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Scarecrow71

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Posts posted by Scarecrow71

  1. And continuing on today with the space station Nebuchadnezzar.  As mentioned in a previous post, I'm going to build downward from the ring section first, and then outward.  In looking at the reference material, the most logical thing I can think of to build when going downwards is a small fuel converter.  Nothing major, as I only have access to the 125 currently.  But I'm thinking that we can at least have some ore storage and a converter unit down there.  And in looking at things, we need two separate launches - one for the convert-o-tron itself, and then a second for the 2 spokes coming out of the sides.  So we send up the converter first:

    niAoMEz.png

    YilOMgn.png

    TnUUbDT.png

    The reference material actually has another, smaller ring section to it, but I didn't feel it necessary to go through and build one that is, for all practical purposes, just a large fuel tank.  So instead, I just used a large fuel tank.  I put radial radiators on the converter, primarily because I know that the thing will overheat upon usage.  I know - no amount of heat management will stop it from overheating.  But maybe I can just delay the inevitable for a while.  Maybe.

    You will also notice a jet engine on the bottom of this thing.  Look at the reference material, and you'll see that there is this reactor thing at the very bottom of the station, and the only thing that comes close to looking like it is a jet engine.  So we have a jet engine on the bottom merely for aesthetic purposes.  Ah, the things we can build if we only think outside the box.  Anyhow, it's now time to put the 2 spokes up onto the converter section.

    mnmA2GK.png

    YFUf10L.png

    Q7Rp8Mt.png

    One of the spokes - the one to the right - contains several of the boxy-looking cargo refrigerator things.  Each one holds an EC of 150, and as a bonus they can hold cargo. Not in the sense of true inventory, but if I put an engineer up there and do EVA construction, I can put stuff in them.  And you need EC for the converter, so having these right here makes sense (at least to me).

    The second spoke - the one to the left - is 4 empty ore containers.  I tossed and turned on whether or not to have them, and in the end I decided that it's easier to transfer ore to them and then send the ship that brought the ore back to wherever it came from, so we can do the conversion on the station itself, instead of docking a ship and then waiting for the conversion to be done before it leaves.  Again, it makes sense to me.

    You'll notice that we are now starting to bleed color all through this thing.  I wanted to have lights all over the place and have them mean different things, but after seeing this ridiculous mash of ugliness, I'm going to turn off a lot of the lights and just use them really sparingly.  So the next few shots will be less saturated and should make more sense with the color scheme.

    And that's it for today.  Another successful day at the Las Kerbas Space Agency!

     

    EDIT:  Just when I thought I was done for the day, I get a contract to put someone on board the Nebuchadnezzar.  And what did I say earlier?  If I'm going to abandon a Kerbal on the space station, I'm going to get paid to do so.  To the tune of ~250k funds.  So I hired a new sucker astronaut and put him on board the station.

  2. 15 minutes ago, steveman0 said:

    I don't see these as being incompatible. Just because we don't have resources yet doesn't mean a colony fuel factory can't produce fuel from EC alone when built in the correct location. They could implement the full requirements for colony construction, power generation, thermal management, and the installation of end fuel production facilities with the caveat that you can only produce the fuel(s) available to your local body with the precursor resource assumed available in an unlimited quantity if only at a limited rate.

    The resource update then expands on the system only to the extent that fuel production now requires the precursor resource supplied as an input from extraction operations but with the benefit now that these don't need to be colocated. The colonies as a system need to change very little for this integration.

    This all would have notable gameplay impact as the future updates may enable centralized colonies that process many materials supplied through automated deliveries from small branch extraction colonies. The first implementation may require each to be fully developed for production. This might be fine since it isn't clear if there are notable tangible benefits from consolidating production at a single colony or if it would be better to produce on site at the extraction colony anyway and only ship the fuel product to a central staging colony for say interstellar journeys.

    Agreed.  In a meta-sense, ISRU and fuel production is simply taking one energy type and converting it to another.  In game terms, you take EC and simply change its variable type to methane, or monoprop, or what-have-you.  At least in the interim, before full resources are implemented, anyhow.  It's simply an abstraction of what will eventually come into the game where you will need a specific resource to be converted.

