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

[TheBackIsBAck]

7 hours ago, SkiRich said:

@RoverDude I've been testing the construction clampotrons on two rovers on my airfield so I understood the mechanics of how all the options work.

Thats something I highly recommend for anyone to do before launching your first craft with these on them if you havent done it before.

I have two questions and one ask.

The ask ... I like the idea of angle snap forcing the craft to be at the same angle before the ports aquire but most of my applications for these ports will be for zero angle.
This presents a problem, there is no tolerance for being off a bit.  If off just a bit say 5 degrees there is no aquire, no torque force and obviously no engagement.
It would be handy for settings of zero angle to have a tolerance slider to say allow for a range of -10 to +10, settable, since once I'm docked I'm gonna compress rotate them anyway.

Q1: What is Multi-Weld.  Its an option, I tried it, did the same as weld as far as I can tell.

Q2: During rotation compression welding, it almost looks like there is no physics roll, sort of a magic poof that the craft is now true zero.  Is that true? 

I feel like a tolerance setting would sort of nullify the actual purpose of angle snap, which as far as i understand exists exactly to get rid of smallish misalignments and slightly crooked stations... and i've found the roll setting to work pretty well that being said for orbital or in-space work i tend to use mechjeb auto-dock anyways! BUT the presence of a tolerance slider as you suggested wouldn't be an inconvenience if the default setting was at zero i guess.

I would second your questions, i have wondered that as well... But the multi-weld might be a way to weld all construction ports on the craft simultaneously? Maybe try that, i haven't built craft complex  and big enough in career to have multiple construction ports on one craft.

Also a question to you, are you using your summer vacation to storm through a campaign playthrough? If so, would you mind sharing some screenshots of your accomplishments, i feel like you've been setting up a whole lot of things and it sounds like you're really getting it done, would love to see some of it!

[DStaal]

If you think you want a tolerance setting, try adjusting the torque settings.  They pull the ships into alignment during docking, so having them stronger is similar to having a tolerance setting, except that it actually gets the parts into alignment.  Also, I'd recommend using 180 or 90 settings instead of 0, from personal experience - that way if you accidentally put a docking port on upside down you can still dock.  (Note that 180 means you can *either* dock at 180 *or* 0.)

Multi-weld is mostly useful for things like ring structures - but yes, it means weld everything.

[DoktorKrogg]

7 hours ago, siderr said:

Hei, thanks for all your amazing work! Will W.O.L.F be compatible with old saves?

Yes. It's a completely new system and doesn't affect any of the existing systems like MKS, USI-LS, etc.

[SkiRich]

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

If you think you want a tolerance setting, try adjusting the torque settings.  They pull the ships into alignment during docking, so having them stronger is similar to having a tolerance setting, except that it actually gets the parts into alignment.  Also, I'd recommend using 180 or 90 settings instead of 0, from personal experience - that way if you accidentally put a docking port on upside down you can still dock.  (Note that 180 means you can *either* dock at 180 *or* 0.)

Multi-weld is mostly useful for things like ring structures - but yes, it means weld everything.

Thats the thing.  If you set roll torque you can no longer have a zero to zero dock, ever.  It will roll to 180.  That game limitation is still in effect with the physics engine.  Its the reason why I did the mini rover testing on the airfeild.

The saving grace here is that the properties in the port can be edited in situ, so you just adjust as needed to do any correction in case you forgot in the vab.

[Waltert]

Ive searched through the toplic so far, but havnt found anything to solve this.

I cant see some of the Mks parts. I dont know about any others at the moment, but I was looking for the large Tundra parts amd cant see any. Im roughly at the end of where the stock tech tree would finish, so should have these parts. I see 2 of the smaller 2.5m tundra pieces; the power distribution, and mobile workshop, but none of what I assume are 3.75 parts, the assembly plant etc.

Ive gone through all the sections, the assembly plant should be in the manufacturing tab, right? Ive reinstalled it twice, once with ckan, then uninstalled ALL the USI mods and did it all manual. Ive deleted all the 'tech' parts of my save and unlocked all the science again. Im not sure what else to try. The only thing I didnt add from the zip files was the module manager, as it was an older version than I currently have.

Im on ksp 1.8.1, and the latest of all the USI.

