[WIP] Universal Storage

[Daishi]

Tankbutts. Don't know why i spend so much time on the stuff that nobody is ever going to see

[Daishi]

Still got specular channels to add, and a few more LF tanks to tweak, and i'll be done (and on to the next set).

[KaiserSoze]

You know it is not fair to show such a great quality work?

It just makes me want this more and more

you really are making a wonderful job. Have no doubt at all that I will play with this goodies when you finish, they look amazing.

 

[Daishi]

38 minutes ago, KaiserSoze said:

You know it is not fair to show such a great quality work?

It just makes me want this more and more

you really are making a wonderful job. Have no doubt at all that I will play with this goodies when you finish, they look amazing.

 

Hah, cheers. It's all a little mundane tbh, i'd be glad when these tanks are all finished and I can move onto the more exciting parts.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Daishi

[Whisstler]

I only found this mod recently but I'm loving it so far, really happy to see there's a version 2 being worked on. Since this is a WIP thread I thought I'd post a couple of requests.

First, I made myself a support mod (just a couple of .cfg files) that ties Universal Storage better in with USI Life Support that basically disables all the containers that contain stuff USI LS doesn't use (Oxygen, Hydrogen, Water, WasteWater), maybe you could bundle this in at some point. I'd be happy to post my little snippet if that helps at all.

Second, it's a bit of a pain to tell the various wedges from one another since they all look alike when closed. Adding a symbol sticker on the outside would probably do a lot to help, and you could maybe make it toggleable if you don't artistically like the idea of not making them look realistic. It's a game and usability is really important. I have the DMagic Orbital Science mod that's compatible installed as well and of course it makes things worse since the experiments are interactive, but maybe you could set a good precedent for stuff like that to follow.

[Daishi]

17 hours ago, Whisstler said:

I only found this mod recently but I'm loving it so far, really happy to see there's a version 2 being worked on. Since this is a WIP thread I thought I'd post a couple of requests.

First, I made myself a support mod (just a couple of .cfg files) that ties Universal Storage better in with USI Life Support that basically disables all the containers that contain stuff USI LS doesn't use (Oxygen, Hydrogen, Water, WasteWater), maybe you could bundle this in at some point. I'd be happy to post my little snippet if that helps at all.

Second, it's a bit of a pain to tell the various wedges from one another since they all look alike when closed. Adding a symbol sticker on the outside would probably do a lot to help, and you could maybe make it toggleable if you don't artistically like the idea of not making them look realistic. It's a game and usability is really important. I have the DMagic Orbital Science mod that's compatible installed as well and of course it makes things worse since the experiments are interactive, but maybe you could set a good precedent for stuff like that to follow.

Well, we use those resources for our own fuel cell parts, that would kinda suck to trim half our mod out

Yeah, there's always been that issue with ID'ing parts - with this new system it's kinda going to be worse because they're going to be completely hidden until you open the doors (side effect of making true service bays that protect things). @DMagic is adding compatibility that allows his Orbital Science mod to trigger our door animations when they deploy, but unless they're activated through an action group or a custom mod (Science alert?) there's no way to identify and use them unless you open the doors yourself. As soon as we create parts with bits that show through the closed shrouds to tell you what they are - they're not classed as shrouded anymore and the entire point of the new aero occlusion system is made moot. 

I always thought a custom UI window with a graphical cross section of what's inside the shrouds would be cool, but it's beyond my skills. Dmagic might be able to help with any ideas he may have

Edited July 30, 2017 by Daishi

[Paul Kingtiger]

@Daishi I wonder if the system that created the cut away views for crewed compartments can be used to make parts of the shroud transparent?  The system shows the IVA and you can't select anything inside, which would be different to parts hidden behind other parts which were then clickable.  I'll dig around and see if I can find some information on how it works.

