[1.0.2] B9 Aerospace | Procedural Parts 0.40 | Updated 09.06.15

[bac9]

Goddamn it :^)

I can not reproduce the issue with groups not opening, something else is at play, but labels are removed now.

Version 0.27

• Fixed default visibility state of part properties to prevent them from appearing in the context menu as uneditable labels

Edited January 24, 2015 by bac9

[bac9]

Version 0.28

• Unresponsive field group headers fixed
  
• Field values in the new UI have contextual format (material reads "HRSI" instead of "4.000", edge shape reads "Biconvex" instead of "2.000" and so on)
  
• Cost interface returns values based on part dimensions now
  
• Cost interface stops adding fuel setup cost if RealFuels take over that functionality
  
• Multipliers used in dimension-based cost calculation are now exposed in the configs
  
• KSP API Extensions dependency removed since tweakables are no longer used

_______________________

Version 0.29

• Fixed a potential issue with fuel tank cost calculation causing NRE on part attachment

Edited January 24, 2015 by bac9

[starikki]

CKAN support soon?

[SmashBrown]

Thanks so much for this much needed fix to the stock game!!!

[bac9]

CKAN support soon?

I don't use it myself, but wasn't Kerbalstuff supposed to add any mod from it to that database?

Edited January 25, 2015 by bac9

[AngelLestat]

You are developing faster that we can test

You need extra people testing this..

A way to get them is moving to release phase.

I remember the toolbar was in release section, and we had all days new updates. So that does not mean that you decrease your update rate, just means that is enoght complete to release.

Now I add kerbal reinforment mod.. I will try with this, but I dont have much time, just testing one airplane design with small changes.

[bac9]

Successfully tested proof of concept implementation of changes to DRE that I need to add proper shielding support to the wings. Just reflectance, but same thing can be done for ablation pools or whatever else.

Details here, hopefully Starwaster will be interested in adding that to DRE.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/54954-0-90-Deadly-Reentry-v6-4-0-Jan-20-2015?p=1692671&viewfull=1#post1692671

Edited January 25, 2015 by bac9

[blowfish]

I don't use it myself, but wasn't Kerbalstuff supposed to add any mod from it to that database?

It does, but sometimes it takes some time to find it (I don't think searches are done very often). In any case looks like it's in CKAN now.

[CrisK]

Here's my proof of concept F-35 replica using B9 aerospace procedural wings.

It's a surprisingly efficient SSTO. I was able to get into orbit with 1882m/s of DeltaV left. That could be improved if I filled all of the wings with fuel, but then it wouldn't be as agile to fly.

Mods: stock + B9 procedural wings parts only. FAR, Kerbal Engineer, TAC, and TAC Fuel.

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Edit: I used the texture tools that bac9 added to match the silver shade of the real F-35.

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Edited January 25, 2015 by CrisK

[stali79]

I am having an issue. I LOVE the wings, only just installed them, however I cannot get ANY B9 control surface to work, both the stock B9 and procedural ones. I removed the trailing edge to see if they would work then but no luck. any help would be appreciated.

[kiwiak]

This is reallz something.. kep up teh good work bac9.

[fatcargo]

I have a suggestion.

I've noticed that geometry editing is removed from right-click menu and as it is being overpopulated, so a separate window is a welcome change.

Now, the idea : i don't know how to properly explain this but if shaders for wing(s) are controlled by plugin while they are drawn in editor, is it possible to add that "glow" to only one section of wing when editing desired properties in window (like with Squad's root gizmo, but that affects whole parts only). Ofcourse, users should be able to turn off this when they learn what goes where or whatever.

Also a question : what happened to control surface offsets, the ones allowing diamond-shaped parts ? I'm not very picky about it, but others may be more interested.

Silly me, i placed a wing, not control surface.

Another thing : Part description shows G key as editor key, not J. Not a problem when you see a popup when placing a part or loading craft in editor, but please change it for the sake of completness. Oh aaand... would you consider adding a menu entry to open editor window ? Like one MFT has. At least this would let you have an "escape plan" from keyboard shortcuts flood. Again i apologise, there is a "B9" button i did not see.

