DStaal

You obviously don't play with CLS, if you think the size doesn't matter. I won't say they're needed all the time - but for a few specific things, they are the right solution.

Does it do that in a new save? (KSP's been known to do that on it's own with parts - especially if you add a mod to a save in progress, or a part changes it's location.)

Not quite what I was asking for: I don't necessarily want it upright, after all. I may need to thrust sideways. (Or be in orbit, where 'upright' doesn't make much sense.) Thanks. That'll get me thinking in the correct direction. I was aware of Execute Maneuver - but for manual landings, I can't create the maneuver nodes fast enough to fine-tune final approach.

I believe your memory is confusing Flex-O-Tubes with Expand-O-Tubes: The latter have been depreciated and removed. They were the ones based on the claw. I believe they were removed because they were unsatisfactory, and the same mode of construction can be filled by the construction ports much better. I still like the Flex-O-Tubes, and hope they stay. For some things, they are really the only solution. I don't remember RoverDude saying anything about removing them - but I am watching the new version of KAS, which is completely reworking pipes, which may mean they have to change in some form.

It's the parts, planets, resources, etc that make up the base game. What you would get with a fresh install.

No problem. Is there a 'just balance the thrust over the CoM for me' mode? For a lot of the situations where the autopilots and stuff get a bit wonky, if I could just have it balance the thrust around the center of mass, I can try to do the maneuvers myself, but I can't seem to find the toggle for that. Just give me throttle (from 0 to 'I can't balance anymore') and let my try to fly it otherwise.

USI's FTT has a few as well that might work for you.

Here you go: (It was literally a re-launch of this.) For landing, I retract the big solar wings, if that makes a difference. Might be worth noting that there are two probe cores - on inline, and one under the backbone solar panel. The inline is the normal 'launch/drive' configuration, but I was landing with the one under the backbone solar panel, which aligns the controls to the engine thrust direction. ('Up' is prograde, instead of 'forward' is prograde.)

BTW: I was trying to use TCA to do a landing today, and it always seemed to want to land on the other side of Minmus from the designated target landing point. The ship was pretty much pure KPBS - there's an antenna from someplace, and NF solar panels, but otherwise straight KPBS. (Which probably doesn't have quite enough control - only two engines, one on each end. Though SAS was enough to keep it pointed correctly for the burns that I let it apply. I reset back to a quicksave once it passed over the landing point.)

It actually makes the game much harder - but most of it is in knowing what you need where and when, not just in launching it. You'll need to account for the wear and tear on your drills and ISRU's, the fact that most resources take several steps to build, and that you'll need to ship things around. If you installed the full pack, you probably also got USI-LS, which will mean you not only have to worry about supplies (like in TAC-LS...), but you'll need to worry about how much space your Kerbals have to move around in - and and how long they've been away from home. It's a nice set, and don't make any decisions on it until you've seen what it does overall in practice. Yes there are a few really powerful engines - that'll take millions if not billions of funds to fuel. (You can find the fuel off-world... It a couple of *very* hard to get to places.) Or there are some moderately powerful engines - which will burn more fuel than you think. Or there are a variety of more normal LFO engines. Etc. It's a set that's designed to be more than just parts, and you have to look beyond the parts to how everything works to see the real balance.

There's also tools added by SEP, EL, and Keridian Dynamics, as well as some mods who have alternate versions of the previous. I think what's really needed here is a 'check for required inventory' meta-check, and then some config file setup where you can specify combinations of Kerbal trait, tool ability, other inventory presence to check for. So you could say: If there's an engineer on board (or whatever specific trait KIS checks for), make sure there's a 'ModuleKISItemAttachTool' in inventory. If there's a stake in inventory, check to make sure there's a mallet. If there's an engineer, and a SEP hub in inventory, make sure there's a SEP attach tool. Etc. But that might be a bit more complex than you want to get into.

That's why I want to run numbers, see what the best ways to balance that out are - and if it makes sense.

General question for users of MKS: How long, in-game, does it normally take you to build a colony self-sufficient in Machinery? On average? I'm asking because I'm working on the KPBS integration pack, and one idea being thrown around a bit would be to basically have the KPBS parts be lighter to get into place - but require more machinery over time. So the idea would be that they would be mass-balanced (or even mass-negative) by the time the colony gets to be self-sufficient, by the fact that you need more supply runs. (Not sure how well this idea would work in practice - at the moment it's just an idea, but I wanted to get some numbers so that I could build simulations.)

