Angelo Kerman

It's all fun and games until somebody loses a Kraken...

Let's try to avoid personal attacks about attitude, they're off topic. As I've mentioned, I have a solution for the conflicting definitions for CompressedAir. And in the interests of cooperation and to try to prevent a problem before it occurs, I created a PR for Konkrete, another resource that I made that has the potential for resource definition conflicts between mods, and is already being used by one other mod.

Do you have recyclers running? If so, at what efficiency?

BARIS 1.3.9.3 PRE-RELEASE is ready for testing: - Removed quality checks that happened when a fuel tank was emptied or filled to capacity- it was causing spam upon vehicle load. - Timers are now reset when you activate or deactivate BARIS to prevent reliability check spamming when you leave BARIS off in your save for long periods of in-game time. - In the options screen, clarified that any part that stores resources, not just fuel tanks, can spring leaks and fail. - Add ability to customize the ModuleBreakableFuelTank leak messages. - Parts with the Ablator resource now have more appropriate resource leak messages. - Added option to allow command pods, cockpits, and probe cores to fail. If unchecked, they will never fail (overriding other breakable components). - Added option to allow parts to fail if they have crew capacity. If unchecked, a part with crew capacity will never fail (overriding other breakable components). - Command pods, cockpits, and probe cores are no longer excluded from part failures- unless they're not allowed to fail. - Experimental: Parts with ElectricCharge can now fail.

Yes, 5-way is in the plans. That way, you can fly a module around in all directions with just a couple of parts. @SpaceKadet That looks cool!

I specifically mentioned that I am creating a new resource, not a new resource with a display name called CompressedAir. You've made it clear that the resource is a 1-liter resource based on standard atmospheric pressure. That's fine, I acknowledge that, except that the definition that I've used since last December is essentially stock IntakeAir with a different name. Changing my parts to use a resource that is now 3000x less dense doesn't work, so now I will retool my parts to use a new resource, CompressedGas in this case, that hopefully won't suddenly show up in CRP like CompressedAir did in August. Not an insurmountable problem but definitely inconvenient. I agree that cooperation on resource definitions is good and avoids conflicts and errors- I do remember the days when there was no CRP. But I'm less inclined to participate when my proposals to add resources get shut out, supposedly for an apparent lack of widespread use, only to show up anyway without my knowledge or input. At least now, with the ability to use a resource name that doesn't match the display name I can protect myself against future issues, because at this point, I can't trust that resources that I create won't be independently created, or swiped, and become part of CRP.

Coming soon: I think I've got a way to let command pods and parts with crew capacity to fail. If those options are unchecked, they override other breakable components.