Edited January 25, 2015 by fatcargo

[bac9]

i don't know how to properly explain this but if shaders for wing(s) are controlled by plugin while they are drawn in editor, is it possible to add that "glow" to only one section of wing when editing desired properties in window (like with Squad's root gizmo, but that affects whole parts only). Ofcourse, users should be able to turn off this when they learn what goes where or whatever.

Unfortunately that's impossible, I'm is using up everything you can possibly access per-vertex (RGB vertex color, A vertex color and even both channels of UV2), so adding adding highlighting is not possible - there is no variable available to pass info on which areas are highlighted to the shader.

Another thing : Part description shows G key as editor key, not J. Not a problem when you see a popup when placing a part or loading craft in editor, but please change it for the sake of completness.

Thanks, I'll fix that.

Edited January 25, 2015 by bac9

[starikki]

More suggestions:

1. Relative thickness option? this could reduce quite some work load on adjusting part thicknesses. using t/c is also more realistic.

However due to the nature of editor, we might have to use base section as a baseline, maybe use base section width/0.6 as hypothetical total chord length or something?

2. Any chance for a slight higher max limit for trailing edge section width for control surfaces? Current trailing edges looks too chubby for large root chord wings.

2.1. I would personally get ride of the base section for control surfaces, just use the trailing section. This would make airfoils more realistic shape, and simplify the process.

However I guess its quite some work on changing the code?

[CrisK]

bac9, I used your wings to recreate the frame of a Northrup YF-23 this morning. This is the sort of thing that can currently only be done using your mod.

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[bac9]

1. Relative thickness option? this could reduce quite some work load on adjusting part thicknesses. using t/c is also more realistic.

However due to the nature of editor, we might have to use base section as a baseline, maybe use base section width/0.6 as hypothetical total chord length or something?

To be honest I strongly dislike pwings-style abstract multipliers in place of objective thickness measurements so I'd prefer not to go that route. I already provide tools that allow you to quickly match thickness (and other parameters) to those of a parent, making modular wing assembly pretty easy and fast. Doing things like forcing the upper thickness limit from the parent tip thickness, though, I feel, would be potentially problematic for many designs. It's logical when you attach your next wing to the tip cross section of another wing. But what if you're adding a perpendicular tail? Or small protrusion with an internal fuel tank, or an aerodynamic drop tank? The code has no way to know the difference, and forcing some changes to thickness setup would be pretty irritating to users in the latter cases.

2. Any chance for a slight higher max limit for trailing edge section width for control surfaces? Current trailing edges looks too chubby for large root chord wings.

I'll look into it. Initially edges were using a multiplier dependent on the thickness of the wing to make them proportional, but that approach was extremely inconvenient when you wanted to match multiple wing segments and control surfaces together, since edge length jumped all over the place with unsightly distortion and non-obvious origin. I feel that, just as with thickness, making the user set an absolute width like 0.48m makes things look nice and makes editing more simple. I'd like to come up with a way to dynamically change field limits first, though - I don't want to allow two meter long trailing edge on a wing that is eight centimeters thick, just like I don't want to allow sixteen meter offset of the wing tip for a wing that is just fifty centimeters wide, and so on. Once that is in place, I can allow higher limits for bigger wings without enabling silly stuff with smaller wings.

2.1. I would personally get ride of the base section for control surfaces, just use the trailing section. This would make airfoils more realistic shape, and simplify the process. However I guess its quite some work on changing the code?

It's not possible to keep edges nice-looking at an arbitrary width too far beyond 0.24-1m so I can't do that. The purpose of the flat section of a control surface is to allow the edge to keep vertical component of texture coords completely fixed by taking most width away from edge geometry. Edge texture coordinates are very complex and unique on most vertices, making it an extreme hassle to remap them procedurally anywhere but on the U axis. Also, take a look at the edge texture - it's never supposed to be tiled vertically, so surface-like tiling is out of the question even if I write some kilometer long algorithm that can remap hundreds of vertices on arbitrary edge models. So yeah, split between flat section and trailing sections on control surfaces is a necessary evil and there to stay.

[kcs123]

It is pretty good in shaping possibilities. My first prototype for V0.90 reached orbit. Made a mistake with main engine thrust aligment, but it is efficient enough for prototype.

Made it to work with FAR.

Texture repleacment works nice, now I'm sad that I can't do the same for cargo bay and fuel tanks, but it is only aestetic problem. Design in SPH is much easier then with ordinary PW and don't produce memory leaking like PW. It is not something that is compleatly PW fault, but rather stock editor and PW behaviour.

