JamesonKerbal

June 5

On 6/1/2024 at 6:17 AM, Grenartia said:

So, can someone clarify, what is WOLF?

WOLF is MKS industry without the part count.

There are a bunch of WOLF parts that provide an analogue to the MKS industry parts (harvesters, refineries, assembly plants, power, life support), but to use them you survey WOLF-specific resources ("resource veins") in each biome, then you "deploy" the base to the biome at which point the model ceases to exist in the game and is now represented as a bunch of numbers reflecting production rates in that biome.

So instead of a thousand-part industrial base that slows your frame rate to 0.3fps every time you load it into physics range and in return supplies you with a few thousand MaterialKits per day, you get empty landscape with WOLF infrastructure hiding in a table in the save file ("WOLF space" which consumes zero processor cycles). To get the industrial output back into fps-chewing MKS space, you use a WOLF Hopper and the usual MKS storage (2 parts) which can consume some level of WOLF productivity (capacity to produce at X units/s) and turn it into MKS production (actual X units every second).

In addition WOLF allows for automated transfers between biomes: if you have a space station in orbit around Duna that needs propellant supplies you can produce "WOLF fuel" at Kerbin Shores, transfer it to the KSC biome, transfer from there to Kerbin Orbit biome, then to Duna Orbit biome, then on the space station itself you have a WOLF Hopper which takes the "WOLF fuel" and turns it into LF+O, monopropellant, LF, or oxidiser. This means instead of carefully planning a dozen fuel tankers to be transferred to Duna every synod you just do it once and then let WOLF take care of transfers from there.

WOLF is MKS without:

the giant save file
the need to visit every vessel every now and then to check that production lines are actually working
the surprise nuclear reactor over-heat because you dared to warp time faster than 100x for a few seconds
the fps-chewing part count

Hope this helps.

I did start writing a tutorial some time back and I should get around to finishing it. It's only been what... three years?

June 5

On 6/4/2024 at 2:10 AM, lBoBl said:

My first question is regarding orbital/planetary construction. In the long distant past I used MKS with EPL which was a wonderful combo in my opinion but I don't know if it's still a recommended / viable option. I've seen mentions of Ground construction / Global construction, which I've always liked less because you have to ship parts from Kerbin

MKS with Global Construction is a workable combination. You can use various modules from MKS to produce the MaterialKits that GC uses to construct things from DIY Kits. You can also create DIY kits using GC or MKS, eg: set up a craft to land a specific DIY kit at your destination, then build that craft using the MKS orbital shipyard. Then use the MKS infrastructure to deliver MaterialKits to the build site. Various MKS parts include the Workshop module that GC needs, with decent efficiency so you can build things faster.

GC is my go-to option for landing large rovers because I just do not enjoy building large complicated EDL vehicles. Much easier to land a series of large boxes that can be entirely encapsulated in a fairing and protected by a 10m inflatable heat shield.

One caveat is that MKS construction uses a mix of parts: MaterialKits (equal in number to the mass of the vehicle being constructed, each MK is 1kg), Specialised Part, Alloys, Electronics, Prototypes, Robotics, Synthetics (various combinations reflecting how many of what type of modules are present, the tech level of the modules, and so forth). Global Construction on the other hand just uses mountains of MaterialKits to build things from DIY kits and I never bothered to measure just how many but it felt like about twice to three times as many MaterialKits as MKS for the same vehicle.

I haven't used EPL at all so I can't comment on that.

May 22

On 5/18/2024 at 8:41 PM, KingWilliamB said:

I saw this mod integrates with ground construction.

Not really integrates, but they play okay together. MKS has an orbital construction ability that magics vessels into existence in space, while Global Construction works with DIY kits that are put in the place that you want the final object to appear. Global Construction and MKS both use Material Kits resource, though MKS has more resource types and a far more complicated industry chain.

There are a number of ways to produce Material Kits using MKS, including a 2.5m in-line component that converts Ore directly to Material Kits, or various sizes of assembly line that produce Material Kits from inputs of Polymers, Metals and Chemicals (which are in turn processed from the raw materials of Substrate, Metallic Ore and Minerals respectively, which are mined using MKS mining equipment while the stock drill-o-matics continue to only mine Ore).

