LitaAlto

Is this intended to be a sort of in-game Notepad, or did you have more elaborate plans like timestamps, auto-recording current biome, etc.?

I just crunched some numbers for the volume of space for LKO versus HKO, based on the idea that we could express the chance of microdebris collision as a ratio of overall mass in grams (since even paint chips can be dangerous) to the volume for the current density band (to borrow ratchet freak's term). Here are my current thoughts, subject to change: The size of each volume is so proportionally large to the volume before it that you can effectively ignore it. For example, the volume of Kerbin and its atmosphere is 1.44x10^15 cubic meters, while the volume of all space in Low Kerbin Orbit is 6.54x10^16 cubic meters. Subtracting the two leaves you with 6.53x10^16 cubic meters. Barely a change! And the difference is even more insignificant for High Kerbin Orbit. Kerbin's SoI is 2.48x10^24 cubic meters--subtracting LKO's volume from this hardly changes the number at all. Upshot: I probably don't need to overthink the volume used for density calculations. Ratios will lead to fairly small percentages. A 100 ton ship gives you 1.0x10^8 grams of microdebris. If destroyed in LKO, that gives you a microdebris density ratio of: 1.0x10^8 / 6.54x10^15 = 1 / 6.54^10^8 ~ 1.53x10^-8 (0.0000000153) Upshot: I might need a scaling factor, possibly tied to difficulty. But maybe cap it since if the ratio is too high, you're probably experiencing Kessler Syndrome every flight. Over time, the microdebris density for LKO should decline. This should be gradual, taking years to go to zero even if there are no more destroyed rockets in that time period. HKO gets no such benefit; in the real world it can take millennia for microdebris to be perturbed enough by lunar gravity and solar wind to deorbit. Coming back to the question I posed earlier about how to treat orbits that cross more than one density band--I think I may express this as a ratio of the area of each part of the orbit. For example, if 60% of a 100 ton craft's orbit area occupies HKO, and 40% occupies LKO, then when the craft is destroyed, 60,000 grams of microdebris would wind up in HKO and 40,000 grams would wind up in LKO. So that leaves me with an open question to whoever cares to answer: If a ship is hit by microdebris, should that generate microdebris even if the ship and the impacted part is relatively intact? The original Kessler Syndrome is a cascade effect, after all....

That's kinda what I meant by "orbital biome"--and agreed, tracking microdebris density in LKO separately from HKO etc. probably makes more sense. Of course that's not purely cut-and-dried. How do you handle the microdebris for a ship that, for example, has a Pe in LKO and an Ap in HKO? Split the difference between the two density bands based on how much of each orbit is in each band? Stick with the band the ship was destroyed in? The former might be more realistic; the latter, easier to implement. WHEE! That'd be awesome! If nobody else beats me to this I'll be in touch. Thanks! Very nice visuals--but at this point at least I'm more interested in the game mechanic than the visuals. Still, it might be worth reviewing that mod's code. Do you know which mod this was? Any source files anywhere?

I may take this on as a project later on, but if someone wants to beat me to it, knock yourself out.... The general concept is: If you destroy a ship in flight, its mass is added to a microdebris density count for the SOI (or possibly orbital biome?) that the ship is in. The higher the microdebris count, the more likely a random ship part will fail due to damage. The idea is to encourage clean space missions, where spent ship parts are deorbited. I'm not sure if this could use Dang It! to add the part failure functions, offhand, but it'd be nice if it could.

Is there a compiled version of this? I only see source files.

That's disappointing. But thank you for letting me know!

There are quite a few station part mods, but the more the merrier. Especially with that wardroom and exercise room planned--those would be nice additions to my own stations!

...You lost me.

Well, you do also need DDSLoader to use the .DDS, so I guess I answered my own question. But yes, there's now a very simple app to auto-convert textures to .DDS, and it works great. I'll run them on your parts tonight and let you know how it goes. (And I see Sage beat me to replying.... )

I'm really liking this part pack! The two-axis solar panels have a lot of promise. I'm currently playing Career and will be using the aerodynamic blisters to really good effect, to give my rockets the thrust they deserve. Is it possible to recolor the blisters to go better with the stock NASA-like parts? That's about my only complaint, and it really is minor, but I think it'd work better.

Yeah, the functionality sounds interesting, and maybe less complicated than Extraplanetary Launchpads--but what are the visuals like? Is this generating new buildings? If so, what's the impact on CPU and RAM and other resources?

Between the lighted docking ports and the fact that I've been using MRS Stockalike with its cleaner textures, I'm giving this a serious go. Are the textures in DDS format already or will I need to convert them if I want to use this with DDSLoader?

The author, TouhouTorpedo, logged in yesterday. And it's not clear from the thread what license the mod falls under. I recommend contacting TouhouTorpedo, ask what his plans are, find out whether he's OK with others taking over the mod, and make sure the license for both the original mod and its derivatives covers that.

OOH. I like the Terrier design! I downloaded a 3.75m service module part that's a combo fuel tank and (TINY!) engine, but the Terrier looks a lot more realistic and would blend better with my general rocket designs.

This could make flying a lot more fun and practical for me! Thanks!

Oh, I'm quite aware. But discussions like this will keep cropping up, even after the "girlbal" (ick) project is completed. So I thought I'd lay out my understanding in hopes it can help moderate, or at least give perspective to, the discussion. If I wanted to REALLY complicate things, I would have advocated for reproductive trimorphism among Kerbals.

