[0.90] Kerbin Shuttle Orbiter System v4.13

[helldiver]

The slightest bounce sends the entire orbiter spinning when I try to land.

I wish I could help you. But having seen several of your posts, I think it might not work out for you?

Another option is to check your settings and adjust your sensitivity. I have the cheapest keyboard ever and you can even hear it in my videos. I believe your issue is:

-You're not following the re-entry instructions as shown in my videos or in the manual included in the download. Burn at the mountain range in the desert until the target spot is aligned with the island NE of KSC. Must have 90 Liquid Fuel or less.

-You have an aerospace mod that is changing values such as Ferram Aerospace or Deadly Re-Entry.

-You have customized the shuttle in a way that it wasn't designed for?

Alternatively the best solution I can offer is to put a bunch of parachutes all over it and just do a traditional re-entry. Several folks on here do it that way and you'll be fine if you absolutely must use the KSO

If you're using Ferram Aerospace, I can't help you. I also don't accept feedback based on physics changing mods. I mean FAR and DRE are awesome mods and I already contacted Ferram regarding an alternate KSO Config download. But the KSO stock is not designed to be used with those mods. That doesn't mean it won't work with them, it just means I can't help you and neither of us is making adjustments based on them. Several folks on the FAR thread can help you with configuration files and the like.

I asked earlier before are the RPM screens easily changeable I would like to use vessel viewer

No idea but more than likely not. Please ask in the threads specific to the mod that you are trying to edit (Hyomoto or RPM).

KSO uses it's own look up system as the RPM and Hyomoto assets are tied in with the various screens I customized, which are getting customized further as more phases come in.

Any customization you do is on your own and you would have to drag and drop them into the KSO/RPM folders as well as do configuration file editing and file renaming. In other words, probably not. And if they do, I can guarantee that by Phase 3, all of that will be changed again since I will be redoing how the ADI and HUD displays and functions.

Edited March 27, 2014 by helldiver

[ayana]

Yeah, I have FAR so I'm looking into whatever else might make landings easier without changing the structure of the thing entirely.

But I have managed to land it one time so far, so it is possible. I'll keep doing science at this until I have it figured out.

Edited March 27, 2014 by ayana

[AntiMatter001]

Helldiver: some time in a future phase would you consider putting resources in the Octostrut both for space stations and satellites?

An example of what I was thinking of:

http://i.imgur.com/FlZ0f4i.png

Behold - The Octostrut Resource Satellite!

how do you DO that!?

[ayana]

I knew it was possible. And even with a half ton in the cargo bay. All it took was a steeper skip reentry and liberal use of the airbrake.

All I changed was the angle of the stabilizers and put them back as far as possible. That and control surface assignments.

[Bomoo]

I left it like that just to have some variety, but it's an easy change. Probably not for a long while though. Just released v2.08.

No, not without remodeling and recasting.

Alright, cool, thanks for the replies.

[Astrodynamic]

Great mod... I just downloaded 2.06 the other day to upgrade from 1.13 and it blew up my save. I just spent the better part of 4 hours reading through the log to trouble shoot.... and now there is 2.08? I'll try again this weekend...

[qnistNAMEERF]

how do you DO that!?

Octostrut Resource Satellite

It's a weld; an editted part.cfg. Everything you see in the octostrut (including the octostrut) is welded together as a single part with all the resources and modules of the sum of the parts you see in there (plus some xenongas I threw in for good measure since it is a satellite). There's an in-game plugin called UbioZur. But it's still constrained to the limitations of the VAB (and is not officially up to date). If you do it by hand, you get a much better looking part.cfg and you can tweak the scale/size of the individual parts to make them fit properly. The only one modified in that photo (by scale) is the fuel tank (and the reaction wheel strength of the probe core, to be honest). It was just a tiny bit too tall. If you want the part.cfg you can PM me for it. I just threw it together to get my idea across. I'm gonna make some others with just fuel, or just batteries, or whatever to hold me over until helldiver comes out with his own flavor of them. The empty space inside those struts was just begging to hold something.

[AntiMatter001]

Octostrut Resource Satellite

It's a weld; an editted part.cfg. Everything you see in the octostrut (including the octostrut) is welded together as a single part with all the resources and modules of the sum of the parts you see in there (plus some xenongas I threw in for good measure since it is a satellite). There's an in-game plugin called UbioZur. But it's still constrained to the limitations of the VAB (and is not officially up to date). If you do it by hand, you get a much better looking part.cfg and you can tweak the scale/size of the individual parts to make them fit properly. The only one modified in that photo (by scale) is the fuel tank (and the reaction wheel strength of the probe core, to be honest). It was just a tiny bit too tall. If you want the part.cfg you can PM me for it. I just threw it together to get my idea across. I'm gonna make some others with just fuel, or just batteries, or whatever to hold me over until helldiver comes out with his own flavor of them. The empty space inside those struts was just begging to hold something.

huh... ok... well that leaves out an hour of toil for nothing out of my day.

