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[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9


ShotgunNinja

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12 hours ago, stickman939 said:

Can TACLS and this be used together? Or is there a compat. patch lying around somewhere?

Short answer : no

Long answer : there is a TAC-compatible profile lying around (I think you can find it on spacedock) that allow the use of TAC as a life support while keeping the other features of Kerbalism, but there is a fundamental issue regarding resource consumption in the background that will cause wrong consumption rates for LS resources.

Aside, can you elaborate on why you prefer to use TAC ? Kerbalism LS use the exact same resources and also use more or less realistic weights, volumes and consumption/production rates.

Edited by Gotmachine
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7 hours ago, blakemw said:

@CristiHow do you run them multiple times? If I do the same experiment again after analyzing and transmitting it gives zero science (doing the experiment again in a different location doesn't count since the whole point is to have a reason to maintain a station in one location). I've never tried it separately from Kerbalism so maybe it works differently in stock?

Hmm, you are right. It worked before, the question is it was bugged before or now :)

@blakemw I did more tests and without modifying the modulemanager I was unable to run multiple times the same experiment.

I modified "ModuleManager.ConfigCache" (I have no idea if it's ok to do this or not). DO NOT copy and paste the whole text below.

Spoiler

MODULE
        {
            name = StationExperiment
            experimentID = plantGrowth
            experimentActionName = Finalize Results
            resetActionName = Throw Away Results
            useStaging = False
            useActionGroups = True
            hideUIwhenUnavailable = True
            resettable = True
            resettableOnEVA = True
            dataIsCollectable = True
            collectActionName = Collect Results
            interactionRange = 1.2
            xmitDataScalar = 0.2
            eurekasRequired = 180  <<< I put here 180 instead of 50 to be more balanced/realistic, as I don't want to run the experiment several times per week

[...]

EXPERIMENT_DEFINITION
    {
        id = plantGrowth
        title = Plant Growth
        baseValue = 50
        scienceCap = 500  <<< I put here 500 instead of 50, so I can restart the experiment until I reach this value. 
        dataScale = 40      <<< I put here 40 instead of .04 (I think it was) so it will take more time to analyze and transmit the data. Balanced just like eurekas needed.
        requireAtmosphere = False
        situationMask = 51
        biomeMask = 3
        RESULTS

 

Edited by Cristi
new info
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7 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

Aside, can you elaborate on why you prefer to use TAC ? Kerbalism LS use the exact same resources and also use more or less realistic weights, volumes and consumption/production rates.

Long story short, I find TACLS easier to use, if that makes any sense. (I almost wrote an essay on why lol). 

 

 

7 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

Long answer : there is a TAC-compatible profile lying around (I think you can find it on spacedock) that allow the use of TAC as a life support while keeping the other features of Kerbalism, but there is a fundamental issue regarding resource consumption in the background that will cause wrong consumption rates for LS resources.

Yeah, I just found it about an hour ago.

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@blakemw 

What if instead we make use of the new Experiment module. It is able to collect data over time, from custom situations. We could find 8 representative experiments that make sense to be in a lab. Then the laboratory part could get a Configure module, to act as a 2-slot configurable container for these experiments.

They can be unlocked progressively, and running them can require a Scientist, and a reasonably long time. If these experiments are exclusive of the lab, it will definitely incentive its use. The Configure module 're-configuration in flight' can be exploited to somehow 'install new equipment' in the laboratory. That way we'll get a replica of what happens on ISS.

You get this new science that require the user to put a scientist and a lab somewhere for months/years. In the new Experiment module the data is generated constantly, so you can even 'stream' it home while it is collected. It will practically act as the 'generic science from lab' you describe.

The 'lab analysis' mechanic can remain in the lab along the new experiments, at least for the time being.

This will require little to no extra code. I just need to finalize support for the new situations, and somehow improve the reconfiguration in flight. The bulk of the work would be finding these 8 experiments.

What you think?

BTW: I do share your sentiment for 'biome hopping'. It's an abomination. People that do biome hopping should feel dirty inside.

