[1.0.4] BoxSat vA.02f - Updated 09/16/2015

[komodo]

For 6.4x Kerbin I'd suggest increasing the rescaling to double size and multiplying all volume derived values by 8. That would give you a better scaled vehice for such operations. I'm not especially familiar with 6.4x kerbin but I may make a mm config if there is demand.

I'll play around with it a bit. One of the niceties of 6.4x is that for the most part, stock size parts will still 'work'. (By that I mean without the soft dependency on Realism Overhaul resizing/rebalancing for full up RSS.)

The tiny size is appealing, due to the size of the boosters required; when you're looking at 8-9k dV or so to make orbit, every gram counts

[komodo]

Regular fairings? I've had no problems using procedural fairings, but I do recall having issues with the KW fairings. There may be a minor clipping issue or something where the probe body wiggles just enough to lose out on the shielding. But with PF, it give enough room. I've never lost anything since I switched (well, except the time I stuck a SCANSat antenna on the back of a probe, and it FUBAR'd all my burns once I was down to the last stage; 2.5m lifters, while overkill, do tend to dampen CoM offsets).

They were procedural yes. There should have been plenty of space, as the fairings were encapsulating the entire upper stage, (the fairings were 1.25m in other words), but i've had some whacky-ness before with such things. (The survivor panel is sorta the thing that drives me crazy; why won't they both fly off?! )

I'll try to post some photos when I get home later.

The antenna was mounted on top of the box frame, I may move it to the side to see if there is a difference. (But as you say, CoM offsets )

I will try to slow my accent, but there's a limit to how slow one can go in 6.4x... if you don't start getting some serious horizontal motion early, you're going to have Fun.

Also, thanks for the quick replies, i'm really enjoying the mod, like I said.

[madlemur]

They were procedural yes. There should have been plenty of space, as the fairings were encapsulating the entire upper stage, (the fairings were 1.25m in other words), but i've had some whacky-ness before with such things. (The survivor panel is sorta the thing that drives me crazy; why won't they both fly off?! )

I'll try to post some photos when I get home later.

The antenna was mounted on top of the box frame, I may move it to the side to see if there is a difference. (But as you say, CoM offsets )

I will try to slow my accent, but there's a limit to how slow one can go in 6.4x... if you don't start getting some serious horizontal motion early, you're going to have Fun.

Also, thanks for the quick replies, i'm really enjoying the mod, like I said.

If memory serves, my setup is BoxSat + core + 2@ battery pack + MP rack + panel + 8 RCS thrusters (mounted top and bottom) + 2@ BoxSat solar panels (more efficient than stock panels) + dish on top + 2@ commutrons facing down (action group to activate them inside the fairings) + .6m decoupler + KW tank (the bigest 1.25m tank, tweaked down to .6m) + low-profile "eddie" engine + decoupler. This rides on a raised 1.25m fairing adapter. All this sits on a 2.5m main lifter (Mainsail), with a pair of big globe SRBs that burn by themselves as a first stage. After three comsat insertions, I could probably drop the smallest tank/engine, but it give the commutrons clearance to deploy, and I know I have the juice to make relatively major changes/corrections in their orbits. My only complaint is that with an equatorial orbit, the batteries don't last all night... May have to reposition the network in more inclined orbits.

I should mention I use FAR + DRE, but a stock Kerbol system.

[fathed]

That is pretty sharp Fathed.

Thanks, still needs a bit of work.

That animation was a little tricky, they won't hit anything directly below the base, so if you had a squarish ion engine, it wouldn't clip with it, by a less than a cm. Even the top, it never clips with the box on top of it, I'm pretty sure it only clips in one area on the pivot joints for each leg, but I think I got that fixed. (Not a fan of clipping...)

In hindsight, I should have made them a little more narrow, as they are now, they overlap with the cover panel just a little when they're extended, I haven't tested them to see if that would actually block you from grabbing it with KAS.

I still got to texture them (normal/spec/etc).

