[1.12.x] USI Life Support

[Tokamak]

2 hours ago, DStaal said:

The RT-500 actually follows the formula given: 0.6 tons of mass / 1 kerbal = 0.6 recycle percent.

Note that the guidance in the wiki uses 'number of kerbals' in this section not to mean 'number of kerbals that fit into this part' but to mean 'number of kerbals this part recycles supplies for' - those Kerbals may be in that part or in another part entirely.  To quote the wiki:

So the fact that the part has a seating capacity of zero doesn't mean that it's crew recycle capacity can't be 1, or 5, or 10, or whatever, and the guidance should apply to that.

If the part is multi-purpose, you should decide how much mass is dedicated to each part of the purpose and calculate based on that.  So, if your part is combination recycler and storage ideally some of the mass should be dedicated to handling the 'storage' and not included in the formula.  For example a 2.5 ton part that includes a storage bay might decide that 0.5 tons is dedicated to holding the storage, and then if you decided that it had a crew recycle capacity of 5 it's percent would be 0.4.  (2/5)

I hope that helps and clears things up.  If you have suggestions on how to clarify the wiki I'd be glad to hear them. 

OOOH, I see. Reading comprehension fail. XD Thanks! I've read the whole article, but for grabbing the formula I was skimming around looking for the key info.  Perhaps it would be more useful to say "number of kerbals supported" or something? But really, the main fail was mine.

[Tyko]

I keep tweaking my supply consumption from .00075 down to .00046, but regardless of whether I do it in the setting menu in-game or in the .cfg file it keeps switching back to .00075. It will sit on .00046 for a while, but every time I reload the game it goes back to .00075.

Why would that be?

Here's a copy / paste of my .cfg file in the UmbraSpaceIndustries\LifeSupport folder

LIFE_SUPPORT_SETTINGS
{
    SupplyTime = 324000            //How many seconds before Kerbals are affected by no supplies
    ECTime = 324000                //How many seconds before Kerbals are affected by no EC
    EVATime = 21600                //How many seconds before ill effects on EVA
    ECAmount = 0.01                //EC per Kerbal per second                        
    SupplyAmount = 0.00046        //Supplies consumed per Kerbal per second
    WasteAmount = 0.00046        //Mulch produced per Kerbal per second
    NoSupplyEffect = 1            //Effect if a Kerbal has no supplies
    NoSupplyEffectVets = 0        //Effect if a Kerbal is a vet and has no supplies
    NoECEffect = 1                //Effect if a Kerbal has no EC
    NoECEffectVets = 0            //Effect if a Kerbal is a vet and has no EC
    EVAEffect = 1                //Effect if a Kerbal exceeds EVA time        
    EVAEffectVets = 0            //Effect if a Kerbal is a vet and exceeds EVA time
    NoHomeEffect = 1            //Effect if a Kerbal becomes homesick
    NoHomeEffectVets = 0        //Effect if a Kerbal is a vet and becomes homesick
    HabMultiplier = 2            //Bonus to hab values (1 = default = 100% of the part's rated value)
    HomeWorldAltitude = 25000    //Altitude on Kerbin that negative effects are removed
    BaseHabTime = .25                //How long can 1 crew capacity support 1 Kerbal, expressed in Kerbal Months
    ReplacementPartAmount = 0    //How fast life support equipment and habs 'wears out'
    HabRange = 150                //How close we need to be to use other vessel's habitation modules and recyclers.
    EnableRecyclers = true        //Use resource recyclers?  Not the same as resource converteres like greenhouses!
    VetNames = Jebediah,Valentina,Bill,Bob,Billy-Bob,Dotty    

 

Here are snap shots in game: 

1. I open the USI LS setting screen. Before I make the change Supply Amount is at .00075
2. I change it to .00046, hit save and close the settings screen. If I go immediately back into the settings screen it still shows .00046
3. I do a scene change to the Tracking Center, then I exit tracking center and open USI LS settings screen again and it's back to .00075

Edited July 23, 2016 by tjt
added more detail

[RoverDude]

I'll take a peek as I am fixing that screen anyway, and prepping for a release.

 

[Tyko]

Thanks! Let me know if you need any testing. I'll be playing all day.

I went to .00046 because that translates to approx 10kg per day. With all of your Supply kontainers running multiples of 100 it made it really easy to eye-ball supplies.

[RoverDude]

Sorted in the next release.  by the way... you may want to look at recyclers

[Tokamak]

8 hours ago, RoverDude said:

Sorted in the next release.  by the way... you may want to look at recyclers

Oh? I'll be keen to see this when it's available

[RoverDude]

They are available now

If you're going on a long trip sucking through 16.2 supplies per day, you are doing it wrong   Easy to get that number a lot lower.

