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

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Spent some time this morning with my test save and the development constellation, ended up sending Jeb and 31 of his closest friends to live in the dessert for a few months:

I was asking earlier for some ATLAS styled reactors, but I have to say, a silver Honeybadger reactor looks pretty good (with a bit of offsetting), and is up to the task of powering any practical 10m base.  20m domes would probably require a reactor per dome, and maybe even daisy-chaining them for the factory domes. Making the 5 way symmetry of the ATLAS domes mix with the bilateral symmetry of the other parts is a challenge, but not impossible.

Mixing an Assemble Colony Supplies storage dome with a Agriponics dome gives storage for everything you'd need in a hab and lifesupport base. If you want to use the purifier instead of the recycler, just swap Agriponics storage for Cultivate storage, that will add water to the storage mix without needing another part.

Since it's my test save, I've got USI on easy-mode, so no definitive  numbers on Hab time. I need to sit down and math out the ideal ratio of months to multiplier bays for the new parts, anyhow.

Just thought I'd throw out some ideas for those who are trying to build and power these new beasts.

 

KoS

[MaxPeck]

@RoverDude - I was playing this morning and realized that since I’m using stock inventory, the USI KIS containers are gone.  I only realized this when I was setting up Akita trucks (two flatbeds and a USI container make a nifty little hauler) and I realized they’re not there.  Any chance those are coming back as stock inventory units? 

[RoverDude]

44 minutes ago, MaxPeck said:

@RoverDude - I was playing this morning and realized that since I’m using stock inventory, the USI KIS containers are gone.  I only realized this when I was setting up Akita trucks (two flatbeds and a USI container make a nifty little hauler) and I realized they’re not there.  Any chance those are coming back as stock inventory units? 

I've actually moved everything over to the stock system.  KIS is fully deprecated in the next release.  Which I really want to do sooner rather than later, as there's some good stuff in there.  In the interim, I'll probably be doing regular constellation pre-releases.

 

 

[Jstephe25]

Will this mod be available to download in CKAN? I've downloaded several of your other mods through CKAN to try but i don't see MKS 

[mcortez]

21 minutes ago, Jstephe25 said:

Will this mod be available to download in CKAN? I've downloaded several of your other mods through CKAN to try but i don't see MKS 

They're all present in CKAN, although I don't believe Roverdude directly manages that, so sometimes they're slightly out of date or missing folders.  It's recommended you install directly from the Github releases from Roverdude's signature.

Screenshot from my CKAN:

Spoiler

 

[Calvin Kerman]

19 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Also completely unrelated... USI-LS is getting a thing....

Will this use DeepFreeze, or a new system?

[RoverDude]

17 minutes ago, Calvin Kerman said:

Will this use DeepFreeze, or a new system?

Cryo storage baked natively into USI-LS.

[JamesonKerbal]

Just letting folks know that my computer is borked (it’s what the Swedish tech support guy said, though he was wearing a chef’s hat and carrying a blunderbuss so not sure if that’s the official term). I will try to do some work on the WOLF tutorial from day to day but getting workflow right is difficult and taking screenshots is harder when you only have a tablet and phone to work on!

Currently waiting for my service appointment, hopefully some good news in an hour or so.

 

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

So, I did a bunch of math that I won't bore you, dear reader, with, but concerning only the ATLAS hab domes, the ideal ratio of months to multiplier bays seems to 2x Months and 4x multiplier bays. Of course, YMMV, since there are SO many variables and parts that turn the equation into an exercise in drunken calculus. The first rule of calculus, of course, is to never drink and derive...

In other Atlas news, I trialed two 20m factory domes:

With  six bays devoted to Material Kits, it can kick out almost 8400 Mat Kits a day, powered by the three Honeybadger reactors (They need a little help from an external PDU, but not enough to justify another reactor). The 4 miners are required by the local conditions around my main Mun base, which needs  2 substrate drills for each metal or mineral drill to keep production balanced.  The other factory is a true monstrosity simultaneously producing Machinery, Colony Supplies, and Mat Kits with enough Spec Parts to keep the production lines humming along:

This one requires 4 Honeybadger reactors, but I went with a full 6 pack for fun and extra power.

Both look quite good clipped into the hanger floor, but I'm going to wait to construct them for "real" until a flat bottomed variant (or some alternative) is available to make them look as good in the wild. They balance well enough on the rocker bottom with a little creative ballasting of the storage tanks, but it doesn't take much for them to just start tipping over. A few attempts to use various landing gears just produced the siren call of the Kraken, and the less said of that, the better...

 

KoS

[RoverDude]

Yeah I need to give you guys a variant that does not have the bottom nub of the Atlas bits.

