Now that the Windmill has her custom autopilot (ala Imagineer), five fusion reactors and code to tie the thrusters in with the reactors, I think its about time to start seriously thinking about getting a few folks to help shake her down.
The latest snapshot of the engineering panel...
A few notes...
* I've put the rear reactors (and their thrusters) on the primary fuel system. The auxilliary tanks act mainly as a buffer reserve for the front thrusters (maybe I ought to decrease their size a bit), though they can be isolated from the main fuel system or even feed fuel back into main tanks. I really don't like the idea of running the high-pressure lines along the length of the ship that would be necessary to provide thrust on demand.
* The tankage/depletion isn't quite exactly zero in ram mode, but rather hovers at points infinitesimally higher and lower than zero (though usually just during time compression). I'll have to straighten that out, too. I think I had it pretty steady at one time. (Maybe not. As I edit the Testing Notes document, I see a note about it in there.)
* I've reversed the order of the reactor indicators and selector buttons (left side of orange-ish section), so that AUX4 is at the top and MAIN is at the bottom. The way was, it was too easy to get confused about whether one is dealing the the front or rear reactors. (AUX1 and AUX2 are abaft, while AUX3 and AUX4 are abow.) Hopefully rearranging the indicators will help with that.
* I've masked out the scoop strength selector for now. We might consider totally abandon the idea if we don't find much demand for it by version 2.0. I don't even remember what the presets were going to be. (Oh... there they are... Max Ram and Tank-purge-then-ram... yeah... that'll probably get scrapped; those don't make sense unless the scoop can collect more fuel than the engine uses at full power, and probably wouldn't make much of a difference even then).
* I keep fluctuating on whether I should remove the acceleration value (the hypothetical acceleration if drag were the only force acting on the vessel) from the bottom of the scoop section, or add one to the bottom of the main thrust section.
I think I'll put together a distribution package for the test team before I make any changes noted above. Once those issues and any issues that come up during limited (can't really call it closed, since the package will be hosted on the SourceForge repository) testing are addressed, we can figure out how to use the SourceForge release system for some more widespread testing...
Hmmm... I don't feel like tracking down our volunteers... If you've volunteered to beta test, go to the following link...
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/icovd/ICOVD_Windmill_0.2beta090120.zip?use_mirror=
The latest snapshot of the engineering panel...
A few notes...
* I've put the rear reactors (and their thrusters) on the primary fuel system. The auxilliary tanks act mainly as a buffer reserve for the front thrusters (maybe I ought to decrease their size a bit), though they can be isolated from the main fuel system or even feed fuel back into main tanks. I really don't like the idea of running the high-pressure lines along the length of the ship that would be necessary to provide thrust on demand.
* The tankage/depletion isn't quite exactly zero in ram mode, but rather hovers at points infinitesimally higher and lower than zero (though usually just during time compression). I'll have to straighten that out, too. I think I had it pretty steady at one time. (Maybe not. As I edit the Testing Notes document, I see a note about it in there.)
* I've reversed the order of the reactor indicators and selector buttons (left side of orange-ish section), so that AUX4 is at the top and MAIN is at the bottom. The way was, it was too easy to get confused about whether one is dealing the the front or rear reactors. (AUX1 and AUX2 are abaft, while AUX3 and AUX4 are abow.) Hopefully rearranging the indicators will help with that.
* I've masked out the scoop strength selector for now. We might consider totally abandon the idea if we don't find much demand for it by version 2.0. I don't even remember what the presets were going to be. (Oh... there they are... Max Ram and Tank-purge-then-ram... yeah... that'll probably get scrapped; those don't make sense unless the scoop can collect more fuel than the engine uses at full power, and probably wouldn't make much of a difference even then).
* I keep fluctuating on whether I should remove the acceleration value (the hypothetical acceleration if drag were the only force acting on the vessel) from the bottom of the scoop section, or add one to the bottom of the main thrust section.
I think I'll put together a distribution package for the test team before I make any changes noted above. Once those issues and any issues that come up during limited (can't really call it closed, since the package will be hosted on the SourceForge repository) testing are addressed, we can figure out how to use the SourceForge release system for some more widespread testing...
Hmmm... I don't feel like tracking down our volunteers... If you've volunteered to beta test, go to the following link...
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/icovd/ICOVD_Windmill_0.2beta090120.zip?use_mirror=
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