quasitonality

So I was just crunching the numbers for life support (TACLS) on my space station and realized that the K&K Water Purifier is actually an infinite water generator This is from the PBS Container_WaterPurifier.cfg: INPUT_RESOURCE { ResourceName = WasteWater Ratio = 0.00008548612 } OUTPUT_RESOURCE { ResourceName = Water Ratio = 0.00007693751 DumpExcess = false } and the water you get back from the wastewater is greater than the water ur kerbals used to generate it I checked the WasteWater::Waste ratio and it matches the one from the TACLS part exactly, so I'm guessing this must be due to a typo or something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ This is the edit I decided to use for my save: INPUT_RESOURCE { ResourceName = WasteWater Ratio = 0.00008548612 } // Changed ratio to match TACLS water purifier OUTPUT_RESOURCE { ResourceName = Water Ratio = 0.00006712848 DumpExcess = false }

In this screencap the sun is directly behind the camera, so those shadows shouldn't even be there at all. Any ideas what could cause this sort of artifact?

No the issue is with the relative positions of Eve and Kerbin. A Kerbin -> Eve transfer should be performed when the phase angle between them is about 55 degrees, with Eve behind Kerbin in its orbit. The alarm is supposed to alert you when the planets are in the right alignment to perform the transfer. But instead of alerting me when the angle was 55 degrees, it alerted me when the angle was 165 degrees. As I said, not even close, mun or no mun

I double checked the phase angles to/from Eve using the old faithful calculator at https://ksp.olex.biz, just to make sure I hadn't mixed up the origin and destination or something dumb like that, but either way it's still way off. The alarm generated by the stock tool left me with a phase angle of approximately 165 degrees, well over 100 degrees off from the correct angle

Like, it's not even close. I set an alarm for Kerbin->Eve transfer window, the time came and I set up my maneuver nodes and this is what I got. Is this a bug?

hey since no one else seems t've mentioned it yet, the CKAN listing for the new release still shows 1.11.9 as the max game version (mod version # looks up to date tho), so ckan considers it imcompatible with 1.12

I've been playing this save on this version of ksp for several hours with no issues, but now it's suddenly starting crashing to desktop a few minutes after the save is loaded. I've double-checked that I have no mods installed. I tried adding --force-opengl to the argument list just as a shot in the dark, but it didn't seem to help. As far as I can tell the log doesn't contain any errors, it just sort of ends Specs: OS: Windows 10 64-bit CPU: Ryzen 7 1700 GPU: GTX 1080ti RAM: 16GB Log:

I'm really liking the idea of more shapes and sizes for labs! The stock models are sort of putting me off from actually using these parts atm, but I'll definitely try to keep an eye on this one!

@FinalFan I can confirm that the engines themselves work just fine! (Though I did nearly forget to reactivate the second engine again after fiddling with them ) The timer's behavior during the burn is a little amusing:

lol, yes I double-checked the engines! In fact something interesting happens when I shutdown just one of the engines (I just updated the OP to mention it), but the problem returns when I reactivate it again.

The new burn time feature is doing something kooky with this vessel - the tanks are still half full, and according to KE it has 11 min of burn and over 4000dv, but the burn timer indicates that it has 0dv and that a 66dv burn would take over 10 minutes. I'm pretty sure this is some kind of bug, but I don't know what's screwing it up; the nuclear engines maybe? The craft only has stock parts. Mod list: Update: Quitting the game and reloading didn't fix the issue, but it gets kookier: when I deactivate one of the nukes, the burn time suddenly changes to something reasonable (see spoiler). But when the nuke is activated again, it shows the same nutty result pictured above. This leads me to suspect it has something to with the engine plate... Has anyone else encountered something like this?

After unlocking more parts, I'm realizing that the feature I suggested may not have much gameplay effect when greenhouses are used, so I guess it's really not a big deal in the scheme of things. (Back on default settings now btw, unless I screwed up somewhere) This nuclear explorer should support a single pilot indefinitely as long as it gets resupplied with fertilizer between trips - About 4m^3 of farming will (continually!) produce enough food/oxygen (and water!) to keep a kerbal alive indefinitely, which I think is actually great from a gameplay perspective - if volume, weight, and harvest times were accurately modeled it would be a pain to manage, and it would be like playing a completely different game. ("Hydroponics Simulator!") Altogether, the system strikes a good balance of adding realistic-ish LS concepts while keeping things kerbal. Much satisfied, very respect! +20

With that in mind, I just took a second look at my screen cap, and that vessel actually does look like a junkheap cobbled together from found parts... I'm starting to get a little worried about Bob and Jeb.

