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[1.3.x] SETI, Unmanned before Manned [Patreon]


Yemo

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doesn't really seem to fit the scope of the mod. Or at least there needs to be more advanced versions later in the tree (non-Jr versions?), as otherwise there is really no point taking them even as far as Duna, especially since all the others transmit at 100% (and so having a scientist just for these 2 poor experiments is pointless). What is even the logic behind it? If the scientist can reset it, he must be removing/replacing the active ingredients, so he must be able to Take the data as well.

I think they are therefore determined to be used with Lab, or brought back as a whole to Kerbin (or orbital lab, for example) to extract their whole potential, and thus rewarding players for the effort of getting the Lab all they way up there, instead of stuffing tons of material science samples into small pod and returning that to Kerbin.

So you can conduct some transmittable science with probes first, and then get there crew and "heavier", more advanced experiments.

Correct me if I´m wrong, please.

Edited by Wolfox
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I guess I'll report this here as I don't really see an issue tracker anywhere: SETI - Community Tech Tree sets the masses of the thermometer and the barometer to zero... which, in Squad's especially derpy Deadly Reentry knockoff, results in a near-zero thermal mass. They explode when hit with a lukewarm fart :/ (For some reason, the barometer seems more volatile than the thermometer)
Do you place them inside Service Bay? That is known to cause many physicless parts to melt spontaneously.

That is really annoying, thank you for the report, I ll investigate.

One could make the assumption that a physicsless flag should prevent parts from being taken into consideration for physics calculations...

But I guess that would be too logical, will have to look into it.

Not sure if you need to do anything for it, but do you need to do anything for supporting the necrobones mods (spaceY, modular, fuel tanks).

Haven't looked at them yet, but I guess they would need some configs to integrate to the right nodes.

This tree is excellent, especially when coupled with RemoteTech and a Life Support mod to further reinforce the "unmanned first" principle. However, this bit:

doesn't really seem to fit the scope of the mod. Or at least there needs to be more advanced versions later in the tree (non-Jr versions?), as otherwise there is really no point taking them even as far as Duna, especially since all the others transmit at 100% (and so having a scientist just for these 2 poor experiments is pointless). What is even the logic behind it? If the scientist can reset it, he must be removing/replacing the active ingredients, so he must be able to Take the data as well.

I think they are therefore determined to be used with Lab, or brought back as a whole to Kerbin (or orbital lab, for example) to extract their whole potential, and thus rewarding players for the effort of getting the Lab all they way up there, instead of stuffing tons of material science samples into small pod and returning that to Kerbin.

So you can conduct some transmittable science with probes first, and then get there crew and "heavier", more advanced experiments.

Correct me if I´m wrong, please.

It was intended to be like this:

MysteryGoo/MaterialsBay transmission - 30%

MysteryGoo/MaterialsBay + Scientist - 30% transmission but resettable

MysteryGoo/MaterialsBay return - 100%

MysteryGoo/MaterialsBay + Lab - 100% transmission and resettable

Unfortunately Squad ruined the Lab functionionality, so the latter part does not work at the moment. But you can use the Cyclotron? from StationScience, with it the experiments can be transmitted for 100%, but it is very heavy and requires a real research station. If you eg have such a massive research station in orbit around Kerbin, it saves you the launch of MysteryGoos and MaterialBays. You could just design a modular research vessel and then attach mission modules to it, eg using the docking port junior.

It would refuel at the space station and you could transmit/reset those experiments for 100% gain.

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That is really annoying, thank you for the report, I ll investigate.

One could make the assumption that a physicsless flag should prevent parts from being taken into consideration for physics calculations...

But I guess that would be too logical, will have to look into it.

It should, but somehow heating system isn´t probably considered physic (lol), so they do indeed conduct heat, but they have very low skin area to emit heat away, and thanks to zero mass very low thermal stamina. If you lock them off inside cargo bay, they have nowhere to emit heat but back to the walls of cargo bay, which is their parent part, thus it transfer heat back to them...and you´ve got yourself a little "Perpetum Thermale" :D

EDIT: Opening cargo bay usually helps. :wink:

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Hm, then it seems I have to give them mass again...

I hate it when they force gameplay elements and make it impossible to mod them outside their "intentions".

Disimprovements in every version...

Anyway, does anyone experience heat issues with strut connectors?

Naturally I gave them 0 mass as well, since their mass stays on the part they are connected to, even if the strut is not attached anymore due to staging. Which is pretty bad for balancing (naturally only since KSP 1.0.x), but having them blow up on atmo entry (eg on EVE) would be even worse.

