[0.90WIP] Procedural Parts - Parts the way you want 'em 0.9.21, Dec 19

[SuccessPastaTime]

Hey fellow space adventurers, I've got a question that will be very simple for you to answer I'm sure.

While we wait for procedural costs to be implemented, does anyone know how I might change the default cost for the fuel tanks in the game?

Currently it's 4000 in my game, and I've gone into the .cfg file for the fuel tank and lowered the cost and entry cost, but this doesn't have any effect in game. Does anyone know what entry I'm missing that's not changing the price?

Thank you ahead of time.

[HafCoJoe]

How hard would it be to create your own textures? Are they PNG images? Also, does this work with Kerb paint... That would make things easy too. I'm creating some concept rocket parts and this mod is perfect. Well done .

[Rioliki]

How hard would it be to create your own textures?

Extremely easy. It could be .png, .tga, .mbm or almost any other. Just put it in folder and add it to config.

[HafCoJoe]

Extremely easy. It could be .png, .tga, .mbm or almost any other. Just put it in folder and add it to config.

Awesome. I shall do.

[Nsomnia]

Has anyone made flat/square/rectangular that can be edited procedurally yet, I searched the thread to no avail. I would really love long flat rectangles with LFO. or triangles with LFO.

[aphenine]

I've been using the awesome mod at the moment to build spaceplanes with good ballistic efficiency. However, I keep running into a problem where my designs tend to generate more heat than the default 1100 limit in RSS. As a result, my designs tend to melt and die when crossing the Mach 4-6 border. I know that there are other materials which can be used that have better thermal limits. These are in NASA's EngineSIM and I think they get denser and more expensive as they go. Off the top of my head, titanium has a thermal limit at 2500, Stainless Steel at 3300 and active cooling (like the Reactive Engines pre-cooler) at 4200. Anyway, I was wondering if it would be possible to include a right click menu parameter, which would change the material and hence the heat, weight and cost properties much like you can do with tank types? It would certainly be more elegant than creating clones of the current tanks with different heat and weight levels, which I think I'm going to do in my quest to Build One That Works.

P.S. I don't mean to be pushy, but does anyone have any ideas about the bug I posted before? Is it a bug? Has it been seen before? Would anyone like more info, or the craft designs?

[NathanKell]

Sorry, can't recall if I addressed your report before so I'll do so now: is it just PP, or are some of the parts involved TweakScaled? There's a known issue where when a PP is attached to a scaled part, their positions get messed.

Regarding temperature...I'd just as soon not touch that yet (also, proc costs are a higher priority, just need to sit down and do it...) because the whole system is getting changed around with RealHeat, so I'd want to handle changing the specific heat of the part as well when the material changes.

[aphenine]

Thanks of considering it, anyway. I can understand that you must be insanely busy given the number of mods you do! If I'm desperate, I'll make a new part for now.

None of the PP parts are attached to Tweakables. In fact, the craft has Tweakables attached to PP parts only. The core chassis from the root part to those components are all PP.

[Isabelle.V.Fuchs]

Hi!

I am very new to this all (see the number of my posts). And so I am first of all playing with the basics.

So I would like to ask if you might be able to make some kind of 'procedural Flags'?

I would like to have flags or decals to pin at the outside of tanks etc. with variable dimensions (1x1, 4x3 etc.) and variable textures. It would be nice to have a possibility to mark your spacecrafts with such kind of signs. Or maybe the hatches of a station with a sign "A", "B", "C" etc. or a planetary base with "Exit North" etc. Or just a sqadsign near the canopy of a jet. There a many possibilities.

Do you think, this might be possible?

Thank you in advance,

- Isabelle

[OtherBarry]

So I would like to ask if you might be able to make some kind of 'procedural Flags'?

Hey, welcome to the wonderful world of KSP. With the current state of the mod, unfortunately this is not a possibility. What you could do however, is try and find a flag part somewhere (there used to be a few on the old mod site that were presumably lost in the transition), assuming there are some that exist. Then you could add a TweakScale module to the cfg file. That'd effectively give you a 'procedural flag'. If none of that makes sense to you, I can explain it better once I'm more awake.

[cipherpunks]

Pardonne-moi if it was been asked before, but I'm having a proc.SRB problem.

What I'm trying to do is to make myself a (rather cylindrical) replica of Thiokol/USBI/P&W SS SRB, that is, with realistic parameters.

Now I do know that that plugin that allowed us to have arbitrary thrust curves (Advanced SRB?) is dead and that I must unrealistically use the "throttle". This makes me mildly sad.

But - worse than that - I'm completely unable to balance SRB burn time to propellant weight (dry weight is ok). If I add the fuel for (albeit "properly throttled") typical SS SRB burn time, then it starts to weight over 300 tons more, coming at 830+ tons rather than 590...

So is there a way to change the SolidFuel weight somehow w/o going RealFuels all the way?

Also, is there a way to attach "segments" to SRBs (w/o nozzle)? That would allow me to be more cosmetically precise (skirt, rings, etc)

[OtherBarry]

Pardonne-moi if it was been asked before, but I'm having a proc.SRB problem.

