[MWI] Metal Wasp Industries Solar Panel and Parts Pack

[MrWizerd]

MWI in conjunction with SMSE is proud to announce the re-release of parts originally made by Terazone kerbal TetrisWizard. The original parts were found at his original thread here and we breathed life back into them. We will also be adding parts to this pack in the near future. Please work with these parts and report any bugs you can find, and we will attempt to fix them quickly. I have changed the names of the parts, as well as there names inside of unity, so if you are still using Terazone's parts on your crafts and delete them, it will break your save. We also have not worked on the RCS jets or the lights. I hope to fix the lights soon, and I have heard that the RCS jets may be problematic but someone may have fixed them if so I will update the file.

MWI is proud to announce that it has signed an exclusive distribution contract with Beastly Science to hens forth develop and distribute there amazing products. To this end, we have added them to the 0.65 release of Metal Wasp Industries part pack. We have also added the ability for the KerbKam to export its video display to the Raster Prop Monitor and expect it to be used with the Probe Control Room. We here at MWI would like to thank BeastofChicken for allowing us to distribute his fine products, and hope to do him proud in the future.

Download from Dropbox: MWIndustries_0.65.zip

Solar Panels by SMSE

Beastly Science

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Release Notes

MWIndustries 0.65 - Added Beastly Science parts to zip

MWIndustries 0.63 - Modified Tech Tree distribution. Added Light Anttena

MWIndustries 0.61 - Added Modular tanks for the RCS tank, and CLS for Large Generator, fixed RT2 so antenna deploys

MWIndustries_0.6 - Removed Desktop.ini files from zip and Updated Remote Tech 2 cfg Probe and Antennae all accounted for, the Heavy Duty Antenna is treated as a dish with a 180 Arc at 10mk range. To mimic Ultra Low Frequency transmitters like the one in Delano California

MWIndustries_0.5 - Initial Release

Edited July 29, 2014 by MrWizerd

[Thesonicgalaxy]

Sweet!

Always wanted a mod with just new solar panels! Downloading now!

[Mecripp]

Can't wait to try them out.

[DasBananenbrot]

Those are some fancy solar panels Downloading right now

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Great to finally see this lot out in the wild, sorting all those panels was one of the tougher things( including wheels) that I've done so far.

As mentioned in the OP we want you to use and enjoy these parts as much as possible. WE want them to be reliable.

Reported bugs will be dealt with swiftly.

Furthers features to include but not limited to enclosed panels, flush surface mounted large panels for those infested with spacejunk.

It is also my intention to move the panels in a future update from stock animate generic to a Firespitter style animation that will be controllable in VAB and SPH, so that testing and fine tuning of position can be accomplished without needing to launch.

Be aware that most panels are breakable so do allow room for operation when mounting.

To edit breakable setting if your prefer your panels indestructible, browse the cfg with your favorite text editor until you find

MODULE
{
	name = ModuleDeployableSolarPanel
	sunTracking = true
	animationName = Take 001
	raycastTransformName = suncatcher
	pivotName = solarPivot
	[B]isBreakable = true[/B]

And simply change it to

MODULE
{
	name = ModuleDeployableSolarPanel
	sunTracking = true
	animationName = Take 001
	raycastTransformName = suncatcher
	pivotName = solarPivot
	[B]isBreakable = false[/B]

PS the huge panels are seriously huge, and may still require some balancing as to mass, power output per m2 etc A surface area in excess of 600m2 means they should be ideal for larger stations and bases

Edited July 8, 2014 by SpannerMonkey(smce)
updates info

[Mecripp]

Your not joking them huge panels are seriously huge my view goes for alittle zoom hehe.

EDIT- Looks great guys thanks

[Gaalidas]

I don't know what brain-damaged part of my brain causes this, but I just get so excited when I see a dark mass in orbit (my spacecraft... I hope...) and then there's this slow, subtle movement that reveals massive solar panels reflecting the sun and the surrounding scenery (well, maybe not scenery in KSP, but you get the picture.) There's just nothing quite like it.

