[1.x+] Community Resource Pack

[alphaprior]

For some reason forum changes mona-zite to mopedantte!

[goldenpsp]

10 minutes ago, alphaprior said:

For some reason forum changes mona-zite to mopedantte!

Ok.  Doesn't change the answer.  This mod just has resource definitions.  So if 2 modders wanted to use Mona-zite and be compatible they can use this.

HOW these resources are used, combined etc would be a question for the relevant mods they are used in.

[alphaprior]

Ok I guess I have to look further outside CRP.

[JadeOfMaar]

5 hours ago, alphaprior said:

Is there a guide for all resources? There are some which I have zero information like mopedantte, borate, fluorite and spodumene which I can convert into lithium and then what?  mopedantte

Sadly, no. You learn their purposes by playing enough with the mods that use resources relevant to your goals, asking around, and checking resources on Wikipedia. The particular resources that you named there are mainly relevant to KSP Interstellar, in which case, you'll have to ask around in the threads for that mod, and when possible, in its Discord server.

[RoverDude]

Time to resurrect the CRP thread, and a heads up for folks who bundle this.

Fist a bit of background (that I assume most folks know, but covering it just in case).  the stock resource system was specifically designed to prevent mod collisions, since the intent was for individual mods to have great control over resource placement and distribution.  The reason for this is that the resources themselves do nothing - they are not a balance lever.  Balance levers are up to the parts that utilize the resources.  this is a pretty important point.  So when the stock system looks at abundance, it goes off of two golden rules:

First.  Biome settings override planet settings which override global settings.   You can see how this works in the small with 'Ore' in the stock config:

GLOBAL_RESOURCE
{
    ResourceName = Ore
    ResourceType = 0
    
    Distribution
    {
        PresenceChance = 100
        MinAbundance = 1
        MaxAbundance = 15
        Variance = 50
        Dispersal = 3
    }
}

PLANETARY_RESOURCE
{
    ResourceName = Ore
    ResourceType = 0
    PlanetName = Sun
    
    Distribution
    {
        PresenceChance = 0
        MinAbundance = 0
        MaxAbundance = 0
        Variance = 0
        Dispersal = 0
    }
}

PLANETARY_RESOURCE
{
    ResourceName = Ore
    ResourceType = 0
    PlanetName = Jool
    
    Distribution
    {
        PresenceChance = 0
        MinAbundance = 0
        MaxAbundance = 0
        Variance = 0
        Dispersal = 0
    }
}

What this means is that if someone were to enter a planetary resource node for their own custom planet, they could set it to however they want.  They could even only allow Ore in certain biomes, or specifically exclude ore from certain biomes (like allowing no mining for Ore at the KSC, etc).

The second point - and this is super important - is that when the stock resource system sees conflict, it will always take the most optimistic route.  But this is in line with the point above.  So you could., with the presence of a config file and no use of Module Manager, turn off Ore for Kerbin just by adding a PLANETARY_RESOURCE node for Kerbin with all zeros.   Or turn off a biome the same way.   

Let's say Modder A created a water resource and had it everywhere on all planets by default.  And modder B wanted to explicitly exclude it from the Mun.  Stock supports this out of the box, and in that situation a planetary explicit override would go over the global override.   Now, if modder C wanted water in one biome, they could do a Biome setting which in turn overrides the planetary setting of modder B.  Finally, if modder D wanted to make the mun a water world, their planetary setting would override modder B (since theirs is more optimistic than B's settings of zero), but would not override modder C (since it's a biome setting not a planet one).  And of course all of these are subject to being affected by the global difficulty settings, even for modded resources.

The goal when I designed all of this for stock was peace and harmony.

Unfortunately, we seem to not have peace and harmony because the golden rule of CRP is being broken - which is 'DO NOT USE MODULE MANAGER TO BREAK CRP!'.  In this case, by Rational Resources.  And while I get the reasoning, in my opinion it is solving their concern the wrong way, and without consideration to other modders.  

There are two parts to why this is going down.

First - resources are being explicitly overridden.   As I've said before, the balance and difficulty levers are functions of mods that utilize the resources, not the resources themselves.  And it's really up to the mod designer who built the parts for their mod that should have control over that.  Having assumptions rolled over outside of things like stock difficulty settings is problematic, especially when it results in having to do defensive coding to get around.  If you want your planet pack to be a blank slate, rock on.  But respect that stock (not CRP) was designed for harmonious resource interaction, and folks are likely going to add their own configs to sort this out.  Use of module manager to break that is not being a good neighbor.

