rditto48801

I strayed across a re-redux version for KSP 0.23.5 when checking for mod updates recently. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/56140-0-23-5-Orbital-Construction-Re-Redux-v1-1-1

It seems the last thread for this fell off the map. Here the game's basic description for those who don't know what Lacuna Passage is about. Developer page: http://randomseedgames.com/ The have a Kickstarter campaign going, which is on its last day, for those interested in helping to support them. Edit 1: Indie DB page: http://www.indiedb.com/games/lacuna-passage Secondary edit: Question to the moderators: Is it alright to post links to Kickstarter campaigns, or does that count as "Links to commercial initiatives"?

I am a fan of previous Civ games, but I am a bit on the fence when it comes to Civ 5. I got it during a sale on Steam, but never really had a chance to play it beyond trying out the demo before hand. Speaking of the demo, Steam is the only place I can think of that has the Civ 5 demo.

Since there are a few other Mars type games being mentioned, I figured I would mention one I know of. Mars Colony: Challenger The game has first and third person modes, and revolves around helping to set up outposts on mars. Early steps of getting the life support system up and running and creating a breathable atmosphere and making sure there is a supply of oxygen and water kept on hand. Other steps include managing power (and occasionally cleaning solar panels), setting up weather stations to help provide early warning of storms, taking initial soil samples as a first step for finding possible mineral resources, and maintaining communications in hilly terrain with portable relays. You only have access to a basic map when out of communications contact with the base (and I think early on before the full comm system is setup). Assorted types of food will able to be grown (hopefully before initial food stocks run out), starting with plants, and being expanded later with fish, mushrooms and worms, and even food from algae. Several types of algae allow for other things to be made, besides as a form of nutrients. Towards the end, there will be mineral resources to be found via ground penetrating radar shots, identified via sample drills, and mined via augers and processed into usable minerals for use in useful repair parts and even chemical based fertilizers. Rovers are available to help get around away from the base, but they need to be kept fueled (via Oxygen and Methane, which needs to be produced), and they need to be kept maintained should someone be a little careless in their 'off road driving'. When out and about, things like radiation need to be kept track of, along with the power and oxygen levels of the EVA gear (including early on, before the base has a breathable atmosphere). It is able to be played single player, but supports online coop with up to 4 players. There is also a scoring system, which seems to take assorted factors into account, such as amount of time it takes to complete different phases, and how efficient assorted resources are used. There are also three different maps, which have the same basic base, but increasingly hilly terrain that makes it a bit more tricky to get around and maintain communications contact. The game has a few minor rough spots, but the maker HyperCat is doing a good job at patching it, and it is a fairly enjoyable game overall. It seems there are also plans to release a major update or even a new version sometime in the (hopefully near) future. Although, the one bit of information most will want to know, is the price, which is $30. Some might consider it a little steep for an indie game, but I feel it is fairly worth it. There is a playable demo available, plus a few videos show on the Steam Greenlight page for it. http://www.hyperkat.com/ (the demo is located on their main page) http://www.hyperkat.com/marschallenger.html http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=132730762&searchtext=mars+colony+challenger Of note, most of the forums for HyperCat Games are private, and so don't even show up on their forum index unless one is logged in.

I just popped over to see if this was mentioned here or not. It definitely looks interesting to me. I have been playing another Mars based game (Mars Colony Challenger), so seeing yet another game that will be set on Mars definitely caught my attention. Especially due to the realism they are aiming for, and the exploration and survival aspects it is to have. Two other sites I know of relating to it. The site for the group making it, and an Indie DB page http://randomseedgames.com/ http://www.indiedb.com/games/lacuna-passage

