[1.12.x] USI Life Support

[RoverDude]

The best thing to do is just use the Life Support window in the VAB and experiment   There's a sweet spot where the right ratios of multipliers and extenders will give you the best bang for the buck.

[SpacedInvader]

26 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

The best thing to do is just use the Life Support window in the VAB and experiment   There's a sweet spot where the right ratios of multipliers and extenders will give you the best bang for the buck.

Thanks for the tip

[tsaven]

7 hours ago, Dragonking said:

The reactors wouldn´t run out of fuel.I tested this with a little 0.65 meter USI reactor which had a power output of 30 EC/second and it took about 3 years to consume 0.01 enriched uranium of 3.00 that was stored in the reactor and I think all reactors have the same enriched uranium/enriched uranium consumption/power output/enriched uranium storage ratio.

1:  Running all the habitation on that big ship requires something like 500 EC/second.

2:  I'm running NFT Propulsion and Electrics mod, which overwrites the USI reactors simple programming with a more complicated and fuel-hungry system.

[Helmetman]

Does this mod also come with a part that restores used supplies? Or do I need to get resupplies from Kerbin all the way to i.e. Laythe?

Personally I like something like a big greenhouse. Is there a mod that has this that works with USI? Something that I can deploy on the ground that refills the containers?

[JadeOfMaar]

12 minutes ago, Helmetman said:

Does this mod also come with a part that restores used supplies? Or do I need to get resupplies from Kerbin all the way to i.e. Laythe?

Personally I like something like a big greenhouse. Is there a mod that has this that works with USI? Something that I can deploy on the ground that refills the containers?

It's more efficient for long-term trips to bring a greenhouse and loads of Fertilizer rather than just loads of Supplies. Once you learn how to, you can balance a few greenhouses and recyclers, and you'll effectively stretch the dollar very nicely for food.

USI LS contains many greenhouses, but the only device that refills Fertilizer is the stock mini ISRU.

[Helmetman]

@JadeOfMaar Thanks  

[Terwin]

15 hours ago, Helmetman said:

Does this mod also come with a part that restores used supplies? Or do I need to get resupplies from Kerbin all the way to i.e. Laythe?

Personally I like something like a big greenhouse. Is there a mod that has this that works with USI? Something that I can deploy on the ground that refills the containers?

As JadeOfMaar said, without USI MKS, only the small ISRU will generate fertilizer(very slow and inefficient), but there are several ways to generate fertilizer and other resources using MKS(out of raw materials generally pulled out of planetary bodies, but also available from asteroids and 'Resource Nodes' which are a sort of landed asteroid that are a part of MKS that you can collect and process)

 

I have found that unless you are spending at least as much time landed and resupplying as you do in transit, the fertilizer generated by the small ISRU is probably less useful than an extra can of fertilizer with the same weight.

(I think it only makes 2.3 fertilizer per day while requiring > 1 ore per second, but I have not checked recently so I could be off by quite a bit)

 

 

[Helmetman]

@Terwin Yes, I also decided to use both USI and MKS for that after jade's suggestion. I started seriously playing 'career' again on a new stock revamp that is furthermore a heavily modded savegame. The USI and MKS stockish design will fit the game nicely.

2 hours ago, Terwin said:

*SNIP

I have found that unless you are spending at least as much time landed and resupplying as you do in transit, the fertilizer generated by the small ISRU is probably less useful than an extra can of fertilizer with the same weight.

(I think it only makes 2.3 fertilizer per day while requiring > 1 ore per second, but I have not checked recently so I could be off by quite a bit)

 

 

Ah, that is good to know. If these are the values then I probably forget making fertilizer using the ISRU altogether. Anyway, I'm on the 90 science nodes so it will take at least a little time before I get there, so for now I assume those figures are correct.

