B9 5.0 pre-release (with download)

[K3-Chris]

>_> any chance you would be willing to do a Airliner style that has the hatch on the side rather than on the top... that gets kind of confusing and frustrating when makeing airliners with B9 default parts.

Yeah I plan on re-locating the door/hatch to the side, makes little sense for it to be on the top.

[Hellbrand]

anybody also notice that the S2's nose section is kind of flat >_> and the cone is just kinda pasted on there?

[montyben101]

For some reason the MFDs in the S2 crew tank are broken? any ideas?

Edit: fixed, just me being an idiot

Edit2: Is there a way that you can make the window shields actually shield the windows?

Edited April 14, 2014 by montyben101

[Sufficient Anonymity]

For some reason the MFDs in the S2 crew tank are broken? any ideas?

Edit: fixed, just me being an idiot

Edit2: Is there a way that you can make the window shields actually shield the windows?

To quote K3|Chris from a little while back "Nope, they don't have a back-side thus they're invisible from the inside."

[hieywiey]

Add 2001 as an in-flight movie!! (And maybe Space Balls too)

[Meridius]

I use the S2 series for my long term interplanetary voyages. Possible to convert the 6m to a habitat for 4 kerbals? Just a thought.

[Andrew Hansen]

Why don't you take over the B9 Aerospace mod? This looks fantastic!

[Helix935]

whoa has everyone been looking at D12 considering that no one had commented here in a week?

[K3-Chris]

It's interesting though I don't really have any interest in helicopters which seems it's primary focus, and it doesn't seem to have any IVAs rendering it pretty pointless IMO.

I'm still working on this, the IVA prop pack I was waiting for is finally out, I had a bit of an attack of IRL:itis and the blues associated with it.

Finally rigged up the windows with covers (with non-invisible backside for proper IVA difference between open and closed).

Next and most likely final step on the exterior is to add a door to the side, either copy the door/hatch element in the texture to the side of it or make my own door, leaning towards making my own inspired by the other b9 stuff, a door on the side of the fuselage makes much more sense than a door on the top, could use a ladder to go straight in instead of having to rig up several ladders to get on top of the fuselage first, I'm leaving the hatch on the top for use in space/if you have blocked the door with a wing (I'll put the door high enough on the side to clear a b9 wing attached to the side's vertical middle if that makes sense)

Trying to figure out the best workflow for said prop pack, exporting it all manually one prop at a time using blender's mu importer into modo and then re-rigging their textures etc is monotonous work but I guess I'll just have to do it, or I'll have to do all prop setup in unity which means I can't move interior stuff around the props in modo, though I guess I could make all interior objects individual props moved around in unity and just do the exterior in modo.

Edited May 9, 2014 by K3|Chris

[K3-Chris]

Door coming along nicely, it might look a bit high but it's pretty close to the floor inside, one or two stair-steps should suffice on the inside, remember it's a two floor part and the door clears a b9 wing attached to the middle of the fuselage.

Idea is that the doors on the side are just normal doors while the JSI/RPM hatch on the ceiling is an actual airlock, either can be used in space but opening the doors depressurizes the entire cabin (violently if you didn't do it in a controlled fashion before opening the door) while the airlock in the ceiling allows you to keep the rest of the cabin pressurized

Aiming to release the 6m S2 part pictured above before the end of the weekend complete with fleshed out IVA.

Not my version (yet) but it should give a sense of the scales and how it clears the wing etc:

Edited May 9, 2014 by K3|Chris

[OldMold]

Awesome stuff, cant wait! Are you going to use the Alcor IVA prop pack?

[K3-Chris]

Indeed.

10 characters

[Helix935]

Yes i brought it back

[K3-Chris]

Yes i brought it back

What do you mean?

Anyway update:

Outside is pretty much done, inside's outer walls are pretty close to done, spent a lot of time cleaning up the textures, a lot of wonky UV maps etc making the walls look a bit too patch-work etc, textured up the pillars etc.

Stand-in airlock mesh untextured because it's quite a lot of hassle to re-apply the textures after importing a .mu file, I'll just add the proper prop there in unity anyway, it's just there as a reference.

