[1.1.2] Kerbal Konstructs v0.9.7.1 - Slopey Glidey

[Smurfalot]

A splashed or landed mission will be recovered from the nearest open base with KK, although it isn't always reported correctly by the post-recovery dialog. I'm not sure how feasible it would be for Stage Recovery to do something similar. KK temporarily changes the active space centre with a different object when recovery takes place and there's currently no hooks for that.

Oh I see it recovers the kerbals and science (like stock) to the nearest base?

[AlphaAsh]

Oh I see it recovers the kerbals and science (like stock) to the nearest base?

The only thing about recovery of a splashed or landed mission on Kerbin affected by distance to the recovering base is the funds gained from the recovered parts. Kerbal Konstructs calculates the distance to the nearest open base for this.

[Smurfalot]

The only thing about recovery of a splashed or landed mission on Kerbin affected by distance to the recovering base is the funds gained from the recovered parts. Kerbal Konstructs calculates the distance to the nearest open base for this.

Thank you for the clarification. I love the work you guys do here and with the related mods.

[J.Random]

May I suggest making debug output optional? I understand the general need for debug messages, but I fail to see the usefulness of 'KK: StaticDatabase.updateCache()' log spam without timestamp or context. Everything else is great, never had any problems with the mod (or problems I could trace back to this mod, which is probably the same thing).

[AlphaAsh]

May I suggest making debug output optional? I understand the general need for debug messages, but I fail to see the usefulness of 'KK: StaticDatabase.updateCache()' log spam without timestamp or context. Everything else is great, never had any problems with the mod.

It was very useful. I just forgot to switch it off for the latest release. I'll fix it shortly.

[J.Random]

Thanks!

Also, I jinxed it. Bug: can't "buy" fuel in Sandbox mode. Get

NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

at KerbalKonstructs.UI.EditorGUI.drawFacilityManagerWindow (Int32 windowID) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

at UnityEngine.GUI.CallWindowDelegate (UnityEngine.WindowFunction func, Int32 id, UnityEngine.GUISkin _skin, Int32 forceRect, Single width, Single height, UnityEngine.GUIStyle style) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

[AlphaAsh]

Thanks!

Also, I jinxed it. Bug: can't "buy" fuel in Sandbox mode. Get

Yup, there's very poor handling of the non-feature there. I'll add it to the list but it won't make the next version. Cheers chap.

[AlphaAsh]

v0.7.4 available from KerbalStuff.

Changelog:

• Fixed: Being able to select KSC as the target base of the NGS.
  
• NGS reported co-ordinate precision and consistency increased.
  
• GUI slightly more verbose in-game. More improved GUI feedback still to come.
  
• Far less verbose in the log. Forgot to shut off a lot of debug in the last version. Sorry.
  

[Smurfalot]

Base boss toolbar icon seems to be broken now.

Also did you change the directory structure in this update?

- - - Updated - - -

Wait, I see the problem the new update is fighting with the old version of KK in KerbinSide.

- - - Updated - - -

Removing the extra KK files seems to have helped now the bases show up again, the Boss icon for the toolbar is still broken though.

[AlphaAsh]

No the directory structure wasn't changed.

KK and KerbinSide have separate directories in GameData. The correct installation procedure for KK is fully explained in the OP.

Updating KK is a simple process of deleting the old version of Kerbal Konstructs (that's everything in GameData/medsouz/KerbalKonstructs) and then installing the new version.

if the icon is broken, you haven't installed the mod properly.

[AlphaAsh]

v0.7.5 available from KerbalStuff.

Changelog:

• You can now 'buy' fuel for working fuel tanks in Sandbox and Science mode but it doesn't cost any funds (since you don't have any).
  
• A little more GUI feedback.
  
• A couple of small bugfixes.
  

[MatterBeam]

Hello.

I have an ongoing project, here.

One of the objectives is to stop the player from buying an infinite amount of fuel using Funds, but instead force the player to have a limited pool of resources he would buy from with custom Resource points.

In one of my threads, here, it was suggested I use your 'Working' Fuel tanks as a starting point for what I am trying to do.

If you could comment of whether these are possible using your mod, and maybe point me in the right direction on how to configure your mod to be able to do these, that would be immensely helpful:

-Disallow the player from spawning fully fueled spacecraft

-All the player to refuel the spacecraft only on the launchpad/runway.

-Allow the use of custom Resource points instead of Funds as currency for refueling.

Answer here if you wish to continue the conversation this way, or by PM.

[AlphaAsh]

Hello.

I have an ongoing project, here.

One of the objectives is to stop the player from buying an infinite amount of fuel using Funds, but instead force the player to have a limited pool of resources he would buy from with custom Resource points.

In one of my threads, here, it was suggested I use your 'Working' Fuel tanks as a starting point for what I am trying to do.