[kerbalfreak]

How this mod handles time-warps from other ships and converters? I also want to use it with KPBS, is there any calculator for best efficiency and self-sustaining bases? In the case of a self-sustaining base, it will work indefinitely and without any need for management when time-warping from other ships?

Thanks!

Edited November 3, 2017 by kerbalfreak

[Terwin]

17 hours ago, kerbalfreak said:

How this mod handles time-warps from other ships and converters? I also want to use it with KPBS, is there any calculator for best efficiency and self-sustaining bases? In the case of a self-sustaining base, it will work indefinitely and without any need for management when time-warping from other ships?

Thanks!

Stock KSP has a catch-up mechanic that it employs when returning to a vessel that has not been active for a while.(I believe this is switchable in the settings)

If the vessel has been inactive for less than 6 hours of kerbin time, then it will just calculate what should have happened in that lapsed time in one chunk.(like mining ore or converting ore to fuel)

If a vessel has been inactive for more than 6 hours, then KSP will process the down-time in 6 hour chunks(still using the current conditions, so if your base depends on solar panels, I don't recommend returning to when it cannot see the sun).

The value in the 6 hour chunks is that this allows interdependent processes to work. (Example: you have been drilling and refining fuel for 18 hours, if it was done in one chunk, then all of your current ore would be refined, but you would then have 18 hours of unrefined ore, possibly losing some if you do not have enough storage, in 6 hour chunks, you get 3 smaller updates where it calculates how much of the current ore is converted, as well as how much new ore should be added over 6 hours, then updates all values at once, letting you process some of the ore you mined while away before it finishes processing.)

Note: This means that if you have less than 6 hours of storage for something that you are both producing and consuming(such as ore), then you will not get as much effective production, as the production will stop during each 6 hour chunk due to the storage being full, and consumption will also stop due to storage being empty.

 

In addition to the stock mechanic, RoverDude added a resource sharing mechanic that will allow local and planetary warehouses to share resources either with other local vessels, or with the planetary warehouse(depending on what sort of logistics support you have).

This mechanic will try to transfer away resources when local storage is mostly full, and transfer in when local storage is mostly empty, but either way, it only tries to make local storage half-full, so 12 hours of local storage is a good idea when relying on these mechanics(so that you can have 6 hours worth transferred in or out for each batch)

Other than the automatic resource transfers, USI mods(such as USI-LS and USI-MKS) use the stock background processing.

(this is why USI and Kerbalism do not play well together, as Kerbalism re-writes stock background processing  in a way that makes it inaccessible/non-functional for USI mods)

[kerbalfreak]

2 hours ago, Terwin said:

Stock KSP has a catch-up mechanic that it employs when returning to a vessel that has not been active for a while.(I believe this is switchable in the settings)

If the vessel has been inactive for less than 6 hours of kerbin time, then it will just calculate what should have happened in that lapsed time in one chunk.(like mining ore or converting ore to fuel)

If a vessel has been inactive for more than 6 hours, then KSP will process the down-time in 6 hour chunks(still using the current conditions, so if your base depends on solar panels, I don't recommend returning to when it cannot see the sun).

The value in the 6 hour chunks is that this allows interdependent processes to work. (Example: you have been drilling and refining fuel for 18 hours, if it was done in one chunk, then all of your current ore would be refined, but you would then have 18 hours of unrefined ore, possibly losing some if you do not have enough storage, in 6 hour chunks, you get 3 smaller updates where it calculates how much of the current ore is converted, as well as how much new ore should be added over 6 hours, then updates all values at once, letting you process some of the ore you mined while away before it finishes processing.)

Note: This means that if you have less than 6 hours of storage for something that you are both producing and consuming(such as ore), then you will not get as much effective production, as the production will stop during each 6 hour chunk due to the storage being full, and consumption will also stop due to storage being empty.

 

In addition to the stock mechanic, RoverDude added a resource sharing mechanic that will allow local and planetary warehouses to share resources either with other local vessels, or with the planetary warehouse(depending on what sort of logistics support you have).

