[WIP] General Rocketry: Tent

[kimiko]

(nvm the rip-off, I have limited imagination)

Greetings and salutations! :3

Normally I'm just a lurker, but it's time to give back to the community I've so humbly reaped awesome mods from! (Big thanks!)

So..

The other day I found myself crashed on the north pole (agian) while testing out my new SSTO (apparently they never work with me.. haha.. NEVER). With reputation ticking away due to the Snacks mod (and the freezing weather), I realised I needed some way of keeping my Kerbals warm and fed until I could send out a rescue mission. So I folded up my sleeves downloaded Unity, Blender and Visual Studio and started learning to cook. After lots of trial and error (and reading tutorials) the result ended up being a tent!

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.

Features:

- Holds one unit of standard size Kerbal.

- It has built in KAS functionality for easy storage (and storing).

- It contains Snacks for 12 days (.. or was it 6?...).

- Hefty animation (Warning: Stand clear while unpacking and packing...).

- Wrapping paper from the LV-T45 delivery package Lightweight materials.

- Lifetime guarantee.

- Standardised looks based on common misconceptions of a regular tent.

- Automatic unpacking and packing (no more fiddling with ropes and sticks).

Use KAS and Snacks for optimal experience.

With my limited (approximately 48 hours) experience with C#, 3D modelling and Unity the tent still have some problems that needs to be address:

- I can't seem to make the thing follow the mouse cursor in VAB/SPH.

- It sometimes falls through the ground after packing.

- Balancing issues.

- Probably lots of other things...

- (I also had the hatch problem which was fixed by positioning it on 0,0,0... what a pain in the...grr)

If you have any idea how to fix any of these problems please please...! And if you discover any other problems, please please please...!

Possible iterations:

- Lights: Lights inside with a shadow of a Kerbal (if I can learn how to use emissive textures)

- IVA (Kerbal in a sleeping bag, or something Harry Potterish).

- Hiking bag storage container, and deployable bonfire for electric charge generation (no idea why...).

- SOS light beacon and flag pole.

- Smoke...

- TAC Life Support support..

If you have any other ideas for this, please! Or if you would like to volunteer for adding something to this, please please!

PS: I am very much a newbie in everything concerning mod development, so please be gentle on the terminology...

I want to thank RoverDude for allowing me to rip-off borrow some of his code for reference!

This is very much a work in progress and should be downloaded for testing purposes (it may break something, possibly your save games.. in the future).

Download (Source code included)

License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) (is this ok?..)

Edited September 23, 2014 by sumghai
Fixed imgur album

[Drew Kerman]

neat idea! look forward to the improvements

[Gaalidas]

I like it. I'd have probably just launched another doomed craft full of snacks (and no kerbals) to crash-land near the other crash site, but this is a much more elegant solution. The kerbal is still doomed to die a horrible death in the name of science... but at least there's a new illusion of hope in the eventual rescue of his sorry a... err, well you get the idea.

[montyben101]

Cool. Can you make it compatible with TAC life support too?

[CaptainKipard]

This is how you embed an album. Remove the space.

[imgur]F0qD1[/ imgur]

[1of6Billion]

I always thought it would be awesome when a marooned Kerbal would build a shelter, light a campfire (on Kerbin) and grow a beard waiting for rescue. So, now you can imagine how I feel about your mod

AWESOME!

[Gaalidas]

Huh... now we need a beard-growing mod. Back to the ol' drawing board people.

[tgruetzm]

Looks awesome. I like it. Keep up the good work!

[MaverickSawyer]

Okay, field testing has been conducted, and the Kerbals have some feedback...

-Unless you attach the tent to the ground, it'll phase through the ground near the Runway and then explode. *shrugs* Need to see if it's repeatable in a wider range of environments.

-The mesh is rotated upon loading. You have to fiddle with it to get it to attach flat, and it knifes into the Kerbal's EVA pack. Minor nitpick.

-For a tent that size, you should be able to fit 2 Kerbals inside. If a Kerbal gets stuck while going it alone, he gets extra room.

That's it for now. Good work so far!

[Apature rocket science]

Could you make difrent moddles like a inflateible habitat that can be deployed like this in a emergency. And also how do you deploy it is it a part you have to send there or can any kerbal deploy it also I think you should have the tent 1 just for kerbin and lathe and for the moon and planets with out amthospheres advent tents because it make sence this tent for kerbin abut not for the moon if you understand me but over all I love the idea, now my stranded kerbals can stay some where till rescue (change orbital debris so it killes them and gives science tiffin data on death)

[Decent Weasel]

I know this is a weird request but I'd love bigger, military-style tents I could store ships under, with selective alpha mapping so they look like artillery netting...

[kimiko]

Sorry for the lateness, but I have a thesis to write : p, but I am still working on it! : D

So a little picture of the next version (if I can get it to work).

