[1.12.x] USI Life Support

[funkcanna]

21 minutes ago, PocketBrotector said:

One month is 30 days, one year is 426 days

 

That doesn't make sense.  How many months? if each month is 30 days, that would be 14.2 months.  

[PocketBrotector]

2 hours ago, funkcanna said:

That doesn't make sense.  How many months? if each month is 30 days, that would be 14.2 months.  

Kerbin year and day length is part of the stock game. One day is six hours, one year is 426 days. It's based in the rotation of Kerbin on its axis and around its sun, respectively.

The 30-day month is a convention used mostly by USI-LS. It's true that it doesn't match up "cleanly" to the rest of the stock game calendar... But then again, that's pretty much true of the real-world calendar as well, which has a long history of oddities with lunar months, leap days, manual adjustments, etc.

[funkcanna]

Ok cool - thanks for the explanation! 

[ibanix]

By the way, the USI page/wiki (github) doesn't mention homesickness at all. The only way I figured it out was to search in this thread.

[Garibaldi2257]

the documentation is in the process of being updated.  its a slow process right now because of how much roverdude is working on the 1.1 update for squad.

[Temeter]

Hey Roverdude, you had some really neat pictures explained mods like USI life support for dumb people like me. Did you think about putting them into KSPedia, seems like it would fit perfectly?

EDIT: Maybe also generic info: E.g. a 500 unit canister of fertilizer results in enough food to feed a kerbal for 262 days (+~2 hours (yeah, i checked :3 )).

And a Nomomatic 5000 supports roughly ~1.9 kerbals. Also, makes me wonder why the nom 25000 isn't called 20000, since it's 4xnom500.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Temeter

[z0rb1n0]

On 29/03/2016 at 2:42 PM, RoverDude said:

(i.e. having a 100% efficient recycler means that your Kerbals can eat the same bag of Cheetos for twenty years). 

One could argue that you described an ecosystem and that we're eating the same stuff over and over too, just photosynthesis keeps injecting energy into the system (which in your design is the job of Aeroponics/Agricultural modules).

 

IMHO eternally self-sustaining orbital bases (which you, reasonably, don't want) should be prevented ONLY through conversion inefficiency and subsequent accumulation of inert materials rather than through a resource that apparently can be manufactured only in a specific place (fertilizer).

 

Sorry for digging out this old answer of yours, but I'd like to know how much you want  to target the UKS/USI-LS stack toward realism

 

Cheers for all the hard work, man

 

[RoverDude]

3 hours ago, z0rb1n0 said:

One could argue that you described an ecosystem and that we're eating the same stuff over and over too, just photosynthesis keeps injecting energy into the system (which in your design is the job of Aeroponics/Agricultural modules).

 

IMHO eternally self-sustaining orbital bases (which you, reasonably, don't want) should be prevented ONLY through conversion inefficiency and subsequent accumulation of inert materials rather than through a resource that apparently can be manufactured only in a specific place (fertilizer).

 

Sorry for digging out this old answer of yours, but I'd like to know how much you want  to target the UKS/USI-LS stack toward realism

 

Cheers for all the hard work, man

 

It's a very bad argument, tbh.  We have tried (repeatedly) to do this, and even at very large scale (i.e. the Biosphere projects).  Truly closed loop is pretty much impossible given current tech - i.e. you're going to end up with some level of loss, and have to replace that loss.  In USI-LS's case, Fertilizer is the mechanic used at the moment to represent all of the crucial bits we keep losing through the conversion process (if you choose that route), or just use recyclers which are closer to what you're describing (and who's numbers are pretty close to reality - i.e. abysmal).

But no, you can't (in a small scale system) just keep magically converting poo to food - it doesn't work that way.  Soil wears out, and all systems are lossy to varying degrees.  And I maintain that if you want a 100% in-orbit recycler, then it seems you want to be able to say you use a life support mod (so things are 'hard') but do not in fact actually want a life support mod, because you're just bypassing it.

[z0rb1n0]

On 29/03/2016 at 2:42 PM, RoverDude said:

35 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

It's a very bad argument, tbh.  We have tried (repeatedly) to do this, and even at very large scale (i.e. the Biosphere projects).  Truly closed loop is pretty much impossible given current tech - i.e. you're going to end up with some level of loss, and have to replace that loss.  In USI-LS's case, Fertilizer is the mechanic used at the moment to represent all of the crucial bits we keep losing through the conversion process (if you choose that route), or just use recyclers which are closer to what you're describing (and who's numbers are pretty close to reality - i.e. abysmal).