Yeah, I've been playing around with configuring supply consumption, and I'm explicitly not asking the value to be changed for everyone: In reality, supply consumption varies drastically depending on the nature of the mission; I think it would be interesting if supply consumption were vessel, mission, or colony-dependent in some way, rather than being a fixed rate for all situations. Not to replace recycling or farming systems, but as an additional factor to consider - basically, a kerbal's life-style determines their base rate of supply consumption/unit-time (how often do they shower, do they demand cake for dessert, are they washing laundry/dishes, etc), and that number is then further modified by recyclers just as it is currently. I would, but I'm playing a new career save and haven't unlocked the tech yet. The three-kerbal manned mission was a hypothetical example - in my career save I settled for a compromise of a two-man mission with a scientist and pilot, and a mobile processing lab that can double as a recycler. Probably a little overly ambitious now that I have USI-LS, but stretching how far I go on limited tech is one of my favorite parts of the early game!

btw, I want to be clear that I don't mean to suggest that the mod should be made easier - actually, for some missions (especially long-term bases), it would make sense if Kerbals consumed more supplies per capita. Mission- or vessel-dependent supply consumption would give a player some interesting design choices to make, both early on when available LS tech is limited, and later on when dealing with entitled kolonists who insist on twice-a-day showers and brushing after every meal, and could result in unforeseen mission complications. (Jeb and Vall go down in the lander for a week of the science, leaving Bob alone on the ship. The habitation value of the ship shoots up as soon as they leave, and Bob gets a little too comfortable in his suddenly opulent living space... When his shipmates return, they find he has burned through three weeks' worth of supplies in the form of long, hot bubble baths in the RTG bay.) Also thought I'd mention, I found a passage in the DM Guide NASA LS Document on habitation space that corroborates the basic concept behind your habitation mechanic; values are given for "net habitable space" on both a moon mission and a mars mission; the "tolerable" cabin space is nearly two times greater for Mars than for the Moon, and the "optimal" cabin space is over four times greater, something I wouldn't normally consider in stock ksp. My interplanetary ships will all need to be bigger and heavier - not necessarily a bad thing, but I probably should have stayed in Kerbin's SOI until I got a feel for it, instead of sending this low-tech death trap to Duna. But I need the sciiience, Bob...

Yeah, three of the radial recyclers reduces the supplies for a 3-man orbit-and-return mission to Duna from 45t to 18t; the big recycler takes it down to 9t, but the level of efficiency it generates (and the power requirement) seems like it should be a bit overkill for a Duna transit. I just think it would be nice if the consumption rate could alter to fit the nature of the mission; 10.8kg a day is a good number for a small base! But on the one hand, it's over twice as much as a crew would need during transit, and on the other hand, it's less than a third of what a fledgling colony would consume; I definitely don't think it would be better if it was simply lowered, especially for a player planning to use MKS.

That's an excellent point! Last night as I dug around a little for more specific info, I happened across NASA's Life Support: Baseline Values and Assumptions Document, which gives a set of starting-point estimates for pretty much every life-support-related thing you can think of, focusing on hypothetical Mars and Moon missions, for the benefit of their engineers and of random nerds on the internet (on account of it being publicly posted online). It's surprisingly easy to read considering the subject matter, and organized into neat sections and tables that make it easy to find and contextualize the information you're looking for - it's like the Dungeon Master's Guide to Space! Estimates for total water consumption/crew-member-day (CM-d) are given for short term flights (< 30 days), a transit vehicle (to Mars), early planetary base, and mature planetary base, with a dramatic difference between the low and high ends. In that order and sparing the gory details,* the oxygen/water/food estimates total at 4.135 > 4.605 > 12.135 > 29.515 kg/CM-d, with water being 65% of the mass at one extreme and 95% of it at the other. (Of course this is due mainly to such frivolities as brushing teeth, showers, and dishwashing.) @therealcrow999 made a good point that Kerbal biology/metabolism leaves a lot to the imagination, but personally I'd still cut those numbers in half (~2.05 - 15/d), since I think that would roughly fit with the way Kerbals and their rockets are scaled-down in size from real life. In either case 10.8 supplies/day would fall somewhere between consumption at a brand-new base and a moderately mature one. I think the tight rations short missions can use are fairly well-approximated by the grace-period mechanic, no problems there; but unfortunately the difference between conservative and comfortable lifestyles on an interplanetary transfers versus a stable base is so huge, I'm not sure a middle-ground value does either of them justice. Maybe it would be interesting if, beyond a certain vessel habitation rating, kerbals started scaling up their resource consumption? Using a Mars (read: Duna) mission as a reference point, it might start at four years; this would allow for there-and-back-again trips to the inner planets on a Spartan supply ration, but if the Kerbals feel any more comfortable in their vessel they might be tempted to settle into a more comfortable lifestyle and splurge on water. Supply use could continue to increase with habitation rating until maybe the ten-year mark; this would make Jool or Eeloo trips interesting to plan for, since the Kerbals would be using a lot more supplies and thus require a more sustainable life support system. Good idea, bad idea? Anyway, for now I think I'll set my supply rate to about half the default; I'll probably crank it up later for a challenge on longer missions *Unless you want them; the gory details are in tables 4.1, 4.20, 4.21, and 4.54.

