[1.4.1] Fuel Tanks Plus 2.0.2 (2018-03-14)

[Zapjohnny]

Is there any way to disable tank shrouds? I play with Ven's stock revamp and there are automatic tank-butts that get ruined by them.

[NecroBones]

Is there any way to disable tank shrouds? I play with Ven's stock revamp and there are automatic tank-butts that get ruined by them.

Not currently. However, what I could probably do is throw together a MM config that will do it, but it'll require KSP 1.0.4 to not be save-breaking, since what I would need to do is associate the shrouds with unusable attachment nodes. Adding nodes to parts that are currently in use would always be save-breaking, prior to 1.0.4 fixing that. I'm assuming you're on 1.0.4.

I think this will work. I'll work on it and see how it goes.

[Zapjohnny]

Oh my god, you are now officially my favorite mod author. That is amazing!

[NecroBones]

Oh my god, you are now officially my favorite mod author. That is amazing!

My pleasure, especially since that's something more people might want too.

It looks like it works, so I've pushed it out. To disable the shrouds, make sure you have ModuleManager, and then rename the "txt" to "cfg" (as the patch notes below mention):

This update requires KSP 1.0.4 for use with existing saves.

0.11.2 (2015-07-06) - Minor update.
 - Corrected a mistake in Modular Fuel Tanks config for the cube tanks.
 - Added an optional "FuelTanksPlus_RemoveShrouds" ModuleManager config. To disable auto-shrouds, change from "txt" to "cfg".

[jmbailey2000]

My pleasure, especially since that's something more people might want too.

It looks like it works, so I've pushed it out. To disable the shrouds, make sure you have ModuleManager, and then rename the "txt" to "cfg" (as the patch notes below mention):

This update requires KSP 1.0.4 for use with existing saves.

0.11.2 (2015-07-06) - Minor update.
 - Corrected a mistake in Modular Fuel Tanks config for the cube tanks.
 - Added an optional "FuelTanksPlus_RemoveShrouds" ModuleManager config. To disable auto-shrouds, change from "txt" to "cfg".

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh.......can't wait to see if this now let's me use FT+ in welding!!!! Can't wait to get home!!!!

[NecroBones]

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh.......can't wait to see if this now let's me use FT+ in welding!!!! Can't wait to get home!!!!

Yep, I would think welding could still work. As long as the shrouds get associated with a non-attached node, they won't appear.

[NecroBones]

So now that I have texture-switching working via Firespitter for "Colorful Fuel Lines", it got me thinking.

In the past, people have asked about the possibility of FTP having single parts that are tweakable to choose the colors, rather than taking up all that menu space. I could probably do that with Firespitter via it's mesh-switcher (not texture switching in this case). The thing is, removing all the other tank parts would be a save-breaking change.

One idea a friend mentioned to me was the possibility of maintaining two copies of the mod for some time. The current one, and the consolidated tweakable one. I really hate maintaining multiple variants of mods now though, and MRS is probably the only one I intend to keep doing that with.

Anyway, I'm willing to discuss ideas, or transition strategies if it's something people are sufficiently interested in.

[Exposure]

Perhaps time the change with the 1.1 update? The unity 5 upgrade is bound to break a lot of things, so people are probably going be starting new games when they get around to updating KSP for it.

[NecroBones]

Perhaps time the change with the 1.1 update? The unity 5 upgrade is bound to break a lot of things, so people are probably going be starting new games when they get around to updating KSP for it.

Yeah, that's a pretty good idea. I was wishing I had done it for the 1.0 update, but 1.1 will be pretty significant too.

[NecroBones]

I've started work on the consolidation toward tweakables. One of the nice things about this, is it'll allow me to "fill in the gaps" with the color styles that don't exist in each size that the mod provides, since I'll be able to do that while also reducing the menu spam.

The down side is that this entails a lot more work than I originally planned. So I'm starting early.

As an example, here's the new "silver" S3-28800: (orange "jumbo" (CCC style) shown for scale)

[NecroBones]

As a clarification, I'm looking to consolidate same-sized tanks, so that the color is selectable with a tweakable. The gaps I'm filling are specifically the missing colors for various lengths, so that it's not just the 1.5x length that has all of the color choices. I'm not back-filling all of the colors to other diameters, as that would require a lot more texture memory than I'm using now. This consolidation will actually not significantly impact the memory usage by itself, since the textures are staying the same, and they're the bulk of the memory usage.

But here's another point I need to consider:

If this is a save-breaking update... I'm worried about CKAN users who may update it without seeing the patch notes or this thread, and end up with vessels getting deleted, and without a backup of their saves.

I don't want to do this, but I guess one possibility is to release it as a "new" mod, leaving the old one to languish without updates.

BTW, I think I have the size-3 tanks working now. Lots more sizes to go...

