[1.2.2] Soylent - Life Support through Algae. [v0.06.1 2016.12.31 - big hellfire]

[JPLRepo]

2 minutes ago, DBowman said:

It should still work fine, I'd been reluctant to mark it compatible before I'd not re-checked TAC and Soylent. I've only just got around to playing with TAC LS under 1.1.3 and I've not yet re-tested Soylent - but it's just a simple referencing of TAC generators with some custom intermediate resources.

Are you just doing minimal care taking or thinking about extensions and new developments also? ( e.g. modelling cabin atmosphere (fire vs CO2 overload), consumable CO2 scrubbers, hatch leakage - Apollo apparently used to leak pounds per day )

No it's the full thing. I am not the only one on the team. And looking for others. Feel free to volunteer to join the team (via PM as well). And finally Feel free to submit ideas/requests/etc on the TAC LS github.

Edited August 29, 2016 by JPLRepo

[DBowman]

8 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

No it's the full thing.

sweet - I'll check it out properly (and 'do something' about marking Soylent compatible)

Just thought I'd call out also that I'd tried to make the masses and production values for Soylent realistic; with optimistic and conservative options. It's missing any kind of 'food prep' though.

One thing I'd noticed in testing TAC earlier is that the order in which generators run seems not to be deterministic - and that can make a difference under warp. Although the various rates of recycling imply 'steady state' the order of evaluation can kill your Kerbals if you don't add sufficient buffer space and resources. I guess things like this belong in the github.

[DBowman]

v 0.3 - tested against TAC LS 0.12.4.0 in KSP 1.1.3 - looks okay, marked on spacedock.info

[RocketSquid]

Is there any chance of an inline or electrically powered system?

[DBowman]

4 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Is there any chance of an inline or electrically powered system?

It makes sense, I mainly balked due to not having any real modelling skills. It would be easy to calc up some mass, volume, & e requirements and patch that 'over' some existing part(s) - that's not so visually compelling, but maybe that matters less than the functionality. Thinking about the visuals though what makes sense? a can with decals? something green and glowing? 

[RocketSquid]

2 hours ago, DBowman said:

It makes sense, I mainly balked due to not having any real modelling skills. It would be easy to calc up some mass, volume, & e requirements and patch that 'over' some existing part(s) - that's not so visually compelling, but maybe that matters less than the functionality. Thinking about the visuals though what makes sense? a can with decals? something green and glowing? 

I feel like the Science Jr. could be reused for this quite easily. The mystery goo would also be good for a radial artificial light version.

[Stone Blue]

2 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

I feel like the Science Jr. could be reused for this quite easily. The mystery goo would also be good for a radial artificial light version.

Hmmm...My vote is against using the mystery goo container... Unfortumately, BioMASS is already reusing that for a grow experiment...Might cause possible confusion, if both mods are installed...??

[DBowman]

4 minutes ago, Stone Blue said:

Might cause possible confusion

Under the covers the mods 'clone and change' whatever source part they are using. They won't clash as far as the mods are concerned, but players might have trouble telling them apart. At worst only the name and text will be different, with luck it can be re-skinned / decal-ed for visual clarity / branding.

I did another look at the parts, these also seem good contenders to me; fuel-cell array for radial (you could also put it in cargo bays etc), the ISRU parts (especially if they can be re-skinned), the service bays (remove the door open).

[Cairan]

A quick headsup here ... Am I the only one who has issues with Interstellar Fuel Switch ... the Soylent Starter containers, which are basically Xenon radial tanks, don't have the option to haul Soylent starter anymore when IFS is installed...

I'm completely swamped in other issues (work and $$$ ) but maybe a quick ModuleManager CFG could be joined with the mod to prevent / exclude IFS medling with the Soylent starter tanks if this issue is duplicated by others.

[DBowman]

4 hours ago, Cairan said:

A quick headsup here

oooo - I've not used IFS - I'll double check the .cfg for the radial starter to see if I left something IFS might be 'keying off'

[DBowman]

the xenon tank .cfgs contain this line:

    tags = fueltank (ion propellant tank

I guess IFS might use that, I'm not sure if it's new or not. You could try adding:

    -tags = fueltank (ion propellant tank

to the GameData\UberDyneAstronautics\Soylent\StarterRadial\StarterRadial.cfg, the bit after = needs to be present but is ignored. Let me know if that works, I'll try myself when I get some time to try with IFS.

Edit - @Cairan I installed 2.1.4 IFS and verified that it let me switch one of the stock LF:OX tanks around. It had Soylent Starter in the radial tank and I could tweak the levels, also SS in the Super Critical Water Oxidation Unit. The only other mods present are TAC-LS and hyper edit. The IFS thread looked like it had lots of chat around how to handle providing switching for mods without them having to do anything - it might be an area that is/has been changing in IFS, what version are you using? probably worth trying the change above anyway.

Edited August 31, 2016 by DBowman

[Cairan]

16 hours ago, DBowman said:

 

Edit - @Cairan I installed 2.1.4 IFS and verified that it let me switch one of the stock LF:OX tanks around. It had Soylent Starter in the radial tank and I could tweak the levels, also SS in the Super Critical Water Oxidation Unit. The only other mods present are TAC-LS and hyper edit. The IFS thread looked like it had lots of chat around how to handle providing switching for mods without them having to do anything - it might be an area that is/has been changing in IFS, what version are you using? probably worth trying the change above anyway.

