Kerbal Construction Time/StageRecovery Dev Thread

[magico13]

Hmm... something unrelated to this mod, but do you think a calendar mod would be doable for kerbal? There is already one http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/68270-0-23-Kerbin-Date-Calendar-%28Version-1-3%29

But unfortunately, I think it is abandoned, and my main problem is that the "Kerbin Time" setting instead of having the day over at 6 hours, rescales what time means in order to make sure a kerbin day lasts 24 hours. On other words a second on kerbin is equal to 1/4 of real life, is there any config I can do, or any mod I can install that allows me to change it? I wantz 6 hours day koddamit! I'm aware that you probably have the skill for it, but two mods at the same time is too much, any kind of tweaking I can do?

My mod does it "correctly" though, right? Where seconds correspond one to one but have a "day" as 6 hours and still 60 minutes per hour and 60 seconds per minute. It should be doing that.

Without taking a look at the source of that mod yet, it might be a simple fix (like it is for this) where you just have to change a few values. Or it could require a full restructure. I can maybe take a look and see if I can just make that change for you, but no promises. I can't tell if it's been abandoned, it may just be considered "working" and so there haven't been updates, and I don't have the time to take on another project (I already spend too much time on KSP for my girlfriend's liking, plus I have a senior thesis I should be working on...) but if it's a small change it shouldn't be too bad.

In short: I can possibly make a tweak if it will be easy, but am not willing to "take over"

[magico13]

Just uploaded PR4b. The only change is that there is now only one version for Real Chute and stock, it should work for both. Please test and let me know (in the Alt-F2 log you should see which module is being used and the drag/mass ratio. For Real Chute it must be over 8, for Stock the Vt value must be below 10. This will display even in simulations (although you don't get to keep the parts when you revert, obviously).

The PR4a downloads are being kept active just in case there is an issue with the new version. You need not update if you don't want to, there aren't any other changes, but the testing would be appreciated. Thank you everyone!

[guto8797]

Guide is pratically finished, just a few tweaks and screenies left. BTW, would you mind too much if other mods are visible on the screenies? I'll try to minimize it, but it would be easier if i hadn't to make a clean install. In the meantime, I recommend you to take a look at other mod's treads, and try to get some ideas for a OP rework, specially the Interstellar mod. A good origina post is halfway to a mod downloaded, spaces, pics, big words, lines, etc all look better

[magico13]

Guide is pratically finished, just a few tweaks and screenies left. BTW, would you mind too much if other mods are visible on the screenies? I'll try to minimize it, but it would be easier if i hadn't to make a clean install. In the meantime, I recommend you to take a look at other mod's treads, and try to get some ideas for a OP rework, specially the Interstellar mod. A good origina post is halfway to a mod downloaded, spaces, pics, big words, lines, etc all look better

A small amount of other mods is fine. As long as the main focus is on the features of this. I was planning on a nice OP for when I do an official release in the Addons Releases forum, but that's taking longer than I had originally planned and so I will likely redo this one after you finish the guide

[pejmany]

Hey magico. my mod stopped showing the jump to complete part. I've tried restarting ksp, no effect.

[guto8797]

Hey magico. my mod stopped showing the jump to complete part. I've tried restarting ksp, no effect.

Do you have any vessel on a unstable orbit? Heading to EVE at 10000Km/s for example? if you do... resort to regular time warp (NOTE: Time control mod allows warping from the tracking station)

[pejmany]

Ah, thanks for confirming my suspicions.

[magico13]

Ah, thanks for confirming my suspicions.

guto8797 is correct, in order to prevent you from warping through (or into the center of) celestial bodies and/or having sphere of influence changes you can only Jump time when you have stable orbits. Stable is defined as periapsis within 10% of apoapsis, so an AP of 250km can have a periapsis of minimum 225km. Debris is ignored, as is anything landed on a body. I would have preferred to just require no SOI changes, but apparently you can't check for those on anything except the active vessel. Time warp in the flight scene is always possible (though could be slow if your craft is in a low orbit), which is why I recommend planting a flag or other landed object, just in case you need to warp. Theoretically if you are warping and a vessel changes SOI it will stop warping and alert you, but I didn't code that and have literally never used it.

You can get around this by setting your vessel as debris, but that's just asking for trouble for yourself

[magico13]

Just an update, it's probably going to be a while until the next release since I'm quite busy IRL right now. After April 12th or so I should start to have more free time, but until then I'm pretty sure my free time is just going to get less and less (I've got a senior thesis to finish and classes are starting to go into "project" mode). Please post your bug reports if you've got them and I might be able to scrounge up some bug fixes, but it seems as if this version is relatively stable. Should 0.24 release before the middle of April then I will try to do a quick update, but do not expect full functionality before then. 0.23 mods shouldn't be assumed to work in 0.24 (hopefully it will be an easy initial transition. I am afraid of what contracts are going to do, this could make career mode unplayable in 0.24).