This mechanic will try to transfer away resources when local storage is mostly full, and transfer in when local storage is mostly empty, but either way, it only tries to make local storage half-full, so 12 hours of local storage is a good idea when relying on these mechanics(so that you can have 6 hours worth transferred in or out for each batch)

Other than the automatic resource transfers, USI mods(such as USI-LS and USI-MKS) use the stock background processing.

(this is why USI and Kerbalism do not play well together, as Kerbalism re-writes stock background processing  in a way that makes it inaccessible/non-functional for USI mods)

I'm immensely grateful with the anwer, thanks! I've made some tests, the clock/countdown dont consider any resource converter or greenhouse, but when I load the vessel everything is as it should be. Tested stations with greenhouses + fertilizer, and self-sustaining bases that uses fuel cells during the night. Even set it to kill the poor Kerbals, and then only are killed when the vessel is loaded, the calculations made and conditions met.

I was using TAC-LS, very great mod, but after I set my self-sustaining base I discovered the calculations are all wrong, and it kills the Kerbals in months, while in the base I can warp forever.

I have more questions, hope I'm not bothering you to much...

I really want to use KPBS, for the simplicity and aesthetics, so i guess the logistics part will not be needed or possible. Any mod you recommend to use with KPBS and USI-LS? Whats your opinion on Kerbalism, disabling all the radiation, science and solar storms stuff?

One more question about perma-hab. The default time is 459 000 000... I guess seconds. It seems to use Kerbin days (6 hours) and Earth years (365, while Kerbin is around 400), so it's really confusing. I read and tested and it seems to be 50 years.

If 459 000 000 / 50 = 9 180 000

9 180 000 is the duration of 1 year? 27 540 000 for 3 years?

Thanks!

[Gilph]

28 minutes ago, kerbalfreak said:

I'm immensely grateful with the anwer, thanks! I've made some tests, the clock/countdown dont consider any resource converter or greenhouse, but when I load the vessel everything is as it should be. Tested stations with greenhouses + fertilizer, and self-sustaining bases that uses fuel cells during the night. Even set it to kill the poor Kerbals, and then only are killed when the vessel is loaded, the calculations made and conditions met.

I was using TAC-LS, very great mod, but after I set my self-sustaining base I discovered the calculations are all wrong, and it kills the Kerbals in months, while in the base I can warp forever.

I have more questions, hope I'm not bothering you to much...

I really want to use KPBS, for the simplicity and aesthetics, so i guess the logistics part will not be needed or possible. Any mod you recommend to use with KPBS and USI-LS? Whats your opinion on Kerbalism, disabling all the radiation, science and solar storms stuff?

One more question about perma-hab. The default time is 459 000 000... I guess seconds. It seems to use Kerbin days (6 hours) and Earth years (365, while Kerbin is around 400), so it's really confusing. I read and tested and it seems to be 50 years.

If 459 000 000 / 50 = 9 180 000

9 180 000 is the duration of 1 year? 27 540 000 for 3 years?

Thanks!

Hi, I have been down this road a lot. I'll share my view for what it's worth.

Using the KPBS/TACLS combination was a lot of fun (plus some greenhouse mods and such). Using USI MKS+LS was a lot of fun also, but in a different way. Using cross sections of this (MKS/TAC, KBPS/USILS) was awkward and way less fun.

Using KPBS is awesome, in a word. The simplicity and aesthetics are wonderful, and the TAC-LS support feels so natural, you'd think it was designed for it. It's not hard to achieve a self sustaining base, once you get the hang of production and consumption rates. USI is based on complicated resource management, manufacturing, and hab/home management. You'll take months figuring out the manufacturing balance to get a self sustaining base.  And, using Konstruction, you can grow bases and do complicated in-situ base construction if you enjoy that sort of thing.  You'll get annoyed when biomes don't give you the resources you need and you need to figure out the best way to use remote production and planetary logistics. But, it's very rewarding when everything works.