May 2

On 3/14/2024 at 1:38 PM, Pipcard said:

Is there a formula for calculating a drill's output rate given the percent abundance of a particular resource, the presence of engineers, and other factors?

There is a formula out there somewhere but I couldn't find it in a few minutes of searching.

So I landed an extractor on the Mun, and found that in an area of 5.79% concentration of Uraninite the MEU-100-A Pulse Drill was extracting 0.046282/s while the MEU-500-A Pulse Drill was extracting 0.075787/s, giving a 60% greater extraction rate. The "-A" components are autonomous, so they harvest at a higher rate than the normal components but they get no bonuses for having crew present.

Hope this helps.

On 5/1/2024 at 7:16 AM, Space Chimp said:

The MKS wiki says to use regolith sifters or Crush-O-Matics, but I can't find either in the science tree.

If you installed the addons after starting a game, you can end up with broken tech tree.

Try creating a new career/science game and check the tech tree for that game. For one of my games all of the MKS industry components are available under the "Advanced Construction" node including Crush-O-Matic and the ATLAS equivalent modules.

Also try using the search box in the R&D screen. If you search for "Crush" (case sensitive!) the node with that module will be highlighted with a yellow box.

If the new game has the node in the expected place, it's likely your current game is broken.

May 2

On 12/31/2023 at 9:58 AM, Shoey said:

Is resource refining/manufacturing supposed to work in the background? It doesn't seem to be working for me.

MKS refining and manufacturing will work in the background but there are conditions.

"Stuff" is updated when the facility comes back into physics range. If you've been away for a few minutes you'll get one update of that few minutes worth of extraction/refinement/manufacture/fabrication. If you've been away for one or more days of game time (1 Kerbal day = 6 hours), "stuff" will be updated for the days you were missing, one day at a time, then for the remaining time after that hour (the daily update is the important part, I'm not sure if the remainder comes first or last). Thus if you want to have an autonomous system you need enough storage to hold one day's worth of every output. If you want to extract metallic ore and refine it to metals you need enough electricity generation and storage, enough heat dissipation, and enough metallic ore storage to keep the extractor running for a day (six hours), then you need enough electricity and metallic ore production/storage and metals storage to last for a day. And then you need to take into account the presence of any engineers, mechanics, technicians, miners, geologists, etc as applies to your equipment. Your base might have enough storage and energy to sustain production with no crew, but then you add an engineer and suddenly production increases by 500% and now you run out of energy, overheat your radiators, blow up your reactor, etc.

So for every extractor, make sure you have energy in batteries, a power supply that can deliver the sustained energy that the extractor needs, enough product storage, and make sure that this budget allows for ~200% of capacity. There are autonomous options for each extractor which are not affected by crew, they are excellent for small mining drones. I typically put a couple of the autonomous extractors and a few thousand units of storage on a "Duna" Logistics Hub (with a small nuclear reactor, radiators, Terrier engines, propellant tanks, probe core, etc) and drop those where they're useful and ignore them for the rest of the game. Make sure to turn on "Planetary Warehouse" on the storage and production from that autonomous mining drone will go into planetary inventory.

Here's an example autonomous facility, you can swap out the MEU-100-A Pulse Drills for regular MEU-100 Pulse Drills and this facility with crank out more stuff than you'll know what to do with. Essential parts here are MKS "Duna" Power Distribution Unit, MKS "Ranger" Thermal Control System, MKS "Duna" Logistics Center, 4 x MEU-100-A Pulse Drill, plenty of supplementary battery, 2 x 2.5m Kontainer Tank - Flat (2.5m), with a few other parts to make it visually appealing and useful for Kerbals. You can use a much smaller reactor and only 1 extractor, but I figure if something's worth doing it's worth overdoing.

Spoiler

Then here's a version of that with larger extractors set up as a lander with copious part clipping:

Spoiler

Hidden inside that vessel is a MKS "Duna" Logistics Center and a 1.25m Nuclear Reactor (the blue one) with 4 large radiators in addition to the 2 medium Thermal Control Systems.

