[1.12.x] USI Life Support

[ruiluth]

4 hours ago, Wyzard said:

BTW, I notice that having a kerbal go on EVA, even briefly, resets the "hab" timer.  Is that intentional?  On the one hand, it makes sense, since the kerbal is getting a chance to stretch his/her legs.  On the other hand, it makes the timer kinda pointless since you can reset it at any time just by clicking the EVA button to go outside and then pressing "B" to get back in.  Or am I missing something?

I've observed something similar. My Jool-III ship, on a mission to Duna, had enough hab space for 4 kerbals for 6 years. When I first launched it, they had 6 years of hab time and 8 years of home time. That was a little weird but it was okay. It got weird when I undocked the 3-person lander to descend to Duna and visit Ike. Jeb, Bill, and Bob had 15 days of hab time and 7 years of home time as I expected after a year-long voyage, but Valentina, who now had command of a much larger ship, jumped up to 42 years of hab time and 43 years of home time. When the lander came back, Jeb, Bill, and Bob reset to the same amount of time they had at the beginning: 6 years of hab and 8 years of home. Valentina was really weird, with 5 years of hab time and 43 years of home time. I'm not sure if this is even fixable or should be changed, but the point is that really weird things happen with hab time sometimes and that seems to be normal.

[Wyzard]

Here's another quirk.  I have two kerbals in a Mk2 lander can, and each initially have "hab" and "home" times of 45 hours (the baseline 0.25 kerbal-months per seat).  I send one out on EVA to stretch his legs, and the other kerbal, still in the cabin, now has the whole place to himself.  That's a nicer accomodation — one kerbal in a space meant for two — so his "home" time jumps to 90 hours.  Bring the one kerbal back inside and send the other out, and the same thing happens.  Now both kerbals are willing to spend 90 hours away from home instead of their initial 45.

As far as I can see, this should generalize: no matter how big the ship or how many kerbals in it, with a bit of airlock juggling you can give each kerbal the brief experience of being the only kerbal in the ship, and stave off homesickness significantly for all of them.

This seems kinda broken, but it's not clear how it could be fixed.  Maybe something related to loneliness, where kerbals actually don't like being alone in a big ship.

[bounty123]

3 hours ago, ruiluth said:

 When the lander came back, Jeb, Bill, and Bob reset to the same amount of time they had at the beginning: 6 years of hab and 8 years of home. Valentina was really weird, with 5 years of hab time and 43 years of home time. 

As far as I know, this sounds to work as intended. Home time is based on the largest ever hab value the kerbal has ever seen. When her mates left, Valentinas home value got multiplied as she had the whole huge ship for herself, and this will count down from this large value from now on.

[Terwin]

Had an odd bug last night.

I had a cargo vessel making a delivery to my Mun base and I figured that as I was heading that way, I would grab and deliver an old med-bay in kerbin orbit that I had rescued a kerbal from a few weeks prior.

When I finished my ejection burn(about 2.5 hours into the flight and about 20 minutes after I grabbed the med bay) I noticed that I only had a handfull of supplies and a full load of mulch.  

As I had a 25000 nom-o-matic that had launched with full fertilizer and supplies, a 79% recycling part(for 3) and only 2 kerbals on board, I had not expected supplies to ever drop below full.

Estimating backwards, I figure that when I klawed the med-bay that because the med-bay was considered the parent vessel(the name was changed from cargo ship to med-bay), all kerbals on-board consumed resources for the entire time the med-bay was floating abandoned in orbit.

If I get a chance, I'll set up a USI-only game and try to create a save just a few meters away from grabbing a derilict med-bay(assuming I can reproduce the suspected scenario reliably when and old bay is klawed), but I'm leaving for a week and a half on Sat morning, so I wanted to mention this should I forget or otherwise not have time. 

 

Fortunately, it did not have a negative impact on my game, but I could see it causing problems for others.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Terwin

[mcortez]

I had something similar happen to me.

I had a station in Kerbin orbit with 3 crew members on board that I de-crewed and abandoned while focusing on sending a couple of probes out to Duna for science.  After my probe science missions were complete, I went to recrew the station.  As soon as my shuttle with a full 2.5m supplies tank on board docked with the station, it instantly emptied all of the supplies in my shuttle and all my mulch was maxed out.  I also had a nom-o-matic 25000 and a 79% recycler on the station.  My shuttle had no recyclers or agro since it was only intended for short hops up to the station.

