B9 5.0 pre-release (with download)

[K3-Chris]

I have plans for HL tanks, problem is as said that the more kerbals there are in an IVA the lower your FPS gets, though you don't need to render all kerbals, I could make a version with a "room" you can't see into and more kerbals you can't IVA to.

[wasmic]

I have plans for HL tanks, problem is as said that the more kerbals there are in an IVA the lower your FPS gets, though you don't need to render all kerbals, I could make a version with a "room" you can't see into and more kerbals you can't IVA to.

That's exactly why I wanted a lower deck on the HL cockpit - it would eliminate the requirements for an HL crew tank in almost all situations.

[InfiniteShock]

Speaking of plans, are there any plans to make the parts in this pack separate from B9? Or at least not replace them? I feel like it would benefit my game to have different parts for different needs. (Also rendering all of the kerbals takes a bit to do with my laptop.) And if you don't feel like spending the time to make a new pack/link, could you explain how to edit the module manager .cfg files to achieve the above? I messed around with them myself but couldn't get it to work exactly... Other that that I love what you're doing here and will download every update to this pack as long as my RAM holds out.

[Taverius]

Speaking of plans, are there any plans to make the parts in this pack separate from B9?

I can only speak for the B9 aerospace side.

Me and bac9 like K3|Chris' work a lot, and since the last time bac9 did an IVA he pretty much swore to never do one again we're only too happy to have someone do the missing IVAs and cockpits and do them well at that.

We still have to finalize which version of which IVA will be in B9, but no, you won't get a version of B9 without them.

Don't go IVA in the HL cockpit if the FPS drop bothers you - or better, whine at Squad until they implement sensible culling in IVA scenes.

[K3-Chris]

I'm considering "cheating" to improve FPS at the cost of being able to switch to all the kerbals inside, you can have a different number of kerbals in a part and a different number actually rendered inside that you can IVA to, best candidates are obviously the lower floor of the S2 crew tanks, can remove all the kerbals down there and their chairs and the props and get a large boost in performance, at the cost of being able to see the lower floor, similarly I could have a floor in the HL IVA you can't see into with "kerbals" inside.

The lower capacity science lab versions of the S2 tanks could spread their less than 8 kerbals between the floors though.

I've tried using unity masking to manually cull between floors but KSP/IVAs don't support Shader "Masked/Mask" for some reason.

Another solution is splitting the tanks and other multi-room/floor IVAs into multiple parts, since each part has their own IVA and your FPS isn't affected by other part's IVAs, problem with this solution is obvious though, you have to assemble more parts to make the same plane, the more parts you add the worse your non-IVA fps is, and it's not that intuitive and pretty fiddly.

Best solution would obviously be if Squad fixed this in some way, either fixing automated or manual culling (put up masking volumes/planes between walls in a multi-room IVA or between floor and cieling in a multi-floor IVA) or allowing more than one IVA per part (less elegant but possibly easier to implement). Problem is that as so many other things mods do that vanilla doesn't KSP hasn't had a cause for proper IVA optimizations yet because none of the stock parts go over 4 kerbals as far as I'm aware, making a stock fix unlikely.

Edited June 2, 2014 by K3|Chris

[falken]

I think I would treat crew tanks as storage + crew, putting cargo down low, passengers on the top deck much like a commercial airliner.

[Tidus Klein]

I think I would treat crew tanks as storage + crew, putting cargo down low, passengers on the top deck much like a commercial airliner.

Ya that sounds cool... May be a larger KAS container held inside or a real cargo bay with little floppy doors on the side for??? Very small probs?

[Empiro]

I too wouldn't mind a smaller version (and one with a science lab as stated in the top post). I love the look and feel of the module, but so far, I haven't found much use for carrying 24 Kerbals around.

[K3-Chris]

Yeah count is currently at 12:

Holds as much fuel as a 2m fuel part, LF:414, LOX:506 aka 1/3 as much fuel as a dedicated 6m would, idea is that the kerbals etc take up 2/3 and fuel 1/3 allowing for the bulkhead between them etc (don't mix your fuel and oxi with kerbals).

Has no WC currently, considering if I should add it back somehow or not, can't find a good fit for it, I think the WC is a good idea from a "immersion" stand-point, but no IVAs in any other mod I'm aware of or stock has them, making including them kinda non-standard of me, let me mull it over, feedback appreciated.

Also has a lot of KAS storage, 120.

2m version still has a bottom floor and no fuel in it and 6 kerbals total (4 upstairs, 2 downstairs). Might or might not change that, not sure, removing the bottom floor and putting 1/3 the fuel of a normal 2m tank into it would be more consistent with the 6m version, but I'm thinking the option of using 2x 2m ones to get 12 or 1x 6m one to get 12 + fuel is a nice option, if you just need kerbals go for the 2m version, if you need kerbals and fuel go for 6m if that makes sense, can use 3x 2ms to get in effect a 6m 18 crew part.

Something else I'm working on:

Neutral, pitch down (dive), pitch up (rise), roll left, roll right

FireSpitter (already required by B9) has some pretty neat features like turning props based on steering input, that's the B9 S2 cockpit's joystick, sliced it up into independent parts and I'll animate each part in that fashion with FireSpitter to move when you give control input, should also move when MJ/SAS is controlling the plane. Those 5 states are just manual examples of the extremes of the ranges, actual animation will map to the control input to give a smooth and combined effect

Also working on the pedals from the S2 IVA, they'll be hooked up to rudder.

I'll slot these new props into the older IVAs as well.

