[1.0.4]Better Buoyancy v1.4 - obsolete as of 1.0.5; 7/29/15

[Wjolcz]

How come you aren't a dev yet? So many incredible, yet so simple mods from you.

[TeddyDD]

Damn it ferram4, every of your mods (excluding NEAR) is must have for my KSP install. Awsome

[The Pink Ranger]

How come you aren't a dev yet? So many incredible, yet so simple mods from you.

Yah. If he isn't behind this upcoming aero update then there's something wrong with their hiring process

[Hektos]

That's something that FAR does, not BB. And if you're trying to go too fast with too draggy a part in the water, it will come apart.

Stick to using structural, non-fuel tank, non-wing parts though. Those tend to hold up better to aero-/hydro-dynamic forces. On the other hand, you could probably get away with using the other type if you keep the forces on it low by putting them in low-drag configurations. Build it like you would a plane, just designed for higher forces at lower speeds.

Thanks for all your help Ferram! I was finally able to get a boat put together

[GigaG]

I don't personally use this mod, but I think it needs a name like FAR or NEAR has.

Hmm...

Ferram Hydrology Research (FHR)

Ferram Ocean Research (FOR)

Ferram's Lovely Oceanic Advancement Thing (FLOAT)

Ferram Floating Fix (F3/FFF)

Some are bad, confusing, or just not catchy. Anybody else have better ideas?

[Axelord FTW]

Ferram's Poseidon Wedgie (FPW)

Ferram's Continuously Genial Physics Mod, 3rd act (FCGPM3)

Neptunian Physics Enabler (NPE)

Ferram's Ultimate Hydrophobia Kerbalizator (I am not typing that out, you get it)

Water Enabling Transient (WET)

[theflyingfish]

It should try to continue the "near-far" acronym theme. How about...

Hydro Enhancement Research Experiment - HERE

Technology Helping Enable Realistic Engineering - THERE

Calculated Lies Optimize Simple Experiments (or Calculating Lawyers Offer Silly Explanations) - CLOSE

[taniwha]

Continental Landings Or Splash Escape

[TMPhoenix]

My dude just sank to the ground during EVA in Kerbins Ocean. Dunno if it has something to do with this mod xD

Had the same problem. Jeb slipped of a ladder and went into ragdoll in the water and slowly started to sink to the bottom. I don't know if this happens without this mod as well, but it's the first time I've noticed it.

[steve_v]

I'm missing the splash FX (both sound & visual) too FWIW, other than that this is awesome

GNU/Linux x86_64, Damn, deleted my log. Will post another, later.

I have since removed some extraneous mods, I'll see if it makes a difference (and a smaller logfile)

My thoughts on CKAN are also... mixed

Edited December 31, 2014 by steve_v

[Hektos]

Had the same problem. Jeb slipped of a ladder and went into ragdoll in the water and slowly started to sink to the bottom. I don't know if this happens without this mod as well, but it's the first time I've noticed it.

This just happened to me as well. Completely lost control of poor Jeb. Luckily I was able to recover him while he was still "falling".

[ferram4]

No different acronyms!

BB doubleplusgood. Goodthinkers bellyfeel BB. Ungood crimethinkers ungoodthink BB. Crimethinkers report to miniluv joycamp asap.

(Yes, the entire acronym is the setup for a Nineteen Eighty-Four reference. Yeah, I'm weird.)

Anyway. I might have fixed something related to the sinking Kerbals, which might be the cause of the EVA stuff not being applied properly if it tries to run on a null vessel / Kerbal before it gets to the one that was actually created. Github repo has a dll with the change, but I don't know if that's actually gonna fix it.

I also need to add a maximum splashdown velocity sanity check, because it's come to my attention that ditching can be done at 150 m/s if you're crazy enough, and that's ridiculous.

[taniwha]

I also need to add a maximum splashdown velocity sanity check, because it's come to my attention that ditching can be done at 150 m/s if you're crazy enough, and that's ridiculous.

Mach 0.44 into water? ouch. 40-50m/s is reasonable, though, isn't it?

I'll check out the new dll once today's family stuff is done (New Year's in Japan is not a relaxing day, though I do very much like "otosu", so it's worth it).

[TMS]

This is a great mod. Makes powered splashdowns a more enticing prospect.

Also missing the splash and sound effect. Not that it's a bad thing. That stock splash sound is ridiculously loud.

[Joshwoo70]

Does this work with near ferram?

so NEAR yet so FAR.(pun)

[Northstar1989]

I also need to add a maximum splashdown velocity sanity check, because it's come to my attention that ditching can be done at 150 m/s if you're crazy enough, and that's ridiculous.

Is that really so ridiculous? If the vertical velocity is less than, say, 2 m/s, I would think it's entirely reasonable to "skip" off the surface of the water for an extended period of time... Water *is* softer and safer to land in than land at the same velocity in real life, and you can already land at 150 m/s on land in stock KSP...