It's two different styles of gameplay. Sometimes, I'll run two different career saves using both configs. But, neither is conducive to "warping forever". If you need to do that, then playing LS may not be your best option.

Thanks

[kerbalfreak]

1 hour ago, Gilph said:

Hi, I have been down this road a lot. I'll share my view for what it's worth.

Using the KPBS/TACLS combination was a lot of fun (plus some greenhouse mods and such). Using USI MKS+LS was a lot of fun also, but in a different way. Using cross sections of this (MKS/TAC, KBPS/USILS) was awkward and way less fun.

Using KPBS is awesome, in a word. The simplicity and aesthetics are wonderful, and the TAC-LS support feels so natural, you'd think it was designed for it. It's not hard to achieve a self sustaining base, once you get the hang of production and consumption rates. USI is based on complicated resource management, manufacturing, and hab/home management. You'll take months figuring out the manufacturing balance to get a self sustaining base.  And, using Konstruction, you can grow bases and do complicated in-situ base construction if you enjoy that sort of thing.  You'll get annoyed when biomes don't give you the resources you need and you need to figure out the best way to use remote production and planetary logistics. But, it's very rewarding when everything works.

It's two different styles of gameplay. Sometimes, I'll run two different career saves using both configs. But, neither is conducive to "warping forever". If you need to do that, then playing LS may not be your best option.

Thanks

I've loved TAC-LS with KPBS, and made a self-sustaining base on the Mun, well, at least when it was loaded. Warping from other vessels messed up with resources and killed the kerbals very fast. With the base loaded I warped for years (as a test) without any resource changing. Don't know if it is a bug in my game or not. Nothing that I could think of solved this. So I need to change.

Why do you think USI-LS and KPBS don't go well together? When I say USI-LS it's only the supplies/mulch stuff, none of the MKS and such. I only missed the cool oxygen and CO2 tanks from TAC, everything else is fine. You can make self-sustaing bases with water and little ore, or lots of ore, which produces fertilizer, that converts mulch in supplies. Again, only USI-LS and KPBS, not the other mods made by RoverDude.

I cheated a base on the Mun and worked very well warping years from the space center (again, for testing). A short perma-hab seems right to me, so I can't let a kerbal living in a lander can, and can archive perma-hab time with simple bases. I don't want to warp forever for no reason, but if a base is self-sustaning, I don't think I have to keep looking at it. Would be a nightmare to have various bases that need constant looking everytime I did a interplanetary transfer.

So, KPBS + USI-LS (without MKS), with short perma-hab seems very right to me. I want something with moderate difficult/realism, it's just a game after all.

Thanks for the opinion!!

[RoverDude]

My opinion will always be that if you're here, you're probably here for the habitation challenge.  And if you're just going to hobble it, you might as well just turn it off given that it's pretty well tuned (and probably a little too generous).  And I expect the point is that MKS just has so many different parts suited for this.. the two do go together like peanut butter and jelly.  But to repeat, if you're cranking down one of the major components/limiters (perma-hab) then you're kinda comparing completely different things.

[Gilph]

2 minutes ago, kerbalfreak said:

Why do you think USI-LS and KPBS don't go well together? When I say USI-LS it's only the supplies/mulch stuff, none of the MKS and such. I only missed the cool oxygen and CO2 tanks from TAC, everything else is fine. You can make self-sustaing bases with water and little ore, or lots of ore, which produces fertilizer, that converts mulch in supplies. Again, only USI-LS and KPBS, not the other mods made by RoverDude.

Good question...I think it's because managing the separate TAC LS components added a nicer degree of difficulty and overall realism to me. Worrying about water and co2 and oxygen separately just felt more natural. Generally, I think of KPBS/TAC as using few things to make many resources, and USI as needing many things to make one resource.

