[1.0.4] ESLD Jump Beacons - [Dev 0.6a]

[Disposeable]

Fair enough, looks like ill be re installing karbonite and k+. Gonna have to cull some of my parts mods tho

[TMarkos]

Fair enough, looks like ill be re installing karbonite and k+. Gonna have to cull some of my parts mods tho

Might have been unclear - you don't actually need Karb and K+ to use this. If you have them, it'll use those drills and tanks just fine. If you're running ESLD standalone, however, you'll have the option to pull Karborundum using the standard drill.

[Disposeable]

No I got that, sorry. I just figure may as well get the full experience, those karbonite drills and such add some interesting depth. Maybe even pickup the ftt pack and make a little interplanetary mining empire. Maybe even all of roverdudes stuff, never had much of a reason to use it before but might be fun to play with all the integration anyway.

[TMarkos]

No I got that, sorry. I just figure may as well get the full experience, those karbonite drills and such add some interesting depth. Maybe even pickup the ftt pack and make a little interplanetary mining empire. Maybe even all of roverdudes stuff, never had much of a reason to use it before but might be fun to play with all the integration anyway.

Well, it'll certainly assist with getting Karborundum off Eve if you go that route. Some nice ducted fans and OP engines you can use for that purpose.

[TMarkos]

Hello! I've made some small changes to the documentation that may help people out. A page outlining how electrical charge usage works is here:

https://github.com/TMarkos/ESLDBeacons/wiki/Electric-Charge,-Beacons-and-You

I've also corrected the gravitational chart diagram, since I accidentally used units of g rather than m/s^2.

Assuming Witcher 3 doesn't eat all my time I'm hoping to tackle temperature and transit cost balancing next. Many of the parts were created before temperature was a thing, so they're unrealistically robust in that regard. Insofar as transit costs go, if anyone has managed to get a functioning network up I'd be interested to see screenshots of your cost breakdown window to give me a few real-world examples of usage I can use as data points.

[TMarkos]

Okay, campers. I've pushed 0.4a to Github, waiting on Kerbal Stuff until I have a few more things rolled in. The big win is texture compression, the mod is now only a quarter of what it was before in terms of filesize. Also, using the Heisenkerb Compensator is now appropriately expensive again, it was charging about 1/5th of what it should have been.

https://github.com/TMarkos/ESLDBeacons/releases/tag/0.4a

If you're installing over a previous version of the mod DELETE the old files, or at least the old .tga textures. I'm not sure if KSP loads .dds preferentially now, but you're probably going to have a bad time if you don't clean out the old version.

Changelog

2015-05-18 0.4-a
- Converted all textures to .dds, mod size dropped from 86mb to 22mb.
- Fixed HCU rates for transporting hazardous material, they had lowered with the change to Karborundum density and are now where they should be.  

[TMarkos]

Not going to throw up a full changelog post, but I've updated a few things and Github now has 0.4b. Mostly it's just new MM configs that support alternate difficulty levels for those that want to jump into the beacons earlier. The difficulty configs optionally make Karborundum extractable on Tylo (still hard-ish), Dres (Easy), Ike (Really easy) or for those that hate mining and logistics there's a config to just let you buy Karborundum in the VAB - albeit not cheaply.

I've also compiled a config to support the Community Tech Tree, for those that have it installed.

Last but not least, we're on CKAN! The CKAN version is the same as KerbalStuff, so be aware that it has the less-compressed textures, old HCU rate and none of the CTT/difficulty configs. I'll update KS when we hit the next major version, which will be as soon as I've resolved a few outstanding issues.

The next major project is tackling Kerbal roles. I'd like there to be interaction with pilots, engineers and scientists when using the system. The concept (not implemented!) so far is:

• Pilots on the transiting vessel increase transit accuracy and decrease penalties due to distance/drift from origin beacon. Effect scales with rank. No role on beacon vessel.
  
• Engineers on the beacon vessel decrease transit costs and decrease overall electric usage of the beacon. Effect scales with rank. No effect on the transiting vessel.
  
• Scientists on the beacon vessel allow increase the gravitational tolerance of the beacon, stacking with the GMU. Scientists on the transiting vessel relax the gravitational restrictions the transit path must obey, allowing for closer passes through a gravity well. Effects scale with rank.
  

The idea is that the effects would be relatively small for individuals but that they'd also stack to a fairly high level, giving a strong incentive to build the beacon into a base. I'm also considering providing bonuses for incorporating an asteroid into the beacon vessel, including increased gravitational tolerance or increased accuracy for incoming ships. Curious to hear what people think about both the crew role changes and the asteroid idea. I'd like to add a bonus for people that take the time to make an outpost out of the beacon rather than just tossing a satellite up there.