When all the supplies were consumed everyone went grumpy (tourist). I just ended up sending up a second shuttle with more supplies to top off the station. Then things returned to normal.

Edited December 14, 2016 by mcortez
Fixed stupid phone auto corrections

[RoverDude]

On 12/10/2016 at 11:42 AM, Wyzard said:

I notice that when I'm not focused on a spacecraft, its EC time remaining in the Life Support Status window decreases as if it's ignoring the craft's EC production from solar panels and such.  When I switch back to controlling the craft, the EC timer goes back to what it should be.

Someone else mentioned this a few pages back, but in connection with the "micro holiday" that turned out to be a habitation bug, so I wanted to bring it up as something that's still an issue independently of that.  Notably, I didn't get any messages about kerbals going on strike or returning to work when I switched to a craft whose EC meter was "expired" before the switch, even though it was in the green last time I had focus on it, and was back in the green after switching to it.  Presumably USI-LS doesn't do its checking until after the game's catch-up mechanics have accounted for all the EC produced while the craft was unfocused.

Since it doesn't seem to trigger penalties, it's not really a big problem, but seeing "expired" in the LS status window is a bit confusing/misleading.  (I'm thinking I may just turn off the EC requirements, actually — most spacecraft produce enough EC to keep their batteries full when not in focus, and if it really does run out, you lose habitation, which has its own consequences.)

As noted, has to do with catch-up mechanics.  Fairly easy to have this just be listed as 'Unknown' when not in focus.

@Wyzard, @Uberns, @ruiluth

The Hab/Home are working as intended based on what you are posting.  And now you see why there are two of them   Remember - if EITHER is exceeded, it is a fail case.  So yes, while having Kerbals shuffle around a bit will help the Home timer, it will not increase the hab timer for their current vessel (i.e. there's no way to make a kerbal ever last longer than five years in a five year hab vessel, even if their home value is 100 years long.

It's buried deeper in the thread of course, but there's a method to all of this - it's original use case being to allow for transit vessels with significantly less hab space than the final destination (say. a 2-yr vessel for transit to a 20-yr base), or the reverse - a 5 yr vessel then transfer to a 7 day lander and back to the 5 yr vessel to go home.

 

1 hour ago, Terwin said:

Had an odd bug last night.

I had a cargo vessel making a delivery to my Mun base and I figured that as I was heading that way, I would grab and deliver an old med-bay in kerbin orbit that I had rescued a kerbal from a few weeks prior.

When I finished my ejection burn(about 2.5 hours into the flight and about 20 minutes after I grabbed the med bay) I noticed that I only had a handfull of supplies and a full load of mulch.  

As I had a 25000 nom-o-matic that had launched with full fertilizer and supplies, a 79% recycling part(for 3) and only 2 kerbals on board, I had not expected supplies to ever drop below full.

Estimating backwards, I figure that when I klawed the med-bay that because the med-bay was considered the parent vessel(the name was changed from cargo ship to med-bay), all kerbals on-board consumed resources for the entire time the med-bay was floating abandoned in orbit.

If I get a chance, I'll set up a USI-only game and try to create a save just a few meters away from grabbing a derilict med-bay(assuming I can reproduce the suspected scenario reliably when and old bay is klawed), but I'm leaving for a week and a half on Sat morning, so I wanted to mention this should I forget or otherwise not have time. 

 

Fortunately, it did not have a negative impact on my game, but I could see it causing problems for others.

I would REALLY want a save on this.

1 hour ago, mcortez said:

I had something similar happen to me.

I had a station in Kerbin orbit with 3 crew members on board that I de-crewed and abandoned while focusing on sending a couple of probes out to Duna for science.  After my probe science missions were complete, I went to recrew the station.  As soon as my shuttle with a full 2.5m supplies tank on board docked with the station, it instantly emptied all of the supplies in my shuttle and all my mulch was maxed out.  I also had a nom-o-matic 25000 and a 79% recycler on the station.  My shuttle had no recyclers or agro since it was only intended for short hops up to the station.

When all the supplies were consumed everyone went grumpy (tourist). I just ended up sending up a second shuttle with more supplies to top off the station. Then things returned to normal.

Same.  Should be trivial to take care of... once I have a save

[dboi88]

@RoverDude I've found the hab timers in the life support GUI don't take into account the 'Deployable Emergency Shelter's Hab boost when the craft isn't focused. So the hab timer runs to expired but jumps back up when i return to the vessel. Is this a bug or expected?