The next morning, after the daily briefing with Mission Control, the Akron went aloft once more, this time heading northeast to their next quarry. The vonKerman citizens, having heard about the giant airship’s mission to fly around the world, sent greetings as the Akron passed by. Local radio stations announced its overflight while private radio operations contacted the crew. When Kimgee asked the captain if she could respond, all she received was a “harrumph” in return; Liscella took that as a yes and authorized contact. Soon, the crew were flooded with all kinds of questions from the vonKermans: how do you go to the bathroom in an airship? What is it like in space? What have they found on their trip around the world? What do you eat in orbit? Their questions surprised Akron’s crew; they were so used to the vonKermans, former sworn enemies of the United Kerman States, being stoic and reclusive. And here they were, showing just as much enthusiastic curiosity about the unknown as the Kermans. Maybe they weren’t so different after all… As the Akron approached Sterntal though, vonKerman air traffic control directed the airship to go around due to its restricted airspace. Captain James angrily shot back with TDT Audit regulations and proceeded ahead. There was little that the vonKermans could do to stop them, this was an official inspection. “There, up ahead,” Kelbin pointed out the window from the copilot seat. “NavCon is pinging 20 klicks.” “Yup, I see it,” Captain James replied. “Take her down for a closer look. When we get there, I want you to lead the inspection team.” “Yes- er, aye, Sir,” the young Air Force pilot said, trailing off. “Something on your mind, Kelbin?” “Uh, Sir…” “Spit it out, Lieutenant.” “Sir, I’d like to resign my commission. Being a treaty inspector isn’t what I signed up for. I wanted to be an astronaut. I’ll stay on until we’ve finished our tour, of course, but after that, I’m done.” “I see. You might get just about any assignment you want when we’re done if you stick around, you know,” Captain James pointed out, “you’re good at what you do.” “Yes, Sir, thank you Sir, but filling out endless reports and answering mountains of questions about every detail of our inspections isn’t what I wanted. I wanted to be out there, exploring. I’m good at what I do, yes, but too often I get stuck doing something I don’t want to do by my superiors, just because I’m good at it.” “Astronauts spend a good chunk of their career on the ground, Kelbin. It’s part of the job. So is doing stuff you don't want to do. You think I want to be overflying vonKerman Territory? Moho No! But these are my orders and I carry them out. If you resign your commission, you’ll never get a shot at space…” “As it is, Sir, I don’t think I’ll get my shot even if I stay,” Kelbin retorted. Captain James sighed. “It's your call. Very well, lieutenant. Put your resignation in writing and I’ll accept it once we finish our tour.” “Thank you, Captain,” Kelbin said simply. “Now call Liscella to the bridge, and get ready to lead the inspection- that’s a missile complex!” *** Kelbin, Raphia, Payin and Samalla boarded Fido for a trip around the complex. They drove right up to the launch pad to look around. “This complex has been here awhile, look at the rust and weathering. Doesn’t that look like a launch tower? This pad seems like it’s set up for space launches,” Kelbin noted. “It could also be an old missile service tower,” Raphia pointed out. “Can you imagine if they put an atomic warhead on a rocket and launched it at us? They wouldn't have lost all those bombers during their Final Strike, and our bombers wouldn't have needed to make one way poof-trips during ours. They must’ve been very close to using rockets before the Last War ended, this pad looks serviceable.” “Let’s take a closer look.” The away team gathered at the tower base and looked around some more. “That’s a crew elevator for sure,” Kelbin said, pointing at the lift basket. “Or it lets them inspect the warhead,” Raphia countered. “I don’t know, I’m not convinced. Let’s check out the VAB.” “These doors are enormous! Either the vonKermans built rockets here, or their atomic missiles were gigantic,” Kelbin said and whistled. He drove the rover around the building and found one of the smaller entrances. “Samalla, monitor the dosimeters. Payin, Ma’am, you’re with me.” Kelbin, Payin, and Raphia exited the rover and found the door controls. It didn’t take long for Raphia to bypass the locking mechanism, and soon they were inside. They found industrial machinery covered in cloth tarps and hundreds of crates gathering dust- some recently disturbed- and labeled in vonKerman. The team pointed their video cameras at them, and Dr. Munvan translated the wording into terms such as “engine components” and “guidance units.” “Guys, stop! My Geiger counter is spiking,” Payin yelled. She waved the sensor around, finding the strongest reading. They traversed the maze of crates, guided by the Geiger counter. “Over there,” she said, pointing to some crates. It looked like somebody pried one open. Inside was a vault of some kind, but its door was slightly ajar. “Hey, I know that radiation signature,” Samalla radioed from the Fido, “that is weapons-grade blutonium!” “Away Team, this is Akron,” Captain James broke in. “Get back to the ship immediately. We have company.

I've minimized the CPU usage as much as I can, including using coroutines to help with the appearance of responsiveness, but I can only do so much...

The more breakable modules you add to the game, the slower the game will get. The recent change to the fuel tanks MM patch now adds a breakable fuel tank module to every part that holds a resource, which is why I'm trying to limit it. Originally I only added the module to parts in the Fuel Tank category, but thanks to how Squad created some tanks, they aren't defined in the fuel tank category. For example, the stock Kerbodyne S3-7200 Tank is defined under Propulsion, not Fuel Tank. That's what created this whole mess in the first place. Also, for batteries, there are many parts that contain ElectricCharge and aren't batteries- the Buffalo Command Cab, for instance, or the stock Mk1 pod, both have ElectricCharge and thus could be considered as a battery. And you can bet that if you have a command pod that has a battery in it, people will wonder why their pods start exploding. BARIS isn't designed to be the ultimate part failures mod. It is there to have enough parts that make a difference in missions to fail, but not every possible item. Yes, you could add all kinds of things- wing surfaces, control surfaces, and the like- and mods like DangIt do that- but you're just asking for your game to slow to a crawl at that point. If you're looking for something more detailed, you'll probably want to look elsewhere.

