Kerbal Construction Time/StageRecovery Dev Thread

[meve12]

New bug:

If you simulate a launch, you lose the ability to spin the camera except in map mode. Furthermore, if you return to the VAB, you can't exit to the space center(you also cant spin the camera.)

[magico13]

New bug:

If you simulate a launch, you lose the ability to spin the camera except in map mode. Furthermore, if you return to the VAB, you can't exit to the space center(you also cant spin the camera.)

I can't reproduce this. I may have seen the "trapped in VAB on revert" once but then couldn't reproduce it again to fix it. I have never seen anything that restricts camera movement. If you can get me logs or a reliable way to reproduce the issue then I can take a look.

[JeffreyCor]

I has the camera freeze once on a simulated launch with an earlier version, but it has never reoccurred since. It didn't restrict camera movement in the VAB however. The only problem with not exiting the VAB to space center was with the bug with selecting different ships when adding them to the construction list.

[Kalista]

I have request to make. Next version would it be possible to in the config files set what the maximum time warp the warp to complete will use ? Default could be set to the max but speaking for myself max time warp on the ground or the space center can cause my epilepsy to have a fit ( right now i just look away while it warps and max is the only one that plays hell with me).

[Taki117]

I have request to make. Next version would it be possible to in the config files set what the maximum time warp the warp to complete will use ? Default could be set to the max but speaking for myself max time warp on the ground or the space center can cause my epilepsy to have a fit ( right now i just look away while it warps and max is the only one that plays hell with me).

A temporary work around is to use the tracking station and hit TAB to shift your view to the Sun. Then you can Zoom out and watch the planets fly by

[Kalista]

A temporary work around is to use the tracking station and hit TAB to shift your view to the Sun. Then you can Zoom out and watch the planets fly by

Surprized I didn't think to do that myself would be easier for me to do that than add another line to a cfg file that could break the mod is some weird way.

[magico13]

Surprized I didn't think to do that myself would be easier for me to do that than add another line to a cfg file that could break the mod is some weird way.

I'll probably add this in anyway as it shouldn't be too hard. Other options include using a ship that can't reach max timewarp as the focus when timewarping (which I need to double check works properly), timewarping with a flag placed somewhere (like the Mun), or reducing the timewarp by one or two after pressing the Warp to Complete button (I think that should work properly, I also should test that). But, I will add it in for the next version (which has a handy in-game settings menu so you can change it easily)

[Kalista]

Also a question for you Magico. How hard would it be to add code in that at certain techs ( thinking the construction ones) that it slightly speeds up construction times? And have it scale where a rocket thats already quick to build wouldn't see that much of an improvement in times but a fairly new design would see a small reduction in time taken to build ( not a massive amount just enough to be noticible).

[magico13]

Also a question for you Magico. How hard would it be to add code in that at certain techs ( thinking the construction ones) that it slightly speeds up construction times? And have it scale where a rocket thats already quick to build wouldn't see that much of an improvement in times but a fairly new design would see a small reduction in time taken to build ( not a massive amount just enough to be noticible).

That's sorta on my list of things to do already Though I haven't totally decided on if unlocking Rocket Construction nodes will make ships build faster, or will allow you to build more at once (at a reduced rate, where that second rate increases with more nodes), or a combination of both. The last two are the ones I'm primarily considering. Either way, it would increase the build rate (having one second of build time be worth more than one second, or for the second ship it would still be worth less than one second, but go from 1/5 to 1/4 or something like that). I may get that in next version, I may not. It depends on how everything else I'm implementing works out. I've got it to the point where I can start simulations around Eve or any other planet, but it's definitely not the circular orbit I was hoping for, as the game gets really confused and doesn't seem to recognize the change in parent body.

Also, Rocket Construction nodes would be for the VAB. The Spaceplane Construction nodes would be for the SPH. Before you unlock the first spaceplane part node SPH builds will likely take longer than normal (since you wouldn't be building anything designed for the SPH without some plane parts).

[JeffreyCor]

Really like the ideas there! However, I would suggest not penalizing SPH too much in early techs as some, like myself, have aircraft parts in the early tech for an airflight before spaceflight progression (Firespitter prop parts used for this ) This make my SPH used far earlier than my VAB. Maybe starting values having SPH construction faster than VAB, with the further adventurous unlocks at the appropriate nodes.

