WuphonsReach

How are you handling governments which have dozens of reviews per year, in a career save with a few decades of time? That's hundreds of review periods in the list. Maybe the list should be trimmed to only the last 10 or 20 reviews.

Playing with this in my latest career save. Ground-based contract should probably award 10% for a major planet or 5% for a moon, plus a random 5%, plus 0-20% based on the distance of the object compared to the maximum distance of the telescope. So for Minmus, which is almost on top of KSC, you would get 25-30% per ground-based contract. But in OPM, you might only get 10-15% per contract for Neidon and 5-10% for a moon. Maybe world size as measured in angles of arc (or radius / distance) should play a role in how easy things are to research. It should take about 2.0-3.5 years to uncover Minmus, 3.0-4.5 for Neidon (with luck) using the ground-based equipment, half that for space-based. Orbital telescope research should have 1/2 the time period for the same returns (111 day contracts), but the contracts need to be less expensive than the ground-based contracts (30% cheaper?). The telescope is relatively inexpensive for what it does (making it cost 50-250k would not be unreasonable). One idea for speeding up research would be to create "accelerated" contracts (Contract Configurator?) which require you to launch a *new* vessel with the telescope on board and would only be offered if you have discovered the planet/moon and it's below 50%. The accelerated contract, because it requires a new vessel could complete the full research in a period of 250-450 days (random). Limit of 5 at a time, and now the player can research up to five planets/moons at the same time. Assuming they have the funds to launch an expensive telescope for a one-shot mission.

Updated to official support 1.3.1. The only changes I had to make were to update the change log and edit the subject of the thread. But I did upload a new version to Spacedock (there were some minor balance tweaks made after the last release).

Is there supposed to be a DLL inside that? All I see inside is the .version file and the icons/ folder contents.

Testing this out in 1.3.1, seems to be working okay so far. At least in terms of the values on the parts, but I have to test the CC.

Been playing with OPM in the last few months with 1.2.2, and I have to say that slowing things way down makes a lot of sense so I lean heavily on KCT to slow things down. Hohmann transfers to Neidon takes decades, for instance. Key settings that I've been running with are: OverallMultiplier = 15 BuildEffect = 3 ReconditioningEffect = 2500 MaxReconditioning = 48500000 NodeFormula = (2^([N]+1) / 86400) / ([O] / 8) Although I may make the divisor in that NodeFormula 3 to 5 instead of 8 going forward. Trying to get it so that a 1000-point node takes about 850 days to unlock at level 1 and maybe half that at level 5. Which means I probably also need to change the UpgradeScienceFormula or ResearchFormula. Average build time for a 500-600t rocket is about 330 days (with 1.5-1.7 production line). Rollout for something like that is 25-30 days.

Yes, the inclination would be relative to Eve's equator. (Maybe "match planes with target"?) Why not use the advanced transfer option using the porkchop plot for the return burn? Followed by a fine tune burn, setup after you leave Eve's SoI.

Assuming that you have the latest ModuleManager installed, this mod may work in 1.3. The contracts probably will not work because ContractConfigurator is not yet updated for 1.3 and that's my other major dependency. (I prefer a heavily modded install, and a lot of addons are not updated yet for KSP 1.3. I also haven't looked into whether CC is going to be updated or if I need to rewrite the contracts in a different fashion.)

Check EC, comm signal, fuel levels on the descent (uncommon, but I've been caught out by it in the past). For Mun/Minmus, I generally start descents at 30-40km altitude. A TWR of at least 1.5 (as measured against the surface gravity) is good, 2.0-3.0 is better. Lower TWRs just take longer to decelerate, so the landing burn starts far sooner. At 500m above the target, MJ likes to stop burning sideways and then come down on the target vertically.

It's possible to get stuck in the simulation running, even when you aren't running a simulation. I believe that the repo steps are: Create a craft in a different career Import that craft file into a new career Unlock the science node, but do not unlock at least one of the parts At this point, when loading the craft file in the VAB, it should show as a valid craft (no missing parts warnings) Attempt to start the simulation Get a warning that parts X, Y and Z are not yet unlocked At this point, the "simulation active" message should be flashing at the top of the screen, while still inside the VAB. In order to fix this, you have to go to a flight scene (I use one of my LEO comm sats), then use the Escape menu to terminate the simulation (which is a no-op at that point).

Yeah, a MM patch like that is really easy. You just need to find the original part name, then create a node with a new name. https://github.com/WuphonsReach/KSP-ScrapyardBob/blob/master/ModRocketSys/NBprobeCone1m.cfg The "+PART[NBprobeCone1m]" says "create a new node based on this node". I then give it a new node name of "SYB_MRS_NBprobeCone1m". Then I add to the existing EC capacity. https://github.com/WuphonsReach/KSP-ScrapyardBob/blob/master/Squad/CommandModules/Mark1-2Pod.cfg That example creates two new command pods with additional USI-LS, mono-prop, battery capacity, built-in antennas, etc.

Personal preference to introduce additional constraints, requires nukes or RTGs for the larger dishes (or really big solar panels). You can always edit the files to remove that power draw. To delve deeper -- stock relay parts do not consume power, unless you use them to transmit science. Which means there's not much difference between relay and direct in stock KSP and you could just use relay antennas for everything. So, in order to differentiate them I made it so that: Regular (direct) antennas have shorter range, relays have much longer ranges. Relay dishes are extremely inefficient at transmitting science (when used as a relay satellite, this doesn't matter, but putting a relay antenna on a science probe will drain your battery). Even when you use them to bounce signals from other probes, if the relay is on rails no power is simulated. Because relay antennas are so important, I gave them a constant power draw (because when the ship is on rails, they never actually draw power until you re-focus), plus higher cost and larger mass values. So making them expensive, heavier and a constant consumer of power, means I have to build differently for a relay satellite compared to a science probe. It introduces additional challenges to putting up those 1-10 Terameter dishes into operationg. Note: I do use USI parts, so easy access to nuclear reactors, plus some other mods that add better RTGs, larger batteries, better solar panels may color my perception of the energy costs.