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7 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@blakemw 

What if instead we make use of the new Experiment module. It is able to collect data over time, from custom situations. We could find 8 representative experiments that make sense to be in a lab. Then the laboratory part could get a Configure module, to act as a 2-slot configurable container for these experiments.

They can be unlocked progressively, and running them can require a Scientist, and a reasonably long time. If these experiments are exclusive of the lab, it will definitely incentive its use. The Configure module 're-configuration in flight' can be exploited to somehow 'install new equipment' in the laboratory. That way we'll get a replica of what happens on ISS.

You get this new science that require the user to put a scientist and a lab somewhere for months/years. In the new Experiment module the data is generated constantly, so you can even 'stream' it home while it is collected. It will practically act as the 'generic science from lab' you describe.

The 'lab analysis' mechanic can remain in the lab along the new experiments, at least for the time being.

This will require little to no extra code. I just need to finalize support for the new situations, and somehow improve the reconfiguration in flight. The bulk of the work would be finding these 8 experiments.

What you think?

BTW: I do share your sentiment for 'biome hopping'. It's an abomination. People that do biome hopping should feel dirty inside.

What you describe reminds me alot of MOLE, it has parts that can take two experiments from the choice of several, requires you to put the part in orbit for a long duration while scientists in a lab generate lab time to complete the experiments, then you have to finalize them and return them to the surface.  Now he has added a new LDEF system to do those experiments too. 

 

Edited by eberkain
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6 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@blakemw 

What if instead we make use of the new Experiment module. It is able to collect data over time, from custom situations. We could find 8 representative experiments that make sense to be in a lab. Then the laboratory part could get a Configure module, to act as a 2-slot configurable container for these experiments.They can be unlocked progressively, and running them can require a Scientist, and a reasonably long time. If these experiments are exclusive of the lab, it will definitely incentive its use. The Configure module 're-configuration in flight' can be exploited to somehow 'install new equipment' in the laboratory. That way we'll get a replica of what happens on ISS.

Sounds good

Quote

You get this new science that require the user to put a scientist and a lab somewhere for months/years. In the new Experiment module the data is generated constantly, so you can even 'stream' it home while it is collected. It will practically act as the 'generic science from lab' you describe.

The 'lab analysis' mechanic can remain in the lab along the new experiments, at least for the time being.

This will require little to no extra code. I just need to finalize support for the new situations, and somehow improve the reconfiguration in flight. The bulk of the work would be finding these 8 experiments.What you think?

It would go a long way to create justification to having labs and I like the idea of streaming data home for incremental rewards.

Some basic biological experiments would be plant study, fish study, rodent/chicken study and kerbal study. Logically these experiments could be done separately in microgravity (stations) and low-gravity surfaces (bases) and take at least 6 months to complete, but could be much longer too. There would be a certain logic to having them be done separately on every surface, growing plants on Minmus is not the same as growing plants on Eve.

Another category could be the development of various microgravity manufacturing processes. This would be specifically for stations, location shouldn't really matter, microgravity is microgravity. Lots of scope for making stuff up here from basic smelting/refining to advanced electronics.

Then there would be, I guess you'd call them material sciences, to learn how to utilize regolith and thus be specifically for bases. It would actually be very logical that these experiments could be done separately on different planetary/moon surfaces. Developing concrete on Mun would be different to Duna because the local materials are different. You can also make them take an arbitrarily long time to complete. Within material sciences there could be research for construction materials, fuels, alloys and polymers.

Quote

BTW: I do share your sentiment for 'biome hopping'. It's an abomination. People that do biome hopping should feel dirty inside.

hah, I don't mind that there's an incentive to visit different locations, but being forced to grind biomes to develop the tech tree is silly. It's actually even logical that (some) experiments could be redone at different biomes, but if you have to sit the base there for 2 years to complete the experiments it'd create a very different feel to biome-hopping.

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3 hours ago, Konsthr said:

How to calculate the required thickness of radiation protection, or where can i see calculation formula of radiation poisoning?