I'll admit I got very confused when I switched from KPBS/TAC to USI/USILS. There were greenhouses that weren't greenhouses, there were agroponics (whatever that is) being greenhouses, etc. So, by the time I got it all sorted in my head, I wanted to keep those two worlds separate.

But, the right answer is that nothing's wrong with it if you like it and enjoy dealing with it.

[Arigitine]

I ran in to mod conflict between

Pathfinder

USI Life support

Surface Experiment Pack

If run the 3 mod it causes the pathfinder stop working cant inflate buildings i figure i just let you know 

[DStaal]

I can see turning down the perma-hab.  You'd still have to deal with habitation as a challenge, in both forms, but you'd need less base building to surmount it.

On the other hand, I'd suggest you try it as-is first.  You'd be surprised how quickly some hab parts add together.

[RoverDude]

Sure, the dials are there for a reason.  But when comparing how mod interop works, it makes more sense to compare the out of the box experience as a baseline.  If the best way to get good interop is to crank things down/turn bits off, then it's an indicator that there's an impedence mismatch (like how MKS has a mismatch with TAC-LS because of extra parts you will never use, and I expect KPBS out of the box lacks a lot of the analogues or equivalents to the larger MKS bits).  Nothing wrong with that, but point was at that juncture you are comparing apples to oranges.

 

Edited November 3, 2017 by RoverDude

[DStaal]

KPBS at this point should actually be fairly well balanced for pure USI-LS on it's own.  (I actually was part of the team that wrote those patches...)  It contains analogs for most of the hab and greenhouse parts, including a large variety of recyclers.  (It doesn't have some of the more complex greenhouses or medical facilities that MKS has.)  I was mostly commenting on 'yeah, I can see if you wanted *some* of the challenge that's not a bad way to tune things a bit'.  It makes most flights the same, but makes it so bases and stations aren't as much of a worry.  I don't think the parts pack makes much of a difference in that consideration, if he's thinking of it as a difficulty issue.

Building a large long-term base using KPBS parts actually may be slightly easier than using MKS parts, as many parts have slight multipliers included, and there are some major multipliers available.  In general though they should be comparable in this.

[kerbalfreak]

1 hour ago, RoverDude said:

My opinion will always be that if you're here, you're probably here for the habitation challenge.  And if you're just going to hobble it, you might as well just turn it off given that it's pretty well tuned (and probably a little too generous).  And I expect the point is that MKS just has so many different parts suited for this.. the two do go together like peanut butter and jelly.  But to repeat, if you're cranking down one of the major components/limiters (perma-hab) then you're kinda comparing completely different things.

1 hour ago, DStaal said:

I can see turning down the perma-hab.  You'd still have to deal with habitation as a challenge, in both forms, but you'd need less base building to surmount it.

On the other hand, I'd suggest you try it as-is first.  You'd be surprised how quickly some hab parts add together.

I plan to use only USI-LS and KPBS, without MKS, which habitation is turned off by default. I think both go together very well, and produce a experience very different from MKS. Seems like you think is "wrong" to not use MKS with USI-LS. I think mods should be specific, compatible and interchangeable.

I just want something to force me to add a little more space to the bases, with purpose, instead of being only for decoration and with the game punishing me for the extra mass/space. The mechanics of multipliers is also cool, instead of being only raw crew capacity vs actual crew.

[Terwin]

2 hours ago, kerbalfreak said:

I really want to use KPBS, for the simplicity and aesthetics, so i guess the logistics part will not be needed or possible. Any mod you recommend to use with KPBS and USI-LS? Whats your opinion on Kerbalism, disabling all the radiation, science and solar storms stuff?

[...]
One more question about perma-hab. The default time is 459 000 000... I guess seconds. It seems to use Kerbin days (6 hours) and Earth years (365, while Kerbin is around 400), so it's really confusing. I read and tested and it seems to be 50 years.
 

