seanth

NOTE: after I wrote this I realized I don't know whether you are using the spaceport legacy version or BioMass+ version. The following applies to BioMass+: I can assure you that making fuel from biomass does not violate the conservation of mass, and is completely within the realm of reality. I can share a series of equations showing how it's possible to get liquid fuel, methane(kethane), and monopropellant. As for 1 greenhouse supporting 1 Kerbal in both oxygen and food...not _that_ breaks reality. The large greenhouse parts are roughly the size of a car's parking spot in projected area. While it is conceivable that plants covering that area could produce enough oxygen to keep 1 to 3 kerbals alive, imagine having a garden the size of a VW Beetle that is your only source of food. If you've never had a backyard garden, or have never lived near a garden, you will have to take my word for it that it's just not possible to support that much food every day in anything that size. Having said that, check out the BioMass+ "Easy" version on github. On "easy", one greenhouse will produce enough oxygen to support 3 kerbals indefinitely.

No problem. There are two slightly out of date "how to" videos I made that I posted on the development thread, and I probably should have put them here: Part 1 shows you all the basic parts you need and how to use them to get your biomass growing. Note that the video was made before IR lights caused germination: Part 2 clarifies something I made a mistake about in the first video: Those videos should hopefully clarify that you don't need to transfer water into the greenhouse it to be used. They should also illustrate how to decompress gasses.

I just found out I have a concussion, so forgive me. Just to be clear on the whole biomass+ thing, here are some critical points (simplified from reality): 1.) Seeds germinate into Plants 2.) Plants need oxygen. 3.) Plants grow using light, water and CO2 4.) Plants produce seeds. There has been a common misconception that one needs to fill a greenhouse with seeds to then fill a greenhouse with biomass. You don't need fill a greenhouse with seeds to get biomass. You put a few seeds in a greenhouse, germinate them, and then let them, grow. As long as you have light, water and CO2, biomass will make more biomass until the greenhouse is full. I will say that again: biomass makes more biomass as long as there is light, water and CO2. Just like real plants. I will assume this confusion comes from people not having gardens and/or not groking in fullness how plants grow. Once the greenhouse is full, the biomass isn't converted into seeds, it makes seeds. To be specific, the large greenhouse produces 0.0000138889kg of seeds per second on the "Normal" level of difficulty. It sounds odd, but you need to have the CO2 compressor to decompress it. The compressors act as compressors and release valves. As for they why there is both compress CO2 and CO2 at atmospheric pressure, it's partly due to compatibility with TAC Life Support. Since Tac LS has Kerbals producing CO2 at STP, and plants consume (and produce CO2) at STP, there is a slight problem if one wants to grow plants without something like TAC LS producing CO2. The problem is at 1kg of uncompressed CO2 would occupy approximately 509m3...which is a giant tank. No one transports gasses in an uncompressed form. Thus the need for the compressor/release valve part. Make sense? Yes. It should be consuming either/both. The rate of consumption is slow (plants grow slowly), so maybe it's working but you have so much water available that you can't see the drops? Note: if you don't provide constant light to plants, they will stop photosynthesizing (turning CO2 and water into biomass and O2) and will do the opposite (turn biomass and O2 into CO2 and water).

No problem. Take a look at https://www.dropbox.com/s/ca0aushu5un6cmn/Public%20BioMass%20Calculation%20Helper%20v3.xls Feel free to ask questions if you have them.

+1 because it's cool.

The Github version allows for fuel production as well.

This thread is geared more toward the version on github (biomass+). The biomass+ version does not have a bacteria greenhouse, though it does have what are parts for "composting." Right now biomass+ requires the kethane dll for things to work. We are actively working toward eliminating this requirement. You don't need TAC to generate fuel, but things will not work at too high a time warp.

Oh, don't misunderstand: I love that you did lots of tests. I'm just trying to explain how it was set up (and why it was that way). I'll get to your other test results later. I need to process what you did a bit more. I think I understand the source of one of the bugs, but want to make sure before I run off at the mouth.

Nope. You are correct: the separator is getting 0.21 units of oxygen per second. But if the density of oxygen gas is 0.00000563 tonnes/L and liquid oxygen is 0.005 tonnes/L, that means you need ~777 units of oxygen gas to get 1 unit of liquid oxygen. I seem to recall that the compressor works faster than the separator can supply the oxygen. I honestly have not reexamined the separator in a while--I made it as a part of a whim, so my memory could be wrong. I recommend changing the separator my moving the decimal points so the inputs and outputs are increased by a factor of 10. So, the separator would take in 10 units of atmosphere and produce 2.095 units of oxygen gas.