Second - and this is the punchline - IMO the root cause is that CRP does two things.  It standardizes resources (which is a good thing!), but it also sets resource distribution (which can, as seen, be a contentious thing).  So one thing I am considering strongly, is breaking apart the planetary resource configs from CRP, and leaving it to the consuming mods to handle how they feel resources should be distributed, taking into account the overall nature of stock resource conflict resolution. 

So if KSPIE wants no water on the moon, and MKS wants water on the moon, and Near Future does not care, you'd land with moon water on an MKS+NF install, but no moon water on a KSPIE+NF install, and water on the moon if you installed all three.  Which I think is a pretty reasonable compromise.  If there are balance concerns between KSPIE and MKS in this example, then the best way of solving this is discussion.  But that discussion is now a mod interop question, not a CRP one.   

Same rules apply to planet packs.  If a planet pack designer wants their planets to have certain distributions, that's fine - as long as they respect that another modder may change those to suit their mods.  As noted at the start of all of this - the resources themselves are not a balance lever, it's up to the consuming mod to balance in respect to their mod as they see fit.  And a conversation is infinitely preferable than overriding other mods in a vacuum.

Tagging @FreeThinker and @Nertea since the three of us curate the harvestables.  Tagging @JadeOfMaar since this should solve the need to Module Manager out CRP stuff in Rational Resources (and for stock ore, a planetary override and/or difficulty settings will give you plenty of control), at which point I'd really like that removed to circumvent having to do a bunch of defensive coding.

Will leave this up for a bit to solicit feedback, before doing the update.

 

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by RoverDude

[zer0Kerbal]

Interesting. Am pondering how this would affect players like myself who use mods like SimpleConstruction!, which uses CRP for [metals] and [rocketparts].

Ore is also used, but that is stock (of course) and stock controls the distribution.

The change wouldn't affect (directly)...

sounds good then.

Edited July 1, 2021 by zer0Kerbal

[RoverDude]

2 minutes ago, zer0Kerbal said:

Interesting. Am pondering how this would affect players like myself who use mods like SimpleConstruction!, which uses CRP for [metals] and {rocketparts].

Ore is also used, but that is stock (of course) and stock controls the distribution.

The change wouldn't affect (directly)...

sounds good then.

Yep this would only affect mods that depend on harvesters as part of their pack.  Or ones that modify the stock harvesters for their mod.  Which is really where the control should be.

To add - at first blush, a good approach would be a grace period where mods can introduce into their own mods their own resource distribution schemes.  Then I'd just move the distribution schemes in CRP to an Extras folder so mod makers can either borrow those, or use them as a starting point.  That should have the least total impact.  Ideally, Rational Resources follows along and removes the CRP overrides it has.  Otherwise, there will be a bit more work to do.

[FreeThinker]

5 hours ago, RoverDude said:

So if KSPIE wants no water on the moon, and MKS wants water on the moon, and Near Future does not care, you'd land with moon water on an MKS+NF install, but no moon water on a KSPIE+NF install, and water on the moon if you installed all three.  Which I think is a pretty reasonable compromise.  If there are balance concerns between KSPIE and MKS in this example, then the best way of solving this is discussion.  But that discussion is now a mod interop question, not a CRP one. 

Well I think in general, there should be no Water on the Mun (which is a game representation of the Earth Moon) but I'm willing to compromize by not removing Water from the Mun surface when MKS is installed, but in exchange MKS should not allow that water to be converted into LiquidFuel or any other resource that can be used for propulsion, as this upsets KSPIE balance.

Edited July 1, 2021 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

10 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Well I think in general, there should no Water on the Mun (which is a game representation of the Earth Moon) but I'm willing to compromize by not removing Water from the Mun surface when MKS is installed, but in exchange MKS should not allow that water to be converted into LiquidFuel or any other resource that can be used for propulsion, as this upsets KSPIE balance.

The point being you would not have to account for MKS at all.   You would have no water on the mun, but I'd include mun water in the USI configs, so it's only there if MKS is installed (or some other mod that adds mun water configs).  Beyond that, as to what a part pack does or does not do is really up to the individual modder and a topic more for the MKS threads than this one.