Many thanks in advance

[TheBackIsBAck]

35 minutes ago, Waltert said:

Ive searched through the toplic so far, but havnt found anything to solve this.

I cant see some of the Mks parts. I dont know about any others at the moment, but I was looking for the large Tundra parts amd cant see any. Im roughly at the end of where the stock tech tree would finish, so should have these parts. I see 2 of the smaller 2.5m tundra pieces; the power distribution, and mobile workshop, but none of what I assume are 3.75 parts, the assembly plant etc.

Ive gone through all the sections, the assembly plant should be in the manufacturing tab, right? Ive reinstalled it twice, once with ckan, then uninstalled ALL the USI mods and did it all manual. Ive deleted all the 'tech' parts of my save and unlocked all the science again. Im not sure what else to try. The only thing I didnt add from the zip files was the module manager, as it was an older version than I currently have.

Im on ksp 1.8.1, and the latest of all the USI.

Many thanks in advance

The assembly plant should be pretty far out in the mining branch, if you have usi asteroid mining installed then iirc it's after most of the parts from that, at a cost from 1500 science or even more! I don't remember where the 4m parts are unlocked, i feel like i unlocked those at the same time as the others but i'm a bit scared to open up ksp until all the most relevant mods are updated, and too lazy to do a version rollback, i have so many other games to play...

Have you started up a sandbox save to see if you could find them there? My other suggestion would have been reinstalling, that's how i got my 5m SAS part to finally show up, but you've done that already. If you don't find them in sandbox, then i don't know what else to try... 

Good Luck!

[SkiRich]

22 hours ago, SkiRich said:

Does anyone know (I know I can go and test this but if someone knows it saves me a step) ...

Do the external ladder looking handles on all the Tundra modules act like ladders for Kerbals to Grab onto in EVA?

Finished testing this.

Sadly the answer is no, they are cosmetic and you will need ladder assets installed to get ladder functionality.

Bummer.

Also I noticed just about all the tundra plant models that look like they have illumination, do in fact have no illumination.  It would be nice to have some things there.

[Tokamak]

I'm still really confused about resource lodes. They aren't mentioned anywhere in the MKS manual, but I poked around the internet and part definitions to get an idea what to do. I spent the time to make a big rover with a regolith sifter, and drove it to the lode(s). Connected a pipe or grabber to the node, used docked mode, saw the ResourceLode resource. I used the Lode Harvester function on the sifter.

All that happened was a lot of energy was used, the ResourceLode resource gradually went down to zero, and then the lode went poof when it was empty.

At no point were any resources added. The rover has storage for chemicals, metals, polymers, and recyclables, and none of them gained anything.

Could somebody please help me and tell me what on earth (or the Mun  ) I'm doing wrong here? I'm trying to do my own research before asking more questions here, but i'm stumped.

Edited July 11, 2020 by Tokamak

[Terwin]

On 7/9/2020 at 5:26 PM, SkiRich said:

Itsnt there a mod that calms that down a lot? Cant think of it at the moment.

Too bad we cant set alarms on our colonies for emergencies.  Theres a feature I'd like to see.

I know that MKS parts can turn on a ground anchor which should greatly reduce sliding/moment.  Combined with the reduced on-load bounce a ouple versions ago, that should address most of the problem if your base is on reasonable level terrain.

 

I use the Kerbal Alarm Clock mod for all of my timed alarm needs.

An actual 'there is an emergency' alarm is not really doable as nothing is simulated outside of the 2km physics bubble, so the alarm would not be able to go off until it was doing the catch-up in 6 hour blocks when you next visit.  Before that next visit there is literally nothing happening at your base, so there is no way to trigger an alarm.(this is also why the estimated life support in the USI-LS summary page is only a conservative estimate, and not a real-time read-out)

Note: W.O.L.F. works around the physics bubble by not actually having a functioning physical base, and just having everything go by an 'available capacity' metric so that no processing is needed for W.O.L.F. outposts and bases.

 

[SkiRich]

55 minutes ago, Tokamak said:

I'm still really confused about resource lodes. They aren't mentioned anywhere in the MKS manual, but I poked around the internet and part definitions to get an idea what to do. I spent the time to make a big rover with a regolith sifter, and drove it to the lode(s). Connected a pipe or grabber to the node, used docked mode, saw the ResourceLode resource. I used the Lode Harvester function on the sifter.

