New Release Interplanetary Modular Spacecraft RC9

[Dantassii]

Update on my Lunar Station Part 2

I just flew mission 47 and based on my planning sheets I will reach Initial Occupancy Capability with mission 50. That's with 1 hab ring complete and enough hydroponics and life support to support the 96 people who live in that hab ring. Yes, you heard that right. My ring has enough ring-hab-modules on it to support 96 people living on the station. And this station is going to have 2 of these rings when it's complete! There are 48 individual ring hab modules on each ring and each ring hab module has room for 2 people. Once I've completed mission 50, I'll post a picture of the station with all but the hab ring integrated and deployed (you can't see the ring rotate in a picture) and I'll post a copy of the end-of-mission 50 scenario file here on this thread so those of you who want to try and integrate it to see just what sort of FUN one can have integrating over 300 modules (that's a rough estimate) all in 1 integration session.

And the thing isn't even half done....

I love scaring people with technology. I also think BIG! and dream BIGGER!

 

[jedidia]

Can't wait to see it

 

[NukeET]

:lol: I haven't been addressed that way ever!

With all of the help you've given...don't you think you are entitled to the honorific?

 

[jedidia]

Oh, it wasn't the honoriffic, which is quite common in Germany and Switzerland (being used the same way as "mister" in english). It's the combination of the german honorific and the screen name got me...


Anyways, slow progress on the client front. The essential problem is solved and the solution working... in the basics. Now all that's left to do is converting animations on the fly! :facepalm:

 

[Dantassii]

Lunar Repair, Refueling, and Construction Station IOC

As promised here is the pre-integration scenario of the Lunar Repair, Refueling, and Construction Station at Initial Occupational Capability (IOC).

A few notes:
1) There is a URMS on the station. Be sure to delete it before you start integrating or the moment you integrate the station module closest to it, Orbiter will crash.

2) You'll need the following add-ons:
XR5 + the XR5 add-ons to allow it to transport IMS modules
URMS (until you delete it)
IMS R2 and the R2.3 patch
OrbiterSound 4.0

I tried to kept it simple. I use quite a few other add-ons to fly the XR5, but you don't need them to integrate this station.

3) Be sure to wait a 6 count between each integration button press. If you don't, eventually OrbiterSound will have too many threads running at the same time and will crash Orbiter (about 5 or 6 threads are the limit it seems).

I've been able to integrate all but the Habitation ring without any issues. It did take over 21 minutes to integrate waiting 6 seconds between each integration. According to the IMS folder, there are exactly 300 modules in this station. And it's not even half way done. I suspect it may be up around 1000 modules before I'm finished with the initial construction phase.

I posted pictures of the station with all it's arrays deployed, all its radiators deployed, and the station pointing at the sun in its proper orientation on the Orbiter Screen Capture thread. These pictures were taken in a scenario where I brought the XR5 up to the station empty just to give some perspective of the size of this thing compared to something that is common in Orbiter (the XR5 is a pretty common ship in my book).

The RCS system has enough power to yaw and roll the station quite well, the pitch isn't all that great but that's probably due to the off center center of mass. Quite a few more RCS thrusters are going to be put on it before it's done, and the 2nd Habitation Ring should balance it all out so this shouldn't be a problem in the final version.

The attached file is nearly 100k and this thing isn't even half done. I may not be able to upload the final version as there is a file size limit of under 200k for scenario files. Maybe if I zip it up...

 

[jedidia]

I suspect it may be up around 1000 modules before I'm finished with the initial construction phase.

Your GPU will SCREAM! :lol:

 

[Dantassii]

Actually, when I hit F9 while in external view, I can't change the view perspective all that fast.. but hey.. with 300 individual components (and an XR5) on the screen at the same time... of course it's going to have issues.

------ update ----------
If anyone tries to integrate this and discovers a faster way to integrate it (6 seconds per module adds up pretty quick) I'd appreciate hearing about it. If I disable OrbiterSound before I start integrating, I wonder if I could speed things up that way. Any ideas?

Oh, and as for the new version of IMS that's in work. I don't intend to 'rebuild' this thing mission by mission. I've gotten pretty good at 'getting things to where they were' and picking up where I left off. So long as all the modules that I'm using are still there, I should be good to go.