 

[danielboro]

On 30.7.2017 at 8:16 AM, Daishi said:

Well, we use those resources for our own fuel cell parts, that would kinda suck to trim half our mod out

Yeah, there's always been that issue with ID'ing parts - with this new system it's kinda going to be worse because they're going to be completely hidden until you open the doors (side effect of making true service bays that protect things). @DMagic is adding compatibility that allows his Orbital Science mod to trigger our door animations when they deploy, but unless they're activated through an action group or a custom mod (Science alert?) there's no way to identify and use them unless you open the doors yourself. As soon as we create parts with bits that show through the closed shrouds to tell you what they are - they're not classed as shrouded anymore and the entire point of the new aero occlusion system is made moot. 

I always thought a custom UI window with a graphical cross section of what's inside the shrouds would be cool, but it's beyond my skills. Dmagic might be able to help with any ideas he may have

i think something like a flag painted on the door
if it can be auto selected based on content, best, if not then player selected
at list a number of skin options to show if the content is a sci, KIS, KOS, resource
kinda like kerbal can have a pic to see if its a sci pilot or engineer

[steedcrugeon]

9 hours ago, Paul Kingtiger said:

@Daishi I wonder if the system that created the cut away views for crewed compartments can be used to make parts of the shroud transparent?  The system shows the IVA and you can't select anything inside, which would be different to parts hidden behind other parts which were then clickable.  I'll dig around and see if I can find some information on how it works.

 

Best person to help answer these sorts of questions would be @pizzaoverhead as he has done a tremendous amount of work with IVA and 'collider-ing' stuff on the internals.

the reasons you can't select anything seen in an IVA view are because:

a) Internal stock stuff doesn't have physics colliders so you are not able to interact with it directly.
b) External part (whilst see-through) is still there and it's external physics collider is still the only thing you can interact with when you 'mouse-over' the internal that you can see.

A sort of hacky way of doing it would be if you could 'toggle' the render queue for the items which are stored internally. At the same time you'd need to disable the external storage part's 'outer' physics collider. This would allow you the see the internal component through the external storage (like the current IVA overlay setup when toggled by the portraits) and at the same time would allow the internal components to be interacted with. 

A quick way to implement it would be that you have duplicate 'INTERNAL' models for each of the components which may be inside an external storage container, that way you can just toggle their visibility with he IVA stuff. You'd still need to disable the exterior Physics collider on the storage part for interaction though.

Edited July 31, 2017 by steedcrugeon
typos and additional explanation

[DMagic]

I think something similar to how the fairings work might be applicable here (just without the exploded-view part). Maybe just add a tag to the components you want to be transparent, then when you mouse over them the opacity of the mesh renderer could be turned down and the collider turned off. You could set each door that way, and then set the fixed backside that way.

Something like this would need to have a toggle in-flight, otherwise you could run into all sorts of problems by accidentally hovering over the shroud and turning off its collider, I can imagine some debris getting trapped inside. And maybe also an option to peek inside without turning off the colliders, just if you want to know where some specific part is.

[GonDragon]

44 minutes ago, DMagic said:

I think something similar to how the fairings work might be applicable here (just without the exploded-view part). Maybe just add a tag to the components you want to be transparent, then when you mouse over them the opacity of the mesh renderer could be turned down and the collider turned off. You could set each door that way, and then set the fixed backside that way.

Something like this would need to have a toggle in-flight, otherwise you could run into all sorts of problems by accidentally hovering over the shroud and turning off its collider, I can imagine some debris getting trapped inside. And maybe also an option to peek inside without turning off the colliders, just if you want to know where some specific part is.

For reference, the Ven's Stock Part Revamp do something like this, with his service bays. In the VAB, you can open and close it's doors, but they will always shows itself as semi-transparent. But in flight, they always are opaque. I can't think of any example of parts that become semi-transparent in flight, but Ven's code could be a good starting point.

 

[Daishi]

Thanks guys, will look into a way to achieve that if i can. For now at least, i think i need to get the parts done first! 



Guidance Computer - might either act as a receptacle for science data, or be a wedge-type probe core, or something else hightech (and expensive). A vague analogue to the Apollo Guidance Computer, a beefy 2mhz workhorse of the space race

[MaverickSawyer]

Mechjeb compatible, perhaps?

