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

[AccidentalDisassembly]

1 hour ago, Terwin said:

MKS reactors will only charge your batteries to 90% and then stop consuming EU.  This is to reduce wasting resources and is a design feature.

(lets you do things like only run your reactor at night if you have enough solar to power your base, and lets you conserve fuel by adding solar to your base)

Huh, didn't know that, thanks. But I'm not sure I understand how limiting the reactors to only charge batteries to 90% saves resources. Presumably, if your base takes 100 EC around the clock, and you have 150 EC of solar during the day and 150 EC of nuclear at night, there's some code in there somewhere that makes solar take priority.

Then, if you use a sudden burst of energy at night that lowers your battery - let's say it goes from 10,000 to 5,000 - the reactor will take care of the night's 100 EC/second (for 3 hours? just for the sake of argument), and will charge the battery back up with its surplus. But it will only save 1000 EC worth of generation in total, as compared to the (roughly) 1,084,000 EC it generated to cover the output of the base and recharge the battery to 9,000... I don't see the logic here.

[Falkenherz]

14 hours ago, Terwin said:

As far as I can tell you need to use stock drills to get the ore missions(at least for the MKS version released in October 2017 running on KSP 1.3.1)

Thanks for confirming. I am glad I did not accept a Duna ore mission! Just curious if this issue will be adressed by Roverdude, probably in relation to the new mission creator in 1.4.1.

[Chilkoot]

Does anyone have a link to some more info on Orbital Logistics?  This feature sounds pretty damn cool, but I can't find much/anything recent on how it functions.  Thanks in advance for any leads!

EDIT:  This system actually looks pretty straightforward... use one of the logistics modules (Duna or Tundra) to produce TransferCredits (essentially a new resource) out of MaterialKits and LFO.  Then spend those TransferCredits to move materials between two ships in the same SOI (landed or orbital) via a GUI accessible from the logistics module.  Both partners in the transfer need to have either the Duna or Tundra logistics module.

Not sure 'expensive' it is yet - need to test it out - but it looks like it will save a lot of unnecessary futzing around, even if it's quite expensive to use.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Chilkoot

[Terwin]

2 hours ago, AccidentalDisassembly said:

Huh, didn't know that, thanks. But I'm not sure I understand how limiting the reactors to only charge batteries to 90% saves resources. Presumably, if your base takes 100 EC around the clock, and you have 150 EC of solar during the day and 150 EC of nuclear at night, there's some code in there somewhere that makes solar take priority.

Then, if you use a sudden burst of energy at night that lowers your battery - let's say it goes from 10,000 to 5,000 - the reactor will take care of the night's 100 EC/second (for 3 hours? just for the sake of argument), and will charge the battery back up with its surplus. But it will only save 1000 EC worth of generation in total, as compared to the (roughly) 1,084,000 EC it generated to cover the output of the base and recharge the battery to 9,000... I don't see the logic here.

If your batteries are below 90%, the nuclear reactor will run at 100% to get it back up to 90%.

If your batteries are 90%+ your nuclear reactor will stop production and no longer consume EU. 

That is the *ONLY* code to prioritize using solar over nuclear during the day.(Solar will happily charge you to 100%, shutting down your nuclear until the batteries go below 90%; before, the nuclear reactor was at ~100% production even if your only power consumption was a probe core and you had an overabundance of solar panels)

I believe fuel-cells use the same logic.

 

Note: without this logic, the reactor would have produced 1,620,000 EC instead of 1,084,000 EC, consuming almost  1.5x the EU

Edited March 8, 2018 by Terwin

[ad_gav]

Sorry for the question, but will the Russian version of the mod be?

[AccidentalDisassembly]

4 hours ago, Terwin said:

If your batteries are below 90%, the nuclear reactor will run at 100% to get it back up to 90%.

If your batteries are 90%+ your nuclear reactor will stop production and no longer consume EU. 

