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

[Guest]

@linuxgurugamer Have you tried to find the person via social media?

 

It is often that people use the same usernames throughout online, possibly he done the same?

If I search for DasPenguin85, there is an old Twitter profile @DasPenguin85 whos name is James Van Meter.
They are following two people, one appears to be spouse/family member - Stephanie Van Meter (@stephanie890811)

While they haven't been active on Twitter, there is a LinkedIn profile of a guy called James who is into aviation, it may be a possible link or just an uncanny coincidence.

Failing that, attempting to contact the few James and Stephanie there are on Facebook for example?


Just an idea to try and get access to reignite this project as visually, it was very fun!

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, Phoebian said:

@linuxgurugamer Have you tried to find the person via social media?

@linuxgurugamer supports over 130 mods for KSP and has recovered and continued several important mods when their last author couldn't continue supporting them.  I think he's got a very good feel for when it's worth pursuing an author hard to contact when it's such a difficult case like an All-Rights-Reserved mod.  The posts on the last page show he's thought this over.  He should be able to find some time to enjoy KSP instead of only working on the plumbing.

The previous author already expressed their desire in the case they could no longer support the mod, by the licence they applied, All Rights Reserved.  They wanted absolute control over the mod, even if they disappeared.  At this point, unless @DasPenguin85 shows up again and either supports the mod themselves or passes it on, it would be a more certain effort just to create a new mod similar to this.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Jacke

[orcmaul]

On 3/22/2018 at 12:47 AM, Phoebian said:

If I search for DasPenguin85, there is an old Twitter profile @DasPenguin85 whos name is James Van Meter.
They are following two people, one appears to be spouse/family member - Stephanie Van Meter (@stephanie890811)

While they haven't been active on Twitter, there is a LinkedIn profile of a guy called James who is into aviation, it may be a possible link or just an uncanny coincidence.

Failing that, attempting to contact the few James and Stephanie there are on Facebook for example?

Without getting into details this is a terrible idea.  Please don't do it.

[Virtualgenius]

@orcmaulthis mod has been quite popular is there a chance a less restrictive license could be applied so someone can take up the work seeing as your the boxsat developer

Edited April 2, 2018 by Virtualgenius

[orcmaul]

On 4/2/2018 at 5:42 AM, Virtualgenius said:

@orcmaulthis mod has been quite popular is there a chance a less restrictive license could be applied so someone can take up the work seeing as your the boxsat developer

Instead of saying no I'm going to revisit this question in a couple months.  Let's say June. 

(begin rambling) I'm trying to figure out how to explain that we always figured that KSP would evolve either technically or part wise such that this mod would be obsolete.  The technical changes did happen and KSP has a lot of features that were not available when I designed these parts.  Which is to say I'd have designed it differently if I had done it today.  There's a two year gap in my KSP installs so I gather it's been a while.  I'm trying to figure out if designing parts for KSP is a thing I still want to do.  I'm replaying the game and revisiting where I think the gaps are and what mods I can fill them with.  I don't want to promise a sequel to boxsat and then not deliver but I've got this notion that there's still a need for a satellites and probes mod.  I'm also fascinated by the Hughes HS-3XX series satellites.  I'm trying to figure out the shapes of things to produce several distinct families of satellites/probes that represent various periods of technology.  But at the same time I don't want to fall in the trap of making replicas of existing vehicles.  BoxSat's modularity was an attempt as doing something cool with KAS and taking a swing at the probe gap.  I'm undecided as to how well it succeeded.  (end rambling)

[Ar_Taq]

It succeeded extremely well.  It is missed from my gamedata folder, and will always have a place there.  The fact that I could manipulate the sats once they were in place was wonderful and reminded me that we used to do missions like that with the shuttle and Hubble.  @orcmaul thank you for all the wonderful hours I've enjoyed with your mods!  

[Virtualgenius]

@orcmaulThe thing i liked the most was you could actually attach the standard small LT-1  landing legs and it could become a science lander the mod was extremely versatile and loved by many KSP fans. If you update it to the current version I am sure  many many users of the mod  would cheer to see it back and if you wanted to do a sequel that would be awesome.

