New Release Crew Dragon 2022

thermocalc

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Hi BrianJ,

I installed your latest version of the “crewdragon2022_230210”, and I was doing the “inspiration4” mission…but I am experiencing “weird” effects, which I don’t know if they are due to some lack of knowledge to operate the crafts, or some files are missing/corrupted…here are my issues.

  • During lunch, either pressing V or setting the lift-off time the crew arm access doesn’t swing back to parking position, the clamps holding the rocket doesn’t open and the gantry structure doesn’t move back (see the 2 screenshots); however, if before launch, I switch focus on the launch pad I can get all animations working by manual pressing the bottoms as described in the Falcon9 pdf manual (G, M, K, V, B, N) ; I also tried to “attach the falcon” using P and entering “Falcon9” when asked in the window, and in this manner, once focus back to the falcon9 vessel, opening the launch control window by K, I saw that I was able to open the clamps and move back the tower using the push button under “hardback gantry” label (I installed the spaceX launch pad LC39C add-on). Is it normal like this (even during an automatic launch)? Has the crew access arm to be removed manually? as well as the lowering of the hardback gantry?
  • Strange things happens also while I am on orbit: the PeA keep slowly decreasing even if I don’t have enabled the non-spherical gravity sources, I manually adjusted the orbit to 584.4 x 584.3 for example, but after two full orbits the PeA drop to approx. 580 with minor changes in the ApA as well … is this normal? atmospheric drag?
  • More annoying is the fact that every time I save a scenario (to save, normally I open the scenario editor, click save, entering the name, and click ok), upon reloading it I always get a CTD (see scenario attached and orbiter log file when this happened); I “can open” your default scenarios from the inspiration4 folder instead!
  • I re-started the mission 3 times now with always the same results, cannot save without causing a CTD upon reloading, but in my last try of today, upon separating the crew dragon I got another weird effect, cannot open the nose cone, either by using the crewdragonMFD left selection keys or using the B key (however, if I use the B key I saw the text in the HUD change from close to open, but the status was not updated in the MFD), and no animation outside (the scenario attached is the one where I faced these issues)
(I didn’t get such things using the previous version, where I did all the missions and I saved a lot of time; and what I did was to “unzip” your new version, as well as the “deepspacedragon” new version from Max-Q following the link he gave in your post, on top of my old ones, just saying “yes” anytime I was prompted…)

Thank you for any help/suggestion.

In the meanwhile, I will try the DM2 mission and see if I get also there these weird effects...
 

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BrianJ

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Hello :)
  • During lunch, either pressing V or setting the lift-off time the crew arm access doesn’t swing back to parking position, the clamps holding the rocket doesn’t open and the gantry structure doesn’t move back (see the 2 screenshots); however, if before launch, I switch focus on the launch pad I can get all animations working by manual pressing the bottoms as described in the Falcon9 pdf manual (G, M, K, V, B, N) ; I also tried to “attach the falcon” using P and entering “Falcon9” when asked in the window, and in this manner, once focus back to the falcon9 vessel, opening the launch control window by K, I saw that I was able to open the clamps and move back the tower using the push button under “hardback gantry” label (I installed the spaceX launch pad LC39C add-on). Is it normal like this (even during an automatic launch)? Has the crew access arm to be removed manually? as well as the lowering of the hardback gantry?
The "strongback" must be moved to launch position manually using the Falcon9 Control Panel or by focusing on the strongback and using the key-press G.
The "crew access arm" can only be moved by focusing on the strongback and using the key-press B.

  • Strange things happens also while I am on orbit: the PeA keep slowly decreasing even if I don’t have enabled the non-spherical gravity sources, I manually adjusted the orbit to 584.4 x 584.3 for example, but after two full orbits the PeA drop to approx. 580 with minor changes in the ApA as well … is this normal? atmospheric drag?
I just tried 5 orbits in Inspiration4 at ~540km (non-spherical gravity disabled), and I don't see any change in Sma.
I'll try on a different scenario, but at the moment I'm not seeing this behaviour.