What I'm trying to do is to make myself a (rather cylindrical) replica of Thiokol/USBI/P&W SS SRB, that is, with realistic parameters.

Now I do know that that plugin that allowed us to have arbitrary thrust curves (Advanced SRB?) is dead and that I must unrealistically use the "throttle". This makes me mildly sad.

But - worse than that - I'm completely unable to balance SRB burn time to propellant weight (dry weight is ok). If I add the fuel for (albeit "properly throttled") typical SS SRB burn time, then it starts to weight over 300 tons more, coming at 830+ tons rather than 590...

So is there a way to change the SolidFuel weight somehow w/o going RealFuels all the way?

Also, is there a way to attach "segments" to SRBs (w/o nozzle)? That would allow me to be more cosmetically precise (skirt, rings, etc)

Yes. Somewhere relatively easily accessible in your ksp folder, you'll find a "resources.cfg" file. This will allow you to change the density of solid fuel. Also in this file, you can change the way solid fuel 'flows' and by making it the same as liquid fuel (STACK_FLOW or something similar), you'd be able to simulate SRB segments. If you want to use PP for those segments, just copy the liquid fuel tank cfg, change the part name, and replace the liquid fuel modules with that of the SRB. Also, the plugin I believe you were reffering to, the name of which escapes me, is still alive and well, as it has chosen to do things slightly differently to real fuels. I'll clarify this more when i'm more awake.

[cipherpunks]

Thanks, will try to make just that in evening.

As for that other plugin - I've just now saw (well, after being pointed to that dev thread actually) that github link on http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/77563-Advanced-SRB-dev-test-version-6-1-released and there's report of it working in 0.24, so I'm gonna try that one too.

Edited September 3, 2014 by cipherpunks
fork to work

[cy-one]

Is there a HowTo add more resources? I use Karbonite instead of Kethane and would like to use the procedural parts for that.

[jonrd463]

Oh why have I not used this mod sooner? This has been a godsend for space plane design. I especially love the conical feature, which makes for easy design of sleek, gradually expanding fuselages. This is especially applicable when mating it with odd sized parts. For example, I'm using the cargo bay from Talisar's Cargo Transportation Solutions mod, tweakscaled up to just over 5m for a super heavy lift shuttle. He made the cargo bay just a bit larger than the standard sizes to facilitate loading of standard sized parts without poking through. I can size my fuselage tanks up just perfectly to line up and it works great.

I'm wondering about the cuboid parts you have planned, and if there is any sort of timeline. One place they'd be perfect for is fitting to the sides of the B9 HL cockpit and tank pieces. They come with side pieces that can be added, but I've got some designs in mind that would need bigger pieces that are squared off on both the inboard and outboard sides. LLL has some square tanks that sort of work, but they're short and require me to use more than I'd like (plus the necessary struts), which increases my part count.

Any idea when you might be able to roll those out? Again, thank you very much for this mod!

[dtrauma]

Is there a HowTo add more resources? I use Karbonite instead of Kethane and would like to use the procedural parts for that.

Someone posted this here IIRC and I tinkered with it further, though I don't remember if I changed anything substantial. I also added Goodspeed auto pumping to all proc parts as I can't live without it anymore. Both are things I should probably submit properly eventually...

[Nori]

I thought I saw this somewhere but maybe I'm wrong. Can the parts here have cost scale too? I ask because I'm using Kerbal Contruction Time and it bases time to make a rocket on cost. The procedural tanks are pretty expensive from what I can tell.

Maybe the cost is scaling in the background?

[dtrauma]

Procedural cost is not implemented yet (the possibility was only introduced with KSP 0.24.1, and no one got around to do it yet). So small PP tanks will be overpriced, large ones on the other hand will be a bargain.

[Comet Tail]

Question: So, I think the mass ratio (Wet mass/dry mass) of the tanks, IRL, scales with size. You only need a certain wall thickness, so you get a certain amount of kg/m^2 of surface area of the tank. But as you make the shape larger, the volume goes up by the cube of the radius, while the surface area goes up by the square. As a result, wall thickness held constant, you get a tank with better and better tankage. So, it's scale-dependent tankage.

Normally this is a pretty small detail, but right now I'm designing a very long-duration mission that needs to use tanks with horrible ratios (Zero Boil-Off tanks; my setting to Realfuel's config for the Service Module Engines) that need to store huge masses of hydrogen. They have horrible tankages with hydrogen. Improving it by using very large tanks would be very helpful, since this is a very large craft and could very well carry 6m + radius tanks.

What's your considerations on implementing scale-dependent tankage?

[NathanKell]

As I explained in the RF thread, that's not true. Tanks are pressure vessels, which means if you keep *shape* constant, then mass scales linearly with volume.

(Insulation scales with surface area, but insulation is not a large proportion of tank mass IIRC).

The problem with implementing any sort of nonlinear scaling for mass, however, even besides its not comporting with reality, is that KSP rockets are made up of lots of small tanks due to the way KSP works, which it makes sense to simulate as one large tank. If we instead set dry mass based on part size, then everyone will *have* to use *one* procedural part per actual tank (one for LF, one for Ox, one for MonoProp) in each stage.

