[WIP] NohArk's Pick and Pull - Space Tug DEV 0.4

[lo-fi]

true, can't expect much oxidation in space.

http://i.imgur.com/24OS6i6.gif

Lovely work, that's looking seriously good! Will it have integrated RCS nozzles, or are the flat surfaces either end big enough for mounting RCS modules?

[plausse]

Coolest thing since mince pies.

[nli2work]

Lovely work, that's looking seriously good! Will it have integrated RCS nozzles, or are the flat surfaces either end big enough for mounting RCS modules?

I think integrated RCS yes. The grappler core will at least have very strong SAS and integrated tanks (FS fuel switch and MFT setups) for LF/OX or Mono, ~4x capacity of the large capsule tanks from stock parts. the metal gill areas are for attaching whatever else you want. I'm thinking a high efficiency (maybe Nuclear?) orbital engine (Mono and LF/OX) on extending arm (so I can milk the mechanical arms/textures/animations ) for skycrane setups.

overall I want to keep this a very small set of parts, with MM configs for other mod supports.

[nli2work]

textures, the most time consuming part is done. now to configure everything.

[lo-fi]

Nice, I like the sound of all of that! Mini nukes seem like a great option, and a thought just occurred.... I wrote a little plugin a while back that steps through animations based on a tweakable slider. If you setup your engine arm animations for deployment + full extension, you could use it to drive arm movement and have adjustable engine position to tweak CoT. Let me know if you're interested in having a play; I'll tweak it to suit and send over.

Probably opens up a whole new can of worms, but an idea to throw into the mix

Lovely work, as usual!

[nli2work]

Nice, I like the sound of all of that! Mini nukes seem like a great option, and a thought just occurred.... I wrote a little plugin a while back that steps through animations based on a tweakable slider. If you setup your engine arm animations for deployment + full extension, you could use it to drive arm movement and have adjustable engine position to tweak CoT. Let me know if you're interested in having a play; I'll tweak it to suit and send over.

Probably opens up a whole new can of worms, but an idea to throw into the mix

Lovely work, as usual!

Sure thing! it's already animated to retract/extend. defaults to trigger with animateGeneric. I can do an MM config to take advantage of your plugin

[lo-fi]

Ah, wicked! Might need to do some re-jigging of animations depending on how you've set it up, but I'll do a dummy rig to get the details all straight and get something over to you. Quite exciting!

[nli2work]

Ah, wicked! Might need to do some re-jigging of animations depending on how you've set it up, but I'll do a dummy rig to get the details all straight and get something over to you. Quite exciting!

It's canned animation. Same as the grappler device. I can switch it to using ConstraintFX for the pistons since it's just one arm instead of 4 (6 FX blocks instead of 24 )

[Nertea]

http://i.imgur.com/YKRSY1q.jpg

textures, the most time consuming part is done. now to configure everything.

It's beautiful!

[lo-fi]

It's canned animation. Same as the grappler device. I can switch it to using ConstraintFX for the pistons since it's just one arm instead of 4 (6 FX blocks instead of 24 )

Ah, I was wondering if the piston animation was baked in, or driven with LookAt's. Baked in is cool, and probably easier if that's how it is at the mo.

I hadn't anticipated quite how much harder it is with multiple animation clips (one for each leg) on one model, so having to re-write. Which is cool, because it will also drive the adjustable, self levelling landing legs I'm creating I'm assuming the legs are integral with the body to keep part count down and rigidity up? Got a the basics working, so I'll hopefully have something workable for you later in the week after I've got the animation states saving to persistence and all that kind of stuff. Aiming to have the legs deploy out a certain way with a button or AG, then have the slider extend and retract them in or out within limits, if you're happy with that?

I had to strip the deploy stuff while getting it running happily, and smoothing is yet to be implemented, but I've managed to blend the four clips together and drive them each with a tweakable slider:

[nli2work]

the vessel is 3 parts;

the pod (nothing special).

grappler device, same as stock, except it has stack nodes top and bottom and the attach node pops into position at the end of the animation, all the arms are baked in. It's on/off. no use for inbetween states.

engine is one arm/one engine, mount as many as you like with Editor symmetry. Surface attachment rigidity is a little lousy, might switch to stack nodes for little better strength, or wrangle the collider boxes for some strut attachment space... Animation is all baked (easiest to deal with and better hides some mechanical issues), I'd guess it's easier for your plugin to deal with as well, hard part is triggering the same process across multiple parts no?

Edited December 1, 2014 by nli2work

[lo-fi]

Ah, I see! Teach me to make assumptions! Nothing wasted, it's made me push my animation knowledge and works just as well with only one animation on the part Won't take me log to figure this out now..

