theSpeare

I'm getting so ridiculously excited about this. Good job Fractal! I'm holding off on playing until this badboy is updated - Interstellar has become somewhat essential for me now.

Yeah, okay I can buy that - super expensive upgrade. When can we see your integration into the career tech tree?

I don't like that idea, Fractal. Your current method of upgrading is really great enough - if you followed a one-time-upgrades-all you'll hit that dead end where you no longer need science, something that stock career suffers in. In 0.21 we were encouraged to keep doing science to make sure we could launch a very advanced ship, it was one of the best instances of balancing. Made science fun to do, and fun to hoard. If you're still doing science lab stuff you should lower all the rates so people are forced to have more and have it in the background. Otherwise the incentive to go pick up science elsewhere is lost.

Fractal, did you take a look at that new mod coming out where you can make your own tech tree? Should speak to the author about it to see if you can get in on it. It'd be pretty useful for Interstellar's parts.

So why is this mod not working at all for me? Is it because of module manager or something. Everytime I go to weld the game freezes up for a bit like it's reloading but then the welded parts aren't appearing at all anywhere in game, nor can I find them in the UbioWeldingLtd folder; the parts folder is just empty. Help please.

Hope you feel better soon zzz! This model is freaking beautiful, keep up the good work

The way they did it for 0.22 was perfect. As many people have already stated it's problematic for software developing to state a release date. What they should really carry on doing is finish the version release, then announce that they are releasing the next day. It's pretty simple, and pretty effective.

I was worried about this, I initially hoped it'd be something like Mission Controller I suppose - where every time you gain science, you gain money as well; then they reduce and increase separately. I suppose this system in itself is quite interesting though, that way Science and Money have to be managed perfectly - Science can't be farmed infinitely and the tree-end is hard to reach. May I suggest that instead of having a "currency" you might as well just keep it as "science"? e.g. when you see the "cost" for your ship, it's already converted to science, and there's no display of money whatsoever. (Spend 50 science to launch this ship!)

So everything is science-based currency? Does this mean, say if the ratio for science to money is 1000 and your science was 50 (so $50,000) - if you spent that $50,000 would your science go down? Likewise, if you spent that science researching something, would it drop your cash as well?

Better try to make it so other people can write the achievements themselves, similar to how MissionController was brought up. This way you'll have a variety of achievement packs made by the community

Fractal has already said he doesn't really want to implement my little thing as he prefers to wait for 0.22 so he can use the built-in science if possible. For the moment Mystery Data is really more like a jackpot than something you should be actively looking for. Your suggestion is great though but I don't have a way to do that with the way Kethane API is like. At the moment, hunting for Samples is easy enough, and yields quite a bit.

So I finally finished my Samples and Mystery Kethane add-on to Interstellar - just couldn't wait for 0.22! Right now I'm still tweaking it though. The resource Samples can be found on every planetary body and can be scanned for, exactly like Kethane. The deposits usually contain 5 units or less. There's a converter (RTG) that can carry and convert Samples into Science - 1000 science per 1. Which is a lot. I haven't tested it out yet but it should be able to transmit too. On the other hand, if you can bring the sample back to a science lab you can covert it there for 5000 science per 1 sample. Samples are colored blue in the scan map, and are always only one-tile size. On the other hand, purple represents "mystery" - this yields 50,000 science per mystery unit! There's a catch to this, however. The deposits are also always one-tile size. They should barely show up at all in most planets, and furthermore you can't even detect for them. You simply have to land, drill, and see if you got lucky. I've made it though so that the drill for Samples can drill for Mystery at all, so you can pretty much consider it a lottery hit. Can't wait to finally stop doing my little development and start playing Interstellar again. Thanks Fractal

Meanwhile, can you please upload the old truss pieces you had for this mod while the plugin is still somewhat unstable? Thank you!

Can someone please tell me how to change the color for a KethaneResource node? The documentation doesn't really explain what sort of values I should use. I'd like to change it to blue or something.

Thank you! I've always wished there was more interaction or challenge for science. The method at the moment is really great, which is why I'd never suggest to remove it or change it in anyway. Which is why I prefer the alternative of just a high payout of finding and mining science. I think I saw that post some time ago and thought it was great. The only thing it was missing was motive. Science and the ability to upgrade parts? Perfect foundation. As soon as I discovered this mod, I've been instantly stuck with this idea in the back of my head for ages. I've already kind of figured out how to modify the deposits to be one tile. Next is color and balancing for every body. Something like Moho should have a lot of deposits with high science for example. I like the idea of that bacteria checking so that it's really just more of a "oh, since I'm here, might as well check!" but I'd prefer a detecting style similar to stock Kethane already, where you can find out in advance. The great thing about having one tile deposits (and low sample size) is that the landing will be very challenging (without mechjeb at least), presenting risk and challenge. Transporting it back and forth also plays a part in this. Now all we need is Fractal to add more upgrades so Science is even more in demand. I really hope he never does a 'universal' upgrade where you just need to upgrade a part once. The way it is now allows much replayability without too much grinding, which is perfect. I'd really love the idea of adding more upgrade levels to the current parts like Thermal Rocket, but maybe making the next upgrade cost a hell of a lot for half or quarter the advantage the first upgrade offered. I can't wait for Fractal's input - very exciting stuff for me. When I finish I suppose I can post a tutorial about how to modify your files to allow you to do this (I'm inexperienced with all this licensing stuff, so I'm assuming that showing people how to modify the files rather than distributing is okay.).