I got back to KSP today, and was looking over the latest version of HexCans. I am liking the capacity of the assorted 'fuel' tanks now, much more balanced as far as capacity. The normal sized Barite container is 2.5/500 capacity. Looking at the normal probe core, I noticed it is a bit heavy at 0.4. For comparison, the 2.5m Remote Guidance Unit is 0.5, the 1.25m RGU is 0.1. While I think the RCS cans could use a bit more, I can't argue that they are about right as far as the stack RCS tanks. I guess in a way the stock radial RCS tank is itself with a bit to much RCS. The Small oxidizer can is still showing up in my VAB as having a dry mass of 2. The markings on the SAS/ASAS cans (mainly the ASAS and small size SAS) are a little hard to see. Would it be possible to make the letters a little larger and/or darker so they stand out a little better on the small one? On a related idea, how about a 'gyroscope' type icon for the SAS? One sort of important thing about RTGs I kind of forgot about previously. The surface area of the radiator panels. I wonder how or if that would affect the whole 'hot side, cold side' aspects of the RTG, when the cans just have just their own surface area for heat dissipation. (if one wants to get technical, anyways...). Might not be as much of a factor for an ASRG, since a fair bit more energy can be generated for the same amount of heat. One thing I am not sure how I missed before, but the normal and large RTGs seem a little over powered, but not by much. With the small (and stock) RTG just producing 0.75 per second, wouldn't it be a bit better balanced to go with 6/sec and 48/sec for the normal and large versions of the RTG cans? I was toying around with the little fuel lines on a smaller craft with small radial engines, and couldn't help but think they are kind of... well, 'cute'...

I recognize it. Looks like the shortened 'description' version got copied, not the full length link itself. It's for my thread on the support forum. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/33694-Updated-to-0-20-2-from-0-20-0-noticed-mods-w-png-has-KSP-RAM-usage-get-excessive (darn annoying issue to say the least) Post on the top of page 2, by anarkhon, one bit suggesting to resize pngs down to a max of 512x512, and that 1024x1024 or bigger takes up to much memory. Lack stated in the LLL thread to resize the pngs down to 256x256, at least for the LLL mod.

Relevant part put into bold. My instance of KSP 0.20.2 (on a 32 bit OS, 512 MB video RAM) would disagree. At full res textures, B9 Aerospace uses up a good 300 MB for me, while KW Rocketry only tacks on about 320 MB to m RAM usage. When I crank down Texture Res to 1/8... for reasons I can only attribute to a bug, B9 Aerospace is 'still' using up roughly 300 MB of RAM, while KW Rocketry gets knocked down to roughly 40 MB of RAM usage. (I restarted KSP 'a lot' with my testing, of just KPS Stock as a control, then KSP + single mods, at full rendering/texture res and minimal rendering/texture res settings) It really ruins my enjoyment of KSP when I have to leave out wonderful mods like B9 Aerospace because my instance of KSP at present wants to be horribly inefficient with mods that have png files. More so considering I never had this problem in KSP 0.19.1 with B9 Aerospace 2.5. (where 1/8 textures would knock down RAM usage to a little under 40 MB and better fit with other larger mods I have for KSP 0.19.1) The same basic issue I am having has also popped up for others on Lack's mod thread.

Well, at least my thread in the support forum will have brought about something good for someone. Although for me it is starting to look to be more like a bug in KSP itself. The Texture res setting not properly affecting png files by the looks of it. It drives me nuts because I have to leave out a good half dozen mods in KSP 0.20.2 that worked fine in KSP 0.19.1, and prevents me from getting a chance to properly try out this mod. I am hit extra hard by two other factors, a 32 bit OS (so 2GB wall, despite 2.4-2.6 GB free when playing KSP), and only 512 MB video RAM, so lots of 'texture' related 'out of memory' type crashes when I first butted heads with the issue in KSP 0.20.2.

For durability, I was suggesting maybe they could be a little more durable, on account of being cylinders with tough looking end caps. Yet another stray idea... an empty 'structural' can... just for the sake of mounting stuff on, and for style... Or a small can that has elements of all four of the stock sensors in it... (temp, gravity, acceleration and air pressure, iirc) Or a solar can (appears to be covered in solar panels...) Although maybe that just might be a bit silly as it is practical (and probably tricky to implement since that would be multiple sides to handle as solar panel surfaces...) A probe/craft support/utility/service can, something to have a mixture of a little fuel/oxy, a little mono-propellent, and a little electric charge. The small can might be a bit iffy (so little capacity as it is), but medium and large would have enough to be of some use on some craft that need fuels and power, without being to complex as far as number of parts. More Barite can variations? Such as fully filled (for those that just need a lot of extra weight) and fully empty versions (for use with a possibly more complex ballast system)... Or would those just be a little redundant? Just for crazy flexibility, have the cans have connection nodes on all sides, not just one side... but, yeah, maybe that is a crazy idea (and be a visual node nightmare for small cans)... not sure what I would do with that, other than make it easier to evenly 'surface attach' multiple cans to each other... or at least just a second side node opposite of the first side node. Even if just for the above structural can idea.

