[1.1.3] MKS Lite - A lighter, friendlier colonization mod from USI [0.4.4]

[JeffreyCor]

Thank you so much for putting the work into this! While I really like UKS overall, but the complexity was off putting but would just grin and bear it. With this, that is no longer required.

[RyanW1019]

OK, I've installed the mod and am playing around with the parts on Kerbin. A few initial thoughts and questions (warning, may be nitpicky and/or known issues):

* The model for the Kolony Tube doesn't quite match up with the Anchor Hub when they are connected. Instead of the ring on the tube being flush with the sphere, it stops a small distance before touching the sphere. This allows the player to look in between the parts and makes the colony module look discontinuous.

* The Anchor hub has the toggle option "Lights On/Off" available, but does not actually change in appearance if you turn the lights on/off.

* The Regolith Sifter has the option to Deploy Shovel; even though it is successful at harvesting ore/dirt, there is no visible shovel that emerges and goes into the ground. The only sign of movement is the turning gears. Is this intended?

* When I try to launch a ship with the Flex-O-Tube part, I get a message saying "Texture file: UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS-Lite/Assets/FlexOTube as [sic] not been found, please check your KAS installation!" The ship still loads, though, and I can still successfully link two parts with the Flex-O-Tube.

* I haven't fully grasped the complexities of the resource cycle yet, but am I missing a way to generate Mulch or is there no way to generate it? To oversimplify, it looks like you produce Dirt & Ore using the Regolith Sifter, Organics using the Agricultural Module, Supplies using the Habitation Module, Greenhouse, or Agroponics modules, and ExoticMinerals, RareMetals, and RocketParts using the Portable Smelter. This leaves us without the ability to generate RefinedUranium, Mulch, and Fertilizer while on another planet. Since Mulch is necessary to produce Supplies, either directly or through Organics, this means that it is impossible to set up a self-sustaining colony on another planet, even if you have the ability to mine. Eventually, you will run out of Mulch, lose your ability to generate supplies, and all of your Kerbals will die/go on strike. Or am I just missing a part somewhere?

That's all I have for now. I love the idea of making a simpler colonization mod, but the idea of a self-sustaining colony has been a big goal of mine. Even if it requires me to be continually mining resources like Dirt and Ore, and consuming a lot of power, I had hoped that we would be able to set up an equilibrium that results in all of my Kerbals staying fed and happy without any further assistance from Kerbin. If I am not just missing something, I would suggest that you add the ability to generate Mulch, possibly from either dirt or ore. You could even add the resource conversion functionality to one of the existing parts, so you wouldn't need to increase the part count unless you wanted to build a dedicated part for it.

I will continue posting feedback as I experiment with this mod. Please let me know if this isn't the kind of feedback you are looking for; I hope to be a helpful alpha tester, not an unhelpful one.

Edited October 3, 2015 by RyanW1019

[mhoram]

@RyanW1019: There is no need to actively generate Mulch, since Kerbals only require Supplies to stay alive and they produce Mulch. Fertilizer is another method for generating supplies from Mulch, but I assume that this was left out, since via Dirt->Orcanics->Supplies you already can produce an unlimited amount of Supplies.

[Fat D]

You are essentially asking for a poop factory.

[Whovian]

Another thing - contrary to the wiki, Snacks support seems to be missing.

Though I must say that I'm quite glad this is a thing. As with others, I always found UKS a bit daunting. Question: how would you recommend I go about getting these things close enough together if I'm trying to set up a base on something like Leouch from New Horizons? Essentially, it has really low gravity and really thick atmosphere.

Edited October 3, 2015 by Whovian

[goldenpsp]

* The Regolith Sifter has the option to Deploy Shovel; even though it is successful at harvesting ore/dirt, there is no visible shovel that emerges and goes into the ground. The only sign of movement is the turning gears. Is this intended?

I would venture it is intended. This is an area where you are dealing with a bit of abstraction, much like how wireless logistics shows no wires. There isn't a way to show it but you would essentially have kerbals digging with the shovel and dumping it into the sifter, which is in turn well, sifting it into the stuff you want.

* I haven't fully grasped the complexities of the resource cycle yet, but am I missing a way to generate Mulch or is there no way to generate it? To oversimplify, it looks like you produce Dirt & Ore using the Regolith Sifter, Organics using the Agricultural Module, Supplies using the Habitation Module, Greenhouse, or Agroponics modules, and ExoticMinerals, RareMetals, and RocketParts using the Portable Smelter. This leaves us without the ability to generate RefinedUranium, Mulch, and Fertilizer while on another planet. Since Mulch is necessary to produce Supplies, either directly or through Organics, this means that it is impossible to set up a self-sustaining colony on another planet, even if you have the ability to mine. Eventually, you will run out of Mulch, lose your ability to generate supplies, and all of your Kerbals will die/go on strike. Or am I just missing a part somewhere?

As others have said, you have Kerbals to generate mulch.

[RoverDude]

OK, I've installed the mod and am playing around with the parts on Kerbin. A few initial thoughts and questions (warning, may be nitpicky and/or known issues):

No worries and thanks!

