[1.12.x] USI Life Support

[quasitonality]

With that in mind, I just took a second look at my screen cap, and that vessel actually does look like a junkheap cobbled together from found parts... I'm starting to get a little worried about Bob and Jeb.

[quasitonality]

After unlocking more parts, I'm realizing that the feature I suggested may not have much gameplay effect when greenhouses are used, so I guess it's really not a big deal in the scheme of things. (Back on default settings now btw, unless I screwed up somewhere) This nuclear explorer should support a single pilot indefinitely as long as it gets resupplied with fertilizer between trips -

About 4m^3 of farming will (continually!) produce enough food/oxygen (and water!) to keep a kerbal alive indefinitely, which I think is actually great from a gameplay perspective - if volume, weight, and harvest times were accurately modeled it would be a pain to manage, and it would be like playing a completely different game. ("Hydroponics Simulator!")

Altogether, the system strikes a good balance of adding realistic-ish LS concepts while keeping things kerbal. Much satisfied, very respect! +20

[Terwin]

21 hours ago, quasitonality said:

In reality, supply consumption varies drastically depending on the nature of the mission; I think it would be interesting if supply consumption were vessel, mission, or colony-dependent in some way, rather than being a fixed rate for all situations. Not to replace recycling or farming systems, but as an additional factor to consider - basically, a kerbal's life-style determines their base rate of supply consumption/unit-time (how often do they shower, do they demand cake for dessert, are they washing laundry/dishes, etc), and that number is then further modified by recyclers just as it is currently.

If you have MKS installed(and the parts unlocked) you can readily do all of that.

Water purifiers which dramatically cut supply usage(so long as you have a steady supply of water to consume), Greenhouses supplying either supplying supplies directly from minerals+fertilizer or producing bulk organics for further processing into luxuries(which maintain crew happiness/reverse the habitation clock when consumed through a colonization module), etc.

 

I think it is generally along the lines of:

Just supplies: snacks for a short trip

Supplies+recyclers: short-term endurance

Nom-o-Matic: longer endurance missions (at this point primary concern is cabin fever)

Full base with 50+ year habitation(stops habitation clock) and Fertilizer harvesting: bare-bones long term colony

Base with 50+ years habitation and Production/consumption of Colony supplies: Long term colony/vacation spot where kerbals would bring or bring up families(yes MKS can add 'baby' colonists over time)

[Tonka Crash]

My two cents: I don't think 10.8 kg/day is excessive, if you are talking about a 24 hour day. Since KSP is based on a 6 hour day, I divide the USI-LS consumption by 4 to make consumption rate more reasonable to me.

What I really don't like is having one recycler the size of a hitchhiker can and then throw lots of RT-500s as the only volume & mass efficient way to get recycler coverage for a crew. Even looking at the MKS parts, none of the recyclers cover more than 6 Kerbals. Just from the part count standpoint there should be a better way to scale recycler coverage for larger craft that already have high part counts. It would be nice if part upgrades were implemented to expand the number of Kerbals per recycler and/or boost the recycler efficiency at higher tech levels. 

Before someone counters with arguments for using MKS, I have zero interest in the MKS game mechanics, USI-LS is just enough. I'm also am not of fan of large parts packs where I'm only interested in a couple parts.

[goldenpsp]

28 minutes ago, Tonka Crash said:

My two cents: I don't think 10.8 kg/day is excessive, if you are talking about a 24 hour day. Since KSP is based on a 6 hour day, I divide the USI-LS consumption by 4 to make consumption rate more reasonable to me.

What I really don't like is having one recycler the size of a hitchhiker can and then throw lots of RT-500s as the only volume & mass efficient way to get recycler coverage for a crew. Even looking at the MKS parts, none of the recyclers cover more than 6 Kerbals. Just from the part count standpoint there should be a better way to scale recycler coverage for larger craft that already have high part counts. It would be nice if part upgrades were implemented to expand the number of Kerbals per recycler and/or boost the recycler efficiency at higher tech levels. 

Before someone counters with arguments for using MKS, I have zero interest in the MKS game mechanics, USI-LS is just enough. I'm also am not of fan of large parts packs where I'm only interested in a couple parts.

The mass of supplies has been talked about ad nauseum in this thread.  Luckily it is pretty configurable so you can adjust it to your own needs.  Modulemanager is an amazing mod and with it you can quickly and easily make other recycler parts from stock parts or any other part you may like, no modelling or real programming needed.

