RyanW1019

So Kerbals will still go nonresponsive if I run out of power, I just have to manually account for it. Got it.

Not sure if this is a bug or intended, but I don't think the mod is correctly accounting for missing Electric Charge. I took my space station into LKO for a test run of the life support systems, and quickly ran out of Electric Charge. Despite this, the Life Support window still says I have more than a years' worth of supplies. Does this mean that crew will still go nonresponsive after 15 days without Electric Charge, and the monitor just doesn't show it? Or is this a bug and Kerbals can function without any Electric Charge?

Did the fix for changing the efficiency of the Recycler process on the Hab module get rolled out yet? This is the one where Mulch to Fertilizer was a 10:1 conversion instead of a 1:1 due to a missed decimal point.

Does this mod allow you to weld multiple drills/fuel cells? I have a mining ship with a lot of parts that I would like to weld, if possible.

Ah, you're right. I forgot about that. Thanks.

I don't know if this is a problem with MKS-Lite or USI-LS, but I have Jeb in orbit around Minmus in a ship with no life support. When I click on the Life Support tab, it says "Crew Lost", but Jeb is still smiling in the cabin. I can still fly the ship and EVA like normal. I was under the impression that if they ran out of supplies, they would turn into "tourists" until you supplied them with more food. Am I doing something wrong?

That would make sense. If the recycler is supposed to be a 1:1 converter of Mulch:Fertilizer instead of 1:0.1, then we are in business. Current code for the recycler in the Hab Module is: INPUT_RESOURCE { ResourceName = Mulch Ratio = 0.0001 } OUTPUT_RESOURCE { ResourceName = Fertilizer Ratio = 0.00001 DumpExcess = False } If the fertilizer ratio is 0.0001 instead of 0.00001, then sustainability is absolutely possible with a few different configurations.

I'm assuming an excess of dirt and electric charge, because you can just put a ton of extra Sifters, solar panels, and battteries on your ship. I'm only looking at the efficiency of the process with respect to Mulch/Fertilizer/Organics/Supplies. It doesn't matter how much extra dirt you have, because the ratio of Fertilizer:Organics is set at 1:2. If you have a surplus of Dirt, for every 1 unit of Fertilizer, you can make 2 units of Organics. Converting that into Supplies and back into Mulch yields 2 units of mulch, but then you can only recycle that back into 0.2 units of fertilizer. You can have all the dirt you want, but it doesn't change the ratio of required ingredients making it impossible to be self-sustaining. Right now, the low efficiency of the Mulch-->Fertilizer process is the limiting factor. You don't have an infinite supply of Mulch; it's limited by the number of Kerbals you have consuming Supplies. And the only way you can currently get Fertilizer is by recycling Mulch. So you have to have greater than 100% efficiency on the overall process with respect to Supplies, Fertilizer, Organics, and Mulch. If you run out of any of them, the entire process stops working.

I feel like I'm missing something then. Looking at the info for each building in the VAB, the Hab module's Recycler says it takes 2.16 Mulch/day and converts it to 0.22 Fertilizer/day. So that's a 10% efficient process. The Agricultural Module takes 2.16 Fertilizer/day and converts it to 0.72 Organics/hour, or 4.32 Organics/day. That's a 200% efficient process. The Hab Module's Habitat takes 2.16 Organics/day and converts it to 2.16 Supplies/day. That's a 100% efficient process. So to standardize it to 1 unit of Supplies: 1 unit of Supplies becomes 1 unit of Mulch 1 unit of Mulch becomes 0.1 unit of Fertilizer 0.1 unit of Fertilizer becomes 0.2 units of Organics 0.2 units of Organics becomes 0.2 units of Supplies Am I getting something wrong or has the VAB documentation not been updated? I'm confused. I believe you that it's supposed to work out, I just don't see the configuration of buildings that results in a net efficiency greater than 100%. If someone could let me know where my mistake is, I would greatly appreciate it.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tYSpOUw9gTSoE0i5p1oHP1yHuPxg-oyUgqpvoyKtxms/edit?usp=sharing Let me know if you can edit this...or download it, or whatever. I'm new to Google Drive sharing. If it's not working, I'll fix it in the morning. Also, I didn't bother accounting for anything beyond the life support resources. Feel free to give feedback or let me know if I did something incorrectly.

