[1.0.5] Kip Engineering: All Docking Ports updated for 1.0.5! (11th Nov 2015)

[Eleven]

Are you saying that your haphazard docking is at fault? Or is the plugin still not working?

It worked on the first set of non-same-size Universal Ports I tried, but it took three tries with MechJeb. The first two MJ came in not-100% lined up and they bounced and started dancing. I never have that issue with MJ docking with stock ports, they get close and the magnets take over and lock em up. The third try I set each vessel to dock with the other, so by the time the debug DLL kicked in and started spamming, they were lined up perfectly and docked like any other.

[CaptainKipard]

I think if they dance that means that magnets are working, no?

Dont forget to update the "Universal Docking Ports" link in the OP. Because it still includes the older AdaptiveDockingNode dll in spaceport.

Will do.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[Eleven]

I think if they dance that means that magnets are working, no?

It looks to me like they cannot line up correctly. Like they are 'off-center' or something. They just stay the same distance and rotate around each other, I don't think that's normal.

But like I said, when both vessels were trying to dock with each other, they came in dead-center and they docked just like normal. I'm sure he'll tweak it some more, that was great progress in just a few hours.

[toadicus]

I read through the log file in as much detail as I could manage. 370,000 lines of per-frame debug code is a lot to sift through.

That said, I'm pretty confident that my plugin was working as expected. I clearly see it adjusting the node sizes as anticipated, and followed your approaches in a couple of times. The ports did acquire, so if the magnets weren't doing the job that's not an issue with my plugin. I had a bit of debug functionality slightly wrong so I can't tell you specifically why the docking failed, but from the looks of it I think you probably weren't aligned correctly.

It's entirely possible, IMO, that this is indicative of a part balance issue on the bigger ports. In my tests, I used one of Kip's 2.5m ports and the KW 3.75m port, and I had to be pretty spot-on even to get the magnets to work (my code engaged at twice the magnet distance). I'd say for the big ports, balance would be aided by boosting the magnet force -- and probably the acquire and reacquire distances -- of the 3.75m ports, at least. That's another discussion, though.

[toadicus]

Version 1.3 is out! Now available exclusively via the new release thread over in the development forum. I gave this release as much testing as I could squeeze in time for yesterday, and docked a bunch of variously-sized ports to each other, on small vessels and large vessels, in orbit and on the ground.

Changelog

v 1.3 [2014-05-07]
* ModuleManager 2.X config update.
* Changed FixedUpdate to only run for ports on the active vessel, to improve performance.
* Changed the vessel filter distance to a flat, plugin-wide configurable value and increased the default number substantially.
v 1.2 [2014-05-05]
* No longer calling part.activate unnecessarily.
* Made support for the module database optional.
v 1.1 [2014-04-26]
* Fixed distance check to check distance rather than position.
* Integrated support for a caching module database.
v 1.0 [2014-04-10]
* Initial Release

[ctbram]

Having trouble docking.

I have universal docking v9.3.0 and adaptive Docking Node v1.3. I have a Clamp-o-Tron Sr. and a X-Large universal docking port and they slam into each other dead square in the center and simply refuse to connect! There is no magnetic effect. Nothing they just refuse to connect. I have been at it now for over 5 hours. I have tried everything. I have Mechjeb 2 b253 the latest jenkins build and although I generally do not use the docking AP I tried that as well and still no joy!

I just changed the KW 3.75 big clunky docking port for the xlarge universal so this is the first time I am trying this combo. Is there something I am doing wrong? I am getting kind of frustrated. Is there any info I can give to help sort out why these docking ports are refusing to connect???

[Kaa253]

I am having exactly the same experience.

Edit: I am still testing. I am currently trying the KW 3.75 port with the X-Large Universal docking port. At the moment it looks like the alignment must be absolutely perfect and the final contact must be very slow i.e. ~0.1 m/s. All of this may be because there is apparently no magnetic effect at all.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Kaa253

[CaptainKipard]

Does the KW docking ring work?

[ctbram]

Does the KW docking ring work?

By replacing the AdaptiveDockingNode mod in the with the 1.3 version I was able to get the KW 3.75m to dock with a clamp-o-tron sr the other day. But I would prefer to use your x-large universal as it's thinner which is what I need for this ship.

However, I am having no luck at all getting a x-Large universal to dock with a clamp-o-tron sr. I get no magnetic attraction and regardless of how precisely I connect or what speed they just bounce off each other. I am quite frustrated as I must have spent 5-hours last night trying to get my science module connected to my DT-Vista transfer core and finally had to give up after running through 1000 units of monoprop!