[ayana]

Somehow I even managed a second landing. From a 5 degree inclined 200 km orbit, without having to even load a quicksave.

[Bomoo]

I suggested an access tube version of the octo truss a while back, but I didn't want to be too obnoxious about it. Still, something to fill that empty space, be it resource tanks, access tubes, etc. would be very welcome.

[qnistNAMEERF]

huh... ok... well that leaves out an hour of toil for nothing out of my day.

You can still make something like this with the VAB without welding, but it removes the use of one of the nodes on the top or bottom of the strut. Build everything you want in the strut first, then place the strut over it and align the bottom or top nodes and it'll snap in place over it. But then you can't put a docking port (unless it's surface attachable) over the node point that was used up. I hope that makes sense.

[HeadHunter67]

Burn at the mountain range in the desert until the target spot is aligned with the island NE of KSC. Must have 90 Liquid Fuel or less.

No matter what I try, I always overshoot the runway. Following the instructions, burning at the right time with an unmodified orbiter with no cargo.

As for the 90 fuel or less, how exactly is one supposed to accomplish that? Burning it in the engines is just going to change my orbit even further. Do I need a mod that allows me to dump fuel?

[Jethro Bodine]

Really, really dumb question:

Would it be possible to make the orbiter a single object? Obviously I'm asking out of ignorance and only thinking of the benefits: reduced part count, less VAB bloat, etc.. But I'm assuming there's a really good reason not to; it would break the game, make components inoperable, texturing a chore, etc..

Could someone enlighten me? This isn't a criticism, nor am I attempting to be confrontational (in any conceivable way). I'm just curious, as I can't think of any particular reason (with the exception of the avionics package) I'd mount the various individual parts (wings, control surfaces, landing gear, etc.) contrary to their intended fittings.

Thanks!

[Jethro Bodine]

...As for the 90 fuel or less, how exactly is one supposed to accomplish that? Burning it in the engines is just going to change my orbit even further. Do I need a mod that allows me to dump fuel?

I use dtobi's wonderful Klockheed Martian - Smart Parts Pack.

Not only does it come with a fuel valve (which works great), but a number of other little components/utilities that really come in handy for all my flights... especially with KSO. For example, I use the altimeter to automagically lower my landing gear below 500m and dump my fuel below 60km. It's awesome!

[qnistNAMEERF]

Really, really dumb question:

Would it be possible to make the orbiter a single object? Obviously I'm asking out of ignorance and only thinking of the benefits: reduced part count, less VAB bloat, etc.. But I'm assuming there's a really good reason not to; it would break the game, make components inoperable, texturing a chore, etc..

Could someone enlighten me? This isn't a criticism, nor am I attempting to be confrontational (in any conceivable way). I'm just curious, as I can't think of any particular reason (with the exception of the avionics package) I'd mount the various individual parts (wings, control surfaces, landing gear, etc.) contrary to their intended fittings.

Thanks!

So there are several limitations of KSP that make this not possible for now. I've played around with welding the KSO cockpit, cargobay, and fuelcell together for balance and the biggest dealbreaker for me was it would not let me have all the animation modules. I had to pick one and comment out the rest or none of the animated parts would work properly (and the right click menu bugged out constantly). Wings cannot be welded and still provide lift or the whole part would be classified as a wing. The list goes on. The mod authors could fill you in more. Helldiver has written on this subject a few times before.

[Jethro Bodine]

So there are several limitations of KSP that make this not possible for now. I've played around with welding the KSO cockpit, cargobay, and fuelcell together for balance and the biggest dealbreaker for me was it would not let me have all the animation modules. I had to pick one and comment out the rest or none of the animated parts would work properly (and the right click menu bugged out constantly). Wings cannot be welded and still provide lift or the whole part would be classified as a wing. The list goes on. The mod authors could fill you in more. Helldiver has written on this subject a few times before.

Thanks! I assumed as much, but figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. Sorry I missed helldiver mentioning it previously.

[Lekke]

No matter what I try, I always overshoot the runway. Following the instructions, burning at the right time with an unmodified orbiter with no cargo.

