kerbal ftl [Min KSP 1.12.2] Blueshift: Kerbal FTL

[Angelo Kerman]

1 hour ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

There was a short story I read about how it turns out that warp/gravatic tech was just laughably simple and most civilizations found it in their early industrial age.  And then never progressed - no need.

So, you had all these early gunpowder era civilizations in the stars and then they ran into modern era humans who had not figured it out and HAD progressed.  The attempt to conquer the humans went predictably badly and now the humans had the technology.

I mention this, because in the context of a game/story, it's probably important for the ease of use of these technologies to be in inverse relation to cost of use.  (I lump time to destination into ease of use)

Consider warp drive and Whipcrack.  If I had both and the cost of use of each was about the same, why would I use Whipcrack (from a purely economical standpoint)?

Of course, all of this is a moot point if you won't allow the techs to co-exist at the same time.  Just some morning thoughts while the sourdough pancakes were baking.

30 minutes ago, Rakete said:

Evening thoughts: Why only allow one techtree path? I don't think, that I want such limitations in my gameplay. Why not whipcrack to another solar system and use there warp tech to install jumpgates along the planets? I like freedom of choice if I can afford all the neccessary science points. A game does need to be hard. If you want that, just turn down the science point modicator in your difficulty settings for yourself.

This is why Blueshift's tech nodes are set up the way they are, and why I considered how the technologies are used together. They're expensive, but you could conceivably research both warp tech and jump tech in the same game. Warp tech lets you move quickly in-system, while jump tech lets you yeet across interstellar space quickly. But jump tech's convenience is balanced out by having to travel to the desired destination at least once by other means to either discover the alien jumpgate that is already there (if you have that option turned on), or building your own.

Whipcrack would fit into the trio by still making you traverse interstellar distances yourself, but allowing you to yeet in one long jump instead of taking a long road trip. You could conceivably point your ship at the target star, make one giant leap (or 2 or 3...) with Whipcrack, and then "conventionally" warp the remaining distance. Then once you're there, build a jumpgate or find the pre-built alien jumpgate.

[JadeOfMaar]

2 hours ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

but having to basically put stuff back at Kerbin on hold for 422 years while you timewarp the fleet out feels limiting.

I learned that Enkido's Persistent Thrust is supposed to help with that. It has an in-game window for tracking vessels and lets you switch away from the active vessel and have it persist to thrust.

I'd like to see someone take advantage for their cinematic or so forth.

[Rakete]

14 hours ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

I've looked with envy on the beautiful creations that people make like in the below video of a slowboat colonization mission to Proxima Centauri, but having to basically put stuff back at Kerbin on hold for 422 years while you timewarp the fleet out feels limiting

I fully agree. Also this is kinda an immersionbreaker since leaving Kerbin for 422 years and finding it in the same technological state when you come back is... kinda... strange. Such long durations are kinda difficult for immersion. So I love the possibility to get a instanous risky way additionally to my other FTL methods.

So I agree: Maybe the whipcrack should the instaneous way to be for long interstellar voyages - but also testable for immersion reasons in the Kerbol System (you test stuff on closer distances in case the first test go wrong, so that you can rescue the crew using other methods). I would test the whipcrack to the Mun, then to Jool, then to Sarnus/Neidon (OPM) before going lost insterstellar. A game does not have to be hard. Complementary techs sounds like a nice compromise. 

 

Will the whipcrack post be a seperate part (some kind of shiny flashy jumpbeacon with a lot of energy flowing through it - because it need to able to be locked on from far far away)?

Edited September 4, 2022 by Rakete

[Angelo Kerman]

11 hours ago, Rakete said:

I fully agree. Also this is kinda an immersionbreaker since leaving Kerbin for 422 years and finding it in the same technological state when you come back is... kinda... strange. Such long durations are kinda difficult for immersion. So I love the possibility to get a instanous risky way additionally to my other FTL methods.

So I agree: Maybe the whipcrack should the instaneous way to be for long interstellar voyages - but also testable for immersion reasons in the Kerbol System (you test stuff on closer distances in case the first test go wrong, so that you can rescue the crew using other methods). I would test the whipcrack to the Mun, then to Jool, then to Sarnus/Neidon (OPM) before going lost insterstellar. A game does not have to be hard. Complementary techs sounds like a nice compromise. 

 

Will the whipcrack post be a seperate part (some kind of shiny flashy jumpbeacon with a lot of energy flowing through it - because it need to able to be locked on from far far away)?