[magico13]

Really like the ideas there! However, I would suggest not penalizing SPH too much in early techs as some, like myself, have aircraft parts in the early tech for an airflight before spaceflight progression (Firespitter prop parts used for this ) This make my SPH used far earlier than my VAB. Maybe starting values having SPH construction faster than VAB, with the further adventurous unlocks at the appropriate nodes.

I was thinking something like having the rate be 1/2 or 3/4 until you get the first jet engine, as for most people the SPH isn't generally used until then (but you can build rockets in it, and I want to discourage that as they should be built in the VAB). It wouldn't be impossible to use, it would just be less practical. The VAB will start out at a rate of 1 with further unlocks either increasing that above 1 or giving a second rate starting at 1/4 or so (which then can get upgraded to 1). The SPH will also have a second rate with additional unlocks, but since there's much fewer nodes the rates will increase much faster.

I'm thinking I may need to move away from set build times, and instead list Build Points or something like that, with an approximated time given in the editor/build list. Then, the different rates will be measured in Build Points/second. Then when the rate is >0 I can give a time to completion based on the rate. I've also been considering letting you choose between buying an increased primary rate, or a secondary rate+upgrades for it. Secondary rates should actually be cheaper/easier to get/upgrade, imo, because having a primary rate of 2x is the same as 2 rates at 1x, but has more practical purpose (since if you only have one ship building, two rates isn't useful). But that implies some sort of cost/buying system and I don't want to make you purchase upgrades with science (you already have to buy tech tree nodes and I like the idea of tying upgrades with node unlocks). Maybe when you unlock a node, you can choose which to upgrade. The primary rate will have smaller upgrades and a limit of 1.5x or 2x, but the secondary rate will also be able to be upgraded.

[JeffreyCor]

I agree as well not wanting to purchase upgrades with science as well as tech tree with the same, but the construction system as you present it does sound fantastic. Some of the ideas for buying improvements might be put on the back burner until after .24 to utilize the economic system that the contracts bring instead of using science as currency. This could actually make the contracts more valuable as to bring additional income to pay for improvements to the construction systems.

[magico13]

Finally got the ability to put a ship into orbit around another body for simulations. Now I need to make a GUI to let you choose the body and find a way to determine which ones you've visited. Planets/moons you've at least done a flyby of you'll be able to start a simulation in orbit around. All the credit goes to the HyperEdit team, as I'm just reusing what they've done (no point reinventing the wheel, and they've done it better than I would have). Later on I'd like to add the ability to start landed on a body other than Kerbin, but that's for a later release.

[zilfondel]

I think this is a great idea, and will be testing it out in the next career mode I start. This was a much needed feature to help make the game more challenging & interesting!

btw, Scott Manley sent me here.

[magico13]

I think this is a great idea, and will be testing it out in the next career mode I start. This was a much needed feature to help make the game more challenging & interesting!

I'm hoping to have a few more features implemented by the time 0.24 comes out so when people restart their career modes it will fit more smoothly (especially since I haven't found a good way of retroactively incorporating them into existing saves). The first of those is the improvements to simulations, where you can start in orbit around any body you've visited (tested and working now). The second is all the improvements to the build list that are talked about in the past few comments.

btw, Scott Manley sent me here.

Seriously!?! Awesome! Do you recall when/where he mentioned this? He's the first big YouTuber that I know of making mention of KCT (I mention of it a lot in my channel, as you can probably imagine, but 37 subscribers is much less than 240,000 )

[Kalista]

May have just found another bug. Had a Probe that came up short on delta V so I let it crash back into Kerbin ( mainly wanted to see the new far rip it to pieces). Probe crashed went back to space center and now the tracking center is all screwed up and debris is on a constant orbit thru Kerbin with it never getting destroyed. Going to throw this on mechjebs as well since it was also throwing errors at the time it happend.

output log

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwYzqg0314S0N1oyel9CYlJQcWc/edit?usp=sharing

Rolled back my save before thinking or I would have posted the save file as well.

edit: Reading over the logs more I may have just found a stock bug with the tracking center since they changed it.