[FreeThinker]

13 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

The point being you would not have to account for MKS at all.   You would have no water on the mun, but I'd include mun water in the USI configs, so it's only there if MKS is installed (or some other mod that adds mun water configs).  Beyond that, as to what a part pack does or does not do is really up to the individual modder and a topic more for the MKS threads than this one.

Yes, but the mere fact that MKS adds water to the surface of the Mun, causes it to be convertable into Hydrogen upsetting the balance and realism. A solution would be if MKS uses something different than Water for its processes.

[RoverDude]

2 minutes ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes, but the mere fact that MKS adds water to the surface of the Mun, causes it to be convertable into Hydrogen upsetting the balance and realism. A solution would be if MKS uses something different than Water for its processes.

That's a consumer issue not a CRP issue.  Same as the fact that from an USI standpoint, KSPIE reactors are super overpowered yet I do not ask you to change them    If you have an MKS request we can handle it there, but as it stands, USI would continue to have Munar water.  And unless I am missing something, it's what CRP has today as a default, though no reason why KSPIE could not override that at the planetary level - but if both MKS and KSPIE were in the same save, the more optimistic view would take precedence as that's how stock works (and it's a fair assumption that folks playing with MKS expect a certain resource distribution for stock planets).

[Nertea]

Yes I would prefer this also. Because fundamentally overlapping resource distributions don't conflict, they don't need to be defined in a community deconfliction pack.

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, Nertea said:

Yes I would prefer this also. Because fundamentally overlapping resource distributions don't conflict, they don't need to be defined in a community deconfliction pack.

Agreed.  In retrospect I think we were doing it for convenience, but that can be solved with an extras folder for those who need a starting point.  It will also clean up resource scanners if you only subscribe to a subset of mods.

[Nertea]

2 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Agreed.  In retrospect I think we were doing it for convenience, but that can be solved with an extras folder for those who need a starting point.  It will also clean up resource scanners if you only subscribe to a subset of mods.

The scanner thing is nice. I've had users complain about CRP causing bloat in this set of windows when it really shouldn't. 

[FreeThinker]

7 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

 KSPIE reactors are super overpowered yet I do not ask you to change them   

Well this is something I can fix, and you don't even have to ask.

9 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

 but if both MKS and KSPIE were in the same save, the more optimistic view would take precedence as that's how stock works (and it's a fair assumption that folks playing with MKS expect a certain resource distribution for stock planets).

This is where we fundemetally differ in opinion, just because it currently works that way, doesn't make it valid or fair one.

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

Well this is something I can fix, and you don't even have to ask.

The point I am making is that interop is a separate topic from resources, and probably more of a topic for the MKS/KSPIE threads   The goal here at the moment is to mitigate CRP being stomped on and encourage folks to just leverage the stock behavior for conflict resolution, and let mod handle their own resource distribution vs. having CRP do it - which should also eliminate the need for Rational Resources to stomp over it and do their own baselines.

[FreeThinker]

10 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

 which should also eliminate the need for Rational Resources to stomp over it and do their own baselines.

Well Rational Resources as I understand it, takes a more hollistic view on resources as resources are not only give meaning as a positive presence but also with there absence as this creates entropy which makes a game more chalanging.

Edited July 1, 2021 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

Just now, FreeThinker said:

Well Rational Resources as I understand it, takes a more hollistic view on resources as resources are not only give meaning as a positive presence but also by their absence as this creates entropy which makes a game more intresting.

Sure, the problem there though is that right now they are doing that by explicitly overwriting CRP, which is a big no-no.  So the proposed solution is to remove resource distribution from CRP and let mods handle their own, so if someone had RR as a baseline they could do whatever they want (even if it's a bit odd messing with resources you don't even use).  So there would really be no need for the stomping.  And if someone installed USI, we'd have our own resource set (same with NF, etc.) as the bits are meant to layer on top of each other.  

Ideally we can land in a place where people are not explicitly breaking other mods, or where we have to do defensive coding.

To add - in the event of planet packs, the correct approach would be to set up whatever relevant planet resources you want/don't want - but again, that really seems the realm of the consuming mod.  So if planet pack Z included resource converters for, say, Ore - then it would be logical for them to craft how they want ore distributed in their planets.  That's built into the resource system and using it as intended.   