I know, I'm a bit sick upstairs.

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

@Gaalidas

Its not just you buddy, I've spent many hours just watching the play of light across solar panels and huge craft, 2 years of playing and I still get transfixed by KSP's unlikely beauty!

[MrWizerd]

@Gaalidas: Yeah it's definitely not just you, in fact SpannerMonkey sent me this image and I was floored, because I didn't know it could happen in the game, I was under the impression that the moon was not rendered due to its distance and thus was just some generic sky animation.... boy was I wrong!

Edit: I would have LOVED to see if the solar panels said that the sun was occluded by the Mun!

[Gaalidas]

Edit: I would have LOVED to see if the solar panels said that the sun was occluded by the Mun!

That might have just been worth paying to see. Too bad my laptop can't handle shadows, as I suspect the effect that an eclipse produces relies on alignment and shadow renderability.

[ABZB]

That might have just been worth paying to see. Too bad my laptop can't handle shadows, as I suspect the effect that an eclipse produces relies on alignment and shadow renderability.

I once crashed an ion-powered light plane because of an eclipse (in v .23, at least) - the panels said that they were 'blocked by the Mun'

[BigD145]

Sweet!

Always wanted a mod with just new solar panels! Downloading now!

Doesn't Near Future Tech have these big ones already? What makes these different?

forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52042

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

YES the solar panels reported that they were blocked by the Mun!

[Mecripp]

Doesn't Near Future Tech have these big ones already? What makes these different?

forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52042

Yes Near Future has some but don't think there as big as the big 1

EDIT- my bad Near Future or some mod as a great big 1 forgot about that big carpet 1 takes like a min. or 2 to unfold.

Edited July 8, 2014 by Mecripp2

[magnemoe]

@Gaalidas: Yeah it's definitely not just you, in fact SpannerMonkey sent me this image and I was floored, because I didn't know it could happen in the game, I was under the impression that the moon was not rendered due to its distance and thus was just some generic sky animation.... boy was I wrong!

http://i.imgur.com/R0kj48S.png

Edit: I would have LOVED to see if the solar panels said that the sun was occluded by the Mun!

I often get laythe and Tylo occlusions in low Jool orbit.

During my Jool landing it was an serious problem who almost killed my mission.

Going down into Jool atmosphere and Tylo blocks the sun, did not have much batteries and aerospikes don't generate power.

I once got an Kerbin occlusion at the edge of its SOI, stupid as it was not visible against the sun.

[Mecripp]

I often get laythe and Tylo occlusions in low Jool orbit.

During my Jool landing it was an serious problem who almost killed my mission.

Going down into Jool atmosphere and Tylo blocks the sun, did not have much batteries and aerospikes don't generate power.

I once got an Kerbin occlusion at the edge of its SOI, stupid as it was not visible against the sun.

Not to be rude but what mod you using to land on Jool ?

[MrWizerd]

0.6 Released update on OP, just updated the RT2 cfg and removed the desktop.ini files from windows, NO! NO! BAD WINDOWS.... NO!, someone find Gates residence on google earth and drop a sat on it please!

[MrWizerd]

I have to say I'm very flattered that our little part pack is already approaching 1100 views, thanks all. That said I want to broach the topic of the old xenon RCS thrusters, Moore from what I understand they no longer work on our electricity which in my opinion they shouldn't, they require xenon. Now my understanding of ion engines is limited, but from what I gather they use charged particles in this case xenon to generate propulsion. charged particles don't provide a ton of thrust but do provide a long period of continuous thrust. So using ion engines as RCS thrusters is a little far fetched but we will say it's a giant leap forward in ionic engines.

