Kerbal Construction Time/StageRecovery Dev Thread

[CatastrophicFailure]

Lol, but I'm not using MCE, that's the other​ feller who's hassling you

[magico13]

Shoot. I get you all confused. With all the talk with the MCE dev I still had that in my head. I'll see if I can get real chutes working next week. It might be as simple as referencing the module in the part. It may be as hard as building against the .DLL, which could cause a hard dependency, which is the wrong solution. Hopefully it's the first one

I honestly don't mind the "hassling" as a mod needs bugs reported in order to fix them

[guto8797]

This mod is very nice and really useful, but I will just skip it until there is a better crew control and compatibility with real chutes.

Thank you nonetheless and keep up the good work!

EDIT: Just a thought, is this compatible with Extraplanetary Launchpads? I think it should be, and it would also act as a balancing agent for EL, their pads would take longer to build things than the KSC

Edited March 1, 2014 by guto8797

[magico13]

A crew selection GUI and real chutes support is one of the next things I want to work on. Currently it doesn't support EL, but if people want it later down the line then I will try to support it. This is still a work in progress and so is still missing many features.

[guto8797]

Thank you for your answer! I will keep a close tab on this mod, as I think it is a must have, but has you said, requires some more features. I suggested EL support because it could be exploitable, just as using a rover to deploy a emergency launchpad right next to KSC, allowing you to skip building etc. (although i think exploits are mostly the user's fault). As of right now, I will stick so focusing a flag and time warping

Also, is the build timer on kerbin hours on real hours (on kerbin a day lasts 6 hours)

[magico13]

It's "real" hours as that's what the game actually uses for calculating times. While a Kerbin "day" is 6 hours, it won't switch to day 2 until after 24 hours. Also, other mods may change the length of a Kerbin day (Alternis Kerbol has a ~24 hour day). So it corresponds exactly to the game days and not the "kerbin" days.

Yes, that is an exploit that would cause issues, though you'd have to wait time to actually build the "refuel" ships to get the rocket parts and all that to the other launch pad. I imagine it's much shorter than the length of time it would take to build the ship on the pad, though. Not a top priority for me atm, but something I will definitely look into in the future.

[guto8797]

Hmm, another thought, would this mod be compatible with FinalFrontier? That mod adds flight records and ribbons, would it properly detect a crew swap? Also, could you pretty pretty please add a setting to use Kerbin hours? No need to tune rates or anything, just a simple setting where a day means 6 hours, pleeeease.

Edited March 4, 2014 by guto8797

[magico13]

Hmm, another thought, would this mod be compatible with FinalFrontier? That mod adds flight records and ribbons, would it properly detect a crew swap? Also, could you pretty pretty please add a setting to use Kerbin hours? No need to tune rates or anything, just a simple setting where a day means 6 hours, pleeeease.

In my dev version I have added a config option to use 6 hour days. It defaults to false, but by setting it to true it (should, I haven't actually tested) display everything in six hour days instead of 24. I want to get other stuff finished before I release anything, since I currently have everything broken.

Final Frontier should probably work just fine, I can't see a reason why it won't, as it probably checks the Kerbals as they do things, and the way I launch is the same as how KSP launches.

As for real chute support, I've been playing around with it today and can't get it to work without a hard dependency. As such, I MAY have to release two versions (one with RC support and one without) until/unless I can find a better method. I need to ask Stupid_Chris about it later, as he may know better.

As of right now, my goals for next release are:

* 6 hour clock option (done)

* Real Chute support

* A crew selection GUI

* Integration with blizzy's Toolbar

Depending on time, I may try to improve simulation revert handling, including support for Mission Controller directly through their API.

[MasseFlieger]

This is great progress, I am trying the mod out in the next few days!

[guto8797]

Nice, definitely a must. I am now using the mod, and i have tested out, there are no incompatibilities with Final Frontier, has it just lists missions AFTER they have ended, thus swapping the crew with crewmanifest works real nice. Awaiting eagerly for the next release, keep up the good work! Just a question, does this have issues with revert? Or with MultipleSavesDA?

[magico13]

Nice, definitely a must. I am now using the mod, and i have tested out, there are no incompatibilities with Final Frontier, has it just lists missions AFTER they have ended, thus swapping the crew with crewmanifest works real nice. Awaiting eagerly for the next release, keep up the good work! Just a question, does this have issues with revert? Or with MultipleSavesDA?

Since everything gets saved to the persistence file directly, reverting and loading alternate saves (and quicksaving) should all work flawlessly. Keyword is should, but I haven't encounter an issue yet (and I don't think anyone else has either). I took the extra time in the beginning to make everything go in the persistence so I wouldn't have to worry about KSP's non-linear time issues.

