[1.4] StageRecovery - Recover Funds+ from Dropped Stages - v1.8.0 (March 11, 2018)

[Loren Pechtel]

6 hours ago, Mikeloeven said:

Has anyone been having issues with heat shielded stages being reported as burning up on reentry? I was experimenting with a launch vehicle designed to allow 100% recovery or the upper stages the last stage is jettisoned at a periapsis of 0 and has fins for atmospheric stability as well as heat shields. This stage is constantly being reported as destroyed on reentry however if I focus on this stage and follow it down manually the heat shield survives and the stage lands properly any ideas ?

There was one version that had a problem that caused the certain destruction of any stage entering at above the burnup velocity.  I do not recall the evil version number, the latest does not exhibit this.  I just had 4 strap-ons fall off and hit at about 2050m/s--one burned, three recovered.  I fixed an unrelated issue and relaunched, all 4 recovered.

Edited March 4, 2017 by Loren Pechtel

[AccidentalDisassembly]

I'm having an issue I don't know how to diagnose - happens with StageRecovery and FAR installed together.

Without FAR, a number of parachutes (such as from LETech), which are usually much more effective than stock parachutes, are estimated (correctly) to slow down stages' descent more than smaller stock chutes. SR reports what seem to be appropriate numbers in the editor.

With FAR installed, the LETech parachutes are calculated (in the editor, at least) to be LESS effective than stock chutes. I'm not sure how to find out what exactly is happening - whether this is an issue with the stuff FAR is doing to aerodynamics and the patch it applies to all chutes, or whether it's an issue caused by a miscalculation in SR. I think this is reproducible by simply installing LETech and looking at the speeds SR calculates for stages with those chutes with and without FAR. Is this something I can fix by writing a patch to make LETech chutes play more nicely with FAR, or to make them use values that SR recognizes?

With SR installed, stock chutes *do* work, and stages are recovered... so I'm confused as to why bigger/better chutes aren't being recognized as such.

Secondarily - with FAR installed, tweakscaled parachutes also are not "seen" by SR as providing more drag, but SR sees upscaled parachutes in stock as (correctly) providing much more drag as well...

[magico13]

FAR uses a slimmed down version of RealChutes for all parachutes, so it's possible it didn't convert over appropriately. Do the LETech parachutes actually work better than the stock chutes when FAR is installed? If the chutes aren't converted at all then if you're combining the "stock" (converted to RealChuteLite) and LETech chutes then SR might only look at the "stock" ones and ignore the LETech ones completely.

[MaxZhao]

Will the mod also try boost back burn? i.e landing the boosters at KSC if there's fuel left. That would be an awesome feature!

[Loren Pechtel]

6 minutes ago, MaxZhao said:

Will the mod also try boost back burn? i.e landing the boosters at KSC if there's fuel left. That would be an awesome feature!

It would be very hard to do as the mod isn't looking at the stage when it's jettisoned.  What it's actually doing is capturing objects the game deletes for going outside physics range and deciding if they can be recovered.

[AccidentalDisassembly]

55 minutes ago, magico13 said:

FAR uses a slimmed down version of RealChutes for all parachutes, so it's possible it didn't convert over appropriately. Do the LETech parachutes actually work better than the stock chutes when FAR is installed? If the chutes aren't converted at all then if you're combining the "stock" (converted to RealChuteLite) and LETech chutes then SR might only look at the "stock" ones and ignore the LETech ones completely.

That gives me an idea of how to diagnose this, thanks - I do think that the LETech chutes work better than stock with FAR installed, but will have to double check in a more objective way. SR does recognize that the LETech chutes are functional, and it does show them having an effect on stages' speeds and such, so it definitely sees them as operational parachutes - but seems to underestimate what they do. Will have to see whether it's actually a case of underestimation, then, with some tests.

[MaxZhao]

I see, I guess FMRS is the only option if a Space X style mission is wanted?

[Bornholio]

50 minutes ago, MaxZhao said:

I see, I guess FMRS is the only option if a Space X style mission is wanted?

Not really, SR gives you a pretty reasonable amount back for settings up a proper recovery on the stages.

My main stages and upper ascent stages always include probe cores batteries and coms, leave some fuel in them and they will even attempt to slow their burn-up and final landing speeds.

Only part that isn't really included is compensation for adding landing gear and Aero control like grid fins to benefit increase landing speed tolerance. 

If you are back on 1.1.3 and use KCT you can even fully recover craft and re-use them or their parts using SR. (1.2+ version is not release yet)

[Loren Pechtel]

15 minutes ago, Bornholio said:

Not really, SR gives you a pretty reasonable amount back for settings up a proper recovery on the stages.

My main stages and upper ascent stages always include probe cores batteries and coms, leave some fuel in them and they will even attempt to slow their burn-up and final landing speeds.

Only part that isn't really included is compensation for adding landing gear and Aero control like grid fins to benefit increase landing speed tolerance. 