Also, have you considered approaching Squad to get this mod added to stock for future versions of KSP? I *really* think that something needs to be done about the stock buoyancy system...

Regards,

Northstar

[SilentWindOfDoom]

This is pretty cool, I hated that ditching in the ocean was an automatic death sentence. It is still risky as all hell, but your kerbals have a chance at least. Thanks Ferram. Before this tweak I only managed it once, when i went "screw it" and impacted the water so fast KSP glitched out.

As for your latest comment, I would implore you not to make BB too harsh. 150 m/s is too fast I agree, but in my opinion the cutoff shouldn't be much lower than say 90 m/s. That's still very fast, but I'd say the nature of KSP means most aircraft are going to be high speed, low lift designs that can't really stay aloft below that speed, rendering BB a lot less useful.

I have not yet had time to test it, but i'm sure you know about the stock intake "feature" that allows stuff to float even without BB, even if it is likely to get smashed when landing at speed. Will BB increase this effect?

Pre-BB Intake floaters:

[Camacha]

This is pretty cool, I hated that ditching in the ocean was an automatic death sentence.

To be fair, that is just about what it is like in real life. The Hudson landing was nothing short of a miracle.

[SilentWindOfDoom]

To be fair, that is just about what it is like in real life. The Hudson landing was nothing short of a miracle.

Oh sure, but KSP tends to be a lot more forgiving, allowing much higher horizontal/vertical landing speeds on land, not to mention the impact tolerances of parts when things do get fouled up. BB balances the water to be in line with everything else, or so it would seem. Messing things up and then "saving it" via crash landing or another stunt is one of the more enjoyable things about KSP for me, giving me a reason to design a rescue mission like seen above.

[_Augustus_]

With Kopernicus planets with oceans installed this just gives noreferenceexceptions all the way. And I sink to the bottom.

[EladDv]

i have some questions:

1. dose it make stuff sink/float due to their buoyancy? (if not i would suggest making it with consistent density)

2. will we still be able to have intakes as flotation devices?

3. do you plan any future upgrades to the system/a more accurate mod?(like FAR and NEAR)

[ferram4]

@_Augustus_: Problem on Kopernicus's / the planet pack's side then; why the hell do you have multiple planets with the same FlightGlobalsIndex? Are you deliberately trying to break things?

@EladDv: 1) *Points to name* Whadda you think bub?

2) Try it.

3) Why? There's not much to improve, and you only get numerical errors because the engine isn't set up for forces like that. Not worth it.

[NonWonderDog]

Well, you could add material density or porosity or similar fields to parts. Right now the truss parts are some of the most buoyant parts we have, even though they're mostly made of holes. Scaled to a realistic mass, they will literally rip splashed-down craft apart due to buoyancy forces.

(I also cleared "PhysicsSignificance=1" from every part using ModManager, so I don't know or really care what they do when they're physicsless.)

Is there any rotational damping on splashed-down parts? Single parts often seem to spin infinitely in the water, and that might be worth looking at.

Edited January 3, 2015 by NonWonderDog

[_Augustus_]

@_Augustus_: Problem on Kopernicus's / the planet pack's side then; why the hell do you have multiple planets with the same FlightGlobalsIndex? Are you deliberately trying to break things?

@EladDv: 1) *Points to name* Whadda you think bub?

2) Try it.

3) Why? There's not much to improve, and you only get numerical errors because the engine isn't set up for forces like that. Not worth it.

They don't have the same flightglobalsindexes.

[ferram4]

@NonWonderDog: Not much I can do without needing a ton of part-specific data, which I really don't want to do, ever. That just causes issues when people show up later asking, "Why does X not work the way I expected? Why does it need configs, I want it to work automagically!"

Damping on splashed-down parts should be approximately what it is in the air. Dunno why they're spinning so much.

@_Augustus_: Fine, let me walk you through the code then:

BB stores water densities in a Dictionary that associates an integer (the FlightGlobalsIndex) with a double (the water density). The first time a density calculation is called, it loads data from a config to get densities associated with each FlightGlobalsIndex. Once that's done, it goes through all of the bodies that exist to make sure it got them all, adding them to the Dictionary. There can be no repeats here, because the dictionary cannot handle repeat indices.

After that, the BB module uses that in flight to find the appropriate density for each body. There are only three possibilities here:

1) You've got multiple bodies using the same FlightGlobals index, which breaks the Dictionary.

2) You've got bodies that have different FlightGlobalsIndices than the _actual_ index they use, in which case, your Kopernicus code is doing something damn funky and needs to be fixed; I'm sure you'll get on that right now, you are, after all, the main coder for that, right?

3) The bodies don't exist early in flight, in which case, Kopernicus is heavily broken and they should exist as soon as the Space Center Scene loads.

Nothing I can do, problem is on your end.