All that happened was a lot of energy was used, the ResourceLode resource gradually went down to zero, and then the lode went poof when it was empty.

At no point were any resources added. The rover has storage for chemicals, metals, polymers, and recyclables, and none of them gained anything.

Could somebody please help me and tell me what on earth (or the Mun  ) I'm doing wrong here? I'm trying to do my own research before asking more questions here, but i'm stumped.

You get rock resource from a lode, which you bring back to a part with a rock processor for further extraction.

Change the storage on your rover to collect rock.

FYI a sifter is the only thing that breaks down a lode, so you have that part right.

[Tokamak]

23 minutes ago, SkiRich said:

You get rock resource from a lode, which you bring back to a part with a rock processor for further extraction.

Change the storage on your rover to collect rock.

FYI a sifter is the only thing that breaks down a lode, so you have that part right.

What part am I meant to process the rock with? I've looked at all of my MKS industrial parts and at least in the VAB module list, none say anything about rock.

[SkiRich]

3 hours ago, Tokamak said:

What part am I meant to process the rock with? I've looked at all of my MKS industrial parts and at least in the VAB module list, none say anything about rock.

One of the Separators.  They'll take rock and convert it to Substrate, Metallic Ore, Water, Minerals or Karbonite depending on the one you choose.

I guess you can add rock storage and one of these utilities to the rover as well and do it in situ.

 

[SkiRich]

12 hours ago, TheBackIsBAck said:

Also a question to you, are you using your summer vacation to storm through a campaign playthrough? If so, would you mind sharing some screenshots of your accomplishments, i feel like you've been setting up a whole lot of things and it sounds like you're really getting it done, would love to see some of it!

Yeah, this lockdown has given me plenty of excuse to just sit, smoke drink and KSP.

This is what I'm working on.  Just about every Umbra Option is on this thing.

I still need to add a section for refueling orbital ships, docking section, skycranes, and some more solar panels (I do have one nuc power plant on it as well).

Fully running it uses ~500 EC/sec.  It has room for expansion as well.

https://imgur.com/a/KpogBOK

Edited July 12, 2020 by SkiRich
Image

[goldenpsp]

56 minutes ago, SkiRich said:

Yeah, this lockdown has given me plenty of excuse to just sit, smoke drink and KSP.

This is what I'm working on.  Just about every Umbra Option is on this thing.

I still need to add a section for refueling orbital ships, docking section, skycranes, and some more solar panels (I do have one nuc power plant on it as well).

Fully running it uses ~500 EC/sec.  It has room for expansion as well.

https://imgur.com/a/KpogBOK

Very cool.  I forget what mod that ring is from.  Interstellar?

 

This is an exceedingly old MKS station.  The spaceplane was my reusable supply/kerbal transport.  The other craft being my Kerbin to mun/minmus transport.

 

 

[SkiRich]

Whats the theoretical and practical size a craft can be in orbit?

This monster I'm building is up to 475 parts.  Other than adding some sky cranes it complete until I unlock the last remaining tech nodes for the last of the Umbra tundra modules so I can bolt on some fabrication and assembly modules.

Using hyperedit I've tested it a few times in orbit and seems stable.

Other than the spinning ring causing some minor lag or FPS drag on EVA it plays well. I guess I can stop the ring when docking or EVA.

I hear the larger the craft the more issues.  What can I expect if I put two or three of these in play around a few planets?

[Cucco-Master]

1 hour ago, SkiRich said:

What can I expect if I put two or three of these in play around a few planets?

One of them around each planet isn't any worse than one in your entire game, because only one of them will be loaded at a time. While they are unloaded they just count as one craft, regardless how big they are, so they won't do any more damage than small satellites. The real challenge is being near one of those. At 475 parts you probably can't add much more, because most of us would already have extreme lagfests around this thing. Definitely don't try to get 2 of them loaded at the same time

[TheBackIsBAck]

16 hours ago, SkiRich said:

Yeah, this lockdown has given me plenty of excuse to just sit, smoke drink and KSP.

This is what I'm working on.  Just about every Umbra Option is on this thing.

I still need to add a section for refueling orbital ships, docking section, skycranes, and some more solar panels (I do have one nuc power plant on it as well).

