New Release Interplanetary Modular Spacecraft RC9

[jedidia]

Possible bug report with the latest Beta version of Orbiter...

IMS was not designed to work with orbiter Beta, and never will be... we're working on a follow-up for that. Currently it is not known whether the thing will work with any kind of stability in the Beta. I'm still glad for any Beta-specific bug reports though, since they might be early warning signs of trouble we will run into with the new version.

I have four dark boxes in my view

Those would be the MFDs, which should be transparent, but aren't, because the Beta renders switched off MFDs. The problem was known for quite a while.

I can't seem to get the cockpit to do anything.

This, however, is most probably because either the vessel still has its transport seal, or the command module is unpowered. In both cases, the flight panel is not available. press ctrl-down to get to the engineering panel.

 

[boogabooga]

I would like to see IMS with a more "near-tech" ISS-style look and feel. So, I have undertaken conversion of Piper's add on here:
[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2857"]Various Space Station Modules[/ame]
for IMS compatibility.

So far I have cloned the static habitat and laboratory modules, basing IMS data on nearest Greg Burch equivalents. Here are the config files:

;  Configuration file for SpaceStationModules HabitatModule 

Meshname = HabitatModule
ImageBmp=Images\Vessels\IMS\Piper\Habitat.bmp
Mass = 14300
Size = 12.0
Inertia = 6.94 2.25 6.94

; === Docking ports ===
BEGIN_DOCKLIST
 0    0     5.253     0  0  1    0  -1  0
0      0    -5.253     0  0 -1    0  1  0
END_DOCKLIST

; === Attachment specs ===
BEGIN_ATTACHMENT
P 0    0     5.253     0  0  1    0  -1  0   IM
P 0    0    -5.253     0  0 -1   0  1  0   IM
C -0.05 -0.6 0    0  -1 0    0 0 1   XS 
C 0 2.104 3.191   0 1 0   1 0 0   GS 
END_ATTACHMENT

; ======================================
; IMS specific parameters
; ======================================
Name = Habitation
ModuleType = Habitation
Capacity = 3
Absorptance = 0.8
Conductivity = 42
BatteryCapacity = 55

;  Configuration file for SpaceStationModules HabitatModuleCore

Meshname = HabitatModuleCore
ImageBmp=Images\Vessels\IMS\Piper\Habitat.bmp
Mass = 13900
Size = 11.0
Inertia = 6.94 2.25 6.94

; === Docking ports ===
BEGIN_DOCKLIST
0    0     4.795     0  0  1     0  1  0
0      0    -4.795     0  0 -1   0  -1  0
2.190  0    -1.715     1  0 0    0  0  -1
-2.190 0    -1.715     -1  0 0   0  0  -1
END_DOCKLIST

; === Attachment specs ===
BEGIN_ATTACHMENT
P 0    0     4.795     0  0  1     0  1  0   IM
P 0      0    -4.795     0  0 -1   0  -1  0  IM
P 2.190  0    -1.715     1  0 0    0  0  -1  IM
P -2.190 0    -1.715     -1  0 0   0  0  -1  IM
C -0.05 -0.6 0    0  -1 0    0 0 1   XS 
C 0 2.104 2.752   0 1 0   1 0 0   GS 
END_ATTACHMENT

; ======================================
; IMS specific parameters
; ======================================
Name = HabitationCore
ModuleType = Habitation
Capacity = 3
Absorptance = 0.8
Conductivity = 42
BatteryCapacity = 55

;  Configuration file for SpaceStationModules SensitiveMaterialsLaboratoryCleanRoom
Meshname = SensitiveMaterialsLaboratoryCleanRoom
ImageBmp=Images\Vessels\IMS\SBB41B\BM213.bmp
Mass = 13000
Size = 6.0
Inertia = 2.25 2.25 2.25

; === Docking ports ===
BEGIN_DOCKLIST
 0    0     2.127     0  0  1    -1  0  0
0      0    -2.127     0  0 -1    0  -1  0
END_DOCKLIST