And mostly, I got to figure out why they work once, and then the retract just pops them to the starting position without the animation, and only the deploy portion is played. Or I can ping-pong them, so they never stop deploying and retracting... neither of which is ideal.

[DasPenguin85]

Thanks, still needs a bit of work.

That animation was a little tricky, they won't hit anything directly below the base, so if you had a squarish ion engine, it wouldn't clip with it, by a less than a cm. Even the top, it never clips with the box on top of it, I'm pretty sure it only clips in one area on the pivot joints for each leg, but I think I got that fixed. (Not a fan of clipping...)

In hindsight, I should have made them a little more narrow, as they are now, they overlap with the cover panel just a little when they're extended, I haven't tested them to see if that would actually block you from grabbing it with KAS.

I still got to texture them (normal/spec/etc).

And mostly, I got to figure out why they work once, and then the retract just pops them to the starting position without the animation, and only the deploy portion is played. Or I can ping-pong them, so they never stop deploying and retracting... neither of which is ideal.

That's pretty good man! Although I will always have a personal hatred for Blender, I can safely say if that represents some of your first efforts with it you're off to a great start! You should've seen some of the garbage I made for the original Day of Defeat mod back in '98 (HAH! Last century!).

If you need any help with the textures, and different map types or how they work - let me know via PM and I'll see what I can do to help

[guto8797]

I just popped up to say. This is the most awesometasticalliciouspaticotornic mod i have seen in a loong time. The detail, the coolness, the possibilities! So awesome! I hope to see even more integration with other mods and such! Very nice work!

[123nick]

you should have a bigger cube size, so it would be taller and have double the modules available. personally, i dont think theres enough module spaces with the normal box sat.

[orcmaul]

you should have a bigger cube size, so it would be taller and have double the modules available. personally, i dont think theres enough module spaces with the normal box sat.

You know you can just add another frame, right? Stack frames as high as you want or at least until you can bring the modules you want to bring.

[orcmaul]

So I've just created a new batch of part orders for Alpha.03. Here are some of the parts you'll hopefully be seeing in the next release. I'll be releasing an expanded list as we make progress but I wanted to give you this preview now.

• Payload Frame (same size as regular frame but holds one large payload module)
  
• LFO/MP engine + tank (payload module)
  
• Ion engine + tank (payload module)
  
• Goo Experiment (payload module)
  
• Xenon Tank (module)
  

[fathed]

Woot!, Ion engine and Xenon tank!

That's pretty good man! Although I will always have a personal hatred for Blender, I can safely say if that represents some of your first efforts with it you're off to a great start! You should've seen some of the garbage I made for the original Day of Defeat mod back in '98 (HAH! Last century!).

If you need any help with the textures, and different map types or how they work - let me know via PM and I'll see what I can do to help

Well, I made my first 3d object when I was in high school in the early 90s, I owned a copy of of 3d studio release 2 (not max, the original...). I haven't modeled anything since something like Max 1.5/Softimage 3.7 days. I'm a sys admin these days (I love the rack concept!), but I work with people that need to use the different map types daily. The first part of creating the textures, is finding my wacom pen... and then seeing if I can stand paint.net or if I'm going to fork out for the monthly abode service. I sort of want Premier and After Effects, as video editing in Blender was doable, but slower than what I know. Luckily, blender seems to be working fine for me for modeling, that's probably cause I know some stuff, but none of the current generation of programs.

But, back to topic, Ion Engines, dreams come true! As a bonus for myself, I've been messing with Blender instead of playing since the BoxSat 0.2 update, so I haven't updated my communication sat yet, so I'll get to do the engines and dishes in 1 go.

These are currently procedural parts fitted to the inside of a BoxSat Frame.

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

Camera Boom to see around dishes:

http://i.imgur.com/LYAk3Kb.png

[DasPenguin85]

@Fathed: Sounds like you've got everything sorted. I've stuck with 3DSM for about 16 years now, anything else makes me cringe - I think I just like how consistent Max has been over the years, even after changing the owning company so many times. The benefit to industry standard software is that it rarely changes, so there's always a bit of familiarity to it.

