[1.12.x] USI Life Support

[goldenpsp]

22 minutes ago, Temeter said:

His supplies itself - and especially reuse - are more arbitrary tho.

That's not to say it's a badly thought out system or anything. It works very, very well. Also, you can put greenhouses onto your ships, which is awesome!

No.  You could argue successfully that the supplies are more abstracted, because they are.  But not arbitrary.

[Temeter]

Just now, goldenpsp said:

No.  You could argue successfully that the supplies are more abstracted, because they are.  But not arbitrary.

  Relax, I'm not trying to discredit the mod. The greenhouses are a bit arbitrary, aren't they? Or is that actually more realistic than I might think as well ?

[kenji]

I have a excrementsload of supplies, but my kerbonauts are refusing to work.

What does the Hab/Home stat on the Life support status window mean?

 

Well damn that was fast, and by RD himself, thanks!

Edited April 10, 2016 by kenji
Cabin Fever, apparently

[RoverDude]

3 hours ago, z0rb1n0 said:

I think I wasn't clear enough about this: I'm NOT in favour of full self sufficiently of a colony without any form of ISRU.

It's the way leak compensation is implemented that I didn't agree with (fertilizer being available only at the space center), but then I realized I was looking at obsolete wiki documents and apparently since a few patches ago Fertilizer CAN be manufactured with sifters and crushers, which removes the last bit of reliance from the KSC (sorry couldn't play for a few months).

Is that correct?

 

Yep, you can make more fertilizer with the right external inputs... you just can't make it on a station, because a close-looped ecosystem on a station is nigh on impossible (though UKS will have Ark-ship capabilities down the line).

40 minutes ago, Temeter said:

His supplies itself - and especially reuse - are more arbitrary tho.

That's not to say it's a badly thought out system or anything. It works very, very well. Also, you can put greenhouses onto your ships, which is awesome!

Not arbitrary, abstracted

9 minutes ago, kenji said:

I have a excrementsload of supplies, but my kerbonauts are refusing to work.

What does the Hab/Home stat on the Life support status window mean?

It means they are tired of being cooped up - give them more space

[Temeter]

7 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Not arbitrary, abstracted

Yeah, that was the word I was searching for.

Everything in KSP is abstracted. BRB sending pressure data from solar orbit back to kerbin. ~

Although the mod indeed seems a bit more realistic than I expected.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Temeter

[SpaceMouse]

Just confirmed it. Feeding 10 Kerbals with one (small) greenhouse.  Counter stays at 0. Thats not right.

Edited April 10, 2016 by SpaceMouse

[RoverDude]

Will need a lot more specifics....  KSP version?  USI-LS version?  Screenshot?  etc.

[goldenpsp]

23 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Will need a lot more specifics....  KSP version?  USI-LS version?  Screenshot?  etc.

This thread moves fast.  A page back Spacemouse posted this, so I am assuming he is on 1.1

 

 

Quote

 

Hey, I think i may have found a loophole in the Life support that should be fixed as well as a possible bug in 1.1.

I sent Jeb up with 3 other non-orange suit kerbals to a test station along with 2 of the smaller greenhouses. I suspect that wasn't enough. After about a month and a half jeb was a tourist and did not maintain control ability. I was able to fix it by swapping him to a diffrent module and then bringing him back into the command one.
While the greenhouses were producing enough supplies to keep the counter at 0 when i swapped crew, therby enabling me to keep using them. You could probably use this loophole to feed many more kerbals than one greenhouse is designed for by constantly swapping kerbals and keeping the counter at 0. Even if there not getting a full meal.

Time to de-orbit and send up the mark III station. 

 

 

[SpaceMouse]

1.1.0.1195, latest USI-LS as far as i'm aware, just tested it for 26 days (just before i ran out of fertilizer) and i could EVA any of them and still control the ship. life support counter remained at 0. They appear to be happy even if they get a tiny portion of a days supply of food. I can post pics if you want. Only mod block used was your small greenhouse.