[Disposeable]

Not going to throw up a full changelog post, but I've updated a few things and Github now has 0.4b. Mostly it's just new MM configs that support alternate difficulty levels for those that want to jump into the beacons earlier. The difficulty configs optionally make Karborundum extractable on Tylo (still hard-ish), Dres (Easy), Ike (Really easy) or for those that hate mining and logistics there's a config to just let you buy Karborundum in the VAB - albeit not cheaply.

I've also compiled a config to support the Community Tech Tree, for those that have it installed.

Last but not least, we're on CKAN! The CKAN version is the same as KerbalStuff, so be aware that it has the less-compressed textures, old HCU rate and none of the CTT/difficulty configs. I'll update KS when we hit the next major version, which will be as soon as I've resolved a few outstanding issues.

The next major project is tackling Kerbal roles. I'd like there to be interaction with pilots, engineers and scientists when using the system. The concept (not implemented!) so far is:

• Pilots on the transiting vessel increase transit accuracy and decrease penalties due to distance/drift from origin beacon. Effect scales with rank. No role on beacon vessel.
  
• Engineers on the beacon vessel decrease transit costs and decrease overall electric usage of the beacon. Effect scales with rank. No effect on the transiting vessel.
  
• Scientists on the beacon vessel allow increase the gravitational tolerance of the beacon, stacking with the GMU. Scientists on the transiting vessel relax the gravitational restrictions the transit path must obey, allowing for closer passes through a gravity well. Effects scale with rank.
  

The idea is that the effects would be relatively small for individuals but that they'd also stack to a fairly high level, giving a strong incentive to build the beacon into a base. I'm also considering providing bonuses for incorporating an asteroid into the beacon vessel, including increased gravitational tolerance or increased accuracy for incoming ships. Curious to hear what people think about both the crew role changes and the asteroid idea. I'd like to add a bonus for people that take the time to make an outpost out of the beacon rather than just tossing a satellite up there.

I like it. Now I just have to find what's eating all my memory.

[Svm420]

That update sound really awesome. I lvoe the roles as I love more erason to diversify my crews. Asteroid idea is interesting as well just gotta be worth hauling a class E out to jool and beyond. Love the mod!

[Tutumra]

I am so glad you are doing this mod. I love the idea of jump beacons and not warp drives. i am going to have to play with this and figure it out. thanks alot :-)

yes pls add the crew roles. The idea of a jump gate or jump station also sounds good.. especially if we are using extra planetary launchpads.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Tutumra

[TMarkos]

I like it. Now I just have to find what's eating all my memory.

Hopefully not me! Make sure you pull the release off of Github, it has compressed textures that really cut down the memory usage.

@Svm420 - Thanks! I haven't quite nailed down all the particulars (documentation on how to work with some of the new features is pretty slim at the moment) but I'm confident I can puzzle out some interesting game mechanics.

@Tutumra - Thanks! Swing by later if you've got comments after playing with it a bit!

[Disposeable]

Hopefully not me! Make sure you pull the release off of Github, it has compressed textures that really cut down the memory usage.

@Svm420 - Thanks! I haven't quite nailed down all the particulars (documentation on how to work with some of the new features is pretty slim at the moment) but I'm confident I can puzzle out some interesting game mechanics.

@Tutumra - Thanks! Swing by later if you've got comments after playing with it a bit!

Nah I bet its remote tech or epl. None of my parts mods are all that large.

[Katalliaan]

Suggestion: reword the warning for the missing Heisenkerb Compensator to say no active compensator. If there's no compensator, the player will realize they don't have one; if there's one that there but off, the player will realize they need to turn it on.

[TMarkos]

Suggestion: reword the warning for the missing Heisenkerb Compensator to say no active compensator. If there's no compensator, the player will realize they don't have one; if there's one that there but off, the player will realize they need to turn it on.

Good idea, it's rolled in.

I've also got the asteroid base changes set up, the mass of the ship will now come into play if you're running a GMU.

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Full changelog and download links are in the OP. Kerbalstuff is updated to 0.5, as is Github.