The campfire will work as some sort of life support module. The plan is to have the Kerbals salvage fuel from the crashed ship, and use it to make a fire to generate more snacks (or other life support stuff). I am thinking of other stuff as well that could be used for cooking or something, maybe something from the ORS mod... like water..

BTW:

If anyone know how to target and call a particle effect (i.e. make it emit on demand) from a plugin I would be very grateful if you could share it! haha

neat idea! look forward to the improvements

Thanks!

I like it. I'd have probably just launched another doomed craft full of snacks (and no kerbals) to crash-land near the other crash site, but this is a much more elegant solution. The kerbal is still doomed to die a horrible death in the name of science... but at least there's a new illusion of hope in the eventual rescue of his sorry a... err, well you get the idea.

Exactly what I was doing until now, but it got a bit too expensive in the long run haha.

Cool. Can you make it compatible with TAC life support too?

Ah yes, I'll see what I can do. I'm not too familiar with TAC life support at the moment.

This is how you embed an album. Remove the space.

[imgur]F0qD1[/ imgur]

Thanks!

I always thought it would be awesome when a marooned Kerbal would build a shelter, light a campfire (on Kerbin) and grow a beard waiting for rescue. So, now you can imagine how I feel about your mod

AWESOME!

hahaha! A beard mod would be awesome! At the moment my mod-making knowledge is too limited though... but maybe...

I am glad you like it! : D

Looks awesome. I like it. Keep up the good work!

Thanks a lot!

Okay, field testing has been conducted, and the Kerbals have some feedback...

-Unless you attach the tent to the ground, it'll phase through the ground near the Runway and then explode. *shrugs* Need to see if it's repeatable in a wider range of environments.

-The mesh is rotated upon loading. You have to fiddle with it to get it to attach flat, and it knifes into the Kerbal's EVA pack. Minor nitpick.

-For a tent that size, you should be able to fit 2 Kerbals inside. If a Kerbal gets stuck while going it alone, he gets extra room.

That's it for now. Good work so far!

Awesome! Thanks a lot of the constructive feedback!

I am aware of the falling through the ground issue. Still haven't found a way to fix it sadly T.T

The rotation and backpack issues will be fixed in the next version! : D

I was actually thinking of having two as well, but since it has storage space, and, in the next version, fuel storage space for life support module, I have to consider it.

Could you make difrent moddles like a inflateible habitat that can be deployed like this in a emergency. And also how do you deploy it is it a part you have to send there or can any kerbal deploy it also I think you should have the tent 1 just for kerbin and lathe and for the moon and planets with out amthospheres advent tents because it make sence this tent for kerbin abut not for the moon if you understand me but over all I love the idea, now my stranded kerbals can stay some where till rescue (change orbital debris so it killes them and gives science tiffin data on death)

I believe RoverDude's MKS/ORS mod already have deployable habitats, you should check it out, it's awesome! I agree it is a bit senseless to be able to have a tent on the moon, but then again, having a tent at all in a space-game is quite senseless haha. I did think about having it like that, but at the moment it is a bit complicated to realize..

I know this is a weird request but I'd love bigger, military-style tents I could store ships under, with selective alpha mapping so they look like artillery netting...

Hmm.. Good idea! I was actually thinking about having inflatable skyscrapers to... well create obstacles for some acrobatic crashi... flying! : D

[Helix935]

okay this has probably been dead in a while but in light of KAS recent exposition of the ability to have tools you can actually hold in your hands, are you planning on allowing us to cook food with a frying pan and maybe other stuff

[Helix935]

*bump for necessity*

does this work for 0.90?

[Agathorn]

While I doubt I would ever use this, and it seems really basic, KUDOS for seeing a problem, learning how to fix it, and then sharing that with everyone. The world needs more people like you!

[kimiko]

Ah, Sorry! I didn't think anyone was still using this ... xD

To be honest I have been quite discourage lately to continue developing this, as it seems Squad isn't all that keen on supporting the modding community (i.e. proper 64bit support in windows, as there is of .90 barely any space for mods). In any rate since you are actually using it, I can offer the dev version I am messing around with for my personal use :3

https://www.dropbox.com/s/1ztj0kjf7hs269h/Tent%20dev.zip?dl=0

It now has a good-for-nothing camp-fire module (It's suppose to have a life support generation module).

And I change the name of the manufacturer as well (i.e. a new folder).

Also it should have somewhat support for both snacks and TACLS through Module Manager (not included).

You may want to balance it out a bit by messing with the .cfg files.

While I doubt I would ever use this, and it seems really basic, KUDOS for seeing a problem, learning how to fix it, and then sharing that with everyone. The world needs more people like you!

