RoverDude

I think tackling the problem from the opposite direction - i.e. have a mod that changes the state of the Kerbal in question - would make more sense, and also remove the LS dependency. For example, it could 'Kill' the Kerbal, then bring them back to life upon landing and re-insert them into the craft.

If there's an accepted community patch for this let me know and I have no problem including it as an alternate configuratiuon. (Or, to go one step further, make it an MKS dependency if it is a De Facto config)

Depends. ConstructionParts do not flow, so they would not fill the tank automaticallty. Anything that flows will eventually overflow into one of the large supply huts (life support, materials, etc.) Every tick, the storage huts are going to check and see if they have their minimum threshold (this is pretty light.. like, 1% or so of capacity). If it does not have it in that part, it will try to grab it from nearby vessels. One thing on my list to test is to make sure this works properly with TAC-LS after really long (multi-year) warps. I have a plan B if it does not (basically an older version of ProxyLogistics that tied more directly into the generators). Will post something a lot more detailed later today/this eve after I run a test. This will consist of a stand-alone supply hut full of stuff, separated from another ship that needs LS and also has a supply hut, to make sure the resources flow properly when focus is lost for long time periods (it works fine when things are active). - - - Updated - - - Also looks like the walkthrough is going to be an eight to ten mission long epic

I also see what the issue of heavy consumption likely is while bootstrapping... Smart Kerbals increase efficiency, which increases power consumption. So, three options: 1. Send stupid Kerbals in your poineer mission 2. Send the first mission unmanned (slower) 3. I can add an option to enable a 'Governor' that caps modules at 100% to aid in managing power consumption. This is more relevant for smaller Kolonies since as they get past the first few modules, it's pretty easy to just move your Kerbals around. - - - Updated - - - I'll be changing MKS once TAC-LS finalizes on the new units as well

The PDU can operate at 50% capacity (basically the same as about 10 RTG's) without crew and without it's generator active. So you can bootstrap with a PDU and some supplemental solar arrays. You'll also want battery reserves for things that are more spikey, like drilling for resources, etc. Power wise, we'll call 5,000 ElectricCharge per hour a 'Power Unit'. All MKS modules use between one and four power units per hour. So a module's batteries can keep it online for an extra 15 minutes to two hours, and a PDU can extend this another 3-12 hours depending on the generator's draw. So with some good balancing, you just need enough solar to rejuvenate the various battery components (and we're talking 100K+) which can be enough to handle a generator or two in the night cycle. So as a yardstick, A PDU without constructionParts (i.e. bootstrap mode) should have sufficient power, without solar panels, to keep a ColonyHub and active ConstructionHub rolling Personally, I tend to really optimize where I place crew, and which modules I have active (which is part of the intent with MKS - it makes these details important). My plan for this weekend is to redo two reference missions - one to the Mun, and one to Duna - and provide the loadout for both (along with new screenshots and possibly some video) for the tutorials.

The BioLab does exactly this With that and the water purifier from the Terraformer module, you'd be in excellent shape (it was added specifically to cover this instance). Not that right now, you still won't be able to get any extra water from Laythe - have not yet adjusted the Kethane config to reflect that.

Yep, folder structure has totally changed to the pre-release format Folks with the older version now get two part sets, since I did not want to trash saves. Folks will of course want to clear all of this out when it goes release.

So I would like to have a mini tech tree for my parts - how exactly does one go about adding new nodes to the tech tree? Tons of googling have not yet revealed the answer. Also, I see some mods that are part-only (like LLL) that add new nodes and icons I have not seen before in the stock tree, and would be curious to know how that is done. Thanks!

Correct, that is exactly what this will do. But it does make it hard, so MKS is really meant to fill a niche for folks wanting self-sufficient bases but also wanting an end-game activity. You would generally do MKS in phases First, drop in construction equipment and move towards replacing the need for ferrying in oxygen/water/food with the need for colony supplies (think wear and tear on equipment). This is about half the mass. Second would be to build the additional modules (about 10) to fabricate all of your supplies in-situ. Once these are done, the refineries can be ditched because there's also a module to take your recyclables (scrap metal, plastic, etc.) and turn them back into the base materials. So consider it more of a mod that extends TAC into a colonization system (with a self sufficient closed system as a nice side effect) than just the greenhouse part.

Oh - the MKS refinery is still a LOT slower than an EPL smelter, it would have been a pretty large change to too much stuff to change my generation rates at this point. But I will happily support other ore extraction parts

Oh - and another side note Since I just loaded EL - please note that the EL productivity component has zero effect on MKS. This is an artefact of EL adding stuff to my modules.

Just uploaded a pre-pre release of 0.16 to GitHub. This will be the final version before publish. Balancing is done, just going through some final testing.

Here's the color ramp that I currently use (which is an orange/rust color): Resource = Ore ColorFull = 1.0,0.415686275,0.0 ColorEmpty = 0.729411765,0.592156863,0.498039216 It's consistent with how Kethane does it's color ramp (dark/dull green = less Kethane than bright green). MKS uses a lot less metal so the very large quantities of EL don't really affect me, and there's no real benefit to MKS users to have a ton of metal since it's one of three components they need for the supply chain. Fallback is to ignore EL (and just have two things that are yellow), stomp over it (which boils down to which config gets loaded first), or use different resources (which is what I had originally until discovering EL existed, and decided it would be nicer to have a lot fewer resources in the game, not have multiple names for the same thing, and our masses were already the same).

