixed bug that resulted in a lack of physics on parts ejected by altimeter

* Fixed bug that created an empty stage whenever staging was activated by a SmartPart

* Fuel valve now generates minimal amount of thrust and can be staged

* Timer timescales adjusted. Added 0-30 seconds in .2 second increments and .5 to 60 minutes in .5 minute increments

[acc]

sounds great, very good improvements

[CatastrophicFailure]

Quick question, can the altimeter be tweaked to fire an action group when going UP, like to ditch an escape tower during launch?

[Firov]

Quick question, can the altimeter be tweaked to fire an action group when going UP, like to ditch an escape tower during launch?

It's actually already capable of doing this. Just ensure that it isn't set to fire only on descent and select the altitude you want it to activate at.

I use it to jettison fairings at ~50km, for example.

[CatastrophicFailure]

It's actually already capable of doing this. Just ensure that it isn't set to fire only on descent and select the altitude you want it to activate at.

I use it to jettison fairings at ~50km, for example.

The mods scolded me before for just posting BRILLIANT so here's an unnecessarily long post well in excess of 10 characters just to say

​No, really, that needs to be hard-coded into ALL fairings everywhere!

[Drew Kerman]

I use it to jettison fairings at ~50km, for example.

Son of a... How'd I not think if this. And I already lost 4 solar panels ascending thru atmo (DREC) when the fairing dropped with an early stage. Now - never again!

[Boamere]

The mods scolded me before for just posting BRILLIANT so here's an unnecessarily long post well in excess of 10 characters just to say

http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131107022416/walkingdead/images/8/88/Brilliant_cigar1.jpg

​No, really, that needs to be hard-coded into ALL fairings everywhere!

Mods are evil sneaky creatures..

Also please never post that again, i think I'm going to have nightmares!

[stubbles]

I'm glad you have a sharealike license on these, dtobi. It's a great set of parts/functionality - I'll likely integrate the use of them into my Energia system.

[Kaa253]

I have been playing around with these parts and I have to say ... BRILLIANT. However, yes there is a minor nightmare.

I have several shuttles based on the excellent shuttle engines mod (where I first found these smart parts) and the heaviest of them needs to have the main engine trim adjusted periodically during the ascent to orbit or else it will start to tumble end over end as the fuel load in the external tank decreases. I would like to program the timers to adjust the engine trim, say every 30 seconds during the main engine burn. I thought it might be possible to use one or two timers to fire an AG to adjust the trim one notch; reset the timer and; start the countdown again. That way over the 3 minute duration of the burn I could "smoothly" move the engine trim through 6 trim steps or thereabouts. With two timers and two AG's everything appears to work except at the timer reset step. My testing seems to indicate that the timers are simply not being reset via the AG. This is despite the fact that there is an AG menu option and what's more, the red light on the timer case can be made to turn off via the AG but from the tweakables menu it is clear that the reset has not actually occurred.

Caveats Am I doing something wrong? Do I have a broken install? Has it been reported already on the one page of the forum I may have missed to read?

I think there might be several applications for a timed "loop" action trigger? If anyone has a way to make it work I would like to know how. In the meantime I can just use about 6 timers I suppose.

[Firov]

I have been playing around with these parts and I have to say ... BRILLIANT. However, yes there is a minor nightmare.

I have several shuttles based on the excellent shuttle engines mod (where I first found these smart parts) and the heaviest of them needs to have the main engine trim adjusted periodically during the ascent to orbit or else it will start to tumble end over end as the fuel load in the external tank decreases. I would like to program the timers to adjust the engine trim, say every 30 seconds during the main engine burn. I thought it might be possible to use one or two timers to fire an AG to adjust the trim one notch; reset the timer and; start the countdown again. That way over the 3 minute duration of the burn I could "smoothly" move the engine trim through 6 trim steps or thereabouts. With two timers and two AG's everything appears to work except at the timer reset step. My testing seems to indicate that the timers are simply not being reset via the AG. This is despite the fact that there is an AG menu option and what's more, the red light on the timer case can be made to turn off via the AG but from the tweakables menu it is clear that the reset has not actually occurred.

Caveats Am I doing something wrong? Do I have a broken install? Has it been reported already on the one page of the forum I may have missed to read?

I think there might be several applications for a timed "loop" action trigger? If anyone has a way to make it work I would like to know how. In the meantime I can just use about 6 timers I suppose.

Interesting. The reset via AG should work, even if it's called by another Timer Smart Part. I'll look into this when I have a chance. Thanks for the report!