Edited April 10, 2016 by SpaceMouse

[Grumman]

10 hours ago, SpaceMouse said:

Ahhh. Was unaware Orange suits were no longer immune. Did Seem to rather defeat the point of having a life support mod.

I disagree. The point of having a life support mod is to have a number that follows certain rules that you try to keep above zero. What happens if you fail and it actually hits zero doesn't matter so much, as long as you don't take it for granted.

[lude]

In 1.1 x64 I have the issue that disabled homesickness (settings.cfg) still applies and that changing the vet exclusion to true again (0) they will still be affected by work refusal, just immediately returning to it which leads to a lot of spam

 

--- edit ---

also what I don't understand completely yet is the hab and homesickness requirement

every unoccupied non command module seat is basehabtime times habmultiplier in months? and every kerbal needs a whole one? how to counter home sickness? when does it take effect?

 

I wonder if the problem could be caused by x64 or by having so many mods

Edited April 12, 2016 by lude

[mcortez]

2 hours ago, lude said:

In 1.1 x64 I have the issue that disabled homesickness (settings.cfg) still applies and that changing the vet exclusion to true again (0) they will still be affected by work refusal, just immediately returning to it which leads to a lot of spam

 

--- edit ---

also what I don't understand completely yet is the hab and homesickness requirement

every unoccupied non command module seat is basehabtime times habmultiplier in months? and every kerbal needs a whole one? how to counter home sickness? when does it take effect?

 

I wonder if the problem could be caused by x64 or by having so many mods

Do you also have MKS installed?  If so, there are two copies of the configuration file and you will need to update both.

[DStaal]

2 hours ago, lude said:

also what I don't understand completely yet is the hab and homesickness requirement

every unoccupied non command module seat is basehabtime times habmultiplier in months? and every kerbal needs a whole one? how to counter home sickness? when does it take effect?

Working on it from the config side can be confusing.  Look at it from the readouts in the VAB and in-game.

But basically: Kerbals need space to live in.  Every 'seat' is assumed to be a set amount of space - unless specified otherwise in the part config.  Some parts (like the cupola) make the Kerbals happier, making the space they have last longer.

If you coup up a Kerbal to long, they'll get unhappy with the space they have, and stop working, or whatever your hab requirements are set to.

Hab time is how long they are comfortable in the ship they are currently in.  Larger ships mean they are more comfortable, and they can hang out longer.  Smaller ships mean they are cramped, and start getting grumpy sooner.  (And certain parts - again the cupola as an example - can make smaller ships feel bigger.)  That's based on habtime and habmultiplier.  It resets the moment they change ships.

Homesickness is how long they are comfortable away from Kerbin.  If they've had room to stretch and move around in the past, they can go quite a while before they get to missing Kerbin - even if the ship they are currently in is smaller.  The same things come into play for it, but instead of tracking just how long they've been in this one ship, it tracks how long they've been away from Kerbin, and what the biggest ship they've been in is.

Both of these start counting down the moment you leave Kerbin.  Both can be countered to an extent by larger ships with more hab time.  Hab time can be completely reset by changing ships, while homesickness cannot - the coundown can only be extended by putting them into ship with more available living space.

[lude]

Thank you two, that was very helpful, I also found the other settings file, it's very unintuitive that it's called USI-LS (at least to me)

I will use thecopula from now on and try to give them some more space since with no space minmus missions already become a problem, so homsickness with the right station years long missions are possible?

[RoverDude]

Why is that unintuitive?  It's settings for the USI-LS mod  

And yep it's pretty easy to get stations, etc. into the 20 or 30 year mark.

Unrelated... I did update the google doc for kolonization:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KK6uJGFm98EjhU5RvbD5mnp4Sm0PtrwKdB2gGtZsTAE/edit?usp=sharing

One bit that you may notice...  We're getting radiation next   So hardening up stuff for long journeys, using high level engineers for nuclear refueling, and keeping your uranium tanks and nuclear reactors away from your Kerbals is actually going to be a thing...