* The model for the Kolony Tube doesn't quite match up with the Anchor Hub when they are connected. Instead of the ring on the tube being flush with the sphere, it stops a small distance before touching the sphere. This allows the player to look in between the parts and makes the colony module look discontinuous.

The tube has two attachment points - one is recessed, one is flush (the recessed one looks a lot better on round parts). Make sure you're using the inset node, and if this is still an issue, show me a screenshot.

* The Anchor hub has the toggle option "Lights On/Off" available, but does not actually change in appearance if you turn the lights on/off.

Log a github issue please (usual caveat, I am not saying 'log an issue' in a snarky way, I am saying 'log an issue' because it really helps me sort these things out and is the best way people can help).

* The Regolith Sifter has the option to Deploy Shovel; even though it is successful at harvesting ore/dirt, there is no visible shovel that emerges and goes into the ground. The only sign of movement is the turning gears. Is this intended?

Yep, the actual shoveling is abstracted.

* When I try to launch a ship with the Flex-O-Tube part, I get a message saying "Texture file: UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS-Lite/Assets/FlexOTube as [sic] not been found, please check your KAS installation!" The ship still loads, though, and I can still successfully link two parts with the Flex-O-Tube.

Reported, I will be taking care of this

* I haven't fully grasped the complexities of the resource cycle yet, but am I missing a way to generate Mulch or is there no way to generate it? To oversimplify, it looks like you produce Dirt & Ore using the Regolith Sifter, Organics using the Agricultural Module, Supplies using the Habitation Module, Greenhouse, or Agroponics modules, and ExoticMinerals, RareMetals, and RocketParts using the Portable Smelter. This leaves us without the ability to generate RefinedUranium, Mulch, and Fertilizer while on another planet. Since Mulch is necessary to produce Supplies, either directly or through Organics, this means that it is impossible to set up a self-sustaining colony on another planet, even if you have the ability to mine. Eventually, you will run out of Mulch, lose your ability to generate supplies, and all of your Kerbals will die/go on strike. Or am I just missing a part somewhere?

As noted by others, mulch is essentially 'poop'. Kerbals make this. Side note, I have an idea for a tweak to help make this more obvious. It's really a matter of keeping MKS-L's abstraction simple enough. And if you have dirt, you can absolutely be self sufficient. So as long as you have Kerbals you have an infinite mulch supply

Regarding Fertilizer, this is more of a USI-LS thing but I have some ideas. Regarding RefinedUranium I think you mean EnrichedUranium, and since no parts in MKS-L use this, it would not be needed - you'd upgrade to the full UKS mod if you were looking for that

That's all I have for now. I love the idea of making a simpler colonization mod, but the idea of a self-sustaining colony has been a big goal of mine. Even if it requires me to be continually mining resources like Dirt and Ore, and consuming a lot of power, I had hoped that we would be able to set up an equilibrium that results in all of my Kerbals staying fed and happy without any further assistance from Kerbin. If I am not just missing something, I would suggest that you add the ability to generate Mulch, possibly from either dirt or ore. You could even add the resource conversion functionality to one of the existing parts, so you wouldn't need to increase the part count unless you wanted to build a dedicated part for it.

Yep you can absolutely do that with MKS-L - that's the intent I'll try to make that a bit more obvious in the next release.

I will continue posting feedback as I experiment with this mod. Please let me know if this isn't the kind of feedback you are looking for; I hope to be a helpful alpha tester, not an unhelpful one.

No worries at all, this has been very helpful and presented in a constructive and useful way, so keep at it!

[Bloody_looser]

Regarding Fertilizer, this is more of a USI-LS thing but I have some ideas. Regarding RefinedUranium I think you mean EnrichedUranium, and since no parts in MKS-L use this, it would not be needed - you'd upgrade to the full UKS mod if you were looking for that

Since Rector pack is distributed with MKS-L so EnrichedUranium is being used kinda.

Btw, RoverDude, will you release standalone version of Kontainers?

[RyanW1019]

Thank you to all of the people who let me know that Mulch is just Kerbal waste, and is produced when they consume Supplies. I thought it was an agricultural material like Fertilizer (which I guess it technically is ).

The tube has two attachment points - one is recessed, one is flush (the recessed one looks a lot better on round parts). Make sure you're using the inset node, and if this is still an issue, show me a screenshot.

Turns out there's a workaround, but there's more weirdness going on than I originally thought.

I tried it out, and the reason I wasn't able to attach it before is because the Anchor Hub wouldn't connect to the inner node of the Kolony Tube; i.e. it snaps to the recessed node but shows up as red instead of green so I can't place it. Interestingly, I pressed Q to rotate the Anchor Hub around the Y axis, and it showed up as green. Cycling through all 4 rotations with Q & E shows that the problem happens with 2 of the 4 sides of the Anchor Hub. This bug can happen whether the Kolony Tube is pointing North/South or East/West, and I can't pin down which sides of the Hub it happens with.

Once the Anchor Hub is attached to the ship, I can attach Kolony Tubes to all 3 of the exposed sides without any problems, even using the recessed node. The bug only seems to happen when I try to attach an Anchor Hub to a Kolony Tube that's already connected to the ship.