The plan is to make two parts: the Whipcrack, which is the jump engine, and the Whipping Post, which is the jump beacon.

[Angelo Kerman]

So, on my way to designing and building the Whipcrack jump engine, I tried something out, and, um...

I'm working on the details of this, and am fixing the edge cases. Suffice to say that the Whipcrack jump engine won't be needed. The caveat to warping during timewarp is that you won't be able to adjust your course or speed until you drop out of warp. You'll still be able to adjust your course and speed when not in timewarp.

[Ooglak Kerman]

37 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

So, on my way to designing and building the Whipcrack jump engine, I tried something out, and, um...

.

I'm working on the details of this, and am fixing the edge cases. Suffice to say that the Whipcrack jump engine won't be needed. The caveat to warping during timewarp is that you won't be able to adjust your course or speed until you drop out of warp. You'll still be able to adjust your course and speed when not in timewarp.

First reaction - SQUEEEEEEE!!! Happy Dance!

The obvious thing with this -  in my opinion - is to turn off the Interstellar speed boost on the Blueshift warp.  It's a thing I can do myself, but still..  Nova Kirbani would argue toward a 3-5C capable ship.  So far, my experience is that beyond 3-5C capable, the ship is mostly useless Interplanetary.  It's some interesting trade-offs for sure.

Man, I love the graphics with Waterfall, but in warp you just don't spend much time in other than the map view so it makes Waterfall just another mod to load in.  I'm really wondering what it would look like coming into the NK at 3C rather than 3000C from a load-in perspective - given the issues I've had.. and what time warp would do with that.  Can't wait to find out.

[Ooglak Kerman]

On 9/4/2022 at 1:55 AM, Rakete said:

I fully agree. Also this is kinda an immersionbreaker since leaving Kerbin for 422 years and finding it in the same technological state when you come back is... kinda... strange. Such long durations are kinda difficult for immersion. So I love the possibility to get a instanous risky way additionally to my other FTL methods.

So I agree: Maybe the whipcrack should the instaneous way to be for long interstellar voyages - but also testable for immersion reasons in the Kerbol System (you test stuff on closer distances in case the first test go wrong, so that you can rescue the crew using other methods). I would test the whipcrack to the Mun, then to Jool, then to Sarnus/Neidon (OPM) before going lost insterstellar. A game does not have to be hard. Complementary techs sounds like a nice compromise. 

 

Will the whipcrack post be a seperate part (some kind of shiny flashy jumpbeacon with a lot of energy flowing through it - because it need to able to be locked on from far far away)?

Hey!  You... young eager pilot.  Come and test this untested technology.  What could go wrong.  Just a quick jaunt to the Mun.  Pay no attention to the possibility of appearing very close to the surface of Minmus with exciting and unfortunate vectors.

On 9/3/2022 at 8:32 PM, JadeOfMaar said:

I learned that Enkido's Persistent Thrust is supposed to help with that. It has an in-game window for tracking vessels and lets you switch away from the active vessel and have it persist to thrust.

I'd like to see someone take advantage for their cinematic or so forth.

I would like to have the artistic ability to make awesome cinematics.  Alas!  I can't even make compelling stick figure art.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Ooglak Kerman

[Angelo Kerman]

24 minutes ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

First reaction - SQUEEEEEEE!!! Happy Dance!

The obvious thing with this -  in my opinion - is to turn off the Interstellar speed boost on the Blueshift warp.  It's a thing I can do myself, but still..  Nova Kirbani would argue toward a 3-5C capable ship.  So far, my experience is that beyond 3-5C capable, the ship is mostly useless Interplanetary.  It's some interesting trade-offs for sure.

Man, I love the graphics with Waterfall, but in warp you just don't spend much time in other than the map view so it makes Waterfall just another mod to load in.  I'm really wondering what it would look like coming into the NK at 3C rather than 3000C from a load-in perspective - given the issues I've had.. and what time warp would do with that.  Can't wait to find out.

For sure the interstellar speed boost will need to be dialed down. It currently affects how fast you go during interstellar timewarp. If you look at the image I posted, the part action window tells you how far away you are from your target. I have been going into map view, selecting the target star, pointing the ship at the target, and then warping. Now, I also hit timewarp. When I get close, I tap on the brakes (the warp engine now detects when you kill the throttle or press the brakes key), and the ship kills timewarp. Then I just fly on "conventional" warp the rest of the way.