Edited April 28, 2014 by Kalista

[magico13]

May have just found another bug. Had a Probe that came up short on delta V so I let it crash back into Kerbin ( mainly wanted to see the new far rip it to pieces). Probe crashed went back to space center and now the tracking center is all screwed up and debris is on a constant orbit thru Kerbin with it never getting destroyed. Going to throw this on mechjebs as well since it was also throwing errors at the time it happend.

output log

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwYzqg0314S0N1oyel9CYlJQcWc/edit?usp=sharing

Rolled back my save before thinking or I would have posted the save file as well.

edit: Reading over the logs more I may have just found a stock bug with the tracking center since they changed it.

I'm not positive on whether KCT caused anything or is just being affected by something else. There were a bunch of errors with Tweakable Everything and Open Resource System at one point earlier, but that could be unrelated. MechJeb seems to have the same issue as KCT: during a vessel destroy event the vessel (or something) was null. Alternatively, there may be an issue with me checking if the vessel is the active vessel in scenes other than flight. I'll make sure it doesn't do that in the future, but I still don't know if that's the cause of your issue. KSP itself seems to have had an issue with that too.

[JeffreyCor]

Don't know if it would be feasible, but as part of the future update would it be possible for an option to change the name of a ship in the construction list? This could help keep track of what ship was built for what purpose easily, especially when something that has 2 days to go is being re-tasked, error in naming, or more than one of a type of ship is made.

[Kalista]

I'm not positive on whether KCT caused anything or is just being affected by something else. There were a bunch of errors with Tweakable Everything and Open Resource System at one point earlier, but that could be unrelated. MechJeb seems to have the same issue as KCT: during a vessel destroy event the vessel (or something) was null. Alternatively, there may be an issue with me checking if the vessel is the active vessel in scenes other than flight. I'll make sure it doesn't do that in the future, but I still don't know if that's the cause of your issue. KSP itself seems to have had an issue with that too.

Just incase its relevant the craft in question was a 2nd stage boaster with a mechjeb unit as its control point with 2 probes attached ontop that broke free just before the main probe got ripped to pieces and those 2 probes are the ones that were falling thru the planet on the tracking center.

[magico13]

Don't know if it would be feasible, but as part of the future update would it be possible for an option to change the name of a ship in the construction list? This could help keep track of what ship was built for what purpose easily, especially when something that has 2 days to go is being re-tasked, error in naming, or more than one of a type of ship is made.

I do plan on adding this, and the ability to view the craft in the editor and (possibly) make changes to them while they're building. I haven't made it a priority yet though. I'll get some time this weekend to do some more work so maybe I'll add renaming in for the next release.

Just incase its relevant the craft in question was a 2nd stage boaster with a mechjeb unit as its control point with 2 probes attached ontop that broke free just before the main probe got ripped to pieces and those 2 probes are the ones that were falling thru the planet on the tracking center.

Other than the potential fix I added, I'm not going to spend too much time debugging this unless it becomes a recurring issue. Hopefully it was an isolated event, but thank you for reporting it (and doing so properly, in a way that I could potentially debug)!

[JeffreyCor]

Looking like a possible problem creeping up with boosters not recovering, possibly with the update to RealChutes. Watching in debug it looked like it was throwing a nullref instead of recovering on boosters with top chutes. Radial mount did show a KCT entry recognizing realchutes module but did not see an entry for recovery in the debug window.

With any update you're working on, I'm totally willing to go nuts on testing again like before if you need

[magico13]

Looking like a possible problem creeping up with boosters not recovering, possibly with the update to RealChutes. Watching in debug it looked like it was throwing a nullref instead of recovering on boosters with top chutes. Radial mount did show a KCT entry recognizing realchutes module but did not see an entry for recovery in the debug window.

With any update you're working on, I'm totally willing to go nuts on testing again like before if you need

It's likely that the 1.1 update broke things. Hopefully its a simple upgrade. I'll do a little bit of testing on my end first, then maybe pm you a dev version. I'll also edit this post with updates. Thanks for the heads up!

E1: The field I use for getting the area doesn't exist anymore and now I have to compute it from the diameter. The reason I didn't do that originally was in case chutes of different shapes were used (like squares) instead of circles. Currently debugging why the cone chute gives a null reference. E2: It's all chutes and I don't know why it's doing it yet...