So here's what I've just done with Kethane and Interstellar. I mentioned in a post ages ago about how a 'mining' or 'extractor' feature should be added to this mod. First of all, I'm using this completely for my own personal use, but if you're interested Fractal I could PM you all the tidbits and whatnot. Anyways, from what I found, science via laboratories was an amazing idea. I felt that the stock sandbox lost a lot on not being to do more science. 0.22 appears to be addressing this, and I absolutely cannot wait for that - which is the main reason why I did this. So, turns out, Kethane has some really neat modular API with its resource managing. By stock-Kethane, grids around every planet would randomly generate with the Kethane resource. The API allows you to add your own resource, complete with the ability to detect it, mine it and convert it. It's all very configurable, including changing min/max resource values and the amount of deposits per body specifically. One thing I can't figure out is to make the deposit areas into just ONE tile. If anyone could help with that, it'd be great. (Also setting the color, too.) Anyways, here's where the magic happens for me. I added a KethaneResource called Samples, which is really just synonymous for "Interesting Dug-Up Scientific Crap". The mod magically generates its own deposits, complete with a separate hex maps that you can cycle through in the map. Now once you've detected a "Samples" deposit, you can land a rover and deploy your drill on that site. At the moment the deposits have a min/max of 1-5. Each unit of samples converts to 2000 science for interstellar. You can do this with some sort of part (currently the RTG model) that holds science and converts science, but does not transmit. The reason for such a large ratio stems from my idea against "grinding". If the player wants a faster, riskier method of gaining more science - it'd be fair to make it a high-payout, but rare, occurrence. I'm very excited to play with this now. I have more motive to plan missions to gain science faster and with more interaction from myself as a player. What I would really like is integration to Fractal's dreams. It'd be best if the rover itself could have a part that converts the samples to science (which is the only way now), but with some sort of a large loss. Furthermore it's also given the ability to transmit, but yet again at a high loss. One other method is to drive it to a science lab for analysis (or fly it up to orbit) for a lesser loss. This'd be even better considering there's the whole Kerbal Stupidity added in (love that btw, Fractal). The problem with having a lab grounded is the deposit would pretty much run out immediately. No one really likes driving a rover 5000km to another site and back, etc. I might experiment with the idea of creating one tile deposits of Samples, and then adding a lot of them. Dunno. What do you think Fractal? Like or otherwise, it's all great - in the end I just wanted to show my appreciation for your mod. You (and Maijir) practically inspired a mod-within-a-mod-using-another-mod-within-a-game. Or something.

OHHHHHHH - THAT'S why! Thank you so much! Now I can stop losing my 5000 science magically. Cheers

Does science decay overtime if not received almost immediately after transmission? Is that why my science disappears at some point, and the persistence file has no more "data packet" stuff in it but just that one top line?

Fractal, now that the tech tree has been released, are you thinking of integrating all your parts into career mode? It'd be pretty awesome to maybe have it in its own branch, or as an end-game unlock to the very far right.

Fractal Fractal! I just had a great idea! Add in Science like a resource in Kethane. Such that regions in bodies will have a large science generation but will eventually run out (e.g. nothing more to learn). Essentially it'd be like you're "mining" for science. Some areas will probably even have faster generation.

Do please add in WasteHeat consequences soon. The incentive for actually having to manage it is pretty exciting. Maybe instead of destruction of parts and such, just lower the efficiency of everything the more WasteHeat you have. Or perhaps model it on how long you've had a given level of WasteHeat. e.g. solar panels produce only 10% power, warp drive shuts off with ANY WasteHeat, thermal rockets lose a ton of ISP or thrust or just fail to activate completely.

Yeah, I reckon when wasteheat is accumulated to a bad level efficiency of your parts should decrease dramatically - to the point where they simply don't function at all. Then maybe, for the hell of it, once it gets REALLY extreme, just have everything explode. I do believe though that you should add a configurable option somewhere to just flat-out disable this game feature. I fear it would turn into something such as the life-support system mods that are already around. It becomes more of a chore than an actual gameplay enhancer (more of an annoyance than a challenge).

So Fractal, what do you already have in mind for heatWaste issues for the future?

zzz so far is the most talented modeler I've seen working on these more sci-fi advanced stuff. Keep at it zzz! Fractal is also amazing for repeated, determined updates. Can't wait for the next update. Will you be doing any more for science later Fractal?

It's sad I got that.