As for the 90 fuel or less, how exactly is one supposed to accomplish that? Burning it in the engines is just going to change my orbit even further. Do I need a mod that allows me to dump fuel?

The way I do it is to make sure I fall about 30-35 Km short of the KSC, that way I end up between the mountain range and the KSC at an altitude of about 6km, then I do a steep dive to hit about 3-4 km altitude and then I line up with the runway and glide in.

[Jason Cox]

I use dtobi's wonderful Klockheed Martian - Smart Parts Pack.

Not only does it come with a fuel valve (which works great), but a number of other little components/utilities that really come in handy for all my flights... especially with KSO. For example, I use the altimeter to automagically lower my landing gear below 500m and dump my fuel below 60km. It's awesome!

Nice! I might have to give these parts a test later today because that sounds awesome!

[Jason Cox]

Helldiver, does the KerbaLab fix require that any existing KerbaLab modules be de-orbited or will they automatically pick up the change from the config file update?

Edit: Tested it myself, it works fine for KerbaLabs in flight.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Jason Cox

[Lekke]

Helldiver, does the KerbaLab fix require that any existing KerbaLab modules be de-orbited or will they automatically pick up the change from the config file update?

I didn't have to replace any of my labs that were in orbit to get it to work.

[qnistNAMEERF]

Thanks! I assumed as much, but figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. Sorry I missed helldiver mentioning it previously.

No worries. I want to say most of the talk about this might have been in the development thread anyway.

[HeadHunter67]

I use dtobi's wonderful Klockheed Martian - Smart Parts Pack.

Not only does it come with a fuel valve (which works great), but a number of other little components/utilities that really come in handy for all my flights... especially with KSO. For example, I use the altimeter to automagically lower my landing gear below 500m and dump my fuel below 60km. It's awesome!

Thanks - that looks like a bunch of useful little parts! I'd seen it mentioned on the KSP FB group a while back but hadn't played the game for a while at the time.

I think I'm going to see if the TAC Fuel Balancer will do the trick as well - I found it handy in previous versions for making sure my resources were distributed in a balanced way.

[Ruahrc]

Great mod, been having a lot of fun playing with it!

The stock launcher was way OP for FAR, so I created a new config file for a KSO booster "solid fuel edition" with reduced thrust and fuel. Toning it down makes the boosters not be OP and also use solid fuel which is a little more "realistic". I also put in the sounds from KW rocketry so I get the cool thundering solid booster sounds . Performing various launch stress tests I can get the KSO to 200-250km polar orbit carrying a 8-10 ton payload reliably (that was the uh... Kerbal armed forces' design requirements). If I am flying with less payload I reduce the booster thrust, solid fuel amount, and liquid fuel amount in the EFT as necessary to not carry surplus fuel to orbit.

My most recent KSO mission was to launch the Cacteye telescope to 250km orbit at 60 degrees inclined; I landed with about 100 m/s dV left which seemed a pretty good safety margin although I could probably tweak it further to make it more challenging to get into orbit. I just used ballpark numbers to start with and they were pretty good so I kept with them.

I tried the FAR configs published earlier but had no success. Using the stock cfgs I have no trouble whatsoever landing reliably on the runway, but with FAR the whole craft becomes unstable, even during launch. Maybe I needed to tweak the control surface paramters or the cfg I used was incompatible with newest KSOS pack. Using the stock configs it flies like a dream except for the fact that my dromoman shuttle arm causes some funky behavior on re-entry since the parts inside the cargo hold are not shielded from the airflow. Anyway I am not sure what problems people are having with FAR, unless they are using the FAR specific configs which I found to be unnecessary. I tried just making the cargo hold to be a "Part" and not a "Winglet", but even that one change made the ship very difficult to control (it became very sensitive to payload mass, MJ for some reason was not able to hold it on the right launch vector but I could do it manually for a while before I lost it too). I do not understand the FAR configs enough to try to make my own so I will have to put up with the unshielded cargo bay until someone comes up with a fix.

I also found a pretty good solution to the "mechjeb problem" (where burns in orbit using MJ cause the node to drift around and the orbiter to spin around and around unable to finish the burn). The source of the issue is that the OMS engines are offset from the axial direction of the ship, so when MJ points the nose at the burn node the thrust vector is not pointed in the same direction, so burning without compensation (as MJ apparently does not during orbital maneuvers... although it can do so during launch using corrective steering?) will cause drift.

