Duke Leto

It may well be that I'll decide that's what I have to do. I appear to be in the minority in that I want to use KSP to make an extensive attempt to explore the in-game solar system and establish permanent bases on all the planets moons, and perform and process all of the available science. That effort requires an enormous investment in play time, and a large selection of mods to manage the in game infrastructure. With other game titles that are continuously evolving over long periods, like the Paradox suite or the Total War series, there are practical limits to how much playtime you can invest in any given save, so the periodic scythe of updates cuts less accumulated effort away. With other titles in Steam that are more conventional in their development life cycle, the concern that you will have to restart your game from scratch because of a new update is non-existent, so I frankly have not bothered to give any thought to Steam's update settings up to now. I get that Squad has different business priorities to serve to bring in new players and sell DLC, so unintentionally washing away the grand sandcastles of an insanely obsessive few is something they feel they need to do. I get that my resentment is irrational and is probably on some level sublimated disgust at myself for liquiding away time on KSP. Doesn't make any less angry.

Thank you.

Since I've done what I intended to do after much frustration, my ability to give a flying expletive about the issue is rapidly ebbing away. But if you want to screw around with my log file and saves, go nuts. KSP Log: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=62383821149886876775 Old save: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=62383821149886876775 Current save: http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=77222892403599355512 Mod list, in the order CKAN thinks it needs to be in: DockingPortAlignmentIndicator CommunityCategoryKit KerbalAlarmClock AT-Utils ColorCodedCans Impact! TriggerAu-Flags WaypointManager Toolbar ConfigurableContainers-Core ContractParser ContractConfigurator KAS ModularRocketSystem SCANsat IndicatorLights MechJeb2 ConfigurableContainers KerbalEngineerRedux ProgressParser ModuleManager [x] Science MechJebForAll InterstellarFuelSwitch-Core FuelTanksPlus SpaceY-Lifters SpaceY-Expanded RoutineMissionManager GSOSpeedPump KIS To clarify, the old save was made under 1.2.2, NOT 1.2, and the wait was between the advent of 1.3 and present. The amount of hardware floating around the Kerbin system in both saves ought to make it clear why I respond to the suggestion that I should just cheerfully restart my career from scratch every damned time Squad decides to destroy "patch" the game with the instruction that the suggester perform an anatomically impossible act.

This is mine. It's called "Less Ridiculous Science Rover" because a previous incarnation from a career played in 2015 was designed to retrieve previously collected experiments from biomes far from KSC by driving there and shooting two sci packages in rockets attached to the rear of the truck straight up in the air, changing focus to the launched rockets immediately, activating action groups of experiments on the rockets at appropriate altitudes, then parachuting them down to be collected by the rover and driven back to KSC to be loaded into a rocket and sent to the sci lab.

FYI, I did finish collecting all ~360 experiments from the various biomes and shot them into space yesterday, so it's no longer my problem. If 5th Horseman could do the grand drive in 1.4.3, then the likeliest explanation is that I used too big of a rover, modifying a stock parts electric car from KerbalX for the job. The reason I preserved saves between versions was that I had a very sophisticated Minmus fuel refinery set up and was working on a giant expedition to establish a similar one on Ike in tandem with exploring Duna, and I didn't like the idea of redoing all that setup work in a from scratch career. I'm skeptical that the save could have caused this behavior though, because I don't think the save files contain any info about rendering the environment...

What you are describing is not what is happening now. Getting into contact with the building sometimes puts you in the generic new building for the KSC area like "Spaceplane Hanger", and sometimes puts you in the original building specific biome, like "SPH Main Building". How does the game decide which? Hell if I know, but it is MUCH harder to get to the individual buildings. I MAY be going completely insane, but my recollection is that as of version 1.2, the last time I did the KSC biome drive for raw science points instead of getting the experiments for lab data, circa February of this past year, all you had to do was have the craft touching a part of the building to be "in" the biome for the purposes of activating your experiment action group. (MechJeb 2 has a display which tells you what surface biome the rover is in.) A Kerbal standing on the parked craft to collect this data would also be in the biome for surface samples and EVA purposes. (You could also use an extensible part from a parked rover to reach out and touch the walls ) I can understand Squad removing the biomes completely to eliminate what even I see as somewhat exploity player behavior. But why leave them in the game and make access to them a matter of luck? That just increases player frustration.