; === Attachment specs ===
BEGIN_ATTACHMENT
P 0    0     2.127     0  0  1    -1  0  0   IM
P 0    0    -2.127     0  0 -1   0  -1  0   IM
C 0.05 -0.6 0    0  -1 0    0 0 -1   XS 
C 0 2.104 0   0 1 0   1 0 0   GS 
END_ATTACHMENT

; ======================================
; IMS specific parameters
; ======================================
Name = SensitiveMaterialsLaboratoryCleanRoom
ModuleType = Habitation
Capacity = 0
PowerInput = 15000
Absorptance = 0.8
Conductivity = 42

;  Configuration file for SpaceStationModules CentrifugeAccommodationsModule

Meshname = CentrifugeAccommodationsModule
ImageBmp=Images\Vessels\IMS\SBB41B\BM213.bmp
Mass = 14000
Size = 13.0
Inertia = 6.94 6.97 2.25

; === Docking ports ===
BEGIN_DOCKLIST
 0    0     4.628     0  0  1    -1  0  0
END_DOCKLIST

; === Attachment specs ===
BEGIN_ATTACHMENT
P 0    0     4.628     0  0  1    -1  0  0   IM
C -0.05 -0.6 0    0  -1 0    0 0 1   XS 
C 0 2.104 1.669   0 1 0   1 0 0   GS 
END_ATTACHMENT

; ======================================
; IMS specific parameters
; ======================================
Name = CentrifugeAccommodationsModule
ModuleType = Habitation
Capacity = 0
PowerInput = 15000
Absorptance = 0.8
Conductivity = 42

;  Configuration file for SpaceStationModules SensitiveMaterialsLaboratory

Meshname = SensitiveMaterialsLaboratory
ImageBmp=Images\Vessels\IMS\SBB41B\BM213.bmp
Mass = 13000
Size = 12.0
Inertia = 6.97 2.25 6.97

; === Docking ports ===
BEGIN_DOCKLIST
 0    0     4.519     0  0  1    0  -1  0
END_DOCKLIST

; === Attachment specs ===
BEGIN_ATTACHMENT
P 0    0     4.519     0  0  1    0  -1  0   IM
C 0.05 -0.6 0    0  -1 0    0 0 -1   XS 
C 0 2.104 2.034   0 1 0   1 0 0   GS
C 0 2.104 -2.442 0 1 0   1 0 0   GS 
END_ATTACHMENT

; ======================================
; IMS specific parameters
; ======================================
Name = SensitiveMaterialsLaboratory
ModuleType = Habitation
Capacity = 0
PowerInput = 15000
Absorptance = 0.8
Conductivity = 42

I've removed XR compatibility, since these are supposed to be near tech, and also I am not sure where to put the XR attachment points. They retain Piper's "XS" and "GS" attachment points for compatibility with an old version of shuttle fleet. I am not sure if these points are still valid.

Also, I have not changed the scenario editor thumbnail image yet, because I use stack editor and don't load directly from the scenario editor anyway.

Some things that I would like to know:
1) How do I convert spacecraft3 animations to IMS animations?
2)Are there better IMS values to use in terms of power consumption, heat transfer, etc.
3) Are the attachment points suitable?
4) Is stack editor susceptible to parsing problems? Or, is there any reason why the config files that I have posted would cause problems for Stack Editor?

I'm trying to add these new modules within new tool boxes, and when I restart Stack Editor, I frequently (but not every time) get a crash to desktop, without any useful explanation in the log. This does not happen when stack editor does not try to load my new config file.

 

[jedidia]

Hey, that's cool. I started to convert pipers modules back when I was developing IMS, but I never got finished...

1) How do I convert spacecraft3 animations to IMS animations?

There exists a write-up for this, look here, second half of second post (red heading line). Take note however that tracking animations are a lot more constrained in IMS than they are in spacecraft3 and might not be completely translatable.