 

 

 

 

[smurphy34]

@RoverDude I'm getting a strange error with the latest pre-release (1203) and USI Life Support 4.0 latest, when I start the "Dynawing Final Approach" scenario the Mk3 Cockpit stays stuck in mid air.  The "stuck command pod" seems to affect all of the scenarios, it's just the "Dynawing Final Approach" one will snap back to the command pod after the rest of the craft crashes.

This is with KSP 1.1 pre-release (build 1203) with only USI Life Support 4.0 and it's included dependency's {freshly d/l 'ed from Github).  Running KSP_x64 on Windows.  Here's my log.

Edited April 13, 2016 by smurphy34
Log and image edit

[RoverDude]

tbh, I provide no guarantee of support with scenarios and tutorials - so the best bet is to run those stock.

[sh1pman]

8 hours ago, RoverDude said:

One bit that you may notice...  We're getting radiation next   So hardening up stuff for long journeys, using high level engineers for nuclear refueling, and keeping your uranium tanks and nuclear reactors away from your Kerbals is actually going to be a thing...

While I like the idea, I can't help noticing that this mod is getting reeeally hardcore...

Edited April 13, 2016 by sh1pman

[Grumman]

8 hours ago, RoverDude said:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KK6uJGFm98EjhU5RvbD5mnp4Sm0PtrwKdB2gGtZsTAE/edit?usp=sharing

One bit that you may notice...  We're getting radiation next   So hardening up stuff for long journeys, using high level engineers for nuclear refueling, and keeping your uranium tanks and nuclear reactors away from your Kerbals is actually going to be a thing...

I'm going to be blunt: I think you're making your mod worse. There's no such thing as a self-sufficient colony unless you can reduce the rate at which homesickness increases to zero. And now you're adding a fourth counter to the mod I started using because it didn't have three counters like TAC-LS.

If it was me I'd get rid of Hab time altogether as being solved by pointless busywork, and only implement radiation in the most abstract sense: that Kerbals get homesick faster in deep space than in low orbit around or on the surface of semi-habitable planets and moons.

[RoverDude]

And this is why all of these can be turned off if one is so inclined.

(To elaborate a bit further)

Bear in mind, that everything I make, I make for myself - it's stuff I want in KSP (and tbh if you're making things for any other reason than (first and foremost) your own personal use, you're doing it wrong).

TAC-LS has depth in one aspect - consumables.  USI-LS has, for quite some time, been intended to have breadth across several aspects.  It's also meant to be used more like a spice rack - take a pinch and dash of the bits you want, whether that's penalties or even entire subsystems (hence the very large number of dials).  You can make hab (for all practical purposes) infinite with one tweak... or just turn it off.  Your call.  Me, I like all of the dials on because that's how I play with it, and all of those bits are bits that I want in my own games.  

[lude]

10 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Why is that unintuitive?  It's settings for the USI-LS mod  

And yep it's pretty easy to get stations, etc. into the 20 or 30 year mark.

Unrelated... I did update the google doc for kolonization:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KK6uJGFm98EjhU5RvbD5mnp4Sm0PtrwKdB2gGtZsTAE/edit?usp=sharing

One bit that you may notice...  We're getting radiation next   So hardening up stuff for long journeys, using high level engineers for nuclear refueling, and keeping your uranium tanks and nuclear reactors away from your Kerbals is actually going to be a thing...

 

 

 

Oh only because I only stumbled over "you can edit it in the lifesupport settings.cfg" somewhere ^^

I would have opened it on my own if it was called USI-LS-settings but I can see how changing that might be a hassle since people would have to delete the old one.

Also thanks a lot for the link, this is the first time I'm trying out the lifesupport(been using that and the other mods a lot, but never actually built bases or had such long manned missions due to favoring remote tech and drones)

Also Grumman the other two counters are easily disabled, I somehow like the idea and I'm looking forward to see it together with TAC LS.

