[0.90] Kerbin Shuttle Orbiter System v4.13

[wasmic]

About the texture compressing, I pretty much always shrink the externals of parts, by hand. It doesn't make a lot of difference anyway. But the IVA's, I just can't shrink them down. It's VERY noticeable when an IVA texture gets shrunk, so I usually do that to the normals only, or not at all.

[Deltac]

@Helldiver: People can exclude parts and internals from the texture compression if they so choose so. This isn't a case of the Texture Compression mod being bad, it's a case of people not doing things right, which is always the case.

[mostlydave]

The biggest reason is that its a shuttle that actually works well.

Not everyone can afford a brand new top end gaming rig! From what I understand the problem is with KSP, not peoples PCs.

I'm running a core i3 with 4GB ram and a GTX 750 ti, I can play many newer games on very high to ultra settings with no problems, bioshock infinite for example but KSP stutters and generally has issues for me unless I run the texture compressor. I'm running about 6 mods, and none of the huge ones like B9. I also remove whole categories of parts from mods if I don't use them.

This is something squad needs to make top priority! Mods make this game playable, the stock command pods for instance are terrible without RPM. How long are mod authors going to stick around without Squads support?

[mandarinn]

I had a low frame rate and stutter problem, until I noticed KSP was using the intergrated GPU, and not my Nvidea card. so I changed it in the Nvidea control panel and it runs smoothly.. I hope this helps some people.

[AntiMatter001]

This right here. It's really a pain to see all the work go into an IVA only to have it blurred to nothing by a texture compression mod. So what's the point?

It takes 10-12 hours sometimes more to get all those little details in with each button. That's not including shadow baking cleanup and such. Then to have it blurred completely essentially killing the work that went into it. Follow me? Which makes me wonder why someone would download KSOS in the first place if they're going to compress it, but that's beside the point.

As long as it takes to get all bugs and issues fixed . To give you a rough idea, a mod I made in 2009, was still getting updates and support in 2013. With KSP, that's really something that depends on several factors. If Squad changes something internally that our plugins rely on, that would fall on Nazari. Same goes for anything that relies on internal Unity related changes. Art related stuff I can update and fix no problem as well as CFG's or any text configuration files.

Unrelated to KSP, I've heard such issues can't be fixed without an engine rewrite. Again, I'm no programmer so take what I say with a grain of salt.

-I'm almost convinced of redoing the KSO's IVA. (And if Naz is reading, no none of the transforms or pivots will change, it will be drag and drop friendly ). It would use a lot of the techniques used in the space station module IVAs such as independent panels that are shared and use a larger texture space then the interior shell.

-The KSO Super 25 (the KSO's 2.5m big brother) will incorporate everything learned and fixed up to this point.

-If memory handling and file loading gets improved or fixed, than we could look forward to a lot more content beyond Phase III. Just because I won't make new things past phase III, doesn't mean we can't go back in to the previous phases and make changes to free up resources to maybe squeeze in Phase IV ;D

well i am a programmer and i kinda noticed that big bump in my plan when i was playing minecraft today trying to update a mod i did which was from 1.6.4 to 1.7.2 XD

i use texture compressor but i don'tlet it touch the KSO or any part therein.

i used to be one of those people with bad computers... i kept whining about lack of memory.... now i whine about lack of space on my one 250 gig hard drive!

[Westi29]

I got Active Texture Management so that I could run KSP in full settings and IVA with out any blurriness lol.

[Westi29]

The Twenty-Fourth of my STS KSO Shuttle Missions and Twentieth Flight of the Tenacious! STS 124's objective is to deploy the KSO Eve Space Station Science Bay Module and return to the KSC Runway!

The construction and deployment missions run STS 123 through STS 130.


Most of the footage is shown in 4x speed for quick viewing.

STS 125 will deploy the Eve Station Habitat Module #1! Edited March 10, 2014 by Westi29

[Starwaster]

This right here. It's really a pain to see all the work go into an IVA only to have it blurred to nothing by a texture compression mod. So what's the point?