May 2

On 3/21/2024 at 4:00 PM, sir raftalot said:

was [passenger routes disappearing] resolved? if so how?

I had to turn it off and back on again.

There are a number of issues with WOLF that require quitting to desktop and relaunching KSP1. There were a number of janky workarounds that I explored but the only reliable one was turning it off and back on again.

There are other janky issues like WOLF hoppers not staying connected/on. The WOLF resource would still be consumed in that biome, the hopper would still be producing the equivalent MKS resource, but the buttons in the Part Action Window would show "connect to depot" instead of "disconnect from depot" and "start hopper" instead of "stop hopper". This issue is relatively harmless and the workaround is to simply toggle the buttons or ignore them.

Note that WOLF hoppers will also do annoying stuff like keep consuming resources from their origin biome when you move them to a new biome without disconnecting them first. Whether this is a bad thing or a good thing is up to you.

December 19, 2023

1 hour ago, Tokamak said:

With an engineer on EVA, I have the option to transfer fuel and waste between parts on a single craft, but there is no option that I can see to transfer it to a *different* craft.

Using MKS parts you can "perform maintenance" on the nuclear fuel container that you want to move enrU into. I'm not sure about the mechanics of depleted fuel transfers. I've always had depleted uranium storage on my maintenance vehicles so it's always just worked.

July 18, 2023

On 6/14/2023 at 12:04 AM, test_do_not_use said:

o you initiate the transfer from the Kolonization Dashboard on the toolbar, as you would while landed? Under Local Logistics?

Yes, same button. It doesn't care whether you're transferring between things on the ground or in space, the forklift is magic!

June 13, 2023

23 hours ago, test_do_not_use said:

The documentation for orbital shipyards mentions using logistics to load consumables onto newly constructed vessels, is this current?

Yes. New ships will be spawned outside 200m, maximum transfer range is 250m. If you're spawning a new ship and don't get the ability to transfer consumables using the logistics window, there's something wrong.

April 20, 2023

On 4/15/2023 at 1:43 AM, larkvi said:

Is there any advantage to using this over the EPL/GC systems, if it is this finicky?

The issue here is launching a vessel in KSP. I suspect there's an issue with complex vessels where some cleanup is done between the VAB/SPH and "launching" through the normal KSP means, and that cleanup isn't done when a craft is simply spawned. I've had craft explode before launch due to collisions between parts without the involvement of add-ons.

April 14, 2023

On 4/5/2023 at 6:55 PM, larkvi said:

When I try to launch a new module using the orbital shipyard (the small one), the console suddenly starts spamming NREs and the screen transition turns black and the new ship never loads in correctly.

When this has happened to me I've sometimes been able to get the craft to launch by changing the root part in the VAB/SPH. Sometimes I've managed to get the issue to go away by "launching" the craft (ie: from VAB or SPH, click the launch button). On other occasions it's been a case of pruning the part tree (ie: taking off a part that has other parts attached to it) to find which part of the craft is creating the problem, then building it back piece by piece until you find which component was causing the problem. Sometimes it will be a part that was clipped or rotated, other times it will simply be a mystery that goes away just because you rebuilt that part of the craft.

Hope this helps.

March 16, 2023

3 hours ago, Zmeya said:

Odd, I've been able to get funds from recovering resources from MKS/USI in 1.11 and 1.12

Which resources are you using for fund raising? Every time I try to recover vehicles containing mined resources I end up going broke because they end up being worth negative funds.

March 16, 2023

1 hour ago, openperspective said:

Was an answer to this issue ever found?

Yes, it's a bug introduced in KSP 1.11 and still present in 1.12 where KSP is calculating the value of a recovered craft based on its "PREFAB" price, which does terrible things for parts that have been modified using TweakScale, or parts that now have more resources in them than the PREFAB data says they should.

The "fix" was a terrible hack packaged into KSP-Recall introducing a new resource called "refunding" which has negative value. The catch is that MKS is a resource based mod that handles resource logistics beyond just transferring stuff between docked tanks, so MKS in combination with KSP-Recall will just cause you endless problems.