2)Are there better IMS values to use in terms of power consumption, heat transfer, etc.

The heat transfer should be somewhere near plausible, but the power requirements pretty much come out of my butt. I'm pretty sure you can find better values for those.

3) Are the attachment points suitable?

Not sure what you mean by that.

Is stack editor susceptible to parsing problems? Or, is there any reason why the config files that I have posted would cause problems for Stack Editor?

None that I can see, but I'll have to try it. Could you tell me in more detail what to look for?

 

[boogabooga]

Regarding Stack Editor, please install the attachment and tell me if Stack Editor gives a CTD on startup.

 

[jedidia]

Will do this evening, thanks.

---------- Post added at 08:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:14 AM ----------

Uh oh... the crash happens when loading the textures. I had to bang the texture library over the head with a hammer a few times to get it to load Gregs uncompressed DDSes, and it would seem that that code gets into trouble with pipers textures.
This might take a little bit...

 

[Dantassii]

Lunar Station update

As my rebuilt computer can't handle the new video card with the old power supply when I run Space Engineers (will be fixed Tuesday evening), I've spent most of the past weekend (including the Monday holiday) running Lunar Station construction missions with Orbiter 2010 P1 and IMS.

I started the weekend on mission 246 and I just completed mission 269. Looks like around Mission 282 I'll be reaching a 'reflection' point where I will have finished all the currently mapped construction and I'll need to reflect on the design and figure out what part I'm going to build next.

I will definitely be posting pictures in the appropriate thread in the forum at that point, and I might even post a mission scenario file so folks who want to fly around the station and see it first hand can do so.

All I can say is, I'm going to have enough propellant tanks on this thing to refuel 5 SSTVs before I have to restock... and it will have enough LOX-CH4 to refuel... well... I don't know.. anyone out there have a ship that uses lots of LOX-CH4 for propellant?

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[Lmoy]

I will definitely be posting pictures in the appropriate thread in the forum at that point, and I might even post a mission scenario file so folks who want to fly around the station and see it first hand can do so.

I definitely want to try it out! Partly because I want to see it "in person" so to say, and partly because I want to see what kind of framerates I can manage with it on-screen, haha.

 

[Dantassii]

I definitely want to try it out! Partly because I want to see it "in person" so to say, and partly because I want to see what kind of framerates I can manage with it on-screen, haha.

My current rig seems to prove that Orbiter 2010 P1 is CPU core limited. I upgraded from an I3 to an I7 CPU and to a video card with 600% the capacity of my old rig and I'm still getting 15-18 FPS on approach (up from 12-15 FPS). Since the raw horsepower of the I7 core isn't that much more than the I3 core, this would explain why I'm only getting a slightly better FPS on the new rig than I did on the old one.

I am getting 60 FPS though when I'm viewing the station up close, so I suspect the FPS you get with Orbiter is entirely dependent on how many 'ships' you have in your field of view at any given time. More than about 25 modules in your FOV and you start taking a FPS hit. As Orbiter is designed as a single-person simulation, I guess they didn't think anyone would be 'flying' a scenario where there are over 1,500 'ships' in a single FOV...

Then again... I don't have a by-line of "HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder" for nothing. :lol:

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Hmmm.... perhaps we should suggest that multi-core support be part of the new Orbiter Beta?

 

[Dantassii]

Hmmm.... perhaps we should suggest that multi-core support be part of the new Orbiter Beta?

I think they are already considering that. Don't know if they've added it yet to the Beta version. It would be nice for them to do that, or at least let add-ons use separate cores from the main thread.

I haven't built any HUMONGOUS IMS 2.0 ships because there are only 2 (now 3?) different modules to choose from... and ships get REALLY boring when you only have a few things to choose from.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[jedidia]

The bad news, Pipers textures are DXT5 compressed, which our texture library can't handle.