For a player stuck with the choice of installing another mod or deleting one to make room it's not about you and your artistic sensibilities. They play their way and make their choices based on what's good for them.

[mdapol]

Lastly, and with full understanding KSO "does not natively support MechJeb" and that "compatibility was never intended" , in the interest of trying to be helpful, I'd like to bring to light another small quirk. Performing automated maneuvers works great... for about 90% of the maneuver execution. It's in the final 10% where things get a bit screwy. Specifically, the orbiter appears to lose its guidance as if S.A.S. was abruptly disabled (it's like it's "oversteering" at the tail end of the operation). Mind you, this is in orbit-outside the influence of atmospheric drag-with only the Omnimax 40Ts engaged (the Thrustmax 200s perform markedly worse, as to be expected). I've tried disabling/locking the gimbals as well as the trim, but that only seems to exacerbate the issue. I'm presuming this may have something to do with the engines being slightly offset from the center of mass? I really have no idea. It's quite strange that it only affects such a small portion, and not the whole. My work-around is to simply disengage/re-engage the maneuver, or just ride it out and hope I don't expend too much deltaV or go too far off the intended course. It's not game breaking, just slightly frustrating when trying to perform complex operations like rendezvous.

Anyhow, I hope that was helpful. Again, I can't thank you enough for this wonderful addition to my KSP experience. And I'm really, really looking forward to the next phases (drooling @ those screen captures)!

That last bit sounds like you are thrusting while pointed at a node marker or prograde/retrograde marker. That won't work, especially with MechJeb. The KSO, like the real shuttle, has it's engines gimbaled so that it does not actually thrust in the direction the nose of the orbiter is pointing. You need to take the gimbaling into account and point off-center to get the "correct" thrust vector. Then you won't be chasing the marker.

[hieywiey]

Could you make an in-game tutorial (like the one Squad makes with Gene Kerman) for flying the KSO because that would really help.

[helldiver]

Could you make an in-game tutorial (like the one Squad makes with Gene Kerman) for flying the KSO because that would really help.

Oh I remember now, the little scientist Kerbal.

How about this, if you can figure out how to do that, and can send me one of their kerbal 3D files (3-Views also work). I'll vertex weight it and animate it for you talking. Other than that, there isn't anything I or even Nazari can do. Heck I don't think even the modding community can either...

For a player stuck with the choice of installing another mod or deleting one to make room it's not about you and your artistic sensibilities. They play their way and make their choices based on what's good for them.

I think you missed my point. It's an issue of putting a lot of work on something, only to have it blurred by the majority of folks that will use it (regardless of what reasons they may have for compressing it). Ergo, why spend so much time and effort on something?

Then again, I really can't base such decisions on a forum thread, as it's not at all representative of the majority that are using and have downloaded the KSOS.

I think what I should do in the future is put up some polls to get some usage feedback and perhaps that will help shape the next phases.

Edited March 11, 2014 by helldiver

[hieywiey]

Oh I remember now, the little scientist Kerbal.

How about this, if you can figure out how to do that, and can send me one of their kerbal 3D files (3-Views also work). I'll vertex weight it and animate it for you talking. Other than that, there isn't anything I or even Nazari can do. Heck I don't think even the modding community can either...

Yes, I think that we can strut (yes, a strut pun ) our stuff by having tutorials and even scenarios (which I can do). I'll get back to you.

[hieywiey]

The animations appear to be internally part of the game. It is probably coded deep into the game somewhere. I personally use Mac (PLEASE do not get into a Mac vs. PC fight here, don't clutter this wonderful thread) and I don't have Xcode (I used to) and I find Unity on the Mac a bit tricky. I will e-mail Squad on where the animations are stored, worst-case-scenario we will just not have the pop-up with animations.

