[WIP] Universal Storage

[marce]

Also, procedural Parts has a procedural Life Support tank that can be smoothly tweaked to contain whatever TAC supplies, whereas this mod makes storage chunky and imperfect. What is the practical advantage of this mod?

Yes the PP life support tank works just fine.

But I still prefer dedicated containers with appropriate textures in many cases (variety matters). The look and feel of my crafts does actually matter for me and I for example use toroidal and spherical tanks instead of the PP fuel tanks if they fit a specific craft well because it will then simply look better.

Especially for life support there is a need for resupply that has to be handled during EVA. That's why I'm currently using the CargoTransferBags mod (adapted to my personal flavor), however the standardized wedges of this mod can be superior in many cases and since I hope that there will be also wedges for the TAC converters that's a must compared to the current models

[Daishi]

Pardon my ignorance but which program/programs are used to design and texture these models?

Yep its Maya for modelling, and then i chuck it into Zbrush for texturing and UV unwrapping. Then back into Maya and Photoshop for tweaks and small surface details. I'm lucky my student licenses still work with Maya - Zbrush and PS i shelled out for as part of my degree.

Beautiful! The neat containers and their shelves and tanks make me giddy with logistical excitement!

Also, procedural Parts has a procedural Life Support tank that can be smoothly tweaked to contain whatever TAC supplies, whereas this mod makes storage chunky and imperfect. What is the practical advantage of this mod?

-Duxwing

It's mainly a focus on realism and true-to life methods of storing things. If you look at the cross sections of the Apollo CSM's you can see where Paul got the initial wedge concepts from - its far easier to service and swap out bays stacked around a central core, with generators and converters sharing the same space. It also makes EVAs a ton more fun and gives space stations more flexibility in their loadouts. I wouldn't say its totally practical vs a one tank approach - but it makes building things fun and creative, EVA's purposeful, and resupply missions a bit less monotonous. Paul and I are also interested in mods that implement random failures - so having separate segments helps to keep that possibility open when we come to it

There are differences with the real life length of the CSM's fuel tanks, but to save on part count we figured small ones would be handy for emergency reserves (or lander ascent stages), with the majority of the fuel placed behind the stack in a large Rockomax X-200 tank.

Yes the PP life support tank works just fine.

But I still prefer dedicated containers with appropriate textures in many cases (variety matters). The look and feel of my crafts does actually matter for me and I for example use toroidal and spherical tanks instead of the PP fuel tanks if they fit a specific craft well because it will then simply look better.

Especially for life support there is a need for resupply that has to be handled during EVA. That's why I'm currently using the CargoTransferBags mod (adapted to my personal flavor), however the standardized wedges of this mod can be superior in many cases and since I hope that there will be also wedges for the TAC converters that's a must compared to the current models

Yes yes you'll get your converters too

Edited June 1, 2014 by Daishi

[Paul Kingtiger]

Also, procedural Parts has a procedural Life Support tank that can be smoothly tweaked to contain whatever TAC supplies, whereas this mod makes storage chunky and imperfect. What is the practical advantage of this mod?

Personally I prefer the limitations of using off the shelf parts to build a craft rather than procedural mods. Sure, real space craft are designed with custom tanks that procedural parts models well, but that's not always the case. Gemini Titan was built around an existing ICBM as was Mercury Atlas and Redstone. Even the Saturn 1b was build from existing parts (Juno and Redstone tanks) so there is a precedent for having to use off the shelf components. Even the SLS uses many shuttle components. Ultimately though I like the challenge of having to complete this mission with those parts. My goal is to give you parts that are modular and customisable enough to make unique and efficient craft whilst still imposing the limitations of off the shelf part selection.

Plus I love all the added EVA opportunities.

[Raptor831]

Also, procedural Parts has a procedural Life Support tank that can be smoothly tweaked to contain whatever TAC supplies, whereas this mod makes storage chunky and imperfect. What is the practical advantage of this mod?

Practically, I like these for station building, or use in FusTek's warehouse module.

But honestly, they look cool. Who needs another reason!

[JewelShisen]

I'm not sure they're designed to deplete at the same rate - the amounts of resources are configured to the volumes of the containers, and the amount of compression per resource (oxygen and hydrogen differ slightly). We tried to get them as close as possible though. Hydrogen is used in a lot of generators\converters, so naturally there is going to be a discrepancy in how fast the tanks deplete vs other resources on the ship.

And yep those decouplers bug me as well. I'll be remaking them in the future

Alright. I just wanted to bring it up as it bugs me when something consumes dual resources and then one runs out before the other. I know the battery has the right balance of O2/H2 and wasn't sure if you had just missed a bit of math for the spare canisters. I may go on and do the math myself to balance out the levels so that folks like me, using it just for the battery, won't have it run out of either one early.

[Daishi]

Proper fuel tank WIP - wisdom teeth out tomorrow! Gargh D:

[CaptainKipard]

Why does this have a door anyway?

[Daishi]

Why does this have a door anyway?

