[1.2.2] B9 Aerospace | Release 6.2.1 (Old Thread)

[BudgetHedgehog]

I'm really interested what so hard can be in B9 to make it compatible to 1.0?

Ok then, update it to 1.0.X yourself. You'll need to rebalance every single part stat (mass, thrust, Isp, cost, heat production and conductivity, lift amount, tech tree location etc) and make sure they all work sanely, convert all textures to dds, slightly modify all Mk2 connections and their models, add custom drag cubes to the cargo bays and make sure the automatically generated drag cubes for other parts make sense, update the abandoned KineTech and ResGen plugins as well as ensuring comparability with the still working km_gimbal plugin, add in all required parts stats (like ModuleSurfaceFX, bulkheadProfile etc) to the configs, update the IVA configs to use the latest (non backward-compatible) RPM, make sure the texture/mesh switching is compatible with the current Firespitter (or finish development on the custom switcher plugin) as well as making sure all dependencies on MFT/RF/DRE/FAR are correct and working etc etc...

Edited August 10, 2015 by ObsessedWithKSP

[nalfz]

Ok then, update it to 1.0.X yourself. You'll need to rebalance every single part stat (mass, thrust, Isp, cost, heat production and conductivity, lift amount, tech tree location etc) and make sure they all work sanely, convert all textures to dds, slightly modify all Mk2 connections and their models, add custom drag cubes to the cargo bays and make sure the automatically generated drag cubes for other parts make sense, update the abandoned KineTech and ResGen plugins as well as ensuring comparability with the still working km_gimbal plugin, add in all required parts stats (like ModuleSurfaceFX, bulkheadProfile etc) to the configs, update the IVA configs to use the latest (non backward-compatible) RPM, make sure the texture/mesh switching is compatible with the current Firespitter (or finish development on the custom switcher plugin) as well as making sure all dependencies on MFT/RF/DRE/FAR are correct and working etc etc...

Not to question the difficulty in updating such a large mod, but I feel it's worth mentioning a lot of what you said are just find+replace config hacks that would take a few minutes and I imagine have already been done

Also the RF configs are done by Raptor831 in another thread

The nitty-gritty of it that's happening now is balancing, bugfixing and more balancing

[danfarnsy]

I'm really interested what so hard can be in B9 to make it compatible to 1.0?

Vegemite,

In addition to the points made already, there's an issue of time. Some of us are contributing to the update, with Blowfish taking the lead, as the owners of this mod have real life going on. I responded on the previous page with the same zeal as Run and Obsessed, but I understand your (and others') frustration. Many other mods, some of them with similar complexity, were brought fully up-to-date quite a while ago. I'll freely admit to some procrastination: some of my KSP time is spent actually playing the game, while balancing parts gets BORING. It gives me a lot of appreciation for other mod developers like RoverDude and Nertea, with their wide variety of parts which they are very good about keeping up to date.

In the mean time, in my post right above yours, I have linked to the current dev version. Most things in it are working, so you can enjoy most of this mod! Also, I would recommend in the future voicing your encouragement in more... encouraging ways. It helps mod developers with their motivation to set aside their free time while avoiding (justified) responses like ObsessedWithKSP's and Run1235's. Otherwise, thank you for your interest!

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a lot of what you said are just find+replace config hacks that would take a few minutes and I imagine have already been done

Nalfz,

Sure, I can find and replace values willy nilly. It takes a little more time to figure out what values to replace them with.

[Vist]

Hi everybody

First off, I've been having fun using B9 in my game grats to you guys for your continuing work on upgrading/maintaining the mod.

Was just wondering if there will be more command and unmanned control parts in the future?

Thanks again in advance!

Edited August 11, 2015 by Vist
just found the version in the subdir :">

[danfarnsy]

Blowfish,

Quick thing on the wings: the 4x2m Delta Wings should have 4 m^2 surface area, while the 4x2m Square Wings have 8 m^2 area, right? The deflection lift coefficients are the same for both, but one ought to be double the other. I'm going to change these to be self-consistent (cutting the delta wings deflection lift coefficients in half) unless you tell me otherwise. This is a non-issue with FAR, so I never would have noticed without combing through the parts.