Folding ladder for the airlock still there because it's useful as a safety measure in case the normal doors on the side of the fuselage become blocked/underwater in crash, and in 0g it's a helpful handhold.

Only aspect I'm not entirely sure about is the ladders between the floors, I re-used the same ladders I used in the previous design but I'm not sure about them, ideally I'd like a proper staircase somewhere but I can't figure out how to integrate it with the design, problem is that the cylindrical shape of the outside dictates the floor width inside, if I add a staircase to the side to clear a walkway on both floors the stairs come down pretty much inside the wall on the bottom floor unless I make the stairs and walkway I leave next to them super narrow, which would look weird, and is frankly unsafe

As said before I'll make at least 2 versions of the 6m IVA/part, this is the "A" aka "kryan air economy class seating" version, yes that's 32 seats, 2 of them are in the way of the doors and will not be there, so 30, perhaps 28 if I add a toilet or similar facilities, I'll include some of the bag props from alcor along the empty space on the upper floor along the connection between floor and wall, along the ceiling on the upper floor (overhead bin style) and along the upper flat portion of the walls on the bottom floor (basically where there is free space that kerbals don't need to move around).

Second version "B" will be aimed more at exploration and research, will have a lot more facilities including the alcor food dispenser with food/drink packs etc and a lot less kerbals, perhaps as few as 8, will have sleeping accommodations, RPM displays, a work area/desk etc.

A is just for short duration bulk transport of kerbals from a to b, B is for long duration missions in deep space.

Picture of the alcor pod using the props I'm talking about:

Airlock that I'm using in the ceiling to the left, some bags in the middle/elsewhere, food station on the right. I'll credit alexustas for the props obviously as per the license (and common courtesy). He makes pretty sweet props, too bad his 180 turning chair isn't a prop, could be useful in the "B" version.

I'll obviously update the 2m version with the new external layout and internal improvements down the line, and quite possibly make "A & B" skus.

Currently modeling the interior doors, using:

As a reference.

Handle is a RPM prop stand-in (handle part is red, right part is a plaque with a warning text double click handle to make currently active kerbal EVA) just a simple hexagon shape for now, will obviously have a lot more detail (and textures) when it's done, including a hole for the window.

Ideas? Suggestions? Feedback?

Edited May 11, 2014 by K3|Chris

[K3-Chris]

Jeb for scale (yes I know bananas are the accepted scale reference, but I think Jeb's are more useful in KSP).

Fits through the door nicely, even with their comically large heads.

Ashamed to say I spent an inordinate amount of time getting the actual door model and the exterior outline to match perfectly, before I realized it's impossible for anyone to tell...

Quick mockup of how the seating would be, it looks a bit cramped but not overly so imo, and well if they wanted more room they should have bought business class, less cramped looking without the helmets as well, you can set if a kerbal has their helmet on or not and I'll have them off.

[Tidus Klein]

YES! O god please release this soon.

[K3-Chris]

YES! O god please release this soon.

Soon my friend, soon

Very close to final door, might tweak the textures a bit but I've at least UV mapped all 80 of those polygons myself by hand (yay!...) to tweak them takes 5s in photoshop at this point.

Large handles on either side the door for ease of entry/exit especially in 0g, smaller handle on the door is to push/pull it open/closed, angled handle is a stand-in for the proper prop, handle part is bright red in-game, the red handle is to unlatch the door, but double clicking it actually actuates the handle and makes your current kerbal EVA.

Non-banana for scale.

Only got the WC left (considering where to put it and how to design it, not that happy with the 2m versions') before I'll release the high capacity "B" version, then I'll start the more intricately designed "A" version with less kerbals but more scientific equipment, I've also figured out how to make one of the kerbals be in one of the beds ostensibly sleeping and I'll let you IVA to that sleeping kerbal (no helmet, lying on his side, blanket/similar hiding the moving arms and feet only showing the head and a shape under the cover to make it look like he's lying down).