This is probably confusing to read, so I made an Imgur album. http://imgur.com/a/VpBor

Also, I noticed that the issue with the part visuals not lining up only occurs when I try attaching the Hub to one end of the Kolony tube. When I flipped the tube around, the models appeared flush even when I attached the hub to the outer of the 2 nodes. So it looks like the nodes are not symmetric or do not line up perfectly with the model. This doesn't appear to be linked to the bug, though, as it can happen on either end of the Kolony Tube.

Log a github issue please (usual caveat, I am not saying 'log an issue' in a snarky way, I am saying 'log an issue' because it really helps me sort these things out and is the best way people can help).

How would I go about doing this? Not trying to be snarky, I've never alpha-tested mods before and I've never used Github.

Yep, the actual shoveling is abstracted.

Noted, thanks for clarifying.

Additional question, are Flex-O-Tubes supposed to be able to connect to the ends of Kolony Tubes? They have identical textures but only Flex-O-Tubes have the option to Link. I guess the Flex-O-Tubes are supposed to add the additional functionality of linking, but it would be interesting if you could connect Flex-O-Tubes to Kolony Tubes.

Edited October 3, 2015 by RyanW1019

[RoverDude]

It would be very weird to put a flex o tube on a colony tube - they basically do the same thing (one is more for KIS users tho).

Also: new release.

0.0.2 - 2015.10.03

--------------------

Fixed tube and hub colliders for less explosions (May cause issues with existing bases)

Added 'Fertilizer' into the mix and changed the workflow between habs and ag modules slightly. Habs now recycle into fertilize, and convert organics into supplies/food. Ag module converts fertilizer plus dirt into organics.

Removed MKS Efficiency equations from MKS-L modules to keep things simple

Reduced KAS/KIS storage volume of all inflatables

Increased storage space in the lander module and added it to the pod

Added missing FlexOTube texture

Corrected errors in the OSE Workshop config

[RyanW1019]

Neat!

Do we have to manually paste the update files in or will it update when we start KSP?

[RoverDude]

You need to download and install the new version from KerbalStuff.

[sp1989]

You need to download and install the new version from KerbalStuff.

Why are the nukes from Orion included in MKS Lite?

[RoverDude]

Why are the nukes from Orion included in MKS Lite?

They aren't....

[sp1989]

They aren't....

Im sorry but they are.

[RoverDude]

Im sorry but they are.

http://i.imgur.com/gu0ds79.png

http://i.imgur.com/hfqKp2z.png

..And which one of those is a nuke from the Orion mod again?

A nuclear reactor (power source) != a nuclear pulse drive.

[sp1989]

..And which one of those is a nuke from the Orion mod again?

A nuclear reactor (power source) != a nuclear pulse drive.

Maybe I am confused but arent those the same nukes from Orion? I swear I am not being argumentative or sarcastic. Sometimes because of the tone of these forums and just because of text based communication alot gets lost. I was under the impression those nukes were from Orion.

- - - Updated - - -

NEVERMIND NEVERMIND NEVERMIND. Instead of screenshooting I should have looked for myself. I just downloaded Orion again to see. Sorry for the the confusion. It was all my fault.

[RoverDude]

No worries - glad it got sorted

[RyanW1019]

To clarify, when Kerbals "Repaint" the outside of a storage container, they are just changing the texture--they aren't changing which resources it stores, right?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm learning USI-LS at the same time I'm learning MKS-L.

[RoverDude]

To clarify, when Kerbals "Repaint" the outside of a storage container, they are just changing the texture--they aren't changing which resources it stores, right?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm learning USI-LS at the same time I'm learning MKS-L.

No problem - and a repaint does in fact change the contents - it's how we reuse storage containers

[RyanW1019]

No problem - and a repaint does in fact change the contents - it's how we reuse storage containers

I sent a Kerbal out to repaint one of my storage modules after inflating it, and the new container switched to the uninflated capacity of the new storage chamber (so, 1/100th of what it's supposed to be). Screenshots here: http://imgur.com/a/DLugo

Also, I still don't know how to submit something on Github. Anybody want to let me know how to do that?

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

Well, I think I'll try this with the orion drive and IR to colonize Laythe.

[RoverDude]

I sent a Kerbal out to repaint one of my storage modules after inflating it, and the new container switched to the uninflated capacity of the new storage chamber (so, 1/100th of what it's supposed to be). Screenshots here: http://imgur.com/a/DLugo

Also, I still don't know how to submit something on Github. Anybody want to let me know how to do that?

Known issue - always retract before repainting

Just create a github account, and then you can create a new issue in that repository

[RyanW1019]

Ok, I will do that. If the Github page is for reporting issues, then what type of feedback do you want in this thread?

[goldenpsp]

Ok, I will do that. If the Github page is for reporting issues, then what type of feedback do you want in this thread?

Any feedback is fine. If you find an actual issue that you don't want to get missed log a github.

Usually if I am unsure I post about it here. If I'm pretty sure its a bug I check github to see if an issue already exists and if not log a new one. Anything that helps keep Roverdude organized helps us all.