[1.12.x] - Modular Kolonization System (MKS)

[SkiRich]

1 minute ago, DStaal said:

No, it's exactly the same as the stock skill traits - you get the next star the same way as always.

Just that if they have this trait, they have the ability to boost the relevant equipment.

Oh, not even close to what i was thinking.

I guess kept thinking training versus usage.

Thanks.

[SkiRich]

I need some advise on the following.

I am setting up an orbital logistics center next to my runway at the KSC.  The idea is to feed orbiting craft after launch like my stations and others.

I created a karobou rover with all the necessary components and it works well.

I want to deliver kontainers next to the unit for the purposes of expanding the operation but really dont want to make more rovers.  I'm thinking of just delivering large kontainers and dropping them next to the  original rover.

Do I need to connect them in some way to the rover or can they just lay on the ground next to the rover and participate in orbital logistics?

If I need to connect them, I assume the donut tube is required, or can I use the KIS hose and do a docking?  I really dont want to micro manage the site after I deposit a kontainer.

[Jaden007]

So I'm having a few problems, some I can live with, but one is game breaking. I'm on 1.8.1 and my enriched uranium does not go into my planetary stockpile. This means I cant transfer it around the colony for nuclear power. I'm having another problem as well, my nukes are only at less than 1% thermal efficiency. They are covered in radiators, so what am I doing wrong there?

Looking at the nukes, they seem to cold. They are only 100k, and they won't heat up. If I timewarp to fast than the whole craft will explode from heat. That is also a big problem if I cant use the nuclear reactor in timewarp. 

 

[Terwin]

55 minutes ago, Jaden007 said:

So I'm having a few problems, some I can live with, but one is game breaking. I'm on 1.8.1 and my enriched uranium does not go into my planetary stockpile. This means I cant transfer it around the colony for nuclear power. I'm having another problem as well, my nukes are only at less than 1% thermal efficiency. They are covered in radiators, so what am I doing wrong there?

Looking at the nukes, they seem to cold. They are only 100k, and they won't heat up. If I timewarp to fast than the whole craft will explode from heat. That is also a big problem if I cant use the nuclear reactor in timewarp. 

 

1) are your radiators turned on?

2) is your power reserve at or above 90% charged?

MKS nuclear power reduces output to stay at 90% charged, and will shut down if other power supplies keep you above 90% charged(but will turn back on if the charge drops below 90%, like at night)

The behavior you describe could happen if your radiators are off and your generator is off or running at low power during the day but when you time-warp into night the power plant ramps up but has no cooling and causes other parts to overheat.

Also, you want to be using the fixed(not extendable) radiators for MKS nuclear plants if you have drills on your base, as the extendable radiators look at the whole ship, not the part they are attached to, and will reserve their available cooling based on the max cooling the other parts can demand(and because colonization bonuses can really ramp up drill output and thus heat, MKS drills have a large possible cooling output, which then gets reserved and prevents the power plant from cooling at all, even if the drills are off).

Fixed radiators only look at the part they are attached to, and any parts attached to that part, so unless you have both drills and radiators attached directly to your power plant, the radiators attached to the plant will reserve most or all of their capacity for the power plat, and thus be available to cool it as it heats up.

[Jaden007]

That's one problem fixed then, but what about the planetary stock problem with enriched U? I kinda need that to be added with the rest of my planetary stock. 

 

[RoverDude]

Just now, Jaden007 said:

That's one problem fixed then, but what about the planetary stock problem with enriched U? I kinda need that to be added with the rest of my planetary stock. 

 

Nuclear fuels are by design one of those things you need to do manually as they are hazardous materials.    Though it does take a while till you will actually need to do a refueling.

[Jaden007]

Oh, there was an option add to planetary stockpile on the nuclear containers. That seems like a lot of work, doing it manually. Can you transfer it through local logistics? 

 

[RoverDude]

2 minutes ago, Jaden007 said:

Oh, there was an option add to planetary stockpile on the nuclear containers. That seems like a lot of work, doing it manually. Can you transfer it through local logistics? 

 

Pretty sure those are off the local logistics route.  tbh, I've never had an issue running out of fuel.

 

[Jaden007]

21 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Pretty sure those are off the local logistics route.  tbh, I've never had an issue running out of fuel.

 

Then how does one refuel, I want self sustaining, but that would be impossible, unless.....

Can you move around uranit? Then I can just bit the bullet and have a bunch of on site uranium refineries, then I can have a true self sustaining system. I want to last indefinitely without micro management, if that's possible. 

[RoverDude]

2 minutes ago, Jaden007 said:

Then how does one refuel, I want self sustaining, but that would be impossible, unless.....

Can you move around uranit? Then I can just bit the bullet and have a bunch of on site uranium refineries, then I can have a true self sustaining system. I want to last indefinitely without micro management, if that's possible. 

Use an engineer on EVA to do refueling.  They can pull from a local warehouse.

[DoktorKrogg]

11 hours ago, Jaden007 said:

I want to last indefinitely without micro management, if that's possible. 