If they decided to eliminate Substrate (used mostly by USI mods) from their planet, but did not do anything with said resource, that would be kinda weird, but their call, their mod.  

But if they decided to explicitly override other mod's values - then that's not cool, especially when they end up breaking things.

[FreeThinker]

2 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

So the proposed solution is to remove resource distribution from CRP and let mods handle their own, so if someone had RR as a baseline they could do whatever they want (even if it's a bit odd messing with resources you don't even use).  So there would really be no need for the stomping. 

No it wil not solve anything because your proposed solution is Atomistic while Rational Resources is Hollistic, they cannot be united.

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

No it wil not solve anything because your proposed solution is Atomistic while Rational Resources is Hollistic, they cannot be united.

I'm really not asking to unite, I'm asking (nicely) for the USI suite not to be messed with.  The starting point and the question at hand is whether we're good with moving resource distribution out of CRP.  Because the other option is defensive coding, or to flat out make Rational Resources have explicit incompatibility with CRP, which is likely not a path we want to go down.

 

[FreeThinker]

9 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

I'm really not asking to unite, I'm asking (nicely) for the USI suite not to be messed with.  The starting point and the question at hand is whether we're good with moving resource distribution out of CRP.  Because the other option is defensive coding, or to flat out make Rational Resources have explicit incompatibility with CRP, which is likely not a path we want to go down.

Well you can remove all resource distribution out of CRP but it won't change Rational Resources main aim to create entropy, the only possible solution I see is that a compromise could be made, in the case of water, certain polar biomes might add water, this could be done by USI

Edited July 1, 2021 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

Well you can remove all resource distribution out of CRP but it won't change rational main aim to create entropy, the only possible solution I see is that a compromise could be made, in the case of water, certain polar biomes might add water.

That becomes an inter-mod discussion, with the right answer not being 'I will just overwrite your stuff'.

There's a really wide gap between 'here is the crafted resource list for the planet pack I make, and I have my own baselines and defaults' - which is perfectly fine and using the system as intended - and 'I am going to explicitly strip everything out'.  It's actually a losing battle to do the latter, because of how stock works (you're kinda fighting against the system).  Especially when there are already tons of built in levers and options to do it in a more neighbor-friendly way.

[FreeThinker]

50 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

That becomes an inter-mod discussion, with the right answer not being 'I will just overwrite your stuff'.

There's a really wide gap between 'here is the crafted resource list for the planet pack I make, and I have my own baselines and defaults' - which is perfectly fine and using the system as intended - and 'I am going to explicitly strip everything out'.  It's actually a losing battle to do the latter, because of how stock works (you're kinda fighting against the system).  Especially when there are already tons of built in levers and options to do it in a more neighbor-friendly way.

Yes but there is also some merit in the reasoning that people download Rational Resources precisely because they agree the stock atomistic resource distribution solution is unbalanced/boring and they want a more holistic high entropy distribution for resources. That this might make some mods like MKS a lot more challanging is a fact they accept and the goal of the mod in the first place. Off cource there might be players that didn't make thisconcious disssiion , but it realy is thir choice and fault to make.

Edited July 1, 2021 by FreeThinker

[RoverDude]

1 minute ago, FreeThinker said:

Yes but there is also some merit in the reasoning that people download Rational Resources precisely because they agree the stock atomistic resource distribution solution is unbalanced/boring and they want a more holistic high entropy distribution for resources.

 

Then the right way to solve that is to put updated planetary distributions in it.  Problem solved.  That's exactly how everything is designed to work.  The wrong approach is to wipe out planetary/biome configs of other mods.

Also - people are getting RR as part of JNSQ, so I get support questions because people are surprised when MKS suddenly does not work correctly.  

 

[FreeThinker]

14 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Then the right way to solve that is to put updated planetary distributions in it.  Problem solved.  That's exactly how everything is designed to work.  The wrong approach is to wipe out planetary/biome configs of other mods.

There reason this happens is that the CRP has a serious shortcomming which is that you can only add (positive values), not reduce or multiply or divide with a rational number. One of of the first steps Ration Resource is to remove all Ore resource because There is no other way to achieve low rational resource distribution globally.

Edited July 1, 2021 by FreeThinker