[BudgetHedgehog]

There are few people I have little respect for. Among these are:

People who update mods with no backup saves (seriously, it doesn't take 30 seconds to copypaste a savefile. It should be habit to do so every time you quit KSP)

People who don't read mod update news ("ooh an update! I don't need to know what's new at all, just install whatever you want into my Gamedata!")

People who install a mod (either via the CKAN or manually) and don't subscribe to the forum thread.

In short - catering for everyone leaves everyone dissatisfied. Save-breaking updates to mods happen often and as long as you give sufficient notice and warning that if you install this update, existing vessels may break, there's not a lot you can do. People don't read things and are stupid - cater to this as best you can, but don't compromise on quality in the process. Another option is to include a 'Deprecated' folder that has the parts, but not in the tech tree or editor list so old vessels still load but new vessels use the current parts (B9 did this for R5). Again, make a note that keeping the Deprecated folder around increases memory usage and will be removed in the next update (include an additional README in the folder that says this if you want, but again, people don't read things).

If, despite all the warnings and information available weeks in advance, people still complain that an update broke saves, there's really not a lot you could have done. As long as you can say 'well, I did say this update would break saves, like, a month ago here', they don't really have any kind of argument.

Then again, I'm terribly cynical, so meh.

[NecroBones]

Some great points.

Yeah, the deprecated folder is a good idea. In one of the modding sections on the forum, I asked about the possibility of still having the old parts in the mod for compatibility, but not allow anyone to select them in the VAB anymore. It turns out it's possible, and I've tested that it works... so I think deprecated parts will work. The good news is the memory usage won't be bad since they can still share the textures.

[Tangle]

Apparently the flag is upside-down in the file. Any idea why?

[jbakes]

I can't get it to work. I placed it in my game data folder and nothing happened.

[NecroBones]

Apparently the flag is upside-down in the file. Any idea why?

I'm not sure what you mean. The flag looks OK in game. Which file are you looking at? (there are multiple flag images, due to the agency definitions, etc).

I can't get it to work. I placed it in my game data folder and nothing happened.

Are you in career mode? They may have to be unlocked in the tech tree first. Also, did you change the name of the mod's folder? Almost everything in the mod requires the path to be correct ("GameData/FuelTanksPlus"). If you have errors in your log, it might narrow it down.

[j-tk]

.../love

Thank you for these, especially the color details, it brings out the richness in game!

[NecroBones]

.../love

Thank you for these, especially the color details, it brings out the richness in game!

Glad you like it!

[NecroBones]

CKAN now has the new dependencies added. Between that, and being able to include the deprecated parts for backward compatibility, I'll be able to release the tweakables overhaul as soon as it's ready.

It's most of the way through now.

Category updates:

Non-cylindrical probe tanks: not addressed yet.

Radial canister tanks: Consolidated, and now the fuel-type is selected with the rim color via the tweakable.

Size 0: Consolidated the long tanks, and added a checkered color option. May add color choices to the other lengths too, but not sure yet.

Size 1: Consolidated the 5.625m and 0.3125m tanks. Added a black color option. Added color options to nose cones.

Size 2: Consolidated the 15m, 11.25m, 5.625, and 0.469m tanks, and bottom-domes and nose-cones.

Size 3: Consolidated the 15m, 11.25m, 6.625m, and 0.9375m tanks, and bottom-domes and nose-cones.

Notes:

* Tanks with color choices get the same color sets as other selectable parts in the same diameter. No longer will some have more choices than others at the same size-class.

* In all diameters, the "nuclear" tanks remain unchanged. They unlock in a different tech-tree node, and don't share sizes with any of the other FTP tanks. Rather, they share sizes with stock tanks.

Not sure yet, but considering adding some NASA-like black/white striped tanks for Size-2 and Size-3.

[NecroBones]

Revised category updates:

Non-cylindrical probe tanks: not addressed yet.

Radial canister tanks: Consolidated, and now the fuel-type is selected with the rim color via the tweakable.

Size 0: Consolidated the long tanks, and added a White/Black color option.

Size 1: Consolidated the 5.625m and 0.3125m tanks. Added a Black color option. Added color options to nose cones.

Size 2: Consolidated the 15m, 11.25m, 5.625, and 0.469m tanks, and bottom-domes and nose-cones. Added Black, and White/Black color options.

Size 3: Consolidated the 15m, 11.25m, 6.625m, and 0.9375m tanks, and bottom-domes and nose-cones. Added Black, and White/Black, and Orange color options.

[NecroBones]

My initial pass at consolidating parts basically meant taking all of the existing tank meshes of the same size, and merge them into single model files, just as separate mesh objects. Something that I realized is that there was still a lot of duplicate data in there, so I took another pass last night at removing all but one set of the internal end-caps from each file.

The de-duplication of the caps reduced the compressed download size of the pack by nearly a full megabyte. Technically I could de-deplicate them further by moving them out to separate model files, and have each part include them separately... but this starts adding unnecessary complexity (in the configuration) and draw-calls. I'm at a good equilibrium point between the two right now.