If you are back on 1.1.3 and use KCT you can even fully recover craft and re-use them or their parts using SR. (1.2+ version is not release yet)

Second this.  Unless you have some desire to actually fly the recovery mission SR is plenty good enough.  Things like a boostback burn might make economic sense overall but the most valuable commodity is player time, not credits.

[nebuchadnezzar]

@magico13 I'm having an issue with crew recovery. When a vessel is recovered by Stage Recovery, the tab for crew says they're recovered, but when I go back to the space center and open the astronaut complex, they're listed as KIA.  

Here are some screenshots showing what I'm seeing. The first shows the SR screen showing crew recovered and the second shows the Astronaut complex showing crew KIA.

Here is my log file from testing on a clean 1.2.2 install with only SR, Mechjeb, MM, and Hyperedit installed.

[linuxgurugamer]

14 hours ago, MaxZhao said:

Will the mod also try boost back burn? i.e landing the boosters at KSC if there's fuel left. That would be an awesome feature!

That is what FMRS is designed to do, and it almost ready for release

[magico13]

4 hours ago, nebuchadnezzar said:

@magico13 I'm having an issue with crew recovery. When a vessel is recovered by Stage Recovery, the tab for crew says they're recovered, but when I go back to the space center and open the astronaut complex, they're listed as KIA.  

Right, I remember this issue. I know why it happens, but not how to fix it yet. I'm working on something else right now but I'll try to swap over to this soon.

If you're interested, the why is that the "Assignment Verification" checks are failing because the kerbals are still technically assigned somewhere, but in some parts of the code they've been set back to available. When it fails the game just goes "Well, I'm getting conflicting reports so they clearly exist nowhere!" That verification is a rather new thing and means that I need to fully update their status so the checks pass. As of right now, I don't know the correct way to do that, but I also haven't spent a whole lot of time debugging it yet.

 

Regarding FMRS, LGG and I just talked and I'm going to make sure that SR still works alongside his update to FMRS. There's a chance that we'll have a bit more compatibility between the two as well, so that SR can recover anything uncontrolled (previously RealChutes were still handled by FMRS even if there was no probe core) while FMRS handles controlled vessels.

[stickman939]

I've a suggestion:

The ability to pick and choose which stages get recovered and which don't. (For things like SpaceX style launchers)... If that's even possible without redoing the entire code lol

[Loren Pechtel]

43 minutes ago, stickman939 said:

I've a suggestion:

The ability to pick and choose which stages get recovered and which don't. (For things like SpaceX style launchers)... If that's even possible without redoing the entire code lol

Stages that lack recovery systems get destroyed anyway.  When I send a nose cone flying before orbit Stage Recovery reports it's destruction.

[magico13]

2 hours ago, stickman939 said:

I've a suggestion:

The ability to pick and choose which stages get recovered and which don't. (For things like SpaceX style launchers)... If that's even possible without redoing the entire code lol

As @Loren Pechtel mentions, if you don't want something to get recovered, just don't make it recoverable. If it's got no chutes and no fuel+a probe core, then it won't get recovered. For a comparison with SpaceX, it's the difference between leaving fuel left in the first stage for a landing or using it all up for an expendable launch (like the one tonight will be).

[stickman939]

15 hours ago, magico13 said:

if you don't want something to get recovered, just don't make it recoverable. If it's got no chutes and no fuel+a probe core, then it won't get recovered.

Yeah but doing that makes it get destroyed because I go out of it's LR while getting the payload into orbit. Which defeats the purpose of a powered landed stage and recovering it myself.

I guess I should have suggested the ability to choose which stages are and aren't affected by Stage Recovery in its entirety.

[Loren Pechtel]

5 hours ago, stickman939 said:

Yeah but doing that makes it get destroyed because I go out of it's LR while getting the payload into orbit. Which defeats the purpose of a powered landed stage and recovering it myself.

I guess I should have suggested the ability to choose which stages are and aren't affected by Stage Recovery in its entirety.

If you had that ability it would do you no good at all.

If Stage Recovery fails to act on a stage it is destroyed.  It's intercepting the game destroying the object for going outside physics range and being suborbital.  If it meets the requirements for recovery it's recovered, otherwise it's left to be destroyed.  The only difference is that it produces a failure message rather than silence as in the stock game.

[Merkov]

5 hours ago, stickman939 said:

Yeah but doing that makes it get destroyed because I go out of it's LR while getting the payload into orbit. Which defeats the purpose of a powered landed stage and recovering it myself.

I guess I should have suggested the ability to choose which stages are and aren't affected by Stage Recovery in its entirety.

It sounds like what you really want is this:

This lets you land your own powered stages yourself.

[stickman939]

On 3/14/2017 at 8:20 AM, Loren Pechtel said:

If you had that ability it would do you no good at all.

If Stage Recovery fails to act on a stage it is destroyed.  It's intercepting the game destroying the object for going outside physics range and being suborbital.  If it meets the requirements for recovery it's recovered, otherwise it's left to be destroyed.  The only difference is that it produces a failure message rather than silence as in the stock game.

You've completely missed my point.

 

On 3/14/2017 at 8:57 AM, Merkov said:

It sounds like what you really want is this:

This lets you land your own powered stages yourself.

