[1.0.4]Intake Build Aid (obsolete for 1.0.5)

[Prowler_x1]

Thanks for the hint, eddiew - note to self, don't post tired...

And you found the most annoying bug that I built into the mod and I couldn't fix it yet (unity - what? ).

Just make sure you un-highlight everything before launching or the colors will stick.

lol... nice, maybe blue should be replaced with green. then we will have built in port and starboard indicators....

[StahnAileron]

LordFjord,

Is there any way to manually re-order engines?

(NOTE: I'm still on KSP v0.90 for now, but I'm hoping to move soon, though I'm waiting on some key mods I use, still...)

I have an atmos jet VTOL I use for Kerbin-based survey contracts. It has 3 sets of engines on it: VTOL (3), Low speed (2), and high speed (2). I rarely have all 7 engines running, so I'd like to be able to manually arrange the engines orders so that when I'm not using the low speed engines, their intakes feed evenly to the high-speed engines. This might be a rare circumstance (I'm using QuizTech, B9, and RoverDude engines), so maybe it's a low priority, but right now, I need to have dedicated intakes for the high/low speed engines and close the low speed intakes when I'm not using the low speed engines. The engine order tends to clump same engines together, so the excess IntakeAir gets dumped into the first high speed engine in the list.

[LordFjord]

Yes, that should still work by using the F8 key.

Important: first "normalize" the intake/engine setup by using F7, otherwise the manual adjustment of intakes to engines might have unexpected results.

The technical explanation is that the manual assignment simply picks your selected intakes/engines and puts them on the end of the part list.

I can give an example. "I" is an intake, "E" an engine and "X" some other part.

Your ship might look like this in the part list

XXXXIIXXEXXXIXEXEEEIIIII (completely random here, total 11 X, 5 E and 8 I)

now auto-assign intakes:

XXXXXXXXXXXIIEIIEIIEIEIE

now we manually assign the last 4 intakes to the last engine:

XXXXXXXXXXXIIEIIEEEIIIIE

and now we take the other 4 intakes and assign them to the 2nd last engine:

XXXXXXXXXXXEEEIIIIEIIIIE

-> the first 3 engines get the least air - which might work well for VTOL engines, the last 2 would get most air, which would be best for high-altitude flight.

How-to manual assign intakes/engines:

Point at the intake and hit F8 - it "should" get highlighted, then point at the 2nd one and hit F8 again. Repeat until you have highlighted all intakes for the engine. Then point at the engine and hit F8. This should assign all previously selected intakes to the engine. You can verify the result with F6 on the engine.

Note that using auto-assign (F7) will completely reorder it again and the manual assignments are lost.

[Bit Fiddler]

ok so an idea...

on your gui window let us drag, click check boxes etc. to rearrange the intakes on the list.

and a question...

Is it possible to assign 2 engines to 1 intake? if have 2 engines and 3 intakes how do I balance this?

[eddiew]

And you found the most annoying bug that I built into the mod and I couldn't fix it yet (unity - what? ).

Just make sure you un-highlight everything before launching or the colors will stick.

Heh, all well, nevermind - it didn't seem to do any harm while flying. Admittedly the whole thing crashed and burned, but that's because I'm trying to make a brick fly under FAR Since then I simply haven't used the highlight anyway, since the simple list of assignments is just fine for my purposes ^^

[LordFjord]

ok so an idea...

on your gui window let us drag, click check boxes etc. to rearrange the intakes on the list.

and a question...

Is it possible to assign 2 engines to 1 intake? if have 2 engines and 3 intakes how do I balance this?

I actually intended to do that when I wrote the mod, but because I am lazy (and myself only use the auto-assign feature) the GUI became a display-only thing. Should be possible to add that without too much trouble (for someone familiar with unity UIs).

You can't assign a single intake to several engines - the game mechanics just don't work that way.

For 3 engines you would need at least 3 intakes to balance them. In the end, what matters is the sum of intake areas for each engine - this is shown in the IBA UI. Try to add/replace intakes so each engine gets the same amount of air.

[Bit Fiddler]

so what happens in game terms if I make a jet with twin engins with only 1 intake?

[eddiew]

so what happens in game terms if I make a jet with twin engins with only 1 intake?

The intake is assigned to one engine, and any leftover air goes to the second. Result; one engine expires long before the other. The game just doesn't have a mechanism to tell it to give a 50/50 split of air from a single intake.

You have to help IBA out and give it the same number (and type!) of intakes as you have engines if you want it to produce balanced results

[Bit Fiddler]

ok I always build balanced so never noticed this before... but on my latest craft it was an SSTO so it had 2 engines and about something like 21 intakes... so it did have an odd number. the build aid would assign the intakes asymmetrically to try and balance the load and this explains why...

So another question. Does the auto build function always assign the "closest" intakes assuming they are designed symmetrically? thus left engine will always be assigned the 10 intakes on the left of the craft?

[LordFjord]

@Bit Fiddler:

no, not at all. It has no idea where on the craft the parts are placed. The mod only changes the order of the parts within the vessel's part list.

The list is basically the order how you built it.

I have described the algorythm in the (older) dev thread.