[magico13]

Would anyone be interested in making an icon for KCT for the toolbar? I'm thinking something simple, such as just the letters "KCT" but am open to other options. The icon can be up to 24x24 pixels. Here's a link to the toolbar thread for more info: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60863-0-23-0-Toolbar-1-6-1-Common-API-for-draggable-resizable-buttons-toolbar

Edit: Haven't been able to get toolbar functionality working without a hard dependency, so it may become required for the next release (but, it will be included and chances are you already have it from other mods)

Edited March 4, 2014 by magico13

[guto8797]

Hmm... I would, but my art is reaaaaly bad. It doesn't need to be too fancy, if you can't find anything just the KCT letters are fine. Personally I would suggest a wrench and a clock.

Also, I know this might be a little annoying or rude, but could you pretty please release a quick small patch to add kerbin hours? I am not going to play kerbal again without this, and having my rocket much up about a month of time makes me shad . Of course, if you don't want/can't/are currently being attacked by the kraken, I can just play the patience game and take a small break from Kerbal (jebbediah wont be dying 10 times in the same day for a while)

Edited March 6, 2014 by guto8797

[magico13]

but could you pretty please release a quick small patch to add kerbin hours?

Done. Located on front page. Change "Use6HourDays = False" to "Use6HourDays = True" in the config. It's a purely cosmetic change.

As for the other things I'm working on. Toolbar integration is working fine with a hard dependency, real chute support is theoretically working (but I haven't tested it and it will result in me releasing two versions, one with and one without support), and the crew selection gui looks totally awful but let's me actually select crew and it works. I can't do any work tonight (I'm behind on a lab report about the Faraday Effect) but, like usual, I should have an update out by the end of Sunday (weekends are good time to get work done).

In regards to the icon, I was also maybe thinking about the letters KCT but with the 'C' forming part of a clock face. I may play around with it some, but I am awful at making things look nice (The GUIs are a testament to that. They're functional but far from pretty). If anyone else wants to take a stab at it, please do so! There's a good chance I'll use it! Thanks

[guto8797]

Done. Located on front page. Change "Use6HourDays = False" to "Use6HourDays = True" in the config. It's a purely cosmetic change.

As for the other things I'm working on. Toolbar integration is working fine with a hard dependency, real chute support is theoretically working (but I haven't tested it and it will result in me releasing two versions, one with and one without support), and the crew selection gui looks totally awful but let's me actually select crew and it works. I can't do any work tonight (I'm behind on a lab report about the Faraday Effect) but, like usual, I should have an update out by the end of Sunday (weekends are good time to get work done).

In regards to the icon, I was also maybe thinking about the letters KCT but with the 'C' forming part of a clock face. I may play around with it some, but I am awful at making things look nice (The GUIs are a testament to that. They're functional but far from pretty). If anyone else wants to take a stab at it, please do so! There's a good chance I'll use it! Thanks

YAY!! THANK YOU! Never have I had a modder actually listen to a request of mine, and a picky one while at that! Rep's away! I shall love it and squeeze it and name it George!

[diomedea]

Would anyone be interested in making an icon for KCT for the toolbar? I'm thinking something simple, such as just the letters "KCT" but am open to other options. ...

I'm all for full graphical, distinctive icons when possible. So, I used a different concept: please see if these are nice enough (couple, on and off in case you may want to distinguish the status).

[magico13]

I'm all for full graphical, distinctive icons when possible. So, I used a different concept: please see if these are nice enough (couple, on and off in case you may want to distinguish the status).

I do like the simplicity of them! Not sure if I'd need the on/off, but it's nice to know they're available. Maybe if a ship is close to finishing/just finished it could flash a couple times?

YAY!! THANK YOU! Never have I had a modder actually listen to a request of mine, and a picky one while at that! Rep's away! I shall love it and squeeze it and name it George!

This is still small enough (and the change was minor enough) that it's no problem to add (simple) user requests. That and I really don't want to write that lab report...

[diomedea]

... Maybe if a ship is close to finishing/just finished it could flash a couple times?

Been thinking about that a bit. Believe this would be perfect for using the 'IButton.Important' property, available with Toolbar.dll since version 1.2.0 (and till now, almost never used if not by Toolbar author).

[curiousepic]

Can't wait to try this out with my RSS install with the next release.

[guto8797]

Hey, magico, i may have found an issue. Right now I can't do more testing, but it seems that if you perform an EVA and recover the Kerbal, and use the tracking station to recover the ship, you get "Kerbal EVA" parts, nothing more. Might test some more, but I can only do that after the weekend .

I am no coder, but my guess is that the mod can't detect the recovery of inactive vessels, which will probably make recovering debris painful.