[Tokamak]

10 hours ago, RoverDude said:

They are available now

If you're going on a long trip sucking through 16.2 supplies per day, you are doing it wrong   Easy to get that number a lot lower.

Slightly confused. The latest release on github is from June 21st.

[DStaal]

1 minute ago, Tokamak said:

Slightly confused. The latest release on github is from June 21st.

The not saving changes in the config screen is sorted in the next release.  The recyclers are present now.

[Tyko]

On 7/23/2016 at 11:58 PM, RoverDude said:

They are available now

If you're going on a long trip sucking through 16.2 supplies per day, you are doing it wrong   Easy to get that number a lot lower.

Here's part of the problem -

My greenhouses only seem to process when the ship is active. In the Life Support Status screen the ship shows "sup" ticking down every second (supplies are decreasing) when it's not active, but the "sup" goes up 3 seconds every second (supplies are increasing) when the ship is active.

Edited July 25, 2016 by tjt

[Tokamak]

I'm just curious... is there a specific reason why the inline Nom-O-Matic 2500-I is not CLS passable? It seems like it ought to be, so I'd love to know if it's an oversight, or if there is a reason I'm not aware of. 

[Merkov]

13 hours ago, tjt said:

Here's part of the problem -

My greenhouses only seem to process when the ship is active. In the Life Support Status screen the ship shows "sup" ticking down every second (supplies are decreasing) when it's not active, but the "sup" goes up 3 seconds every second (supplies are increasing) when the ship is active.

My grasp on this is tenuous at best, so don't take it as absolute truth, but I THINK this happens because KSP doesn't really calculate life support when the vessel in question is not in physics range (or maybe when you're not focused on it?) so when you re-focus on that vessel, it retroactively calculates what the life support usage was since the last time it was in focus. If I remember correctly, this also happens with other resource usage, such as warehousing/logistics in UKS, and drilling/ISRU and fuel cell usage in stock. The reason we notice it with USI-LS is because there is actually a window for seeing life support status when you don't have the vessel in question loaded, whereas there is no equivalent status screen for unfocused vessels using the stock functions.

Again, I could be wrong on this and welcome being corrected if I am, but that's how I've always understood it when playing ksp.

[Tyko]

6 hours ago, Merkov said:

My grasp on this is tenuous at best, so don't take it as absolute truth, but I THINK this happens because KSP doesn't really calculate life support when the vessel in question is not in physics range (or maybe when you're not focused on it?) so when you re-focus on that vessel, it retroactively calculates what the life support usage was since the last time it was in focus. If I remember correctly, this also happens with other resource usage, such as warehousing/logistics in UKS, and drilling/ISRU and fuel cell usage in stock. The reason we notice it with USI-LS is because there is actually a window for seeing life support status when you don't have the vessel in question loaded, whereas there is no equivalent status screen for unfocused vessels using the stock functions.

Again, I could be wrong on this and welcome being corrected if I am, but that's how I've always understood it when playing ksp.

yea, I'm not sure what's up. the Life Support window will tell me I'm out of food, or out of power and I'll jump to the ship and everything will be fine. I've also seen my drilling/ISRU rigs just shut down from over-heating when they're not active even though I can watch them over time as an active vessel with zero over-heating issues.

 

[RoverDude]

What @merkov said is correct.  Its an artefact of catch-up mechanics.

[Tyko]

4 hours ago, RoverDude said:

What @merkov said is correct.  Its an artefact of catch-up mechanics.

What about my question about heat and ISRU? Are my drilling rigs heating up and shutting off due to catch-up mechanics too? If so, what's the workaround?

Edited July 27, 2016 by tjt

[BetaguyGZT]

Hi there, @RoverDude. I'm looking at moving BioMass over to USI-LS, and had some questions for you if there's time to answer a few.

 

- Do the converters work pretty much like the Stock API, except less finicky? I tried doing it the Stock way and ended up frustrated ... even copying it from the ISRU didn't work, which really threw me for a loop. (And the Documentation for Stock isn't complete, so I had to go on what should work, but doesn't; so the API Documentation Project entries likely aren't correct either)

- How is the USI-LS with custom resources? Any strangeness? I ask because BioMass does some unique things that we're currently working on making less unique, but some of it can't be helped.

- Coding-wise, how clean and straightforward is it to use relative to TAC? I guess I should just look and find out for myself ...  

 

Anyway, I'm a big fan of your mods in general, so yeah. Keep on keepin' on! And thanks in advance for answering, I know you're a busy fellow.  