[Ooglak Kerman]

3 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

For sure the interstellar speed boost will need to be dialed down. It currently affects how fast you go during interstellar timewarp. If you look at the image I posted, the part action window tells you how far away you are from your target. I have been going into map view, selecting the target star, pointing the ship at the target, and then warping. Now, I also hit timewarp. When I get close, I tap on the brakes (the warp engine now detects when you kill the throttle or press the brakes key), and the ship kills timewarp. Then I just fly on "conventional" warp the rest of the way.

OOOoohhhhh..  Well, I'm bringing GU into my staging game tomorrow - directly derived from primary game (dev/preview/staging/prod) - and will be looking forward (hopefully) to this update.  I've been away from GU for some time now and am getting eager to get my story line going toward Interstellar.  I've just completed an Interstellar Scouting Ship and my bully boys are out in the bars around the KSC "recruiting" crew for the mission.

[Angelo Kerman]

I'm almost done with the updates to the warp engine plugin. Today I fixed a bunch of edge cases including problems with running the generators and engines during high timewarp. As a test, I refit the Star Frontier- equipped with the Star Frontiers warp engine- gave it an extended Graviolium tank, and hightailed it to Nova Kirbani. The interstellarWarpSpeedMultiplier still exists and it applies to warp during timewarp, but I dialed it all the way back to 1. With my changes, warp + timewarp (hyperwarp?) really does the trick. In game, it took the Star Frontier two weeks to reach nova Kirbani at 4.6C, but about 5 minutes realtime by using maximum timewarp. And if you use EVA Repairs, I buffed the MTBF on the warp tech parts.

I also burned through about 3/4 of my Graviolium. You will go through a lot of Graviolium at high timewarp, so plan accordingly for your interstellar adventures.

[Angelo Kerman]

For those too young to remember…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Frontiers

This is what the Star Frontiers warp engine is named after. Planets Edge was named after another game. If I hadn’t come up with the Whipcrack name, I was going to name the BSG style jump engine Traveller.

Given the improvements to the warp engine, I don’t think a jump engine will be needed. Just aim for the target star, go full throttle, and then hit timewarp. If you need to stop, just hit the kill throttle key or the brakes key to drop out of timewarp.

[Rakete]

So there will be no whipcrack and no new gameplay mechanisms? 

Also: I we burn through large amounts of gravi: do we get bigger gravi-tanks to store the fairy dust?

Edited September 7, 2022 by Rakete

[Ooglak Kerman]

8 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

I'm almost done with the updates to the warp engine plugin. Today I fixed a bunch of edge cases including problems with running the generators and engines during high timewarp. As a test, I refit the Star Frontier- equipped with the Star Frontiers warp engine- gave it an extended Graviolium tank, and hightailed it to Nova Kirbani. The interstellarWarpSpeedMultiplier still exists and it applies to warp during timewarp, but I dialed it all the way back to 1. With my changes, warp + timewarp (hyperwarp?) really does the trick. In game, it took the Star Frontier two weeks to reach nova Kirbani at 4.6C, but about 5 minutes realtime by using maximum timewarp. And if you use EVA Repairs, I buffed the MTBF on the warp tech parts.

I also burned through about 3/4 of my Graviolium. You will go through a lot of Graviolium at high timewarp, so plan accordingly for your interstellar adventures.

I'm guessing that is Blalo in the picture.  Nice!  I really like the idea of doing away with the Interstellar speed boost and having to plan for the graviolium usage each way adds a good planning dimension.  I'll have to rethink some of my designs for the Nova Kerbani fleet with an eye toward everyone being capable of about 5C or so.

Really looking forward to this tweak!

[Angelo Kerman]

7 hours ago, Rakete said:

So there will be no whipcrack and no new gameplay mechanisms? 

Also: I we burn through large amounts of gravi: do we get bigger gravi-tanks to store the fairy dust?

I would say that at this point, the Whipcrack isn't essential to solve the problems of long distance interstellar travel. With the new timewarp function, you can get where you need to go in a matter of real-time minutes. So, it's on the back burner for now. You can supercruise (warp during timewarp) to the nearby star, and either find the alien jumpgate if you have that option turned on, or build a gate in system. The gates are definitely more cost-effective and might need a graviolium price increase given how much more you need to cross interstellar space on warp. For the graviolium tanks, I'll look into it.

1 hour ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

I'm guessing that is Blalo in the picture.  Nice!  I really like the idea of doing away with the Interstellar speed boost and having to plan for the graviolium usage each way adds a good planning dimension.  I'll have to rethink some of my designs for the Nova Kerbani fleet with an eye toward everyone being capable of about 5C or so.