If you could comment of whether these are possible using your mod, and maybe point me in the right direction on how to configure your mod to be able to do these, that would be immensely helpful:

-Disallow the player from spawning fully fueled spacecraft

-All the player to refuel the spacecraft only on the launchpad/runway.

-Allow the use of custom Resource points instead of Funds as currency for refueling.

Answer here if you wish to continue the conversation this way, or by PM.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're currently doing a feasibility study of what you'd like to do. Other modders might jump in and disagree but here's what I can tell you:

Disallow the player from spawning fully fueled spacecraft.

Yes. Kinda. Probably the best way to achieve this is to empty the tanks when the vessel is launched. Another approach might be an MM config that initialises all stored resources to zero. And another solution might be to have parts automatically emptied in the VAB and SPH. Fairly certain KSP's API has a lot of hooks for resources in various scenes.

Allow the player to refuel the spacecraft only on the launchpad/runway.

Yes definitely. I do this in KK already, in that by default you can't anyway. It wouldn't be hard to orphan a GUI from the statics I use in KK either. It's just a GUI that has access and function restrictions based on the vicinity of a craft to an object and some data.

Allow the use of custom Resource points instead of Funds as currency for refueling.

You could integrate this in to the same GUI I describe above.

[MatterBeam]

Yes. Kinda. Probably the best way to achieve this is to empty the tanks when the vessel is launched. Another approach might be an MM config that initialises all stored resources to zero. And another solution might be to have parts automatically emptied in the VAB and SPH. Fairly certain KSP's API has a lot of hooks for resources in various scenes.

Having the ship spawn empty is important because if I simply forced the player to build an empty ship, then the player wouldn't be able to plan dV capacity and so on with Kerbal Engineer in the VAB.

Yes definitely. I do this in KK already, in that by default you can't anyway. It wouldn't be hard to orphan a GUI from the statics I use in KK either. It's just a GUI that has access and function restrictions based on the vicinity of a craft to an object and some data.

So, if I understand correctly, it's possible to 'slim down' your mod to only the part that creates a Working Fuel Tank on the launchpad and runway and allows them to be refuelled?

You could integrate this in to the same GUI I describe above.

I still haven't found out how to implement a custom point system, so this will have to sit on hold.

[AlphaAsh]

So, if I understand correctly, it's possible to 'slim down' your mod to only the part that creates a Working Fuel Tank on the launchpad and runway and allows them to be refuelled?

Yup. You wouldn't need the fuel tank either. It should be possible to just detect that a craft is landed on the runway or launchpad and then let your app present a GUI with function restricted accordingly.

I still haven't found out how to implement a custom point system, so this will have to sit on hold.

Nah it's just data. You would need to get your head around how persistency works in KSP. I ended up having to use my own external database because KSP's native stuff seems to really only work for parts and contracts and other functions already native to KSP. I do know some other modders have had more luck there though.

[MatterBeam]

Yup. You wouldn't need the fuel tank either. It should be possible to just detect that a craft is landed on the runway or launchpad and then let your app present a GUI with function restricted accordingly.

Nah it's just data. You would need to get your head around how persistency works in KSP. I ended up having to use my own external database because KSP's native stuff seems to really only work for parts and contracts and other functions already native to KSP. I do know some other modders have had more luck there though.

I found a free .dll decompiler and opened up your mod.

Well, I found a few .cfg files, many .png/.mu resources and one .ddl

There are very few options in the .cfg files, all related to how much the Konstructs look like and two lines on how much they cost.

The .png/.mu files... well, I'm not making new models.

Now onto the .ddl..... suffice to say that it's hundreds and hundreds of lines of something I don't understand, structured in groups and tens of subgroups with mysterious, repetitive structure.

I'm going to put my project on hold for now.

[blowfish]

The source code is publicly available. No need to decompile.

[AlphaAsh]

No need for a decompiler. The source for this mod is available on GITHub and has a licence that allows you to fork it, borrow from it, whatever. A lot of mods for KSP are like that.

Cross-posting from your other thread:

I've been a software developer for a looong time. That means I've had years to gain some important generic technical skills that provide me a foundation to be able to rapidly pick up just about any IDE or 4GL or OO or whatever pretty quickly. I didn't look at C sharp until I started modding KSP. That means I'm no wizard, just capable.

You can't expect others to step up and do what you can't do yourself. That's just how it is with modding. You have to put in the grunt work yourself first. Look at how much I pissed off a certain Justin Kerbice when I started modding KSP, because I made the investment he didn't, surpassed his efforts rapidly and shut him down when he tried to berate me for pursuing help when I had done the ground-work and then needed some very simple guidance (not hand-outs).

It's through knuckling down and hard work that I gain respect from other excellent modders, like nightingale and magico13, who are frankly waaay better than me, because I know they know that I know that. If I can't be bothered to put in the initial investment of my own time, why should someone else give me their precious time?

Edited May 16, 2015 by AlphaAsh
Readability

[AlphaAsh]

v0.7.6 available from KerbalStuff.