 

[EDIT] Never mind, read the Wiki. This isn't for converters.

Edited July 27, 2016 by BetaguyGZT
Read up on it ... hmm.

[Merkov]

2 hours ago, tjt said:

What about my question about heat and ISRU? Are my drilling rigs heating up and shutting off due to catch-up mechanics too? If so, what's the workaround?

How often are you switching back to your mining rig? If I remember right, the catch-up mechanics only really work in increments of 6 hours or so. That is, if you leave a vessel for less than ~6 hours, it won't perform any catch-up calculations and will just assume that the out-of-focus calculations are correct. I think this is also why it is generally recommended to make sure that you have enough storage for supplies (and, if applicable, any other MKS resources) to cover off a 6 hour period, in order to prevent any resource "blackouts".

If you haven't already, try leaving your mining rig running, go back to the KSC, warp ahead 6 hours, then go back to the mining rig. It should correctly figure out that it had enough radiators to keep operating the drill and ISRU unit, and adjust your resource amounts accordingly.

[RoverDude]

@Merkov - Even at 5 hours there's still catch up, just in 6 hour or less chunks.

@tjt - assuming you have the right number of radiators, they are powered, etc. you should not be overheating, heat is specifically coded to account for this.  So if you are having an ISRU heat issue, please take that to the support forum vs. this thread as you can get better help that way.

[Tyko]

7 hours ago, Merkov said:

How often are you switching back to your mining rig? If I remember right, the catch-up mechanics only really work in increments of 6 hours or so. That is, if you leave a vessel for less than ~6 hours, it won't perform any catch-up calculations and will just assume that the out-of-focus calculations are correct. I think this is also why it is generally recommended to make sure that you have enough storage for supplies (and, if applicable, any other MKS resources) to cover off a 6 hour period, in order to prevent any resource "blackouts".

Thanks for the continued explanations..I'm going to restate this to make sure I'm following you.

I think you're saying that - "every 6 hours it does a catch-up calculation that accounts for production by greenhouses, recycling (reactors and solar panels too?). As long as I have enough Supplies, battery EC, etc for over 6 hours without counting power generation, greenhouses and recycling then I should be fine because on that 6 hour cycle my out of focus craft will be "visited" and have their production quantities adjusted to account for everything I'm generating"?

[RoverDude]

Close.

Stock converters track the last time they had an update.

Normally a conversion takes place 50 times per second.

When you go back, it chunks these into larger time segments so that it can catch up to the current time.  these chunks are six hours (by default).

So if you left your base for 30 hours.  If we processed this all real time, that's over 100,000 updates.  If, instead, we wait until the ship has focus again, we do that same net change in five updates.  Which is a pretty significant difference.

Now multiply this by 100 craft, each with 20 converters.  

Note that this catch up is even happening when you are there with an active vessel.  i.e. if you are at 10x warp, we are still chunking your updates from 50 times per second to 5 times per second.  

[MaxwellsDemon]

Recently installed USI Life support, and am enjoying the "mid-range complexity" of the system.

I did wonder, though; the EC 'consumed' by Kerbals... is that an abstraction meant to represent the power needed to run the heater, keep the lights on for them, and recharge their cell phones?

[blu3wolf]

Nah, they are literally plugged into the ship, and require ECs for sustenance.

 

 

[RoverDude]

7 hours ago, MaxwellsDemon said:

Recently installed USI Life support, and am enjoying the "mid-range complexity" of the system.

I did wonder, though; the EC 'consumed' by Kerbals... is that an abstraction meant to represent the power needed to run the heater, keep the lights on for them, and recharge their cell phones?

Yes - mostly environmental control, and keeping things like air cyclers/etc. running.

[Glaran K'erman]

 I usually have a fair amount of part-hungry stations and always appreciated the "Disassemble" feature to clean up extra RCS thrusters, batteries, and such after docking. Now for memory purposes pre-1.1 and just to try other things since I had always built around the suite, I have had the USI mods uninstalled for quite a while now. Now, I believe I have narrowed down this feature to one of the USI mods and am desperate to find the most bare bones way of acquiring it again. Hope someone can help...

[ExplorerKlatt]

4 minutes ago, Glaran K'erman said:

 I usually have a fair amount of part-hungry stations and always appreciated the "Disassemble" feature to clean up extra RCS thrusters, batteries, and such after docking. Now for memory purposes pre-1.1 and just to try other things since I had always built around the suite, I have had the USI mods uninstalled for quite a while now. Now, I believe I have narrowed down this feature to one of the USI mods and am desperate to find the most bare bones way of acquiring it again. Hope someone can help...

IIRC, that is a feature of MKS.