That is the *ONLY* code to prioritize using solar over nuclear during the day.(Solar will happily charge you to 100%, shutting down your nuclear until the batteries go below 90%; before, the nuclear reactor was at ~100% production even if your only power consumption was a probe core and you had an overabundance of solar panels)

I believe fuel-cells use the same logic.

 

Note: without this logic, the reactor would have produced 1,620,000 EC instead of 1,084,000 EC, consuming almost  1.5x the EU

Aha, OK, I think I understand now, thanks. I assumed the prioritization would apply no matter what the charge was, but it makes sense the way you've explained it.

Edited March 8, 2018 by AccidentalDisassembly

[goldenpsp]

5 hours ago, ad_gav said:

Sorry for the question, but will the Russian version of the mod be?

Probably as soon as someone who knows Russian wants to step up and help.  (I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure @RoverDude doesn't know Russian but he likes pull requests).

[Chilkoot]

Some quick notes for anyone else tinkering with Orbital Logistics.  Please correct me if I'm wrong here:

• Transfer time and cost influences are not immediately obvious...  For two ships in the same orbit 100m apart, the xfer time was almost 6 days, but the cost was cheap.  For two ships very far apart in orbits off by 90 degrees, the xfer time was only 2 days, but the cost was high.  I'll try to figure this out and post a chart.  I *think* cost is based on raw distance, and time is based on sum of orbital altitudes from the surface, but more to come on that...
• There appears to be no benefit to having a pilot on board the sending or receiving logistics modules
• Make sure you have Planetary Logistics toggled on for both sender (origin) and recipient (destination) containers, or the transfer window may error out.  Still, I was able to transfer LFO between ships in containers with no logistics capability, so this may not be what's causing the error.
• Creating 5 TC (TransferCredits) will cost 1 material kit, 2.25 Liquid Fuel and 2.75 Oxidizer.  I don't see anywhere that will show you how many transfer credits you have stockpiled until you go through a few menus and setup the actual transfer.
• TransferCredits do not consume inventory space, and you do not need a container for them.  It appears to be just a variable with no other 'physical' manifestation

What an awesome mechanic, and thanks RoverDude for bringing it back.  The transfer costs are realistic and I think you've really nailed the balance with the time trade-off and other considerations.

[DirpleKerbal19]

Say i just want to play around with some of the parts in sandbox mode and don't feel like the heavy duty life support systems can i go without them for a prolonged period of time ? If not are there any plans for an option for this in the main menu ?

[ad_gav]

15 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

Probably as soon as someone who knows Russian wants to step up and help.  (I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure @RoverDude doesn't know Russian but he likes pull requests).

 

just in your fashion there is no language pack that is supported since version 1.3. I think if you made them, then finding an interpreter is not a problem

[Capt. Kirk]

I have installed the mod updated the tools as the game prompted me to do and it loads fine but he parts are not in my side bar none of them.  What am I doing wrong?

[cpx]

Things from MKS like metal processing, drills, agriculture randomly shuts off. Does anyone know how to fix it? No I'm not running out of power. I have plenty of space in planetary warehouse if i need room.

[RoverDude]

21 minutes ago, cpx said:

Things from MKS like metal processing, drills, agriculture randomly shuts off. Does anyone know how to fix it? No I'm not running out of power. I have plenty of space in planetary warehouse if i need room.

Please confirm what versions you are on.  KSP, MKS, USI Tools

[DStaal]

23 minutes ago, cpx said:

Things from MKS like metal processing, drills, agriculture randomly shuts off. Does anyone know how to fix it? No I'm not running out of power. I have plenty of space in planetary warehouse if i need room.

Do you have any notes on 'randomly'?  A common one I notice in my own games is 'shuts off on physics load', as ships are spawed a bit higher above the surface - so the drills didn't actually touch the ground.  Another common issue (also at physics load) is a temporary overheat - KSP's heating modeling is fairly - erm, let's go with 'simplistic' - at high physics warp, which is often applied during physics load.

1 hour ago, Capt. Kirk said:

I have installed the mod updated the tools as the game prompted me to do and it loads fine but he parts are not in my side bar none of them.  What am I doing wrong?

