seanth

I retested things with Module Manager installed and things work as expected, now. Thanks.

I have been playing with changing values in the LifeSupport.cfg and am seeing things I don't understand. If I set FoodConsumptionRate to 0.3125 and DefaultResourceAmount to 86400 (so 0.3125units/day), and make a test vehicle of just a 4k battery and a mk1 pod, it claims I have a total amount of food in the pod of 0.3125 units. The StockPartChanges.cfg should be setting the pod's amount of Food to 1.0. Am I misunderstanding the FoodConsumptionRate setting? I expected the total amount of Food in the mk1 pod to be 1.0, and after 24 hrs it would be 0.6875 units. Halp?

I'm pretty happy with the settings from the get go actually. This is one of those situations where sitting down with paper and pencil and working through the biology, chemistry and math paid off...at least in my eyes. It seems like we'll have a sneak-peek dev release very soon. Probably not until after thx giving though because, you know. Thx giving.

Update: I tested the greenhouse module with the IonCross mod. Using the MK1-2 command pod, 1 greenhouse is enough to keep the 3 Kerbals alive. In fact, there isn't enough CO2 production for optimal plant growth. Interestingly, the O2 is not increasing as the greenhouse runs, so IonCross's default O2 consumption for 3 Kerbals looks like it's basically the same as O2 output from 1 greenhouse. Since I modeled the plant growth rate on bamboo, and the gas exchanges seem realistic (as far as I have tested thus far), things are coming up Milhouse. As for fuel production, a quick test planetside showed 0.13 units of liquid fuel in 10 min. So in a single Kerbin day (6hrs), you'd get 4.68 units of LiquidFuel.

My object in working with Roboto has been to make what happens in the parts (through the cfg files) biologically balanced. I'm using real (gasp) chemical reaction equations, so the amounts going in result in similar amounts coming out. So, you are welcome to modify the things once we release them, but I guarantee I will never make a biological part that makes Xenon. Altering the densities in the Resource.cfg file that will come with BioMass will result in things behaving in crazy ways. To give people an idea of what is currently in place: -O2 can be compressed into Oxidizer -Biomass can be converted into Liquidfuel through a series of steps (biomass->oil and ethanol which combined make liquid fuel. I.e. similar to how real biofuels are made) -Several processes produce H2 which can be compressed into Monopropellant More soon.

I can guarantee BioMass will work with IonCross, even if we have it provide a slightly modified resource cfg for IonCross. My hope is that the compatibility will increase down the road. Right now the life support functions and fuel generation functions are linked in that making fuel necessarily reduces the life support capacity. So it's up to the player. In am overnight test, unmonitored biomass growth and fuel production eventually led to the consumption of all CO2, which stopped growth. Biomass harvesting continued, though, so eventually there was no more biomass. Tend you gardens well is the lesson, I guess.

Update: Over the weekend I worked on how the various parts work alone and with one another. While very biological, I am not sure it is _fun_ So here I am asking your opinion on two fronts. BioMass can work to do two things: recycle gasses for use with things like IonCross life support, or make fuel 1.) How many greenhouse modules should be necessary to maintain a crew capsule (you pick the crew number). It shouldn't be 1 greenhouse module supports 10 kerbals. That just makes it too easy. Alternately, 10 greenhouses to support 1 kerbal sounds like an exercise in tedium 2.) How much LiquidFuel should a single greenhouse be able to provide in 24hrs? It is unreasonable, I think, to think you can get 150 units of LiquidFuel(fills a MK1 Fuselage) in 24hrs, for example. But a year is also unreasonable. If the conversion would remain active when you changed focus to different craft, I would be inclined to slow-boat things. As things stand, how long would you be willing to wait to get 150 units of liquidfuel. 2a.) How many greenhouses would you will willing to have on a craft to generate fuel? Answers to these questions (especially 2 and 2a) will allow me to back calculate from the outputs to figure out the input values and still keep the rates within biologically meaningful ranges.