Fully running it uses ~500 EC/sec.  It has room for expansion as well.

https://imgur.com/a/KpogBOK

That thing is awesone, thanks for sharing!!

[TheBackIsBAck]

16 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

Very cool.  I forget what mod that ring is from.  Interstellar?

 

This is an exceedingly old MKS station.  The spaceplane was my reusable supply/kerbal transport.  The other craft being my Kerbin to mun/minmus transport.

 

 

The Ring is from Stocalike Station Parts i believe, i have the same one and there's a great assortment of very cool stowable and deployable centrifuge rings in there, you definitely need to check that one out  full habitat functionality and a lot of cool parts

[Tokamak]

18 hours ago, SkiRich said:

Yeah, this lockdown has given me plenty of excuse to just sit, smoke drink and KSP.

This is what I'm working on.  Just about every Umbra Option is on this thing.

I still need to add a section for refueling orbital ships, docking section, skycranes, and some more solar panels (I do have one nuc power plant on it as well).

Fully running it uses ~500 EC/sec.  It has room for expansion as well.

https://imgur.com/a/KpogBOK

That is one heck of a thing... O.O

[alien_wind]

11 hours ago, SkiRich said:

Whats the theoretical and practical size a craft can be in orbit?

This monster I'm building is up to 475 parts.  Other than adding some sky cranes it complete until I unlock the last remaining tech nodes for the last of the Umbra tundra modules so I can bolt on some fabrication and assembly modules.

Using hyperedit I've tested it a few times in orbit and seems stable.

Other than the spinning ring causing some minor lag or FPS drag on EVA it plays well. I guess I can stop the ring when docking or EVA.

I hear the larger the craft the more issues.  What can I expect if I put two or three of these in play around a few planets?

I've had some problems with lag on my ow spec laptop so just went to the cfg file and changed "rotation" to 0,0,0 and it helped a lot with lag
less cool but optics are basicaly the same

[SkiRich]

@RoverDude or can anyone tell me when, what and how these particular skills get assigned and what they do?

https://github.com/UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS/wiki/Crew-Skills-Impact-on-Parts#crew-skills-breakout-table

I'm talking about the skills table where things like BotonySkill and LogisticsSkill are defined.

I get that some of the modules award these skills, and I want to understand why and how useful.

There is no wiki writeup and these additional skill awards.

I am making an assumption that regardless of the colonist type in that module, they could get this awarded and then they have two or more skills?  Its unclear.

And if my assumption is correct, where in the game do these skills show up, in the astronaut complex?

 

I am about to launch two orbital stations, my Omega Station in the screenshot above (Omega because after three days building it I am done futzing around with it)

And a smaller system skipper station ALpha that will go out and collect science from other planet systems and train up kerbals to bring home.  Thats the one I want to know how to manage skills with.

 

[SkiRich]

@RoverDude I have a minor feature request.

If you can add a status of production in the agroponics PAWs that would be great.

Basically I want to see the productivity per day of the agroponics module.

Alternatively, in the life support view I would like to see 'potential' and current productivity of the ag or farm. 

Right now those statistics are based on current supplies and do not take into consideration potential grrowth of supplies like the VAB version of the same screen.

[goldenpsp]

6 hours ago, SkiRich said:

what and how these particular skills get assigned

Sorry I'm confused.  The chart clearly shows the assignment.  For example The Biologist and Scientist have the botany Skill.

 

Unfortunately what they do is less clear, especially since the skill to function link in the wiki is broken.  However by cross referencing you can glean that information well enough.

[SkiRich]

7 hours ago, goldenpsp said:

Sorry I'm confused.  The chart clearly shows the assignment.  For example The Biologist and Scientist have the botany Skill.

 

Unfortunately what they do is less clear, especially since the skill to function link in the wiki is broken.  However by cross referencing you can glean that information well enough.

Oh I get it ,  A biologist working in a module that boosts biologyskill would get points towards the next star.

So that also means if not a biologist you get nothing.

A bit different than the stock boosters but workable.

[DStaal]

6 minutes ago, SkiRich said:

Oh I get it ,  A biologist working in a module that boosts biologyskill would get points towards the next star.

So that also means if not a biologist you get nothing.

A bit different than the stock boosters but workable.

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.