The "A" version will carry about 8 kerbals, have that many beds or more (considering adding enough beds for the S2 cockpit crew to join them in there) and will function as a stock science lab (clean experiments etc) might also include an optional MM patch to make it work like a interstellar lab as well.

Edited May 12, 2014 by K3|Chris

[K3-Chris]

Yay, Bac9 likes my work enough that he handed the source files (unity, photoshop) for the relevant b9 parts, this will greatly speed up my progress and help me make higher quality stuff because I don't need to crudely adjust a flattened version of the textures or a baked version of the model etc, though this means I want to spend a little bit of time to "up-res" my work by switching from my pretty crude modifications to the actual source files, also working on re-structuring the assets etc to make it not use duplicate files etc, I didn't really plan all this out that well to begin with.

Some updates:

Proof I'm not cheating the WC into the gap between parts or something

Current version and I assume final of the high seat count version with no science equipment is 28 seats (32 -2 that would block the doors, -2 that would inside the WC), science lab version will be 8~ and have beds, at least one desk along with science gear and in general more free space and facilities for long-term space exploration while the 28 seat version is just for shorter duration A to B trips.

I'm pushing to release a new version of this mod this weekend including an improved version of the Mk2 IVA (some polish), and a updated version of the S2 2m IVA to use the new window position etc and the high capacity S2 6m pictured above.

Next in the pipeline is the science version with 8 seats, part I'm tackling after that I think is the S3 supersonic cockpit and the Mk5 cockpit.

Bac9 and Tav are interested in bundling these IVAs with the next update to b9 btw, pretty sweet, part of the reason I need to clean up my assets etc to make them use less ram and make more logical sense so they can be bundled with the mod proper.

Sorry about the "delay" but in the end you'll get better quality IVAs and more people get to enjoy them if they're rolled into the b9 release proper, I'll continue to improve the IVAs separate from the official b9 release cycle because I think I'm going to interate on these IVAs at a higher rate than the big official releases happen, and I'll make it so you can just slot my updated version on top of the b9 install and it replaces the files as you'd expect it to work, then when b9 gets updated they can just integrate my latest version.

Edited May 16, 2014 by K3|Chris

[Railgunner2160]

That is great news!!! I've liked your work so far and am really going to enjoy seeing these become part of B9 Aerospace, officially!!!!

[K3-Chris]

Yeah, but I realized re-doing it all and polishing it up to release quality isn't the work of a weekend, and I was pretty close to completing the 6m version, so I pushed out a quite good version of it before I start polishing it up for b9 inclusion, check OP for new version download

[DaveStrider]

How will the KSPI science lab work with 8 crew members? will it only have 2 people working on that module, or will it effectively be 4 science labs?

[K3-Chris]

I'm thinking require 2 kerbals to operate, the other 6~ kerbals are doing other things though, wont be 4x the speed of normal KSPi one, that sounds way too OP.

[K3-Chris]

0.4.1 released, contains additional polish to the 6m version, more props, all chairs but 2 face forwards, IVA turned 180 to make the world outside the windows go past in the correct direction, visible light sources.

[SmarterThanMe]

Are you intending to move the windows on your smaller crew pod also?

Also.. I'd hate to be assigned to the bottom floor of your pod. Going to space, and no windows through which you watch. Argh! Space tourists would sending in complaint letters. Heh.

So, with that in mind, any chance of shielded windows on the lower floor? I'm honestly not particularly bothered. I treat all complaint letters with the gravity that they deserve (i.e., I release bundles of them from the airlock just before re-entry).

[K3-Chris]

Funny you'd ask that, no I'm not about 10mins from uploading 0.5 containing amongst other things the 2m version with that layout, nope, not at all. >_>

I'm not adding windows to the bottom floor out of realism, cutting a hole in the heatshield for some kind of cover/door would be dicy on re-entry or very heavy, I'm aware it's pretty boring down there atm, I'll figure out some way to spruce it up don't you worry.

Also considering a secondary version of the high seat count version with no bottom floor, and instead holds say 40% as much fuel as the fuel only parts, basically the missing volume bellow would be fuel tanks.