[outdated] SETI-Greenhouse, for a realistic process, consider the BioMass mod

[Yemo]

This is an outdated thread, please go to the SETI-Thread
for an updated SETI-Greenhouse download link and support.

If you are looking for a realistic greenhouse, I recommend the BioMass mod which can be found here.

 

 

 

Using the public domain greenhouse model by zzz, it provides 2 greenhouse versions (2.5m and 3.75m) for various mod constellations.

They can be used without any life support mod, just for the looks.

Or they act as converters if USI Life Support or TAC Life Support are installed.

This screenshot shows the 2.5m version with appropriately sized Solar Arrays (using the SETI-BalanceMod) for Kerbin Orbit and a cupola module on top (because it looks good).

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]

Download: SETI Greenhouse v0.9.2 (for KSP 1.0.4) - This is an thread, please go to the SETI-Thread for an updated download link and support.

It has configs for USI Life Support and TAC Life Support, without those mods it just looks cool.

 

Required Mods: none[/TD]

[TD=align: center]

This mod supports the

Community Tech Tree

[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

License:

The model and textures are public domain by zzz

The config files by Yemo follow the TAC Life Support license CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0, except for mod name and part names (which are ARR following the SETI-BalanceMod).

This mod redistributes the plugin ModuleManager by ialdabaoth and sarbian under CC share-alike license.

How it works:

a) No Life Support mod

It just looks cool on space stations.

USI Life Support

With the SETI-Greenhouse, 100 supplies last for 200 days per kerbal.

Compared to 108 supplies for 200 days with the USI Greenhouse and 216 supplies for 200 days without a greenhouse.

But the SETI-Greenhouse is available a much later than the USI Greenhouse, costs a lot more and has a mass of 2 tons compared to the 1.5 tons of the USI Greenhouse.

c) TAC Life Support

If you use TAC Life Support, the SETI-Greenhouse consumes all waste products of the supported number of kerbals (CarbonDioxide, WasteWater, Waste) as well as EC and "Nutrients", it then provides 100% of the kerbals Food and Oxygen needs, but only 90% of the Water requirements.

It has an integrated converter, which transforms Food into "Nutrients" at a 1 to 1 rate.

So in total, you only have to supply 10% of the usual water and 20% of the usual amount of food to fulfil all life support needs of a kerbal (which is transformed into nutrients and then together with the other resources back into food). Thus for a 1000 day mission with enough greenhouse capacity, you have to bring 100 days of water and 200 days of food as shown by the TAC Life Support helper window. And of course some reserves/buffer for every resource (including waste products) in addition to enough energy to run the greenhouse continuously.

The Nutrient transformation is necessary to allow a planned incorporation of mined resources in the future.

Shutters are just cosmetic at the moment, because those would lead to frustration with BackgroundProcessing, since your vessel does not rotate to track the sun.

The SETI-Greenhouse provides configs for the following mod combinations as well as the CommunityTechTree:

[TABLE=width: 800]

[TR]

[TD]Mods

[/TD]

[TD]Configuration

[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]none[/TD]

[TD]No converters/function, but a nice looking part for space stations[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]USI Life Support

[/TD]

[TD]108 supplies last for 200 days, 3.2EC/s required per kerbal[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]TAC Life Support

+ BackgroundProcessing

[/TD]

[TD]Same as above, but uses only 1.2EC/s[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]TAC Life Support

[/TD]

[TD]Same as above, but uses only 0.12EC/s[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

PS: And no, SETI stands for Space Exploration & Technology Initiative in case of the Greenhouse, or Scope, Economy & Tech Integration in case of the BalanceMod ;-)!

Edited February 20, 2016 by Yemo

[FreeThinker]

Nice!

[DirtyFace83]

Nice! Does it consume CO2?

[Yemo]

Nice! Does it consume CO2?

It consumes all the waste products from the supported number of kerbals.

I will extend the description, had to roll out SETI-BalanceMod 0.8.6 first.

[DirtyFace83]

lol ok, I downloaded it anyways. Hopefully it will fill the greenhouse gap in TAC very nicely.

[Yemo]

Updated the OP with a flow chart and additional info.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Yemo

[JeffreyCor]

Thank you! I've been wanting a new greenhouse and thanks to you now there is one

[Mapoko]

Is the back one stripped on purpose ?

I, myself am using a hangar wrap up and it feels nice.

Q: What happens if I tweak my TAC to consume / expel 1.25-1.33x resources ? Do I need 1 big and 1 small for 3 kerbals or it adjusts to that ?