Also, while I'm not planning to change any masses, I was wondering about the SH wing masses: these parts don't scale anywhere close to linearly. SH A35 Delta Wing has area of 12 m^2, A45 has 8 m^2, and A65 has 4 m^2, but their masses are 0.113, 0.099, and 0.082, respectively. Is this supposed to reflect most of the mass being in mount-point structure?

[blowfish]

Blowfish,

Quick thing on the wings: the 4x2m Delta Wings should have 4 m^2 surface area, while the 4x2m Square Wings have 8 m^2 area, right? The deflection lift coefficients are the same for both, but one ought to be double the other. I'm going to change these to be self-consistent (cutting the delta wings deflection lift coefficients in half) unless you tell me otherwise. This is a non-issue with FAR, so I never would have noticed without combing through the parts.

Also, while I'm not planning to change any masses, I was wondering about the SH wing masses: these parts don't scale anywhere close to linearly. SH A35 Delta Wing has area of 12 m^2, A45 has 8 m^2, and A65 has 4 m^2, but their masses are 0.113, 0.099, and 0.082, respectively. Is this supposed to reflect most of the mass being in mount-point structure?

Sounds good. If they both have the same area then it's probably just a mistake. The best reference for stock wing values right now is this post by Porkjet. Do the stock wings not follow this relationship?

[danfarnsy]

Actually, all the deflection lift coefficients are off. The magic number is supposed to be Area/3.52. Yay! More work!

Edit: Just saw your reply. I'll double-check and update all the coefficients by PorkJet's numbers.

Additional Edit: I'm hesitant to change any wing masses, even though they don't follow PorkJet's formula. I can, but it will break a *lot* of spacecraft.

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You know what? My reasoning above is bogus. This mod hasn't been updated to 1.0 officially, so while it may screw with the aircraft and spaceplanes people have in their saves with the dev version, that's not enough reason to avoid updating the masses. They'll certainly be more consistent with stock performance (FAR-less) of stock parts. What we ought to look at, however, is a slight adjustment to Porkjet's mass numbers. Those numbers are fine, but the SH wing system is clearly heavier/thicker than the stock wings.

Do you know how it's calculated for B9 Procedural Wings?

Edited August 11, 2015 by danfarnsy

[blowfish]

You know what? My reasoning above is bogus. This mod hasn't been updated to 1.0 officially, so while it may screw with the aircraft and spaceplanes people have in their saves with the dev version, that's not enough reason to avoid updating the masses. They'll certainly be more consistent with stock performance (FAR-less) of stock parts. What we ought to look at, however, is a slight adjustment to Porkjet's mass numbers. Those numbers are fine, but the SH wing system is clearly heavier/thicker than the stock wings.

Do you know how it's calculated for B9 Procedural Wings?

The procedural wings appear to follow the Porkjet formula pretty closely. It doesn't account for thickness, but neither does FAR (which overrides all of the wing masses).

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Also, don't worry about the wings too much. Per discussions I had with bac9, they will eventually be moved into a legacy parts pack, since the procedural wings make them largely unnecessary. Same goes for landing gear (BD's adjustables are much more versatile), and eventually the mk1/2 parts once the new ones are in a functional state.

[danfarnsy]

Also, don't worry about the wings too much.

That certainly makes life easier. Now that I'm deep in them, I've realized they're jacked up six ways from Sunday, at least for stock aero, but their masses are nonsensical too. It's good FAR overrides their masses, since that means if I do make any changes to bring them in line with stock, I won't be killing everybody's .craft files. The ctrlSurfFrac from the FAR module was copied as the ctrlSurfaceArea (CSA), but CSA is a raw area value (in m^2) instead of a fraction of the total area. I imagine, time permitting, that it would still be good to have updated parts that are consistent with stock values so an eventual legacy parts pack is *functional*, but it's not high on the priority list.

[blowfish]

ctrlSurfaceArea is a fraction of total area, per Porkjet's post. I agree that having at least reasonable values for the legacy parts is generally a good idea. The one thing I wouldn't worry about at all is cost.

[danfarnsy]

ctrlSurfaceArea is a fraction of total area, per Porkjet's post.

You're right. Oops. Once upon a time, I got a really good score for reading comprehension on the ACT. You wouldn't know it, lately.