  • More annoying is the fact that every time I save a scenario (to save, normally I open the scenario editor, click save, entering the name, and click ok), upon reloading it I always get a CTD (see scenario attached and orbiter log file when this happened); I “can open” your default scenarios from the inspiration4 folder instead!
I can open your "Dragon in orbit 585km" scenario, no problem. Using scenario editor to save scenario works OK for me.
I notice in your orbiter.log that you have quite a lot of MFDs enabled - possible conflict with an MFD?
Try disabling all unused MFDs.

  • I re-started the mission 3 times now with always the same results, cannot save without causing a CTD upon reloading, but in my last try of today, upon separating the crew dragon I got another weird effect, cannot open the nose cone, either by using the crewdragonMFD left selection keys or using the B key (however, if I use the B key I saw the text in the HUD change from close to open, but the status was not updated in the MFD), and no animation outside (the scenario attached is the one where I faced these issues)
Using your scenario, I am not having any problems with the Nose-cone via direct key-press or CrewDragonMFD.

Hmmmm. You can try disabling unused MFDs or try re-installing the add-on.
I don't know why you're having these issues. I will investigate a little more.

EDIT: Also, try using the Orbiter default graphics (not D3D9 client) - any change?

Cheers,
Brian
 
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thermocalc

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Hi Brian,
thank you very much for your superfast response ... happy to see "my scenario" works fine for you, so maybe as you said I just have a lot of unused staff ...
i will disable the unused mfd as you suggest and try again-, if not working i will re-do a fresh installation of orbiter with SpaceX hardware alone; and let you know.
So please don't waste your time to try again, as said if it works fine for you the problem should now be on my pc....thanks! :hailprobe:
cheers,
Paolo
 

BrianJ

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OK. Let me know if you find the problem.
I was going to try it using the same version of D3D9 GC that you are using - but I'm not sure if I can find that version now, since Jarmonik's site is down.
Good luck!
BrianJ
 

ZacharyS41

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I have a suggestion to make:

Can you make a Cargo Dragon variant of the spacecraft? It only has two fins and no SuperDraco engines.

Also, is the Cargo Dragon mass (capsule, trunk, & propellant) the same as Crew Dragon?
 

BrianJ

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I have a suggestion to make:

Can you make a Cargo Dragon variant of the spacecraft? It only has two fins and no SuperDraco engines.

Also, is the Cargo Dragon mass (capsule, trunk, & propellant) the same as Crew Dragon?
Hi,
I could not make anything of the same quality as Donamy & Felix24 's work on this capsule!
It might be possible to adapt the current Crew Dragon - but even that is a lot of work (not just removing parts of meshes etc).
I'll certainly put it on my list of possible projects, but there is some other stuff I want to make first, so might be a while....

No hard figures from SpaceX about Crew/Cargo capsule mass, but I would imagine the Cargo Dragon has maybe a little less mass than the crew version (No SuperDracos, seats, etc).

Cheers,
BrianJ
 

Nikogori

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"Jettison Trunk" (Ctrl + U and TNK button) doesn't work well for me. Sometimes it works... after clicking it a few dozen times.
All other buttons and commands have no problem like this.

Is there any "safety measures" that prevents it from accidentally separating it?
 

BrianJ

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"Jettison Trunk" (Ctrl + U and TNK button) doesn't work well for me. Sometimes it works... after clicking it a few dozen times.
All other buttons and commands have no problem like this.

Is there any "safety measures" that prevents it from accidentally separating it?
Hi,
I have also had this bug happen once - then it never repeated. I think it relates to the use of the "Ctrl" key, though I can't see why that would cause intermittent problems. I will investigate.
There are no "Safety measures" to prevent separation (that was why the use of "Ctrl" was introduced, to prevent accidental jettison). Really there should be an "Arm Trunk Jettison" function, but I ran out of space on the MFD - so it will need some re-working to accomodate that.