[RoverDude]

Sounds like a bug.  Issue with a save would be good

[Wyzard]

9 hours ago, RoverDude said:

i.e. there's no way to make a kerbal ever last longer than five years in a five year hab vessel, even if their home value is 100 years long.

…except by clicking the EVA button.    Going out and back in seems to count as a vessel transfer, which resets the hab timer.  Since you can EVA as often as you want, hab time can be extended indefinitely, and home time is the only real limit.

Since I think all my posts in this thread have been about issues with habitation, I hope I don't come across as bashing — the hab stuff is interesting, and it's a big part of why I switched from Snacks to USI-LS.  I understand the purpose of the separate hab/home timers and I think it's a good idea.  But it's a bit rough around the edges (understandably, since the mod is version 0.5), so I'm trying to provide constructive criticism.

On a somewhat-related note, I've noticed that some of the numbers in hab modules' right-click descriptions (in the editor's parts list) don't seem to match what's shown in the life-support status window, and I don't know whether it's a bug or if I'm just misunderstanding something.  In particular:

• The PPD-12 cupola says "Kerbal-Months: 1" in its right-click description, but its "extra time" (BaseKerbalMonths) is zero, so it actually just gets the 0.25 kerbal-months per seat that all crewed parts get.  The status window in the editor shows its total hab time as just under 20 days, which matches what I get when I calculate it by hand.
• Likewise, the Hitchhiker says "Kerbal-Months: 25", but its BaseKerbalMonths is actually 21.  Together with 0.25 from each of four seats, its time is actually 22 months, or 660 days.  (That should be 1 year and 234 days, since a Kerbin year is 426 days, but the status window shows it as 1 year and 235 days.)  It seems like the "Kerbal-Months:" number is calculated as if BaseTime is 1.0, when it's really 0.25.
• The PPD-12 cupola also shows "Crew Affected: 2" for the hab module even though its crew capacity is 1.  I can't tell how it's supposed to affect a second kerbal differently from a third and beyond; my best guess is that only two kerbals should get the 1.65 added to the multiplier, but when I add another crewed part (like a Hitchhiker or mk1 crew cabin), the status window seems to show all the seats getting the multiplier.  (However, a PPD-12 plus Hitchhiker shows just under 4 years and 69 days for a single kerbal, but calculating it myself I get 58.9625 months, which is just under 4 years and 65 days.  The hab time shown for 5 kerbals matches my own calculation.)

BTW, "multiplier" is misspelled "multipler" in the right-click part description.

[Jaxx]

*prays that a 1.25m stack recycler is added because the radial one man recycler offsets thrust torque*

[ruiluth]

50 minutes ago, Wyzard said:

…except by clicking the EVA button.    Going out and back in seems to count as a vessel transfer, which resets the hab timer.  Since you can EVA as often as you want, hab time can be extended indefinitely, and home time is the only real limit.

I agree with this, and I'll add that it's really easy to extend home time in a multi-kerbal ship just by moving them all out and having them inhabit it one by one to get the maximum effect. The habitation mechanic is one of my favorite things in any mod ever since it forces me to build awesome giant interplanetary cruisers but at this point it is more of a roleplaying guideline than a mechanical requirement, since it's so easy to get around.

[jd284]

I just created a ticket about this but then I figured the discussion might be better placed here.

The information window showing remaining supplies, EC and hab time etc. is currently very cluttered. I'll be happy to help with the implementation if you like, just let me know if my ideas are good and should be changed as proposed or not. I don't want to waste time on a pull request that would just be rejected.

In my opinion, the main point this window should answer is whether things are going well or whether I need to intervene somewhere, i.e.:

• is there any vessel in danger of running out of supplies or hab time soon?
• how long is the active vessel good to go on unattended?
• (only if the hab time is running out:) which kerbal(s) need attention?