But no, you can't (in a small scale system) just keep magically converting poo to food - it doesn't work that way.  Soil wears out, and all systems are lossy to varying degrees.  And I maintain that if you want a 100% in-orbit recycler, then it seems you want to be able to say you use a life support mod (so things are 'hard') but do not in fact actually want a life support mod, because you're just bypassing it.

 

I think I wasn't clear enough about this: I'm NOT in favour of full self sufficiently of a colony without any form of ISRU.

It's the way leak compensation is implemented that I didn't agree with (fertilizer being available only at the space center), but then I realized I was looking at obsolete wiki documents and apparently since a few patches ago Fertilizer CAN be manufactured with sifters and crushers, which removes the last bit of reliance from the KSC (sorry couldn't play for a few months).

Is that correct?

 

[SpaceMouse]

Hey, I think i may have found a loophole in the Life support that should be fixed as well as a possible bug in 1.1.

I sent Jeb up with 3 other non-orange suit kerbals to a test station along with 2 of the smaller greenhouses. I suspect that wasn't enough. After about a month and a half jeb was a tourist and did not maintain control ability. I was able to fix it by swapping him to a diffrent module and then bringing him back into the command one.
While the greenhouses were producing enough supplies to keep the counter at 0 when i swapped crew, therby enabling me to keep using them. You could probably use this loophole to feed many more kerbals than one greenhouse is designed for by constantly swapping kerbals and keeping the counter at 0. Even if there not getting a full meal.

Time to de-orbit and send up the mark III station.

[Temeter]

16 minutes ago, SpaceMouse said:

Hey, I think i may have found a loophole in the Life support that should be fixed as well as a possible bug in 1.1.

I sent Jeb up with 3 other non-orange suit kerbals to a test station along with 2 of the smaller greenhouses. I suspect that wasn't enough. After about a month and a half jeb was a tourist and did not maintain control ability. I was able to fix it by swapping him to a diffrent module and then bringing him back into the command one.
While the greenhouses were producing enough supplies to keep the counter at 0 when i swapped crew, therby enabling me to keep using them. You could probably use this loophole to feed many more kerbals than one greenhouse is designed for by constantly swapping kerbals and keeping the counter at 0. Even if there not getting a full meal.

Time to de-orbit and send up the mark III station.

From OP:

Quote

Orange suited Kerbals (Jeb, Bill, Bob, and Val) are immune to the ill effects of life support. They will still consume supplies if given, but do not leave the job, because they are just that awesome. This always gives a player (especially a new one) an 'out' to test out a manned mission before actually committing your other kerbals, etc. to a horrible fate of snack deprivation.

I guess Jeb shouldn't go tourist in the first place, tho.

Sadly, in my install (which is a 'mostly' non revert thing), all red shirts died a horrible death, before I even knew of that exception.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Temeter

[mcortez]

The original post is out-dated.  The veteran orange shirts are no longer immune to the effects of starvation, and lack of good habitation.  If you would like them to be immune, you need to update your config files before they get turned into tourists.  See: https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Configuration

[Temeter]

35 minutes ago, mcortez said:

The original post is out-dated.  The veteran orange shirts are no longer immune to the effects of starvation, and lack of good habitation.  If you would like them to be immune, you need to update your config files before they get turned into tourists.  See: https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Configuration

^Thx, I see. Not that that'd matter for my save. USIKolon looks so awesome, but it's so hard to get an understanding of this mod because of the limited documentation.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Temeter

[goldenpsp]

20 minutes ago, Temeter said:

^Thx, I see. Not that that'd matter for my save. USIKolon looks so awesome, but it's so hard to get an understanding of this mod because of the limited documentation.

Eventually Roverdude will slow down a little adding cool new features and the community will have time to catch up on the wiki 

[Temeter]

13 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

Eventually Roverdude will slow down a little adding cool new features and the community will have time to catch up on the wiki 

I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. :^)

Edited April 10, 2016 by Temeter

[goldenpsp]

Just now, Temeter said:

I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. :^)

Which?  I don't mean Roverdude would ever slow down completely (I don't think he could if he tried) but slow down with some of the mods, while he messes around with others.