Edited by Yemo
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Hm, then it seems I have to give them mass again...

I hate it when they force gameplay elements and make it impossible to mod them outside their "intentions".

Disimprovements in every version...

Anyway, does anyone experience heat issues with strut connectors?

Naturally I gave them 0 mass as well, since their mass stays on the part they are connected to, even if the strut is not attached anymore due to staging. Which is pretty bad for balancing (naturally only since KSP 1.0.x), but having them blow up on atmo entry (eg on EVE) would be even worse.

Didn´t try, will do as soon as I get home from work. But I expect them to be pretty OK, since they are almost exclusively used on the outside, so they should get rid of heat more easily than most of science equipment, stuffed onto a big pile inside small service bay.

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Didn´t try, will do as soon as I get home from work. But I expect them to be pretty OK, since they are almost exclusively used on the outside, so they should get rid of heat more easily than most of science equipment, stuffed onto a big pile inside small service bay.

Hm, I remember using struts within Mk3 cargo bays. I guess I ll just set the mass of thermo, baro and struts to 5kg. Those unmotivated disimprovements to moddability are really annoying.

On another note, I did take another look at the tech tree:

Instead of making a TAC LifeSupport only node, I just dumped those parts into the earlyCommandModules node.

Which led me to the idea of shifting the heat shields from the survivability line to the commandModules line. 0.625m remains at survivability, then they progress until 3.75m heatshields at commandModules.

I would then move some ladders to survivability (only the ones currently placed after survivability).

Also I m really thinking about making a special 0 science node, which branches off from earlyAviation and contains most of the stock wing clutter parts (most of which are currently at the aviation node). Players who use B9Procedural would thus have the option to avoid this node and thus prevent cluttering their VAB catalog.

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Also I m really thinking about making a special 0 science node, which branches off from earlyAviation and contains most of the stock wing clutter parts (most of which are currently at the aviation node). Players who use B9Procedural would thus have the option to avoid this node and thus prevent cluttering their VAB catalog.

That or update your autopruner files. I use Pparts so I got rid of all my unused tanks.

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Suggestion for some more mods to support, neither of high importance.

AJE - Advanced Jet Engine - "lightweight" engine mod, it brings just few more engines, mostly jets, so it does not consume too much RAM. Although it alters behaviour of stock engines and lot of other engines from various mods, if installed. Real fuel is recommanded to use with this mod, but not required. It was already suggested, although it might be too difficult to understand how AJE works, it use more realistic formula that is also used by NASA, so it might not be for everyone taste. It should not be too difficult to balance out, only few new engines that comes with this mod should have their node, other engines should already have proper node in tech tree.

Mk2 expansion - gives few more MK2 look a like parts: engine mounts, air intakes, engines mostly and few fuselage extensions that was not included with sotck. Seems it is not too heavy on RAM footprint, but I haven't time to fully test it for better feedback, you will have to try that and deceide to suport it or not.

Bahamunos part pack - from autor of adjustable landing gears. Gives few more engines too into game, looks interesting and also not heavy on RAM. Brings retractable engine parts that helps to smooth out aerodynamics. Feature that is not seen with other mods or with stock parts

There is plenty of nice mods from various authors. It is not easy to choose which one to include and what to exclude from install. Until true x64 support for stock KSP we all have to make hard decisions what to install and what not. Probably having more than one instance of KSP with different set of installed mods to cover everything.

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That or update your autopruner files. I use Pparts so I got rid of all my unused tanks.

I try to postpone work on the autopruner file until I can reboot the BalanceMod with github. It is just meant as a quick & dirty/elegant solution to reduce VAB clutter even for CKAN only users who do not want to dive into the files.

This worked, thank you!

You are welcome. I m not sure what caused it. Will have to keep in mind to look out for it.

Suggestion for some more mods to support, neither of high importance.

AJE - Advanced Jet Engine - "lightweight" engine mod, it brings just few more engines, mostly jets, so it does not consume too much RAM. Although it alters behaviour of stock engines and lot of other engines from various mods, if installed. Real fuel is recommanded to use with this mod, but not required. It was already suggested, although it might be too difficult to understand how AJE works, it use more realistic formula that is also used by NASA, so it might not be for everyone taste. It should not be too difficult to balance out, only few new engines that comes with this mod should have their node, other engines should already have proper node in tech tree.