Changelog:

• 
  
• Now supports StageRecovery.
  
• Thanks to magico13 for doing the hard work.
  
• Calculation of recovery distance for spent stages by StageRecovery will now be from the nearest open base (probably the base you launch from, then).
  

[Bignumbers]

This is amazing, I hope you figure out the bugs in making off Kerbin bases soon!

[AlphaAsh]

This is amazing, I hope you figure out the bugs in making off Kerbin bases soon!

This particular feature request needs some serious discussion with the players. So guys and gals, glass ceiling it. What's it got to do that that other mod that does off-kerbin launching and ship construction doesn't already do?

I've tried to get my head around design for this feature that doesn't break immersion. The question I haven't been able to answer satisfactorily is this: How'd that rocket you're lanching off a launchpad that isn't on Kerbin get on that launchpad in the first place?

Edited May 18, 2015 by AlphaAsh

[Bignumbers]

Back in 0.25 I picked up EPL after becoming aware of its existence in searching for a mod that did just that. I put in a bunch of effort getting the massive, and horribly ugly at the time, EPL parts set up, then followed by a bunch of other missions just to get the resource chain set up. It took me about a week to do this and once everything was in place I linked the whole thing together with KAS so I could supply my own rocket parts on site. At first everything went smooth, my resources were building up in preparation for my first rocket launch originating from minmus but then for some reason my launch pad vanished. I looked around for it thinking it may have slid somewhere but it was gone, so I went to retrieve a utility rover I would need to get a new one in place from another base. When I got close enough for the physics on each ship to come into play again the entire base began shaking, then Kraken'd so hard it corrupted my save file.

So, for me, the big appeal of something like this is that it achieves the same thing but in a far more light weight packaging. As far as I know, the buildings don't need any physics simulation so it's less of a strain on the system, so less chance of invoking the Kraken because your resource chain necessitates a dozen ships on site. If I were making this, I would make a cargo module of sorts that you ship a couple to the off planet site you want. Once you have enough within a certain radius they and the ships they are on get gobbled up to "build" the base. As far as keeping immersion, if it is at all possible what I would do is make a custom building where the model looks to have elements of industry on it. Like perhaps a shaft that looks like it goes down to a mine, or a smelter and what looks like a metal working plant. I don't know how much work is involved in making new buildings, but if I could that's what I would do.

[Lord Aurelius]

I tossed this idea out over in the Anomaly Surveyor thread and Nightingale suggested I mention it over here since it's more in the realm of Kerbal Konstructs.

I've seen a lot of threads asking for some kind of overarching main goal for career mode, and while Anomaly Surveyor is an amazing contract pack that provides that to some degree, it lacks replayability since it uses the Squad anomalies which are always in the same place.

The idea is to have randomly placed anomalies (ideally generated when a new game is created rather than by contracts) so that you actually have to search for them instead of just being able to look them up somewhere or go on previous experience. Contract Configurator could be used to provide the missions to find them, Nightingale said that Contract Configurator already pretty much has everything to make this work.

What Contract Configurator doesn't provide is a way to place the anomaly meshes, which is where Kerbal Konstructs comes in. The tricky part would be to write some code to randomly pick suitable locations for the anomalies (could also be seed based) so you don't end up with things in weird/inaccessible places. From my understanding, right now the models in Kerbal Konstructs are basically placed by hand, although from looking at the last few posts it looks like a system may be in the works (if it hasn't been implemented already) that would allow models to be placed automatically for building a base.

Is there any interest in something like this? I'm not a modeler and I don't have experience with C# and Unity, but I do have some programming experience and would be willing to help out where I can.

[AlphaAsh]

... words ...

Short answer for right now is, yes, I want to do something like this. But. Persistence. Reliable persistence of static objects 'spawned' per save game is something of a holy grail for me. EDIT - In that I've been on this particular quest for a lot of features and still haven't found a solution.

Expect a longer answer when I've had some time to think.

[AlphaAsh]

...

Let's break this down in to a set of requirements.

• 
  
• - No massive, and horribly ugly parts.
  
• - No bunch of other missions just to get the resource chain set up.
  
• - No vanishing launchpads.
  
• - No base shaking and krakened save files.
  
• - Achieves the same thing but in a far more light weight packaging.
  
• - Cargo modules that you ship a couple to the off planet site you want.
  
• - Once you have enough within a certain radius they and the ships they are on get gobbled up to "build" the base.
  
• - Custom building where the model looks to have elements of industry on it.
  

Technical challenges:

- Freedom to set static objects per save game as part of gameplay and not 'externally' with an editor.

That really is it. The same technical challenge I've been smacking my head repeatedly against. Everything else is a comparative doddle.

So I guess my long answer is, once my head has healed from the last battering and I'm bored making contracts I'll have another crack at it.

Edited May 22, 2015 by AlphaAsh