If you want to fund your space program by mining resources and then recovering the filled mining trucks, you need to stick with KSP 1.10 (or earlier).

I addressed the issue by avoiding launching or recovering vehicles involved in resource gathering, and raising funds by carefully selecting missions.

March 13, 2023

9 hours ago, RuParker said:

RefundingForKSP11 1x

Do you have KSP-Recall installed? That's an addon which gets around part refund costs that would send you broke if you recovered a vehicle that came back home with more mined materials than you launched it with. The "Refunding" resource is the hack used in that add-on to overcome the negative pricing of other resources in KSP 1.11+

You should find other resources being added to Planetary Logistics as the various Kontainers fill up. Note that they'll deposit to Planetary Logistics when inventory exceeds about ¾, then they'll pull from Planetary Logistics when the inventory drops below a similar amount (like ¼ or so).

I don't know how the Refunding resource is represented in game, but if it's something that shows up like other resources make sure to fill it back up (and turn off Planetary Warehouse on the kontainer) before you recover the vehicle, otherwise you're in for an expensive return home.

I gave up on trying to make money by mining (I found the KSP Recall add-on and read up on how it hacks around the recovered vehicle cost bug and decided not to try living with that kind of hack) and just used Ground Construction which lets me build things on the ground. MKS has orbital shipyards but they will only build things in orbit — I do have some designs for flying or rocket powered descent vehicles to drop rovers from orbit but I figured once I was in space it was cheaper to direct my industrial efforts towards Minmus. I raise cash by carefully selecting the missions that will pay me to launch the rockets I was going to launch anyway: "oh nice, you're paying me to create a new station around Minmus? I'll stick some mining equipment on it and repurpose it as a mining base after satisfying the contract terms!"

March 12, 2023

Is there any way to automatically set alarms with the "Display onscreen message if the alarm isn't for the active vessel" option? in the UI it's the button with the rocket superimposed on the top right of the envelope.

March 6, 2023

On 3/4/2023 at 4:27 AM, dlrk said:

Can you connect any thing to the crew hatch/port on the Ranger Hab or Workshop in EVA construction?

I had no problem connecting things to the nodes of other Duna style modules, but I was using things other than flex-o-tubes. I avoid those because of kraken. I've previously built fancy rovers to carry modules for me -- check out Mark Thrimm's SSTO Space Program for some inspiration on the tools to manipulate base components. Note that many of the Duna and Tundra components are not able to be manipulated in stock EVA construction. I've tried modifying save files to add the ability but the modules obstinately refuse to be picked up. The cargo frame that Mark Thrimm uses in his main base construction vehicle has been quite useful for putting base pieces where I need them.

Also avoid using the PAL lifter components from USI Konstruction, they're useful if you intended to launch that component into orbit using a trebuchet though. Use KAS winches instead. You can even skip the fancy complicated base building vehicle and put the winches on the base and just tow pieces into position and glue everything together using the Konstruction docking ports. There was an addon out there somewhere that allowed welding craft together using stock docking ports. Also remember to use save games prolifically because of kraken attacks.

I've ended just building base components in one piece and dropping them from orbit:

Spoiler

Note the four vertically mounted 2.5m tanks in the "middle". Each of those has a Wolfhound engine underneath, and under that 3.75m Tundra module is a 3.75m SAS module. These engines and the SAS were adjusted to be under the centre of mass of the whole structure and landing was pretty easy. Note the application of struts between all the extremities to stop things wobbling.

This experiment is working better than my previous iterations which were more "traditional" landers:

Spoiler

Note the PDU sitting to the side, because that module refused to be moved by anything. Ground tether wasn't turned on, the legs weren't deployed, there were no extra pieces attached to it, but I couldn't move it. The original plan was to replace the nuclear reactor on top of the right-hand rocket by moving it up to the top of the right rear pillar (you can see the missing nose cone) and then up on top of the Konfabricator module. As you can see the PDU is still on the ground

Other learnings from this experience:

You can never have enough power. A 1.25m nuclear reactor is simply not enough to power a single Assembly Plant -- mine was boosted by four Ranger smelter modules, and it was hitting about 300% capacity with a 3-star Engineer operating it. With two large radiator panels you can see on the PDU to the right, they are glowing red all the time as that PDU is providing power to this assembly plant and another attempt offscreen to the right. The ship on the left is a Refinery and consumes most of the output of the PDU stuck on top and even with four radiator panels they will be glowing red all the time.