1 more question however. Will I need to figure out how to uninstall the existing IMS when the new one comes out? I mean there are files all over the place from R2+R2.3. Finding them all and deleting them manually would be a real pain. And as I have about 40 add-ons copied into my 'standard' Orbiter setup, starting with a fresh install will take a while to do.

 

[jedidia]

Turns out there is a bug with animations... Modules that are integrated at non-90-degree angles don't animate properly. I found it out when I took the most convoluted setting I could think up to test if my animation conversion, which is necessary for client compatibility, really works. It doesn't. So I reverted the code and look and behold, the old code doesn't work either under those circumstances.

Since noone so far has even noticed it, I'm probably not going to fix it for this version. Will have to see for a fix in the rewrite, I don't want to get quite so involved with the animation code currently. I'm pretty surprised that I succeeded in adapting the whole thing so quickly. Now for some hardcore tests, if they work out in D3D9 client, we have an RC3...

1 more question however. Will I need to figure out how to uninstall the existing IMS when the new one comes out? I mean there are files all over the place from R2+R2.3. Finding them all and deleting them manually would be a real pain.

You will have to uninstall it, but you won't have to figure it out. IMS has a very clean directory structure. There's config/vessels/IMS, modules/IMS and scenarios/IMS, that's all you have to delete. This, however, all only applies to IMS 2, which is not even started yet, and will take at least a year to get anywhere near the functionality of the current one. You won't have to uninstall anything to update to RC3. Corrected files will simply get overwritten.

Which reminds me: PeterRoss, do you have the corrected config files handy somewhere? I think we should definitely commit those in RC3.

If anyone tries to integrate this and discovers a faster way to integrate it

Just deactivating OrbiterSound for the session helps a lot

---------- Post added at 08:25 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:43 AM ----------

Damn it, hit a snag. Everything seems to work fine under D3D9 client, including the animations which were my greatest concern. Only one problem: Modules go invisible on integration. They show up again on reload, but for some reason they are invisible after integration...

 

[goaowonk]

Turns out there is a bug with animations... Modules that are integrated at non-90-degree angles don't animate properly. I found it out when I took the most convoluted setting I could think up to test if my animation conversion, which is necessary for client compatibility, really works. It doesn't. So I reverted the code and look and behold, the old code doesn't work either under those circumstances.

Which animations are affected? IIRC I've integrated some 7m circular solar panels at 60º (I love regular numbers) and they work well.

 

[PeterRoss]

Which reminds me: PeterRoss, do you have the corrected config files handy somewhere? I think we should definitely commit those in RC3.

I believe I do. I made a major config correction some time ago, not sure if it was completed though. I'll have a look at it and will upload all what I have. Expect corrected config files around the middle of the next week.

 

[jedidia]

Which animations are affected? IIRC I've integrated some 7m circular solar panels at 60º (I love regular numbers) and they work well.

Interesting. Rectangular solar panel at 45 degrees doesn't...

 

[goaowonk]

Ok, let me take a look and I'll say which ones fail for me.

---------- Post added at 10:21 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 AM ----------

3m solar panels do work at 0º, 15º, 30º, 45º and 60º for me although I couldn't make any RCS work this time (I think it's my fault, I didn't upgrade when PeterRoss posted the fix and now I cannot find it :facepalm: )

I'll try with a strange angle and go on with another one.

213.5981º deploys & suntracks well

 

[jedidia]

RCS are another matter entirely. They have to be smart to understand what function every thruster has to fulfil, but they're not smart enough to determine that if they don't point in a perpendicular direction. It might work, or it might screw up. The code simply isn't capable to handle the situation reliably.

Now, for those disapearing modules, I found the cause... D3D9 client doesn't destroy the visual of a spacecraft when the camera moves out of distance, which was the method how a destruction (and subsequent rebuilding with the new module) was forced up to this point. I'll have to see with Jarmonik about alternatives.

 

[goaowonk]

...D3D9 client...

Oh wait: I'm testing rotated animations with default client, IMS RC2.3.

 

[Dantassii]

Ok, for now I'll just keep building with IMS R2.3. BTW, the habitation ring on my station has a lot of non-90 degree modules in it. If you simple remove the rest of the station and tack a control module onto the hub you can use it as the ultimate rotation test.