It is very likely that with each press on the "auto-assign" button you get a new result. Not from the types of engines and their intakes - but WHICH engine and WHICH intake (assuming the same intake/engine type here).

[Screeno]

does this work in 1.0.4

[LordFjord]

Sorry for the late answer (moving house and offline for a bit) - yes, it works with 1.0.4.

[MacerV]

Sorry for the late answer (moving house and offline for a bit) - yes, it works with 1.0.4.

Could you recommit the 1.04 version to the CKAN database?

[xtoro]

Great mod!! Now I don't have to wait for flame outs and then shut off all the engines, I can just let them go out and not worry

[LordFjord]

I've re-released the 1.0.2 version on KerbalStuff for 1.0.4, that also should update CKAN, thanks MacerV for the hint (and sry for the delay).

[Wolf Baginski]

Intake Build Aid 0.6 for KSP 1.0.4

What was throwing me off with the auto-assign was that I was using two different sizes of engine. Maybe there needs to be a reminder that manual intake-to-engine assignment is possible, even if it's just a message like "Check manual configuration options: multiple intake/engine types in use."

I am mildly kicking myself today.

[Torzi]

Thanks for this! Just recently getting started again after putting kerbal on hold at 0.90. Back then I thought "You know, there should be a way to do this...", and here it is! Simple, elegant, and gets the job done quickly. Great Job!

[Biejoo]

Do the changes in 1.0.5 mean IBA is now obsolete?

* Jets now use a fuel mode that draws an equal percentage from all reachable parts (no-crossfeed parts will block crossfeed).

* IntakeAir is no longer displayed, since it was confusing, instead engines show whether their current requirements are being met.

IBA 0.6 does not display anything in 1.0.5 (which might be due to the fact that IntakeAir is no longer displayed)

[StahnAileron]

I made a stock jet: 2 engines, 2 intakes. Attached engines first in Mirror symmetry, then the intakes, also in mirror sym. I still got an asymmetric flame-out due to low IntakeAir and one engine hogging it all when the intakes couldn't supply both engines. So no, IBA isn't obsolete. The changes made only affect LF flow, it seems. How IntakeAir is handled is still broken.

[Biejoo]

Ugh. Thanks for testing! Seems I will lay off the spaceplanes for a while then, hopefully the changes regarding IntakeAir didn't permabreak IBA.

[StahnAileron]

The only thing IBA does is change the internal attachment order of intakes and engines. I don't think SQUAD made many changes (if any) to the editors and how vessels are constructed and part-organized. (Obviously I could be wrong...) I would think IBA still works as-is in 1.0.5. I'd test, but I have other issues that require my attention. Like an NRE spam that let's me do nothing once I'm in the editor... And finding out what other mods I have installed that got broken with 1.0.5. (The NRE forces me to ALT-F4 the game. 1.0.5 seems to have seriously broken any of Diazo's mods.)

[LordFjord]

Thanks for the heads up guys, I will take a look at 1.0.5 and fire up a test rig to see how flameouts happen on various LF engines. There might be other changes that could affect the mod, for example air consumption of engines, it was the same for all LF engines in 1.0.4 if I remember correctly. If that is changed, then the mod is basically useless for mixed-engine vessels.

Soo, give me a bit time to check things out and see if I can fix it. Until then, best build old school style without the mod.

[selfish_meme]

I made a stock jet: 2 engines, 2 intakes. Attached engines first in Mirror symmetry, then the intakes, also in mirror sym. I still got an asymmetric flame-out due to low IntakeAir and one engine hogging it all when the intakes couldn't supply both engines. So no, IBA isn't obsolete. The changes made only affect LF flow, it seems. How IntakeAir is handled is still broken.

Thats got more to do with intake choice, intakes behave differently at altitude and speed now, if you have not got a supersonic intake or enough intake one engine (usually last placed) will starve the other.

Also the Wheesleys have an issue and each consumes 2.5 intakes worth of air, which makes them pretty useless to have more than one.

[FancyMouse]

I don't know how it works for you guys but it doesn't work for me - I tested on 1.0.5.1028 with stock+only IBA installed, I have the problem of IBA window empty out and all other UI elements started falling apart. ksp.log shows this exception which I think is the root cause:

MissingFieldException: Field '.ModuleResourceIntake.area' not found.

vessel and ksp.log zipped here

Sounds weird - I checked that the cfg in GameData\Squad\Parts does have area field for ModuleResourceIntake. Craft file doesn't contain this field, but it's the same behavior as my 1.0.4 crafts and my 1.0.4 worked fine, so I assume that isn't the problem - and then I got confused.

EDIT1: The dot prefix is really suspicious - let me recompile and see if it does the job

Edited November 14, 2015 by FancyMouse

[shepheb]

I pulled the code from Github and patched it - ModuleResourceIntake.area is now a double, not a float. Small tweak to IBA's bookkeeping, and it's all working again.

I suspect that "Field .ModuleResourceIntake.area not found" message was somewhat misleading; it's really searching for field by type and name, not just name.

Sent a PR on Github https://github.com/LordFjord/KSP/pull/2 and uploaded an unofficial release to my branch: https://github.com/shepheb/KSP/releases/tag/v105.

Thanks for a great mod!