Oh... and here's my current career vessel for my manned Jool-5 science mission (Crew of three, with two in the freezer most of the time).  Single stage to orbit with the Orion

[goldenpsp]

14 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Yeah I need to give you guys a variant that does not have the bottom nub of the Atlas bits.

Oh... and here's my current career vessel for my manned Jool-5 science mission (Crew of three, with two in the freezer most of the time).  Single stage to orbit with the Orion

Good to see you are playing and not just coding

[RoverDude]

13 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

Good to see you are playing and not just coding

It's why new things keep popping up

 

[JamesonKerbal]

On 1/1/2021 at 8:04 PM, TomfooleryYT said:

So, I'm trying to follow the wolf tutorial and I'm at the part where I've built a depot on the KSC launchpad, and am about to make a extension to the depot to have it start making material kits. But, the part where you add the extension to the depot, my game keeps giving me the error that the depot doesn't have veins for the necessary resources. the tutorial doesn't address this. am I doing something wrong?

I will update the tutorial to provide more cues that there is an action to be done. Sorry that I let you down here! Scanning the biome is done in the previous section almost as an aside.

Another change I will make is to provide context linking the pictures to the text around them and highlighting certain words and phrases to help people scanning the text (my writing style is a little chatty so the speed readers/scanners will end up missing vital cues).

Thank you for taking the time to comment on the tutorial!

[Atlas Gaming]

22 hours ago, RoverDude said:

4.  Is there a reason you'd prefer the different status?  Once in WOLF it is a one way trip.   Not sure if there are ramifications of a Kerbal being 'assigned' but lacking a vessel to be assigned to.

Hey out of curiosity, why does it have to be one way? Why not have the kerbals assemble the production line and then a month later they come back from their business trip while the WOLF factory/distribution center runs autonomously. I think that is the goal for all kinds of real world facilities as well..

Musk had a fully robotized plant and only really added more people to it because of the number of defects. Bezos wants to have fewer and fewer people in warehouses and use more automation every year. 

You do it the way you like as the author, but I think there is a good argument for having Wolf be automated and just consume resources, but allow the initial kerbals who went to build it, to come back from their business trips!

[RoverDude]

4 minutes ago, Atlas Gaming said:

Hey out of curiosity, why does it have to be one way? Why not have the kerbals assemble the production line and then a month later they come back from their business trip while the WOLF factory/distribution center runs autonomously. I think that is the goal for all kinds of real world facilities as well..

Musk had a fully robotized plant and only really added more people to it because of the number of defects. Bezos wants to have fewer and fewer people in warehouses and use more automation every year. 

You do it the way you like as the author, but I think there is a good argument for having Wolf be automated and just consume resources, but allow the initial kerbals who went to build it, to come back from their business trips!

Because they are a permanent resource for that resource chain.  For example, 'maintenance' includes mechanics, engineers, matkits, etc. to keep everything operational.  WOLF is not automation (except for a couple of low efficiency automated harvesters), it's an abstraction layer over the 'plumbing'.  You still have the quartermasters, pilots, mechanics, medics, farmers, biologists, etc. that make everything run smoothly.

 

[MaxPeck]

4 hours ago, RoverDude said:

I've actually moved everything over to the stock system.  KIS is fully deprecated in the next release.  Which I really want to do sooner rather than later, as there's some good stuff in there.  In the interim, I'll probably be doing regular constellation pre-releases.

 

 

I’m sold.  I just can’t find the orange item containers anywhere.  Did they get moved?  They’re not in any of the logistics categories in the research facility and I can’t find them in any of the VAB/SPH categories.  Maybe it’s just me?

Edited January 3, 2021 by MaxPeck

[goldenpsp]

Just now, MaxPeck said:

I’m sold.  I just can’t find the orange item containers anywhere.  Did they get moved?  They’re not in any of the logistics categories in the research facility and I can’t find them in any of the item categories.  Maybe it’s just me?

I'm guessing by "the next release" means it is likely not in a release we are using quite yet.

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, MaxPeck said:

I’m sold.  I just can’t find the orange item containers anywhere.  Did they get moved?  They’re not in any of the logistics categories in the research facility and I can’t find them in any of the VAB/SPH categories.  Maybe it’s just me?

They make a reappearance in the next release (as noted, one that's not public yet - but one I am playing through to test things).

[MaxPeck]

Just now, RoverDude said:

They make a reappearance in the next release (as noted, one that's not public yet - but one I am playing through to test things).

Okay, I gotcha.  For some reason I was thinking the old and new systems were running parallel to each other, but I get it now.  Thanks.  Keep up the good work, man... love your work.  