You can never have enough heat sinks. Shortly after this attempt I added large 2 large Thermal Management Systems (the triple-wide deployables) to the left-hand lander and that wasn't enough to handle the heat from the PDU.

You need to have enough spare capacity in storage containers to handle one day of production. This means if you're using Planetary Logistics each container needs to be about two to three times larger than you expect. Thus the large round containers attached to the side of the right hand rocket.

Also you can have too many containers, witness the rocket on the left with all those stow-packs close to the ground. If you have multiple containers it just makes things slower.

You can have too many logistics modules. If you have multiple vessels in one physics space, ensure that only one of them has planetary logistics turned on. Otherwise you end up with one ship pushing stuff into planetary logistics, and a second one pulling stuff out to fill that ship that just put stuff in. Not only does this cause extra load but it wastes resources because there's a "tax" on pulling stuff out of Planetary Logistics. I was producing 100-odd Material Kits per day but losing 3 Material Kits per second to out-of-control logistics hubs.

Anyway sorry about the surprise TED talk.

February 24, 2023

22 hours ago, Artificer_Drachen said:

Any way to make ksp use rocket parts from EL instead of material kits and specialized parts?

AFAIK the resources required to build a part or vessel in MKS are calculated based on part mass, tech level, number of modules, etc (it's not in a config file that you can change). You might be able to use the MKS infrastructure to provide metals, but I don't know if Extraplanetary Launchpad uses the same resource types that MKS uses.

It might be worth investigating Ground Construction which is directly compatible with MKS. MKS also has its own ship construction system using orbital shipyards, and MKS supports building the DIY kits produced by Ground Construction.

February 1, 2023

On 1/31/2023 at 5:53 AM, Jefferson Kerman said:

Is it possible to lift Kerbals from Kerbin from the KSC biome with WOLF?

Yes, but it's complicated.

You'll need the WOLF Terminal building (there are two, one is a 3.75m part with room for 6 arrivals, the other is a dome with room for 12), and then you'll need to increase the biome abundance by 1 Habitation, 1 Life Support and 1 Colony Supplies for each economy seat capacity in the route you want to build. Then you need to build the route using WOLF Crew Kontainers. When you start the route you'll reduce the abundance of habitation, life support and colony supplies at the starting biome. Then you fly to the destination biome, make sure you're close to a terminal at the other end, and connect to destination depot.

When you want to send kernels from one place to another you just make them physically present at the terminal, add them as passengers to a passenger flight (accessed through the plane-taking-off icon in the toolbar) and launch. After some time passes you can disembark at the destination terminal, but if you only have 6 arrival seats and 12 kerbals in the flight you'll have to disembark 6, move those kerbals out of the terminal to other seats in the station, then disembark the other 6. Then your passenger route UI will be borked until the next time you restart the game as the first passengers you disembark from any flight will have their names permanently stuck in the passenger list for every flight (only a display bug).

Hope that helps?

Ultimately I ended up shipping my kerbals around in rockets because passenger routes are just too much like hard work.

January 18, 2023

11 hours ago, ninenineninefour said:

Doesn't it have Ground Construction built in? Or am I missing something?

Ground Construction is no longer included in MKS. It's still maintained separately so you can use it in addition to MKS.

The parts you're looking for in MKS are the KonStructor 250 and KonStructor 500 which are orbital shipyards in 2.5m and 3.75m variants. There are practical differences between the two, but they are similar in operation :

Get the KonStructor to orbit
Deposit Resources (in the Part Action Window)
1. KonStructor 250 takes 4000 Material Kits
2. KonStructor 500 takes 27,000 Material Kits
With stocks of Material Kits, Specialized Parts, Alloys, Electronics, Prototypes, Robotics and Synthetics available:
1. "Open KonStructor" from the part action window (aka right-click menu)
2. Select the vessel to build
3. Build it!
The newly constructed vessel will appear in space within 200m of the shipyard and control will be shifted to that new vessel
You must load the vessel with all consumables, though it starts with 100% electricity

There are also various parts which behave as "3D printers" where you can build individual parts and then use the stock game construction tools to assemble new vehicles piece by piece.