[Starwaster]

I think you missed my point. It's an issue of putting a lot of work on something, only to have it blurred by the majority of folks that will use it (regardless of what reasons they may have for compressing it). Ergo, why spend so much time and effort on something?

Then again, I really can't base such decisions on a forum thread, as it's not at all representative of the majority that are using and have downloaded the KSOS.

I think what I should do in the future is put up some polls to get some usage feedback and perhaps that will help shape the next phases.

You know, I was curious after reading what you said just how badly the texture compressor was blurring things. I prefer empirical evidence and I haven't seen any pictures showing your cockpit in poor quality as the result of texture compression.

In fact I use it myself and the cockpit looks fine to me, but if what looks fine to me is actually bad quality then I figured I'd uninstall the compressor and start the game to see what it really looked like. And honestly I can't tell the difference.

But I have an outdated copy of the texture compressor, from back when it was actually called... texture compressor. (it's Active Texture management now, or something). So I re-downloaded it, the 'aggressive' version and checked the cockpit again.

Pictures below. Can you tell me which one is uncompressed, compressed with the older version and compressed with the newest aggressive version? Because I can't even tell you which one is which. The only difference I see is when I look at Task Manager. (2 GB, 2.5 GB and 3.2 GB). But, I can guarantee you that 2 are uncompressed (standard KSO download, not alternate low res), 2 are compression using the December version and 2 using the most recent Aggressive.

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[TerLoki]

I get the same thing as Starwaster. I run Active Texture Management (a more up-to-date version I think), but it only really seems to affect IVAs for stock parts (particularly the post-it notes) and the exterior of the Mk. 1-2 capsule, everything else looks nice and sharp. In fact it doesn't even affect the non-stock elements of IVAs on stock parts, since the RPM monitors look fine in every capsule I run.

[helldiver]

You know, I was curious after reading what you said just how badly the texture compressor was blurring things. I prefer empirical evidence and I haven't seen any pictures showing your cockpit in poor quality as the result of texture compression.

In fact I use it myself and the cockpit looks fine to me, but if what looks fine to me is actually bad quality then I figured I'd uninstall the compressor and start the game to see what it really looked like. And honestly I can't tell the difference.

But I have an outdated copy of the texture compressor, from back when it was actually called... texture compressor. (it's Active Texture management now, or something). So I re-downloaded it, the 'aggressive' version and checked the cockpit again.

Pictures below. Can you tell me which one is uncompressed, compressed with the older version and compressed with the newest aggressive version? Because I can't even tell you which one is which. The only difference I see is when I look at Task Manager. (2 GB, 2.5 GB and 3.2 GB). But, I can guarantee you that 2 are uncompressed (standard KSO download, not alternate low res), 2 are compression using the December version and 2 using the most recent Aggressive.

http://imgur.com/a/06cOl

You know, I was curious after reading what you said just how badly the texture compressor was blurring things. I prefer empirical evidence and I haven't seen any pictures showing your cockpit in poor quality as the result of texture compression.

In fact I use it myself and the cockpit looks fine to me, but if what looks fine to me is actually bad quality then I figured I'd uninstall the compressor and start the game to see what it really looked like. And honestly I can't tell the difference.

But I have an outdated copy of the texture compressor, from back when it was actually called... texture compressor. (it's Active Texture management now, or something). So I re-downloaded it, the 'aggressive' version and checked the cockpit again.

Pictures below. Can you tell me which one is uncompressed, compressed with the older version and compressed with the newest aggressive version? Because I can't even tell you which one is which. The only difference I see is when I look at Task Manager. (2 GB, 2.5 GB and 3.2 GB). But, I can guarantee you that 2 are uncompressed (standard KSO download, not alternate low res), 2 are compression using the December version and 2 using the most recent Aggressive.

http://imgur.com/a/06cOl

I think you misunderstood me saying texture compression versus texture halving. I have no problem with, and Naz and I actually tried to do DDS originally (I wanted to use DDS as opposed to TGAs). We weren't able to figure it out until someone suggested to change the referencing manually in the actual file.