Edited June 3, 2014 by K3|Chris

[K3-Chris]

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Some progress to report, I've started modifying the S2 IVA assets to fit into the HL IVA, early days still, pictures not representative of final quality obviously, (and internal mesh is still unlit and untextured) it's a pretty crude mish-mash atm, anyway the important part is the joysticks, thanks to FireSpitter they now match your control inputs, if you fly with a joystick hopefully the range is pretty similar and should add some inmersion, though I wish kerbals actually held the controls...

Rubber sock like part at the base was pretty tricky to animate right to fake a soft compound thing moving.

Next is the pedals for yaw control, which is much simpler to rig up than the joysticks.

[TeeGee]

Hl iva is awesome!!

[falken]

Looking great Chris. Any chance of another pre release? That cockpit is looking pretty usable already.

[wasmic]

Alright, I know that there is quite a lot of work on your shoulders right now, but would you please consider - just at some point - making a 6m S2 Habitat section, and perhaps a 2m S2WB Habitat? I think my problem with the current parts in this pack is, that I'd like to use them for interplanetary journeys, and they just contain too many Kerbals for that to be realistic. Yes, I know that I could just fill it partially with Kerbals, but for some reason, it breaks my willing suspension of disbelief. I know, my WSoD is very fragile. Also, just think about how awesome an S2WB hab would be...

[CannonFodder_833]

This is awesome and soooo needed. Keep it up - there are a LOT of IVAs around and not around that need your help!!!

[K3-Chris]

Looking great Chris. Any chance of another pre release?

Sure thing: http://www./view/nu20eaal5c633d1/Cockpit_HL_PreRelease2 Delete the Aero_HL_Cockpit (from previous pre-release) in b9 or you get a duplicate part, changed the folder structure, shouldn't affect your saves since the names are the same.

That cockpit is looking pretty usable already.

Yeah it's completely usable, I'm flying around KSC with it all in IVA landing on the runway and taking off again no problem.

It's far from done aesthetically obviously though and I need to figure out the animated HUD props still etc, removed the HUDs in the meantime.

Exterior updated a bit, specular map added and some small tweaks to the burn marks trying to make them less obviously artificial.

This is awesome and soooo needed. Keep it up - there are a LOT of IVAs around and not around that need your help!!!

Thanks, yeah sadly IVAs are pretty overlooked by most modders, though before RPM IVA was pretty pointless, it was a good way to have no idea what's going on, IVA only was a challenge for really good/patient players before RPM.

Edited June 5, 2014 by K3|Chris

[K3-Chris]

Getting there

[Raven.]

http://i.imgur.com/QA9UnG3.png

Getting there

K3|Chris, that is very excellent work. Awesome job!

[falken]

Really liking the cockpit internals Chris, but maybe have at 2/3 Raster MFDs infront of each pilot rather than one? I found I was having to switch through the menus alot during critical moments.

http://imgur.com/Nd4Wz

There's a picture of the real shuttle's cockpit, which was awash with MFDs.

[K3-Chris]

Yeah I wanted 2 in front of each of the 2 guys in front, copied over S2 IVA props only had one, had to re-arrange some stuff to get 2 to fit:

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A lot of work left marrying those props to the internal shape obviously, and to texture the inside walls, some ugly transitions and wonky stuff especially in the front left and right corners for now, but I like the layout of the props and their functionality, the 2 MFDs in front of each kerbal are centered on the kerbals, I'll re-size the dials to be uniform size and fit on the "bar" above the MFDs obviously. Going to add a "box" behind the atmosphere gauge on the top that connects to the window pillar, can fit additional props on it.

[Taverius]

Started redoing the S3 in a sort of Concorde/Tu-144 hybrid style so its possible to attach an IVA to it.

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[K3-Chris]

Sweet looking stuff, looks very IVA:able (is that a word?) problem with old one as you know was that it was a completely impractical shape and setup to add an IVA to it.

Something very close to the current S2 IVA would fit neatly inside that non-moving part.

[K3-Chris]

Slowly but surely polishing up the IVA:

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Mostly done with the front, shifting my attention to the front corners and side, idea is basically to add what ever props would be useful and leave no "fake" controls for the ASET+RPM version of the IVA, RPM only will have some stand-in b9 buttons that don't do anything, without RPM and ASET you get the old FireSpitter MFDs (white text on blue background) in the same place as the RPM MFDs.

Example of this transition is the light button near the throttle bellow, it's not quite correctly aligned yet and I'm going to put other similar buttons in a line above it to cover the rest of the b9 buttons, without ASET props you see the B9 buttons underneath instead.

On the right you can see an ASET panel with a full set of ActionGroup buttons, will add more stuff over it as well.

The third kerbal in the IVA behind the other two looking at a wall will have a a lot of buttons and 2 MFDs as well, ASET has some non-working coms, life support, etc buttons, but also working MJ stuff etc, bulk of that stuff can be at his station.

Edited June 9, 2014 by K3|Chris

[Joshwoo70]

Slowly but surely polishing up the IVA...

Looks cool! are we expecting a new release?

[K3-Chris]

I'll try, primarily focused on getting the HL IVA ready and my other stuff properly integrated into B9, I've had to dance around the b9 files before while I was "unofficial" using MM.cfg's etc, but since this mod will be integrated into the next b9 release I need to start migrating the file structure back into the B9 folder, will necessitate a full wipe of older installs of my mod sadly.

[Joshwoo70]

Oh No!

EDIT: What do you mean by integrated?

Edited June 9, 2014 by Joshwoo69
Edits