OK, let's try this again: What is the system whereby the game decides which biome a craft is in around KSC's buildings? Is this change documented in the Version History, and does someone need to update the KSP wiki to reflect it? WHY?!!?! What purpose does making people who want to collect experiments from KSC have to try and shoot for centimeter wide biomes serve?

I eventually worked out that the old biomes were still around, got all my experiments and sent them to my station... But the process of grabbing them all was both tedious AND a matter of ridiculous rover position experimentation. I'm absolutely at a loss as to why Squad made this change.

I'm trying to understand what the change was, and what in the world could have been the rationale behind it. But if the other thread got moved I can stop bugging people here. Or in the other thread...

@JH4C Yes, that Squad had changed something to cause this behavior was what I was assuming. It isn't documented in the version history. There's no mention of it in the official wiki. Using Google to search for information on it yields nothing. I don't usually use the forums because these resources are normally adequate, so I am not familiar with which subforums are appropriate for which types of questions. I was quite aware that the poster in KSP Discussions was suggesting I use KEI before I posted here. I thought it might be worth posting in this thread because linuxgurugamer must have some detailed knowledge of the game's architecture regarding biomes and experiments and would have a clearer idea what's going on with changes made in the recent updates. The reason that my response to you had the subtext of testiness was because at this point, I want to go to the trouble of rewriting that text wall a THIRD time in a new subforum about as much as I want to try and make love to a rabid bear. In particular because I have this ghastly premonition that the response I will get for doing so will be being told that I should really be asking the question in Technical Support (PC, modded installs), and then have the process repeated with Technical Support (PC, unmodded installs), in all likelihood. ON TOPIC: It's at least conceivable that some other completionist psychopaths like me might want to try and and utilize the completed KSC area science experiments as fodder for an orbital sci lab, so an extension to KEI that places a 0 science copy of all the KSC local experiments in a sci lab in a player designated space station in LKO might be something these people would want.

I just came from KSP Discussions. They told me to go here.

RE: Alternate science processing sources. I was going to get the orbital experiments too, more funds that way. There seems to be something really screwy going on with how my game handles the building biomes now, so I made a post trying to explain the situation in the KEI thread you linked to, since linuxgamerguru should know his way around the map by now...

Hey, I'm actually NOT using KEI, I'm deliberately tediously driving around KSC collecting experiments... But what I'm experiencing is so goddamned weird I dunno what to make of it, and if anyone knows what's going on under the hood with the KSC biomes, it's you. I was playing a nice modded game in 1.2, but Steam gave me a mandatory upgrade to 1.3 sometime in the spring, and I decided to take a break while the modders caught up so I wouldn't break my save. The modders never caught up, but I eventually decided all of them being up to date with 1.4 was good enough. I made the grand drive around KSC in my Sci Rover much earlier in my career in the 1.2 content, using MechJeb's Surface Info window configured to display what biome I am in for the purposes of pressing an action button to run all the experiments, and then have a bored Bob get out an collect the data and clean the ones that needed cleaning. It used to be that touching a building meant that you were "in" that building's biome for the purposes of science, and as long as Bob was standing on the parked rover to get the surface sample and EVA report, so was he. That is no longer true now that I've loaded up my save in 1.4. I long since maxxed out my science tree and am now 100% committed with patent licensing, and I'm repeating the Sci Rover drive with the intention of putting all the experimental results into a rocket at the launchpad, and shooting them up to my LKO Station and its Sci Lab, where they can be processed for a few thousand funds a day for a good long time. What I'm seeing is as follows. Most straightforwardly, the Mk1 Monument has been renamed, and this new name is a new biome with no completed experiments. The island airstrip is now a unique biome with its own experimental results, but that was easy to take care of. There are also some Launchpad outbuilding biomes that I don't think were there before, but they all seem to be the same biome for the purpose of gathering science. (Park on the Launchpad Flagpole and take a surface sample, it just says that it's the Laucnhpad in the game interface, but it counts as science separate from that which you gathered from the real Launchpad, but do the same on the Laundpad Water Tank and it's a duplicate experiment, despite MechJeb thinking it's a new biome.) Most troublingly, some new biomes for each major area have appeared: "Vehicle Assembly Building", "Spaceplane Hanger", "Tracking Station" and "Research and Development". These are also completely new from the standpoint of experiments. At first it looked like these were replacements for the Main Building biomes for each area. They aren't. When I drive up to a building in one of these areas, the surface biome flips between the "grounds" biome for the area, the new biome, and the building specific biome. There doesn't seem to be a readily apparent logic as to which biome the craft is in based on its position relative to the building. You just have to scrape against the damned thing until you find yourself in the building specific biome after you park. (This can have fun effects if the building is a tank.) I'm using several mods, obviously (not including KEI), but none of them should be screwing with the biome map. I can give you a list if needed. In any case, if the game has changed the behavior of the KSC biomes, than KEI may have to change as well, since the total amount of science seems to have changed. If the way the game deals with building specific biomes has changed in this incomprehensible way, then KEI may get more popular going forward. I hope all that makes some sort of sense.