[Whisstler]

Thanks for taking the feedback under consideration.

On 7/30/2017 at 8:16 AM, Daishi said:

Well, we use those resources for our own fuel cell parts, that would kinda suck to trim half our mod out

I did repurpose all the parts that I could. I gave the WRS the USI LS small recycler functions and turned the US fuel cell into a stock fuel cell copy. Chances are I could have been even a bit more creative, I mostly just wanted to see if I could get it done.

On 7/30/2017 at 8:16 AM, Daishi said:

I always thought a custom UI window with a graphical cross section of what's inside the shrouds would be cool, but it's beyond my skills. Dmagic might be able to help with any ideas he may have

Like a HUD like element overlaid on the overall model? I guess coming up with a proper idea would be the first step, maybe a mockup image or something.

If you make larger wedges that could potentially fit more stuff in them, maybe they could house lots of smaller unshrouded wedges somehow. That could help since you'd only need to open one to see all that's inside.

[Daishi]

On 8/3/2017 at 6:21 AM, Whisstler said:

Thanks for taking the feedback under consideration.

I did repurpose all the parts that I could. I gave the WRS the USI LS small recycler functions and turned the US fuel cell into a stock fuel cell copy. Chances are I could have been even a bit more creative, I mostly just wanted to see if I could get it done.

Like a HUD like element overlaid on the overall model? I guess coming up with a proper idea would be the first step, maybe a mockup image or something.

If you make larger wedges that could potentially fit more stuff in them, maybe they could house lots of smaller unshrouded wedges somehow. That could help since you'd only need to open one to see all that's inside.

A toolbar vector UI would be fantastic - though i'm not really too keen on putting wedges inside wedges. That sounds like krakenbait 

Wouldn't hurt to add a config for mechjeb. 

Batteries!

[mostlydave]

Looking great! I can't wait to start building service modules with the new parts!

[Daishi]

1 hour ago, mostlydave said:

Looking great! I can't wait to start building service modules with the new parts!

Coming together!

[OldMold]

Oh happy day! Welcome back Daishi! Really looking forward to the new US parts to play with!

[Daishi]

Entry level fuel cell, an analogue of those found on the Gemini spacecraft. Small, dependable, but low powered and a tad inefficient (it's up to Paul to balance that!)



Cool capsule courtesy of @CobaltWolf

[skbernard]

wow i havent picked up kerbal or visited the forums for like a year or so and immediately had to come here to check out whats been going on, and i must say i'm pretty excited to see this coming together, great to have you back daishi

[Daishi]

14 hours ago, skbernard said:

wow i havent picked up kerbal or visited the forums for like a year or so and immediately had to come here to check out whats been going on, and i must say i'm pretty excited to see this coming together, great to have you back daishi

Cheers, glad to be back too! 



Finally unwrapping the larger fuel cell. 

[Daishi]

2.5m, single height shroud (minus the external skin). Getting the animation done and cleared away

[Paul Kingtiger]

I'm interested to know, would people prefer parts balanced to the game or to historical equivalents?

As an example I can balance a fuel cell to the real systems from the various NASA programs or I can try and balance it against the fuel cells in stock.
Same story with the tanks, I can use real world values for the volume of the tank or set it in line with stock parts.

I already have a prefered option in my head but I'd be interested to know what other people think before settling on a solution.

[Vince_K]

1 hour ago, Paul Kingtiger said:

I'm interested to know, would people prefer parts balanced to the game or to historical equivalents?

As an example I can balance a fuel cell to the real systems from the various NASA programs or I can try and balance it against the fuel cells in stock.
Same story with the tanks, I can use real world values for the volume of the tank or set it in line with stock parts.

I already have a prefered option in my head but I'd be interested to know what other people think before settling on a solution.

balanced to the game please

[Brigadier]

3 hours ago, Paul Kingtiger said:

I'm interested to know, would people prefer parts balanced to the game or to historical equivalents?

Stock, please.