[1.4] SpaceY Heavy-Lifter Parts Pack v1.17.1 (2018-04-02)

[NecroBones]

Hey Bones, looking at the SpaceY Expanded stuff I noticed how much your modeling and texturing skills improved since you first released MRS and later SpaceY. Do you plan on doing any remodeling some day? Or do you have cool ideas for new parts?

EDIT: Also an orange foam texture for the 5m tanks would be great, my CryoEngines + SpaceY shuttle would look sooooooo much better.

Yeah, actually I am thinking in terms of doing some beautification and improvements.

SpaceY is undergoing some work right now. I've been overhauling the particle effects... which is to say, I'm actually adding some custom effects finally, and also making a bunch of adjustments to the HotRockets integration. I've also never been satisfied with the engine bells for the M and R series engines, so I want to take another look at those. And tank switching is definitely something I'd like to do, now that it works in Expanded.

[NecroBones]

Old vs New engine bells:

(the idea was to look like the same thing, but more detailed)

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And custom particle effects:

[Gaarst]

I really like the new engine bells for the Ratite, keep up the awesome work !

Ratite engine has always been my favorite, and it seems like it's not going to change ^^

[NecroBones]

I'm getting some color-switching working on the 5m tanks. I have one test case functioning. It requires Expanded to be installed, in addition to Firespitter/Interstellar. Right now I'm planning on having the default scheme, an alternate black/white scheme, all black, all white, and orange.

[NecroBones]

I'm really going to have to update the screenshots on the OP.

Anyway, update posted:

1.3 (2015-10-16) - Engine and fuel tank Update.
 - HotRockets adjustments:
    - Corrected some of the internal ID assignments (M/K engines).
    - Made corrections to particle scaling for all LFO engines.
    - Switched M,R series engines to use yellow flame instead of blue (RP1/kerosene inspired). Blue will be moved to the Penguins.
 - LFO engines will now animate their heat glow based on throttle (like "Better Emissives" patch) instead of temperature.
    - I've been debating this one for a while. We'll try this out and see how it goes.
    - It's contained in patch called "SpaceY_HeatAnimation.cfg". Delete it or rename the "cfg" part to disable.
    - Patch will also apply to SpaceY-Expanded engines.
 - New default custom flame/particle effects for all LFO (K,M,R series) engines. 
 - New engine bell art assets for the M,R series of LFO engines.
 - Color switching added to 5m LFO tanks. To be enabled, requires Firespitter or InterstellarFuelSwitch, and SpaceY Expanded.

New color choices on the 5m tanks (in addition to the pre-existing current default):

[PickledTripod]

Oh my, I didn't expect the update so fast. It all looks very nice!

Any chance you could add 5m Shuttle-like dome and cone tanks like those in Fuel Tanks Plus?

[Gaarst]

Oh my, I didn't expect the update so fast. It all looks very nice!

Any chance you could add 5m Shuttle-like dome and cone tanks like those in Fuel Tanks Plus?

You know you can colour the fuel cones orange too, right ?

Or do you mean the shape ?

[PickledTripod]

The shape. The current nose cone tanks don't really looks shuttle-ish and there's no bottom dome tank. I know, it's a bit petty but I just want a nice looking 5m external tank.

[NecroBones]

Oh my, I didn't expect the update so fast. It all looks very nice!

Yeah, I worked my butt off to get it together by the end of the week. Might take a short break after that... heh.

Any chance you could add 5m Shuttle-like dome and cone tanks like those in Fuel Tanks Plus?

Possibly. I'll have to think about where it would belong though, since right now FTP doesn't have 5m parts.

[CrashTestDanny]

Hey Necro - thanks for the mods first off! Hope you saw my party barge in the spacecraft exchange - made possible by SpaceY parts!

I've been running v1.0.4 from back in August with no issues, but downloaded 1.3 today and all of the 5m tanks started looking very bad - like they couldn't decide whether to look like big reds scaled up or to have the paint job that you put on them, so they were kinda switching between both. Went back to 1.0.4 and that went away. At the same time, I grabbed expanded to play with some big toys. Unfortunately none of the 7m tanks showed up although I did find some of the engines for expanded and the 7m probe core and the 5m SB. So I guess something I have is not playing nice with your stuff. I know I probably haven't given you enough to work with, but any ideas?

[CrashTestDanny]

umm... never mind about the missing parts - my own stupidity there... it's been so long since I've had any tech to open up that I didn't think to check R&D. lol!

The weird shimmering big orange + SpaceY paint thing is still an issue. If that's not clear let me know and I'll put the new version back in and get a pic for you.

Danny

[CrashTestDanny]

Here's an example of the issue I'm having - this is with one of the Expanded parts, but it's similar with the 5m tanks.

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Direct link to the shot on imgur: http://i.imgur.com/MWnPYuN.png

Danny

[NecroBones]

I've been running v1.0.4 from back in August with no issues, but downloaded 1.3 today and all of the 5m tanks started looking very bad - like they couldn't decide whether to look like big reds scaled up or to have the paint job that you put on them, so they were kinda switching between both. Went back to 1.0.4 and that went away.

At first I was thinking it's probably a bad mod interaction as you said, but I reproduced it and figured out why. Basically the part that detects the absence of the mods it needs for appearance-switching is broken. The way I set it up technically should work, except that ModuleManager's order of operations is opposite of pretty much every programming language on the planet. It gives precedence to "OR" over "AND".

