[1.8.x] DMagic Orbital Science: New Science Parts [v1.4.3] [11/2/2019]

[kubi]

Hi DMagic,

First a big thanks for your mod, I really like it!

Have you thought about to include science series (EXPOSE-E, CBOSS, MACH-1 etc) similar to real ones?

These experiments could be more complex: need to spend time on collecting data (e.g., as RPL does), need to reload experience material time to time, 0% transmission efficiency (need to return samples)...

[DMagic]

Hi DMagic,

First a big thanks for your mod, I really like it!

Have you thought about to include science series (EXPOSE-E, CBOSS, MACH-1 etc) similar to real ones?

These experiments could be more complex: need to spend time on collecting data (e.g., as RPL does), need to reload experience material time to time, 0% transmission efficiency (need to return samples)...

I haven't really thought about space station types of experiments yet. I've got too many probe experiments to get through for now.

I've been toying around with some ideas for atmospheric sensors. I've been working on a model for a microwave limb sounder. It measures atmospheric composition and temperature at very high altitudes. It is also part of a series of satellites that orbit just a few minutes apart, allowing their different sensors to scan the same areas at slightly different times. This would be an interesting idea for KSP. I'm not sure how it would be accomplished, but I can imagine having some sort of baseline science level for each different scanner type, then an additional amount if the scanner is part of a constellation and they are in an ideal orbit.

This is a schematic of the microwave limb sounder. The primary part is the large elliptical microwave mirror, there is another, smaller, sensor on the bottom left. I've started working on this, but there's not much worth showing yet.

These are the various satellites making up the A-train constellation, though not all of them actually made it into orbit.

Another idea that I've been thinking about for a long time (and one that would prioritize sample return) is for a solar particle collector like Genesis.

It has several collectors for solar particles, mostly passive, but one active (the ring in the center). It might also be interesting to give the part a command module, a little bit of power and a parachute (though maybe it would be a good idea to make the parachute somehow automatically deploy and not have to worry about power), to simplify sample return. I think the whole thing could basically be shaped like a nose cone that unfolds to reveal its collectors, then closes up for re-entry.

I've also been working on Universal Storage goo pods and materials bays. I have a decent model of the material bay, but it's still rough. The goo pod is more or less complete, it just needs texturing and I need to get the animations right.

Using Model {} nodes to insert the part into an empty US Science Bay seems to work fine, and I can activate the door animations along with my own. So I should be able to transition all of my existing parts over to the new model.

[malkuth]

Always great stuff Dmagic.

[Daishi]

Using Model {} nodes to insert the part into an empty US Science Bay seems to work fine, and I can activate the door animations along with my own. So I should be able to transition all of my existing parts over to the new model.

http://i.imgur.com/NkUv5kO.gif

Great to see it working!

[CaptRobau]

DMagic, I have a request for your ScienceAnimate module: a boolean that checks if the part is in a stable orbit. Just like it's stupid that stock KSP doesn't allow atmospheric readings when not on a suborbital trajectory (which you fixed), I find it stupid that you don't have to be any sort of stable orbit to do your readings. It makes orbiting unnecessary and thus science gathering in space far too simple. Some parts might not work with this system though, so that's why I request a boolean. Thanks for all the great work so far.

[DMagic]

DMagic, I have a request for your ScienceAnimate module: a boolean that checks if the part is in a stable orbit. Just like it's stupid that stock KSP doesn't allow atmospheric readings when not on a suborbital trajectory (which you fixed), I find it stupid that you don't have to be any sort of stable orbit to do your readings. It makes orbiting unnecessary and thus science gathering in space far too simple. Some parts might not work with this system though, so that's why I request a boolean. Thanks for all the great work so far.

That shouldn't be much trouble. I would think checking for Vessel.Situations.Orbit would be enough, though I assume it ignores the atmosphere, so I would have to check to make sure you're above the atmosphere. If you're not in a stable orbit then it would display some kind of message, "Experiment requires a stable orbit" or something like that.

What I would really like to see is an Experiment Situation for sub-orbital, limited to atmospheric planets, one where both ends of your orbit must intersect the planet (to distinguish from re-entry). Then you could write separate results, and make separate experiments for sub-orbital hops. I don't think there's any way to add values to the ExperimentSituations enum though (not on my end at least), so it would require some kind of work-around.

[Starstrider42]

What I would really like to see is an Experiment Situation for sub-orbital, limited to atmospheric planets, one where both ends of your orbit must intersect the planet (to distinguish from re-entry).

Any sub-orbital trajectory that doesn't leave the SoI will intersect the planet on both ends. Orbits are always symmetric around the major axis.

[DMagic]

Any sub-orbital trajectory that doesn't leave the SoI will intersect the planet on both ends. Orbits are always symmetric around the major axis.

Um, yeah, I meant to distinguish it from aerobraking, not re-entry.

[Culv3r]

Evening

First I would like to say thanks for making such a well thought out addon, it's definitely helped out with the challenges I've added via mods for my career save.

Secondly, I think I might have found a bug. I'm not entirely sure though.

