diomedea

@ fenderzilla: Yes, whatever we call it (cryogenic chamber, life suspension, hybernation device) the effect is to reduce methabolism --> reduce consumption of supplies --> allow longer journeys. That is one of the possibilities opened by allowing a variable rate of consumption, you may find Aknar already introduced this concept @ post #271 and myself mumbling about "life suspension" (among other things) @ post #276. Welcome to the club!

Thanks for your attention towards my proposal. If I understand you correctly, you would like to implement a calculation of the burn duration (meaning to know mass of the ship, thrust of the engines and the speed change required). That would certainly be outstanding, as I see the KSP stock game itself being erratic in showing such value. If you can get a correct burn duration, then you can also implement correctly the countdown to the node (what I was asking, but probably I was not clear enough) as the time left before the node (current time minus time of the node, both perfectly known already to your mod) minus half the burn duration (this last term I have never seen considered in stock KSP countdown). Now, if you are going to calculate the burn duration, you may also make this a perfect tool by including a warning that a split-manouever is required (another thing totally lacking in KSP). A split-manouever must be done whenever the burn duration is too long compared with the orbit period (generally the case with low-thrust engines) so that a single continued burn would also be applied at a wrong position; instead the total burn duration must be split to occur in a number of orbits, always at the same phase. In case of a split, the node must not be cleared until after the last portion of the burn, and possibly an alarm should be re-created after each partial burn to warn for the time of the next.

Have you had a look at FAR (http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ferram-aerospace-research/)? That mod includes a "Control & Analysis System" that opens in VAB/SPH to show all kinds of static and stability data (among others). Very detailed, even too much oriented to true aerospace engineers, requires some knowledge of the matter to be used properly. And this feature is not even advertised as it should!

@ MacTee: many thanks. Very useful set of Vids you suggested, can't believe not to have found them stickied somewhere on the forum or the Wiki. Useful the thread with the example plugin, as well (I had that already bookmarked, though). And thanks for your hints about versioning systems. Pity about KSP documentation, it is all "find yourself and share with others" here?

As I can't find any definite answer from previous threads, I ask any of the experienced good souls here the fatal question: - what is the correct set-up for a modder? I already have MS Visual Studio Express, no problem I can read C#. But is Unity required for anything, and if so, what version? I have some experience with project control, mostly subversion and variants. And GoogleCode. But I see many developers here like GitHub: should I open an account over there as well? Or would you suggest otherwise? Is there any repository online with KSP reference documentation, where you can find described what visible methods do from the stock DLLs?

The astronaut complex in the space center seems to be ready for a good overhaul, though I have still to find any suggestion or plan about its development. So, let me post my thinking. To start, each and every Kerman has to gain a few more tracts; courage and (lack of) intelligence being not enough for a "true" kerbonaut. First new tract: Fitness. To be related with the amount of exercise that the Kerman has put in his preparation. Fitness will slowly decline if not actively kept, even during space trips. To gain fitness, @ the complex there need be a number of proper tools: a gym, a centrifuge (for High-G), a water-splash trainer (like Dilbert Dunker), a pool (for neutral-buoyancy AKA 0-grav training), a long-stay closed complex. Second new tract: Flight ability, to be improved with basic physics studies, flying lessons, and extensive use of simulators. Third new tract: Science ability, to be improved with more science studies, and laboratories, to simulate scientific experiments. To add to the training facilities mentioned above, a medical centre. Not that a Kerman ever gets ill (unless you want to introduce that too, would be nice) but to provide medical tests. Then, any Kerbonaut needs to be qualified for flight (either atmospheric or in space) by comparing his skills and medical tests. The player may actually act as the head of the qualifying office, and allow even poorly trained Kermen to go, but the results may not be optimal. Indeed (I reckon somebody already suggested something along the following lines somewhere), fitness should be made a limit to sustain manoeuvers, EVAs, low and high gravity environments. Flight ability may limit how precise and fast any manouever will be made. Science ability will limit the amount of science recovered with experiments.