Therefore it would be very helpful if the following points could be improved:

• supplies and EC remaining are the same for all occupants, therefore showing it repeatedly is redundant, just show it once per vessel at the top
• (maybe optional) show times with only two significant units (if KSP can format them like that?), I don't need to see the times down to the second for multi-year timers
• sort by the kerbal's remaining hab time (either vessel time or home time, whichever is shorter) so that the shortest remaining hab time is on top
• allow collapsing the list of the individual hab times, and only show the shortest hab time of all vessel occupants (this could be a button to collapse it, a checkbox to select the type of view, etc.)
• sort the list of vessels by shortest time remaining (supplies or hab, disregard EC for this), but put the active vessel on top of the list
• (maybe optional) show the remaining supplies and hab time in green without factoring in the grace period (like is done in the VAB), switch to orange and display the grace period only after supplies or hab run out (currently I have to subtract the 15 days to find out how long the supplies are actually going to last; I don't want to consistently starve my kerbals near the end of every transfer)

Regarding the things I proposed as optional, let me know if it'd be better to put them in the general setup window, or as controls in the status window.

[tsaven]

RD, I'm unfortunately not able to offer a save file for this as it's in a career game that's pretty heavily modded.

I've got a Mun base with 4 kerbals and very few supplies, but a greenhouse with tons of fertilizer that can easily keep up with the mulch produced.  When I've got the base in focus, it typically showed ~45 days of Supplies remaining.

When I came back to the base after about 60 days, it's showing the Supply timer as "Expired", although the Kerbals are not tourists and can still work and EVA just fine.  They've got plenty of Supplies on the vessel still, as well.

Is this a known issue?

[jd284]

@tsaven, I've reported it in #176. You can tell by the supplies consumption being negative that you have a recycler running at >100% load. Remove some machinery from it until it's not above 100%.

[RoverDude]

FYI this bug is fixed in the next update, doing a constellation update this weekend

[dboi88]

29 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

FYI this bug is fixed in the next update, doing a constellation update this weekend

YAY!

[Odonian]

USI LS parts give a great boost to the form and function of any space. Above is the interior of a NOM-O-MATIC agridome I am preparing to send to Minmus. Thanks for all the amazing work you do, @RoverDude!

Edited December 16, 2016 by Odonian

[Wyzard]

I notice that under "Hydroponics" in the tech tree, there are some old Nom-O-Matic parts whose manufacturer is listed as "USI - *LEGACY*".  Are those meant to appear there?  I assume the parts still need to exist for backward compatibility, but i've read that mods often assign deprecated parts to a nonexistent tech node (such as "unresearchable") so they don't appear in the tech tree if they haven't already been unlocked.  So this is either a bug report or a suggestion, depending on whether the legacy USI parts were intended to be hidden in the same way.

(For the time being, I'll just suppress them with MM, so that they don't clutter my parts list in the VAB.)

[jd284]

If you see these parts, then you've started your savegame with an older version of USI-LS that had them as "official" parts. They've now been deprecated, which means that in new savegames you won't see them, and for now ships using them won't break yet, but you should replace them when you can because they'll be gone soon.

[DStaal]

9 minutes ago, jd284 said:

If you see these parts, then you've started your savegame with an older version of USI-LS that had them as "official" parts. They've now been deprecated, which means that in new savegames you won't see them, and for now ships using them won't break yet, but you should replace them when you can because they'll be gone soon.

That would be logical, but since I see them in a fresh 1.2.2 install where I haven't tried to load an old savefile in at all yet, it's not the case here.

[DStaal]

Important add-on note to the above: One of the other mods I do have installed (I'm slowly re-growing my list, making sure everything still works) is Filter Extensions, which could be doing something with it.

[Wyzard]

I just tested with a new career game and no mods except USI-LS and the dependencies that come bundled with it, and the legacy parts appear in the tech tree under Survivability.  If I also install Community Tech Tree, the parts are in Hydroponics instead.  I'm not using Filter Extensions.

[RoverDude]

These will be deprecated next release.

[tsaven]

I'm curious as to the plans for the wear mechanic.  It's disabled currently, is there an anticipated return or is it gone for good?

Nevermind, wrong thread.

Edited December 17, 2016 by tsaven

[archnem]

I have a bug that I can't figure out.  When starting a new game, both the "Life Support Setup" and VAB life support screen are completely blank, until I launch a vessel and open the monitoring screen.  Then both screens show up, but now the VAB monitor shows completely the wrong values for habitation, for instance, a hitchhiker module shows 165 days of habitation in the monitor, but when I launch it, it shows 7 days of hab.

I've deleted and reinstalled KSP, I've uninstalled every mod except MKS/USI-LS/KAS/KIS, I've rolled back Module Manager from 2.7.5 to 2.7.3, I've tried running both 32 and 64 bit KSP, I don't even know what's going on or what you might need to help, but it is making me pull what little hair I have out.