Thanks! But as you can see I haven't exactly been fulfilling the last part xD

P.S.: I know I may have sparked an unnecessary discussion. And yes I know this is still "BETA" and all. Even so, I firmly believe that it is the modding community that keeps this game as popular as it is, as I, myself, would probably not be playing as much if it wasn't for contributions by RoverDude and the likes. And yes I am aware that the issue is lies with Unity... (and bla bla bla blame game). But when I go to a restaurant and get served a poorly grown potato, I'm not going to hold the farmer responsible for it.

Edited December 30, 2014 by kimiko
language issues

[sal_vager]

Squad can't do much about the Unity game engine's poor 64bit support kimiko, sorry about that, even the Unity editor is 32bit so finding the cause of 64bit issues is a nightmare.

Not that you're supposed to hack the Unity binaries anyway to fix their problems for them but that's another issue.

There should be another Unity update out in time for the next update of KSP, and Unity 5 is getting closer to a stable release all the time so it's just a matter of time before we have a stable Windows 64bit version of KSP.

So please don't lose hope, this is just a rough patch in KSP's development.

[Drew Kerman]

shot in the dark here, but I was planning to use this to set up a camp site scene for some of my kerbals out on excursion in the wilderness... however the tent seems to consistently explode when I try to attach it to the ground out on the shores of a lake. It's probably a KAS issue and I'm still on 0.90 so not much hope of a resolution I know but if there's any sort of workaround anyone can think of I'd appreciate suggestions.

[kimiko]

shot in the dark here, but I was planning to use this to set up a camp site scene for some of my kerbals out on excursion in the wilderness... however the tent seems to consistently explode when I try to attach it to the ground out on the shores of a lake. It's probably a KAS issue and I'm still on 0.90 so not much hope of a resolution I know but if there's any sort of workaround anyone can think of I'd appreciate suggestions.

Hiya Gaiiden,

Sorry, I just got back to the "Kerbal scene" and sadly I don't have .90 any more, so not sure if I can be much help at the moment. I have to dabble around some more before I try update this as it does still have a fair deal of problems (I'm no programmer nor 3D designer D: ).

To be honest I never tried to attach it to the ground (strangely), but from your description I would suspect it the issue comes from the collision mesh being animated and the attachment node being static (I think) which causes everything to "crash" violently into slightly curved surfaces (or maybe even flat surfaces) when being attached to the ground.

I suspect the quick fix would be to dabble around with the node_attach definition in the .cfg file.

Maybe change the:

node_attach = 0.0, -0.6, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0

to

node_attach = 0.0, -0.7, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0

?

Hope this helps!

[Overlocker]

I always wanted something like that for cinematics with BDArmory, now if someone made some barracks, or those bigger tents to hide planes at military bases, or a small cluster of sandbags for cover that will be another great mod! Also using this as a survival pack also is great, I love KIS-KAS props, but some people don't use Snacks, they use TAC Life Support or maybe the new USI Life Support so a compatibility update for them will be apreciated

[Drew Kerman]

just wanted to report back that I got it to work! The change to the config may have helped, but I also made sure to rotate it properly to be facing upwards when placing it on the ground There were supposed to be 4 command chairs in the photo but the two empty ones exploded when I went into time warp lol. Oh well.

[klgraham1013]

This is great! My Mun bases will now be camp sites!

[kimiko]

I always wanted something like that for cinematics with BDArmory, now if someone made some barracks, or those bigger tents to hide planes at military bases, or a small cluster of sandbags for cover that will be another great mod! Also using this as a survival pack also is great, I love KIS-KAS props, but some people don't use Snacks, they use TAC Life Support or maybe the new USI Life Support so a compatibility update for them will be apreciated

For the barracks, you may have to wait a bit until I have remember how to use Blender again (ahaha). I suppose the plug-in will remain somewhat the same though. Ah yes, the next iteration will defiantly have USI LS, as it is my preferred LS mod : D

just wanted to report back that I got it to work! The change to the config may have helped, but I also made sure to rotate it properly to be facing upwards when placing it on the ground There were supposed to be 4 command chairs in the photo but the two empty ones exploded when I went into time warp lol. Oh well.

http://i.imgur.com/uO5AE65l.png

Wonderful news! : D That picture is amazing by the way ahahaha! I will try to include an actual glowing fire for the next iteration.

This is great! My Mun bases will now be camp sites!

Real explorers always used tents! : D

[Esme]

Hello!

I thought I'd give your tent mod a try, but my archive-extraction util thinks the file is corrupted. May I ask what you archived it with, so I can make sure I've got the right unpacker for it?

Really looking forward to being able to use temts on Kerbin-side exploration! :-)

[maxrsp]

I have the tent working in 1.0.4 but where is the fire? It looks like it's inside the tent during placement but once you attach to the ground it disappears completely

Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!