TBH, I am only at the very beginning with KSP modding, though I know where my towel is with other game mods and some programming. What I believe to have pretty clear is that I need a variable instanced for every Kerman in game, to represent his actual stress. This variable must be initiated to be = 1.0 at game start (No logic to actually calculate its value until somebody takes that task, me included). And of course, to have this variable enter the calculation about resources consumption/transformation (I believe are at lines 133-135 and 139-141 in GlobalSettings.cs, with the source of this mod). I have begun looking through the methods exported by Unity DLLs, have seen a few about animations as well but can't say which does what (while still looking for proper references). Therefore I can't promise to come out with anything useful for your idea in general. But who knows...

@ Aknar: yes, you earlier put a lot of ideas, variable consumption of resources included but more or less that was lost to me, it seemed you were just considering how to make Kermen react to deprivation (beyond other points I am not going to discuss). While my point remains to have consumption of resources made variable based on (so called) "stress". But I accept you were the first to have shown a concept of variable consumption of resources. In that sense, my proposal could be seen as going one step deeper about your concept. What I propose does not imply (directly) to change the mood of Kermen, facial look or else. But certainly there are points in common among the two proposals. Dunno if any script could be tied to a calculation of a Kerman activity (your point, I believe) but you may be right; a Kerman activity is actually very much at the base of my "stress" concept, therefore modding such a script may be a part for including my proposals as well. I certainly see the chance to have both become a reality, and working together. But to tell more, I also would like to see other things about kerbonauts (not strongly related to Life Support) that also will have an effect on "stress" calculation. While I have to wait and see what Squad will be cooking for us in the future versions, I certainly expect Kerbonauts to be given much more attention; possibly with added values, performance statistics, training devices. Therefore I anticipate that stress may be calculated considering fitness, and Kerbs must undergo fitness sessions and tests before a flight.

@ TaranisElsu (and others who may want to comment on this). ON CONSUMPTION RATES In case you ever want to add even more realism to your fine mod, please consider that resource comsumption rates are not to be a constant. I mean, I am absolutely fine with a normal Kerman consuming 1 of each resource a day, but in a normal condition only. With "normal condition", let me default to being relaxing on Kerbin, or enjoying a spacetrip without causes of concern. There are a lot of circumstances when conditions are less-than-perfect for a Kerman. So, let me introduce the concept of "stress". A Kerman experiences stress in a variety of situations, like when doing hazardous jobs (EVA ?), heavy jobs (had they to lift and carry around some items during their walk on Duna?), training to keep his/her body fit (they must, if they have to reach Laythe and be of any use once landed), but most of all when experiencing high-G acceleration (in case you don't believe me, just look Bill or Bob, their horrified faces during launch tells enough). On the contrary, we could have a device for long space journeys with the effect to reduce consumption rates. A sort of "partial life suspension" that will also make Jeb & Co. less reactive when activated (so, you have to switch that device off, or Jeb will take 10x more time than usual to perform even the simplest duty). On top of that, we could also have a device measuring "stress" in real time for each Kerman aboard a ship. Sort of a "Life monitoring system", I reckon that was a standard item with human crews in space. I am actually not asking you (yet) to make all of the above. But to start, to allow that to be implemented in future versions, allowing consumption rates to be calculated with regard to the "stress" variable. In case you allow this, I am going through your source files to see if I can understand how your mod works and if I can be of any help to implement any of the above (no promise, I have some expertise with other games but I am just starting with KSP).

@ toadicus: That's fine for me. Thanks. That gives me precision when required, at the same time allows improved readability by changing scale (I reckon that's also consistent with tristavius fine ideas). If only I could have one more desire to satisfy, that would remain the 'configurable pane'. VOID's Orbital Info pane I tend to keep always open (with extended info subpane as well), but is a bit too obtrusive on the GUI. However, while manouvering (or waiting the correct time) I really need to keep watch of one or two values here and another there, e.g. Periapsis + Inclination + Orbital period. Would like to be able to setup myself a custom pane (or a few, to account for different circumstances) with only the chosen values displayed, and keep just that custom pane open. @ tristavius: good points. Anyway, I was certainly less than clear in my previous post, sorry. I failed to explain why I need such precision. Then, let me give an example: I want to build a station in a lagrangian point (I know KSP does not allow true Lagrange points as the gravitational laws are a bit 'tweaked', so let do with a fake one). I can simulate to be in a L4 or L5 point when relative position of my station to the minor body does not change with time (I suspect that L1, L2 and L3 points can't actually be faked in KSP). For L4 and L5 points, I need to have set my station with exactly the same orbital parameters of the minor body, but for longitude (that has to be apart enough to be outside of the minor body SoI). Because fake, my Lagrangian points are not intrinsically stable, therefore any minor deviation from the correct orbital parameters result in relative motion with the minor body. So, I want the upmost precision to keep such inconsistency to a minimum.

