Jump to content

Suggestion: Prevent draining probe's core battery


Recommended Posts

Hi, this is my first post here, so please tell me kindly, if I should do anything in any other way.

I would like to post a suggestion: prevent draining of probe's core (okto, hecs) battery by any other module.

Situation: some other module is draining all the juice but I cannot switch it off, because okto/heces does not have enough power to do so.
No power for core to disable what is disabling it. Dead core, even with solar panels and sun shine, that just happen to not provide enough charge for whatever is draining the power.

Alternative: enable switching off anything even if the core does not have power (including hibernation).

Alternative 2: Is there a mod capable of doing so? Thx.

 

P.S.: I am a programmer and could possibly create such mod, but I am afraind that the rules do not permit this, because I am not allowed to use ILSpy to examine those DLL's in KSP_Data/KSP_x64_Data althogh they are clearly marked as DATA and should therefore not be considered SOFTWARE to apply the ridiculous EULA, but I saw a post about "Legal Boundary", which I do not want to cross.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, firda said:

P.S.: I am a programmer and could possibly create such mod, but I am afraind that the rules do not permit this, because I am not allowed to use ILSpy to examine those DLL's in KSP_Data/KSP_x64_Data althogh they are clearly marked as DATA and should therefore not be considered SOFTWARE to apply the ridiculous EULA, but I saw a post about "Legal Boundary", which I do not want to cross.

Technically, all of the mods would then break the EULA, but the devs themselves even promote some mods, so modding is definitely allowed.    

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, firda said:

I am a programmer and could possibly create such mod, but I am afraind that the rules do not permit this, because I am not allowed to use ILSpy

Public interfaces are documented at https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/api/index.html

3 hours ago, firda said:

althogh they are clearly marked as DATA and should therefore not be considered SOFTWARE

What? I don't understand anything about this assumption. Why shouldn't they be, and what difference does it make anyway?

You may be interested in AmpYear. It's got all sorts of reserve power and emergency shutdown functionality. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, firda said:

I would like to post a suggestion: prevent draining of probe's core (okto, hecs) battery by any other module.

Situation: some other module is draining all the juice but I cannot switch it off, because okto/heces does not have enough power to do so.
No power for core to disable what is disabling it. Dead core, even with solar panels and sun shine, that just happen to not provide enough charge for whatever is draining the power.

A few helpful options available in the stock game:

  • When you rightclick the probe core, at the bottom of the part action menu you'll see a bar with the amount of Electric Charge, and a small green arrow to its right. If you click the arrow, you are locking that resource to prevent it being used at all. That will allow you to safeguard the tiny amount of EC in a probe core for pure emergencies like this.
  • In the KSP Settings, enable 'Advanced Tweakables' - this can be done in the flight view for an already launched craft. This will add some extra configuration details in the part action menus. One of those extra options is called 'Flow Priority', and shows at the very bottom, with blue minus and plus buttons that edit a value in between. The value is the priority of the resource compared to other parts that have the same, in this case EC. By lowering the priority value to be lower (into negative if needs be) than all other EC-containing parts, you are telling the game to save the EC in the probe core for last.

 

Edited by swjr-swis
typos
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you all for the answers. I have installed AmpYear and will try all the good suggestions I got.

Thx for the API. Incomplete (missing description of many methods) but better than nothing.

 

EULA/Mod Rules:

You may not decompile, modify or distribute any of the .dll files or other files KSP comes with beyond content of the GameData folder. Follow the EULA. For assemblies, you may only use exposed public or protected members of classes, and you may not examine the code within any member.

 

To be honest, it all started with me finding some old mod that I refurbished for latest KSP only to get warned that it is violating the rules (it used reflection to access and modify private fields) and ended up deleting the repository... I did not expect that.... but, well, rules are rules, now I know them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@swjr-swis I didn't check it myself but have seen reports of locking batteries and fuel flow being ineffective in this case.

Apparently one need control to unlock the resource. And flow priority only determined what batteries will be drained first not which module will get that EC first.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/3/2017 at 5:48 AM, firda said:

You may not decompile, modify or distribute any of the .dll files or other files KSP comes with beyond content of the GameData folder.

Yup.  Mods usually mean something you load in the game to extend it, not a wire poking it in the brain making it smell burnt toast.

On 12/3/2017 at 5:48 AM, firda said:

To be honest, it all started with me finding some old mod that I refurbished for latest KSP only to get warned that it is violating the rules (it used reflection to access and modify private fields)

That kind of programming is pretty bad juju, honestly, especially on modern multicore computers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Corona688: Poking in monkey's brain to smell nonexistent things and fixing it's leg or eye are two different things.

I would like KSP_Data and KSP_x64_Data removed from the restrictions (but Author's / Copy Rights would still apply), because it would allow you to e.g. change colors of icons in vessel list in tracking station etc.
Such a thing is neither bad programming (I suppose you are talking about possible multi-core/multi-thread implementation), nor harming (it's neither stealing valuable know-how nor making any profit).

But as I said, I may not like the rules, but will still respect them. Most of the things can still be achieved through other means - e.g. new window for vessel management, that can also be invoked in the map - Kerbal Alarm Clock does most of what I wanted, not all, but most. AmpYear has some reserve energy system I will test soon (expect it to solve the problem in the title / my original post).

BTW: Do you know some mod that would let me better manage my vessels? Sort by name, eta to manuever, by system, by custom groups etc.? And destroy debris without leaving the map. Thx.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 08/12/2017 at 5:49 AM, firda said:

BTW: Do you know some mod that would let me better manage my vessels? Sort by name, eta to manuever, by system, by custom groups etc.? And destroy debris without leaving the map. Thx.

There are a few, unfortunately nothing that i know well enough to recommend. You may always take a look in the "what mods are updated" thread and see if something fit the bill.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Spricigo said:

There are a few, unfortunately nothing that i know well enough to recommend. You may always take a look in the "what mods are updated" thread and see if something fit the bill.

 

Ahh, nice, thank you! Ship List [1.2.2] and/or Targetron [1.3.0] could do the trick (not in CKAN, may need refurbishing, but I will take a look).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...