Perhaps it is, I'll give this a go for sure.

[Loren Pechtel]

44 minutes ago, stickman939 said:

You've completely missed my point.

 

Perhaps it is, I'll give this a go for sure.

It's not that I missed the point, it's that what you appear to be trying to do has nothing to do with this mod and what you are actually looking for is FMRS.

Stage Recovery assumes the stage simply falls to Kerbin and extrapolates forward what would happen if the recovery systems on the stage work.

FMRS puts the stage in limbo and lets you fly it with full physics.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Loren Pechtel

[magico13]

On 3/14/2017 at 4:59 AM, stickman939 said:

Yeah but doing that makes it get destroyed because I go out of it's LR while getting the payload into orbit. Which defeats the purpose of a powered landed stage and recovering it myself.

I guess I should have suggested the ability to choose which stages are and aren't affected by Stage Recovery in its entirety.

 

On 3/14/2017 at 10:20 AM, Loren Pechtel said:

If you had that ability it would do you no good at all.

If Stage Recovery fails to act on a stage it is destroyed.  It's intercepting the game destroying the object for going outside physics range and being suborbital.  If it meets the requirements for recovery it's recovered, otherwise it's left to be destroyed.  The only difference is that it produces a failure message rather than silence as in the stock game.

 

5 hours ago, stickman939 said:

You've completely missed my point.

He didn't miss the point, he's just trying to explain that what you're asking for is based on a misconception of how you think StageRecovery works. Put simply, StageRecovery never, ever, destroys anything. Ever. (Ok, the one exception is launch clamps). StageRecovery is entirely reactive (except for recovering crew) in that it does NOTHING until KSP deletes the vessel from the game. If StageRecovery pops up a message about a stage, that means that KSP has already destroyed it (you can check the logs, they'll say the stage was destroyed even with StageRecovery). All SR does is intercept that event from KSP and check the vessel, if it seems reasonable that it could have landed then SR pretends it did and gives you back the funds, science, and crew that were on it and returns it back to KSP which happily continues to delete it from the game. For KSP to delete it, it just has to be below about 25km altitude and 25km away from the active vessel. Anything meeting that criteria is gone forever, whether SR is installed (or active) or not. If you could choose to turn SR off for a particular vessel, rather than on a per-save basis as you can now, all it would do is still cause the vessel to be destroyed by KSP but you wouldn't be told anything about it. It would just cease to exist.

FMRS is really cool though and might be what you're asking for. It uses weird save file splicing to let you jump back to when you decouple something so that you can fly it down, then merge that save into your primary save so that it's like they all happened at once. But with FMRS you have to fly everything down yourself, which is boring for parachute based things. SR saves time with approximations, FMRS allows for realism and precision at the expense of tedium. Personally, the best bet is a combination of the two.

Which is what I'm working on right now. FMRS recently had some options put in to defer parachute only stages to SR, which I am reworking SR to behave properly with. That way you can have any of the following combinations:

1. FMRS turned on and stages with probes/kerbals on them. FMRS handles everything and you can fly them all down manually.

2. FMRS turned on and stages with just parachutes and chutes not deferred to SR. Same as above, FMRS handles everything.

3. FMRS turned on and stages with parachutes deferred to SR. FMRS handles anything with probes/kerbals, SR handles parachute-only stages.

4. FMRS turned off. FMRS handles nothing at all, SR handles everything including probes/kerbals.

FMRS can be enabled/disabled on a per flight basis, so you can easily swap between letting SR handle things when you don't care that much and just want to save time, or handling everything yourself when it matters if you've landed back at the launch pad with your kickass kOS program.

 

Edit: That FMRS stuff is now in a pre-release that can be gotten from this post:

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by magico13

[magico13]

On 3/6/2017 at 5:48 AM, nebuchadnezzar said:

@magico13 I'm having an issue with crew recovery. When a vessel is recovered by Stage Recovery, the tab for crew says they're recovered, but when I go back to the space center and open the astronaut complex, they're listed as KIA.  

Hey, if you get a chance and are up for it I've got a pre-release I'd love for you to try out that should fix this issue. Check out this post:

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by magico13

[nebuchadnezzar]

@magico13 I've done a quick bit of testing in a mostly stock install and it seems that everything is working as intended. No longer do Kerbals recovered by SR show up as MIA in the astronaut complex. I haven't tested contracts though, so I can't say if they are functioning or not. Thanks for the fix!

[magico13]

I pushed out an update based on the last pre-release. It should greatly improve Kerbal recovery (since they actually show up as recovered) and should work nicely with the new version of FMRS. I highly recommend checking FMRS out if you want more control over recovery!

 

[magico13]

I've posted a poll on Patreon asking what people would like me to focus my development efforts on for the month of April. Normally these will be patron only polls (they're the ones giving me money each month after all), but since my Patreon page is fairly new I'm opening it up to everybody for the month of April. You're welcome to vote on it at the following link, though it might require a Patreon account to vote: https://www.patreon.com/posts/what-should-on-8591938