Mk2 expansion - gives few more MK2 look a like parts: engine mounts, air intakes, engines mostly and few fuselage extensions that was not included with sotck. Seems it is not too heavy on RAM footprint, but I haven't time to fully test it for better feedback, you will have to try that and deceide to suport it or not.

Bahamunos part pack - from autor of adjustable landing gears. Gives few more engines too into game, looks interesting and also not heavy on RAM. Brings retractable engine parts that helps to smooth out aerodynamics. Feature that is not seen with other mods or with stock parts

There is plenty of nice mods from various authors. It is not easy to choose which one to include and what to exclude from install. Until true x64 support for stock KSP we all have to make hard decisions what to install and what not. Probably having more than one instance of KSP with different set of installed mods to cover everything.

AJE was always a little too complex for the BalanceMod, but I ll look into it for tech tree only.

Mk2 Expansion is on my list, under medium priority, I really like the Cockpit with the nearly vertical access hatch beneath it. Great for rovers and utility craft.

Ah, I forgot the BahamotoD pack. Now I want to have the CritterCrawler again, and those RCS, and that jet engine. Though it seems to need an update. Thank you for the suggestion!

Yep, linux 64 for the win ;-).

Since I plan to move the 1.25m heat shield to earlyCommandModules and was already looking at the contracts (for the manned Kerbin Lander issue), I did a small change in the early contract progression.

Essentially the MunFlyby contract does not depend on Orbit+Recovery anymore, only on "Orbit".

Though with VenStockRevamp being one of the recommended mods, a 0.625m heat shield should be available from "survivability" onwards.

SETI Contracts v0.9.3 (for KSP 1.0.4)

Adjustments

  • MunFlyby contract only requires Orbit completion, not Orbit+Recovery
  • Most time budgets have been increased, especially for the interplanetary contracts

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ohhh please please please I cant wait for release on ckan YAY

They already are indexed on CKAN. But maybe under 1.0.2 compatibility, but they work nicely on 1.0.4. I tend to lie to CKAN in these cases about my KSP version, install 1.0.2 mods (that work on 1.0.4), then switch back to 1.0.4 and just check updates before every launch. They work, and when update comes out, CKAN automatically gets it.

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Hm, while making the "wing clutter" special node I reconsidered the TAC special node idea.

With procedural parts, the TAC storage clutter was very annoying, maybe I set 2 special TAC nodes, costing 0 science. So everyone using PP can avoid those parts as well without deleting files.

Of course it would not work for the normal tanks, they are just too spread out, but with those 3 special nodes (which will have hideEmpty = True), a lot can be done for the most overcrowded categories..

This update is growing and growing...

Edited by Yemo
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Suggestion:

Would you consider making orbital low profile engines (LV-909 and Poodle) less resistant to reentry heat? I understand that standart engine have to withstand immerse temperatures and forces, so its reasonable that they can take alot of reentry heating, but low-thrust orbital engines aren´t exposed to such harsh conditions, and they also look much more fragile (golden foil on LV-909 for example). That would enforce usage of small heatshields, which are now in most cases completely unnecessary, which is shame. Also, that would make them more vulnerable to heating when used for long burn, which would be also nice in my opinion, creating opportunities to use early game radiators on small/medium sized crafts.

Edited by Wolfox
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TAC storage clutter was very annoying, maybe I set 2 special TAC nodes.
You have made a serious mistake here. TAC life support does not work now until much later on in the tech tree. You have gotten it all mixed up with Universal Storage radial tanks and wedges. Half of it is under survival and the other half under live support. I am fixing the bug by putting Radial Food Tanks back into survival where they belong. There is no logical reason why food takes longer to unlock. That way I have all required of the required life support resources unlocked at the same time. It is bulky and needs a service bay but I have a proper system. What possible good is it two unlock just two of the three?

The canisters can stay under life support. As a higher tech solution. However you have now lost a recycling node. If your moving stuff around just to prevent clutter. That is a mistake. Move it because it needs to be discovered in a logical order and has realistic progression . Don't do it because it looks pretty.

