[1.0.x] Civilian Population 1.4

[RoverDude]

Regolith could care less if you're 32 or 64 bit

[mcbmaestro]

Regolith could care less if you're 32 or 64 bit

Thanks for that info. I'm one of those that's had much better luck with 64bit than 32. Currently using 32 for career purposes I'll just stick with it unless there's some issues.

[michaelhester07]

Regolith could care less if you're 32 or 64 bit

heh good to know. I see so many modders not supporting 64 bit KSP.

[pasty2k2]

The Linux build is fine and does allow for "really large" orbital stations, in that it has virtually no upper RAM limit, only the max RAM you have in your PC.

I installed Linux Mint just to give the KSP linux version a go, and I am pleasantly surprised, it is all it is shouted up to be. A couple of niggly bits are present in both versions but no sudden crashes in the Linux build, no "I wonder if it will crash" when switching between scenes, it behaves well. Sucks RAM up but behaves if you feed it! You can run essentially an unlimited amount of mods I'm using 7.5GB RAM and it's still smooth as butter. I began this save on Windows, got fed up with the issues, installed Linux, copied the gamedata, ships and saves folders over into the linux KSP install, and continued on fine like nothing had happened!

I recommend all to give the Linux version a try if you can, getting your head around using Linux isn't as big a deal as it was 5-10 years ago, I use it as my main OS whilst playing KSP. It works fine for HD videos/music and internet browsing, drivers aren't that big a pain in the arse anymore either. Though I do still have Windows on a separate disk if/when I want to switch back for whatever reason.

[mcbmaestro]

I put a large greenhouse sphere into orbit and then sent up the 50 pop hab module to dock with it but my docking with large objects must be really rusty having much trouble getting them linked. I'm considering launching an entire station in one go seeing as it's not taking much to lift these things for what I thought they would need and I'm pretty adept at huge lifters. I was worried FAR wouldn't like me launching station parts but delivery to orbit is amazingly smooth so far. Looking forward to getting a station up and running.

One last question the 50 capacity habitat module I used, in the VAB info it said Population 60.0 under the details on the right but description on the left says 50 .. isn't it supposed to all be 50? I set it to hold 25ish so I could have some room to grow.

[daniel l.]

Strange how i get my post deleted for posting about generation ships on the Valentina Kerman thread, But this person gets away with a whole thread about it!

I guess it all depends on what thread you post it on. xD

[michaelhester07]

I put a large greenhouse sphere into orbit and then sent up the 50 pop hab module to dock with it but my docking with large objects must be really rusty having much trouble getting them linked. I'm considering launching an entire station in one go seeing as it's not taking much to lift these things for what I thought they would need and I'm pretty adept at huge lifters. I was worried FAR wouldn't like me launching station parts but delivery to orbit is amazingly smooth so far. Looking forward to getting a station up and running.

One last question the 50 capacity habitat module I used, in the VAB info it said Population 60.0 under the details on the right but description on the left says 50 .. isn't it supposed to all be 50? I set it to hold 25ish so I could have some room to grow.

I sized it to match the biodome farm. The big sphere needs a little help with a second small garden (the 2 meter tube one will do). I'll go back and look at it while I'm retexturing the parts.

On a different note... i probably also have to nerf the money generated from rent (probably a cap on the rent generated). This is in conjuction with a cruiser parts "expansion pack" i'm making for Civilian Population. I had built a 1000 civilian capacity cruiser and it maxed my money by the time it got to jool. It's not too inconceivable for someone to make a 1000 population base (a truly large city).

Edited March 17, 2015 by michaelhester07

[DirtyFace83]

I sized it to match the biodome farm. The big sphere needs a little help with a second small garden (the 2 meter tube one will do). I'll go back and look at it while I'm retexturing the parts.

On a different note... i probably also have to nerf the money generated from rent (probably a cap on the rent generated). This is in conjuction with a cruiser parts "expansion pack" i'm making for Civilian Population. I had built a 1000 civilian capacity cruiser and it maxed my money by the time it got to jool. It's not too inconceivable for someone to make a 1000 population base (a truly large city).

Retexture AND more parts? Yay!

Also, yea, nerf the rent. Even 100 Kerbals = OP.

Maybe you could try to balance it with Kerbanomics?

[michaelhester07]

I had figured 100 per civilian was reasonable. The rent period is where the problem is. I think i'll adjust it to monthly rent (30 kerbin days) rather than daily.

Also I'll introduce a diminishing return for huge populations.

A space station with 10 civies should pay for itself after about a year. A base with 50 civies could pay itself off faster. A huge city of 1000 would get hit with the DR, scaling down to a rent cap equivalent to 200 civilians.