This little ship will keep three little kerbals entertained for a little over three years. And these are the supplies required to feed them: (The supply load becomes more sane-looking with a big 'ol recycler, but 18+ ec/sec...? Not really practical for my basic first Duna-orbit-return mission in career mode.) Something about these proportions had me feeling a little skeptical, so I decided to get my Google on and crunch some numbers. According to an educational document from NASA (see pg. 5), an astronaut requires about 5.03 kg of supplies a day in the form of food, water, and oxygen (1.77kg, 2.42kg, and 0.84kg respectively). This is less than half the 10.8kg/day required by kerbonauts on USI-LS default settings; if a kerbonaut consumed the same supplies in one Kerbin day as a huma-naut does in one earth-day, the above ship would look like this: But in fact, kerbals are smaller (and I think I can say hardier and sturdier) than humans, and kerbin-days are much shorter. Assuming that a kerbal consumes half the supplies a human does in the same amount of time, then the mass of supplies needed per Kerbin-day is further reduced, by a factor of eight in fact: (It'd be more practical to store these 2500 supplies in a single 2.5m can, but this is for visualization purposes.) This may look like a small amount of supplies (if you're used to the massive quantities in the first pic), but in rocket design mass is usually more important than volume, and USI-LS supplies are quite heavy. For example, with the containment area having an estimated radius of 1.25m and a measured height of 90cm (measured against the 26.6cm cubic family strut), the 2.5m Life Support Tank has a capacity of ~4.91m^3 and holds 4.5t of supplies, giving a density of 916 kg/m^3, not too far off from the density of water, and pretty darn close to the density of typical foodstuffs afik.* But if we assume that supplies also contain the kerbals' supply of oxygen, the density could be much lower. O2's density at NTP is 1.331 kg/m^3. Of course, it would be pressurized in storage; keeping temperature constant and raising the pressure to 200atm (2939.19psia),** we get up to 266.2 kg/m^3. According to the above source, an astronaut's food/water/oxygen supply is 16.7% oxygen by mass, so 1t of supplies contains 167kg->0.627m3 of O2 and 833kg->0.833m^3 of food/water, for a total density of approximately 685 kg/m3.*** (And lord I just spent WAY too much of my day working that out!) TLDR, if aesthetics are a concern and you just like looking at those huge cans, then decreasing the density of supplies by 30%-40% could help increase their volume footprint on a craft's design even if the mass/consumption rate is dropped to a more realistic level. *If my calculations are correct, then including the mass of the container, these food cans might not even float in water. Anyone care to test? **3000psia seems to be a typical pressure for pure O2 ***Of course, there are more efficient ways of storing oxygen than with pressurized tanks, but that could be accounted for with recyclers and such. Here are some shots of the above ship at default settings, making use of recyclers: ^ This looks more reasonable from the outside, but has an ungodly ec requirement, especially early-game (and I do consider Duna a fairly early-game goal). These recyclers are a more economical choice, but the supplies still make up over half of the craft's mass, and the kerbals are still consuming supplies almost four times as quickly as a human would, considering that kerbin-days are only six hours long. p.s. Love the mod by the way; otherwise wouldn't have spent this much time messing with the numbers