[1.4.2] Kerbal Research & Development

[eddiew]

I'll just leave this here...

Loving K RnD, in case it's not obvious

Would like to offer a suggestion though: maybe consider not linking the cost of reducing part weight to initial weight. It makes it very, very cheap to focus on small components and max the begebus out of them and very, very expensive for the larger parts. 

I'm also not sure about the balancing... I've edited the config and tripled the cost of all engine factors and doubled everything else, and some things still feel very cheap. Then again, my nervas are rank 4-3-4 now at 2.1t with 100kN and 960 ISP, and will need 480 points to improve again, so maybe it's absolutely fine ^^;  Even with just 10% in the rapiers, it's given them a real kick up the butt  

 

[Benji13]

How do you actually use this mod? In the SPH/VAB I will click on the KRnD icon in the toolbar and a window will pop up. The only thing in the window is 'Kerbal R&D: Select a part to improve'. If I click or drag any parts it will just do what is would normally do. I have plenty of science (1000+) and I am using the correct version. I can add screenshots if needed. 

Edit: So I was in the VAB just then and I had just put the extendable ladder on my craft. I tried the KR&D button and it came up with the proper upgrade info. I closed the window and tried to open it again. This time it said nothing. Any thoughts?

Edit again: Ok so the parts appear now. I remembered I had tweak scale installed so I removed it from the blacklist.cfg. Now I have a new question. How do you read the 'price' of each upgrade? All of my parts say they cost 10/0 science or something like that. 

Edited September 9, 2016 by Benji13

[Fr8monkey]

Price is amount of science to modify part / how much science you have.  If you don't have enough science, the bar will be red.

[KerikBalm]

This is a fun mod... fun in an OP kind of way, but fun none the less. I started a new career for this.

Its making me play a very different style. I'm sort of avoiding longer trips, and definitely avoiding putting stuff up that I don't intend to bring down... I don't want junky tugs floating around up there that are significantly obsolete... I figure I won't start launching anything meant to be refueled and reused without coming down on kerbin until all stats are at least level 3.

Its also made me start using labs much earlier, and its made me progress through the tech tree much slower... but at the same time my swivels now are better than the old ennd of the tech tree engines like the aerospike. I'm using SSTO rockets consisting of Swivel clusters, and I don't really need higher tech items. Even when it comes to unlocking docking ports... I don't plan on using fuel depots for a while (lest they be obsolete quickly), so everything is single stage to orbit, decouple and then go directly to mun/minmus and hop across 2 or three biomes and return.

I've been doing the career with basically only 3 engines since I unlocked LFO engines: Swivels for the SSTO launcher, Terrier for the upper stage, and LV-Ns in place of terriers for bigger upper stages.

I did a few upgrades to panthers, and with a heavily upgraded LV-N (mk11), got a LF-only panther spaceplane to orbit... Got rapiers but haven't used any airbreathing SSTOs yet.

I may replace swivels with upgraded aerospikes, or the Lantern engine from the atomic age pack

However fun it is, I'd like to make some suggestions:

#1) cap the upgrade levels to correspond with the R&D facility upgrade level. Haven't upgraded R&D? You can only upgrade an attribute to level 1. Upgrade the R&D facility to Lvl2, gain access to lvl 2 upgrades. Possibly at lvl 3 R&D, then upgrading becomes "unlimited"

#2) Link some upgrades to multiple parts: I shouldn't be encouraged to use 2x FL-T400 tanks in place of 1x FL-T800 tank because I upgraded the FL-T400 more. Have upgrades for "1.25m LFO tanks", "1.25m LF Tanks", "2.5m LFO tanks", "Mk2 LF tanks" etc... I seem to recall bulkhead properties are specified somewhere in the part .cfg files, can you use this? apply the upgrade to all parts in class X with bulkhead Y, containing resources Z... etc.

I think engines can be left as they are, as most are fairly unique... but there are cases where two engines are fairly close in usage, that maybe they should be linked (LV-T30 vs 45.. maybe vector and mammoth).

Perhaps add support for groups of parts to be defined to share upgrades?