Likely an install issue.  Can we see a screenshot of your GameData and UmbraSpaceIndustries folders?

[RoverDude]

Usual pre-release thank you to everyone helping field questions while I work on the stock stuff   

Thank you!

[Falkenherz]

Concerning the new configs for the drills, are existing drills also affected? Because the lag at my Mun colony with an A-Drill did not get really better. Instead, it got reset and I have no special parts to re-select the stuff to mine.

 

[cpx]

32 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Please confirm what versions you are on.  KSP, MKS, USI Tools

Newest that I could download, at least updater didn't whine about new version.

KSP 1.3.1  MKS 0.53.0 USI Tools 0.10.2

Yeah that random might be physics jump.

[RoverDude]

Yeah probably a base hopping then

[Capt. Kirk]

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

Do you have any notes on 'randomly'?  A common one I notice in my own games is 'shuts off on physics load', as ships are spawed a bit higher above the surface - so the drills didn't actually touch the ground.  Another common issue (also at physics load) is a temporary overheat - KSP's heating modeling is fairly - erm, let's go with 'simplistic' - at high physics warp, which is often applied during physics load.

Likely an install issue.  Can we see a screenshot of your GameData and UmbraSpaceIndustries folders?

I am trying to put the screen shots on here and I cant seem to find where I can add attachments.  It wont let me cut and paste or copy them and there is not a button to insert other than the one on the bottom and that doesn't allow me to pull from my folders.

Edited March 9, 2018 by Capt. Kirk
added more content

[Snark]

33 minutes ago, Capt. Kirk said:

I am trying to put the screen shots on here and I cant seem to find where I can add attachments.  It wont let me cut and paste or copy them and there is not a button to insert other than the one on the bottom and that doesn't allow me to pull from my folders.

Hello, and welcome to the forums! 

There's no way to host an image directly in the forum.  (It pretty much has to be that way, because image files are large, and if they allowed you to host the files here, multiplied by thousands of posts across thousands of users, they'd have to spend too much on server storage.)

However, it's very easy to "embed" an image in a post in the sense that it shows up directly in-line rather than as a hyperlink.  Just paste a link to the image and it will get automagically converted to an in-line image.

Step-by-step instructions in spoiler section.

Spoiler

1. Take an in-game screenshot using F1.  It gets saved to the "Screenshots" folder of your KSP installation.
2. Go to www.imgur.com.  (You don't need to make an account or anything, this works fine anonymously.)
   • Or you could use some other hosting site, if you like. I just suggest imgur.com because it's popular here and you can use it without needing to make an account.
3. Click on the green "new post" button up top.
4. Drag your image into the "drop image here" box that it pops up.
5. As soon as the post is complete, right-click on the image on the imgur page and choose "Copy Image Location".
   • Important, not the URL of the page on Imgur.  You need the URL of the image, i.e. it should end in ".png".
6. Paste that URL into your forum post here.  It'll get automagically converted into an in-line image.

 

[voicey99]

1 hour ago, Snark said:

Hello, and welcome to the forums! 

There's no way to host an image directly in the forum.  (It pretty much has to be that way, because image files are large, and if they allowed you to host the files here, multiplied by thousands of posts across thousands of users, they'd have to spend too much on server storage.)

However, it's very easy to "embed" an image in a post in the sense that it shows up directly in-line rather than as a hyperlink.  Just paste a link to the image and it will get automagically converted to an in-line image.

Step-by-step instructions in spoiler section.

Imgur album embedding is still broken, right?

[Snark]

5 minutes ago, voicey99 said:

Imgur album embedding is still broken, right?

As far as I know, yes... but in any case this thread isn't the right place for that discussion. 

[Chilkoot]

8 hours ago, cpx said:

Things from MKS like metal processing, drills, agriculture randomly shuts off. Does anyone know how to fix it? No I'm not running out of power. I have plenty of space in planetary warehouse if i need room.

I had the same happen with 100-a drills and life support suddenly turn off in all my Ranger modules when updating to the latest version.  Since turning them back on, they've been running normally through reboots.