I myself loved the mod I thought it was brilliant it suited my game style of launching small things to different orbits  as either a satellite or a small lander.

If you need assistance updating the mod I am sure there would be many volunteers to help.

Regards, 

VG

Edited April 9, 2018 by Virtualgenius

[orcmaul]

So here it is June.  I did get through to daspenguin.  Based on his response it looks like we'll be relaxing the license.  I've already done some advance work on seeing what other similar mods were using for licenses and I was surprised by how few projects with art assets had open licenses on the art.  Plenty have open license for the config and code but the models and textures remain non-open.  So I have some work ahead of me to do a review of the license options available to find one that's a good fit. 

[Virtualgenius]

@linuxgurugamer are you interested in adopting this I know you have many mods already

[linuxgurugamer]

6 minutes ago, Virtualgenius said:

@linuxgurugamer are you interested in adopting this I know you have many mods already

License prevents  this from being adopted, I've  tried to contact the author  several times

[Virtualgenius]

@linuxgurugamer @Orcmaul is back read the post above mine they are looking at something less restrictive

Edited June 7, 2018 by Virtualgenius

[linuxgurugamer]

On 4/8/2018 at 5:18 PM, orcmaul said:

Instead of saying no I'm going to revisit this question in a couple months.  Let's say June. 

(begin rambling) I'm trying to figure out how to explain that we always figured that KSP would evolve either technically or part wise such that this mod would be obsolete.  The technical changes did happen and KSP has a lot of features that were not available when I designed these parts.  Which is to say I'd have designed it differently if I had done it today.  There's a two year gap in my KSP installs so I gather it's been a while.  I'm trying to figure out if designing parts for KSP is a thing I still want to do.  I'm replaying the game and revisiting where I think the gaps are and what mods I can fill them with.  I don't want to promise a sequel to boxsat and then not deliver but I've got this notion that there's still a need for a satellites and probes mod.  I'm also fascinated by the Hughes HS-3XX series satellites.  I'm trying to figure out the shapes of things to produce several distinct families of satellites/probes that represent various periods of technology.  But at the same time I don't want to fall in the trap of making replicas of existing vehicles.  BoxSat's modularity was an attempt as doing something cool with KAS and taking a swing at the probe gap.  I'm undecided as to how well it succeeded.  (end rambling)

There are a number of other mini-satellite mods out there and current.  Two which I maintain are:

• OctoSat
• MicroSat

Not saying there isn't a place for this, and if nothing else, I'd be willing to support it in a maintenance mode (ie:  no new models, just bug fixes in the configs, etc)

 

[VaPaL]

4 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

There are a number of other mini-satellite mods out there and current.  Two which I maintain are:

• OctoSat
• MicroSat

Not saying there isn't a place for this, and if nothing else, I'd be willing to support it in a maintenance mode (ie:  no new models, just bug fixes in the configs, etc)

 

As someone who play with both, I would say that BoxSat would be a great new member for the family!  

BoxSat is one of the (now few, thanks to you kind sir) mods that keeps me from updating KSP. I don't have the expertise to adopt it (if it becomes available) and I know you already maintain A LOT of mods, but I'll try my best to help you if you need

[CobaltWolf]

If this mod is unable to be continued, there is a similar mod being worked on by @cineboxandrew

 

 

[Virtualgenius]

Lets just see what @orcmaul comes back with if the licence is going to be relaxed and the mod is up for adoption hopefully someone can take it on, its a very good mod and waste to see it get archived too many of the really good ones do, but thanks to Linuxgurugamer many have come back

Edited June 8, 2018 by Virtualgenius

[ArkaelDren]

Any one know if the license has been relaxed on this mod?  If any one knows how to contact the owner, it would be great if some one picked this up and made it available to the community.  Its a great little mod that deserves to stay alive and offering those of us that play stock size, relatively Arcadish versions of KSP.  I say "Arcadish" lightly as KSP cant really be considered "Arcadish" at all.  Linux if your out their,  take a look at this one to see what you can do.

 

Thanks to all of you that have created these wonderful Mods.  Most of us only still play due to your hard work and creativity. 

So Thank You very much.