Now that the problem is identified what a solution, well mecrisp set the generator generate amps set thruster to on that, which works but does really them like engines. So I sent him a pm suggesting mega joules and agree thinking about it thought this too unsatisfactory. There are many parts floating around that generates units of a resource with another/other resource/s and I thought that could be perfect! What if the advance in ion propulsion came in the form of a precharge chamber that creates 'chargedXenon' or 'chargedArgon' as a resource, or created 'chargedIons' and uses a different radio for each with one creating more than the other (I think the Kspi argon us more effective but heavier than xenon but I have to check and in on my phone atm)

With the ions created in the precharge chamber than stored in tanks that cannot fueled before launch but the orchards chamber some board off with ...this is fuzzy part of this for discussion balance of course. I feel like it should not be able to be stored a tank long... charged particles like to discharge and could spark the ground in lfo rich environs could catastrophic... anyways... what do y'all think....?

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

The fix by Mecrisp is a bit of a hack really as all it does is create a fake dense electric charge, as we all know by now in KSP no mass equals no thrust. Prior to involvement with this project I have messed around with almost every type of thruster design, from arc-jets to hall effect thrusters, and in reality done of them are as effective as a std monoprop thruster, OK for moving satellites around but not much else. My solution to this point has been to have thrusters run on whatever the main fuel of the vessels is, be it good old liquid fuel, xenon or even jelly beans if thats what you use, and supply them with a good amount of the electricity. After all it's not real.

Some research has lead me to the conclusion that it's more technological restrictions rather than physics that prevents these exotic thrusters producing a useful amount of thrust, the only real solution is to either suspend belief and not worry that your RCS is using some fantasy to make thrust. Or to bite the bullet and and incorporate some mono storage in your design and scrap the fantasy thrusters full stop.

I'm certainly no rocket scientist and am in no way bright enough to understand all the equations you're presented with when investigating the properties of engines operating in a vacuum, but what I do know is that we've been playing with some very inflexible rules in a very flexible way while enjoying KSP and long may it continue.

[sidfu]

did u fix the lag they caused when opening and them facing backwards to sun?

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

No lag noticed in testing, and non reported so far. Unable to say what they did before as I never used them, and these have been given completely new animations and unity passes rather than just cfg tweaks. All panels sun track and animate correctly using standard modules, so no trouble is expected, don't hesitate to report it, should troubles arise

[sidfu]

just tried them and no problems like they had before only thing is the low frequency antana dont open its the flat one that u target. before u guys took them over the terrazone solar panels would cause around 15-20fps loss when u went to deploy them also they would suntrack but face backwards. all that is fixed now by u guys. might want to split up the panels around the tech tree instead of in mostly 1 node

Edited July 10, 2014 by sidfu

[SpannerMonkey(smce)]

Cheers for that, not even considered the tech tree implications of being able to power a small town from day one, spend so much time making stuff and testing I can't actually remember the last time I actually did a mission as part of a saved game. I'll look into some comparisons and see if we can sort that out, I'll also dl and check that antennae thats misbehaving, who knows what happened between me handing it over and it being available to you. I'm sure it'll be a quicky fix.

Thanks again for your input, it's much appreciated

Edit,

Just downloaded, just in case something HAD changed from the development version and unfortunately I am unable to replicate the problem you report, the antennae deploys and transmits correctly, if of course we are talking about the one in the pic below.

It is tested in a base game no addon environment, but as it only uses std modules I doubt its a conflict with another mod, perhaps you could check your log and output_log.txt and report any weirdness there.

Edited July 10, 2014 by SpannerMonkey(smce)
Further clarifications required

[Mecripp]

@SpannerMonkey, I think he was talking about the old file. ( and just to who ever ) and on the Iron thrust this are Electrical thrusters and again, I'm no rocket scientist and this is a game to have fun and not all in ksp even stock is not as real as in real life workings and, I have looked up Iron drive to see how they work but 1 would think something a Gas or EnrichedUranium resource to create Electrical charge.

Edit- but as SpannerMonkey as said even my self, I don't see how in real life they would work better then a normal thrust.

[sidfu]

there no error for my antana it works it just dont deploy ill look deeper next time i play thou.