Attachment MFD
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Bullethead
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AS I UNDERSTAND THINGS, you shouldn't see anything directly when you use AttachmentMFD. IOW, it's not an MFD per se. I think it's just a program that runs in the background, invisibly and without your input, to fix a problem known to affect ships that rely on spacecraft3.dll.
Suppose you have a ship carrying various cargo modules arranged as follows:
Ship - Cargo A - Cargo B
It's my understanding that if all you have is spacecraft3.dll, then Orbiter only counts the mass of the ship and whatever is attached directly to it. Thus, it would ignore the mass of Cargo B, which is attached to Cargo A instead of the ship. This would mean the ship would accelerate more on less fuel, the RCS would work quicker, etc., than it really should. Thus, what AttachmentMFD does is make sure Orbiter takes the mass of Cargo B into account.
If all of the above is true, then there's a caveat you need to consider......
Add-on ships created prior to the creation of AttachmentMFD were all designed with the limitations of spacecraft3.dll as underlying assumptions. Thus, their main engine and RCS thrusts are probably weaker than they really should be, to make the ships move realistically slowly despite Orbiter thinking they have less mass than they really do. If you use AttachmentMFD with these ships, so that all the mass is taken into account, then you'll take a big chunk out of their potential dV for a given amount of fuel, and you'll drastically increase the amount of time needed for an attitude change prior to a burn.
Note, however, this would only be the case where the ship's design has cargo units attached to each other instead of the ship itself. If all cargo attaches directly to the ship, then AttachmentMFD should make no difference at all. All the mass was already taken into account, so AttachmentMFD would do nothing.
Thus, at present, AttachmentMFD seems of rather limited utility. I'd think an add-on ship would have to be designed to require its use for AttachmentMFD to do you any good. Pre-AttachmentMFD ships would become total pigs when using it, and ships designed for it would have way too much effective power if you didn't use it. From what I can tell from Orbit Hangar upload dates, there aren't many, if any, ships that would require AttachmentMFD. Most of those that would use it are older than AttachmentMFD, and hardly move when using it. At least in my experience.
Suppose you have a ship carrying various cargo modules arranged as follows:
Ship - Cargo A - Cargo B
It's my understanding that if all you have is spacecraft3.dll, then Orbiter only counts the mass of the ship and whatever is attached directly to it. Thus, it would ignore the mass of Cargo B, which is attached to Cargo A instead of the ship. This would mean the ship would accelerate more on less fuel, the RCS would work quicker, etc., than it really should. Thus, what AttachmentMFD does is make sure Orbiter takes the mass of Cargo B into account.
If all of the above is true, then there's a caveat you need to consider......
Add-on ships created prior to the creation of AttachmentMFD were all designed with the limitations of spacecraft3.dll as underlying assumptions. Thus, their main engine and RCS thrusts are probably weaker than they really should be, to make the ships move realistically slowly despite Orbiter thinking they have less mass than they really do. If you use AttachmentMFD with these ships, so that all the mass is taken into account, then you'll take a big chunk out of their potential dV for a given amount of fuel, and you'll drastically increase the amount of time needed for an attitude change prior to a burn.
Note, however, this would only be the case where the ship's design has cargo units attached to each other instead of the ship itself. If all cargo attaches directly to the ship, then AttachmentMFD should make no difference at all. All the mass was already taken into account, so AttachmentMFD would do nothing.
Thus, at present, AttachmentMFD seems of rather limited utility. I'd think an add-on ship would have to be designed to require its use for AttachmentMFD to do you any good. Pre-AttachmentMFD ships would become total pigs when using it, and ships designed for it would have way too much effective power if you didn't use it. From what I can tell from Orbit Hangar upload dates, there aren't many, if any, ships that would require AttachmentMFD. Most of those that would use it are older than AttachmentMFD, and hardly move when using it. At least in my experience.
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