Then again.. when I add the 2nd and 3rd rings to each of the 1st rings that will be an even bigger mess....

 

[jedidia]

Oh wait: I'm testing rotated animations with default client, IMS RC2.3.

As I said, it doesn't make a difference.

Ok, for now I'll just keep building with IMS R2.3.

For now there isn't anything else

If you simple remove the rest of the station and tack a control module onto the hub you can use it as the ultimate rotation test.

No, composite modules are a different kind of animal altogether.

 

[Dantassii]

BTW, last week and this week I'm taking my annual summer vacation. I spent most of last week recovering from a Vertigo inducing virus in my inner ear, but this week I plan on doing lots of missions to my space station. So I may have more pictures by the end of the week.

 

[jedidia]

this week I plan on doing lots of missions to my space station.

I seriously wonder how you can dock to this thing. I ran it today, and the framerate is awful. Even the moon starts to go by in jumps :lol:

 

[Dantassii]

I have a brand new computer (bought in Jan of this year) that has a top of the line video card and an Intel I3 quad core CPU onboard. I also have 8 Gb of RAM. The only time I have issues with it is when I press F9 with the whole station in the frame of view (external view only). Then it drags a bit when I try to change the viewing angle. But turn off the labels and I have no problem whipping around the view and looking at it from different angles.

Right now it doesn't have any permanent docking ports, but I have 2 of the construction ports with frequencies assigned, one at each end of the main spine. It's really dirt simple to dock with it using either of those ports. In the pictures I posted here (on another thread) my XR5 is located just off the aft of these 2 ports (although I deleted them before I started integrating since I had no idea what IMS would do when it found them).

Next question:

If I have a construction port (non-permanent docking port) with a frequency assigned to it, what does the IMS do when it integrates that module into the ship?

----------- update ----------------
Ok, that's what I kinda thought would happen, just wanted to get a second opinion.

BTW, this new computer I have is an emergency replacement. My old, 9 year old computer suddenly died 6 months before I was ready to replace it. So I pretty much had to take whatever the store had on the shelf and only apply upgrades that they parts for in the store at the time I purchased the computer. I got the video card upgrade I wanted, but had to settle for an I3 instead of an I7 CPU. I was able to get the 8GB of RAM that I wanted. I'm running Windows 7 only because that's what my office computer has in my cubical at work and I've gotten used to it there.

Oh, and it's a full tower computer. No laptop stuff for my home computer.

With the F9 labels turned off, I'm getting 60 FPS according to Orbiter. With the F9 labels turned on, I'm getting 60 FPS also.. until I try to rotate the point of view.. then it goes down into the single digits.

 

[jedidia]

If I have a construction port (non-permanent docking port) with a frequency assigned to it, what does the IMS do when it integrates that module into the ship?

The port gets deleted and recreated in the IMS vessel, as every unocupied port. I don't know what Orbiter will do, probably it will delete the assigned frequency along with the port. If not, weirdness may abound.
The frequency will not get reassigned to the new port, i.e. it won't be carried over in integration.

---------- Post added 07-15-13 at 12:13 PM ---------- Previous post was 07-14-13 at 02:12 PM ----------

ou-kay. Looks like I have D3D9 compatibility for this beasty. No definitive confirmation before some more extreme tests, but so far it seems to work.

vchamp used the trick of zooming out the camera and zooming it back in to destroy the visual and force its recreation with the new mesh. I assume this was because AddMesh back in Orbiter 2006 did add a new mesh only when the whole visual was recreated. Or vchamp just never figured out that this workaround wasn't necessary at all, but I highly doubt that. Might also have been coupled to some VC issues, since IMS back in the days had virtual cockpit, something I am very glad I abandoned first thing.

Anyways, that little hack didn't work in D3D9 client. The solution was not to use it at all... Just add the new mesh, don't wait for the destruction of the visual, which never came. So far, everything seems fine...

EDIT:

*sigh* more bugs... now that the graphic side works as intended (well, I seem to have an inverted angle somewhere, but that's easy prey), other bugs rear their head. I start to wonder if it was a good Idea to even touch this code another time. I hope I see the end of this snake soon, or I might just go crazy...