Actually, I'm deleting the RCS ports. Since I wouldn't know which way was up, I added both top and bottom RCS ports, but I never really liked that solution. The new endcaps I'm working on will have them.

I probably need to exclude Ablator from the breakable fuel tank patch, it already excludes ElectricCharge. The breakable fuel tank module is designed to cover all kinds of resources, but unless you want to add a MM patch for every conceivable resource, "Fuel tank" has to cover anything that stores a resource. Adding a MM patch for every resource is definitely impractical, so I'll likely change the wording on Fuel Tank to Resource Container. For catastrophic failures, I may need to make a change so that the quality control module can query the breakable modules to see if they can explode. Then I can make a blacklist for breakable fuel tanks; if all of the resources they hold are on the blacklist, then they can't explode. I can see it now... Breakable fuel tank: Sir! Permission to explode, Sir! Quality Control Module: What resources do you carry? Breakable fuel tank: Sir! EnrichedUranium, Sir! Quality Control Module: Oh hell yes, permission granted!

Actually, I'm switching Heisenberg's parts over to a new resource, and taking steps to ensure that this problem doesn't happen again, now that resource name doesn't have to match display name. And no, the new resource's display name is not "CompressedAir."

I was going to finish up one of my station modules, but had a flash of inspiration to employ a trick I learned from Ven's Stock Part Revamp. This is the original model that I made for Pathfinder's Mule payload module: When you have DSEV installed along with Pathfinder, this is what the Mule will look like: Now I don't have to make another part!

ROFL! Loving these reports. Leaking heat shields? That's a new one... I think it's the new MM patches for resources that are adding breakable fuel tanks to the heat shields. Fun, but not intended, heh.

Actually, you can interact with the parked vessel. The game treats it as if landed. Check out I parked the Akron over water and flew the tiltrotors to recover a Brumby capsule. I haven't tried parking in Jool's atmosphere but I believe it's doable. The trick with AirPark is to set the parking break, do a quicksave, and then quickload to get the game to think the ship is landed. You do have to turn off engines, and keep your SAS on, or your vessel will slowly start to list from the weight shift. Heisenberg has a flight deck system, so you could park a large craft in Jool's atmosphere and land on it. Maybe a future story will give that a try.

I learned a new trick today, thanks to @Ven's Stock Part Revamp: how to replace 3D meshes through ModuleManager! Currently, when you install Pathfinder, the Mule looks like this: In its day circa 2014, the model held up well compared to the competition. Now, with the new station parts I'm working on, when you install Pathfinder and DSEV together, you get the new model: The Mule will match up well with the new station parts. Thanks for showing how it's done, Ven!

@SpaceKadet That warpship looks pretty cool!

Unlike FusionPellets, this sounds like a case of convergent evolution. At least I know what is causing the errors I'm seeing. Since others are starting to use Konkrete as well, I've gone ahead and made a PR so that problems in the future can be avoided.

Wasn't planning on it but you could rescale an existing one..

Was CompressedAir recently added to CRP? I didn't have this issue before..

@steedcrugeon I'm good with that, I can put in a PR for Konkrete np. I've used it along with Slag (a component of konkrete) for some time now.

Yup, they're designed just like my other tanks and hold a variety of different resources.

@FreeThinker Did you also add CompressedAir as a resource to CRP? I defined that for my mods a year ago for Heisenberg, and I'm not only getting redefined errors, the definition doesn't match my files and is messing up the Heisenberg's parts.

My airship is north of the great crater, and as for what is on the mountain..