The Kerbalism simulator thing will tell you how much Pb-equivalent shielding thickness there is. By default maximum shielding (20mm) blocks 90% of the radiation, 10mm would block 45% of radiation.

Kerbals die of radiation once they have accumulated 50rad  (you get the first warning when they have accumulated 25rad - so at that point you are warned they are half dead). For example basic radiation rate outside a magnetosphere is 0.02 rad/h so it will take 2500hr or 416.67 days (just under one year) to die of radiation poisoning in an unshielded ship, this is increased to 4166.7 days with max shielding and you can go even higher by piling on active shielding. A solar storm inflicts 5rad/h for 6h so inflicts 30 radiation which is guaranteed to make an unshielded Kerbal sick and two storms be lethal. With maximum shielding the solar storm only inflicts 3 rad. Active shielding doesn't do much to stop solar storms, so with enough active shielding to prevent all background radiation and maximum passive shielding your Kerbals will be killed by the 17th solar storm. Solar storms strike on average every 500 days so maximum mission duration is about 8500 days or 20 years.

Note that because shielding is averaged across a vessel, you can make a solar storm "bunker" on an otherwise unshielded ship by having a maximum shielded pod, then *decouple* the pod during the solar storm so the kerbals enjoy maximum shielding. This is fairly illogical and it'd be fair to consider it an exploit.

Edited by blakemw
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40 minutes ago, blakemw said:

Note that because shielding is averaged across a vessel, you can make a solar storm "bunker" on an otherwise unshielded ship by having a maximum shielded pod, then *decouple* the pod during the solar storm so the kerbals enjoy maximum shielding. This is fairly illogical and it'd be fair to consider it an exploit.

In regards to the storm shelter solution you suggest, if you had single hitchhiker that was max passive shielded, and during the solar storm put your crew in there, then turned off 'habitation' in all your other crew parts, does this not produce the same effect as decoupling from the ship?

The rest of your post was very useful.  Thanks!

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1 minute ago, theJesuit said:

In regards to the storm shelter solution you suggest, if you had single hitchhiker that was max passive shielded, and during the solar storm put your crew in there, then turned off 'habitation' in all your other crew parts, does this not produce the same effect as decoupling from the ship?

According to the simulator it should work. Since toggle habitat can be added to an action group I might have to try that for a "solar storm bunker down" mode.

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Just make sure that you also move all your kerbals into the shelter :wink:

15 minutes ago, blakemw said:

According to the simulator it should work. Since toggle habitat can be added to an action group I might have to try that for a "solar storm bunker down" mode.

 

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21 hours ago, blakemw said:

One idea for balancing it would be to have diminishing returns over time...

Great post! My only niggle is that I think the diminishing returns is already built into the system. 1 Science / day / scientist would be breathtaking early on, so much so that I have a mental image of building a Science Lab on the runway. Later, when you're spending 500 / node, it's more a "nice to have."

Quote
  1. A scientist in a lab produces research at a rate of 1/day, that research is converted to data which then needs to be transmitted/returned as per usual, and the research -> science rate depends on the location's science multiplier.
  2. There is a 25% penalty for not having a pilot on board, and another 25% penalty for not having an engineer on board, because the scientists time is wasted on communication, administration, maintenance etc...

Something I feel quite strongly about is that science based on stations/bases should be a *fully viable alternative* to biome hopping. 

This is well thought out. 

Another slight issue with degrading Science over time is that I'd personally prefer to encourage a strategy of building permanent installations. Of course, ISRU does that too...

 

9 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

@blakemw 

What if instead we make use of the new Experiment module. It is able to collect data over time, from custom situations. We could find 8 representative experiments that make sense to be in a lab. Then the laboratory part could get a Configure module, to act as a 2-slot configurable container for these experiments.

That would work for me as well. The goal is to make a permanent or very long term installation viable.

Just for grins, there's another couple of approaches as well:

1) Contracts. A Contract that rewarded a lot of Science for keeping a crewed lab module / station in orbit for a long period would also encourage this. I'm pretty sure DMagic provides a few "long term magnetic survey" experiments like this.