It's not possible with nuclear reactors. To piggyback on what @RoverDude said, a fully fueled and appropriately sized nuclear reactor will last years or decades in some cases but not indefinitely. You would have to go with solar, a fuel cell, Karbonite generator or something along those lines if you want a completely hands-off base. Even so, if you're also playing with USI LifeSupport, then you'll have to hop back to each base periodically anyway to let their supplies replenish. I hate to keep teasing this but one of the goals of WOLF (coming soon™) is to address the constant babysitting required in MKS/USI-LS. If Kerbolar-wide colonization is your goal, then WOLF will be your jam.

Edited July 17, 2020 by DoktorKrogg

[Terwin]

12 hours ago, Jaden007 said:

Then how does one refuel, I want self sustaining, but that would be impossible, unless.....

Can you move around uranit? Then I can just bit the bullet and have a bunch of on site uranium refineries, then I can have a true self sustaining system. I want to last indefinitely without micro management, if that's possible. 

I think the nuclear power plants are supposed to last ~5  years at 100% usage, so if you only use it at 50%(perhaps using two reactors or a larger reactor than you strictly need) than that means one refuel every ~10 years, and only for bases that do not have local uranium refining.

So unless you are time-warping for decades and either ignore solar or always come back at night, nuclear refueling is not a common occurrence.

I generally throw a medium plant on my mining bases and have never had to refuel them, and my main processing bases are usually refining uranium anyway, so they keep their reactors topped off automatically(automatic maintenance+refined uranium storage and refining=topped off reactor)

Edited July 17, 2020 by Terwin

[SkiRich]

How timely you guys are talking about Nuc Reactors.

Just an FYI, this confused me until I found the cause.

If you have NearFutureElectrical mod loaded along side of MKS, your MKS reactors will have two kinds of reactor built in to each one.

A Fission Reactor, and MKS's Fuel Converter.

TRhe Fission reactor is always on when you click it on and does not provide Xenon fuel as an output.

The MKS Converter is a reactor that will charge to 95% and throttle down automatically, which is nice if you team it with solar.

Turning on both gets double the output of one.  But also double the heat double the fuel consumption etc.

It was confusing when I was playing with the reactor to have two of them in one case so I tracked it down.

I'm not sure I want to keep both modules loaded in the asset but its handy at times to have these options.

Edited July 17, 2020 by SkiRich

[Terwin]

8 minutes ago, SkiRich said:

If you have NearFutureElectrical mod loaded along side of MKS, your MKS reactors will have two kinds of reactor built in to each one.

When I use near future electrical, I always drop the MKS patch for NFE.  Perhaps I did not spend enough time looking at them, but NFE reactors seem less reliable and more prone to catastrophic failure during time-warp or catch-up.  Perhaps this has been fixed, but I am pretty happy sticking with just the MKS version of the reactors.

[SkiRich]

15 hours ago, Terwin said:

Also, you want to be using the fixed(not extendable) radiators for MKS nuclear plants if you have drills on your base, as the extendable radiators look at the whole ship, not the part they are attached to, and will reserve their available cooling based on the max cooling the other parts can demand(and because colonization bonuses can really ramp up drill output and thus heat, MKS drills have a large possible cooling output, which then gets reserved and prevents the power plant from cooling at all, even if the drills are off).

@Terwin I have not seen the reservation effect you describe.

Going through the cfg files, nothing indicates that either.

The panels do have parentCoolingOnly = true which is the only basic difference in that module (other than capacity) between the two types.

I think what can happen is, if you have any other parts on your craft and you decide to add a radiator for your Nuc, then using a foldable one will not soley cool the Nuc, and its capacity and efficiency will decrease when the other parts start to heat up.

If you have no other core heat producing parts then it doesnt matter which you use.

Skin temp doesnt count since radiators dont cool skin.

7 minutes ago, Terwin said:

When I use near future electrical, I always drop the MKS patch for NFE.  Perhaps I did not spend enough time looking at them, but NFE reactors seem less reliable and more prone to catastrophic failure during time-warp or catch-up.  Perhaps this has been fixed, but I am pretty happy sticking with just the MKS version of the reactors.

I would do the same but I like the fact NFE has a common Electrical Interface where you can see all the power and control it from one dialog.

 

[Terwin]

1 hour ago, SkiRich said:

@Terwin I have not seen the reservation effect you describe.

Going through the cfg files, nothing indicates that either.

The panels do have parentCoolingOnly = true which is the only basic difference in that module (other than capacity) between the two types.

I think what can happen is, if you have any other parts on your craft and you decide to add a radiator for your Nuc, then using a foldable one will not soley cool the Nuc, and its capacity and efficiency will decrease when the other parts start to heat up.

If you have no other core heat producing parts then it doesnt matter which you use.

MKS uses the stock cooling system, so the only place you would see anything is if you compare the max cooling of MKS drills with the stock drill or other heat-generating parts.