[Space_Coyote]

I'm a bit confused about how to build say a space station in orbit that would be able to keep a crew of at least 6 to 10 kerbals alive for 5 years .. I'm wondering what parts or units I would need to keep said kerbals alive.. from the way the resource iagrams shows, I need a lot of items up there including machinery, water, fertilizer and some reclblaes..

 

I'm just curoous how to create said ship to remain in orbit for at least 5 years.. and what the trick is to do so..

 

So if anyone can give me some insight into this it would be most appreciated..

 

Space_Coyote

[Brigadier]

3 hours ago, Space_Coyote said:

I'm a bit confused about how to build say a space station in orbit that would be able to keep a crew of at least 6 to 10 kerbals alive for 5 years .. I'm wondering what parts or units I would need to keep said kerbals alive.. from the way the resource iagrams shows, I need a lot of items up there including machinery, water, fertilizer and some reclblaes..

I'm just curoous how to create said ship to remain in orbit for at least 5 years.. and what the trick is to do so..

So if anyone can give me some insight into this it would be most appreciated..

Space_Coyote

Do you mean keeping the Kerbals in orbit without ferrying supplies (all forms, not just the LS 'Supplies') from Kerbin?  Can't really be done without either the raw materials or the finished products unless your going to bring plenty of containers.

You'll need lots of living space, enough recyclers for the crew (to reduce consumption), and agroponics (to create supplies), storage, etc.  I would suggest you play around in the VAB or SPH in a sandbox game as you build a station and monitor the changes in the LS window (Supplies and Hab) to get a basic feel for what happens.  Supplies are pretty easy.  Hab and Home can be a little harder but you'll get a sense of what is required to extend mission duration for that long.

You could check the MKS/LS wiki, too.

[Terwin]

On 10/12/2018 at 11:35 PM, Space_Coyote said:

I'm a bit confused about how to build say a space station in orbit that would be able to keep a crew of at least 6 to 10 kerbals alive for 5 years .. I'm wondering what parts or units I would need to keep said kerbals alive.. from the way the resource iagrams shows, I need a lot of items up there including machinery, water, fertilizer and some reclblaes..

 

I'm just curoous how to create said ship to remain in orbit for at least 5 years.. and what the trick is to do so..

 

So if anyone can give me some insight into this it would be most appreciated..

 

Space_Coyote

Well, to start with the large inflatable hab-ring gives you ~500 kerbal months of habitation time, getting you most of the way there for Habitation.  Add in a few observation copulas and a habitat or two and you should be good on that front.

For Supplies you will want the 2.5m recycler ('Mobile Processing Lab' I think) supplemented by roughly 10 RT-500's(the surface-attach ones) to reduce consumption to 21% for 10 kerbals and an inline Nom-o-matic(which could support 2.6 kerbals without recyclers or ~12.5 kerbals with 79% recycling)  To keep the in-line recycler fully stocked with ferilizer for 5 years would take ~5500 fertilizer, which could be supplied by 1 2.5m fertilizer tank and 2 1.25m fertilizer tanks.

Fill up the supplies and fertilizer tanks in your nom-o-matic for extra margin(and because kerbals can't eat fertilizer so you need at least some supplies to start)

Add in enough power to keep everything running, and that should keep your kerbals healthy for  the duration you are after.

 

[Loskene]

On 9/11/2018 at 9:34 PM, Johould said:

I assume your "die" is accurate, but if so I'm curious how you like that difficulty setting. I went with the "Normal" career default of Kerbals just getting "grumpy" because I wanted to leave things easy for myself, but I think it has also made life support failures or poor planning more interesting, by leaving living tourists that need a rescue mission (maybe losing parts to "mutiny" would make things even more interesting).

Well I don't have them die for every situation, I try to keep my modded installs realistic without going full realism overhaul, which never runs properly for me anyway. So I have them set to grumpy for going without food (we'll say they go into stasis or something), same if they run out of habitation, but if they go without EC for the entire grace period they die. This is to simulate a complete life support failure resulting in loss of crew. If for some reason a ship or base goes without power for 2 weeks that's kind of on me, and it's probably longer than a crew would really survive if the ship's air scrubbers stopped scrubbing and the lights went out.

I don't play with mutiny or anything on though because I don't like leaving mission failure scenarios up to random chance. I taunt the laws of probability enough in some of my missions as it is.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Loskene

[captainb]

First time for me using USI-LS, I am working on a 4-crew flags and footprints round trip mission to Duna.  I think I have misunderstood some aspect of how the fertilizer resource interacts with the Nom-O-Matic 5000 Greenhouse.  Looking at my ship in the VAB I'm seeing endurance of 1y 94d without and 2y 305d with fertilizer.