The cruiser parts expansion will hit the DR cap per cruiser. I plan to make a completed cruiser really expensive too, around 50 million funds. The expense will be in the bridge, engines, and fusion reactors. I do plan to make a saucer shape bridge too, not just the "bullet" one that I demoed in the dev thread for it.

[DirtyFace83]

Nice. I like the idea of diminishing returns. I just don't want a space money farm is all

[daniel l.]

I sized it to match the biodome farm. The big sphere needs a little help with a second small garden (the 2 meter tube one will do). I'll go back and look at it while I'm retexturing the parts.

On a different note... i probably also have to nerf the money generated from rent (probably a cap on the rent generated). This is in conjuction with a cruiser parts "expansion pack" i'm making for Civilian Population. I had built a 1000 civilian capacity cruiser and it maxed my money by the time it got to jool. It's not too inconceivable for someone to make a 1000 population base (a truly large city).

Ever thought of making a small O'niel cylinder?

[rabidninjawombat]

Great stuff sir! I am planning on using this with my current playthrough

BTW: In the Kerbal stuff download, i noticed you have 2 copies of the Regolith DLL, once in the proper place in the regolith folder, and one in the Civilian Managment folder.

[michaelhester07]

That was actually on purpose... when I tested it before uploading it seemed to not work unless regolith was in the Civilian Management folder. The duplicated DLL is harmless otherwise.

[rabidninjawombat]

That was actually on purpose... when I tested it before uploading it seemed to not work unless regolith was in the Civilian Management folder. The duplicated DLL is harmless otherwise.

Ahh good to know.

Also curious , in your distributed version of the Community Resource Pack, i noticed there was old PNG files held over form when CRP still utilized ORS. Does this run with ORS? Or is fully integrated with Regolith? If so the PNG shouldn't be needed any longer and the version your distributing with the pack is out of date.

[michaelhester07]

Ever thought of making a small O'niel cylinder?

Looking at that... no i didn't think of making one of those. If anything it would be an expansion to the stanford torus mod. I am making more futuristic parts though.

This is my latest run at the parts. The current parts for Civilian Population are getting a similar panel texture makeover. I wanted a clean look.

The cruiser saucer is based off the Enterprise A from the 80s Star Trek movies.

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Each of those cruisers is at least 300 meters long. They'll be an optional expansion to Civilian Population. I like to think of Civ Pop as exploring a time frame from 2100 through 2250, where colonization is getting there but general travel equipment is still "primitive". The cruiser parts expansion will target the year 2300 +, where stable fusion has been discovered and used both for power and propulsion.

Edited March 18, 2015 by michaelhester07

[Kieve]

Overall I love the idea! But I may be a dissenting voice on the "models look great!" opinion - to me they seem kinda bland and washed out, like there's barely any texture to them at all. Would a stock-alike conversion or option of some kind be out of the question in the future?

[RoverDude]

That was actually on purpose... when I tested it before uploading it seemed to not work unless regolith was in the Civilian Management folder. The duplicated DLL is harmless otherwise.

Do a google for how to set up KSPAssemblyDependency - this will sort your issue with the two DLLs and save you a considerable amount of grief in the future

[michaelhester07]

Do a google for how to set up KSPAssemblyDependency - this will sort your issue with the two DLLs and save you a considerable amount of grief in the future

I only had about 5 minutes of grief before I put the regolith dll in the folder. That said, what's the KSPAssembly version number for regolith? I can't seem to find it in the github.

[RoverDude]

I only had about 5 minutes of grief before I put the regolith dll in the folder. That said, what's the KSPAssembly version number for regolith? I can't seem to find it in the github.

By grief I mean you are going to have a very large painball when Regolith gets updated.

It's in the AssemblyInfo.cs at the bottom.

[michaelhester07]

Overall I love the idea! But I may be a dissenting voice on the "models look great!" opinion - to me they seem kinda bland and washed out, like there's barely any texture to them at all. Would a stock-alike conversion or option of some kind be out of the question in the future?

Which stock style were you referring to? There are several styles:

Rocomax (just tin cans with bolts mostly, except for the orange tank)

LV-T (black/white stripes)

Kerbodyne (Kinda the same)?

I could entertain the kerbodyne idea. they don't really have any pods though.

Also which parts are the ones that look the most bland?

@RoverDude

Found the info. Thanks. I think this is probably a yes but will it load newer versions of regolith than 1.0?

Edited March 18, 2015 by michaelhester07

[RoverDude]

Yes - you're using that to sort out the DLL load order. Your issue was probably the bad reference because your DLL loaded before Regolith

[Kieve]

Which stock style were you referring to? There are several styles:

Rocomax (just tin cans with bolts mostly, except for the orange tank)

LV-T (black/white stripes)

Kerbodyne (Kinda the same)?