Edited May 12, 2014 by ctbram

[ctbram]

I am having exactly the same experience.

Edit: I am still testing. I am currently trying the KW 3.75 port with the X-Large Universal docking port. At the moment it looks like the alignment must be absolutely perfect and the final contact must be very slow i.e. ~0.1 m/s. All of this may be because there is apparently no magnetic effect at all.

I can't get them to dock regardless of speed or precision. I have a screen shot of them approaching at 0.1 m/s and after they meet the speed is nulled out and they are literally sitting exactly aligned (you can see perfect alignment from the navyfish docking camera) and yet they will not attach. I don't know if it's the x-large universal or the clamp-o-tron. I was to tired and frustrated to try ny experimenting last night after spending 5 plus hours trying to get the two parts docked. I burned through 1000 units of mono propellant trying every way I could to get them to connect.

[Kaa253]

I also burned through a huge amount of mono before I final got docked (with about 50 units to spare). I will be testing these docking ports again soon but no more with my super laggy space station!

[ctbram]

Well kip I have pretty much narrowed it down to the x-large universal as the problem or it's interaction with the 1.3 vers of the ADN mod.

But there are still a lot of other variables that could be affecting it and I am no mod expert so this is just a "guess". I have not tried removing all other mods. But here is what I did. My transfer ship has a x-large universal at the front and a KW 3.75 at the back. Mostly there give me a place to add KSPI radiators. I was too tired last night to flip the ship around and try to dock the other end but I did that just now and the KW 3.75 docks to the Clamp-o-Tron SR as you would expect - the magnetic force kicks in around 1m and they connect the instant they made contact.

So now I don't know what to do. You can see from the screen shot that my design has three x-large universals at the front. They thinner and more importantly lighter. This ship is 290t before I attached the science module (shown attached to the wrong end of the ship).

Any thoughts on how I can proceed or is there anything I can post or send to help determine the problem?

I have the latest universal docking adapter mod (kipEng 9.3.0) as well as the kipeng hubs installed and I reinstalled them last night being sure to replace the adaptivedockingnode mod with the latest 1.3 version.

I can't really reduce the variables much using this ship as it is dependent on a good number of other mods (aies, kw, kspi, kosmos, kspx, sdhi, novapunch, b9) and those are only the parts mods. I'd have to go sandbox and build a new vanilla game folder but I am not really sure how to test much beyond what I have done by flipping the ship and attaching to the kw at the other end which shows docking and (adpativedockingnod 1.3) is working with the KW and COT SR.

Edited May 12, 2014 by ctbram

[ctbram]

I cannot get the x-large universal to connect to the c-o-t sr regardless of precision or approach speed. Honestly I burned through about 3 compete sets of 1000 units of mono prop last night by reverting over once I burned through the 1000 units on the ship). I hit dead center at every speed from 1 m/s all the way down to .1 m/s. They simply will not connect.

I have a large KW at the aft end of my ship so I flipped around and docked first try tot he c-o-t sr this morning. Everything worked as expected. The magnetic force kicked in around 1m and the connected instantly upon contact. So the issue is in the x-large universal or that port and the new 1.3 version of the adaptivedockingnode mod would be "guess".

[ctbram]

Does the KW docking ring work?

Kip here is a link with some images. At the top you can see my main dual dt-vista engine transfer core with my science package now attached to the back end of the ship by a KW 3.75 and a stock clamp-o-tron sr.

https://imgur.com/a/ftQyl

At the front of the core you can see I have replaced the three KW DP's with universal x-large. I prefer to use them as they are both thinner and lighter. The kw at the back was mostly for a place to add the kspi radiators.

The science portion of the ship has a kspi science lab, the stock science lab, a modular science package for collecting near and far flyby science and a science storage module containing 3 lander cans. The idea is a fly to jool then from the modular science package I gather far and near science. For far space I gather three sets of four experiments - goo, mat bay, magnetometer, and graviolli and from near space I gather 3 sets of five experiments - goo, mat bay, magnetometer, graviolli, and temp, plus crew and eva reports from far and near. I eva and store all the three sets of science in the 3 lander cans, then use the stock science bay to reset the experiments and repeat for each of jools moons.

NOTE: The last few shots show my approach to dock the science module to the front of the transfer core. I was apparently to focused to press the screen capture key at the point of contact but I can grab shots if you like. Basically you can see I am trying to attach the science module to the center stack of the transfer core. This is the intended configuration of the ship. I have three universal x-large DP's at the front of the ship. I can replace them with KW 3.75's but they are thick and heavy.

