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[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9


ShotgunNinja

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@KillAshley I use an heuristic function based on surface speed, surface gravity and radius (all normalized against the home body) to determine the magnetosphere/belt properties. This assure the home body has a magnetosphere and a belt. Also gas giants all get very strong radiation belts (deadly!). I checked the results against stock and RSS bodies (using the planner) and they are okay-ish: Venus has a smaller magnetopause but stronger magnetic field than Earth, Mars has a weaker one with no belt and most of the moons have no magnetic field at all, for example. There is no configuration unfortunately, but this has the advantage that it support all planet packs and rescale mods automatically.

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@hab136 I appreciate the feedback and understand why you are suggesting those changes. But that would be a *lot* of work, probably more work than the whole mod as it stand. A non-exhaustive list of problems about that:

  • it will mean ridding the whole codebase with conditions, with serious implication on code maintenability
  • I will have to hook into a pletora of other mods private API, and then constantly maintain those hooks as they change between versions
  • all mechanics interact with each other, this was possible because the code assume all the mechanics are present
  • you can assume half the interactions will disappear if a component is disabled (network effect)
  • stretching the limits of what's possible with MM patches, possibly requiring to forgo MM entirely and do all in prefabs (aaargh!)
  • [moar problems that I can't think of right now on the spot]

I'm glad you like the monitor ui. It may not seem obvious from the screenshot but the 'problem icon' show a list of problems, by alternating the icon.

Right now in my playthroughs I rarely went above 10 vessels and 200 are just mindblowing :)
The monitor resize automatically up to half the screen height, then it show a scrollbar. Grouping vessels somehow is not a bad idea, I'll think of something for next version.

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Don't let the criticism and change requests get you down. It's a very big shock to realize your one mod appears to have the capability to replace several longstanding favorites all at once, and just starting to consider that level of change is scary. We're all so accustomed to waiting patiently for several different modders to update their diverse projects, and accustomed to installing all the separate patches and workarounds to get the mods to play nicely together, that it's bizarre to think about being dependent on just one person's work. Especially when that one person is, please forgive me, somebody we don't know yet. Give people time to adapt, keep communicating like you have been, and I know a lot of this crowd will come around. We'll enjoy your work, and offer good feedback.

This is probably the best timing for it. I'm sure that many people are planning on starting new campaigns once 1.1 officially releases, and Kerbalism sounds like something you'd want to have working from the beginning.

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This looks awesome.

My main problem, like many others, is that I'm using a bunch of mods that have some of this functionality already (USI suite, Remotetech, Kappa-ray, ...)

I'd like to keep using parts of those while integrating with your mod.

 

 

Have you considered adding radiation effects from nuclear engines, RTG's etc., perhaps in conjunction with malfunctions to those parts?

Shadow shields might be a good additional part if nuclear engine radiation is added, as well as perhaps counting fuel and water mass that is between the kerbal and the radiation source.

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I haven't tried this mod, but it sounds and look pretty cool.

How would it behave in a system with more stars? Can it see that a body is a star? And could it behave differently depending of which type of star ?

(I'm aware that most likely the last one is not possible now, I am just wondering if it could be a possible addition)

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Just now, Sigma88 said:

I haven't tried this mod, but it sounds and look pretty cool.

How would it behave in a system with more stars? Can it see that a body is a star? And could it behave differently depending of which type of star ?

(I'm aware that most likely the last one is not possible now, I am just wondering if it could be a possible addition)

My thoughts exactly.

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@aniron I've considered creating a RadiationEmitter module and adding it to the NERV and RTG. Malfunctions could increase radiation from those parts, nice idea.

For shielding from parts... there is a problem, that it is very hard to make that behaviour coherent between loaded and unloaded vessels. (I'll have to re-implement part raycasting from scratch). I have a self-imposed constrain that no mechanic should introduce differences between the behaviour of loaded/unloaded vessels.

@Sigma88 Unfortunately this mod assume there is only one star, and that the star has index zero in the FlightGlobal.bodies array. I didn't even knew there were mods that added new stars!

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Does my communication array need to maintain line of sight with KSC, or just anywhere on Kerbin's surface?

I see that each antenna needs to have the relay function manually activated, and that's cool. But do I have to tell each antenna exactly where to point, as well? That's the one feature which made me prefer AntennaRange over RemoteTech; not having to micromanage every single antenna, everywhere in space.

How hard is it to get other antenna parts from other mods to work with Kerbalism?

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6 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@aniron I've considered creating a RadiationEmitter module and adding it to the NERV and RTG. Malfunctions could increase radiation from those parts, nice idea.