No problem dealing with activating stuff across multiple parts, my KF stuff has that all figured out: each KF part has a group number 0-10 set with a slider, plus an apply button. Group 0 will always apply settings only to the currently selected part, any other group will apply settings from the current part to parts on the same vessel with the same group number. Works like a charm in-game, as it's very simple to use. Yep, animation being baked in is cool. I think I could probably add some joint re-enforcement for surface attach if needed - I've done a lot of playing with Unity joints lately while researching how to attach parts to animated pieces of other parts and actually have them move

Edit: Any chance I can get hold of the parts as they are now, if they've got the animation rigged in? It'll save me rigging up dummies to test the plugin

Edit2: Got deploy button and smoothing working, and found that multiple ModuleEngines on one part don't play well! More or less ready for models, though I've kinda spun my own temp ones just to play with. One other thing that's possible would be to have the actual engine nacelle flip over to reverse thrust, though you may have that covered by other means. I think you may have just invented a brand new type of engine!!

Edited December 2, 2014 by lo-fi

[nli2work]

http://www./download/zb09kxa578bh1f4/OrbitalTugDEV0.1.zip

flipping the engine body wouldn't work mechanically; but that does remind me I can use FS thrust switch to flip the thrust. I can place another set of nozzles in front, it'd work well to get rid of the ugly radioactive symbol too!

pretty simple setups really, I'm sure everything will be clear when you look at the configs and see how things move in VAB. let me know if you have any questions.

Edited December 2, 2014 by nli2work

[Mekan1k]

Also needs a drone core-cockpit...

You know- in case a kerbal DOESN'T want to die of dehydration.

[nli2work]

Also needs a drone core-cockpit...

You know- in case a kerbal DOESN'T want to die of dehydration.

which life support mod are you referring to?

[lo-fi]

Cheers, that'll help speed things along

Thrust switcher sounds like a great idea, and I reckon the dual nozzles will look great. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Edit: Works like a charm! The only thing I might struggle with is breaking the symmetry in the editor so the arms can be changed independently, but I have one or two ideas for that. If there's a mod that gives you toggleable in-flight CoT/CoM gizmo's, that would be the icing on the cake too

Gotta say, it's absolutely stunning in-game!

Edited December 2, 2014 by lo-fi

[Mekan1k]

which life support mod are you referring to?

Not refering to a life-support mod, just...

I want to see what a drone cockpit looks like with this.

[nli2work]

from RF? I dunno. should work okay. that reminds me... I should add end cap colliders for surface attachment options, would be good for eventual TweakScale option for a 2.5m grabber.

I envisioned this as a small standalone pack with MM patches for adapting to other game mechanic mods. KER, KSPI, FS for many things, MFT, and some USI integration where applicable. any other mods I should look at?

Edited December 2, 2014 by nli2work

[nli2work]

Cheers, that'll help speed things along

Thrust switcher sounds like a great idea, and I reckon the dual nozzles will look great. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Edit: Works like a charm! The only thing I might struggle with is breaking the symmetry in the editor so the arms can be changed independently, but I have one or two ideas for that. If there's a mod that gives you toggleable in-flight CoT/CoM gizmo's, that would be the icing on the cake too

Gotta say, it's absolutely stunning in-game!

I was thinking of adding multimode engine for either LF/OX or Mono fuel option. is that gonna interfere with your plugin? I'm also thinking of MM patch for KSPI mechanics... not sure how it's gonna go with Radiator, Reactor, and nozzle modules all in one part... guess we'll find out.

[lo-fi]

Nah, unless it's messing with animations anything is fine multi mode would be really cool

[nli2work]

Cool. Just realized KSPI won't play with FS Thrust switch since FS doesn't register FNNozzleController module as engine.

anyway. with your plugin can you set it up with a check to see the animation state is at the last frame first? so the tweak sliders are only available when the arms are extended.

[Mecripp]

Woohoo new toy can't wait to see what iva your going to put in it.

[lo-fi]

Ah, bummer about KSPI and FS.

Can configure it how you like, but currently got it so the tweak sliders set the point the engines deploy to, so you don't have to deploy, then adjust, and the setting is always saved and persistent. They extend out to the point you've set, scroll in and out within limits when you mess with the slider, and retract back from wherever they are left. You could probably do all kinds of other crazy stuff with animations rigged and driven like this - it's certainly going to open up some cool options for landing legs and landing gear

Got a little caught up playing with symmetry shenanigans, but I'll get the group system and some action groups sorted and get something back over to you for testing very soon.

Moving an engine has a pretty powerful effect on the CoT btw, it's really cool!

[Gaalidas]

dag nabbit lo-fi, you never cease to amaze. Animations based on slider positions? sweet stuff there. Now, if we can get attached parts to move with the end of the arm (like we get with IR) you'd practically be reinventing the piston motor (now that you've already reinvented the wheel, that seems to be the next logical step).

[Mecripp]

This is nice