Edited March 29, 2015 by Mapoko

[Yemo]

Thank you! I've been wanting a new greenhouse and thanks to you now there is one

You are welcome!

I decided to try this on the launch pad, but I do not see any options except the shutters. How can I turn it off for example ?

If I have 2 on my station, but send 3 of my kerbals somewhere I would like to turn off one of them.

Also, is the back one stripped on purpose ?

I, myself am using a hangar wrap up and it feels nice.

http://s21.postimg.org/dsc50nzyd/image.png

Q: What happens if I tweak my TAC to consume / expel 1.25-1.33x resources ? Do I need 1 big and 1 small for 3 kerbals or it adjusts to that ?

Are you sure you have TAC Life Support installed?

Because if that is not installed, it is just a nice looking part with shutters. It receives the converters via ModuleManagerConfigs if TAC Life Support is detected.

And those conveters can be deactivated again.

Though if it does not have enough input resources (because eg only 2 kerbals are on the station instead of 3), it should only run at 2/3 capacity.

That might be a problem for testing on the lauch pad aswell, since kerbals do not consume oxygen and produce carbon dioxide below 5km on kerbin.

The consumption/production does not automatically adjust to different TAC settings levels.

About the back, imho a greenhouse for space would look very different in reality, much less wasted space, no or extremely few windows (everything lit by LED).

But that is the model zzz released to the public domain, and I do not do models and textures myself.

Personally I use Ven's StockPartRevamp, putting a docking port on at least one side and long fixed ladder segments on that back strip.

[Mapoko]

I did edit my message about the TAC, because I renamed it's folder and apparently it was not working, now everything is fine.

The ladder seems nice.

So just to clarify, it replaces the TAC recycle parts, concerning waste products turning into consumables for the kerbals, except the ones that work around with fuel, right ?

Idea : (for the large one only)

Are you considering an option to put a scientist/engineer/both inside to increase efficiency ?

Probably just 1, because having 2 inside do not justify the extra resources consumed.

Example : Having level 3 or higher scientist or engineer increases efficiency by 50%, so having one inside justifies the resource he uses and adds enough for half more kerbal.

Not sure how visualization works, but when shutters are open maybe we can see the kerbal inside ?

Edited March 29, 2015 by Mapoko

[Yemo]

Yep, if you have sufficient greenhouse capacity,

you only need about 10% of the usual water and 20% of the usual food.

The greenhouse consumes all the waste products and with the extra water and food, it fulfils all oxygen, water and carbondioxide needs.

I m not aware of fuel components in TAC life support.

Crew requirement and efficiency: I was considering that, especially with regards to MKS/OKS compatibility. But I also wanted to not provide disadvantages for using the 3 or the 1 kerbal version and keep it as simple as possible. So maybe in the future, eg when squad allows modding of traits and so on.

Visualization would be nice, but I can not do anything about it. I just wrote the configs, the model is entirely out of my control/scope.

[Mapoko]

Yep, if you have sufficient greenhouse capacity,

you only need about 10% of the usual water and 20% of the usual food.

To summarize : If I have steady energy flow I need to pack 2:1 food:water and have a bit of buffer Oxygen and small amount of buffer space for CO2, Waste and Waste water.

And ofcourse that is true if we have 1:1 small ones or 1:3 large ones (and activated) on board.

For example in this project of mine the ratios are fine (resource supply ship) and when I dock the 2 additional greenhouses I will be able to support 12.

Since this is going to be launched on pieces, obviously I can use food shuttles with this ratio or just food+water later in the mission.

My question is : Do I have 4,000 days of water or I have 40,000 due to the greenhouses ? It does not really matter for this rig, but I need to plan more carefully for 1/3 men missions that will set outposts on some rock with very light ship that do not need the extra tonnage.

[Yemo]

I do not know how much absolute resources you need, but you can find out by doing this:

Eg you want to supply a 3 kerbal mission for 1000 days and have enough greenhouse capacity for them (eg 3.75m greenhouse version).

So you build a test vessel putting the 3 kerbal pod as a root and then you just have to add water until the TAC helper window shows, that you have enough for 100 days (10% of 1000 day mission) and enough food for 200 days (20% of 1000 day mission).

And of course maybe a bit of everything as a buffer/reserve in addition to making sure you can satisfy the energy needs. And do not forget that the greenhouse needs the waste resources from your kerbals, which are dumped while they are on EVA or on excursions if you do not have storage for them.

[Mapoko]

Thanks! So basically on this current rig I have resources for 40,000 days, that will be reduced to 20,000 when I have 12 kerbals. And I have containers for the waste.