So converting to DDS or any other texture compression standard isn't an issue and I encourage it. The issue is with the Alternate Texture download v1.13. That one is a fast solution that really just halves the texture sizes and it was designed for people that do not have the texture compression mod you are using. You then have folks that are using that texture set in addition to the texture compression mod.

I'm an avid supporter of the mod and many times brought it up to Naz that I wanted (and still want and may eventually) do away with the alternate texture download entirely. Folks that want the extra memory space will have to use the texture compression mod.

That being said I never wanted to distribute TGAs. I always wanted to use DDS's from the get go.

Finally to answer your inquiry:

Pic 1: RAW

Pic 2: DXT 1 (Aggressive? what ever that means)

Pic 3: RAW

Pic 4: DXT 5?

Pic 5: DXT 1 (Aggressive?

Pic 6: DXT 5?

Anyhow that's irrelevant as texture compression I've always been in support of.

[Edit] Had our experiments using DDS worked, you guys would have all been using the equivalent of the textures used by the texture compression mod on "Aggressive" (I wanted to use DXT5 DDS).

Edited March 11, 2014 by helldiver

[Jethro Bodine]

The blue camera arcs were removed in the latest version: 1.13. Looks like you have an outdated version installed, or removed the old one in an incorrect way before installing 1.13.

Still have the "uploads-2014-02-Kerbin_Shuttle_Orbiter_v113.zip" file in my downloads folder from the Spaceport. Should I try the mirror instead? And again, these are the *only* RPM libraries I've ever installed (excluding the mods MechJeb and Chatterer, I've been running a vanilla game), so I'm uncertain how I could have had an outdated version.

Also, how can I avoid removing the old one in an "incorrect way" before re-installing? I've been just deleting the folders/files off my hard drive. Is there a secret handshake or ritual I'm supposed to perform first?

[Jethro Bodine]

That last bit sounds like you are thrusting while pointed at a node marker or prograde/retrograde marker. That won't work, especially with MechJeb. The KSO, like the real shuttle, has it's engines gimbaled so that it does not actually thrust in the direction the nose of the orbiter is pointing. You need to take the gimbaling into account and point off-center to get the "correct" thrust vector. Then you won't be chasing the marker.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but that explanation strikes me as rather odd for two reasons:

1) In a thirty second burn, why is it "correct" (holding orientation) for 27 seconds and only getting "confused" during the last three seconds? Wouldn't the thrust vector be incorrect from the get go?

2) What's the point of a gimbal if it makes navigation unreliable? Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression the purpose was to compensate for orientation, not impede it. You're suggesting when trying to rendezvous with a satellite I should disregard marker nodes and essentially guesstimate a proper thrust vector?

[specs]

That issue has really killed my enthusiasm for making mods for KSP. I don't think after Phase III, which includes the KSO Super 25, I'll be making anything else. Since I doubt KSP will be able to handle anything else (not the least of which will include all the whining on the thread about folks not able to run all their mods as well as the KSOS stuff).

Whaaa?!

No reaction images, huh?

Hmmm...

*Lies down on floor*

...

*Tries not to cry*

...

*Cries a lot*

[Westi29]

The Twenty-Fifth of my STS KSO Shuttle Missions and 21st Flight of the Tenacious! STS 125's objective is to deploy the KSO Eve Space Station Habitat Module #1 and return to the KSC Runway!

The construction and deployment missions run STS 123 through STS 130.


Most of the footage is shown in 4x speed for quick viewing.

STS 126 will deploy the Eve Station Habitat Module #2!

[Bedwyr]

I tried out the KSO this evening and want to compliment the Mod developers. Thank you for spending so much of your time doing this! It's a brilliant ship and I love flying it. I was curious whether I could get a reasonably stable flight using Mechjeb and it appears to work smoothly given a few caveats I observed:

- Disable roll control on all flying surfaces for liftoff.