Really looking forward to this tweak!

The way things are, the interstellar speed boost is set to 1, meaning you won't have any speed boost. The idea being that if players should be using timewarp to get around fast. If you really want to go faster between the stars, then just give the interstellar speed bonus a boost.

[Ooglak Kerman]

3 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

I would say that at this point, the Whipcrack isn't essential to solve the problems of long distance interstellar travel. With the new timewarp function, you can get where you need to go in a matter of real-time minutes. So, it's on the back burner for now. You can supercruise (warp during timewarp) to the nearby star, and either find the alien jumpgate if you have that option turned on, or build a gate in system. The gates are definitely more cost-effective and might need a graviolium price increase given how much more you need to cross interstellar space on warp. For the graviolium tanks, I'll look into it.

The way things are, the interstellar speed boost is set to 1, meaning you won't have any speed boost. The idea being that if players should be using timewarp to get around fast. If you really want to go faster between the stars, then just give the interstellar speed bonus a boost.

Is this timewarp tweak going to be an update to Blueshift?  I really like this concept and think that Whipcrack definitely has a place here.  Since we are talking about weeks of gametime travel, graviolium (and Xenon gas) capacity become a real factor.  And managing vessel mass so you get max speed while still being usable in planetary space will be key.

Wow..  ran the graviolium and fusion pellet usage numbers:

Engine	Graviolium/day	Fusion Pellets/day
Mk2WarpCore	172.8	1.96
S2WarpCore	518	12.96
S3WarpCore/Engine/Sustainer	864	16.2

I'm used to getting around the Kerbol system in minutes so this represents a whole new consideration.  Assuming a 14 day trip, a little jaunt to Nova Kerbani for a S3 powered warp ship will need a tad over 12,000 graviolium and 226 fusion pellets each way.  My interstellar fleet will need a serious rethink/redesign but thats ok.  Interstellar travel shouldn't be easy.  Driving from Maryland to Alaska is not at all like Maryland to Virginia.  I'm also gonna have to seriously up the graviolium harvesting and fusion pellet production game.

This beats the span of centuries with slowboat tech though.

Two things I highly recommend for Interstellar

• CustomBarnKit:  Gets you Level 4 Tracking Station
• GU_parts:  Gets you the antenna that will let your Kerbals play "Earth Space Program" from Nova Kerbani

Edited September 7, 2022 by Ooglak Kerman

[Angelo Kerman]

Blueshift 1.9.0 is now available.

- Enabled warp engines to function even during timewarp. The caveat being that you cannot change your vessel's course during timewarp.
- While warping during timewarp (referred to as supercruise), you can tap on the brakes key or the kill throttle key to immediately drop out of supercruise.
- To initiate supercruise, your vessel's throttle cannot be at zero.
- While warping when not in supercruise, you can tap on the brakes to immediately kill the throttle
- With EVA Repairs installed, increased the MTBF ratings on all the warp tech parts to support warping during timewarp.
- Added new 3.75m Graviolium tank.

[Ooglak Kerman]

A 3.75m gravy tank will be right useful, but will still take a few if I read the capacity right (3600 units) .  The GR-50S tank or the Daedalus tank reconfigured for graviolium is the thing though for a station .  I'm thinking that a station at Jool dedicated to graviolium harvesting is going to be the thing.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Ooglak Kerman

[Ooglak Kerman]

The verdict is in.  The 3.75m graviolium storage tanks are the thing!  They work very well with the D2 parts and overall - for a big station that features spinny-ma-bobs - are more efficient than the GR-50S tank.

Now, I'm gonna have to come up with suitably large storage in Kerbin orbit.  Val and Thomus in the warp tanker are gonna be busy!

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Ooglak Kerman

[Ooglak Kerman]

@Angel-125 for exoatmospheric graviolium at Jool, I literally stumbled on it with my first try and just haven't thought about it until now.  Is there an instrument that will let you detect and/or visualize exoatmospheric graviolium?  Or is it a trial and error thing?

[Rakete]

35 minutes ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

@Angel-125 for exoatmospheric graviolium at Jool, I literally stumbled on it with my first try and just haven't thought about it until now.  Is there an instrument that will let you detect and/or visualize exoatmospheric graviolium?  Or is it a trial and error thing?