I think there might be some confusion about what it is I'm asking here. I already have access to the [x] Science mod, which seems to be producing inaccurate answers relating to the KSC microbiomes. (VAB Main Building and SPH Main Building no longer appear to exist under those names, but are listed in [x] Science. It does indicate that the Island Airfield is not its own surface biome, and I suspect the same will be true of the two new launch sites if I get the Making History expansion) I also wantonly and deliberately chose NOT to use the KEI "automatically grab all the KSC science points" mod. I made my initial science car for getting the full value of the KSC microbiomes and exhausted the research tree by visiting different Mun and Minmus biomes hundreds of game days ago and have since used the Open Source Tech Program at 100% to push up my reputation to 95%, and now have all Science being converted to funds with 100% commitment to Patent Licensing. The repeat of the science car drive I'm doing now is vastly more obsessive, pointless and insane. I'm deliberately going around KSC getting copies of completed experiments that give 0 (or much reduced) science points when transmitted or recovered, and my intention is to launch them en masse into LKO and put them into the Sci Lab there, then process them all in the lab so my two scientist kerbals can make a couple hundred funds per game day until the cows come home. (Assuming spherical cows in a vacuum, obviously.) I was surprised to find that VAB Main Building and SPH Main Building no longer seem to exist and their replacements "Vehicle Assembly Building" and "Spaceplane Hanger" give full credit as new science for all the experiments. I DID look at the version history and saw nothing relating to this change, hence my asking the forum about it. More strangely, the various launchpad peripheral buildings (water tower, tanks, round tank, flagpole) seem to count as separate biomes from the launchpad, but all of them are considered the same as each other for the purpose of recovering science or storing multiple experiments in the same command module or kerbal, but not the main launchpad biome, and they are all labeled as "Launchpad" in the main game interface, but NOT the itemization of recovered science in the craft recovery interface. Does the above make any sense?

I started a Career mode game in 1.2 while running a few mods. The mandatory 1.3 update hit, and so I put the game on hold until the modders caught up to Squad. This took rather longer than expected. (ie. Squad's release schedule seems DETERMINED to prevent it from ever happening, but I eventually decided having everything 1.4 compatible was enough .) I had long since mined out the science from the KSC microbiomes, but started a new project to gather the completed experiments from round KSC in order to have some science points for my orbital station to play with. I was surprised to find I was getting full credit for the "Vehicle Assembly Building" while trying to get science from the VAB tanks, and the same was true for "Spaceplane Hanger" when I tried to access the SPH Main Building. I THINK what's happened is that VAB Main Building and SPH Main Building have been replaced by these two new biomes, which are also what you get if your craft is touching the slopes leading to the platforms supporting the various tanks. And that since the names of the biomes are different the game misreads my saves as their being incomplete. (And it's much harder to get a rover to touch the tank biomes, which is what is presently driving me up the wall.) I want to confirm this so that the list of KSC biomes on the wiki can be updates. Anybody else been seeing this?