The stock cooling system goes through the parts and allocates ship-wide cooling potential based on max cooling, and if there is not enough to go around, then some parts just don't get cooled(even when other parts are not using all of their potential cooling), and for some reason the stock cooling system prioritizes MKS drills over MKS power plants, so if you have MKS drill attached to your vessel, folding radiators will not cool your power plant.

 

If you do not have MKS drills, I would expect extendable radiators to work ok for cooling a MKS power plant(assuming you don't have double-heating from having two cores in one reactor)

[SkiRich]

25 minutes ago, Terwin said:

The stock cooling system goes through the parts and allocates ship-wide cooling potential based on max cooling, and if there is not enough to go around, then some parts just don't get cooled(even when other parts are not using all of their potential cooling), and for some reason the stock cooling system prioritizes MKS drills over MKS power plants, so if you have MKS drill attached to your vessel, folding radiators will not cool your power plant.

Holy cow.  Thats not documented anywhere.

How did you figure that out?

[Terwin]

11 minutes ago, SkiRich said:

Holy cow.  Thats not documented anywhere.

How did you figure that out?

It was explained on this thread, I think by RD, who then reduced the max cooling of the MKS drills to something more reasonable so that more than one drill can operate without overheating(but still too high for nuclear plants to work properly, so the recommendation is to use fixed radiators for those)

There is a *lot* of information in those 375 pages...

Edited July 17, 2020 by Terwin

[SkiRich]

38 minutes ago, Terwin said:

It was explained on this thread, I think by RD, who then reduced the max cooling of the MKS drills to something more reasonable so that more than one drill can operate without overheating(but still too high for nuclear plants to work properly, so the recommendation is to use fixed radiators for those)

There is a *lot* of information in those 375 pages...

Yeah, coming in new to MKS reading 375 pages is not feasible.  One day.

I'll see if I can scan for it in the threads to find it and then go update the wiki for the radiator to say something about that.

In the meantime I'm wondering the following.  If I update a part via a MM patch to include another resource (the NFE is missing Xenon Gas conversion)

Do I need to find that section in the persistent file for my game and update manually or will the game be smart enough to know that the part has been updated and add that to already deployed parts?

Edited July 17, 2020 by SkiRich

[Terwin]

50 minutes ago, SkiRich said:

In the meantime I'm wondering the following.  If I update a part via a MM patch to include another resource (the NFE is missing Xenon Gas conversion)

Do I need to find that section in the persistent file for my game and update manually or will the game be smart enough to know that the part has been updated and add that to already deployed parts?

That depends on the part and the modification made.  Some attributes are put in the save file and some are collected from the setup files.  I know that some mods will cause additional values to be saved in the save file(tweakscale and R&D for example), but beyond that I could not really say which attributes are kept where.

In this case I guess you will just need to verify your change in the VAB and then check an existing craft to see if it populates.

[SkiRich]

1 hour ago, Terwin said:

That depends on the part and the modification made.  Some attributes are put in the save file and some are collected from the setup files.  I know that some mods will cause additional values to be saved in the save file(tweakscale and R&D for example), but beyond that I could not really say which attributes are kept where.

In this case I guess you will just need to verify your change in the VAB and then check an existing craft to see if it populates.

Test result: It appears I can alter existing in play MKS reactors via MM

I'm trying to find a decent balance with NFE and MKS.  Needs more tweaking though.

[SkiRich]

Are shipping kontainers (the square ones) dockable in some way?

I'm wondering how I can make a delivery system using these but also be able to transfer them from ship to ship in land and in orbit.

[Terwin]

4 hours ago, SkiRich said:

Are shipping kontainers (the square ones) dockable in some way?

I'm wondering how I can make a delivery system using these but also be able to transfer them from ship to ship in land and in orbit.

Not by themselves, you would need to use docking ports or have an engineer connect them with KER(probably need a fork-lift if it is not empty).

[DefenderX1]

So I've just reinstalled MKS in hopes of starting a new sandbox save to colonize a few planets but KSP won't load, it hung loading the small lightglobe.
Any thoughts?

I'm running the latest version of KSP and JUST downloaded MKS and it's requirements via CKAN.

KSP & Player logs:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gE-QAWTz5Hyy20wDGytBYwCeiU6N6DwD/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jzPjEZ6GiAaJhgtBQwEi3CynhBRI4qrC/view?usp=sharing

[goldenpsp]

5 minutes ago, DefenderX1 said:

So I've just reinstalled MKS in hopes of starting a new sandbox save to colonize a few planets but KSP won't load, it hung loading the small lightglobe.
Any thoughts?

I'm running the latest version of KSP and JUST downloaded MKS and it's requirements via CKAN.

KSP & Player logs:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gE-QAWTz5Hyy20wDGytBYwCeiU6N6DwD/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jzPjEZ6GiAaJhgtBQwEi3CynhBRI4qrC/view?usp=sharing

Yea the answer is a page or few back.  You can probably search on it.  IIRC just delete the part for now as it needs a fixed drag cube.