The combined ship is nearly 500t and has 80,000 DV and a TWR of 0.8. But I can't really so anything until I can get the science module attached to the correct end of the ship as that is where I have to KAS struts to stabilize everything, not to mention I am not sure the crew would not be happy sitting between two laser pumped fusion engines spitting out and exploding pellets of tritium/deuterium fuel.

Edited May 12, 2014 by ctbram

[toadicus]

All I had time for before work this morning was a quick launchpad test (I did use my super-modded install, just in case there was an incompatibility flying around out there). Everything with the Clamp Sr's and the X-Large Universal worked as expected; I did have some issues getting a Clamp Sr to dock to the KW ring, but it was only one way; if I changed vehicles they hooked right up. I think I've got a notion what's going on with that, and it's not really related here, so moving right along.

I am going to guess / hope that the problem is this:

I noticed this morning that in the latest SpacePort download of the Universal Docking Port Set, the X-Large port has a formatting error. Starting at line 59:

MODULE

{

	name = ModuleAdaptiveDockingNode

	ValidSizes = size0,size1
[b],size2,size3[/b]
}

That extra linebreak on the ValidSizes line is probably your problem -- I must have fixed it in my own install during development and forgotten about it. Head over to GameData/KipEnd/parts/UnivDockPorts, open up UnivDockPorts.cfg and see if that linebreak is there. That module definition (starting at line 59) should look like this:

MODULE
{
	name = ModuleAdaptiveDockingNode

	ValidSizes = size0,size1,size2,size3
}

",size2,size3" needs to be up in the same line as "ValidSizes =". Hope that helps!

[CaptainKipard]

MODULE

{

	name = ModuleAdaptiveDockingNode

	ValidSizes = size0,size1
[b],size2,size3[/b]
}

This is really odd. When I open it in Notepad it looks normal. What's going on?

[Eleven]

FYI I just checked and my line 59 was broke...will test it out later

[CaptainKipard]

FYI I just checked and my line 59 was broke...will test it out later

What program did you use to open it?

[toadicus]

I'm using SciTE, but it looks like the download site for their Windows installer is down. I'll PM you a link to a download from a personal server, but Notepad2 will show you the problem as well.

Notepad doesn't render \n linebreaks as a new line; it will ONLY draw a full \r\n sequence as a new line. Looking at a binary read of those lines in python:

[
b'MODULE\n',
b'\r\n',
b'{\n',
b'\r\n',
b'\tname = ModuleAdaptiveDockingNode\n',
b'\r\n',
b'\tValidSizes = size0,size1\n',
b',size2,size3\r\n',
b'}\r\n',
b'}\r\n'
]

I use Linux, so 95% of my text files will come with \n newlines (all but those that I got from others using Windows). You probably copy-pasted some of those lines from something I sent you (probably from the 1.25m port) and then added the other sizes yourself in notepad, which didn't know and couldn't tell you that you were actually adding them after a newline.

[Eleven]

What program did you use to open it?

I'm in linux as well, I use gedit

[CaptainKipard]

That's quite interesting toadicus, thanks. You're right I copied from your cfg.

I'll fix it and test it.

[woot]

I do my editing in Notepad++, and my version had the line break (although it was on line 63 or so). Hopefully that's the source of the issue.

[CaptainKipard]

It worked for me. Thanks Toad.

@Everyone. I still have a few things I'd like to change with the models themselves, so I wont be updating the download just yet. I'll need to move the mods to another host anyway what with Spaceport closing. In the meantime, please keep your plugin up to date by checking Toadicus' own thread. All AdaptiveDockingNode-plugin-related discussion should go there. All other discussion related to my work should go here or if it's related to development then it should go in my dev thread.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[ctbram]

Interesting, my editor "editplus" did not show the line break and I was copying the code snippet to say that I did not have the line break and when I pasted it in the browsers quick reply low and behold the line break was there so I removed it. Will let you know if it has an effect.

thanks

ADDON: EUREKA! that fixed it. I was able to load a previous save and dock! TY Taodacus and Kip and all else that replied.

Ready for the five man crew and then off to Jool and its moons. Thanks again kip and toadacus these are great mods.

Edited May 12, 2014 by ctbram

[CaptainKipard]

That's a nice ship. Are those KAS struts doing anything? I tried to assemble something similar once and I used them but they didn't seem very strong at all.