Huh, well that worked. OK, problem solved, drinks all around!

I'm having issues with getting CKAN to install the latest update for Intersteller Fuel Switch Core. It claims it is already installed...

I suspended my grand KSP campaign while all the various mods I use got updated for 1.4, but before I go back into the game, I want to think out how to best deal with my existing spacecraft flights that have parts that are going to be deprecated in the future. Since this includes a fair number of stations and bases that employ the Mk 1-2 cockpit and the various Rockomaxx fuel tanks So which is less insane... Try and use save file editing to replace the to be deprecated parts with their replacements, or should I bite the bullet and schedule launches that replace the craft components that have these features? Any advice would be welcome...

A much more basic practical design flaw was crushing me. Since I had constructed the stations that the SpaceY 10m freighters dock with using clamp-o-trons of a standard diameter attached to a hubmax, and wanted lots of distance between the docked freighters and good aerodynamic properties on liftoff, I gave the freighters noses of about the same length as the main SpaceY body holding the fuel, tapering from 10 m down to 1.25 with various sloping tanks and adapters, and some reaction wheels too... in a fit of poorly thought out insanity. This meant that the docking nose had a habit of swaying back and forth, which made poor MechJeb's job even more difficult. It tended to get close to the docking target but never able to finish because the docker was whipping from side to side in a 3-5m radius, (even with the reaction wheel turned off.) A major redesign with some xtra-wide control systems on top of the freighter with a 10 m fairing underneath and a clapmp-o-tron Sr on top has shown a lot of promise, but it means deorbiting all the current freighters. Oh well, at least the tourist missions are making it rain money.

Understood. I think in the meantime I need to work on some of the more fundamental issues I have with getting my ginormous SpaceY fuel freighters to dock successfully.

Alright, I probably deserve that response for being so flip, and it's possible that there's some overriding design concern that I don't understand or I've just been creating badly designed craft, but it really does seem to me like the docking autopilot uses way more MP than is necessary, particularly during the "moving to starting point" phase. In some cases, the near constant burning of the MP thrusters to effect no change in relative velocity is just so prodigious that I turn off the autopilot while the craft is going through that docking phase and turn it back on when it gets close enough to the docking port access to save MP. Often I get rewarded with the AI restarting the process by backing up again. It's very, very discouraging and the only complaint I have about a Mod that otherwise works very well.

This is definition of entitled whining, but... Is there any way the Docking Autopilot could be modified so that it doesn't go through monopropellant like a drunken sailor goes through his paycheck?

It's totally possible that the ETA of the routine mission was corrupted in the save before I installed the new version of the mod.

Sorry, didn't have response notifications on for whatever reason. I was using the v 27 mod when it happened, but I was also using a save from before the KSP 1.3 patch. We'll see if it occurs again now that everything is more up to date.

I've been experiencing a somewhat puzzling bug with Routine Mission Manager, which is the only problem with an otherwise exceptionally good that meets my needs admirably. While my Minmus mining complex is under construction, I'm using RMM to send periodic increases in fuel supplies to my main LKO station, which are then shipped in moderately sized tankerss to the stations orbiting the Mun and Minmus. (Launching the utter behemoth Supertankers in SpaceY size that will transport Minmus fuel to the Mun and LKO is the next superproject, and I'm hoarding credits for those launches.) This means that I record a set of fuel launches to LKO that I refer to as "ferries", and order up a swarm of them to pump fuel into the LKO station's numerous docking ports to keep operations going on the Mun and Minmus. Mostly this works AOK, and I can pour fuel into the station at a nice rate with each batch of ferries launched from Kerbin once a game day or so, that being the ETA of a fuel ferry launch. Once in a while though, one of the recorded ferry launches gets corrupted so that the ETA is inflated enormously and it's necessary to re-record a launch. Most recently the ETA for my liquid fuel Nuclear Ferry launch jumped from an ETA of ~1 game day to 24 game days. This has been going since long before the 1.3 and 1.3.1 updates. Any insight as to what may be causing this? CKAN allows me to give a precise listing of my Mods if need be.