If people are interested, I'd be happy to start posting more technical aspects of why we're (I'm) choosing density values for resources that might differ from other plugins. In my idealized world, all the biology-based plugins would sit down and agree to some standards as far as densities and rates of conversion. If you have a favorite _other_ plugin that you are interested in seeing BioMass work with, feel free to list them. I'll take a peek and yes whether it will work out of the box, or whether changes would need to be made.

My hope is that, yes, BioMass will be compatible with at least IonCross and Kethane. There _are_ some changes in resources in the coming update, but I've been talking with yongedevil of the IonCross mod. Hopefully BioMass and IonCross will Just Work together. We'll see

A quick update: Things are progressing well. Roboto has been making some great models and I've been flailing around with the biology. My general hope is we'll see something like this: Progress: -Proposed standards for densities of gasses and materials. Since we are modeling actual chemical reactions, things need to balance, so the values matter. More on this later. -Supply tanks for water, H2, O2, CO2, compressed CO2 exist and are colour coded to match real world tank colour schemes. -Compressors for H2, O2 and CO2 exist and have colour codings on them to help indicate what they are for. We tried having one compressor for all gasses, but the resource list in the parts window was too long. -Photosynthesis and respiration are working in a realistic way. By that I mean photosynthesis is about 4x greater than respiration, and the consumption/production of gasses, water and biomass all mass balance correctly. Time acceleration really messes with the accuracy, though. -The greenhouse part is really wonderful. Photosynthesis stops when the shutters are closed. More to be done, but things are coming together.

I'm interested in doing some rocket launches from the second KSC, and some plane flight starting from the island airfield. The two ways I can think to do this are to use either the Kerbtown addon, or the Extraplanetary Launchpads. I'm not _overly_ familiar with either, but like the idea that with Kerbtown you can choose the launch location from either the SPH or the VAB and then click launch as normal. Is there another option out there I don't know of? Any advice from you veterans?

I'm "The Guy". I think this is achievable. I started working with the parts last night (hi5 for getting the greenhouse solar detection fixed!), and we'll be testing things soon.

I really would like to use this, but would like the ability to pick and choose the achievements possible. Looking at the code on github, my (very brief) review indicates that the achievments are hardcoded. Is there a way you can put the achievement definitions into a xml file that is loaded? In a way, it would be like the resources.cfg, but the file would define the achievements. That way non-programmers could more easily make achievements and/or deactivate ones. EDIT Suggested achievements: -Travel X distance/speed by rover on Kerbin(and other planets) -Travel X distance/speed over water on Kerbin(boat achievements) -Travel X diatance/speed by plane on Kerbin -Break the sound barrier. Mach 1, mach 2, mach 3, etc -Circumnavigation by boat/rover/plane

I'm following along now. I'm finishing up organizing my notes and will be sending them to Roboto this weekend. Whether the raw notes end up on github is hard to say. Maybe a outline of the way forward. Yes, I got the shutters working, but there's a problem with the model. I'll be submitting my modified part soon so it can be poked at.

I concede to the superior ship. I'm certain I could beat your last score, but I agree with you: the contest would just degrade to adding on more weight until the frame rate became unbearable. I'll make a not on the first page that if anyone tries a challenge like this again, they might consider calculating the score as (mass*speed)/(# of parts). I'll keep watching this thread to update scores if anyone decides to tackle the leader. Meanwhile, time to do another circumnavigation+science. I wonder how much science I can collect in a circumnavigation. Hmmm. A new challenge?

I propose we reboot the thread when 0.22 comes out. Include craft files for our boats and course data so others can build on what we do. Oh, and a restart of the Kerbin Geographic Society.

[TABLE=class: grid] [TR] [TD]Ship[/TD] [TD]Major Strangways https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7_wWtXK4tmcZ2l2S3RvS01VNUE/edit?usp=sharing[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mass (m)[/TD] [TD]341,790 kg[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Speed (v)[/TD] [TD]71.0 m/s[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Momentum (p)[/TD] [TD]24,267,090 kg m/s (Ns)[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] My first thought was to name this one after Giles "more weight" Corey, but I already have a ship by that name (a slowboat kethane tanker). Instead I picked another person that was pressed to death (in the UK). I'm a bit worried that, now that I have a modular design, the challenge will end up being a war of attrition. Maybe there should have been a rule about max part count. @Ezriilc: I think it's fun that I'm tending to pile on the mass and you seem to be piling on motors. Oh! I looked at one of the craft files you posted. Holy clipping. Are we scaring off other people from trying this?