2) Add a new resource, "Experiments." Experiments can be processed by a lab module and turn into Science which can then be broadcast, or produce samples which need to be returned.

 

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12 minutes ago, John Nowak said:

1) Contracts. A Contract that rewarded a lot of Science for keeping a crewed lab module / station in orbit for a long period would also encourage this. I'm pretty sure DMagic provides a few "long term magnetic survey" experiments like this.

Just a quick note: Contracts don't work in Science Mode. For that reason science contracts shouldn't be a major factor in unlocking the tech tree or incentivizing use of a part. I like the DMagic contracts a lot for career but "relying" on them for balance really breaks science mode.

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54 minutes ago, John Nowak said:

 Later, when you're spending 500 / node, it's more a "nice to have."

 

That would work for me as well. The goal is to make a permanent or very long term installation viable.

Just for grins, there's another couple of approaches as well:

1) Contracts. A Contract that rewarded a lot of Science for keeping a crewed lab module / station in orbit for a long period would also encourage this. I'm pretty sure DMagic provides a few "long term magnetic survey" experiments like this.

2) Add a new resource, "Experiments." Experiments can be processed by a lab module and turn into Science which can then be broadcast, or produce samples which need to be returned.

 

That's why you need 500 labs...

I like the idea of generating a experimented resource in a lab that is returned to kerbin for science.  

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I just started playing a new career mode game using Galileo's Planet Pack (GPP) and Kerbalism plus a boat load of other mods.  Kerbalism is the only mod I'm using for life support, etc...

I've successfully retrieved 2 Kerbals for 2 different rescue contracts.

However, the next 3 rescue contracts ended up in failure because once I rendezvous'd with the stranded Kerbal in orbit they weren't aboard the vessel anymore and there was no way to EVA them across to the rescue vessel.

I did see in the other successful missions a Kerbalism popup that the Kerbal ran out of resources followed by another message telling me to RELAX and that they were ok.

Has anyone else seen a problem with Rescue Mission Contracts?

 

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7 hours ago, blakemw said:

Just a quick note: Contracts don't work in Science Mode. For that reason science contracts shouldn't be a major factor in unlocking the tech tree or incentivizing use of a part. I like the DMagic contracts a lot for career but "relying" on them for balance really breaks science mode.

I had no idea! I've only played Career.

 

5 hours ago, Tuko said:

I did see in the other successful missions a Kerbalism popup that the Kerbal ran out of resources followed by another message telling me to RELAX and that they were ok.

Has anyone else seen a problem with Rescue Mission Contracts?

 

I've noticed that more than once. I get the impression that Kerbalism generates the alerts immediately before applying the "On ResQ" resources that give the rescued kerbal enough to get aboard the rescue vehicle.

I haven't see the rescued Kerbal vanish, or otherwise misbehave.

Out of curiosity, what were those vanished kerbals flying? 

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6 hours ago, theJesuit said:

That's why you need 500 labs...

Hah! Although I guess if someone wants to maintain 500 labs, more power to them. 

Although, yeah, maybe it would be best to restrict it to one biome...

6 hours ago, theJesuit said:

I like the idea of generating a experimented resource in a lab that is returned to kerbin for science.  

My idea was more along this.

You have a new resource, called Experiments. There is, of course, some sort of container for these.

You fly a ship laden with Experiments up to your space station, and transfer them over. Then the Science Lab "uses up" the Experiment resource to create Science, which could be Data or Samples. The rate it's converted is based on the size of the lab, how many Scientists are in the lab, and so on. Perhaps the value is modified based on the Situation and Biome of the lab.

 

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17 minutes ago, John Nowak said:

I had no idea! I've only played Career.

 

I've noticed that more than once. I get the impression that Kerbalism generates the alerts immediately before applying the "On ResQ" resources that give the rescued kerbal enough to get aboard the rescue vehicle.

I haven't see the rescued Kerbal vanish, or otherwise misbehave.

