Programmatic Extension And Retraction (P.E.A.R.)

Description

Are you sick of hunting around in the dark to try and find each solar panel, radiator and antenna to manually extend/retract? Forgot to set them as an Action Group in the Editor but only found out 10 minutes into your mission? You need a slice of PEAR.

PEAR adds a 'microprocessor' to each solar panel/radiator/antenna to link them together inside a network of sorts. This means you can control ALL extendable items through one.

• Right click on any panel/radiator/antenna. On the pop up menu, you will have the option to "Extend All Extendables" (or "Retract All Extendables" if they're extended). Simply click and all within the network will extend (or retract).
• To remove a part from the network (in editor or flight) click on the "PEAR Toggle" which will stop the part being included. To re-add, just toggle again. There is a status which confirms the current setting.
• All parts still conform to stock requirements, that is you still can't deploy a panel that's stowed or an antenna in the atmosphere etc.
• As a bonus, the "one-shot" stock panels are now retractable.
• Add on parts will work assuming they use stock part modules.

Notes

The stock Ox-Stat fixed panel is extremely problematic as it uses the same part module to handle deployment even though it is obviously not deployable. You would think it would be programmed to ignore any request to extend but alas no, as it actually includes animation parameters. Unfortunately these produce NRE spams. Therefore, I have had to create a "blacklist" of parts that shouldn't be included in PEAR. If you have an add-on panel that causes similar, it can be added to the blacklist (inside PluginData) which will allow the mod to function correctly (please let me know as well so I can add it for distribution).

Dependencies

• ModuleManager