January 17, 2023

G'day, just popping by to say thank you to everyone who contributed to this add-on, it's my favourite visual enhancement (even including Scatterer and EVE) because of how much it improves my immersion given the tiny budget of CPU/GPU it sips while doing so.

January 17, 2023

On 1/14/2023 at 6:18 PM, Shoey said:

Does it by pass that requirement and push without any containers and I just missed it?

Please forgive me if I'm trying to teach you stuff you already know but you might want to review Mark Thrimm's tutorial videos about MKS.

I keep going back to them again and again because there's always something new to learn. The episode on Logistics shows a bunch of examples of craft on the Mun using scavenging, resource distribution, planetary logistics, and orbital logistics. Being able to see the craft that Mark Thrimm built with how the inventories behave over time might help you like it helped me.

December 31, 2022

On 1/1/2023 at 12:13 AM, Psykikk said:

adding a container filled with them does not help..

You need WOLF Machinery not MKS Machinery. The WOLF numbers are an abundance (basically a rate of extraction), while MKS numbers are a quantity. Everything on the Planner is a WOLF abundance of some kind.

The Machinery and Specialized Parts are probably for the WOLF Colony Supplies (5 WOLF Colony Supplies requries 5 WOLF Machinery, 3 WOLF Material Kits and 2 WOLF Specialized Parts), which you wouldn't be needing unless you were trying to set up a passenger route. If you're not trying to produce colony supplies, find that Fabricator and remove it (Fabricators have red stripes, if that helps). Colony Supplies is the default production for a WOLF Fabricator, it's probably supposed to be producing Material Kits.

Here's me trying to do a career game after having played sandbox for the last two years (levelling Kerbals turned into a long stay to process what's in the lab):

Spoiler

Valentina and her new BFFs in their cobbled-together science vessel KSS Placebo. They're currently having a working holiday on Minmus, crunching through the mountains of data gathered from their first visit.

December 31, 2022

31 minutes ago, jd284 said:

It depends on their level. You get two points per star, i.e. a five-star engineer gives ten points, a zero-star rookie only adds one crew point.

Oh no!

I definitely need to cover that in the walkthrough. I had no idea.

December 31, 2022

38 minutes ago, Psykikk said:

my kerbals only deliver 1 point per kerbal ?

Can you post a screen shot of the WOLF dashboard Planner tab?

Spoiler

It should look something like this:

Note I have one engineer in this crew, and it's a brand new biome so there are 0 existing EngineerCrewPoints and the one engineer I have is contributing 10 new EngineerCrewPoints (+10). There are 2 EngineerCrewPoints consumed by this infrastructure.

December 30, 2022

5 hours ago, Psykikk said:

is there a way to reset depots ?

No, but yes.

The short version: there's no simple method provided in-game, but you can edit them in the save file or restore to an earlier save game.

The long version:

While playing through the sandbox game that became my "walkthrough" I learned the hard way that proper planning prevents poor performance. I ended up saving the game before constructing each of the depot expansions, before checking on rovers (because Bon Voyage is good but Kraken is better), and before each major manoeuvre.

The depots are defined using a "DEPOT" element in the save file. This element describes whether you've surveyed the biome and established the depot, and keeps a simple sum of the incoming and outgoing values for each resource. If you know what the settings used to be (eg: have an old save file around) you can reset the depot by replacing this section of the save file. Note that things get complicated if you have multiple depots and arranged routes between them. So before resetting a depot make sure you go through all your routes in-game and remove all transfers to and from that depot.

There are sections in the save game for depots, routes and transfers (transfers are expressed as a RESOURCE element inside a ROUTE element), and crew routes (CREWROUTES, and you're better off making sure there are no crew in transit before editing this section).

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