Edited by nobodyhasthis
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hi all just started with the seti mod in campaign and loving it makes wayyyy more sense :D

gots myself the rasta prop monitor but I noticed that the radial camera is waaaaay down on the tech tree ...makes very little sense to me

you mean we can develop manned flight to the mun but not a camera ....hmmmm :huh:

can I suggest it be brought forward to make it available towards the end of the first tier to about the 90 science mark :D

just my small suggestion hope it helps

the hawk from za

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Suggestion:

Would you consider making orbital low profile engines (LV-909 and Poodle) less resistant to reentry heat? I understand that standart engine have to withstand immerse temperatures and forces, so its reasonable that they can take alot of reentry heating, but low-thrust orbital engines aren´t exposed to such harsh conditions, and they also look much more fragile (golden foil on LV-909 for example). That would enforce usage of small heatshields, which are now in most cases completely unnecessary, which is shame. Also, that would make them more vulnerable to heating when used for long burn, which would be also nice in my opinion, creating opportunities to use early game radiators on small/medium sized crafts.

I ll try to keep it in mind for the reboot of the BalanceMod, since I m really hesitant about further rebalances for SETIctt (except for ProceduralParts...). There are already so many imbalances in stock, that roleplaying is necessary anyway (eg. crash tolerances, masses, reaction wheels, EC, heat resistance and so on, especially for crewed parts). They are all totally imbalanced, but I want to wait at least for KSP 1.1 to touch them again (0.90 SETI-BalanceMod already did a good job, but was shut down by squads unmotivated disimprovements).

You have made a serious mistake here. TAC life support does not work now until much later on in the tech tree. You have gotten it all mixed up with Universal Storage radial tanks and wedges. Half of it is under survival and the other half under live support. I am fixing the bug by putting Radial Food Tanks back into survival where they belong. There is no logical reason why food takes longer to unlock. That way I have all required of the required life support resources unlocked at the same time. It is bulky and needs a service bay but I have a proper system. What possible good is it two unlock just two of the three?

The canisters can stay under life support. As a higher tech solution. However you have now lost a recycling node. If your moving stuff around just to prevent clutter. That is a mistake. Move it because it needs to be discovered in a logical order and has realistic progression . Don't do it because it looks pretty.

UniversalStorage is not yet officially supported for SETIctt (because it has quite some balancing issues, especially the converters), but I m trying to at least keep an eye on the part locations in the tech tree.

0.9.0.2 was only planned to be the first part of the TAC Life Support rearrangement.

The idea was, that short term life support is developed together with earlyCommandModules (Mk1 pod), while mid term life support is developed with the Life Support (former recycling) node.

Eg in USI LifeSupport, kerbals can last 15 days without supplies (enough for LKO, the 72hour manned mission and missions to the Mun). So the supply containers are available at the Life Support node.

In TAC LifeSupport, kerbals can last 360 hours (60days) without food, but only 36 hours without water, and even less without oxygen and electricity. So I moved every container which includes food to Life Support and wanted to move all the other ones to earlyCommandModules.

But now that I plan to include procedural parts again, I do not know where to place the PP life support. If I place it at earlyCommandModules, it enables food over there. If I place it at LifeSupport, then oxygen and water is only available that late...

So, new proposal:

HeatShields to Command Modules line (1.25m to earlyCommandModules together with Mk1 Pod, 0.625m heat shield from VenStockRevamp stays at survivability).

All LifeSupport (USI and TAC) to enhancedSurvivability (the TAC clutter parts get their extra 0 science node, available from enhancedSurvivability, the TAC PP and US parts stay at enhancedSurvivability).

The retitlement of the recycling node is reverted.

hi all just started with the seti mod in campaign and loving it makes wayyyy more sense :D

gots myself the rasta prop monitor but I noticed that the radial camera is waaaaay down on the tech tree ...makes very little sense to me

you mean we can develop manned flight to the mun but not a camera ....hmmmm :huh:

can I suggest it be brought forward to make it available towards the end of the first tier to about the 90 science mark :D

just my small suggestion hope it helps

the hawk from za

Thank you!

I have not looked at the RasterProp camera placement yet. Any specific node recommendations? I have little experience/knowledge in that regard. Maybe BasicScience or Electrics?

edit: Hm, it might even be an oversight from RPM, since the old scienceTech node was at 45 science, but squad shifted the node back to 300 science and replaced the old one with the new basicScience node.

Edited by Yemo
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WOW okay that is a record for fast reply and brief investigative report back

call centers and companies could learn allot from you all I can say is thanks

as for suggestions I recon if the camera could be placed near the end of the first tier of science so the user has to work a bit for it but also dose not have to upgrade the space center

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WOW okay that is a record for fast reply and brief investigative report back

call centers and companies could learn allot from you all I can say is thanks

as for suggestions I recon if the camera could be placed near the end of the first tier of science so the user has to work a bit for it but also dose not have to upgrade the space center

Thank you!