@ Vanamonde: absolutely concur (yes I'm repeating my thought: finding things myself is one of the most rewarding feelings...). But thanks, since I tried KSP for the first time I have continued to believe to be missing documentation on it, and it could be only my fault not being good enough to find. I have already gone through pages 'n pages of threads about gameplay questions, thanks. Some good finds there.

Welcome mate. About the badges, go see here to have them custom made for you: http://ribbons.cgagnier.ca/ Of course, earning them is a different thing. Complete missions, achieve objectives. Career mode, to make the accomplishment that bit more serious. To make things more rewarding, I also use a few mods to improve realism. P.S. you're from Belgium? I lived 3 yrs in Mons (2003-2006), my soul has remained there since then.

@ Trigger Au First off, compliments for your mod. KAC is really my No.1 'must have', couldn't live without. I have a suggestion. Sorry in case it was already considered (but I can't find about it in this thread). KSP is very nice, lots of good features and such. But for one thing, that is closely connected with time: countdown to burn time. Yes, that value that appears to the right of the Navball and down when a node exists. Problem is, it is way too small and almost not noticeable. IMHO, such an important value should be put in full evidence, at least when the focus is on the relevant ship and the time-to-burn goes below a set threshold (say, 10 sec., but could be adjustable). I believe everything needed to set an 'alarm' at burntime-10sec. already exists in KAC, the only thing should be to create an action when that alarm goes off, that will display the countdown in a larger font, in a set position onscreen (I would initially set it just @ the center) and a set colour (I would initially make it dark red, to differentiate from other readings and provide a sense of urgency). At burntime = 0, or shortly after in case no burn was initiated, this additional display will disappear being no more relevant. Being nothing more than a value to be properly displayed at the correct time (already known to KAC), I am under the impression that you could very easily implement this. Could you please be so kind to evaluate the feasability of such feature?

Yeah, I will. eventually. find time to go through those vids and raise my hands and call mission control (Squad technos) about my hardware rig. But finding things myself is one of the most rewarding feelings here on Kerbin, so I am also tempted to try, and try harder each time, with rocket building to find how to build a proper heavylifter.

@ nadreck: you're right, LOL. IRL I worked closely with engineers and my course of study is almost the same, so I reckon the truth in your words. Any manual shipped with any kind of hardware was, by default, "designed for beginners only". No true engineer was to use the manual, until after the hundredth time they couldn't find how to properly activate the thing, a poor low-level technician unpacked and started reading it, suggesting the most obvious solution...

Hi, John. Nice to meet some helping soul this side. Well, there are many things that work strangely and I could enjoy a helpful hand. Would like some thorough in-depth reference manual about KSP, as I couldn't find one yet (or I'm blind, or the search tools here don't reaally work...). Lots of tutorials, viddeotutorials. But can't spend hours to see them all and find nothing relevant to my needs. I have to discover most of KSP features/possibilites myself, by trial and error. E.g., why is it that my rockets go boom on the launchpad, what secret is in those tanks to make them swivel and detach even before the countdown begins? Why I don't have all the buttons on my command pod (read: joystick) recognised and working here?

@ toadicus: first, thanks for this excellent mod. One of the first I chose to install, and never had problems with it. When you write "always show this value at 3n orders of magnitude less than the actual value" I feel a bit confused, the values I need (and can find thanks to VOID) are to be precise enough. To make an example, when checking for a stationary orbit around a body, I go check Apoapsis and Periapsis to the last meter, even if the whole number takes 10 digits. For synchronization of orbits, I would like time with 0.01 seconds precision, but the orbit itself could even take years to complete. And that means using 10 digits to represent seconds, plus 2 decimal digits. Speaking of time, I believe it would be useful to change unit instead of scale (so to have all digits in seconds or the usual year day, h m s). Therefore, I like how VOID displays values now, but would not find it as useful if I had to choose a magnitude in Megameters and only have the last digit to show 1 Km. I mean, precision and scale are two different things. I may at times accept to improve readability against less precision (changing number of digits used to show a value). Or, I want to change the scale to better read units (changing the position of the decimal place for metric units, or the system of units for time). If at all possible, I would also like the possibility to show commas for any triplet of digits before the decimal place. I know that all is overloading the GUI, maybe you could use a single button for each value (like already you did for setting precision alone) to actually access a submenu where to access every setting about that same value. Even better, could you create a configuration window for each panel, to also be able to choose what values I want presented in that panel when opened (that would also help minimize the impact from the open panes on the GUI and the system).