[SpaceMouse]

Ahhh. Was unaware Orange suits were no longer immune. Did Seem to rather defeat the point of having a life support mod.

[Temeter]

8 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

Which?  I don't mean Roverdude would ever slow down completely (I don't think he could if he tried) but slow down with some of the mods, while he messes around with others.

Nah, Roverdude is crazy in the awesome sense. <3

Soon he'll have so many rover and transportations mods we can dissasemble laythe and replace the moon with it. Always wanted to lie on sandy beaches while looking down on some billion kerbals or so.

7 minutes ago, SpaceMouse said:

Ahhh. Was unaware Orange suits were no longer immune. Did Seem to rather defeat the point of having a life support mod.

Well, it's a more kerbal, forgiving system. USI doesn't even kill your kerbals when your supplies run out.

Compare that to TAC life support where even the weight of food wrapping is included.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Temeter

[goldenpsp]

8 minutes ago, SpaceMouse said:

Ahhh. Was unaware Orange suits were no longer immune. Did Seem to rather defeat the point of having a life support mod.

Well since day 1 the immunity, as well as pretty much every other aspect was/is completely configurable.

[SpaceMouse]

1 minute ago, Temeter said:

 

Well, it's a more kerbal, forgiving system. USI doesn't even kill your kerbals when your supplies run out.

Compare that to TAC life support where even the weight of food wrapping is included.

Yeah, i get that. That's the main reason i was using this mod. And i like those nifty greenhouses

[Temeter]

Just now, SpaceMouse said:

Yeah, i get that. That's the main reason i was using this mod. And i like those nifty greenhouses

Their dope. I split my mod usage: Realism Overhaul/RSS/RP-0 gets the hardcore stuff, KSP gets the kerbal stuff.

[goldenpsp]

3 minutes ago, Temeter said:

 

Well, it's a more kerbal, forgiving system. USI doesn't even kill your kerbals when your supplies run out.

Compare that to TAC life support where even the weight of food wrapping is included.

That seems to imply that Roverdude did not factor in wrapping and other items into his unit of "supplies" (the answer is he did, it is not some arbitrary value he pulled out of thin air)

[Temeter]

19 minutes ago, goldenpsp said:

That seems to imply that Roverdude did not factor in wrapping and other items into his unit of "supplies" (the answer is he did, it is not some arbitrary value he pulled out of thin air)

His supplies itself - and especially reuse - are more arbitrary tho.

That's not to say it's a badly thought out system or anything. It works very, very well. Also, you can put greenhouses onto your ships, which is awesome!

[mcortez]

33 minutes ago, Temeter said:

Well, it's a more kerbal, forgiving system. USI doesn't even kill your kerbals when your supplies run out.

For those that might be new to USI Life Support, yes it is by default more forgiving in some aspects.  However if you'd like it to kill your Kerbals -- it'll be happy to do that too.  You just need to flip a couple of config options and it'll slaughter your little space explorers.  Or if you want something somewhere between friendly refusal to work and death -- you can make them Mutinous, they not only become tourists but they destroy a random part of either the vessel they're on or a nearby one.

For more adventurous fun, check the two USI wikis:

USI-LS specific, newer but smaller:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/USI-LS/wiki

The older, more complete site, that covers MKS and USI-LS (please note, if you are using MKS and USI-Life, there two two config files you need to edit.)

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Configuration

 

Edited April 10, 2016 by mcortez
note regarding having USI-Life and MKS

[Temeter]

3 minutes ago, mcortez said:

For those that might be new to USI Life Support, yes it is by default more forgiving in some aspects.  However if you'd like it to kill your Kerbals -- it'll be happy to do that too.  You just need to flip a couple of config options and it'll slaughter your little space explorers.  Or if you want something somewhere between friendly refusal to work and death -- you can make them Mutinous, they not only become tourists but they destroy a random part of either the vessel they're on or a nearby one.

For more adventurous fun, check the two USI wikis:

USI-LS specific, newer but smaller:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/USI-LS/wiki

The older, more complete site, that covers MKS and USI-LS (please note, if you are using MKS and USI-Life, there two two config files you need to edit.)

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Configuration

 

Thx, i know there are configs, but as said: I quite like how this is set up.

Seen the wiki, but there seems to be a bunch of oudated stuff as well. I've got an idea of life support, but colonizations is something i might just have to try. Might send some things to the moon.~