I was doing experiments on the Mun in a sub-orbital orbit and used the telescope's visual observation feature. I switched scenes to the map and time accelerated to reach my AP so I could do my circularization burn. Once I got into stable orbit, I EVA'd to go collect the data (since that part of the ship wasn't staying with me) and when I went to right click it only had the DRE info. I get back into the command pod and right click and tell it to log observation data again thinking maybe I wasn't close enough (to retrieve the data) but instead it gives me a new result. It seems that either between switching scenes, time accel, or something else^tm caused the data that was generated prior to be dumped.

The next time this occurs I'll try and see if the log is giving me anything to work with but I looked through it and saw nothing that screamed 'red flag'. It could also be the wealth of mods I'm using.. and it seems intermittent potentially so if worse comes to worse I'll just deal with it heh.

Update 6/6 - Ok, after looking at it some more it appears to dump the data after going from an airborne state to a landed state.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Culv3r
Updated what I believe causes the bug, if a bug that is.

[DMagic]

Update 6/6 - Ok, after looking at it some more it appears to dump the data after going from an airborne state to a landed state.

That's very strange. It's not too surprising that EVA collection might have problems, the method I'm using isn't very good and I've already fixed it for the next update. But that doesn't sound like it's the problem here.

I don't know why landing would trigger the part to dump its data. Does this happen for any other part, or just the telescope?

When you see that you've lost the data do the "review data" and "reset" buttons also disappear, or do they remain but not do anything?

Do you have any mods that deal with transferring, transmitting, or otherwise manipulating science data on your vessel? Most of those aren't setup correctly to handle mod experiments (Science Alert and Tarsier's hard drive mods are the only ones I know of that should handle them correctly) so those might be doing something weird.

[Citizen Joe]

That's very strange. It's not too surprising that EVA collection might have problems, the method I'm using isn't very good and I've already fixed it for the next update. But that doesn't sound like it's the problem here.

I don't know why landing would trigger the part to dump its data. Does this happen for any other part, or just the telescope?

When you see that you've lost the data do the "review data" and "reset" buttons also disappear, or do they remain but not do anything?

Do you have any mods that deal with transferring, transmitting, or otherwise manipulating science data on your vessel? Most of those aren't setup correctly to handle mod experiments (Science Alert and Tarsier's hard drive mods are the only ones I know of that should handle them correctly) so those might be doing something weird.

Actually, a lot of your parts do this, but it isn't dumping the data from them. Rather it seems the parts that this happens to have a separate "mode" (? dunno how else to describe it) when the craft is landed and another when it is flying/in orbit such that you can only access or reset data collected when landed while on land, and data from when you are in orbit when the craft is off the ground. Both sets stay stored separately, and you can technically collect two separate samples with some parts (like the magnetometer).

Judging from your response, I assume this behavior isn't intended?

Edited June 7, 2014 by Citizen Joe

[DMagic]

Actually, a lot of your parts do this, but it isn't dumping the data from them. Rather it seems the parts that this happens to have a separate "mode" (? dunno how else to describe it) when the craft is landed and another when it is flying/in orbit such that you can only access or reset data collected when landed while on land, and data from when you are in orbit when the craft is off the ground. Both sets stay stored separately, and you can technically collect two separate samples with some parts (like the magnetometer).

Judging from your response, I assume this behavior isn't intended?

Holy cow, thanks for bringing this to my attention.

It seems that it's resetting the right-click menu options whenever the vessel situation changes. So if you land, take-off, go into an escape orbit, etc... the options to review or collect data disappear. The data doesn't go anywhere and if you click log experiment again it should just show the currently stored data, not collect new data.

I think this is because I'm inheriting from the stock ModuleScienceExperiment, so it might be doing unintended things to my parts. I'll see about fixing this.

Edit: Yes, it seems ModuleScienceExperiment is doing something dumb. I have a simple fix that I'll release today and I'll see about something a little better for the next update. The review data and collect data options and so on still disappear if you actually have the right-click menu open while changing vessel situations, but as soon as you close it and open it again everything should show up properly. And EVA collection seems to work ok too.

Edited June 7, 2014 by DMagic

[Culv3r]

Yay, sorry I didn't reply sooner but yeah I had only experienced it with the telescope.. mainly because it's the only part I performed a different behavior with. But it seems a fix was found. I get to award Jeb with an honorary kraken (read: bug) killing ribbon

[DMagic]

I released an update, Curse seems to have accepted it already, so it should be good to go. I updated DMModuleScienceAnimateGeneric too if anyone is interested.

Everything else is the same, no changes to the parts, but this problem should be fixed, mostly at least. I'll come up with a better solution later, but this seems to prevent the science reports from disappearing. It was affecting everything but the drill.

I suspect that in most cases it doesn't really matter because people probably transmit data as soon as they collect it, it's still bad enough to release an update though. Thanks for bringing this up.

[Culv3r]

Thanks for your swift response! Hope you have a good weekend.

[Citizen Joe]

Holy cow, thanks for bringing this to my attention.

You're welcome.

I hadn't noticed until today either until i was using three of your parts on a rover. Since Culv3r mentioned, I thought I might as well after doing a little testing.