[TMarkos]

I was adding in EKSTRA and ESLD as contract-issuing agencies just now, and I came across something that seemed like it merited a post for others' reference. Squad has the agencies listed with a full-size logo and a scaled logo, with the full-size logo being the standard 256x160 flag and the scaled logo being this wonky 64x40 .truecolor format. Apparently the .truecolor format is just a .png with a different extension, renaming the file allows for editability just like any other .png. This seems to only be used in the VAB/SPH when sorting by manufacturer, so it's in your best interest to have this be the logo on a transparent background. Non-transparent backgrounds will display poorly when not selected, as the game removes all color information and simply displays the transparency mask when a manufacturer tab loses focus.

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[TMarkos]

Github has been updated to 0.5a. Changes this time around:

• UI Button has been added. Old antenna context menu method still works to activate, but the button is a handy shortcut.
  
• Scientists will now give you a discount if they're onboard an active beacon ship that has an SCU active. The minimum SCU discount is 10%, so depending on the experience levels of your scientists it might not exceed the standard.
  
• Engineers on a beacon vessel now reduce all electric charge costs, again dependent on their experience.
  
• Pilots on a beacon vessel now reduce penalties for transiting vessels due to drift.
  

For all three crew effects, the maximum reduction in their respective area is 50%. Each star of experience adds roughly 2%, so with 5 5-star scientists you'll get half-off transit costs. Be aware that having less experienced crew onboard (within a given profession) will negatively impact your crack team of 5-star experts. However, if you're short on crew and only have one or two 5-stars lying around, supplementing them with a few extra less-experienced kerbals will still be a net benefit.

I decided against putting in transiting vessel bonuses for now, since I thought about it and figured that I'd like to avoid having people design their transiting craft for this mod. I don't want to pressure folks to put extra crew space on all their vessels to schlep along some extra help just for a transit cost savings. By having the crew effects only on the beacon, it limits the design pressures to just that beacon vessel.

[TMarkos]

Minor release to 0.5b, scientist discounts weren't being shown/applied. There's also a wiki page up on crew effects.

[TMarkos]

Another minor release to 0.5g, the IB-1 now has an integrated hailer since it was silly to require an antenna to talk to your own vessel. Relative velocity predictions are now accurate in the confirm window, they were previously just absolute velocity which sort of defeated the purpose. Finally, all in-system transfers obey the rules that previously only applied to the LB-10 - that is, the far beacon's velocity is not taken into account. I like being able to cancel out orbital velocity better by using the far beacon for inter-SoI stuff, but intra-SoI velocity cancellation was silly - you'd warp to a beacon 60km away that had 3m/s of orbital difference and suddenly you're dropping straight to the planet with no orbital velocity at all. This should be more intuitive all around.

Probably one more round of cleanup before I release to 0.6 and update Kerbal Stuff, I'm looking at the consequences of accidentally arriving inside a gravity well due to normal displacement as well as a few QoL/intuitiveness fixes like making sure all the predictions and readouts are always updated to what they should be showing.

[TMarkos]

Disregard previous post, 0.6 is up without the described fixes but with another longstanding issue resolved - the lack of beacon visual effects. Pretty pleased with the way this turned out. Let me know if you're experiencing any camera strangeness as a result and I will attempt to remedy.

[Overlocker]

Yeah, bending of space and time. It simply makes a huge FoV and then back to normal no? I really like how awesome that simple effect adds immersion

[TMarkos]

Yeah, bending of space and time. It simply makes a huge FoV and then back to normal no? I really like how awesome that simple effect adds immersion

It actually modifies both the camera distance from the ship and the FoV, making it a rather extreme variant of the classic dolly zoom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_zoom

I played around with making it an actual dolly zoom, but it was too slow and didn't mask the transition as well as momentarily dialing the FoV up to silly levels. Because of that the distance manipulation is less noticeable until the end.

[Katalliaan]

I'm running into an odd interaction with AntennaRange - the hailer needs to be enabled before AntennaRange will recognize a connection. Not sure of exact reasons, though.

[TMarkos]

I'm running into an odd interaction with AntennaRange - the hailer needs to be enabled before AntennaRange will recognize a connection. Not sure of exact reasons, though.

Probably has something to do with me forcing part activation during the startup sequence. I'll download AR and explore the interaction sometime this weekend, for now I'll log an issue on the tracker. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

[Tutumra]

Hey Tmarkos, when are you going to put his in the addon release forum? i love this mod and wish to see it spread among the world.

[TMarkos]

Hey Tmarkos, when are you going to put his in the addon release forum? i love this mod and wish to see it spread among the world.

It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm hoping to get a few more bugs ironed out and a few more features baked in before I push it to release. I've had to leave off work on it for the past couple of weeks because my job started demanding more time again. Once I have a solid block of downtime (hopefully this coming week or the next) I can resume work on it and see how much I can knock out of the issues list.