[magico13]

Hey, magico, i may have found an issue. Right now I can't do more testing, but it seems that if you perform an EVA and recover the Kerbal, and use the tracking station to recover the ship, you get "Kerbal EVA" parts, nothing more. Might test some more, but I can only do that after the weekend .

I am no coder, but my guess is that the mod can't detect the recovery of inactive vessels, which will probably make recovering debris painful.

Hmm, let me look into this. It recovers debris and all that just fine, since it uses the OnRecovery event. I'll double check and then edit this post with my results.

Edit: This is going to be harder for me to test in my dev environment. You managed to catch a bug that doesn't exist yet where you can no longer recover anything at all! I have no idea how to fix it yet. As for the original issue, I haven't been able to test it yet. Can anyone confirm it?

Edit 2: Yep. That's a bug! I also learned that Kerbals are being added as parts... Need to go fix that...

Edit 3: Well, the Kerbals being parts I've probably fixed. I'm not sure what's causing the issue with recovering in the tracking station, since the log says that things are being recovered and the game state is being saved... It appears to be happening any time you recover anything from the tracking station. The temporary solution is likely to not recover anything through the tracking station. It could be because the vessel isn't loaded, like you suspect. Once I figure out the issues I'm having in my dev version I can probably fix it for next release.

Edit 4: Simple fix, I forgot to actually care about saving the state during the tracking station scene. Is fixed now for next update, which may be today (Saturday)!

In short, only recover vessels from the flight mode for the time being! Thanks for catching that guto8797!

Edited March 8, 2014 by magico13

[CatastrophicFailure]

Here's a request: could the setup be tweaked so its possible to modify vessels already completed and in storage? I've hit a couple cases now where it would be helpful to make a small tweak to a finished ship, but I'd have to scrap it and rebuild from parts. Modding should of course carry a time penalty, but less than a complete "tear down"

[magico13]

Here's a request: could the setup be tweaked so its possible to modify vessels already completed and in storage? I've hit a couple cases now where it would be helpful to make a small tweak to a finished ship, but I'd have to scrap it and rebuild from parts. Modding should of course carry a time penalty, but less than a complete "tear down"

This exact thing is a planned feature for when I focus efforts on the build list again. When I released PR3 I asked what people wanted me to focus on: the build list, improving simulations, or crew gui and assorted efforts. No one really gave a direct reply, but it ended up being crew gui + other small stuff. After the next release it will be improving the build list or improving simulations. I imagine the build list will win out, so here's a list of planned features regarding that: edit a building ship, improve the control of the order, fix up the GUI some, add tech tree support, limit the size of the build list and the vessel storage (unlocking tech nodes will increase the size/allow you to build several ships simultaneously). But first I need to finish this version, which will hopefully be soon, I've just got a couple tricky bugs to fix (which may take a while...)

Edit: I slightly misread you, as I was thinking about editing ships that are currently being built. If the ship is finished and you scrap it, you get all the parts, so any new parts you add are pretty much the only ones that take time to build. I may add something so adding a few parts doesn't take so long (since new parts are at full value it takes a while the normal way), but at the same time it should take some non-trivial time to add parts to an already complete ship.

Edited March 8, 2014 by magico13

[curiousepic]

A couple dream features I had while half-awake this morning:

Parallel part manufacturing. Basically, there are multiple factories that are all building the parts for a rocket at the same time. It could be split between either part category (pods, control, propulsion, etc) or even by "manufacturer". This might encourage diversification of ship designs.

Would it be possible to optionally allow or integrate HyperEdit with the Simulation mode?

[magico13]

A couple dream features I had while half-awake this morning:

Parallel part manufacturing. Basically, there are multiple factories that are all building the parts for a rocket at the same time. It could be split between either part category (pods, control, propulsion, etc) or even by "manufacturer". This might encourage diversification of ship designs.

Would it be possible to optionally allow or integrate HyperEdit with the Simulation mode?

When I expand on the build list I'll be adding tech tree corresponding changes to the build list, such as faster build times/parallel building for the VAB/SPH when unlocking Rocket Construction or Space Plane nodes, along with changes to how many ships can be stored in the storage. I could alter this idea some to make it so certain part categories (Utility, Science, Aerodynamic, etc) have changes in speed (by reducing their effective costs) perhaps instead or in addition to some of these other features. I'll think about it.

Hyperedit should work fine with simulations (pretty sure at least), so I'm not going to add duplicate functionality into this (unless people pester me enough about it). The Hyperedit team has put a lot of work into their mod that I don't want to have to repeat, but I do want to make sure simulations function properly with Hyperedit. If you notice an incompatibility, please let me know!

I am currently in the process of uploading a new version for you all to break!