Logged the lighting issues on GitHub. This is no longer true in 0.0.2. The Agricultural Module now requires Fertilizer along with Dirt and EC to produce Organics. Currently, there are 3 methods of producing Supplies, assuming you have an excess of Dirt & Electric Charge: Recycle Mulch directly into Supplies. This has an efficiency of 50% regardless of whether you're using the NOM 5000 or 25000. So, if you rely on recycling your Mulch for food, you will eventually run out of Supplies & Mulch. Use the Agricultural Module to convert Fertilizer into Organics, then convert Organics to Supplies. The latter process has 100% efficiency, and the former has a 333% efficiency. However, you have to convert Mulch into Fertilizer with the Recycler in the Hab Module, and this process has an efficiency of about 10%. So, you still have sub-100% efficiency overall on the process, and will eventually run out of Fertilizer, Mulch, Supplies, and Organics. Use the Agroponics function in the NOM 25000 to convert Fertilizer & Mulch into Supplies. This process has a 118% efficiency with respect to Mulch and a 600% efficiency with respect to Fertilizer, however you have the same problem as the previous option. You can only get Fertilizer by converting Mulch, and the efficiency is so low that you still run out of Mulch/Fertilizer/Supplies eventually. So, no matter what ratio of Kerbals and Kolonization buildings you have, you can't reach a steady state where you can survive indefinitely. Best case, you can set up a system where Mulch, Organics, and Supplies have net zero production/consumption (with the ratio of 20 Kerbals:10 Hab Modules:3 Agricultural Modules), but you will need the occasional shipments of Fertilizer in order to keep the process going. You need to roughly triple the rate of Fertilizer production from the Recycler in order to get a truly self-sustaining system. I'm OK with having to get a specific ratio of buildings in order to be sustainable, but I really hope that true sustainability is possible in this mod. The concept of having to make periodic shipments of Fertilizer to Laythe does not appeal to me. Even if it takes a lot of work to get to, please make it possible to reach a point where your base no longer requires outside assistance to function. Also, I can link the Excel spreadsheet I used to check these if anyone is interested. Makes it very easy to design a base on paper.

Sounds good. Also, the Kolony Tube lights are no longer working, in addition to the Anchor Hub lights not working.

Ok, I will do that. If the Github page is for reporting issues, then what type of feedback do you want in this thread?

I sent a Kerbal out to repaint one of my storage modules after inflating it, and the new container switched to the uninflated capacity of the new storage chamber (so, 1/100th of what it's supposed to be). Screenshots here: http://imgur.com/a/DLugo Also, I still don't know how to submit something on Github. Anybody want to let me know how to do that?

To clarify, when Kerbals "Repaint" the outside of a storage container, they are just changing the texture--they aren't changing which resources it stores, right? Sorry for all the questions, I'm learning USI-LS at the same time I'm learning MKS-L.

Neat! Do we have to manually paste the update files in or will it update when we start KSP?

Thank you to all of the people who let me know that Mulch is just Kerbal waste, and is produced when they consume Supplies. I thought it was an agricultural material like Fertilizer (which I guess it technically is ). Turns out there's a workaround, but there's more weirdness going on than I originally thought. I tried it out, and the reason I wasn't able to attach it before is because the Anchor Hub wouldn't connect to the inner node of the Kolony Tube; i.e. it snaps to the recessed node but shows up as red instead of green so I can't place it. Interestingly, I pressed Q to rotate the Anchor Hub around the Y axis, and it showed up as green. Cycling through all 4 rotations with Q & E shows that the problem happens with 2 of the 4 sides of the Anchor Hub. This bug can happen whether the Kolony Tube is pointing North/South or East/West, and I can't pin down which sides of the Hub it happens with. Once the Anchor Hub is attached to the ship, I can attach Kolony Tubes to all 3 of the exposed sides without any problems, even using the recessed node. The bug only seems to happen when I try to attach an Anchor Hub to a Kolony Tube that's already connected to the ship. This is probably confusing to read, so I made an Imgur album. http://imgur.com/a/VpBor Also, I noticed that the issue with the part visuals not lining up only occurs when I try attaching the Hub to one end of the Kolony tube. When I flipped the tube around, the models appeared flush even when I attached the hub to the outer of the 2 nodes. So it looks like the nodes are not symmetric or do not line up perfectly with the model. This doesn't appear to be linked to the bug, though, as it can happen on either end of the Kolony Tube. How would I go about doing this? Not trying to be snarky, I've never alpha-tested mods before and I've never used Github. Noted, thanks for clarifying. Additional question, are Flex-O-Tubes supposed to be able to connect to the ends of Kolony Tubes? They have identical textures but only Flex-O-Tubes have the option to Link. I guess the Flex-O-Tubes are supposed to add the additional functionality of linking, but it would be interesting if you could connect Flex-O-Tubes to Kolony Tubes.