Polar orbit? Near the Pe? Or some other orbit around some other body? (It's a bug in either Contract Configurator or KSP, sometimes the polar orbits will say that there is acceleration when there isn't when you're near Pe.)

Or default them to disabled.

It looks like you might have 2 copies of StockAntennaBalance installed. I'm seeing lines with both "AFTER[OPM]:AFTER[JX2Antenna]" and "PART[HighGainAntenna5]:FINAL". When I should only be seeing the latter. I took the use of AFTER[] out a few weeks ago. I would suggest removing the GameData/StockAntennaBalance folder and downloading the latest release again.

If you go into the VAB, into the communications category, what power is shown on the HG-5R antenna? It should be 10G. So a single HG-5R would be enough for the tier 1. If it's not, then you need to search the KSP.log for anything that is touching its part ID (HighGainAntenna5).

Yes, you can have dozens of antennas, as long as you have enough power to drive the relay versions (which have a constant power drain). The "direct" connection antennas don't have a constant power drain. The default combinability exponent of 0.75 means: 1 antennas = 1.0x power 2 antennas = 1.7x 3 = 2.3x 4 = 2.8x 5 = 3.4x 6 = 3.8x 7 = 4.3x 16 = 8.0x By the time you get past 7 antennas, it's probably time to start thinking about installing something larger, which will be just as powerful, but use less power. A lot of my early contracts, I'll launch satellites with the appropriate antenna, but with 2, 3, or 4 of that antenna type. I've launched sats with up to 7 RA-15s, that only got me 4.3x more power then a single RA-15. But not all antennas will combine to form a stronger antenna (uncommon), and some antennas have an exponent of other then 0.75 (very rare). --- But if, like I suspect, you're using Kerbalism; Kerbalism does what StockAntennaBalance tries to do, but in a completely different way. So they're not really compatible. The only bit that could be made compatible would be the contracts, and those would need to be rewritten to function under Kerbalism's high-gain / low-gain design.

Each HG-5R is 10G (but only when extended), so maybe something else is messing with the antenna power values. Check the value in the VAB/SPH. If you search in the GameData/ModuleManager.ConfigCache file, look for "HighGainAntenna5". Under there will be a section like: As you can see, it shows antennaPower of 10G (10 billion). The above is what it should look like. If it doesn't then something else is messing with the values (and you can find out by looking at the KSP.log file).

Sarbian's MechJeb for sure has font scaling. Contracts+ has scaling. SCANSat has entire window scaling, as does DPAI. Also, maybe it doesn't need to immediately be a part you attach to enable surveillance capability, but instead just a module/generator/property that gets added to a part which marks it as having that capability. That would make it easy to do a MM patch to tag the DMagic SIGINT / spy telescope parts for instance.

Signal strength should probably be boosted up to 3.0-3.5 Tm (instead of 1.0) based on the part mass. Which I realize is completely overpowered for the stock KSP solar system, but works well for OPM.

Current balance for StockAntennaBalance. (My target values are a bit different then what you chose for the mod.) I like the idea of being able to use the instruments (at least the SIGINT) as relays, but only if the part is dedicated to the relay function from launch.

Working on balance with OPM, mostly between the RA-100, JX2 and SIGINT (DMagic) antennas. One major change is that the standard DMagic science parts will no longer be upgraded to relays using the KSP upgrade system (they didn't work as relays, at all, due to the way KSP upgrade system works), they'll just be slightly more powerful direct-connection antennas. I've instead gone with a cloning route where I create two new copies of the oversized/undersized SIGINT dishes which are always available to be used as relays. RA-100 - 2.0T power 2.85t mass 96k cost 20 EC/s JX2 - 2.0T power 3.5t mass 75k cost 20 EC/s SIGINT (undersized) - 1.2T power 1.35t mass 65k cost 15 EC/s SIGINT (oversized) - 6T power 6t mass 200k cost 100 EC/s

On the locked bodies, I'm more talking about mechanics where a body is "locked" (this may be a Contract Configurator concept) until you enter it's SoI for the first time. So, should you be penalized for not having a satellite or space station around Plock in year 1? Maybe the current SFC code doesn't, but I don't know whether the SFC code is balanced against the base KSP system with J major planets and N minor planets. Or does it scale properly when you introduce additional worlds (OPM)? Satellite (communications) coverage could be inferred from only looking at spacecraft which are tagged as "relay" in the "rename vessel" UI. While science coverage could be done using "probe" as the vessel type. Surveillance parts are harder, but if the code looks for a special MODULE{} tag on the part, that tag could be added to any parts using a MM patch. Font scaling was added to the base game in 1.1 or 1.2. Does SFC use the font scaling setting or does it still use older Unity code which didn't have scaling for its UI?

The solution I'm going to implement in StockAntennaBalance will be to remove the relay capability entirely from the original DMagic parts, then create cloned parts (with a new part ID) that are just relays. The old upgrade to the original parts won't do anything other then make them more powerful direct-connect antennas.

Don't use FOR[] unless the MM patch is being distributed as part of the mod that you put inside the FOR[], it will make other MM patches think that mod is installed when it isn't.