I've been away on work-related travel, and will look at/comment on all this later, but wanted to talk about the separator since it's a easy one BioMass makes a few assumptions on the nature of resources. In this case, there are two assumptions in play: 1.) "Oxidzer" is liquid oxygen 2.) The densities of fuels in the game are real-world density*4.5 (I can justify this one if needed) and an added assumption for the separator: 3.) Kerbin has 20.95% oxygen in its atmosphere. The results of this are that the density of oxygen gas is 0.00000563 tonnes/L and liquid oxygen is 0.005 tonnes/L If you are going to compress oxygen gas to liquid oxygen the compression is assumed to be ~777x (0.005/0.00000563). If you accept the logic here, we need to look at the separator instead. I need to double check my maths, but I think the real bottleneck is that for every 1 unit of kerbin atmosphere you get ~0.21 units of oxygen per second. I can think of a few ways around this: for example, if you assume the separator can process 10x more atmosphere/sec, you get more O2 out and can compress it. I'll check the maths and address the other points (esp. the CO2 bug) when I decompress from my trip and can think again.

I have no clue. I'll see Roboto can provide any clarity.

Really, whatever would be convenient for you. A video would allow you to show and narrate the problems you are encountering.... I've been pretty buried with work-related things as well, but I will try and get feedback to you as soon as I can after I see what's going on.

If you let us know whether you are using the version on github (science+) or the legacy version on spaceport, I'm sure we can help you out.

If you can, please also include screen shots of your ship resource window along with a shot of your vessel? That will help troubleshoot things.

Hmmm. So one needs to build a ring and a "habitat car" with mechjeb installed. Set the driving speed and away it goes.

I post this here only because I know people have been suggesting adding mental health. I found this while looking for something to simulate bone loss in low gravity: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/67739-0-23-WIP-PLUGIN-KeepFit-Kerbal-fitness-degradation-mod-v1-0-28

Oh, this is exciting. Does the mod take into account gforces in something like what was done here: I should clarify: I've been looking for something that decreases a kerbal's health the longer they stay in weightlessness (or significantly less than 1g). I was hoping this would allow me to "weaken" kerbals in low gravity, but also toughen them up again by throwing them into artificial gravity rings

That makes things sound way more optimistic than I think things are. I have been talking to different mod makers, yes. But honestly, the chances of standardization are really low. Only Squad would bring order to chaos, and then there would be only two camps (those using Squad's values and those insisting on real-world values) instead of the plethora ways things are done now. But, I think it's important for the mod makers to keep talking to one another. But then again I work where collaboration is the desired state.

A bug-ish situation: If one changes the consumption/production rates to use the biologic rates as given in your spreadsheet, and adjusts the densities accordingly, everything works fine, but the command pods don't get updated on the amounts of resources they have. They are set up assuming the 1 unit/kerbal/day. It's not really a bug in that everything works perfectly. Not sure the correct term.

There was something about a bug being found with EVA over at the TAC thread. Not sure if this is related or not I just did the math on this, and those values seem correct given the values TAC puts on the command pods. Breakdown for oxygen: TAC-LS currently uses a 1 unit per 1 kerbal per 1 day (86400sec day) system, and sets the density of materials accordingly. Because BioMass is dealing with respiration (like what the Kerbals do) AND photosynthesis AND some other chemical reactions, we can't easily lock things into this same method. Luckily TAC-LS lets you configure consumption rates as you see fit. You just need to know how to change the resource densities. What I didn't know until just now is that the 1 unit/kerbal/day extends to the command pods...which is editable, but I'm not sure it's worth it yet. Let's take a look at what is going on: The Mk1 pod has all the resources just set to 1. If you visit http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/CFG_File_Documentation#Resources it will explain a bit how to take the amount defined in the RESOURCE node, the density, and get the mass. In this case, the resource oxygen amount is 1. The density biomass uses is 0.00000643tonnes/L (which is not arbitrary. I can explain if people want). Therefor 1*0.00000643=0.00000643tonnes or 0.00643kg of oxygen Both TAC-LS and Biomass assume 1 kerbal consumes about 0.4295kg of oxygen every 86400sec day. The 0.00643kg of oxygen in the mk1 pod will therefore be enough for 1 kerbal for 1293.49seconds, or 21.5 minutes. Long story short: the values you are seeing are correct for the current settings. If you wanted the mk-1 command pod to hold 1 day's worth of oxygen, the resource node should be changed to the same value as given in the configuration window. In this case: 66.80. The same applies for other resources that were originally "1" in the TAC configuration window. NOTE: I know this is a pain in the butt and am not pleased with the amount of monkeying necessary .

If you try out the version on Github, the recommended configurations for TAC-LS can be seen here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62631-BioMass-Ongoing-Development?p=922053&viewfull=1#post922053

Taranis was kind enough to point people to a spreadsheet he made that would help you achieve what you want: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aioc9ek3XAvwdGNsRlh3OVhlbTFBR3M4RW0zLUNTRFE&usp=sharing#gid=0 You might have to do some basic calculations to convert things into tonnes or liters from the kg, but it's straight forward. The BioMass mod provides TAC-LS settings to get away from the dayrations system, for example.

That link should show you an image of suggested setting to use. Of course, if you want to go off the reservation, that's cool, too.

I'm happy to help you out over at the BioMass thread (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/62631-BioMass-Ongoing-Development?p=922053&viewfull=1#post922053)

Very nice! I've been thinking about spaceplanes that can land/takeoff on water lately....