@Everyone else: Looks like we need a tie-breaker on the poll between afternoon and evening streaming. If it were up to me, I'd start in the afternoon and end in the evening, but that's mostly because I'm on PST, so the afternoon would practically be evening for the East Coast.

[DasPenguin85]

OP Update 9/12/14: Added CurseForge download mirror

Kerbal CurseForge Download

[montyben101]

How come you us suddenly put up a curse link....

Anyway I'm glad ion parts are coming!

[DasPenguin85]

How come you us suddenly put up a curse link....

Anyway I'm glad ion parts are coming!

We had always planned to have a few mirrors for the mod. However, it's not as sudden as some might think. We have been trying to establish a mirror on the Curse network since the release of A.01 back in August, but technical difficulties with the Curse site prevented it until now. As much as I'd love to remain independent from that site, especially after the escapades of the last 3 weeks with them, people actually view mods more on sites like KerbalStuff & CurseForge than they do on the forums. So I really just added it to reach a wider audience. I wont be deleting the KerbalStuff link, as I want to make sure people have options, and I know not everyone is a fan of Curse.

[montyben101]

I cant wait to launch these from my ISS replica, i will post a few pics when its done

(Yeah im not a fan of curse)

[Zach9236]

A suggestion for another part that would work great is a small RTG that fits in the racks. With remote tech 2, it's difficult to get enough batteries to last through the dark side of a lot of orbits.

[DasPenguin85]

A suggestion for another part that would work great is a small RTG that fits in the racks. With remote tech 2, it's difficult to get enough batteries to last through the dark side of a lot of orbits.

This is planned for A.03. It'll actually be larger than the standard module, and will fit in our upcoming "payload frame", which is essentially the same as the current frame, but it supports larger modules.

[Pondafarr]

DERP: Previously reported...that will learn me to READ the entire thread before commenting....

(Were you aware that the flavor text for the MonoPropellant tray is the same as the empty tray? )

I updated my install to read: This is a MonoPropellant module for the 62cm BoxSat system. It does MonoPropellant things. Maybe.

Edited September 15, 2014 by Pondafarr

[DasPenguin85]

DERP: Previously reported...that will learn me to READ the entire thread before commenting....

(Were you aware that the flavor text for the MonoPropellant tray is the same as the empty tray? )

I updated my install to read: This is a MonoPropellant module for the 62cm BoxSat system. It does MonoPropellant things. Maybe.

It's all good - I don't expect anyone to read 22 pages before posting something. I can take the time to answer questions

Thanks for the report! I forwarded that info to Orcmaul (he does the configs).

[Helix935]

This is planned for A.03. It'll actually be larger than the standard module, and will fit in our upcoming "payload frame", which is essentially the same as the current frame, but it supports larger modules.

payload bay, eh hmm....

also are you planning on making a mystery goo module that can take up 2 slots in the normal casing?

[madlemur]

By larger, you mean a larger footprint, or more than 4U high? Hmmm... double-width slots, stacked vertically, allowing for up to 4U of double-wide modules, or up to 8U of single-width modules.

[DasPenguin85]

By larger, you mean a larger footprint, or more than 4U high? Hmmm... double-width slots, stacked vertically, allowing for up to 4U of double-wide modules, or up to 8U of single-width modules.

The payload frame will house modules that are essentially 4 regular modules put together - this way we can fit the tanks, science, and propulsion systems we're planning. The payload frame is going to be the same size as the regular frame.

[DasPenguin85]

payload bay, eh hmm....

also are you planning on making a mystery goo module that can take up 2 slots in the normal casing?

The current frame holds 4 modules that are 48cm x 12cm on the open face, the payload module will house 1 module which is 48cm x 48cm. I have some (hopefully) neat ideas for the "goo" experiment with that space

[madlemur]

Does it need a new frame? Can't you put a 48x48 rack in the existing frame as it stands? What else does the payload frame provide? is it lighter? Cheaper? Available for corporate sponsorship?

[ShadowFoust]

i have a dum question how and where in my ksp folder do i install the module manager configs