General Question Developing a DLLed launch vehicle.

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Hello everyone,

So I'm working on a launcher for my Andromeda Space Program project. I decided that I wanted to do a DLLed launcher for my XR2 launches, as opposed to using velcro, multistage2, etc. The current launch configuration looks like this:

yJQK1Dl.jpg


The core stage runs 5 LOX/LH2 engines, with the whole stage coincidentally resembling a Saturn V SII (not intentional, but it ended up being remarkably similar anyways. Maybe these are just "good proportions" in rocketry). The stage will have a TWR less than one at launch, so 4 SRBs will be used to provide additional thrust, maybe more depending on how things go. The XR2 vehicle itself is slung on the rack seen at the top of the photo. If feasible, the launch abort system will work like a railgun, accelerating the vehicle off of the rack as quickly as possible.

One of the first tricky questions that I am struggling with is how to attach the payload. Of the possibilities, I can currently think of three, one of which wont work for this case:

-Direct payload creation: Ie directly create a new Orbiter vessel at staging & transfer user focus to it. Generally not good, because its somewhat hacky, requires the transfer of a lot of parameters, UMMU data, and the launcher is left with a lot of wasted memory space after it all gets cleared out & transferred to the new vessel. It also wont work in this case because the XR2s mesh is encrypted, and I dont plan on wrapping it in a full fairing to hide it before getting spawned.

-Attachment point: Pretty simple, just attach a payload child point to the parent launcher one with the right id. This would be fine for this case, but somewhat tricky because it would require getting the handle of the attached XR2 by attachment for the payload vessels mass, and it might be messy when working with the abort system (hard to do the rail movement when the attachment point is slaving the XR2 to the same position on the booster all of the time.

-Direct updating: Almost as tricky, but all it would involve would be asking the user for a string name of a vessel, getting the handle of that vessel by string name, then sending it direct position/state updates on the fly (ie telling the XR2 object to set its position to a point relative to the launcher every frame). Not sure whether any of this will work well

I was just hoping to get some feedback & ideas on how best to proceed with this project.

:hailprobe:
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire
Try looking at Kulchs Payload Manager SDK there, it is really helpful.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Try looking at Kulchs Payload Manager SDK there, it is really helpful.

Well, thats the thing...

I worked with Woo842 to try and get Payload Manager running in my copy of visual studio, but I never had any luck. Im somewhat ambivalent about Payload manager because its A-meant to work with VESSEL2, and I don't know if I might want to use a particular VESSEL3 feature at some point, and B-I may want to get really in depth with the mechanics of the launcher, more so than might be possible with PM.
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire
Well, thats the thing...

I worked with Woo842 to try and get Payload Manager running in my copy of visual studio, but I never had any luck. Im somewhat ambivalent about Payload manager because its A-meant to work with VESSEL2, and I don't know if I might want to use a particular VESSEL3 feature at some point, and B-I may want to get really in depth with the mechanics of the launcher, more so than might be possible with PM.

Thats wrong actually - you can specify the base class of your vessel, no problem to use VESSEL3 there. VESSEL2 is just the default.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36
Thats wrong actually - you can specify the base class of your vessel, no problem to use VESSEL3 there. VESSEL2 is just the default.

Erm...

my understanding of the problemn as a class inheritance diagram:

CNR79Ym.jpg


I only mention this because Jedidia had cited it as a reason why PM couldnt be integrated with IMS, among a few others. One of the issues was CG shifting, which would apply in this case, since I want to implement a properly changing center of gravity over the course of each burn.
 

Zatnikitelman

Addon Developer
Addon Developer
Joined
Jan 13, 2008
Messages
2,302
Reaction score
6
Points
38
Location
Atlanta, GA, USA, North America
There's also my OPH, it requires a version of VS2012 (or above presumably), but it doesn't need any class inheritance. No one's used it yet as far as I know, so I'm itching for some feedback. It's also got easy capability to do an escape system.
 

Urwumpe

Not funny anymore
Addon Developer
Donator
Joined
Feb 6, 2008
Messages
37,588
Reaction score
2,312
Points
203
Location
Wolfsburg
Preferred Pronouns
Sire
Erm...

my understanding of the problemn as a class inheritance diagram:

Did you read the manual? [ ]
Really? [ ]
Are you sure? [ ]

Sorry for being a bit evil today, but you are talking about a template class without a fixed inheritance.
 

BruceJohnJennerLawso

Dread Lord of the Idiots
Addon Developer
Joined
Apr 14, 2012
Messages
2,585
Reaction score
0
Points
36

But only TD points, right? Or does it affect everything but the mesh? I thought it did shift docks, thrusters, etc properly, but I might have been mistaken.

Did you read the manual? [ ]
Really? [ ]
Are you sure? [ ]

PM Manual? Read once, but Ill look again.

Yes, Jedidia was clear about PM not working with a few things.

Sorry for being a bit evil today, but you are talking about a template class without a fixed inheritance.

Okey doke, Ill look that up, but I don't recall Template classes very well. I know classes and I know templates, but my memory of templates is fuzzier than it probably should be.

And no worries by the way, if everyone in the world was like this when evil, it would be a much better place ;).
 
Top