That also precludes simulating arrangements such as that used for Vostok's upper stage, or Martin's Apollo proposal, where the large-volume tank is a torus and the small-volume tank is nestled inside. Right now that's all happily abstracted away.

[Isabelle.V.Fuchs]

Hey, welcome to the wonderful world of KSP. With the current state of the mod, unfortunately this is not a possibility. What you could do however, is try and find a flag part somewhere (there used to be a few on the old mod site that were presumably lost in the transition), assuming there are some that exist. Then you could add a TweakScale module to the cfg file. That'd effectively give you a 'procedural flag'. If none of that makes sense to you, I can explain it better once I'm more awake.

Hello OtherBarry!

Thank you for your nice welcome and for your quick answer. Unfortunally I am not as quick

I have tried to use TweakScale. I took the little Flags from FASA and made one scalable this way. So i am able to scale the little Flag any size i like. But what I asked is, if it might be possible to have some kind of Texture-Switch like in the original Procedural Parts.

There you have some Textures to choose. I made two own Textures there (one Russian like the Soyuz from BobCat an one like FusTek. It looks quite well). I thought it might be possible to have some kind of selection. I I would make - let's say - 10 different flags as Textures (STTextures.cfg) and then have a button in the editor to select one of these Textures. Just like the selection of Textures within the procedural parts.

I'm sorry, I can't describe exactly what i meant. I am not a native english speaker.

Best wishes,

Isabelle

[OtherBarry]

Hello OtherBarry!

Thank you for your nice welcome and for your quick answer. Unfortunally I am not as quick

I have tried to use TweakScale. I took the little Flags from FASA and made one scalable this way. So i am able to scale the little Flag any size i like. But what I asked is, if it might be possible to have some kind of Texture-Switch like in the original Procedural Parts.

There you have some Textures to choose. I made two own Textures there (one Russian like the Soyuz from BobCat an one like FusTek. It looks quite well). I thought it might be possible to have some kind of selection. I I would make - let's say - 10 different flags as Textures (STTextures.cfg) and then have a button in the editor to select one of these Textures. Just like the selection of Textures within the procedural parts.

I'm sorry, I can't describe exactly what i meant. I am not a native english speaker.

Best wishes,

Isabelle

Ah, I see what you mean now. So you want the ability to use a variety of different flags (gathered from a small set of textures) on the same vessel, as well as having the flags freely scale-able.

Unfortunately, there's not really any mods around that can do that, and the way Procedural Parts is designed, it's most likely not going to happen for quite a while if ever. If you have any experience in coding, you could look into how Procedural Parts uses textures and try to copy that. Or, if you have skills in the 3d modelling area, you could build a part for each flag texture you would like, and then import that into the game, and then add tweakscale to it. There's several great resources on the forum for both of these things.

Otherwise, if different flags are that important to you, you can always split your ships into several launches,choose a different mission flag for each one, then dock them all in orbit.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help. If your lucky you might be able to get an experienced modder to make an entirely separate mod, as I'm sure many people would love it.

[NoMrBond]

Since some adjustment in the TAC 0.10 release (possibly consumption rates?), the resource amounts in the procedural TAC support containers are a bit inappropriate (low/high/high) since the units change (days -> Kg's and Litres) change was addressed in 0.9.17?

It (0.9.18) is providing something like ~950 days of oxygen/water (but not food? sorry it was 2 of the 3 resources) support for the thinnest 1.25m pancake (0.1 height) support tank you could make

Sorry I should really have posted this from home instead of work, I'll update with specifics when I'm home for lunch in a couple of hours

[Edit] For the 1.25m x 0.25m tanks Food/Oxygen/Water comparisons

TAC-Container; 113.2 / 11470 / 74.8

Procedural; 69.8 / 22720 / 134.3

Edited September 9, 2014 by NoMrBond

[RuBisCO]

Perhaps this has been asked before but is there any development of procedural 'engines'? Like liquid fueled engines we can change size, fuel type, fuel cycle/ISP/T:M ratio, etc?

[Eggman360]

Perhaps this has been asked before but is there any development of procedural 'engines'? Like liquid fueled engines we can change size, fuel type, fuel cycle/ISP/T:M ratio, etc?

I looked into making procedural engines in my thread ( I made the original cross mod compatibility part of this mod

The engines I made showed promise, where as the procedural resource tanks can "only" have their shapes and contents altered, I made the test engines I made work for different "roles".

For example I made a "lifter" engine that has HUGE thrust and guzzles fuel, which is designed for early stage lifting of heavy payloads to get out of the atmosphere, but the same engine set to "Vacuum Efficient" in the VAB/SPH has a much higher ISP and a lower thrust to work in the vacuum between planets and other astral bodies...but they're both the same part in the part catalog, and they can be resized too .

I'm coming back to the modding scene and working on this and a few other projects, so keep an eye out and I'll include you in the development process, it's nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of