I look forward to seeing whatever you come up with. Yes: USITools, I believe. Isn't that how you reconfigure modules at the moment? (I'll admit I haven't tried...) But my objection is on realism/immersion grounds, not technical: Opening up a greenhouse and exposing the plants to vacuum (or an unknown atmosphere) cannot be a good way to keep those plants healthy, and that's what it would take to reconfigure a device like that: Open it up, clean it out, redo some of the plumbing, and then put the plants back in. The Algae containers are a bit easier, as the algae will need to be kept in sealed containers throughout anyway, but you explicitly need to clean the area where the plant's roots are, so doing this in vacuum for the greenhouse will be a problem. On the other hand, this is a small greenhouse that you can stack-mount inside a 2.5m stack. It's a very useful part. Having the slight drawback of not being as configurable as the radial greenhouses (and the larger stack-mount greenhouses) feels ok to me. I’m tending to think of the hub as an office building: by 'logistics' what it does is have central coordination for people to move stuff around and such. So it probably doesn't need much equipment itself - though pencils and paper do add up. And I can easily see it being a central storage for equipment/machinery for the *rest* of the base. (And it probably has things like the IT support hub - which will have computer parts and spares and adaptors...) That's probably it. I just hadn't tracked down that config module yet, and wasn't sure if it was separate from the 'science lab' config module. It might... What is the general consensus on what ColonySupplies are, though? Is that something than could be created in an automated facility, or should it need hands-on from a Kerbal? (I'm guessing the latter - otherwise why would they be so hard to make off-world?)

Just to mention so that it's clear where to look: They should be under the new 'Rovers' tab provided by CCK.

Um, you're missing the 'Squad' folder that comes with the game...

Just wanted to echo: I've got mods with hard dependencies on CC, IFS, and Firespitter, running side-by-side. You can't always use the one you want on the tank you want, but I don't run into general problems. Just make sure you know which one is applying to the tank you're using at the moment.

Well, I don't know when you looked, and it hasn't been around that long. (I submitted it as a PR a few months ago when I started planning to build an orion-drive ship in orbit, and realized I couldn't fuel it...)

There's an EL config in there which can make them from EnrichedUranium and MaterialKits...

Since you have MKS - try attaching an MKS part and using ground tethers. That should stop any motion you have.

Been mentioned a bit - I'm not sure how to calculate it in though. That said, there are basically three volumes to worry about with KPBS: 'standard', 'expanded', and 'Central Hub'. Almost all of the crewable parts are one of the three. To be fair: it is just a trickle of Mulch, and I believe the system with a Greenhouse is still net positive for Supplies. (You get more Fertilizer than you used Mulch.) That said, I wouldn't mind going to Substrate or Minerals with Ore, and maybe a slow Ore-only mode. (Though note that this could be a base-breaking change for people. Fair warning and depreciation should be applied.) My thought there would be to make it swappable between the different modes, and maybe mark the Ore+Mulch mode as depreciated. There already is a wedge-shaped Nom-O-Matic: The small greenhouse. At the moment it just does the standard Mulch+Fertilizer - If anyone can think of a way to make it possible but hard to switch between the various agriculture modes I would support that, but in general I think it doesn't look very field-configurable. (Unlike the Nom-O-Matic, the only way to get at it is from EVA, so you can't pull the plants out or anything from the back, like you could in theory with a Nom-O-Matic.) Another option would be to have the Algae become a straight Ore->Supplies generator (low mass efficiency, but Algae is the base of the food chain) and then have the small greenhouse do the more standard higher-yield conversions. Again, this could be added into a swappable config on the Algae container. (I don't worry about it's field-configuration as much: It puts everything in tubes, and Algae are easier to secure for vacuum than plants are.) I think a small amount of MaterialKits to deploy makes sense - but it shouldn't be anywhere near as much as MKS inflatables. Basically, a few hundred MaterialKits could be logical as 'set up equipment', but KPBS's pop-out deployment I think should be much closer to 'ready to go' than MKS's 'inflate and equip'. Machinery usage definitely makes sense. As stuff is designed to stow and fold up out of the way, it's probably more fragile/finicky than MKS's parts, which tend to be either solid or 'ship in the stuff separate and inflate'. So needing Machinery - and having a slightly larger consumption of Machinery than similar-use MKS parts - would be the trade off. (Basically: MKS expandable parts take more to inflate, but inflate to a more rugged end result. KPBS is easier to deploy, but needs more ongoing maintenance.) I think that complaint should be in the main KPBS thread. Can you split the lab and the experience-gain facilities? I'd see the latter as being something the Central Hub should have. (If there's a way to do efficiency on that, I'd even make it have a very good one.) Both the PDU's are also long range transmitters. Though they are also nuclear reactors, which is something KPBS doesn't have at all. (Possibly something to think about for stage 3.) Maybe dupe one of the other LS parts that USI-LS doesn't use for a long-range transmitter? (I'll have to see what they look like.)

They don't directly - but the open trusses are great for holding 2.5m and 1.25m tanks in a 3.75m stack.

Yes. There's a part that will extract trace amounts of nuclear fuel from Ore - or there are some other mods that can mine Uranite, and refine it.

Yeah, that looks right. My only thought at this point is just the mass - these are optimized for small probes, so I think even the magnets are turned down so that they don't overpower things. I've had no trouble with them - but my tests have been with probes that weigh less than 2 tones total once docked.

Well, the teeth shouldn't touch each other. They should fit into each other's gaps. That might help.