[Nansuchao]

A little question: I use, as many of us, Interstellar Extended. Is there a way to add the Interstellar Resources to the B9 parts? I tried adding resources to the Firespitter Module of the parts, but is a really long and tedious process, doing it manually...

[blowfish]

A little question: I use, as many of us, Interstellar Extended. Is there a way to add the Interstellar Resources to the B9 parts? I tried adding resources to the Firespitter Module of the parts, but is a really long and tedious process, doing it manually...

The simplest way I can think of is to install Modular Fuel Tanks, and if that's not already set up for Interstellar it should be pretty simple. Unfortunately the Firespitter fuel switch module isn't very easily adjusted across many parts.

[Nansuchao]

Thanks, I'll try.

[Flashblade]

Sounds good. If they both have the same area then it's probably just a mistake. The best reference for stock wing values right now is this post by Porkjet. Do the stock wings not follow this relationship?

Hey blowfish sorry it has been a while since I reared my head here. I have been a bit miffed with 1.04 and Squads unwillingness to hotfix the heat system bug and furthermore there wasn't really anything left for me to contribute at that point besides changing the prices of the parts and to be quite honest I don't see that as a necessary change at all because 1 nobody ever complained about the prices not being balanced with stock values and 2 it does not impede functionality.

You do know I worked on the wings and I never told you that I found that Porkjets formular was wrong on the only example where it was easy to check for this, the delta shuttle wing where it exactly gives you the wing area and the lift coefficient. If you apply Porkjets formular you won't get the lift coefficient as a result that the delta shuttle wing actually has. So I opted for another approach to the changes on B9 wings lift coeffs. Instead all the lift coeffs I applied are proportionally to the lift coeff of the delta shuttle wing and therefor should be equivalent to how Squad has done it or at least very very close.

Quick thing on the wings: the 4x2m Delta Wings should have 4 m^2 surface area, while the 4x2m Square Wings have 8 m^2 area, right? The deflection lift coefficients are the same for both, but one ought to be double the other. I'm going to change these to be self-consistent (cutting the delta wings deflection lift coefficients in half) unless you tell me otherwise. This is a non-issue with FAR, so I never would have noticed without combing through the parts.

Sorry but this is completely wrong, the 4x2m Delta Wing has the exact same wing area than the 4x2m Square Wing, both have a wing area of 8 m². If the 4x2m Delta Wing was a Square Wing its area would be 16 m². bac9 opted to always have the name show the actual wing area and not necessarily it's exact measurements.

Actually, all the deflection lift coefficients are off. The magic number is supposed to be Area/3.52. Yay! More work!

Wrong, see what I wrote to blowfish above.

[Screeno]

Is the WIP version stable? Just wondering, as I miss those 2.5 m sabers, I wish ksp had 2.5 m rapiers man...

[danfarnsy]

Sorry but this is completely wrong, the 4x2m Delta Wing has the exact same wing area than the 4x2m Square Wing, both have a wing area of 8 m². If the 4x2m Delta Wing was a Square Wing its area would be 16 m². bac9 opted to always have the name show the actual wing area and not necessarily it's exact measurements.

Flashblade! Welcome back!

I am looking at making a patch/mod for the heat system. Basically, because the heat issue comes from small thermal masses adjacent to large ones and the Euler approximation method using too large of a step size, the system swaps too much heat for even small differences in temperature, then it swaps even more, repeatedly, until BOOM! Right now, I've got it worked around by modifying the physics.cfg file to change "conductionFactor = 20" to "conductionFactor = 12". What I would prefer to do is have a thermal mass comparison between two parts that scales the heat transferred down by some constant times the ratio of the thermal masses. It's not especially realistic, but neither is the current heat system.

Regarding wing area: I quickly put the two side-by-side as a double check in the SPH. The 4x4 delta wing is definitely not the same area as the 4x4 square wing, and same for the others in the SH wingset (delta vs square). Of course, the leading and trailing edges add to the surface areas and chords of both, which is why the FAR values are different from what you would calculate for a "strict" 4x4m square wing ("strict" MAC = 4, whereas "actual" MAC = 5, implying 1 m added by leading and trailing edges and a wing area of 20 m^2 instead of 16 m^2). So my proposal to simply cut the deflection lift coefficients in half for the delta wings was off (thanks for making me check), but the deflection lift coefficients for the 4x4 delta wing vs 4x4 square and 4x2 delta wing vs 4x2 square should absolutely be different values from each other.