[Murdabenne]

On 12/31/2020 at 7:53 AM, Heinoceros said:

... The only thing that feels truly weird is disappearing the people for geologist/pilot etc, but it makes sense    

 

I have it in my "head canon" that these folks who "disappear" into WOLF simply worked for the Kerbal Space Program, and now have quit and gone to work for the private agency that is doing all the unseen work behind WOLF, for the KSP.

Think NASA and Space-X: For one-off or science or exploration, NASA continues to be the leader.   Once SpaceX gets Starship+HeavyBooster going, they will be a big pipeline for "stuff that goes to space" as far as NASA is concerned.  Stuff goes in here, stuff comes out there, on a regular basis.   it works like that for personnel too: Pilot Joe and Engineer Fred were working at NASA, but they left to go work for SpaceX -- they didn't die, but NASA no longer sees them, so from NASA point of view they no longer exist. So same goes for us being KSP and SpaceX being WOLF.

WOLF: The Privatization of Space Logistics.  That sort-of makes USI into "SpaceX for Kerbals"

Edited January 3, 2021 by Murdabenne
clarification

[MaxPeck]

So after playing with this some more in career mode, I have another observation.   I have to agree with the guy a few pages back that didn’t like the bulk of Wolf modules crammed at the end of the tech tree.  I mean, you can get the transport computer and depot reasonably early and then... grind grind grind until you can get the rest of the stuff.  I get that it’s supposed to be end game, but I think it could be more equitably distributed across the mid-layers of the tree.  I’ve set up transport routes to most of the easily reachable biomes from KSC, and I have a pretty reasonable flow of goods coming to KSC to “bootstrap” my orbital station, but I can’t get the stuff there because I need an absurd amount of science points to be able to get to that point.  So by the time Wolf would be fully available to me, I’ll have pretty much been everywhere and done everything and it’ll be irrelevant.  I’m thinking the sweet spot for Wolf in terms of technical capabilities would lie somewhere between having established bases on Mun and Minmus and being ready to branch out to Duna.  For me, that’s about solidly halfway up the tech tree.  That’s also where logistics starts to be a challenge, and where Wolf would really naturally plug into the flow of the game. 
 

Anyway, just something to think on.  

[Drehverschluss]

11 hours ago, Jstephe25 said:

Will this mod be available to download in CKAN? I've downloaded several of your other mods through CKAN to try but i don't see MKS 

I got the same problem. Just cant see the 1.11 release in CKAN

Well also my Game shows me the version 1.11.03xx but the CKAN showes me compatibility for mods on version 1.11.9. Its a bit confusing for me right now

Edited January 3, 2021 by Drehverschluss

[Kielm]

@JamesonKerbal Thank you for putting the work into the tutorial. I know how time consuming it can be and your efforts are greatly appreciated. Can I humbly request some information on routes/shipments and how they work in an abstract sense? 

If you've not used KSTS, its a mod to record spaceplane missions with payloads to orbit/stations that can then be repeated with resources and even craft files (provided they're below the recorded payload weight) - does it work similarly to that? 

 

Thanks to RoverDude for your hard work on this mod as well, I do like this game and your mods are constantly injecting new life into it. Thanks!

[JamesonKerbal]

48 minutes ago, Kielm said:

Can I humbly request some information on routes/shipments and how they work in an abstract sense? 

If you've not used KSTS, its a mod to record spaceplane missions with payloads to orbit/stations that can then be repeated with resources and even craft files (provided they're below the recorded payload weight) - does it work similarly to that? 

Similar in a sense. I'm working with three launchers, the small and medium rockets and (for me at least) a large SSTO. What I plan to do is expand those experiments out to show the reader how the size and efficiency of the launcher (or lander) alters the transport credit cost and payload capacity of the transport route.

Of course being specifically a WOLF thing, transport routes are only used for connecting production and consumption of WOLF resources. You can mimic the process of getting a craft into orbit on a transport launcher by sending WOLF Material Kits to an orbital construction facility where a WOLF Hopper converts the Material Kits availability into a number of MKS Material Kits per day, then assembling the craft in orbit from eg a DIY Kit.

 

Edited January 3, 2021 by JamesonKerbal

[mcortez]

11 hours ago, MaxPeck said:

I’ve set up transport routes to most of the easily reachable biomes from KSC

Maybe I gave up too early, I got the Transport Computer -- but since I couldn't get access to the Transport Module, I didn't think I could actually move any goods around.  Can you setup a route and move resources without having access to the Transport Module?  I may have just answered it myself, is the key here to setup a route that uses no stages and loses no mass, so that you can generate a zero transport credit route?