OK, I may as well weigh in, and come out at the same time. I'm a transgender woman, and in reckoning with who and what I am I have had to dig a little deeper into biology than most people. That said, I'm still a layperson, so please take this with a grain of salt. I'm all for representation, and therefore in favor of seeing more feminine Kerbals in the game. But the ideas of what makes one more feminine are still skewed, really. Much of this thread brings up differences in physiology that are ultimately based on averages, not hard-and-fast categories. That includes reproductive dimorphism. Contemporary biology--college-level and higher--only considers one factor in determining which member of a species is "male" and which is "female"--the size of the gamete, or reproductive cell. Females, by this standard, have larger gametes. EVERYTHING ELSE is widely variable. Add to this that human beings have far less dimorphism than other species. There are larger deviations of body size and type within a gender than there are between genders. Androgyny is far from uncommon. And the ways in which dimorphism does express itself in humans tend to be pretty unique to humans. Only humans and a few domesticated species have large mammary glands--the rest of mammals get along fine with having just enough to feed their current children. As for reproductive organs, without going into forum-rule violations, let's just say that it's not as simple as either-or, although for most people they won't ever know if they fall outside the norms. That said--this game ultimately reflects humans and the way we look at the world. A game in which there is no reproduction breaks nobody's heart, I'd hope. (If that DOES break your heart, go find an old copy of Space Colony and pretend everyone in the game is half-height and green.) But a game in which there is no room for gender will inevitably alienate people--especially if the default still resembles the male gender. My only wish is that, somehow, there remains room for more than two genders in the game. Even if it's solely through mods. If you gotta define gender, you may as well do so in a way that allows more options. I'd really rather not click "F" and get different chest dimensions and that godawful pink blush they have in the Kerbalizer. I'd rather be able to customize a Kerbal's body and appearance as suits me, pick pronouns, and leave it at that. Knowing that's not very likely, I just want Kerbals that look more like me, without making me feel less valued as a KSP player.

You meant "minor" as in "person under the age of majority". You spelled it "miner" as in "person who works in a mine." And here I am, spoiling jokes since before Jebediah first blew up.

I wondered about that, actually. Let me experiment first with the character classes since that'd make the configs very simple. If that doesn't work I'll try your suggestion of using a wildcard to set a default for the large hubs and then define exceptions after the fact. [update: Sarbian has weighed in. While MM does use .NET regex, Unity itself apparently reserves certain characters, like square brackets, that you need to use regex character classes. Meanwhile, the day job has been pretty brutal. But I will have more spare time this weekend to try the override option out and to finish my research into other life support systems.]

Thank you very much! There was a bit of story I had considered posting first--just to give some background--but I realized it gave away too much, too quickly. Maybe it'll wind up being a flashback later in the story arc. But basically I wanted to try to address a lot of aspects of the game that doesn't entirely square with human perspectives. For example--they have technology, but no visible signs of a technological civilization other than the Space Program itself. And they can survive conditions that would cause a human to die fairly quickly. And when they "die", they can respawn as if nothing had happened. Things like that. Eventually I'll address these and more.

How thorough is the regex support for PART names? I'm working on creating some MM files for a part set, and the names are fairly regular, but it'd simplify things if I could use character classes to specify several parts with one declaration.

I can go whichever way. I'm happy to follow your lead here. And you have a valid point about the resources as I originally defined them. I do want to ask Sarbian about regex support in MM though--if I can keep the config relatively simple, it'd be easier to maintain and tweak. Without regex, that's six separate configurations per cfg. That's manageable but not exactly elegant.

[Note: This is entirely based on my headcanon for the game, which is inspired by others' headcanons. I make no claim of suitability, and cannot guarantee that this headcanon will play nicely with others.] kerb, noun. 1. A large root vegetable, roughly 30-40 cm in length and 45-60 cm in diameter. 2. A young, immature Kerbal. "Wake up, Jebediah. It's time again." "...Mom, is that you?" "Heh. No, Jebediah. It's me. Remember?" "OH. Yes, yes of course I remember. It's been... a long time." "Yes, it has. I wish things didn't get so out of hand. But it's all right now." "So, why did you wake me up?" "I had another dream about the Long People." "Didn't the last dream lead to things... getting out of hand?" "Yes, it did. But this one's different. The Long People were flying." "Flying? With wings?" "Wings they made, in some cases, yes. And sometimes, without wings. Fire-breathing machines, many many times taller than they. I think they called them 'rockets.' They flew beyond where I can ever reach." "'Rockets', huh? Silly name. But I like the idea. I... I think I'd like flying these rockets." "Good, I'm glad to hear that. Because I'd like you, and other Kerbals, to reach for me." "To what end, though? Last time it was apparently out of curiosity, and.... I don't mean to challenge you, you know more than I ever will, but I can't forget last time." "And I wouldn't expect you to. Not that other Kerbals will remember. But I need you to remember, to remind me not to repeat old mistakes." "So, what next? Do you know how to make these rockets?" "Not exactly, but soon you'll be joined by Kerbals who can figure it out. Then, Jebediah, I want you to visit other worlds." "...Worlds? What are worlds?" "You're standing on one." "But I thought I was standing on y--oh, I see. I think. So, there are others?" "Yes, there are." "And you want me to find them?" "Yes." "And talk to them?" "I don't know if any can talk, Jebediah. We'll have things for you to do, so we can find out as much as we can." "So this is about curiosity, again?" "I think this goes beyond curiosity, to be honest." "Yes, it must get lonely at times. What should I do to get ready?" "...I'd practice jumping."

Of course, people wear makeup for reasons other than being in fashion contests. Just saying.

I tried this last night, and was very impressed with how quickly KSP now loads. I haven't done any tests to see if I saved memory--since I was using ATM I don't expect a lot of savings--but just from the speed increase alone I call this one a must-have.