This B9 procedural wings doesn't suffer from such memory leaking SPH editor "feature" like other mods.

While building my craft I didn't found any problems with B9 wings in editor or in flight. Don't know how much time I will have, but I plan to make some decent planes with those wings. Just to promote this already great mod as my gratitude to making it.

[Van Disaster]

The most awkward alignment issue I have is trying to match taper ratio for sequential wing pieces - occasionally I've actually not been able to do it & the only way I'd have got a seamless taper is to change the span, which is not ideal aerodynamically... and the biggest issue with that again is control surfaces going across the join & not aligning to both trailing edges. I can sit down & do the maths ( or I guess I could knock up a spreadsheet to do it ) but it does seem an obvious area for automation.

The other thing is being able to offset a wingtip so it can counteract being attached to a surface already offset like a tapering tail section. That bugged me a fair bit using DJY's wings.

[bac9]

It is pretty good in shaping possibilities. My first prototype for V0.90 reached orbit. Made a mistake with main engine thrust aligment, but it is efficient enough for prototype.

Glad to hear it works for you, although I'm suspicious about those struts. Two-piece wing like that should not need any struts to work properly without significant bending. Either struts aren't necessary, or there are some serious issues with how joints on my wings are set up.

The most awkward alignment issue I have is trying to match taper ratio for sequential wing pieces - occasionally I've actually not been able to do it & the only way I'd have got a seamless taper is to change the span, which is not ideal aerodynamically... and the biggest issue with that again is control surfaces going across the join & not aligning to both trailing edges. I can sit down & do the maths ( or I guess I could knock up a spreadsheet to do it ) but it does seem an obvious area for automation.

I'll take a look at making a method that auto-calculates appropriate offset and tip with to match sweeps of a given parent.

The other thing is being able to offset a wingtip so it can counteract being attached to a surface already offset like a tapering tail section. That bugged me a fair bit using DJY's wings.

I'm not sure what counteraction are you talking about.

[Bakase]

I'm not sure what counteraction are you talking about.

If you stick a wing on a tapering tail, the edge of the wing on the other side is parallel to the bit of the tail you stuck it on. This isn't necessarily desirable.

[TheXRuler]

Wow bac9 this is one of the most, shall I say exciting mods that I have seen in ages. +rep

[bac9]

If you stick a wing on a tapering tail, the edge of the wing on the other side is parallel to the bit of the tail you stuck it on. This isn't necessarily desirable.

Unfortunately it's impossible to change that without completely redoing how wings are shaped (I will need two semispan parameters and two offset parameters, which breaks parameter reuse with control surfaces and is not compatible with current geometry handling on wings). I can only suggest using the rotation tool from updated 0.90 editor to make the origin segments assume the rotation you want.

Edited January 26, 2015 by bac9

[Bakase]

Unfortunately it's impossible to change that without completely redoing how wings are shaped (I will need two semispan parameters and two offset parameters, which breaks parameter reuse with control surfaces and is not compatible with current geometry handling on wings). I can only suggest using the rotation tool from updated 0.90 editor to make the origin segments assume the rotation you want.

Yeah, I thought that might be the case. Thank you.

[CrisK]

Glad to hear it works for you, although I'm suspicious about those struts. Two-piece wing like that should not need any struts to work properly without significant bending. Either struts aren't necessary, or there are some serious issues with how joints on my wings are set up.

For what it's worth, I build wings with your mod that use 2-4 pieces and none of them have needed struts. I use KJR though.

[kcs123]

No, those struts were not absolutely needed, but I have excesive load in cargo bay ~30t and with that heavy cargo outher wing have slight woobling.

To ensure that wings will not be deformed in flight and stay in desired shape I used additional struts. It is habbit from previous designs with stock wings.

Anyway, I have improved that plane design slightly, so it is able to reach orbit with less effort and without additional struts.

Some struts are still needed due to KSP behaviour. One wing part crossing two sections of long fuel tanks, so while one part of wing is attached to one fuel tank, for more compact connection I use struts strengthen out part of wing that is not directly conected to fuel tank.

Will see how much time I will have, I hope that I will be able to finish that plane and start some thread in craft exchange forum.