Howdy all. Used to believe to be 'nuff good at astronavigation... however somehow got sucked by a strange wormhole and now am on this side, only sentient beings to be found are green and big-eyed. Oh, and most forumites, though they don't physically show on any planet here, just on my comms devices. No, the green beings are not on the forum. Here they call themselves ... Kerbsmen or something that way. They speak strangely, y' know. Hope this 'crew report' someway gets across. I need science points, maybe I will discover how to get back in the 'normal universe'. Someday. BTW, it seems these Kerbs want me to try use their facilites and build something to move around a bit. Even more, the most prominent pilots here are glad if I can help with a few tricks... So, I will see if I could be of any help to them. Oh, yes, also with forumites, though at the moment I will most often ask them about things. - END OF REPORT -

@ el-coyoto: your help with MJ is outstanding (sorry if this has derailed a bit from the thread title..., still I find it relevant to the OP initial question). I was unable to find any instruction with the functionality you described (the MJ wiki is blank on this and other things), and was lost while MJ showed no plan after giving land coordinates (I expected a plan to be calculated, as in Basesync). I now see the blue marker with the manouever as I plan for the burn myself, so it is possible to match it with the red marker...by hand. Very different from the way navigation tools work in Orbiter. I tried by letting MJ do the autoburn on Mun, never successful (up to now). I am checking often about MJ developments, know other issues are being corrected therefore this problem will probably get solved as well. Again, many thanks (from a fellow Orbiteer).

@ el-coyoto: your help with MJ is outstanding (sorry if this has derailed a bit from the thread title..., still I find it relevant to the OP initial question). I was unable to find any instruction with the functionality you described (the MJ wiki is blank on this and other things), and was lost while MJ showed no plan after giving land coordinates (I expected a plan to be calculated, as in Basesync). I now see the blue marker with the manouever as I plan for the burn myself, so it is possible to match it with the red marker...by hand. Very different from the way navigation tools work in Orbiter. I tried by letting MJ do the autoburn on Mun, never successful (up to now). I am checking often about MJ developments, know other issues are being corrected therefore this problem will probably get solved as well. Again, many thanks (from a fellow Orbiteer).

Thanks el-coyoto and phuzz for the amount of good suggestions. I certainly have to learn more on using Mechjeb. I see it has land guidance but I can't find how to have it display where and how to make the correct burns for re-entry at the specified coordinates (how's that, almost no tool here @ KSP comes with a manual on how to use... they all made for rocket scientists? No manual for kerbonauts-like people?). I would also like a tool, as it was with (IMFD) Basesync, to show you a list of nodes where the orbit matches with a possible descent path to the chosen spot on the body surfacce. Still learning. I will also have a look at the Kerbal Engineer (just for numbers), that might do the trick. Anyway, I was fascinated (as a Orbiter user) by the crisp and clear way the map-view in KSP provides orbital info and node planning. Would like to see something similar with a landing planning tool, hope Squad will provide something in a future version, if no modders are able to improve the map navigation before (I have not found yet any mod able to tweak the map display in KSP).

Concur wholeheartly. Jarmonik's IMFD to me is the best planning tool in Orbiter. In particular, the ability to plan exactly where to land on a body (Basesync) is something my poor Kerbs miss entirely. As I see mods already exist in KSP with the ability to access and display any of the relevant values, I am sure some gifted modder will eventually develop something similar (not me, I can only use such features, not develop them). Anyway, I would like to see all the planning rendered on the map exactly as Squad made for KSP, instead of in a "dedicated MFD" as in the Orbiter approach.