E3: I can't figure this out and I need to finish up a presentation I have to give tomorrow morning. So I won't be able to get it resolved tonight. I can't figure out why it's giving a null reference when I try to get the deployedDiameter property. I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow.

E4: Just looking at the changes to RealChutes from 1.04 to 1.1, he totally removed my ability to reference the material or diameter/area of the chute using the current method. I'm going to have to either find a new way (with the tiny amount of knowledge of reflection that I have) or drop Real Chute support :/ Laaaaaaammmmeee

E5: Shhhh. I know I should be working on other things. Don't judge But I have found a way to access the chute diameter and thus the area. Step one, complete. Next I need to find a way to access the material definition (which may not exist at all...) and get the drag coefficient for the material used. I may leave that for tomorrow and PM you a WIP update to test.

E6: State of the Update: I think I've gotten compatibility working with the new version, and it is currently being tested. Expect an update (probably called PR5) in the next day or two. Until then , do not use Real Chute 1.1 or higher (if you care about booster recovery)!

Edited April 30, 2014 by magico13

[magico13]

Just uploaded Pre-Release 5! It doesn't have all of the features that I wanted to include, but there are enough changes that it was worth a new number. Changes to the build list are pushed back to PR6 or later because I needed to get this release out for the Real Chute compatibility. It should be relatively bug free, as I've had some help from JeffreyCor with testing (and he managed to find a bunch of little bugs in the new features, which no longer exist for the rest of you!)

Changelog:

PR5 (4/30/14)

- Adding settings menu so you can change settings in-game (time settings/enable or disable for a save). Accessible through build list in Space Center.

- Added MaxTimeWarp, EnableAllBodies config options

- Can begin simulation in orbit around any body you have visited (needs SOI change or Active Vessel in SOI)

- Fixed RealChute support for Real Chute v1.1+

An overview of the changes to simulations: Now when you press the "simulate launch" button a new configuration window appears. By default you start on Kerbin on the launchpad/runway. You can click the button that says "Start in orbit?" to start in orbit around Kerbin (with an altitude between 70km and the edge of the SOI). The orbit is circular and equatorial at the specified altitude. I later will probably allow you to change the inclination. After you enter the SOI of another body (or, if you already have vessels in orbit/landed on another body, when you switch to them from Map Mode/the Tracking Station) you "unlock" that body for simulation (a message will appear in the top left, where science stuff appears). Then, you can start in orbit around any bodies you have unlocked. You can override this to allow you to effectively have all bodies unlocked in the settings menu (EnableAllBodies).

Settings menu: You access it from the build list (there's a button that says "Settings"). From this menu you can enable/disable KCT for a particular save, change the maximum timewarp KCT will use, override the body tracker, and change all of the time parameters from within game (changing these will not affect currently building vessels). This makes it much easier to adjust the times how you want them and enable or disable the mod in a save. "But magico13, how can I re-enable the mod if I can't access the build list when the mod is disabled?" you ask, well it's simple! Just click the KCT button on the toolbar and the settings menu will appear when the mod is disabled. Then you can re-enable it! While the mod is disabled, everything is still saved and you can re-enable it later without losing anything. But progress will not continue on anything that is building while the mod is disabled (duh!). The icon will be the "off" version when KCT is disabled.

If you have any questions or bugs to report, let me know. The download is on the OP. Have fun!

[MisterFister]

How does this mod treat subassemblies? Also, I use Editor Extensions, allowing me to use the Tab key to switch between VAB / SPH mode (radial vs. mirror symmetry, mostly, though it allows me to launch from runway at the VAB and vice versa -- saves me the hassle of moving files around if I want to make a subassembly in the VAB for launch in an SSTO on the runway.) Will this cause any unforeseen issues?

[JeffreyCor]

Any recovered parts will reduce construction time no matter how they are added to your ship. A sub-assembly is essentially a macro for putting a collection of parts together at once rather than putting each one on piece by piece.

While construction is on separate tracks, VAB and SPH, the recovered parts are shared so for example a certain fuel take first built in the VAB, launched, then successfully recovered can be used in making another ship in the SPH at the reduced construction time.