#3) Don't link upgrade cost to part mass. The rocket equation cares about proportions, not absolute mass. Again, I can point to the "2x FL-T400 tanks in place of 1x FL-T800 tank" example. I can use clusters of smaller engines in place of a larger one... don't make us choose between computer performance and craft performance (ie high part count lagging computer, or large parts with high upgrade costs)

I've played around with some pretty cheap upgrades to 0.625m parts, and made some 0.625m SSTOs that are very good for not much science. Benefits from decreasing dry mass are not linear... the difference between 1.0 and 0.9x dry mass aren't the same as 0.5 and 0.4x dry mass.

At the same time... some parts shouldn't be so expensive, or they'd never get upgraded. Small science experiments should not have the same dry mass upgrade cost as fuel tanks.

I think we should look at what you might spam, vs what you might only want one of, vs what you might want a few of, but its always a minor component of ship mass. Maybe give a discount for parts that: don't store LF/O/Mono/Ore, can't hold kerbals, and don't produce thrust.

#4) Consider reducing or eliminating some of the upgrades. Consider that of the 4 upgrades for an engine, 3 of them increase its TWR stat. At just lvl 1 upgrades, I can increase an engine's TWR by 28.33%. A 28.33% increase before any doubling of cost is involved...

Isp upgrades increase thrust, Fuel flow upgrades increase thrust, dry mass decreases weight... all increase TWR. The end result is significantly less engine mass needed for a a given TWR. This increases Ln (M_1/M_0), and thus dV... which also goes along with increased Isp for higher dV.

With stats at level 2, an engine's TWR is 65% higher, that is massive. With lvl 2 upgrades, a swivel's stats become a lot better than the stock engines down the tech tree. Why unlock a poodle when my Swivel is getting 352 Isp(poodle 350), masses, less, and has a TWR of 22.4 (poodle TWR: 14.56)... and its useful in an atmosphere.

Why unlock an aerospike with 340/290 vac/atm Isp, and a 18.35 TWR, when my swivel is getting 352/297 vac/atm Isp, and a 22.4 TWR>

These upgrades multiply in ways that make these parts really OPd even after just one doubling of the upgrade cost. I suggest reducing the fuel flow and dry mass multipliers to 5% (in particular, note that the dry mass benefits are non-linear... if someone took dry mass to lvl10, the part would be massless...)

Also the rocket equation gets nasty and non-linear as one tries to pack in more dV for the same Isp... Improving Isp thus has non-linear benefits. Also as a 5% Isp boost has the same benefit to thrust as a 5% fuel flow increase, I suggest lowering the Isp bonuses to 3% instead of 5%

In this scheme, an "all lvl1" engine only gets a 13.8% TWR increase vs 28.3, an all lvl 4 engine gets a 68% TWR increase compared to the current increase of 180% at all level 4

[KerikBalm]

Just a follow up... for those low mass parts, you might think that the doubling of costs will prevent the upgrades being taken to extremes... this is not the case.

Consider a rocket made of sparks, and oscar Bs.

Due to low mass, the dry mass upgrade costs 1 initially. this doubles 9 more times for a final upgrade that costs 512 (I wonder if the part can get negative mass?!) The sum of all upgrades to turn the part massless at 10%/upgrade would be 1023... about as much as an end of the tech tree node.

Do that for a spark, do that for the oscar B, do that for a probe core, and do that for the RTG...its the cost of 4 tech nodes at the end of the tree... certainly feasible... you now have an infinite dV rocket...

Congratulations, lightspeed is reachable... although I'm sure the kraken would strike as craft mass nears 0.000.

10% dry mass reductions are really powerful, and low mass parts being cheap to upgrade are not balanced either.

If you implemented my 5% rather than 10% suggestion, but nothing else... then it would take 1,0485,575 science points to make a low mass part massless... which should be expensive enough

Edited September 10, 2016 by KerikBalm

[-MM-]

On 25.8.2016 at 9:14 PM, eddiew said:

I'll just leave this here...