The quick fix from your side is to install either Firespitter, or InterstellarFuelSwitch, since it's mistakenly thinking they're installed.

However, I'm double checking my work right now and will upload a hotfix shortly.

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OK, that was quick. This should fix it.

1.3.1 (2015-10-18) - Bug fix.
 - Fixed the ModuleManager conditionals to detect when the prerequisite mods are missing for fuel tank appearance switching.

[CrashTestDanny]

Thanks - does that correct SpaceY expanded also or will that be a separate fix?

Danny

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Really appreciate all your work on this - these 5m and 7m rockets are awesome!

Danny

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Hey man - sorry to be "that guy", but here is what I am seeing with 1.3.1. Firespitter is installed.

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Danny

[NecroBones]

Thanks - does that correct SpaceY expanded also or will that be a separate fix?

Danny

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Really appreciate all your work on this - these 5m and 7m rockets are awesome!

Danny

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Hey man - sorry to be "that guy", but here is what I am seeing with 1.3.1. Firespitter is installed.

http://imgur.com/a/YHpU5

Danny

The fix was only needed for the 5m tanks in Lifters.

I might need to see your log. This one could be a bad interaction. One thing to try first: Go into your GameData folder and delete "ModuleManager.ConfigCache" and "ModuleManager.ConfigSHA" (both will be created again when you fire up KSP). Sometimes ModuleManager's caching can temporarily hose things up by not noticing changes with mods immediately.

[CrashTestDanny]

Removing cache did not help. I am seeing the issue on all of the 5m and 7m SpaceY tanks... I put my log from last restart in my dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fmox4z20b7umcbf/KSP.log?dl=0

Danny

[NecroBones]

Removing cache did not help. I am seeing the issue on all of the 5m and 7m SpaceY tanks... I put my log from last restart in my dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fmox4z20b7umcbf/KSP.log?dl=0

OK great. What I'm seeing in the logs is that you have both Firespitter and InterstellarFuelSwitch. Normally this should be OK. But for some reason InterstellarFuelSwitch isn't working right in your setup. SpaceY is configured to favor InterstellarFuelSwitch over Firespitter since its configuration is a little more robust. So what's happening is that SpaceY sees both installed, sets up the InterstellarFuelSwitch version of the mesh switching, and then later that fails to do anything.

You have errors like:

[ERR 23:37:26.939] Cannot find a PartModule of typename 'InterstellarFuelSwitch'

This is keeping IFS from working for your other mods too. I grabbed that error from one of the MunarIndustries lines in the log.

So I'd either completely uninstall InterstellarFuelSwitch, or try deleting it and re-adding it.

[CrashTestDanny]

I didn't even know I had IFS. Probably something CKAN did to me.

Anyhow, thanks a ton for your help in finding that! Much appreciated!

Danny

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and the final report is that after removing IFS, my issue (just this one, tho ) is resolved.

You rock! Have a rep!

Danny

[NecroBones]

Glad to help!

[smjjames]

1.3 (2015-10-16) - Engine and fuel tank Update.
 - LFO engines will now animate their heat glow based on throttle (like "Better Emissives" patch) instead of temperature.
    - I've been debating this one for a while. We'll try this out and see how it goes.
    - It's contained in patch called "SpaceY_HeatAnimation.cfg". Delete it or rename the "cfg" part to disable.
    - Patch will also apply to SpaceY-Expanded engines.

I don't like this feature all that much. When I use TCA on hover mode for example, it puts the throttle at 100% but controls the thrust limiters of the engines individually, so, it just makes the engines glow like they are really hot when they aren't. I know I can just remove the config, just voicing my opinion here.

[NecroBones]

I don't like this feature all that much. When I use TCA on hover mode for example, it puts the throttle at 100% but controls the thrust limiters of the engines individually, so, it just makes the engines glow like they are really hot when they aren't. I know I can just remove the config, just voicing my opinion here.

OK I'll keep that in mind. But yeah, that's why it's set up as a separate easily-deleted patch.

[Thorbane]

The docking ports don't want to attach the right way, but try to put them on backwards and they snap right on:rolleyes:.

They definitely prefer to attach on the front node.

Edited October 20, 2015 by Thorbane

[NecroBones]

The docking ports don't want to attach the right way, but try to put them on backwards and they snap right on:rolleyes:.

They definitely prefer to attach on the front node.

You mean in the VAB? It works best if you build the rocket from the top down, but yes... This is a bug in how KSP enforces node orientation now. The snap-to always favors one node over the other, based on the order they're defined in the config, even if they're facing the wrong way. Basically you just have to line the VAB camera up to look horizontally at what you're doing and play around with the mouse position, and it'll eventually work. Or always attach the other end to something first.

There's really nothing else I can do to fix it. It plagues all thin/short parts like this.

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People have complained about the snap problems before, but I went ahead and opened a new thread in the suggestions area, since it is a stock problem:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/137199-Make-the-VAB-SPH-snap-to-feature-ignore-nodes-that-it-rejects

Edited October 20, 2015 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

I just spotted this mod review of the SpaceX barge mod:

Has anyone tried landing a SpaceY booster on the SpaceX barge?

[Sauron]

Can we please get FTP Atlas red as an option also--that's far and away the best looking texture in FTP. Would be great to have it in 5m too.