[Firov]

Okay. I've got a quick hotfix for the timer issue. Just replace the km_SmartParts.dll in the mod/plugin directory with this one.

It's no longer necessary to manually reset the timer if you use an AG or GUI button to start it. As such, timers can now trigger one another repeatedly. Kaa, let me know if this fixes your issue.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9K8KY8RgD-qSU9XaUt0OWVDRTg/edit?usp=sharing

[stubbles]

Is there a way to access the functionality within the configs? Such if I'm integrating the functionality into my own part and I don't want it to be tweakable. I'd like to be able to set the action group, altitude, etc all within the part config. Is that possible right now and if so, what are the available script functions we can use?

Thanks.

[Kaa253]

Oh... awesome. Thanks heaps for the rapid hotfix. I have been busy with RL work and missed your update 4 days ago. I will test it over the weekend and let you know ASAP.

[Drew Kerman]

I reloaded a game and my craft promptly jettisoned a stage and then exploded from high G-tolerances according to the events log. I was stumped until I realized the stage jettison was happening because I used a timer. The way I had it setup was a fuel detector would activate a stage that included the timer, then the timer would run down and activate the following stage. I guess on game reload the timer was reset so it went and activated the next stage, and mayhem ensued. I fixed it by going into my save file and setting isEnabled = False.

[JoerT]

I seem to be having some issues with the altimeter parts since the ARM patch. I use it to extend solar panels at 75KM, but when I try this now, it extends them in a very early stage at launch. Possibly around 75M?

Another thing I do is have it extend and retract my landing gear (using an action group) at 50M. Now it seems to not toggle the part reliably (I've had it not extend my gear a couple of times, and when I started doing it manually, it suddenly started working, retracting my gear just before landing ;p)

The first issue is very much repeatable. The latter was a bit harder to test, but if so desired I'll give it another shot.

[JoerT]

I cried too soon. Toggling between back and forth between meters and kilometers resolved my first issue.

[Firov]

I seem to be having some issues with the altimeter parts since the ARM patch. I use it to extend solar panels at 75KM, but when I try this now, it extends them in a very early stage at launch. Possibly around 75M?

Another thing I do is have it extend and retract my landing gear (using an action group) at 50M. Now it seems to not toggle the part reliably (I've had it not extend my gear a couple of times, and when I started doing it manually, it suddenly started working, retracting my gear just before landing ;p)

The first issue is very much repeatable. The latter was a bit harder to test, but if so desired I'll give it another shot.

Thanks for the report. I've been pretty busy lately, but I actually do have intentions of looking into the landing gear issue when I have a chance. It's been reported a few times previously. I just always seem to get distracted implementing some shiny new bauble with the development time I do have available...

If you could upload a craft that always experiences that bug though it would help me troubleshoot. If you do upload a craft though, please try to use only stock, B9, KW, or Pwing parts though.

[Taki117]

I've had an issue where the flameout detector isn't working with B9 engines. The right click menu doesn't detect that they are ignited and as such do not detect that they flame out.

[technogeeky]

Do you think you could change the altimeters to have three options instead of two? Right now, there is Descent and Both. But could you add the setting that is Ascent only?

I think the reason I wanted this is to be able to deploy ladders and legs on descent, and retract them on ascent. Currently, the retract part fires both directions which makes for a much less trustworthy crater-hopping experience.

Any thoughts?

[KvickFlygarn87]

Does it work in ARM?

[dtobi]

All parts that I tried (including the altimeter) worked fine with ARM.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Nevermind, just updated!

[zzguy]

Very useful parts! I hope these are the first of many.

[hab136]

Do you think you could change the altimeters to have three options instead of two? Right now, there is Descent and Both. But could you add the setting that is Ascent only?

I think the reason I wanted this is to be able to deploy ladders and legs on descent, and retract them on ascent. Currently, the retract part fires both directions which makes for a much less trustworthy crater-hopping experience.

Any thoughts?

Instead of "deploy ladder" on decent and "retract ladder" on ascent, why not just "toggle ladder" on "Both"?

[technogeeky]

Instead of "deploy ladder" on decent and "retract ladder" on ascent, why not just "toggle ladder" on "Both"?

I suspected someone would ask this. One, because I never trust things to work properly (nor do I trust myself to set the parts correctly pre-launch). Two, because I want the deploy and retract altitudes to be different (ie, I want the logic to be fuzzy).

Neither of these are really adequate to justify my original request, but I figured I'd ask anyway.