I could entertain the kerbodyne idea. they don't really have any pods though.

Also which parts are the ones that look the most bland?

Thanks for the reply. Hopefully I don't come across as insulting, since I really do love the ideas at work here, even if I'm not a fan of the visual style. By stock-alike, I was more thinking the Hitchhiker / science lab, and by extension the "stock-alike station parts" mod that follows the same aesthetic. The parts here... while I can absolutely appreciate the work that goes into modeling and creating a mod, they just seem way out of place with anything else Kerbal technology has to offer.

As for specifics:

-The white / gray structural areas on the biodomes & -spheres are the biggest offenders. They really need some kind of detail work to break up the large flat-color areas, whether it be a simple seam with bolts spaced periodically, some kind of subtle paneling effect, or just a bit of chipped paint here and there. My preference leans towards station-parts, as I mentioned.

-The "dock" part of the Contractor Dock appears to be flat-gray except for the docking hatch circles themselves. I'd also suggest recycling the actual hitchhiker texture for the rest of the unit, with maybe some decals added (like yellow/black caution tape, perhaps?)

-The Cruiser Landing Gear is also extremely bland. Aside from the warning stickers, it doesn't look textured at all. Maybe use the stock heavy landing struts as inspiration? Although personally I'm more a fan of the detailed look the Karbonite legs have.

Of course, take all this with a grain or three of salt, since I haven't downloaded anything yet so all I'm going by are the screenshots. I'm still seriously contemplating getting this and kitbashing the mechanics onto other mod parts, for my personal use, since the idea of building and populating cities beyond Kerbin is too tempting to pass up entirely.

[micr0wave]

The mining lasers might need some fine tuning, just mined ore from a high eve orbit.

[michaelhester07]

Thanks for the reply. Hopefully I don't come across as insulting, since I really do love the ideas at work here, even if I'm not a fan of the visual style. By stock-alike, I was more thinking the Hitchhiker / science lab, and by extension the "stock-alike station parts" mod that follows the same aesthetic. The parts here... while I can absolutely appreciate the work that goes into modeling and creating a mod, they just seem way out of place with anything else Kerbal technology has to offer.

As for specifics:

-The white / gray structural areas on the biodomes & -spheres are the biggest offenders. They really need some kind of detail work to break up the large flat-color areas, whether it be a simple seam with bolts spaced periodically, some kind of subtle paneling effect, or just a bit of chipped paint here and there. My preference leans towards station-parts, as I mentioned.

-The "dock" part of the Contractor Dock appears to be flat-gray except for the docking hatch circles themselves. I'd also suggest recycling the actual hitchhiker texture for the rest of the unit, with maybe some decals added (like yellow/black caution tape, perhaps?)

-The Cruiser Landing Gear is also extremely bland. Aside from the warning stickers, it doesn't look textured at all. Maybe use the stock heavy landing struts as inspiration? Although personally I'm more a fan of the detailed look the Karbonite legs have.

Of course, take all this with a grain or three of salt, since I haven't downloaded anything yet so all I'm going by are the screenshots. I'm still seriously contemplating getting this and kitbashing the mechanics onto other mod parts, for my personal use, since the idea of building and populating cities beyond Kerbin is too tempting to pass up entirely.

I've been toying around with different texture schemes and I do admit that the biosphere and biodome parts are a little bland. I've been getting better at making the parts since then, especially with texturing them. KSP is a bit challenging to model for:

- I'm only allowed 1 material per model object. This means breaking up model polygons which will have the different material

- Memory consumption of textures is a huge issue: This means either creative use of baked textures or tileable textures. Even then Baked textures are less desirable as they have to be a decent resolution to be of any quality when rendered, which cuts into the memory available in KSP. The surface attach house part demonstrates my attempt to split the polygons used in it into sub sections so that the UV islands are bigger.

For most of the retexturing I'm doing for the civ-pop parts I'm trying to stay away from baked textures. This is primarily for memory purposes but also to allow tiled panel textures.

You refer to the science module as to the look you want. It's not a matter of texture but a general lack of detail. I can certainly go back and address that.

As for the other one: the mining lasers working from orbit... that's a Regolith problem. The laser drill uses the regolith harvester and I'm pretty sure I told it to be a drill (I mostly copied settings from the MKS drill) so when RoverDude updates regolith like he hinted at previously I can update it in the Civ pop and see.

[AlonzoTG]

yeah, and the drill does not work when placed right up next to the deposit if it is KAS connected to a base that is in a different biome. =\ -- made 20M procedural parts storage tower to hold teh waterz. The waterz are in a 60 degree cliff face...