Thanks for the quick test on your side ... I'll try to see where exactly the chain gets broken in the CFGs and come back with an answer sometime this weekend (despite having live wires hanging from the ceiling as I type this ... we're rebuilding my son's room and the existing electrical system was rather ... kerbish.  ) 

To answer your question, I'm using IFS 2.1.4 and TAC-LS 0.12.4 and Soylent 0.3

Edited September 1, 2016 by Cairan

[Gilph]

HI,

Running my first space station with TAC LS, Station Science, and Soylant on 1.1.3. All looks really good.  Running Soylant Red because I'm a wimp.

[DBowman]

9 hours ago, Gilph said:

Running my first space station with TAC LS, Station Science, and Soylant on 1.1.3. All looks really good.

post a pic if you like

[Gilph]

2 hours ago, DBowman said:

post a pic if you like

Here is the whole station, pretty basic straight line. SCWOUs in a ring around the reaction wheel above docking ports

Reds are the Gig panels sticking out radially

Edited September 6, 2016 by Gilph

[DBowman]

@Gilph Sweet station - looks very ISS, and with room to grow.

One thing I noticed though is the algal arrays are supposed to be colored (the algae) - I cannot believe I didn't notice the cosmetics when I was checking that the resources looked okay in 1.1.3. Turns out Squad changed the name the gigantor model uses to reference it's texture, so I have to change my .cfgs to match. I released a v0.4 on spacedock that you can install. Or you can just use notepad or something and change 'model000' to 'panel' in GameData/UberDyneAstronautics/Soylent/gigantorSoylentGreen/gigantorSoylentGreen.cfg and gigantorSoylentRed/gigantorSoylentRed.cfg 

//        texture = model000,UberDyneAstronautics/Soylent/gigantorSoylentGreen/model000.g needs to be
        texture = panel,UberDyneAstronautics/Soylent/gigantorSoylentGreen/model000.g

I checked a saved ship in orbit and the new texture re-map was applied. Sorry for the mixup, thanks for the image or I might not have noticed for a while!

[Gilph]

Glad I can be of use.  I'll download now.  Thanks for such a cool mod

[westamastaflash]

On 8/30/2016 at 7:04 PM, DBowman said:

Thinking about the visuals though what makes sense? a can with decals? something green and glowing? 

I actually like using the gigantors. Lighting can be provided by LEDs

[DBowman]

1 hour ago, westamastaflash said:

I actually like using the gigantors. Lighting can be provided by LEDs

That makes sense up to a certain point, supplementary photons - but at some point the need to keep the water liquid will mean putting it in a small volume rather than something radiator shaped. Although photosynthesis should 'work' out to near Saturn the frost line is near the asteroid belt, maybe the Soylent gigantors should work like radiators also? orienting them edge on to the sun should be fine - light can pass through quite a long water column and still drive photo synthesis. Though probably cooling isn't your big thermal problem out at Jool.

[Gilph]

And here she is, after a cut and color...

[helcustom]

Just a heads up but this mod doesn't work with Vens part stock revamp.

[DBowman]

On 9/8/2016 at 9:21 AM, helcustom said:

Just a heads up but this mod doesn't work with Vens part stock revamp.

Oh that revamp is large, it substitutes models. I did a quick check and it looks like the processing works ok ( i.e. the algae is there and eats waste producing the good stuff ) but all the cosmetics are missing since the models (and textures) are completely different. 

Ven's does things like:

@PART[*]:FOR[zzzVSRPathPatch] {...
    @MODEL,* {
        @model ^= :^Squad/Parts/FuelTank/xenonTankRadial/model:VenStockRevamp/Squad/Parts/Propulsion/RadialXenon:
    }...

so it will 'wreck' any re texturing mod. There must be a way to patch around it that doesn't involve copying squad's models.

[Gilph]

Hi,

Have a question on long term missions and the balance of the conversion.

I understand there's been a lot of work with respect to the rate of conversion, which is driven by sunlight intensity. Also, the red vs. green also comes into consideration. But, all that affects the number of kerbals a ship can support.  But, I don't seem to be experiencing any noticeable losses or consumption.  I thought the consumable resource was soylent starter, but I have not consumed any yet.

Is it because I have only used it for .5 years with only 5 kerbals? Is it that I am using the OP red algae, and the soylent starter consumption is the same with red or green? Something seems a little too good to be true.

Thanks

[DBowman]

@Gilph Think of the starter not as a day to day consumable but like an emergency backup for the ecosystem. If some strain of algae overran, or the pilots accidentally let things get too hot/cold and killed the ecosystem then the starter is used to reestablish things. It gets consumed at about 1/1000 th the rate of the day to day slurry from all the non gas waste. 

One thing to note is that although in principle the arrays are light driven it's not enforced - the simulation facilities provided by the underlying game engine don't do a good enough job for it to be reliable. You should calculate your 'dark time proportion' and scale up the arrays to compensate. e.g on a planetary surface you should double the nominal rating, in LKO something like 1.33 times depending on the orbit.

[Gilph]

Got it...thanks very much.

To my point, what is consumed then? is it the conversion efficiency from waste->supplies? So, at some point, I need more of supplies to replenish?

Edited September 21, 2016 by Gilph
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