    To take this a step further, who says it has to only be EC that's converted?  We already have multiple types of fuel in the game, right?  Methalox, pure methane, monopropellant, hydrogen.  Who is to say that we won't be able to convert one to another?

  3. This morning I continued working on the Nebuchadnezzar, attempting to craft the fuel depot portion of this thing.  However, I realized that I did not have anything related to ISRU - no tanks, no drills, no converters (if those are a thing; I've never done ISRU in this game before!).  So adding a fuel depot to the station wasn't going to get me anything at this point.  I needed science points because, thankfully, the beginnings of ISRU are on the tier I'm currently working on.

    I casually waltzed into Mission Control and started poring over the various contracts different agencies wanted me to deal with.  And looking through them, I found one to go start investigating Duna.  Just a simple fly-by and some science.  I can handle that, so I sent Jeb and Bob on a quest to go to Duna.  And as soon as I hit Duna's SOI, a contract popped up to get into orbit of Duna.  And after fiddling around with the maneuver node a bit in Duna's SOI, I realized I could swing into low Duna orbit, hit the thrusters and get an encounter with Ike.  So I did that, collected all the science there (both high and low), and managed to snag this shot:

    mH7tNPC.png

    Once I got all the sweet science points from Ike, I fired the rocket again and got into Duna orbit to complete that contract.  By the time Jeb and Bob got home, I had collected 3,020 science points through gadgetry and contractual obligations.  And thanks to that, I was able to open up the nodes to start dealing with ISRU.  So now, tomorrow, I'll get to continue working on the station.

  4. 11 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

    Ah ah ah

    The reports kinda show what's happening, as some of the progress statuses change over time. Unfortunately, (and this is my fourth time saying this) they don't replace the "fixed" or other bugs that did not get a visual status change, with others below top20 user voted. Simple example, lil chonker science reward has been fixed not long after 0.2.1 was out. I don't need to see it close to the top every single time, I ALREADY KNOW IT'S FIXED. Remove it from the list, add something else in its place. A bug has been reproducible but no further progress (fix being implemented/being tested/whatever) was made since last report? Remove it, add something else.

    Ah, re-read my statement.  No communication on what they are working on in the last month.  It's been more than a month since the last KERB dropped, and no communication.

  5. 1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

    Which means we're in a void for a lot longer than a month.

    Last patch: January. Last KERB: March 11. Last colony sneakpeek: march 15. KERB schedule change with no ETA of the first one: march 22.

    Exactly.  I had to go get clarification on Discord as to what they meant by a monthly cadence for KERB reports.  I assumed it was 1 month since the last one dropped, but they came out and said that it could be anytime within a given month.  My thought at this point is that we might get one in April, but it's more likely May for their "restart" of the KERBs.  Then we should get one in June, but more than likely it'll be the end of June.  Which means we will always end up going 2 or more months between them.

    Patches?  Don't get me started.  We've had 1 major content update and 6 total patches in 14 months.  The only content update was December 2023, and the only patch since then was in January 2024.  So it's already been 3 months since the last patch, with no communication on what they are even working on in the last month.  I'm not trying to be all "the sky is falling" here, but it isn't looking very good right now.  I sincerely hope they prove me wrong.  And until the next patch drops, I'm not even firing up KSP2; I completed the story missions, and there isn't anything left to give me direction in the game.  Not yet, anyhow.

  6. Continuing on today with my space station, the Nebuchadnezzar.  For those of you who haven't seen it, or who don't want to go looking back through this thread, the inspiration for the station:

    Space Stations Creator - 3D model by Ebal Studios (@EbalStudios) [5d33a66] (sketchfab.com)

    Today's challenge is to put the ring section on the station.  KSP1 wasn't initially designed to handle circular station parts...but we all know that it can be done.  We've seen it before.  So I thought I'd give it a shot.  For anyone who says you cannot build one, I give you the night launch shot:

    1QY5ZNe.png

    Yeah, that doesn't really show a ring, does it?  It's there; you'll see it in the next shot.  You will notice a few things here:

    1. A boatload of struts.  I could have gone the auto-strut route with this, but I didn't want to do that.
    2. There are fuel tanks both above AND below the ring section.  This was done to keep CoM in a stable place, lest the thing tip over mid-flight.
    3. Red lights everywhere.  I have decided that I'm going to put lights on every section of the station, with different colors for different meanings.  Blinking blue (from the command module already in space) is for communications, while solid red is for crew compartments.  This thing has a mobile lab AND multiple crew cabins, so I threw a bunch of red on there.