For shielding from parts... there is a problem, that it is very hard to make that behaviour coherent between loaded and unloaded vessels. (I'll have to re-implement part raycasting from scratch). I have a self-imposed constrain that no mechanic should introduce differences between the behaviour of loaded/unloaded vessels.

@Sigma88 Unfortunately this mod assume there is only one star, and that the star has index zero in the FlightGlobal.bodies array. I didn't even knew there were mods that added new stars!

There might need to be a way to repair malfunctioning items without going EVA, like detaching a drone or using a robotic arm etc. Otherwise you'd probably need to sacrifice a Kerbal to be able to repair a malfunctioning nuclear engine.

How does your mod interact with kerbals in parts that do not have the shielding resource? Does it kill them outright? Would it be possible to create a "storm cellar" mechanic where all parts (including those from other mods) are assumed to have a base level of radiation shielding, but if there is a solar event or you pass through a hard radiation belt you'd need to transfer your crew to a part with the shielding resource ASAP.

 

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14 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

 

@Sigma88 Unfortunately this mod assume there is only one star, and that the star has index zero in the FlightGlobal.bodies array. I didn't even knew there were mods that added new stars!

yeah :) there are a couple of mods that add one or two stars to either the stock system or the RSS system

and then there is my Galactic Neighborhood which adds a lot of stars :)

there was also a Kerbal Galaxy mod, but I don't know if it's still working these days

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Just now, Sigma88 said:

yeah :) there are a couple of mods that add one or two stars to either the stock system or the RSS system

and then there is my Galactic Neighborhood which adds a lot of stars :)

there was also a Kerbal Galaxy mod, but I don't know if it's still working these days

You want me to count them??

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@White Owl A link require direct or indirect line of sight with the home body, like AntennaRange. Antennas don't require to be pointed, they are all assumed to be omnidirectional.

You can find what is required to add support for a custom antenna in the Modules page on the wiki. Feel free to ask if that isn't clear.

 

@aniron Shielding work like this: each manned part has a capacity of Shielding resource, and you choose how much to fill it up on the editors. Then for each vessel a ShieldingFactor is deduced from amount_of_shielding / capacity_of_shielding (so the more crew capacity you have, the more Shielding you need for the same ShieldingFactor).

At all times, every vessel is in some kind of radiation environment, subject to different radiations. These are summed up and then the result scaled by '1.0 - k * ShieldingFactor'. That result is then accumulated per-Kerbal, and when one reach some of the thresholds, something happen (warnings, or death).

In the Planner, you can see estimated life time of the crew under different radiation environments. Shielding effectively increase the life time, but Kerbals can stand years at cosmic-level of radiations even without Shielding (its another story for storm-levels and belt-levels).

Shielding is calculated per-vessel, so something like an 'hardened refuge' part can't be realized. But you can still plan a lunar landing where the landing module isn't shielded (because you want to avoid the mass), but the orbital module is. And in case of solar storm the crew go back into orbital module ASAP (so it also get 50% shadow-time from the Moon body). This was basically the plan for the Apollo missions in case of solar storm.

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Wow, it's one heck of a mod, judging by the description (haven't tried it yet).

Is it compatible with CTT?

And yes, I also wish it were possible to use it alongside other mods (e.g., I use UKS/MKS and it's only compatible with TAC-LS and USI-LS). But as the author, it's certainly up to you to decide how to develop your mod.

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@White Owl I forgot to add, if you use VenStockRevamp all his antennas are automatically supported (there are a bunch of very good antennas in its development version on github).

@garwel Yes it is compatible with CTT, with this minor exception: 

Quote

Right now the tech improvements make some assumptions about the order of the technologies. If a mod reorder them the worst thing that can happen is that you may get the late bonus sooner than intended.

that will be fixed in the next version.

Edited by ShotgunNinja
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realy want to use it on my 1.05 buiild but u need to add things so that it dont interfeer with other mods like RT. for example have were the transmission stuff disables if it sees RT is installed

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30 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@White Owl A link require direct or indirect line of sight with the home body, like AntennaRange. Antennas don't require to be pointed, they are all assumed to be omnidirectional.

You can find what is required to add support for a custom antenna in the Modules page on the wiki. Feel free to ask if that isn't clear.

 

@aniron Shielding work like this: each manned part has a capacity of Shielding resource, and you choose how much to fill it up on the editors. Then for each vessel a ShieldingFactor is deduced from amount_of_shielding / capacity_of_shielding (so the more crew capacity you have, the more Shielding you need for the same ShieldingFactor).

At all times, every vessel is in some kind of radiation environment, subject to different radiations. These are summed up and then the result scaled by '1.0 - k * ShieldingFactor'. That result is then accumulated per-Kerbal, and when one reach some of the thresholds, something happen (warnings, or death).