The good news, as long as you don't have advanced mip-mapping options or maps baked into the texture, DXT3 does a flawless job unpacking them into memory.

So, just a matter of accounting for the DXT5 fileheader and feeding it into the DXT3 parser. Shouldn't take too long.

---------- Post added at 09:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:59 PM ----------

1) How do I convert spacecraft3 animations to IMS animations?

There exists a write-up for this, look here, second half of second post (red heading line). Take note however that tracking animations are a lot more constrained in IMS than they are in spacecraft3 and might not be completely translatable.

You know, I noticed just now that I completely forgott to actually put the link to the write-up in there. Why don't people tell me when I forgett stuff like that? Next I'll be going to work without trousers and nobody will tell me until I get home in the evening :facepalm:

Anyway, link is here.

 

[boogabooga]

Because I already found that link the O-P.

Anyway, I use IMS exclusively in conjunction with Stack Editor so I am kind of stuck until the texture issue is fixed. No pressure.

 

[jedidia]

The fix is done, but meson800 is the publisher, so he's got to throw it on the hangar. If you're able to build a visual studio project from source, there's a faster way of course...

 

[Dantassii]

Dantassii's Lunar Station Mission 282 Scenario file

This scenario file requires the following Addons:
XR5 + all its dependencies
URMS
SSBB 4.1 + SSBB4.1B (installed in that order)
IMS RC 9 + the R2.0 of the IMS modules
DirectX9 for Orbiter 2010 P1 + DirectX9 IMS patch

This will ONLY run on Orbiter 2010 P1. I doubt IMS RC9 will run on Orbiter 2015 Beta.

I saved the scenario just before I undocked for the return back to Brighton Beach so you won't have to fly a mission from the lunar surface to get to the interesting part of flying around this station. I had to upload it as a ZIP file because it's over 0.5Mb in size. I zipped it using the zip program built into Windows 7, so you should be able to unzip it w/out any additional software.

I've posted some pictures on the Orbiter Screen Captures thread. Feel free to post your comments about this station either there or here.

The future assembly missions will bring up a large quantity of BM222 cooling modules that will fill up the area between the 2 tank farm sections and once those are loaded I'll move the URMS up a bit and rotate it so I can extract cargo from the Front docking port. I'll then start filling out the Life Support, Hydroponics, and storage area for Bay M. I have no idea how many missions that will take, but I'm guessing around Mission 500 I'll be complete with Bay M and can start on bay N which will be a mirror image of Bay M. Part of Bay N has already been put in place, but it will probably take another 300-400 missions to fill it out. After Bay N is complete, I'll add the 2nd Habitation Ring and when that's all finished, the Lunar Station will have reached Phase 01 Complete. Then there's Phase 02 and 03 which will expand the Lunar Station to 6 Hab Rings and 6 Construction, Refueling, and Repair bays. I don't know how the fuel tanking will work for the other 4 bays. They may not have as many fuel tanks as M and N, but we'll see.

1 view so far, did it load/run for you mystery viewer?

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

 

[boogabooga]

The fix is done, but meson800 is the publisher, so he's got to throw it on the hangar. If you're able to build a visual studio project from source, there's a faster way of course...

Any word from Meson800?

 

[jedidia]

He checked back a while ago and said he'd do it when he gets around to it, then I lost track of the matter because I got sick. Realised just now that this was still pending. I guess I could just upload a patch until he finds the time, though that's a potential for future problems... in the end we'll have different distributions floating around by different people that lost track of the current state of the project. I guess the best way to handle things like this in the future would be to open a project account to which multiple contributors have access.
Anyways, I can't access orbit-hangar from school, and I'll be out of country without a laptop for the rest of the week. I'll see if I can manage to push out a patch this evening.

 

[boogabooga]

I'm not in a hurry, so don't rush.