I have never tried Kerbalism, I just heard that it re-works the on-load processing to be always-on background processing instead.

As I like to run lots of concurrent missions, often with large bases on multiple bodies, always on background processing seems like a bad idea to me(seems like it would be similar to always having hundreds or thousands of extra parts in each scene, and I am not a fan of slide-shows).

Yes, Permahab is 50 years by default, if your base/vessel has 50 years of hab for its occupants(or 1 year for pilots I believe), then they are considered comfortable enough to never get home-sick.  

Note: if the Kolonization rate gets to the Max of 500%, then all kerbals will be satisfied with 1 year of available hab, due to the body being considered fully colonized.  (I guess if you have had that many pilots on the ground for that long, there must be an ample supply of entertainment available, even if it is just watching their make-shift pod races)

 

[kerbalfreak]

1 hour ago, Gilph said:

Good question...I think it's because managing the separate TAC LS components added a nicer degree of difficulty and overall realism to me. Worrying about water and co2 and oxygen separately just felt more natural. Generally, I think of KPBS/TAC as using few things to make many resources, and USI as needing many things to make one resource.

I'll admit I got very confused when I switched from KPBS/TAC to USI/USILS. There were greenhouses that weren't greenhouses, there were agroponics (whatever that is) being greenhouses, etc. So, by the time I got it all sorted in my head, I wanted to keep those two worlds separate.

But, the right answer is that nothing's wrong with it if you like it and enjoy dealing with it.

I agree. But TAC-LS also has many broken numbers and ratios, which is a pain sometimes, and leads to many errors, including from modders trying to balance containers and converters. The supply/mulch is much simpler and pleasant. Both have pros and cons. TAC-LS is not working well in my game, so I don't have much option anyway. And I simply love KPBS, and want to keep it.

Edited November 3, 2017 by kerbalfreak

[RoverDude]

11 minutes ago, kerbalfreak said:

Seems like you think is "wrong" to not use MKS with USI-LS. I think mods should be specific, compatible and interchangeable.

Never said it was 'Wrong' - what i said was that it was an invalid comparison of interop.  Two very different things. 

USI-LS and MKS work a lot better together out of the box than KPBS and MKS.  Which is kinda logical being that each was built with the other in mind.    And the same reason TAC-LS plus MKS is a little weird.  Does not mean either is right or wrong, but you're going to have very different out of the box experiences... so you either deal with it, or have to do changes to make it work better for your personal playstyle.  But as noted, at that point you're making completely different comparisons.

[kerbalfreak]

1 hour ago, RoverDude said:

Never said it was 'Wrong' - what i said was that it was an invalid comparison of interop.  Two very different things. 

USI-LS and MKS work a lot better together out of the box than KPBS and MKS.  Which is kinda logical being that each was built with the other in mind.    And the same reason TAC-LS plus MKS is a little weird.  Does not mean either is right or wrong, but you're going to have very different out of the box experiences... so you either deal with it, or have to do changes to make it work better for your personal playstyle.  But as noted, at that point you're making completely different comparisons.

I dont want to mix KPBS and MKS, that really seems weird. It's KPBS and USI-LS, which seems very good for me. It has two ways of produce fertilizer, and a greenhouse to convert mulch and fertilizer to noms. The converters used in TAC simple reduce the resource use in USI, I do not think it is ideal, but it's ok. It also has a large and generic life-support module that looks very cool and clean, which is not avalible to TAC.

I'm glad that USI-LS has the option to customize all the settings, and everyone can ajust it to your liking. That's the point of modding! And I'm sure you understood why I want to add only a little habitation need for my bases.

[RoverDude]

Just now, kerbalfreak said:

And I'm sure you understood why I want to add only a little habitation need for my bases.

Not really, but rock on

1 minute ago, kerbalfreak said:

I dont want to mix KPBS and MKS, that really seems weird

And never said you should - this was all off of the original question of which pairs of mods work best together and why.