A very cool pic I am a big fan of space-planes myself. In my career games I however ended up using simple throwaway rockets in the end, because landing planes after each mission was way too much hassle for me. This is why I've spent the last few weeks on building the KSTS (Kerbal Space Transport System) Mod. If you like space planes or launch automatization in general, take a look.

Additionally I've just uploaded version 1.10 of KRnD (see first post for download-link) to make KSTS compatible with KRnD: Vessels you deploy with a KSTS mission will get all the latest upgrades, just like newly launched ships on the launchpad would.

 

On 10.9.2016 at 2:42 PM, KerikBalm said:

... I wonder if the part can get negative mass?! ...

Thank you KerikBalm for all your input. I haven't had time to look at some alternative calculations for improving the mass of parts (I've been working on KSTS), but it is not possible to make a part mass-less with KRnD. You can only lower a part's mass down to 10% (9 improvement levels). Would it help if we simply removed the link between the mass-upgrade cost and the initial mass?

[aquilux]

I'm curious. Are there any plans or even ideas to somehow make this mod compatible with Interstellar Fuel Switch? Too many of my must have mods rely on IFS and I've really wanted to use this mod.

[JeffreyCor]

I took to time to remove IFS requirement from mods I like since I never really liked that or TweakScale. Took some time but found it well worth it in many ways.

[Sresk]

is there any way to get this compatible with tweak scale specifically so that I can use it with interstellar? 

Also does the work with realism overhual?

[Benji13]

On 26/09/2016 at 0:28 PM, Sresk said:

is there any way to get this compatible with tweak scale specifically so that I can use it with interstellar? 

Also does the work with realism overhual?

In one of the cfg files there is a list of 'blocked' modules. If you remove Tweakscale (or any other mod) it will allow you to upgrade parts, it just won't work on tweakscaled parts. 

[DaniDE]

@-MM-

Regarding compatibility, I always wondered if it would be possible to have a common layer for modifications so all the mods that modify parts at runtime would send their changes to that layer, and then the combined changes would be passed on to the runtime. Like a modular (as in, does not need all mods to function, but could work with all the part mods at once) API that sits between the part modifying mods and the game. Maybe storing everything in RAM even, now that we have x64 across the platforms that matter.

In any case, thank you for keeping this essential mod updated

Edited October 8, 2016 by DaniDE

[-MM-]

On 8.10.2016 at 2:19 PM, DaniDE said:

@-MM-

Regarding compatibility, I always wondered if it would be possible to have a common layer for modifications so all the mods that modify parts at runtime would send their changes to that layer, and then the combined changes would be passed on to the runtime. Like a modular (as in, does not need all mods to function, but could work with all the part mods at once) API that sits between the part modifying mods and the game. Maybe storing everything in RAM even, now that we have x64 across the platforms that matter.

In any case, thank you for keeping this essential mod updated

Hello DaniDE,

something like that would probably only work if it were designed by Squad as part of KSP's core functionality. You need a well defined interface which multiple mods can use. The way KRnD works right now is kinda dirty: We modify the base-stats of the parts ,which "should" be persistent and only be modified in the config-files, at runtime. KSP 1.2 seems to introduce a new "upgrade-system" for parts. This might be what we are looking for here ...

[DaniDE]

Oh nice. I am hyped for 1.2 now

[Jahulath]

This has rapidly become one of my favourite mods, last couple play throughs have been a lot more fun thanks to this! Thanks for your time

[Lennartos]

On 10/9/2016 at 3:03 PM, -MM- said:

Hello DaniDE,

something like that would probably only work if it were designed by Squad as part of KSP's core functionality. You need a well defined interface which multiple mods can use. The way KRnD works right now is kinda dirty: We modify the base-stats of the parts ,which "should" be persistent and only be modified in the config-files, at runtime. KSP 1.2 seems to introduce a new "upgrade-system" for parts. This might be what we are looking for here ...

Just wanted to suggest to check out just this.
The only question is if its possible to stack the change of parts by tech nodes.
It it indeed stacks, then it should be relatively simple to create fake tech nodes for each part where you change its stats.
KRnD has become one of my essential mods - i'm still waiting for it before before launching my new 1.2 game

[Turin Malos]

On ‎10‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 9:09 AM, Lennartos said:

... i'm still waiting for it before before launching my new 1.2 game

Seconded. This mod's on my 'must have' list.