Anyway as long as it's so easy to disable or make easier by excluding kerbals go on adding more depth, especially if it ends up being so many mods :>

 

If you add hardening values (like resistance of hardware and kerbals) could you have a look at K R&D? I dunno if it's your flavour of mod but I personally like the idea a lot, perhaps you see some extended use for it

[Kobymaru]

17 hours ago, RoverDude said:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KK6uJGFm98EjhU5RvbD5mnp4Sm0PtrwKdB2gGtZsTAE/edit?usp=sharing

One bit that you may notice...  We're getting radiation next   So hardening up stuff for long journeys, using high level engineers for nuclear refueling, and keeping your uranium tanks and nuclear reactors away from your Kerbals is actually going to be a thing...

17 hours ago, RoverDude said:

So exposing your Kerbal to a radioactive blast might kill them instantly, and having them sit on top of an unshielded nuclear reactor on a long voyage may result in so much radiation exposure that the cumulative effects eventually lead to death.

Here's a question that might seem Silly: what's so bad about sitting on top of an unshielded nuclear reactor? I mean, are nuclear reactors really radioactive? I would hope not, they are used on aircraft carriers, submarines, ice breakers ... It would be very uncomfortable if they would irradiate the room they are in along with the maintenance workers.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Kobymaru

[RoverDude]

See 'shielded'.  The U.S. experimented with putting a nuke reactor on a bomber once... one major issue was the weight required to properly shield the crew from getting killed.

[goldenpsp]

Both valid points.  Pretty much the only things running off nuclear reactors these days are too big to launch into space.

Would you be adding any parts for this?  It has been forever but IIRC the really old original interstellar mod had some shielding parts that you could use specifically to put in between radioactive parts and crew parts to help with shielding.  I seem to even remember you could get higher dosages of radiation when on eva and moving past the "shield".  It was a very old Scott Manley series however and maybe it was just him roleplaying that aspect.

[lude]

On high payload vehicles like the afore mentioned it's easy to have sufficient shielding for nuclear radiation.

Radio nuclide generators/'batteries' are relatively easy to shield and use but their power output is limited to a decaying few hundred watts (even tho it takes years/decades/centuries if a system is built with a high electric load the point where not sufficient energy can be converted is a lot earlier)

 

on the other hand radiation is very random in it's danger (it's also everywhere, especially flying a lot or being on a space station gives you a good steady dose of radiation

like living a year on the ISS equals to around eating 500000 bananas

 

https://xkcd.com/radiation/ good link

 

also what I mean by random, I remember the story about that dude that made all those pictures from the sarcophagus in pripyat/tchernobyl and he got a lot higher doses of radiation than other people because he sneaked into the sarcophagus, breaking his radiation detector tablet thingy (totally analogue and a lot of people did that so they could work longer and get paid more, i dunno exactly when after the bang it was but anyway) so while he got radiation sickness and had various health problems, he still lives and just looked like 70-90 with his a bit under 50 years while a friend of his who got saturated with a lot less radiation died within the first year of working there as a controller

 

living in brick houses in germany can lead to fun sitatutions where the radiaction control check in a nuclear power plant alarms due to the high amount of off gassing of radio active materials due to decay

 

or the high radioactive pollution created by coal plants as well as the coal longue which is a radiation caused disease

 

i'm looking forward to this because I like using radiation tech mods and I'd love a nerf beside the heat and supply problem introduced by what i have

 

-- edit --

 

I have a choice of three small scale nuclear reactors that are relatively easy to bring into space, the biggest weighing a bit over three tons one weighing less than a ton and one considerably less (tho they both seem to small for my needs)

 

I remember a heavy molten salt nuclear reactor but that was for big stations anyway.

 

Currently using the NUK-3 Aerospace Fission Reactor and i'm flying this ~190 ton SSTO

 

and this time they have enough space to last a year in space

Edited April 13, 2016 by lude