To fix this you need to get the thrust vector in line with the maneuver node. I accomplished this by surface mounting a stock cubic octagonal strut behind the nose cone, but angled it down by 10 degrees. I then put a stock probe core (I just call it the "orbital computer" ) on top of the cubic octagonal so it too is pointed down 10 degrees. Setting the OMS engines to have a trim of 10 degrees puts everything more or less in line (there is a lateral shift between probe core axis vector and thrust vector but overall it is much better than default layout). I have not experimiented with mounting the probe core in other areas of the ship such that the thrust vector, CoM, and probe core axis are all incident, but that should make the craft fly even better.

I am not sure why the default/recommended OMS setting is to be at 14. Based on my observations of CoT and CoM in the VAB/SPH I found that a 10 degree OMS setting produced a thrust vector that was pointing through the CoM. This varies some depending on what payload and fuel remaining you have, but on average it seemed much closer at 10 than at 14. Anyhow setting the engines to 10 degrees offset also makes the thrust vector in the same direction with the probe core axis, so when MJ burns there is vastly reduced drift. Using this solution MJ can auto-pilot orbital maneuvers to within the default 0.1 m/s tolerance about 75% of the time; the rest of the time it will start to lose it at 0.2m/s, necessitating a manual disengage of MJ to prevent it from spinning around and around. I believe if you changed the burn tolerance to 0.2 or 0.3m/s it would work no issues pretty much all the time. I always have RCS enabled during the burns too which helps the ship compensate. Manual burn accuracy should also be improved using this method too since you are again fixing the fundamental problem which is that the thrust vector and ship's nose vector are not aligned.

Anyways to use the solution above, you have to "control from here" on the angled probe core before initiating any orbital burn (hinged nosecone is great for this!). This will essentially shift the orbiter 10 degrees nose up to the direction you want to go. One side effect I noticed is that going to IVA causes the "control reference part" to be the cockpit again so you cannot burn from IVA (the workaround is to burn by hand, but instead of pointing at the maneuver node just point about 10 degrees nose up from it). Also remember that RCS is aligned with the cockpit so your RCS maneuvers may be a little off until you "control from here" on the cockpit again. Basically what I do is always have control from teh cockpit, and change the control to the "orbital computer" for any OMS burn, then reset control to the cockpit once the burn is complete for RCS maneuvering.

FYI I may be wrong but I believe this is the same issue experienced by the real shuttle, and they compensate in a similar manner by not pointing the shuttle nose in the direction they want to go but rather offset it some amount so that the thrust from the engines is pointed where they want to go instead.

If you do not want to futz with all the 10 degree offset and control part switching stuff above, the easier but slightly less realistic solution is to add a 3rd OMS engine on the spare node on the shuttle's rear surface. Then make all the OMS engines have trim of 0, and reduce the two upper OMS engines thrust output to 45% (if you leave them at 100% output the thrust vector will again not be pointed through CoM). This arrangement is slightly heavier/less efficient since you are carrying an extra engine, but it lets you MJ around to 0.1m/s accuracy with no issues whatsoever and you do not need to juggle what part you're controlling from. The increased ISP of the OMS engines might also make this slightly more efficient than simply using the main engines at 0 trim to burn around in orbit (also slightly less realistic).

Sorry this is a LOT of text, the whole concept is pretty straightforward if described with a couple diagrams/pictures. I may try to put those together and post them this evening. The unintended but neat side effect is that it forces you to consider CoM, CoL, and thrust vector of the ship when designing various payloads, something that was carefully accounted for on the real shuttle missions.

How to make this solution more integrated? I don't know if there is an easy way to automatically switch which part is used as the reference, or how to get it to be offset in IVA mode, but maybe making a new KSO nosecone part that has built in probe core with 10 degree offset would remove the need to add the angled octagonal cubic and probe core.

[rottielover]

Nice! I just get back and already an update, cool!

One thing about the Lab texture. It wasn't intuitively obvious to me where the door/hatch was (my first attempt I placed solar panels over them cause it looked like a good spot to do so). Unlike the station tug texture that is obvious where the door is. A super minor thing, but perhapse worth the mention.

So KSO-101 was a complete success. I noticed that the shuttle is much more fly-able now as compared to the original release, and had a much better time landing this time around.

I'm looking forward to getting more free time so I can run my 102-110 missions that are planned (102 being a mission to replace the Lab that I messed up).

Any thoughts around KAS grab support for the really small parts (solar panels and mechjeb unit)?

[Ruahrc]

Double post sorry guys, please see above

Edited March 28, 2014 by Ruahrc