Just pasted in a default wedge structure, with the door animation already done. Haven't really considered the hatches on a part-to-part basis yet. Do you think we should remove them?

[CaptainKipard]

Kinda, yeah. It's more optimised that way. The animation takes a tiny bit of memory an CPU, and it seems useless in this case.

......but then there's little need for the tank model itself really...I don't know. Maybe you could think of a reason to have the hatch.

[Paul Kingtiger]

You need the internals because you can remove the external wedge shell as a tweakable.

Personally I love the doors, sure they aren't useful on anything except the science bay, but they look cool.

[DMagic]

Can you define where a KAS pipe will attach? You could put some kind of port/attachment point on the front of the tank to give some kind of plausible way to transfer fuel. It would be nice if a KAS pipe, or something similar could be forced to attach directly to said port.

[CaptainKipard]

Secondeded

[Paul Kingtiger]

Universal Storage 0.7 released!

Check the release thread for details, downloads and instructions

[SmarterThanMe]

Any chance someone has already suggested fold-out parts, like solar panels (or a mount for the stock panels), antennae/dishes and so on?

[Daishi]

Kinda, yeah. It's more optimised that way. The animation takes a tiny bit of memory an CPU, and it seems useless in this case.

......but then there's little need for the tank model itself really...I don't know. Maybe you could think of a reason to have the hatch.

Well they started off as a way to access each parts tweakable menu - but we axed that cause we couldn't work it out, and figured it would get annoying having to open doors to do anything. You've got the resource\warning labels on the inside that give you an idea about the contents of each wedge, but as Paul said its mainly just visuals. I wouldn't say it uses much CPU, a single door is about 4 frames of animation? We both have high spec computers so its hard to test how much of an effect these things have on low power machines.

Can you define where a KAS pipe will attach? You could put some kind of port/attachment point on the front of the tank to give some kind of plausible way to transfer fuel. It would be nice if a KAS pipe, or something similar could be forced to attach directly to said port.

Is that possible? Never seen it done before, apart from the plug and socket thing in stock KAS. Not sure if i want to make this model any more detailed... you could always keep a socket attached inside a science bay and use that to interface with the ships resources.

Any chance someone has already suggested fold-out parts, like solar panels (or a mount for the stock panels), antennae/dishes and so on?

The science bay is empty - I'd just chuck them in there. I kinda want to release the TAC pack sometime in the near future, i can't keep making parts

[somnambulist]

The science bay is empty - I'd just chuck them in there. I kinda want to release the TAC pack sometime in the near future, i can't keep making parts

Please? The only other thing I'd like to see is a parachute wedge.

[Daishi]

Please? The only other thing I'd like to see is a parachute wedge.

I dunno, parachutes are hard to model and i wouldn't know where to start. I'll have a look at it when i've got the TAC pack wrapped up ><

[StEligius]

I dunno, parachutes are hard to model and i wouldn't know where to start. I'll have a look at it when i've got the TAC pack wrapped up ><

Isn't that what the RealChute module is for? All one would need to do is model the wedge, learn RealChute's API and call the module?

Edited June 6, 2014 by StEligius

[SmarterThanMe]

I dunno, parachutes are hard to model and i wouldn't know where to start. I'll have a look at it when i've got the TAC pack wrapped up ><

All good. I'd like to see TAC as well, so I'm definitely not asking for you to set that aside... Heh.

[CaptainKipard]

Guys how come the basic package has non-stock resources? I'd reorganise those parts in your position.

[Paul Kingtiger]

Guys how come the basic package has non-stock resources? I'd reorganise those parts in your position.

They are non-stock, but the resource file is included in the pack and used by other parts in the pack (the fuel cell). It's entirely self contained and you don't need any other mods installed to use it.

However if you want to go bare bones, each part is in it's own named folder, simply delete the folders and parts you don't want.

[Daishi]

Isn't that what the RealChute module is for? All one would need to do is model the wedge, learn RealChute's API and call the module?

I thought Realchute was more about correct drag and deployment simulation, incorporating it into the stock chutes, and having new models that included it? I dunno, too busy with part modelling to poke around atm. Will find out soonish for you.

All good. I'd like to see TAC as well, so I'm definitely not asking for you to set that aside... Heh.

I'd be shot by you guys if I did set it aside. I know better than that

[Daishi]

Seeing as the wedge structures have been remade I thought I'd spend a day remaking the octocore to better interface with them, before I start work on anything else. Compared to the last octocore tweak that removed a few polys - this one halves the triangle count completely, improves the appearance of a stack, and adds locking bolts which will eventually appear when you snap a wedge into a bay. The texture map is 256px now instead of 512px, so that'll shave a few megs off the RAM footprint

Edited June 8, 2014 by Daishi

[Chris_Pi]

Sometimes less is a whole lot more - Looks great, especially stacked.

[Daishi]

Thanks! Those tris were all wasted anyway on bizarre modelling - the only real geometric detail i removed were those wedge-intersecting protrusions, and the pipe sockets. Everything else is the same as it was, with much cleaner textures