- Only operate ascent control after immediate liftoff (100m or so)

- Disable ascent control well before final circularization burn. I think it gets confused by the nozzle trim and starts chasing a rapidly pitching maneuver reticle with 50+ d-V left to go.

Again thank you!

[mdapol]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but that explanation strikes me as rather odd for two reasons:

1) In a thirty second burn, why is it "correct" (holding orientation) for 27 seconds and only getting "confused" during the last three seconds? Wouldn't the thrust vector be incorrect from the get go?

2) What's the point of a gimbal if it makes navigation unreliable? Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression the purpose was to compensate for orientation, not impede it. You're suggesting when trying to rendezvous with a satellite I should disregard marker nodes and essentially guesstimate a proper thrust vector?

1) Yes, it's incorrect from the get-go. Let's say you have a burn of ~300 m/s required. Because the engines are off by only 12 degrees, your vector will only be off by a little bit. If you've ever done a burn manually you'll know that it's those last few m/s that cause the node indicator to move all over the place. MechJeb is just getting confused.

2) Navigation isn't unreliable. It's just that the node indicator from the basic game isn't set up to compensate for off-center thrust. The real space shuttle has to do this kind of burn but their software does compensate.

[Starwaster]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but that explanation strikes me as rather odd for two reasons:

1) In a thirty second burn, why is it "correct" (holding orientation) for 27 seconds and only getting "confused" during the last three seconds? Wouldn't the thrust vector be incorrect from the get go?

2) What's the point of a gimbal if it makes navigation unreliable? Forgive my ignorance, but I was under the impression the purpose was to compensate for orientation, not impede it. You're suggesting when trying to rendezvous with a satellite I should disregard marker nodes and essentially guesstimate a proper thrust vector?

It gets confused because math is being applied to a shortened vector that generally relies on normalized vectors for accuracy. Math errors result. The problem is in stock KSP and affects the perceived position of the nodes and MJ relies on what KSP tells it. So as the remaining burntime drops under 1 (normal) it gets increasingly inaccurate. That's why you end up 'chasing' the marker. Nothing to do with gimbals, which are just for steering and for compensating for off-axis thrust. You can control their pitch btw independently of the steering aspect. So one thing you could try is pitch to compensate for uneven thrust but lock the gimbals so you're using RCS only for orientation. A properly balanced RCS array is probably better for steering than a gimbaled engine anyway.

[CaptRobau]

Still have the "uploads-2014-02-Kerbin_Shuttle_Orbiter_v113.zip" file in my downloads folder from the Spaceport. Should I try the mirror instead? And again, these are the *only* RPM libraries I've ever installed (excluding the mods MechJeb and Chatterer, I've been running a vanilla game), so I'm uncertain how I could have had an outdated version.

Also, how can I avoid removing the old one in an "incorrect way" before re-installing? I've been just deleting the folders/files off my hard drive. Is there a secret handshake or ritual I'm supposed to perform first?

Weird indeed. But as you can read in the changelog on the first page of this thread, 1.13 removed the blue thingy. So it shouldn't appear if it's installed correctly. In respects to deinstalling it incorrectly, I was thinking you might've simply overwritten 1.12 with 1.13. That could've led to problems. But you seem to have done it correctly. I guess the only thing you can do is try downloading the mediafire mirror, remove the mod's folders once more and install the newly downloaded version. And perhaps sacrifice a baby squid to the Kerbal gods. You know, just to be sure.

[hieywiey]

The Twenty-Fifth of my STS KSO Shuttle Missions and 21st Flight of the Tenacious! STS 125's objective is to deploy the KSO Eve Space Station Habitat Module #1 and return to the KSC Runway!

The construction and deployment missions run STS 123 through STS 130.

Most of the footage is shown in 4x speed for quick viewing.

STS 126 will deploy the Eve Station Habitat Module #2!

Man! You crank these videos out fast! How do you do it?