Use Nertea's spacedust... it comes with all visualizations in map view and is compatible with Blueshift (blue shift comes with configs to hook into spacedust). Also: Use Far Future Tech to take advantage of the configured graviolium belts with an exospheric big magnetic scoop, nice fusion reactors, and many many great gameplay loops. No reason for Angel to re-invent visuals, since they are already there -> Space Dust & FFT 

there are also detector parts, to find the fairy dust. They nicely hook into Blueshift. Also there are nice telescopes, that let you detect gravi from far distance. @Ooglak Kerman

Everything is already there and will enhance your gameplay - trust me, it's for the best to just give it a try. I promise: You will never want to play KSP without it again - just like Blueshift.

Just interprete it like Blueshift being Ice cream, and Nerteas mods being fruits, chocolate sauce, cream and further topping. Both delicious seperatly but together a really really nice sundae!

 

 

Has something changed about gravi-usage or is this mentioned high gravi usage a side effect of the timewarp? @Angel-125

Edited September 8, 2022 by Rakete

[Ooglak Kerman]

9 minutes ago, Rakete said:

Use Nertea's spacedust... it comes with all visualizations in map view and is compatible with Blueshift (blue shift comes with configs to hook into spacedust). Also: Use Far Future Tech to take advantage of the configured graviolium belts with an exospheric big magnetic scoop, nice fusion reactors, and many many great gameplay loops. No reason for Angel to re-invent visuals, since they are already there -> Space Dust & FFT 

there are also detector parts, to find the fairy dust. They nicely hook into Blueshift. Also there are nice telescopes, that let you detect gravi from far distance. @Ooglak Kerman

 

Has something changed about gravi-usage or is this mentioned high gravi usage a side effect of the timewarp? @Angel-125

Re: graviolium usage, see my chart above for use per day.  So, if you use time warp and compress 14 game days into 5 minutes, you're going to go through 14 days of graviolium
Spacedust..  I'll have a look

 

[Rakete]

5 minutes ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

Re: graviolium usage, see my chart above for use per day.  So, if you use time warp and compress 14 game days into 5 minutes, you're going to go through 14 days of graviolium
Spacedust..  I'll have a look

 

Yeah, i saw that. Thanks. But where these values also there before 1.8.0 ? Did they change? (mesured for a minute and extrapolated to a day?) Sorry, currently far off the reach of my computer.

 

As for Spacedust: Spacedust has almost all you need. One thing is missing: The exospheric magnetic scoop harvester, which is in FFT. You may want to have that too.

 

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Rakete

[Ooglak Kerman]

1 hour ago, Rakete said:

Yeah, i saw that. Thanks. But where these values also there before 1.8.0 ? Did they change? (mesured for a minute and extrapolated to a day?) Sorry, currently far off the reach of my computer.

 

As for Spacedust: Spacedust has almost all you need. One thing is missing: The exospheric magnetic scoop harvester, which is in FFT. You may want to have that too.

 

 

I did extrapolate based on the input resources for the parts - but it lines up with what angel-125 posted for utilization

There is also the KFS Stardust collector - which I've been using for graviolium collection.  The Spacedust config for Blueshift pretty much specifies !WildBlueIndustries/FlyingSaucers for all the things, so this is a problem.  There is also the issue of a number of WildBlue parts upon which I rely being taken out of the game with the inclusion of FFT.

 

Edited September 8, 2022 by Ooglak Kerman

[Angelo Kerman]

2 hours ago, Ooglak Kerman said:

I did extrapolate based on the input resources for the parts - but it lines up with what angel-125 posted for utilization

There is also the KFS Stardust collector - which I've been using for graviolium collection.  The Spacedust config for Blueshift pretty much specifies !WildBlueIndustries/FlyingSaucers for all the things, so this is a problem.  There is also the issue of a number of WildBlue parts upon which I rely being taken out of the game with the inclusion of FFT.

 

It's also possible to remove the Blueshift patch for FFT. That would restore the parts. That might remove some functionality, so perhaps you could just remove the sections that remove the parts when FFT is installed.

[Ooglak Kerman]

2 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

It's also possible to remove the Blueshift patch for FFT. That would restore the parts. That might remove some functionality, so perhaps you could just remove the sections that remove the parts when FFT is installed.

FFT is a compelling mod, but there are really only a very few things that I would want from it in this game I'm running so for me it does not make sense.  Spacedust is what I really need for the graviolium detection capability, but perhaps you could give me clarification on what I see here in SpacedustForBlueshift.cfg

// Space Dust bands
SPACEDUST_RESOURCE:NEEDS[!WildBlueIndustries/FlyingSaucers,SpaceDust]

Does this mean I don't get this with KFS installed?