Sure. Just added a new field called CalculateEfficiency as a boolean, defaults to true.

Those are some older pics - the newer way is to use a hub at the bottom, a tube to connect sideways to another hub, and a module on top of the second hub. Better images of this later in the thread.

RE benefit - new range is 200m (to be changed with release and become variable). Easier to set up lots of smaller bases, avoids docking/etc. (kinda a pain) and KAS only has a 50m range for pipes. Plus a bit more Kraken proof - lots of KAS pipes tend to eventually explode my bases. What I am testing out is REALLY long ranges - like, several kilometers (i.e. out of load/physics range) to see how that works out. Just no guarantee on those yet till I run some tests.

WIKI is out of date Still works, but only between ships that include one of the jumbo-sized storage huts.

Not sure if this has been posted yet - but is anyone aware of any samples that leverage SCANSat along with ORS to provide visual resource mapping?

EL Support: - Will use the same mass for Metal and Ore - Will keep MKS conversion rates (which are slower), feel free to change these if you would like. Basically, it would entail changing too much of the MKS conversion rates. - Will be using MKS values for the Kethane resource mapping - Red for ore, Orange for substrate, to be consistent with how Kethane does a saturation variance not a color spectrum variance. - Will not, at this time, be pursuing any MKS modules for making RocketParts, etc. Players are free to use MM to add these capabilities to any of the MKS models as they are released under a CC license (with attribution). - Will provide support for the Bahamut drills

Yep, I've made it a point to keep my numbers in line with what other folks are already using. Which means I get to do a nice re-tweak when TAC updates their numbers Granted, getting modders to cooperate is generally only slightly less difficult than herding cats.

How pleasant. I'll rephrase. Red, Yellow, and Orange are used by EL. Variations of saturation in that range are confusing. Yes, I think I'll explore other options.

Hopping on as I am looking into making sure the Modular Kolonization System (MKS) plays nicely with EL as I expect a lot of folks will want to use both mods. A pair of related and easy questions, and one request First - can someone please let me know the approximate conversion rate (say, per hour) of ore to metal is in EL? Also what the ratio is. MKS is like 20:1 and 1 per day which I know is a LOT lower than EL, so I want the mods in line. Second - currently MKS uses the same resource name and coloration for Ore as EL does. The only (minor) issue is that EL uses the coloration range from red through yellow, whereas Kethane and the other MKS resources shade a single color (Green for Kethane, Blue for water, Purple for Minerals). Is there any way we could, at some future release, have EL pick a single color (red, orange, or yellow - not all three) for ore? Right now it's a bit of a challenge finding distinctive colors for the different resources with a third of the spectrum taken for a single resource. Thanks!

So I did another full run test, was able to do an entire colony at 50x consumption with a recycling based supply chain and a pair of greenhouses and kerbitats with four PDU's, also pretty much zero lag. So at this juncture, I spent the morning knocking out the specific items that I want to resolve prior to launch (you can see the entire outstanding enhancement/issues list on GitHub at https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/issues?milestone=&page=1&state=open) Specifically: Evaluate and finalize Kethane consumption rates. Basically, I am looking at making sure the volume of resources that show up in the default deposits makes sense. These look good, but I want to run some numbers. Will also up-tweak water a bit as right now it's pretty scarce. ORS integration will be done post-release. Evaluate EL compatibility I'll be installing EL and making sure my consumption numbers are in line with EL (i.e. MKS Ore->Metal conversion should be comparable to EL's Ore->Metal conversion rates). Adding EL-specific modules is going to be something done post-release. Reset IVA vide for Go-Live Custom IVA views are on the longer range list, but for the short term I need to make sure the current pieces have placeholder IVAs (the tough one is the colony hub as this has six seats). Add UI Element for ProxyLogistics I'll be adding visibility RE proxy range as part of the UI for these components. Implement Courage and Stupidity as part of ProxyLogistics Right now, ProxyLogistics is hard coded for a 200m range. This will be changed to a variable range based on the Kerbals in the logistics module, as well as their relative stupidity and bravery. Add compatibility for Bahamut EL drills This is a pretty popular request, so these configs will be included as part of release. Update documentation I will be going through documentation, tutorials, etc. and getting them up to date with the latest info. So at this point, the current version out there (0.15) is pretty darn stable - i.e. none of the release notes above (other than a potential conversion rate change) are breaking. So any final bug reports, etc. will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

This is normal - the range between a smart Kerbal and a stupid one is a pretty wide range. Smart ones can be up to 2.5 times as efficient as a stupid one. And REALLY stupid ones will kill your productivity - that's all reflected in the % you see on efficiency, which is 25% - 250%. Range should be up to 250%, but that would likely require manning (unless you have a LOT of Kerbals). Placement inside of a module gains more than placement inside of the base in general. 1 Kerbal, 10 Workspaces, 1 active module. RE consumption, I just did a pretty major change to power balancing (a module that required 400K of power per day now requires 120K). This should address some of the power concerns.