@ bac9 While I love this mod, I don't use it now. I hate to say it, but ever since KSP 0.20.x, I have to use KW Rocketry because it uses up 'less' RAM than this mod. Yes, I just said KW Rocketry is less RAM intensive. My KSP (0.20.2, Windows version, probably faulty for some reason) seems to think any mod with lots of png textures needs to have RAM usage blown so ridiculously out of proportion that I cannot even use B9 Aerospace in KSP 0.20.x without removing lots of other mods. With KSP set for default rendering/textures, B9 Aerospace will use up about as much RAM as KW Rocketry. Minimum rendering and 1/8 res textures, B9 Aerospace uses up a good bit more RAM than KW rocketry. Other 'big' mods with mostly png textures, like Lack's mod, Nukemod, or CORE Anvil, also end up causing KSP to use up many times more RAM than the mods take up HDD space in general, with CORE Anvil being the 'least' at 'only' taking up 4-5x more RAM than the mod is size wise (even at minimal rendering/textures). This unusual issue makes even the monstrously huge KW Rocketry suddenly be more memory friendly for me to use with other mods. This was figured out using many tests of KSP + a single mod, at default and minimal graphics. I made a support topic, but after posting some 'test results', KasperVld said this stuff is 'normal' of KSP... (which makes my brain want to break...) http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/33694-Updated-to-0-20-2-from-0-20-0-noticed-mods-w-png-has-KSP-RAM-usage-get-excessive I figured since B9 Aerospace is one of the 'main offender' mods I have the problem with (and has the apparently second worst memory bloating issue), I might as well post the stuff here, so see if you have any ideas. I already reinstalled KSP 0.20.2 once, and it was a clean install in the first place.

To be honest, I don't really use mod items with 'intake air' stored... partly because I seem to have an to many occasions where I make Jeb scared when I try to fly a high altitude aircraft... (I tend to include decouplers and parachutes on the cockpits due to that...) partly because of flat spins because one engine died in a duel engine design. Intake Air tanks would at least be a short 'notice' that if they start draining, my engines are about to choke and my plane about to imitate a winged frisbee again... I think I am now contradicting myself... it's a nifty idea at least... like slapping a control seat on an SRB... nifty, if anything but practical... although I don't think I ever built a space plane 'after' finding one mod including a small 'intake air' tank... enough of intake air in a can, got the Space Balls theme song stuck in my head now... (bah, now I got a 'giant can of Peri-Air' image stuck in my head... or whatever the name of the canned air was in that movie) I wonder if a liquid nitrogen and liquid oxygen mix (80/20) would be able to be 'heated' back into a gas and mixed together fast enough and in large enough quantities to be used as an effective 'air mixture' for air breathing engines in a low or zero atmosphere environment... For Kethane... Why not slap a big Ke on a (kethane) green background for the symbol? If something better came along later, it could always be changed. I had no idea the liquid barite was meant as weight. I think the descriptions mentioned something about storing oxidizer, which had me scratching my head. Some of the stock parts seem to not be consistent in terms of how much something holds. Like the 1.25m RCS tank vs. the small radial RCS tanks. I guess I just think some make more sense than others, and compare other things to those... For 'fuel' storage tank dry weights, I literally mean just 1/4 to 1/5th of what they are now. So something like 0.15 large, 0.07 medium, 0.02 small. I think the stock fuel tank (half height 1.25m) of capacity comparable to the large fuel can, had a dry weight of 0.1 something. I would go less than 25% of what they are now, but the 'black end caps' do give an impression of being able to get away with a little 'extra mass'. Speaking of the mass/shape, another thing that strayed into mind. Being 'canisters', maybe one reason for having a little extra 'dry weight' would be due to being a bit more durable (so increase impact tolerance several fold?) I bring this up because of a test where I 'radially spammed 24 small fuel tanks radially with probe engines', had the thing hover sideways after it cleared the 'launch tower (structural strut with decoupler for it to 'stand' on), crash and skid to a stop, destroy all the little engines, and leave the small radial fuel tanks intact... Also, ASRGs.... Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator. A little more weight, and not 'solid state' like an RTG, but able to generate several times more power than an RTG. NASA has plans to use possibly such a thing in future space missions. Or a 'combo' unit, like an RTG, but much less output, but include a small amount of electric charge capacity so it doubles as storage. Basically a 'backup power' type thing... A side note, isn't it now possible to put multiple entries into a single config file, so you can have several types of parts using the same models, with the options of just rescaling each one, or sharing the same models but using different textures, all laid out in a single config file? (edit: Or to allow something like fuel tanks to have 'empty' versions that can share the same model/texture) Okay, that's a lot of text... I better stop typing now...