Out of curiosity, what were those vanished kerbals flying? 

They probably died which is what I meant by disappearing, although I never received an alert that they did die.

Typically, they were just in a random capsule/container with no life support attached.

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New version released: 1.2.5


Changelog
  - detect and avoid issues at high timewarp in external modules
  - hack stock solar panels and RTGs to use resource cache
  - RTGs decay over time, with an half-life of 28.8 kerbin-years  
  - corrected all chemical reactions, some were very wrong  
  - fix: solar panel sun visibility sampling error at max timewarp for loaded vessels (#95)
  - fix: impossible to guarantee coherency in resource simulation of loaded vessels (#96)  


No more insta-death by CO2 poisoning or climatization at high timewarp
This is fixed, rejoice. If you want more details about it, and disregard your own mental sanity, read below.

Spoiler

The coherency of resource production/consumption by stock and third-party modules on loaded vessels is dependent on timewarp speed and resource capacity. That I can't fix, because these modules are not written by me. I did however went great length in the past to fix it for my own modules, rules, processes, and things that I emulate in background. That's what the resource cache is for.

The timewarp incoherency issue is subtle, as long as the error doesn't have any consequence. But in this mod people die if an EC producer doesn't work as expected for just a single max-timewarp second. So I had to do something. The 'fix' involved:

  • hacking the stock solar panel (on loaded vessels) to use the resource cache, and to evaluate sun visibility analytically when appropriate
  • re-implementing the RTGs as processes, instead of ModuleGenerators, so that they too use the resource cache
  • re-implementing fuel cells as processes for the same reason (that was the case already in Default profile, now it is also done in Classic)
  • detecting if coherency is potentially violated, warning the user about it, and forbidding him to warp too fast in that case (can be disabled, do it at your risk)

This cover the major EC producers, so that they have correct behaviour at all time. But it doesn't cover stock command pods, generators, converters, or the third-party fission generators, etcetera. Because it would be easier (and definitely more pleasant) for me to just rewrite these modules from scratch than to somehow force them into using a different resource system. I did made an exception for the solar panel module.

So to summarize, the player has 3 mutually exclusive options:

  • design vessels using parts/modules that work at any warp speed
  • avoid warping loaded vessels at the 2 highest speeds
  • live with the possible consequences of incoherent resource production/consumption


RTGs decay over time
This apply to the stock RTG part, and to the ones included in VSR, NFE, RLA. Half-life is set to 28.8 kerbin-years. For the curious, this was implemented as another 'self-consuming' process.


Rebalanced chemical reactions
Some of the rates were very wrong, and mass-conservation was violated with impunity. The rates are now correct down to 1e-10. Molten Regolith Electrolysis is now based on a real reaction. If you have some complex ISRU going on in your savegame, please review the new rates before updating to the new version.


FAQ has been updated
Go read it in the OP.

Edited by ShotgunNinja
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Im seeing a issue with Kerbalism and GPP. Im not sure what is causing it but i have the steps to replicate it.

1. put a ship on the launch pad. do not launch.

2. return to space center

3. return to the vessel on the pad

4. witness hundreds of this in the console:

  NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at KERBALISM.Configure.configure () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at KERBALISM.Configure.OnGUI () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  (Filename:  Line: -1)

Does not happen in stock, so that's good. (didn't test with mods though)

Here is the full log. hopefully it helps.
OUTPUT LOG

Let me know if you need anything else.

Edited by Galileo
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@Galileo I installed GPP (amazing, BTW), including all the optional mods, and tried to replicate the issue without luck. But I found this in your log:

Spoiler

Module Configure threw during OnStart: System.IndexOutOfRangeException: Array index is out of range.
  at KERBALISM.ReadArchive.load (System.Int32& integer) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at KERBALISM.Configure.OnStart (StartState state) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
  at Part.ModulesOnStart () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 

It seem that configure setup data wasn't parsed at part compilation time, for some reasons. But there is nothing about that in your log. Can you send me a savegame that reproduce the issue?

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