And you sure push them bugfixes fast. Nice job.

[Starstrider42]

Out of curiosity, have you considered using ModuleManager's NEEDS statement to automatically enable/disable the Scansat and Universal Storage parts based on whether those mods are installed? It's kind of annoying to have to manually configure the parts with every release.

[DMagic]

Out of curiosity, have you considered using ModuleManager's NEEDS statement to automatically enable/disable the Scansat and Universal Storage parts based on whether those mods are installed? It's kind of annoying to have to manually configure the parts with every release.

That's probably a good idea. I've been trying to avoid any dependencies, but since I'm already relying on Module Manager to add science reports for my replacement stock science parts (I'm also planning on offering a stock ScienceDefs.cfg with the added reports as another option, similar to how the crowd sourced science logs work) I might as well add it for the SCANsat parts.

I'll be using model nodes to load my parts with the new Universal Storage science bay model. I'd like to have my parts simply fail to load if the science bay isn't found, but I'm not sure if that will actually work. The parts seem to load even if the US parts aren't there, they just float in the air and don't work properly because it can't load all of the required information.

[Starstrider42]

I'll be using model nodes to load my parts with the new Universal Storage science bay model. I'd like to have my parts simply fail to load if the science bay isn't found, but I'm not sure if that will actually work. The parts seem to load even if the US parts aren't there, they just float in the air and don't work properly because it can't load all of the required information.

I doubt you can unload a part, but I was thinking it would suffice to have the mod-dependent parts be blocked from the VAB, i.e.

category = none
techRequired = Unresearcheable

[DMagic]

The new Universal Storage parts are working well. I've got most of the old parts transferred over to use the new science bay. In most cases I'm trying not to change too much, just moving components around a little and touching up the textures. The RPWS has a new, more plausible mounting system though, more similar to what the telescope will have whenever I finish that one (and probably any other parts that won't stay inside the science bay).

More importantly I can control everything from my own plugin, with a single part module, no need for multiple animation modules or other such shenanigans. Everything seems to working using two animations together (three in some cases), and it's setup in a flexible enough manner so that I don't need to make any new modules or change any of the existing part config files. It plays well in reverse too, waiting for the boom to retract before the doors close.

After I finish with the existing parts I want to try to come up with something for the atmospheric sensor. I don't have any ideas, but I guess it doesn't need to be complicated; I just want to make a complete set of all the stock science parts.

I'm also going through all of the old animations and cleaning out the unneeded keyframes. Unity adds an absurd amount of frames when importing animations, so it's probably best if I get rid of as many of those as possible.

[Daishi]

More importantly I can control everything from my own plugin, with a single part module, no need for multiple animation modules or other such shenanigans. Everything seems to working using two animations together (three in some cases), and it's setup in a flexible enough manner so that I don't need to make any new modules or change any of the existing part config files. It plays well in reverse too, waiting for the boom to retract before the doors close.

Hmm.. do you think it would be possible to replace our advanced animator plugin with yours, if they have essentially similar functionality (do they?). Would help avoid shenanigans, and it would be great to bring our mods closer together.

[DMagic]

Hmm.. do you think it would be possible to replace our advanced animator plugin with yours, if they have essentially similar functionality (do they?). Would help avoid shenanigans, and it would be great to bring our mods closer together.

Well, it would be technically possible, but my plugin is tied together with ModuleScienceExperiment. It wouldn't be difficult to come up with something more dedicated for the non-science parts, but only if there's really a reason for it.

I really do need to go through the animation part of my plugin and clean it up though, there is a lot of room for improvement, and for now advanced animator is probably better for the basic wedges.

[Daishi]

So there's nothing to worry about, using two animation modules in your game at the same time?

[DMagic]

If I tried to put an Advanced Animator module on the same part as a DMModuleScienceAnimate module, and added the animation to both of them, then it would be a problem (actually I'm not sure what would happen). But the Advanced Animator module on the standard, empty science bay actually doesn't do anything to my parts. I'm using model nodes so it just refers to the file location of the SIM model, it doesn't do anything the with the SIM's part.cfg file.

Here's what my the model nodes in my config file looks like:

MODEL
{
	model = US_Core/Parts/US_R90_Wedge_ScienceBay/model
	position = 0, 0, 0
	rotation = 0, 0, 0
}

MODEL
{
	model=DMagic Orbital Science/Universal Storage/US Probe Sci/modelMAG
	position = 0.0, 0.0, 0.0
	scale = 1.0, 1.0, 1.0
	rotation = 0, 180, 0
}

I just add DMModuleScienceAnimate to the bottom and everything works fine. The plugin just searches for an animation in the model using the name defined in the config file. It combines all of the individual meshes into one model, and the plugin has no problem finding your Take 001 animation and my magBoom animation.

[4nxs]

DMagic, if you are still looking for ideas for a atmospheric sensor perhaps the Curiosity REMS might give you some inspiration.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rover_Environmental_Monitoring_Station

Also, will you be doing more of those informative posts about the instruments? I enjoyed reading those.