I guess I ll set it to basicScience for the moment, though I have asked about that in RPM thread, maybe they will change it on their side anyway.

Out of curiosity, is there any chance of setting up github repositories for these? I'd love to help out.

Github is definately planned for a reboot of the SETI-BalanceMod, but for that I ll have to wait until the next major KSP version (supporting Unity5), since I would really hate it to get knocked out again.

For the current SETIctt I m not sure if it is time efficient, since I ll have to learn "the github way" and maintain it. It also heavily relies on internet access while working on the mod, which is not a given for me during the next couple of weeks.

So I d like to do it when all the factors are favorable, KSP 1.1, SETI-BalanceMod reboot, rl-restrictions (time and access).

But if you want to help with SETIctt, you are very welcome to do so.

If you have modeling experience, I recently thought about some interesting concepts for adapters, which would really benefit the tech tree progression.

If you prefer making MM configs for mod support (like theonegalen did), I could really use some help for the bigger mod packs.

Especially Tantares, B9Aerospace and so on are really nice, but their sheer size means, that I could support 3-7 smaller packs for the same time.

Since post #1196, I m working on updating my ToDo list, but I will definately not touch Tantares and B9Aerospace on my own for the near future with so much else to work on.

The next update 0.9.1 will make quite some changes to the propulsion line and will see quite some new mod support. So if you are interested in making mod configs, I recommend to wait for that update (should not be long) and then simply tell me what you are working on (so I do not accidentally work on them as well, if they are smaller mods). Then just post/upload the configs to this thread and I will integrate them.

All of those configs in MM-TechTree follow the same scheme:

//---part title or set title

@PART[part name or multiple ones using | separator]:NEEDS[Mod folder name in GameData]:AFTER[Mod folder name in GameData]:FOR[sETIctt]

{

@TechRequired = the tech tree node name, I have all 3 tech tree configs open in notepad++ to find the right node name, it is not always intuitive

}

Especially the TechRequired takes some time getting used to, because it is 3 tech tree configs (SETI-CommunityTechTree.cfg, CommunityTechTree.cfg and TechTree.cfg) building on another and nodes got retitled.

Those are the most noticeable exceptions (the recycling node will be called recycling again, instead of LifeSupport):

[TABLE=width: 400]

[TR]

[TD]Title

[/TD]

[TD]Name

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Aerodynamics

[/TD]

[TD]aerodynamicSystems

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Basic Command Modules

[/TD]

[TD]simpleCommandModules

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]High-Power Electrics

[/TD]

[TD]largeElectrics

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Early Orbital Stations

[/TD]

[TD]hydroponics

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

//------\\
//---SETI-CTT---\\
//------\\
//---Tech Tree changes for VenStockRevamp---\\
//------\\


//---CryoX Fuel tanks
@PART[CryoXBig|CryoXmed|CryoXnoseCone|CryoXsmall|CryoXendButt]:NEEDS[VenStockRevamp]:AFTER[VenStockRevamp]:FOR[SETIctt]
{
@TechRequired = advFuelSystems
}

//---Cubic Octagonal Strut
@PART[strutCubeSmall|strutCubeMedium|strutCubeLarge]:NEEDS[VenStockRevamp]:AFTER[VenStockRevamp]:FOR[SETIctt]
{
@TechRequired = engineering101
}

//---Angledpanel
@PART[Angledpanel]:NEEDS[VenStockRevamp]:AFTER[VenStockRevamp]:FOR[SETIctt]
{
@TechRequired = engineering101
}

- - - Updated - - -

Just noticed that MOARdV replied in the RPM thread, so I expect the next RPM version to shift the camera to basicScience.

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Quick question. Would your stock science tweaks cause issues if added to a existing game (the part that switches the biome crew/eva)?

Not the switching of biomes, but the rescaling of the materials bay would be an issue for existing craft.

I would generally recommend starting a new career game with SETIctt.

If you are mainly interested in some of the science tweaks, eg the biome switch, telemetry reports and surface sampler part, they were all done by LordAurelius and are part of his StockScienceTweaks mod.

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Ok, I was specifically thinking of grabbing just the SETI-Science.cfg file.

I modify my game pretty heavily (41KB of personal CFG files) and have pulled various edits from your mod, but somehow I must of missed the really nice science changes you made.

Reading your files has been great for honing my MM skills. :P

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