[Bionic bulldog]

Hi all, hopefully somone confirm if i have an issue or not.

Few days ago started playing again after few weeks layoff. Updated all mods so to current versions (mks mods to pre 1.4 release). 

Now got two issues so far which i dont think used to occur.

1.have a minmus base set up for manufacturing and parts assembly. Set to use planetery store. Have mining rigs round planet mining ore, silicates etc. Set to store in planetery store. If i go to ore rig i see ore in planetery warhouse window update to the current amount, lets ssy its at 1000. I got to base and see my base is pulling this ore ok and converting to fuel and can see ore dropping in planetery window as its used.however even tho drill other side of planet is storing ore, when at the base, when the ore level drops to 0, base thinks no more ore and stops producing.i have to physicalky go back to drill to get planetery stores to update then go back to base for it to start producing fuel again. This is happening on all drills etc. Is this right? I thought even tho planetery warehouse window would not auto update the game still knows stuff was there and pull it as required. As it is i cant leave a base to get on with things without constantly going round every thing on planet to update the resources.

2. Since updare, if i use fast forward, all of a sudden my power goes weird. On the drill rigs for instance, all good and plenty of power, but if i fast forward too fast, all of a sudden rigs using more power than the reactor is supplying, even though detail windows on consupmtion has not changed. Same is happening on base, as soon as i fast forward to fast, the pdus suddenly can no longer produce more power than the base units want. Only appears to happen when fast forwarding, before that every thing fine and perfect.after thst always losing power and cant seem to get it to work again correctly.

Note. Drilling rigs using stock reactor and mks drills. Base uses mks pdus.

I dont recall having either issue prior to updating, but ciuld be wrong as first timg ive built a fully complete base with mks. I did redownload manually all the mks files from the website again and manually installed, as ckan wanted to only install the 1.4 files and since im on 1.3.1 was not sure if they were compatible

Any ideas? Or am i being dumb........

Thanks for reading..

[DStaal]

1 hour ago, Bionic bulldog said:

1.have a minmus base set up for manufacturing and parts assembly. Set to use planetery store. Have mining rigs round planet mining ore, silicates etc. Set to store in planetery store. If i go to ore rig i see ore in planetery warhouse window update to the current amount, lets ssy its at 1000. I got to base and see my base is pulling this ore ok and converting to fuel and can see ore dropping in planetery window as its used.however even tho drill other side of planet is storing ore, when at the base, when the ore level drops to 0, base thinks no more ore and stops producing.i have to physicalky go back to drill to get planetery stores to update then go back to base for it to start producing fuel again. This is happening on all drills etc. Is this right? I thought even tho planetery warehouse window would not auto update the game still knows stuff was there and pull it as required. As it is i cant leave a base to get on with things without constantly going round every thing on planet to update the resources.

This is normal.  The drills to *not* produce when not in focus.  (Nothing does...)  You need to visit them periodically - they'll do a catch-up as if they had produced the entire time you were away.

1 hour ago, Bionic bulldog said:

2. Since updare, if i use fast forward, all of a sudden my power goes weird. On the drill rigs for instance, all good and plenty of power, but if i fast forward too fast, all of a sudden rigs using more power than the reactor is supplying, even though detail windows on consupmtion has not changed. Same is happening on base, as soon as i fast forward to fast, the pdus suddenly can no longer produce more power than the base units want. Only appears to happen when fast forwarding, before that every thing fine and perfect.after thst always losing power and cant seem to get it to work again correctly.

This might be normal...  The more you accelerate time, the larger the intervals between when KSP calculates state.  If you don't have enough battery to last the entire interval of the high timewarp, this could be the behavior - KSP could drain the batteries entirely before it calculates the PDU's transfers, leaving you out of power.  Try adding batteries.

Note that if ships are controlled by probe cores, when they're out of power they can't be controlled - which means you can't restart things.  Combined with the above this could give you the 'it works until timewarp breaks it' - the timewarp runs you out of power, and without power you can't restart things to get power/production back.