I decided to take a quick look at this mod, fiddle around with the parts a little bit. A number of things came to mind that seem a bit off to me. The main thing being their dry weights seem a bit high. To me, all that extra weight greatly reduces their effective usefulness, especially on smaller craft. Things I think that could use some tweaking. Reduce dry weights of the assorted fuel cans to 20-25% of what they are now, to be closer to stock fuel tank dry weights. (personal opinion) Reduce battery cans by a great deal, as they are presently very heavy compared to stock batteries. Larger battery pack (400 energy) is 0.02, Battery Bank (500 energy) is 0.05, compared to even the 'small' battery can being 0.1 with just 29 energy. Rough guess, maybe go with 0.003 for small, 0.012 medium and 0.1 for the large (personal opinion) Increase Mono-propellent can capacity by double, to put it a bit closer to stock in terms of capacity (via visual guesstimate). Increase Xenon can capacity by 40-50%, again closer to stock in terms of capacity. (more visual guesstimate) For SAS/ASAS can weight, reduce small SAS (and ASAS) to 0.08, medium SAS to 0.2, large SAS to 0.6. (personal opinion) RTG, seems a tad heavy since it is on par with the stock RTG, maybe reduce it closer to 0.1? Medium and Large RTG cans seem fine compared to their outputs. Issues. Small Xenon can is labeled "HexCan-Xenon" in game, same as the medium size one. One odd thing I can't figure out, the small oxy can has a dry mass of 2 in the VAB for me. The odd thing being I checked the config, and it says 0.1 there. I have no idea what is going on there. Suggestions. Half length cans, for extra compact/short designs and very small probes. Kethane Cans. Need I say more? Compressed Air Cans that store 'Intake Air', because... well... why not? Weight Cans, small ones with several variations would be handy for things like rovers to help shift the Center of Gravity downward. Medium and Large types could be used both for craft balancing/CoG shifting, and to help test lifting capacities of rockets. Also, what's on the nose of the 'rover' shown in the OP?

I prefer the toggle option myself for solar panel action groups. Fixed solar panels are a must in my opinion for backup power on an unmanned craft. Nothing says 'oops' more than a period of darkness or long interplanetary trip causing an unmanned craft to go 'dead' because of forgetting to deploy the main solar panels before hand... A few fixed solar panels or an RTG for backup power helps prevent such incidents from happening. It should also be noted that the farther from the sun, the less power solar panels will generate.

While this mod looks interesting overall, the parts look like they could use a little more balancing after looking over them a little bit. In my opinion, smaller parts should hold/generate a fair bit less, while larger ones should hold/generate a fair bit more. This being based on basic increases/decreases in surface area and volume being more than flat double or half. It seems odd (to me anyways) for the battery bank jr to hold 250 electric charge despite its extremely small size in game. The RTG jr sticks out a bit more for me, it has 30 electric charge per minute, while the stock one has 45 per minute, making it a bit more efficient in terms of weight, but is not much of an issue aside from feeling slightly unbalanced. The RTG sr is almost 4x heavier while having a little less than 2x the energy output of the stock RTG, which also seems a bit odd in terms of power, but I think the weight is actually alright. One serious complaint I have. The medium and large ion engines. They seem very impractical, have a bit to much thrust for their size, and use up to little resources compared to their thrust, and seem almost a little impractical. Especially the large one, which also has issues as its extreme weight gives it a horrible Delta V that makes liquid fuel a far better option. A craft with battery bank sr, xenon tank sr and large ion engine (and 2 dozen large solar panel jrs and 16 RTG jrs for not enough power) had less than half the delta v of the same basic craft using just an LV-909 engine and FL-T200 fuel tank for propulsion (and only needing 4 stock fixed solar panels and stock battery bank for power). I do want to note that the size scales are off on the ion engines, the large ion engine is 1m, the medium ion engine is 2m. Overall, this mod is still a bit rough around the edges, with its up sides and its down sides. On a side note, is it alright to change the in game 'manufacturer' info since these are basically just config edits? Other mods I use that that just edit config files of stock parts happen to retain the original Manufacturer entry, which is why I am curious about that little detail.