I'll never underestimate the usefulness of efficient modeling again.

Overall, I think we're getting a lot of "bang for the buck" here, since the pack still only has one main texture for each diameter group. All of the new color choices were squeezed into left-over space in the textures, or were rearrangements of existing texture sections.

[annallia]

Maybe I am just a little slow this morning but... I know you are letting us change the color, what about fuels? I mean are we just going to have one tank of each size and able to change the fuels in them? Or will it be one tank for each fuel config and then we change the color?

[NecroBones]

Maybe I am just a little slow this morning but... I know you are letting us change the color, what about fuels? I mean are we just going to have one tank of each size and able to change the fuels in them? Or will it be one tank for each fuel config and then we change the color?

EDIT: See my next post. I'm reworking this after all.

As it is right now, most of them are LF+O tanks only. When choosing a tank from the menu, it'll have a tweakable to choose the color, but will still be LFO by default.

There are some exceptions. The radial tanks will have selectable fuels corresponding to a color change (monoprop, LFO, LF, or O), and the small probe tanks are probably going to allow switching between LF and Xenon independently of choosing the color.

However, it has support for Interstellar Fuel Switch to allow changing the fuel types on the LFO tanks. And now that Firespitter is a dependency, I could probably add this as standard as well, but I haven't decided on that part. It's probably worth investigating, to make the pack as flexible as possible.

I'm thinking it makes the most sense to just allow switching between LFO, LF, and O on those tanks. Monopropellant has different mass ratios, and Xenon is significantly different. But if there's enough interest, I could probably think about those as well.

TL;DR: Right now it doesn't have fuel selections, except on a few tanks, unless you install Interstellar Fuel Switch. But I'm considering making fuel-switching a standard feature.

Edited July 16, 2015 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

TL;DR: Right now it doesn't have fuel selections, except on a few tanks, unless you install Interstellar Fuel Switch. But I'm considering making fuel-switching a standard feature.

OK, I've been doing a pass over the existing Fuel-Switch config, and here's what I think I'm going to go with:

(LFO = LiquidFuel+ Oxidizer, LF = LiquidFuel, O = Oxidizer)

* Fuel-switching turned ON by default. It'll use the FSfuelSwitch module by default, since Firespitter is now a dependency anyway. However, it'll use Interstellar Fuel Switch instead, if that's installed.

* Except where noted, the fuel types are selectable independently from the color/style variation.

* "Probe" tanks select between LFO, Xenon, or Monoprop.

* Radial canisters select between LFO, LF, O, or Monoprop, tied to the rim color selection.

* "Nuclear" tanks select between LF, O, Xenon, or Monoprop. Single-propellant only. (so if you want to use it for rockets, you need two tanks, one with LF and the other with Oxidizer).

* All other cylindrical tanks can select between LFO, LF, or O.

[NecroBones]

Alright, I pounded out a bunch of last-minute changes, and got the fuel switching working pretty well. I've spent more than a week overhauling the mod. I probably won't have much time over the weekend, or next week, to do much else, so I wanted to try to get it done before then.

I fully expect we'll find things that need fixing. But it's looking pretty good, overall.

Many new paint jobs were added, parts consolidated into tweakables, fuel-switching turned on by default, etc. Pretty much every single tank in the pack had to be modified. The ones that changed the least are the "nuclear" tanks, which just added fuel switching. Everything else had models overhauled, settings changed, fuel switching added, and so on.

NOTE: Be sure to DELETE the previous copy before installing. Do not overwrite!

Here's a video overview of how things look now:

1.0 (2015-07-17) - Major Overhaul.
 - Updated to version "1.0" to indicate large-scale voerhaul (major version revision).
 - Consolidated same-size tanks into single menu objects, with tweakables to choose appearance.
 - Now requires Module Manager and the Firespitter Core as dependencies to function.
 - Old single-color tanks are deprecated, but temporarily included for compatiblity. 
    - Will not be re-usable in VAB from menus, but saved vessels will still load with a warning. 
    - PLEASE DISCONTINUE USE ASAP, from both saved vessels and deployed vessels in the world.
    - Replace with new versions from the menus, to use the new features.
    - These will be removed in a subsequent update, eventually.
 - Added color options to tank sizes that were "missing", now that the options no longer spams the menus.
 - New additional color choices:
    - size 0: White/Black
    - Size 1: Black
    - Size 2: Black, White/Black
    - Size 3: Black, White/Black, Orange
 - Fuel switching turned on by default. 
    - Will still use Interstellar Fuel Switch if available, otherwise defaults to FSfuelSwitch.
    - Radial canister tanks switch fuels with color selection.
    - Small "probe" tanks now have choices between LFO, Xenon, or Monopropellant.
    - "Nuclear" tanks now have LF, Oxidizer, Monopropellant, and Xenon options, but remain single-propellant tanks.
 - Various minor mesh/texture fixes.
 - Restored flag and agency icons to PNG format instead of DDS.