    Anyhow, let's get to where this thing is docked, shall we?  If anyone ever tells you that you have to send up a circular ring section in pieces and assemble them in orbit, tell them they are lying.  It can be sent up as one entire build...assuming you fly carefully.

    0Ws8T02.png

    UEnlPXn.png

    So now we have the initial command module, some solar panels, some antenna, a mobile lab, and a lot of crew compartments.  There are 5 open docking ports - one on each spoke facing outward and away from the center, and one underneath the ring section facing downward and on the central stack.  We still don't have any crew on this thing; I'm waiting for the inevitable contract to transfer crew between vessels to come up before I send anyone up there.  I mean, I'll be adding pieces to this thing the whole time, so why not get paid to abandon a Kerbal up there?

    And that's it for today.  Tomorrow I'll continue building downwards...but I'm not sure what to make of the components in the inspirational model.  There's no instructions, so I'll be winging it with what I put up there!

  7. 13 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

    This announcement thread started on 22nd. That date in 9 days will put the next one over a month after anything KERB related.

    So by what you're saying, it was a biweekly cycle (untrue because of patches that reset the timer) turned into a monthly cycle (that will probably also be untrue because of patches that will reset the timer) with a gap that takes longer than a month.

    I'm the one who doesn't care much about these particular updates since they bring nothing new, but goddamn it's been almost 4 months since the last patch.

    And I couldn't be more clear as to what was stated in the Discord.  KERB is going monthly, but we don't know when the next monthly cycle will start because Mike is working on the internal calendar.  Patches are anybody's guess as nobody has stated anything about when they are coming.

  8. 2 hours ago, The Aziz said:

    Not a month since this very report update :')

    between now and the 22nd or something a patch may appear and the counter will be reset again, to a month after a patch. Just like it always was.

    Mike confirmed on Discord earlier this week that he is working on their internal calendar, and it won't be until after he gets that done that we'll get an update.  Whether that's a patch or a KERB or what we don't know.  And I made multiple posts about it:

    So I'm not sure where you are getting it that sometime in the next 10 or so days we may get something.  The last KERB dropped on 3/11, one month from then was 4/11, I speculated we would get one 4/12, but both Mike and Darrin confirmed that was inaccurate and they don't know when the next monthly cycle for KERBs will start.

  9. 1 hour ago, steveman0 said:

    The entire studio is only 40 employees by their own website of which only a fraction are going to be developers. Obviously, if you falsely assume their development team is much larger than reality than it can seem like they accomplish much less thn they should. You need to keep reality in check for any expectations you are going to hold.

    And if you think the entire team I'm part of is only developers and automation jockeys, then you seriously have no idea how business works.  In my role, I would never - NEVER - push out new content knowing that we have bugs in the existing code.  Our first priority is to always fix the bugs we know about, push that out to make sure it is fixed, and only then will we start working on enhancements and new content.  You shouldn't ever work on new content either in lieu of or in conjunction with fixing bugs because you almost always end up creating new buggy situations; you will end up breaking code that currently works.

    The plain, simple truth is that we have bugs that have existed since launch.  And instead of working to fix those as a priority, the team has decided to work on new content that they aren't pushing out.  In addition to that, they've gone nearly radio-silent, so we have zero idea what they are or are not working on.  Oh, sure, you can point to the last KERB and say "Hey, they say they are researching this".  But when they have been researching the same bugs for months at a time, you have to wonder how much work they are really putting towards fixing them.  Or if they are capable of fixing them at all.  We may not see this whole issue the same way, steve-o, but even you have to agree that something smells a bit fishy with that.

  10. If you want it, here it is, come and get it
    Mmmm make your mind up fast
    If you want it, anytime, I can give it
    But you better hurry cuz you just got banned.

    You better hurry cuz you just got banned!

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