In the Planner, you can see estimated life time of the crew under different radiation environments. Shielding effectively increase the life time, but Kerbals can stand years at cosmic-level of radiations even without Shielding (its another story for storm-levels and belt-levels).

Shielding is calculated per-vessel, so something like an 'hardened refuge' part can't be realized. But you can still plan a lunar landing where the landing module isn't shielded (because you want to avoid the mass), but the orbital module is. And in case of solar storm the crew go back into orbital module ASAP (so it also get 50% shadow-time from the Moon body). This was basically the plan for the Apollo missions in case of solar storm.

So adding parts that carry kerbals but do not have any shielding capacity wouldn't affect the overall shielding of the vessel? That would actually approximate the "storm cellar" approach while removing the need to manually moving kerbals around. Perhaps when going through parts to add up the shielding there could be code to check that the shielded parts actually have room for the crew, to avoid a 1-man pod with max shielding protecting a large crew. That approach might save a lot of work for using non-stock kerbal-carrying pods, as you wouldn't need specific support for this mod.

Perhaps you're thinking more of the Apollo program and I'm thinking more of the Constellation program or the Hermes from "The Martian".

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@aniron I dealt with that issue by adding 1 Shielding capacity for each crew capacity to every part automatically, using a MM patch. Ideally every manned pod added by other mods should just work out of the box.

If you remove the shielding capacity from a manned pod on purpose (eg: using a :FINAL MM patch), it will reduce vessel Shielding capacity making it cheaper (in term of mass) to achieve the same ShieldingFactor for the vessel.

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This mod does sound very awesome, more realism the better. I am almost tempted to do a 1.0.5 install to test it out but I am enjoying the performance and ability to have over 100 mods installed without issues.

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Like all others i really likes what i see here :wink:, but currently i can't imagine playing KSP without RT.

I guess a modular mods collection was probably better for this sort of mod.
Like: 1 core module to monitor all "plugins", and all other types (food, oxy, climate...) as plugins.
The core module define how plugins should interact with him, so you don't have to do all the work, others modders can modify theirs works to be compatible (black-box style).
This allow finals users to do what they want to (only LS, or only climate etc).
And also allow to start with few modules, and raise the difficulty by adding/enabling plugins over time.

This is just my point of view, and again nice work !
i'll try it asap :wink:

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31 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@aniron I dealt with that issue by adding 1 Shielding capacity for each crew capacity to every part automatically, using a MM patch. Ideally every manned pod added by other mods should just work out of the box.

If you remove the shielding capacity from a manned pod on purpose (eg: using a :FINAL MM patch), it will reduce vessel Shielding capacity making it cheaper (in term of mass) to achieve the same ShieldingFactor for the vessel.

How much does 1 Shielding currently weigh?

If it is heavy like you say, that might be prohibitive for such things as MKS/OKS bases, large interplanetary vessels and other application where a storm cellar approach might be workable.

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@aniron Every Shielding unit weight 2T. The player is supposed to compromise between mass and life expectancy due to radiation. You can tweak it like any resources, so you can have a pod with 0.2 Shielding amount for example. To give you an idea: under cosmic-level of radiation a Kerbal can survive 250d with a ShieldingFactor of 0.0 (eg: no shielding at all), and 5y 370d with a ShieldingFactor of 1.0 (eg: max amount of shielding). So to simplify, it cost 2T per-Kerbal to give a vessel the max amount of shielding possible.

In the case of a surface colony, if the body has a magnetosphere then there is no need for shielding at all. Magnetospheres act as safe heavens for life.

 

EDIT: during design i considered evaluating shielding for each individual container (that would be required for a proper 'storm cellar' implementation), but then I discarded it because I through the micromanaging could have become boring. Also, there is no incentive to keep kerbals outside of a 'storm cellar' and into normal pods when there is no radiation, so one would simply keep them in the storm cellar all the time.

Edited by ShotgunNinja
clarified
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@ShotgunNinja You could make the storm cellar not a habitation module, I noticed with RoverDude's life mod, you can't keep your kerbals out for a long time in space without a habitation module. Ran into this issue when running a rescue mission for a kerbal contract. Luckily, they didn't go on strike until after I rescued the new kerbal and that kerbal was a pilot, phew! With remotetech installed and no satellites up yet, I would've been screwed as I couldn't control it remotely.

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Sounds pretty cool, might try it out once 1.1 goes live.

As for changing your mod around to suit others and to work with other mods of the same type, might be a bad idea and  I agree with your stand on this.  Another mod called Better Than Starting Manned had the same idea and he did fine and had his own fan base.

 

Edited by malkuth
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