That's a lot of energy we're putting into rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Before I change any of these values for stock aero, I'll be careful and derive areas from the provided FAR values of MAC, sweep, taper ratio, etc. I'll also see if I can check other parts for the magic number Porkjet mentioned, as you're right about the shuttle delta wing using a value of 3.3 instead of 3.52. Nothing can ever be simple, can it?

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Is the WIP version stable?

Yes, it's stable! Sabre away!

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A little question: I use, as many of us, Interstellar Extended. Is there a way to add the Interstellar Resources to the B9 parts? I tried adding resources to the Firespitter Module of the parts, but is a really long and tedious process, doing it manually...

Nansuchao, I would eventually like to take a look at this myself. Much of the config information in the interstellar parts using Interstellar Fuel Switch is the same as for FSfuelswitch, so writing a patch file for MM shouldn't be *too* hard. Famous last words, right?

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Was just wondering if there will be more command and unmanned control parts in the future?

Sorry this post got lost in the sauce. Right now it's hard to say. Our efforts are focused on updating the pack to be compatible (nearly done) and balanced/consistent (not so nearly done) with the current version of KSP. Bac9 still owns the mod. Beyond updating the Mk2 system to be compatible with stock, but prettier, and maybe trimming B9 down a bit, I don't know what his intentions are. Extrapolating from his recent bout of real life, I expect this mod will be in maintenance mode rather than growing, though I've been wrong (a lot) before.

[Flashblade]

Flashblade! Welcome back!

Regarding wing area: I quickly put the two side-by-side as a double check in the SPH. The 4x4 delta wing is definitely not the same area as the 4x4 square wing, and same for the others in the SH wingset (delta vs square). Of course, the leading and trailing edges add to the surface areas and chords of both, which is why the FAR values are different from what you would calculate for a "strict" 4x4m square wing ("strict" MAC = 4, whereas "actual" MAC = 5, implying 1 m added by leading and trailing edges and a wing area of 20 m^2 instead of 16 m^2). So my proposal to simply cut the deflection lift coefficients in half for the delta wings was off (thanks for making me check), but the deflection lift coefficients for the 4x4 delta wing vs 4x4 square and 4x2 delta wing vs 4x2 square should absolutely be different values from each other.

I'll be damned, I was wrong, looked in the SPH on the parts myself and yeah 4x4 delta wing should have roughly half the lift coeff the square 4x4 has, maybe a tad bit more since the trailing edge is a small rectangle. I could have sworn I checked this before I applied my changes, but as it turns out I worked from the assumption that the 4x2 describes the actual wing area and not it's length measurements. Now I feel a tad bit stupid.

Edited August 11, 2015 by Flashblade

[Midnight Jade]

Some pages back there was a screenshot of new parts entirely comprised of MK2 expansion parts, including some new nosecone shapes. I downloaded the dev version but didn't see them. I'm guessing they are still being worked on?

[Flashblade]

Some pages back there was a screenshot of new parts entirely comprised of MK2 expansion parts, including some new nosecone shapes. I downloaded the dev version but didn't see them. I'm guessing they are still being worked on?

Yes they are still being worked on but you can download those seperately for testing purposes and provide feedback for development. The dev version won't include those since Bac9 has to finish those first.

[Midnight Jade]

Alright. Thank you.

[Nansuchao]

Great!

[Vist]

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Sorry this post got lost in the sauce. Right now it's hard to say. Our efforts are focused on updating the pack to be compatible (nearly done) and balanced/consistent (not so nearly done) with the current version of KSP. Bac9 still owns the mod. Beyond updating the Mk2 system to be compatible with stock, but prettier, and maybe trimming B9 down a bit, I don't know what his intentions are. Extrapolating from his recent bout of real life, I expect this mod will be in maintenance mode rather than growing, though I've been wrong (a lot) before.

Hi danfarnsy, ah thanks for the info. Sure appreciate the work you've been doing on B9 guys

[nimaroth]

I was wondering a thing, will Bac9 come back to us ?

I would really be sad to see his works stop, I really like what he is doing.

[danfarnsy]

I was wondering a thing, will Bac9 come back to us ?

Look to his coming, at first light, on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east.