[prykpryk]

Hi -MM-! Nice to see your mod so popular.

Could you make it so it is possible to upgrade parts in Sandbox mode? And maybe to revert upgrades?

Edited October 15, 2016 by prykpryk

[Terwin]

On 10/12/2016 at 8:09 AM, Lennartos said:

Just wanted to suggest to check out just this.
The only question is if its possible to stack the change of parts by tech nodes.
It it indeed stacks, then it should be relatively simple to create fake tech nodes for each part where you change its stats.
KRnD has become one of my essential mods - i'm still waiting for it before before launching my new 1.2 game

I have not looked into it personally, but from what I have read about others discussing this, upgrades are read from tech nodes in order(of research cost?) and only the latest modification to a given parameter on a given part will be used.  I think it is implemented in a 'once this node is researched, set these parameters on these parts to these new values' so there is not really any way to stack the modifications, as it is simply assigning a new value(and some of those values could even be worse in some ways than the previous values, if so designed)

[DaniDE]

15 hours ago, Terwin said:

I have not looked into it personally, but from what I have read about others discussing this, upgrades are read from tech nodes in order(of research cost?) and only the latest modification to a given parameter on a given part will be used.  I think it is implemented in a 'once this node is researched, set these parameters on these parts to these new values' so there is not really any way to stack the modifications, as it is simply assigning a new value(and some of those values could even be worse in some ways than the previous values, if so designed)

Before there goes more hearsay into this, I would like to point you to a source. The default behavior of PartStatsUpgradeModule seems to be replace, there is an additive update function in there too though. Quote:

" the "IsAdditiveUpgrade__" field. This field tells the PartModule Load to add the UPGRADE nodes additive. If it is false the nodes will overwrite each other this is only applicable to the PartStatsUpgradeModule. "

Another Quote that is important: " The PartUpgradeManager ScenarioModule handles the Upgrading. Mods can Interface to this to modify the stock upgrade behaviour and extend"

You can check this out for more info:

 

[-MM-]

Hello, I've just uploaded a new, KSP 1.2.0 compatible version of KRnD. You can find the download-link on the first page of this thread. I have however just updated all the existing functionality to properly work with KSP 1.2, I haven't added any new features like improvable antennas and I also haven't switched to the new Upgrade-System. I believe major changes like that would probably take a lot of time and are better suited for a 2.0 release of this mod.

 

On 15.10.2016 at 9:28 AM, prykpryk said:

Hi -MM-! Nice to see your mod so popular.

Could you make it so it is possible to upgrade parts in Sandbox mode? And maybe to revert upgrades?

I don't believe there are science points in the sandbox mode, which means you could immediately upgrade all parts to their maximum stats. I would suggest that you simply modify a career game to unlock all parts from the beginning on.

Edited October 18, 2016 by -MM-

[prykpryk]

Yea, that's what I did before, but it's just a suggestion.

[Norcalplanner]

Thank you for updating this! Doesn't seem to recognize upgrades for the new Porkjet parts, but that's understandable. Everything else seems to work fine so far.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Norcalplanner

[Jahulath]

Awesome! Thanks again for your efforts!

[Kerbonaut257]

So I have a request.

 

Can you remove the "conflicts with" parts in CKAN? Or is there a way to override it? I've used tweakscale and KRnD together for a long time. I use KRND on the parts that matter the most like batteries, fuel tanks, and engiens. And I use tweakscale on parts that I'll never actually upgrade, like wings. I would really like to be able to install both via CKAN because then I get automatic updates. But if I can't do it then I can install manually obviously.

I have since learned that it's not the mod author who creates the "conflicts" in ckan. My apologies

 

Edited October 19, 2016 by Kerbonaut257

[Kerbonaut257]

Is there a way to get KRnD to work with procedural tanks? Because I love using procedural fuel tanks, and I would love even more if I could upgrade them.