Basically, this isn't dead but I need to take a short break due to school. Post your bug reports and I'll try to make sure things stay stable. But don't expect any new features for a little while

Thank you all for your patience I'll still be around here in the mean time, so don't hesitate to ask questions!

[JeffreyCor]

This is a great idea and the simulation alone is a great boost I have found a problem with 4b. With this version the exit from the VAB and SPH does not work and throws a nullreference when clicked. 4a for realchutes does not have this issue and functions properly.

[landeTLS]

Just an update, it's probably going to be a while until the next release since I'm quite busy IRL right now. After April 12th or so I should start to have more free time, but until then I'm pretty sure my free time is just going to get less and less (I've got a senior thesis to finish and classes are starting to go into "project" mode). Please post your bug reports if you've got them and I might be able to scrounge up some bug fixes, but it seems as if this version is relatively stable. Should 0.24 release before the middle of April then I will try to do a quick update, but do not expect full functionality before then. 0.23 mods shouldn't be assumed to work in 0.24 (hopefully it will be an easy initial transition. I am afraid of what contracts are going to do, this could make career mode unplayable in 0.24).

Basically, this isn't dead but I need to take a short break due to school. Post your bug reports and I'll try to make sure things stay stable. But don't expect any new features for a little while

Thank you all for your patience I'll still be around here in the mean time, so don't hesitate to ask questions!

No problem dude. Everyone has real life obligations and this is after all something you are doing for free. Take your time and dont worry, we will wait patiently and are just happy you are still interested in the plugin to keep working on it. Thanks for telling us.

[Itsdavyjones]

I've been keeping an eye on this mod for some time, and got it yesterday, loving it so far.

[magico13]

This is a great idea and the simulation alone is a great boost I have found a problem with 4b. With this version the exit from the VAB and SPH does not work and throws a nullreference when clicked. 4a for realchutes does not have this issue and functions properly.

I have seen an issue similar to this (likely the same issue in fact) when you add a ship to the build list, then load a different one, then try to add that one to the build list without exiting the VAB first. I'm not sure what the cause is exactly, so it probably won't get fixed right away. It throws an error when trying to save the second time. Hmm, looks like when you load a ship the persistence isn't saved but there is a scene change. Could be the cause. I'll look into it some more, but for now it should be circumvented by exiting and reentering the VAB/SPH when wanting to add a ship that you load or when you press "new". It should still occur in 4a since nothing really changed between them other than the realchutes stuff.

[JeffreyCor]

After several hours of play and launches, I just got the same issue to hit in 4a. I was coming on to report it in fact. I'll stick 4b back in and try that workaround and let you know if the problem persists.

Update: using your workaround it has been working flawlessly, have not had the problem reoccur at all.

Unrelated problem though, it seems RealChutes is not recognized or at least not since the latest updated to that mod. Tried both 4b and 4a for realchutes to make sure it wasn't just a recognition error. In both cases, boosters with chutes set sufficient to land at 6 m/s were not in the parts lift for later building.

Edited March 21, 2014 by JeffreyCor

[Taki117]

I'm having an issue in flight. Sometimes the staging will freeze randomly as if the staging has been locked, without pressing the appropriate combination (alt+L) a quicksave/load will fix the problem temporarily, only to recur sometime later.

I'm running lots of mods and this is the most likely culprit. (Seeing as I've used all the others before) Is anyone else having this issue?

[magico13]

I'm having an issue in flight. Sometimes the staging will freeze randomly as if the staging has been locked, without pressing the appropriate combination (alt+L) a quicksave/load will fix the problem temporarily, only to recur sometime later.

I'm running lots of mods and this is the most likely culprit. (Seeing as I've used all the others before) Is anyone else having this issue?

I can't think of any way that would be happening as this never affects staging at all and nothing much actually happens during the flight scene in this, but if you can get me the output_log.txt and KSP.log files from a session after this issue happens I can take a look and let you know if I see anything. It could be a compatibility issue with another mod, or some unexpected bug. Or, hopefully for me, another mod entirely

Edited March 23, 2014 by magico13

[magico13]

After several hours of play and launches, I just got the same issue to hit in 4a. I was coming on to report it in fact. I'll stick 4b back in and try that workaround and let you know if the problem persists.

Update: using your workaround it has been working flawlessly, have not had the problem reoccur at all.