EDIT: Actually there is one safety measure - you can't jettison Trunk while attached or docked to anything.

Q: Does the problem happen using both the vessel keypress "Ctrl+U" or clicking on the CrewDragonMFD "TNK" button?

Thanks for the bug report.
Cheers,
Brian

EDIT: See my posts below for a patch .zip with new modules.
 
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francisdrake

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Interesting topic! I tried it with the DM-1 and DM2 missions.
  • Keyboard Ctrl-U always works.
  • MFD 'Jettison trunk' did not always work, when I clicked the MFD shortly,
but mostly worked when I clicked and hold the mouse-buitton down for about 1 sec.

Might have to do with
  • the polling of the mouse event, or if
  • the simulated keystrokes [Ctrl] and [J] happen in the same frame of the Orbiter-simulation.
 

BrianJ

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Interesting topic! I tried it with the DM-1 and DM2 missions.
  • Keyboard Ctrl-U always works.
  • MFD 'Jettison trunk' did not always work, when I clicked the MFD shortly,
but mostly worked when I clicked and hold the mouse-buitton down for about 1 sec.

Might have to do with
  • the polling of the mouse event, or if
  • the simulated keystrokes [Ctrl] and [J] happen in the same frame of the Orbiter-simulation.
Hi,
you may well be right. I have had it happen to me before with DM2.
On testing using an ExternalMFD, the TNK button didn't work at all! So there's something amiss.
Eliminating the "Ctrl" has fixed that for me anyway.
Cheers,
Brian
 

francisdrake

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Looking into OrbiterAPI.h, the KEYMOD_CONTROL kstate is a macro, checking the right and left CTRL keystate. Maybe this gives problems at runtime.
You could try to send either the left or right CTRL key to the vessel. So instead of

Code:
        strcpy(kstate, "KEYMOD_CONTROL");
        vme->SendBufferedKey(OAPI_KEY_U, true, kstate);

it would be for the left control key [LCONTROL]:

Code:
        strcpy(kstate, "KEYMOD_LCONTROL");
        vme->SendBufferedKey(OAPI_KEY_U, true, kstate);
 

BrianJ

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Hi,
thanks for the suggestion! (y)
As it is, I've already implemented an alternative solution - make another "user defined key" for the MFD to communicate to the vessel. No need to use "Ctrl+".
I've done this for the two functions (Trunk Jettison and Cabin Lighting) that required a Ctrl+ keypress to be sent from the MFD.
The Cabin Lighting (Ctrl+8) was also being intermitently faulty. Now fixed :)

I've left the vessel key presses as before (Ctrl+U = Trunk Jettison, Ctrl+8 = Cabin Lighting) since the use of Ctrl+ from within a vessel has never presented problems before, I'd be surprised if it does now. But we'll see.

Attached "crewdragon2022_patch_220305_b.zip" has new capsule and MFD modules.
If anyone cares to try 'em, do let me know if it works OK.

Cheers,
BrianJ
 

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francisdrake

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Thanks for the patch!
I tried separating the trunk via the MFD with DM-1, DM-2 and Inspiration. It worked fine every time.
Ctrl+U is also still working.
 

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Hello Brianj,
I just installed the previous patch and it seems that the remaining fuel figure is not the same.
I know because since I had already rewritten the scn remembering the previous number of remaining fuel that was 773.6 kg and now 1520kg with 432.79m/s dV.
 
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BrianJ

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Thank you! :hailprobe: After installing the patch, both TNK and Ctrl + U worked without any problem.
Great!
Hello Brianj,
I just installed the previous patch and it seems that the remaining fuel figure is not the same.
I know because since I had already rewritten the scn remembering the previous number of remaining fuel that was 773.6 kg and now 1520kg with 432.79m/s dV.
I increased the fuel capacity in the last version v.230210 - so if you were using an earlier version, then you will see an increased fuel mass in saved scenarios.

Cheers,
BrianJ
 
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