 

[Floater]

Hello all

I'm not very experiecned addon user and probably I'm missing something... After my IMS crashed, I've done fresh Orbiter installation and followed these steps:

I've downloaded:
1. IMS from here
2. Space Station Building Blocks 4.0 [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3062"]from here[/ame]
3. Space Station Building Blocks 4.1 B [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3177"]from here[/ame]
4. DGIV + UCCGO3 + OrbiterSound4 (newest versions) from here
5. DXD9 from here
6. XR1, XR2 and XR5 in newest versions from this site
7. Vinka spacecraft pack (I don't remember exact location - it is quite difficult to find - but there are spacecraft2.dll, Spacecraft3.dll and even Spacecraft4.dll included)

Then I've "installed" (copied the files in fact)
1. UCCGO3 + OrbiterSound4
2. Space Station Building Blocks 4.0
3. Space Station Building Blocks 4.1 B
4. Vinka spacecraft pack

all in this exact order


In this point I've tried the first scenario from SSBB 4.0 and frist sceanrio from SSBB 4.1B - it worked

Then, using Scenario Editor, I created the solitary BM201_CONTROL_MODULE from IMS. When I jumped into its cockpit there were no Engineering Panel at all (Ctrl+DownArrow did not work).

Also the Orbiter crashed after relaunching with the Current State scenario "Loading Textures/IMS/IMSEngPanel.dds" was the last message shown.

in fact the only prerequsits for the IMS mentioned here was UMMU2.0 and SSBB4.1B


What am I missing here?

P.S. Im running Win-7

 

[kash01]

Hey I can't download it from the link it's says the file is not available is there any other link

 

[Dantassii]

Hey I can't download it from the link it's says the file is not available is there any other link

Which file is not available?

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

---------- Post added at 21:21 ---------- Previous post was at 21:16 ----------

Hello all

I'm not very experiecned addon user and probably I'm missing something... After my IMS crashed, I've done fresh Orbiter installation and followed these steps:

I've downloaded:
1. IMS from here
2. Space Station Building Blocks 4.0 from here
3. Space Station Building Blocks 4.1 B from here
4. DGIV + UCCGO3 + OrbiterSound4 (newest versions) from here
5. DXD9 from here
6. XR1, XR2 and XR5 in newest versions from this site
7. Vinka spacecraft pack (I don't remember exact location - it is quite difficult to find - but there are spacecraft2.dll, Spacecraft3.dll and even Spacecraft4.dll included)

Then I've "installed" (copied the files in fact)
1. UCCGO3 + OrbiterSound4
2. Space Station Building Blocks 4.0
3. Space Station Building Blocks 4.1 B
4. Vinka spacecraft pack

all in this exact order


In this point I've tried the first scenario from SSBB 4.0 and frist sceanrio from SSBB 4.1B - it worked

Then, using Scenario Editor, I created the solitary BM201_CONTROL_MODULE from IMS. When I jumped into its cockpit there were no Engineering Panel at all (Ctrl+DownArrow did not work).

Also the Orbiter crashed after relaunching with the Current State scenario "Loading Textures/IMS/IMSEngPanel.dds" was the last message shown.

in fact the only prerequsits for the IMS mentioned here was UMMU2.0 and SSBB4.1B


What am I missing here?

P.S. Im running Win-7

IMS is a separate add-on from SSBB. If you look at my original post, you'll see the correct order that all the add-ons need to be loaded in. You should also make sure that you're getting the versions for Orbiter 2010 P1 and not the latest versions designed for Orbiter 2015. You'll need versions for 2010 P1 only for each of the required add-ons.

Dantassii
HUMONGOUS IMS shipbuilder

PS There is a IMS 2.0 currently in works for Orbiter 2015. It's a complete re-write of the code for IMS. Currently it is in pre-pre-Alpha stage (I may have missed a pre or 2), so it may be a while before it's seen outside of the IMS 2.0 build team. From what has already been built however, I can say with some certainty that IMS 2.0 will be much easier to use and also be much more extendable than IMS 1.0 under Orbiter 2010 P1.