Unrelated problem though, it seems RealChutes is not recognized or at least not since the latest updated to that mod. Tried both 4b and 4a for realchutes to make sure it wasn't just a recognition error. In both cases, boosters with chutes set sufficient to land at 6 m/s were not in the parts lift for later building.

Just saw your edit. That's very strange. 4a is built specifically against RC v1.0.3 and 4b shouldn't be dependent on any specific one. The only time that kicks in is when the booster should be destroyed by KSP in atmosphere (aka, when the 2.5 km limit is reached and they haven't touched down) Are the boosters being dropped at fairly low altitude but without the parachutes being deployed? If so, they may be hitting the ground and being destroyed. I can take a look at your logs if you've got them from after the issue happens to try to find out what's happening, if you want.

Has anyone else had issues with real chutes not working properly?

[CatastrophicFailure]

Just saw your edit. That's very strange. 4a is built specifically against RC v1.0.3 and 4b shouldn't be dependent on any specific one. The only time that kicks in is when the booster should be destroyed by KSP in atmosphere (aka, when the 2.5 km limit is reached and they haven't touched down) Are the boosters being dropped at fairly low altitude but without the parachutes being deployed? If so, they may be hitting the ground and being destroyed. I can take a look at your logs if you've got them from after the issue happens to try to find out what's happening, if you want.

Has anyone else had issues with real chutes not working properly?

Right here. Boosters definitely not hitting the ground, also an escape tower with RC that jettisons @ 45 km, peaks about 130, then drops back well away from any flight.

[magico13]

Weird. Can either of you get me your logs? I wonder if there's an error in the calculation. I tried to use the same formulas as realchutes, but may have messed it up somewhat.

[KeithStone]

I'm so happy to see this one come back and get some more love.

A question though. There are a few different sets of parts (like neverunload) that can be added to boosters and the like. If I use one of these parts, will there be any conflicts (like having the booster added to parts bin once if it meets the conditions of this mod as it descends on a parachute and then again if I recover it from its actual landing spot)?

[magico13]

I'm so happy to see this one come back and get some more love.

A question though. There are a few different sets of parts (like neverunload) that can be added to boosters and the like. If I use one of these parts, will there be any conflicts (like having the booster added to parts bin once if it meets the conditions of this mod as it descends on a parachute and then again if I recover it from its actual landing spot)?

There shouldn't be any conflicts since this only recovers the booster when the booster is unloaded by the game. If neverunload makes it not unload, then only the manual recovery will have any effect. If you try it out and see a conflict, please let me know!

[CatastrophicFailure]

Weird. Can either of you get me your logs? I wonder if there's an error in the calculation. I tried to use the same formulas as realchutes, but may have messed it up somewhat.

What exactly do you need? I'm sending the same ship up again shortly (99% reusable... Crept for the pesky tower... 6 day turn around!)

This mod certainly adds a new challenge to the mix... Just a few days out from a "perfect" Moho launch window (no plane change), so focused on mass producing enough tankers in time I realized I still needed a mapping probe! I had to scrap my spare Eve rover and cobble the spare parts together into something that could actually get there AND launch on time!

[magico13]

In the ksp folder there is a log file titled ksp.log and in the subfolder KSP_DATA there is another log called output_log.txt. If you can get me both of those (or at least the second one) after launching the craft and the escape tower being destroyed then I can try to figure out what's happening. There's some debug text that I output that will hopefully give me a better indication of what's happening.

Edit: I have a feeling it's because there is a 35km limit on booster recovery and if it gets destroyed above that then it isn't recovered. The purpose of that was partly because things were assumed to burn up on reentry (you can't drop something uncontrolled from orbit and expect it to survive intact), but KSP doesn't actually have reentry heating. I'll remove the restriction (up to 70km for safety) and perhaps later on add in a lower restriction if Deadly Reentry is installed. Though I'd like to see the logs to be sure that's the cause first. There's a chance that it isn't, since the limit at which KSP will delete things in atmosphere is around that height (though it might be 36km). Above that, things on rails won't be deleted (which is why things can be in a "stable" orbit at less than 70km when unfocused)

Edited March 26, 2014 by magico13

[JeffreyCor]

I got the output_log.txt saved but didn't know about ksp.log SRB sep is usually around 10km, never less than 5km. I'll have to do a new launch so I can save both.

[magico13]

The ksp.log is less important than the output_log.txt. I should be ok with just the output_log. That range is weird that it wouldn't work. Is it just a solid booster with a chute? I've had that setup work alright for me in my gameplay :/

Edited March 27, 2014 by magico13