When I send a shuttle (it will be in 1 of the hangars) to land somewhere I expect 10x "normal" consumption and have to provide O2, unless I put a small greenhouse (if I plan longer mission) inside, right ? Solo mission.

[Yemo]

Thanks! So basically on this current rig I have resources for 40,000 days, that will be reduced to 20,000 when I have 12 kerbals. And I have containers for the waste.

When I send a shuttle (it will be in 1 of the hangars) to land somewhere I expect 10x "normal" consumption and have to provide O2, unless I put a small greenhouse (if I plan longer mission) inside, right ? Solo mission.

Yes, 10 times as much water consumption and 5 times as much food consumption. And of course all the oxygen.

The recyclers are meant for those more mass sensitive missions. Unfortunately you would have to use the SETI-BalanceMod to have mass balanced recyclers.

But you could use the Universal Storage recyclers, though they seem to be op when not balanced by SETI. At least they are lightweight and not thus useful for 1-3 kerbal missions, unlike those massive TAC life support things.

Also, the Greenhouse actually supports 1.02 kerbals or 3.06 for the larger one. So for example if you have greenhouses for 12 kerbals, they could support 12.24. When you make a one day trip (6hours) with one kerbal and return the waste products, they would get processed as well within the following 6/0.24= 25 hours.

[WoollyMittens]

Just in time for the Easter long weekend. I'll give this a shot in combination with TAC and the background processing. I'll have to read up on the BalanceMod, because it doing my head in at the moment.

[mdosogne]

Quick question about the "how it works" diagram: where does the extra mass (from the 20% food, 10% water) go?

I assume the crew doesn't gain that mass or they wouldn't fit out the hatch upon arrival...

[Yemo]

Quick question about the "how it works" diagram: where does the extra mass (from the 20% food, 10% water) go?

I assume the crew doesn't gain that mass or they wouldn't fit out the hatch upon arrival...

Not all of the waste products can be recycled/reused, so the unusable stuff is dumped like on the ISS. To make up for that lost mass, the additional fresh water and food is required.

[Mapoko]

Hello again. The parts are great and brought live into my space program.

Just few questions on basic math.

Since I packed so much resources on my base I do not want to calculate so big numbers, so I am going to the source.

The default consumption rate of TACLS is 1.52 food : 1 water : 78.97 oxygen.

So roughly 1.5 / 1 / 80

We eliminate the oxygen need.

So speaking of 20% food and 10% water may seem like I need 2:1 or rather 0.2:0.1 of food:water, but it is wrong. Right ?

The correct calculation should be 1.5*(20%) : 1*(10%) = 0.3 : 0.1, so if we pack 1 module of 100 water we need to pack 300 food.

[Yemo]

Hello again. The parts are great and brought live into my space program.

Just few questions on basic math.

Since I packed so much resources on my base I do not want to calculate so big numbers, so I am going to the source.

The default consumption rate of TACLS is 1.52 food : 1 water : 78.97 oxygen.

So roughly 1.5 / 1 / 80

We eliminate the oxygen need.

So speaking of 20% food and 10% water may seem like I need 2:1 or rather 0.2:0.1 of food:water, but it is wrong. Right ?

The correct calculation should be 1.5*(20%) : 1*(10%) = 0.3 : 0.1, so if we pack 1 module of 100 water we need to pack 300 food.

Are those the numbers you set for TAC Life Support? Then the calculation of 0.3 : 0.1 is correct.

Because my TAC life support config file says:

FoodConsumptionRate = 1.6927083333E-05

WaterConsumptionRate = 1.1188078704E-05

OxygenConsumptionRate = 0.001713537562385

Which translates to 6*3600*(1.6927083333*10^-5) = 3.656249999928 food per kerbin day (6 hours)

2.416625000064 water per kerbin day

37.012411347516 oxygen per kerbin day

Which would lead to about 1.513 food : 1 water.

[Mapoko]

Yes, my numbers are the same as yours (default). I just simplified it as ratios. Thanks for the confirmation !

[Wheffle]

Hello! I've been looking for a simple greenhouse to use with TAC-LS for a while and somehow have only just stumbled upon this one. Will this get any love for 1.0?

[EmpCris]

me too

[FreakyCheeseMan]

Yeah, this could be a nice addition to my planned Eve colony.

[Yemo]

The only 1.0.2 compatibility issue I found is, that it does not yet recognize the new CommunityTechTree and thus the parts are always at largeElectrics.

I could not find any other issue so far, it seems to work just fine.