RoverDude

Well, given the max time in a save is about 68 years, there is no need for even a century of use

Right, but you end up just shifting which bits hit the ground first - it ends up becoming a circular chase.

I hear ya, but what the above patch does is shuffle some of the vertical nodes which in turn mess up other bits in other mods... so people module manage those... which in turn mess up something else... etc. - basically it's an issue with bases clipping into the ground during initial physics load, because your base is level but your terrain is not. This is precisely why disconnected bases work so well.

Mulch will be a waste (no pun intended) without fertilizer. However, there will be provisions in MKS/LKS-Lite for the production of fertilizer. That being said, in my experience it's pretty easy to loft up more fertilizer than you will ever need/use because of how much it packs in a small package. And if you're doing larger long-term base building stuff, odds are good you'll have one of my colony mods also installed.

That's a bit of a misnomer. Shuffling node positions will not necessarily fix a jumping base.

I'd also suggest posting a pic of your base. A consideration for MKS-L (and it's big brother) - disconnected bases are going to be less likely to go full kraken on you

So, here are some more pre-release notes. Recycler mechanics will be in, but will not be enabled by default (since these go hand in hand with needing some extra parts, etc.). One thing I am addressing in the next release is the confusion around recycling and converter types - i.e. greenhouses, agroponics, cultivators, etc. - especially when they compete for the same resources, or where having multiple things turned on ends up being detrimental to the player (like losing mulch at a lower rate when you could have gotten more supplies by using a different converter on the same part, or another part on the same vessel). Currently, USI-LS assumes very nice built in recyclers (water is recycled/reclaimed, air is scrubbed, etc.) - so that your only supply cost is essentially food. This is being replaced by an alternate series of mechanics. First - supply consumption will be baselined at 15 units per day. This (roughly) breaks down to 2L of food, 1L of oxygen, and 13L of water per day per Kerbal, and covers everything from eating and drinking through sanitation, etc. - so as a baseline, there is zero reclamation. And for shorter trips, this may make sense. Recyclers operate not by converting all of that mulch into supplies, but by reducing demand before they hit the mulch stage. They will have varying levels of effectiveness, and require alternate inputs (EC, water, etc.). For example, a water purifier can take water harvested from a planet or asteroid and convert it to potable water, effectively reducing your supply need by 80%, etc. Recyclers are shown in the UI in the 'Supplies per day' figure. So as more recyclers pop online, they will effectively push down the amount of supplies you have to directly tap into (since we assume you are using the recycled ones first). This mechanic solves issues with multiple recyclers competing for mulch and (in some cases) resulting in sub-optimal conversions. Mulch does not even need to enter the picture at this stage. Once you are past that cut, you go right into the basic supply->mulch converters, This is where the second round of recyclers kick in, that essentially use mulch as an input. Note that all Mulch->supply converters are being deprecated in favor of a standardized mulch+fertilizer=supplies mechanic. This makes all greenhouse stuff operate consistently, with your key difference being size and conversion rate. Note that it may be easy to overwhelm your greenhouses without a recycler, since you are also trying to use your greenhouse capacity as a biological filter, and not just growing food. Luckily, most of these bits will be intended for use by mods like MKS, since the basic recycling mechanic (and it's corresponding supply consumption jump) are only lit up when that mod is installed. Again, the intent here is not to surprise a bunch of other mods who then have to scramble to provide updates. Rather, it lets USI-LS be extended easily based on the mods you have installed. Another side note on recyclers - they also tap into the wear system, and can have a positive or negative effect on long term habitation since the recyclers are part of the entire habitation ecosystem. i.e. installing a colony-grade recycler will extend hab life, while depending on a junky one might reduce it (in the latter case, it may even be more effective to just cart in supplies vs. recycling to extend the hab's usable life). It makes for some very interesting mechanics, all of which will be surfaced via the UI. Totally unrelated, but slightly relevant to this thread is that I've been working on a colonization guide, that takes you step by step through a series of missions, each of which illustrates some facet of both USI-LS and MKS along the way. The intent is that someone who has never used a colony or life support mod can go through the sample missions, and develop a better understanding of the mods by very slowly incremental complexity. I'm pretty happy with it, and a lot of the changes here (and upcoming MKS ones) were based on, essentially, taking a clean slate to colonization and writing the docs from the ground up. I hope you folks enjoy it, and I will begin showcasing all of the demo missions and the guide on my twitch stream. Enjoy

Agreed.

No. CKAN is a support issue spawner. It is the least reliable way to get my mods right now. Github is always the latest. KerbalStuff is updated automatically as well in cases where I have the mod up there.

I need to fix that. And yep Github will have the latest releases.

No, was just pilot error - and you're copying configs that have a bug in them.

Wait for the next USI_Core release, I sorted that issue.