I'm back! [TABLE=class: grid] [TR] [TD]Ship[/TD] [TD]Striking Kaiser[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Mass (m)[/TD] [TD]177,720 kg[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Speed (v)[/TD] [TD]87.4 m/s[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]Momentum (p)[/TD] [TD]15,532,728 kg m/s (Ns)[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] The Striking Kaiser is named partly after Henry Kaiser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_J._Kaiser and his work with the Liberty ships in the second world war. My new design is very modular, which means can easily drop in an additional 57 tons. If you look closely at the image, you can see how there are two types of "legs": one type that stays close to the body, and a type that projects out away from the body. Those projecting leg struts are made to allow non-clipping overlap. The modular sections are designed for transport to other planets where they can be assembled on the surface. In this design I removed the docking ports between sections to provide more structural integrity. Each of the modular sections has side mounted engines. For this challenge there's a special rear module that has a large bank of engines. Note the design flaw where four engines failed to get any fuel. I'm not sure what the problem is, actually, but in the next iteration I'll make sure everything is getting fuel. I'm still working out how to post a craft file. I tried posting the hex of a zip file to a blog entry, but wasn't sure people would know how to take the hex, make a zip, and get the .craft from that. Anyway, I'll hopefully have another entry to post tomorrow. I can smell first place. It smells like petroleum.

When the next update rolls out, it sounds like there will be a greater reason for players to actually look closely at Kerbin: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/971-Doing-Science-Celestial-Body-Biomes Yea for the slow route. Maybe it's time to resurrect the Geographic Society

Herp. How do I delete a bad post? Since I can't delete a post which was apparently fueled by more enthusiasm than wisdom, enjoy this KSP moment of wat: http://youtu.be/A9PzzS5EBkQ

I wasn't sure whether you crashed there or not. The distance was about correct, so I went with your name.

Later tonight I will address this in more depth. I think having a disposable launching stage is completely acceptable. irl people have boat trailers, right? In my designs I keep wheels attached to my ships (you can see them in my posted images). I use the non-powered, retractable wheels, and two powered wheels on the front. That way I can better control speed and direction of the craft as it moves down the runway and then down to the shore. General tips: -Don't enter the water any faster than around 7 to 10m/s. I keep my entry at around 5m/s or below -Leaving the runway is a huge drop. Design accordingly, or gently get off the runway on the sides early on and trudge to the sea over the grass. I use both methods depending on my design -Be careful braking. When you have a lot of mass, all that momentum can tear you craft apart if you just hit the brakes (heh. break vs brake edit). Butterfly the brake button vs. just slamming on it So, is it acceptable to add a new rule about no hyperedit launches for future craft, but existing submissions stand (maybe a * next to them saying they were submitted before the new rule)? Allow disposable launch stages (boat trailer ), but there has to be an image of the boat on the launch craft as part of the submission. Fair?

Go ahead and submit your next craft if you want. No need to wait on me. I have some work related commitments I need to deal with over the next few days, but that's no reason to wait on me. I feel like I should have included a rule that people needed to get their craft into the water using legit means vs hyperedit. Some of my test craft have been so heavy that they just crumple on the runway, but I know they'd be fine in the water. I like the idea of posting the craft files. I need to find a site I can throw them up on. Suggestions?

Oh Snap. Yeah. The Vasa had some...uh...stability problems. It listed to the side pretty quickly once it rolled into the water, and experienced explosive disassembly shortly after that image was taken. I think Water Speed 288 is a beautiful looking craft. It sort of reminds me of Discovery One from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. It will take me at least a day to put together my next entry. I'm slightly nervous since you casually _doubled_ your score.

Oh, man. It's totally on, now. Name: The Vasa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship) Speed: 104.3m/s Mass: 83.57t (83,570kg) Momentum score: 8,716,351 kg*m/s I just realized that at 260m/s, that ship would give you a score of close to 9 million. I'd better start coming with some better ideas....