OK, I've installed the mod and am playing around with the parts on Kerbin. A few initial thoughts and questions (warning, may be nitpicky and/or known issues): * The model for the Kolony Tube doesn't quite match up with the Anchor Hub when they are connected. Instead of the ring on the tube being flush with the sphere, it stops a small distance before touching the sphere. This allows the player to look in between the parts and makes the colony module look discontinuous. * The Anchor hub has the toggle option "Lights On/Off" available, but does not actually change in appearance if you turn the lights on/off. * The Regolith Sifter has the option to Deploy Shovel; even though it is successful at harvesting ore/dirt, there is no visible shovel that emerges and goes into the ground. The only sign of movement is the turning gears. Is this intended? * When I try to launch a ship with the Flex-O-Tube part, I get a message saying "Texture file: UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS-Lite/Assets/FlexOTube as [sic] not been found, please check your KAS installation!" The ship still loads, though, and I can still successfully link two parts with the Flex-O-Tube. * I haven't fully grasped the complexities of the resource cycle yet, but am I missing a way to generate Mulch or is there no way to generate it? To oversimplify, it looks like you produce Dirt & Ore using the Regolith Sifter, Organics using the Agricultural Module, Supplies using the Habitation Module, Greenhouse, or Agroponics modules, and ExoticMinerals, RareMetals, and RocketParts using the Portable Smelter. This leaves us without the ability to generate RefinedUranium, Mulch, and Fertilizer while on another planet. Since Mulch is necessary to produce Supplies, either directly or through Organics, this means that it is impossible to set up a self-sustaining colony on another planet, even if you have the ability to mine. Eventually, you will run out of Mulch, lose your ability to generate supplies, and all of your Kerbals will die/go on strike. Or am I just missing a part somewhere? That's all I have for now. I love the idea of making a simpler colonization mod, but the idea of a self-sustaining colony has been a big goal of mine. Even if it requires me to be continually mining resources like Dirt and Ore, and consuming a lot of power, I had hoped that we would be able to set up an equilibrium that results in all of my Kerbals staying fed and happy without any further assistance from Kerbin. If I am not just missing something, I would suggest that you add the ability to generate Mulch, possibly from either dirt or ore. You could even add the resource conversion functionality to one of the existing parts, so you wouldn't need to increase the part count unless you wanted to build a dedicated part for it. I will continue posting feedback as I experiment with this mod. Please let me know if this isn't the kind of feedback you are looking for; I hope to be a helpful alpha tester, not an unhelpful one.

So if I want to build a sustainable colony with this mod, I need another life support mod in order to get the "keep resources full or Kerbals die" functionality. Correct? Also, what are people's thoughts between USI-LS and TAC? I've heard of both but don't know which one is simpler/easier to use.

This may be a dumb question, as I'm coming from a stock install (thinking about adding KAS), but do I need to have a life support mod already installed? Or does your mod simply work *with* other life support mods without needing one already installed? I like the idea of a simplified life support mod but am wondering if I'll need to install more mods in order to get the full functionality. If I have time, I will download MKS-L on a separate install and help you test this mod. I appreciate your work!

Quick question: I just downloaded your mod and I'm wondering if there's any way to permanently adjust the settings on your parachute parts. I see the info page has a slider bar while flying my ships, but the changes aren't transferred to the parts in the VAB. Is this intentional, or am I missing an editor somewhere? Thanks a bunch!

Wow, this is a great mod. Anybody know which skybox the third picture of the OP is using? Thanks!