Glad you dig the parts

No USI mods require TweakScale - it's a support issue spawner

There's a link on the OP

Correct, it shows the lowest one.

See Q&A below, also some of the end-tech will have some serious lifespans. Yes, there will be a base part that handles auto-distribution and repair (provided it's staffed). Necessary for long term bases, not so necessary for short term ones. 1. Older answer on this was quoted - if you want to micro manage, go for it, but it's going to be very unpleasant as the EVA timer is like six hours... and it still won't save you from the long-term timer. 2. If you're on the homeworld, none of the timers kick in (or rather, they all kinda reset). Being on Kerbin just gives you a 30-day long term timer. But you could in theory have a nice orbital R&R place to bump up your long term timer, sure. but as noted, eventually the short term timer is going to bite you (i.e. you can't just show them a really nice base, then stuff them back in a lander can for ten years).

You will absolutely be able to keep your base in LKO indefinitely... if you send up supplies, periodically update/repair your station, and properly rotate your crews. Hence the mechanics to patch things up and keep the old bases running, and the crew's hab timer being tied to their last time on Kerbin. But a neglected station will eventually be such a nasty death trap that your Kerbals will not be interested in spending time in it There will be no Ore-Hab Stuff as that just makes no sense. Though this is a moot point with stock only as the hab features are off by default and only kick in once you add in a mod that flips the switch (or if you change it yourself - in which case it's just a matter of sending out material kits and patching up the old bases). (unrelated, but just noting out of interest - the current defaults will have your Kerbals getting tired of their digs before they wear out - but repairing habs will become necessary if you implement crew rotations).

On the longer term list, but one bit at a time. Side note - screenie of the new UI

I do. But in the same breath, doesn't keeping three Kerbals stuffed in a Mk1-2 command pod for five years seem a bit off? An interplanetary ship should look very different than a ship just meant to go to the mun and back.

So let's talk about the hab changes since they are coming in pretty soon (to varying definitions of soon - I have to get all of my other mods in sync first). To start, the out of the box settings are not going to have the hab-effects enabled, though using MKS-Lite or UKS will turn these on, since this is one of those features that's really meant to add to the immersion for those mods (but at the same time, I recognize that many folks use USI-LS without MKS an don't want to kill their Kerbals off). The configs will be sorted in such a way that they pick the most pessimistic values (that way I can have a gentle default USI-LS config, but crank things up with MKS-Lite and UKS without depending on the player to change settings one way or the other). There are a few new concepts to work through, so I figured I'd cover those now then we can go from there. The first is the idea of a hab module's usable time - this just represents how long a Kerbal will tolerate being cooped up in it. A Mark 1 pod is only good for 20 Kerbal days (as a point of reference, Gemini 7 was in orbit for nearly 14 days and was some seriously cramped quarters). So having more space - either in the form of less crew than crew capacity, or in purpose-built hab modules - can extend this. Furthermore, some modules serve as 'extenders', making other hab modules more effective (the MKS Kerbitat is an example of this). We also track a few things - how long you've been in your current vessel, when you were last on Kerbin, and the most comfortable hab you've been in. We then compare two things - have you been in your current vessel for too long (i.e. have exceeded it's hab value compared to your time in vessel), and have you been away from Kerbin too long (by looking at your Kerbin time and your best historic hab time). This lets us do scenarios like having crew in a nice multi-year base still have issues if they go gallivanting off in a rover for too long (and justifies the Karibou's emergency shelters). It also lets you set up nice R&R stations that you can rotate larger crews through to bump up the time before they get homesick. At the same time, it prevents players from 'resetting the clock' by just hopping in and out of a base. Lastly, and more critically, is the idea that all of this stuff wears out. A rigid shell will last longer than a flimsy temporary structure. Rips and tears happen, and equipment wears out. So over time, even though a base might be rated for several years, if you keep pushing new crew into it over decades, it's effectiveness is going to degrade over time. Fortunately, there will be mechanics for using MaterialKits to 'patch up' your old bases and extend their life. From a gameplay standpoint, this lets the player get away with lighter inflatables for temporary bases, while having the option of investing in heavier components and infrastructure for more permanent installations (which goes hand in hand with how MKS has always worked). As always, feel free to post questions P.S. - Not sure if the big recycler changes will make it in since those require more parts to be built and modeled - we'll see

There will very likely be a little babby packrat in the future Just have to sort a lot of other projects right now (the major USI-LS update being the biggie, and it requires a lot of stuff to be released simultaneously).

Let me noodle them over, especially in light of the fact that I'm doing a fairly complete review right now (mostly figuring out how to make the processes a bit more intuitive and not quite stomp over eachother).

I also use the middle mouse button to change the camera position. That and having a 6DOF 3D mouse doesn't hurt

Homesickness comes into play in the next release, there will be details posted then I just have to do it in conjunction with an MKS update