Spoiler

However, when I look at the same vessel in LKO, I only see the 1y 94d endurance per crew with no boost from the fertilizer that's present onboard.

Spoiler

So what gives?  Am I reading the VAB status report wrong?

[Brigadier]

3 hours ago, captainb said:

So what gives?  Am I reading the VAB status report wrong?

Did you turn on the life support (Start Agroponics) in each of the Nom-O-Matics?

Edited October 24, 2018 by Brigadier

[overkill13]

Is anyone else using USI-LS (from the Constellation release) with KSP 1.5.1 and getting indefinite for all habitation timers?

Don't mind me.  Hit up the settings file, set homesickness issues to 1 AND had to delete my currently running test save and start a new game to reset the settings for that game load.  All seems well now.

Edited October 26, 2018 by overkill13

[captainb]

On 10/24/2018 at 1:18 AM, Brigadier said:

Did you turn on the life support (Start Agroponics) in each of the Nom-O-Matics?

Yes, both units are on and at 100% load.  They started with full EC and fertilizer and are slowly accumulating Mulch and Supplies. 

23 hours ago, overkill13 said:

Is anyone else using USI-LS (from the Constellation release) with KSP 1.5.1 and getting indefinite for all habitation timers?

Don't mind me.  Hit up the settings file, set homesickness issues to 1 AND had to delete my currently running test save and start a new game to reset the settings for that game load.  All seems well now.

you can also change the severity of habitation timers from the main menu

[Terwin]

On 10/26/2018 at 8:16 PM, captainb said:

Yes, both units are on and at 100% load.  They started with full EC and fertilizer and are slowly accumulating Mulch and Supplies. 

While it may have changed without my notice, outside of the VAB the status only reflects current resources(supplies, electricity, habitation) and not production(Nom-o-matics, colony supplies, converters, etc), so I would not expect the 1y 94d number to go down for a couple of years(when you run out of fertilizer), but I also would not expect to see that 2 years listed anywhere outside of the VAB.

[captainb]

On 10/29/2018 at 11:50 AM, Terwin said:

While it may have changed without my notice, outside of the VAB the status only reflects current resources(supplies, electricity, habitation) and not production(Nom-o-matics, colony supplies, converters, etc), so I would not expect the 1y 94d number to go down for a couple of years(when you run out of fertilizer), but I also would not expect to see that 2 years listed anywhere outside of the VAB.

Yes, you are right.  I started a new test save and played with a few configurations  The in-flight status window only reflects time to consume current on-board supplies, not factoring in greenhouses.  Which means I need to remember the number from the VAB and compare to the MET to see how I'm doing until the fertilizer runs out.

Edit:  I did figure out that my 2x Nom-O-Matics 500 aren't producing nearly enough supplies to keep up with the needs of 4 kerbals, which means I need a spacecraft re-design

Edited October 31, 2018 by captainb
Forgot something

[dlrk]

I edited the wiki page to reflect the current default of 1 kerbal-week per seat.

[Ahres]

I try as hard as I can to not bug modders with my troubles but I’ve tried long and hard enough that it’s time I post on here. 

I’ve used USI-LS since 1.3 and have added it to every version I’ve played since (1.3, 1.3.1, 1.4.1, 1.4.3, and now 1.5.1) and every time without fail the first attempt at its installation in each version would only partially show the mod in the game. By this I mean the parts show up, the MKS customization in the career settings menu shows up, but the USI-LS app doesn’t show up in the toolbar to configure the mod to my liking or to view the status of vessels with life support. 

Eventually I’d get the mod to install properly but with no apparent rhyme or reason. I’d just delete the folders from GameData and run the game and then reinstall and run the game again and it’d work. I’ve attempted this three times now on 1.5.1 to no avail. 

I even went so far as pulling my USI-LS folders from my 1.4.3 save where it’s working properly so that I know I’m adding the correct files to GameData, still no success. 

Searches reveal that this is not a common problem which surprises me since I’ve had it happen every time on every version of KSP that I’ve attempted the initial install. 

I like to think I know how to install mods since I’ve got a fair number of others and they work just fine. What on Kerbin am I doing wrong here? It’s driving me nuts. I’ll keep uninstalling and installing. But I know it shouldn’t have to be this way. 

[Tyko]

 

4 minutes ago, Ahres said:

I’ve attempted this three times now on 1.5.1 to no avail. 

I even went so far as pulling my USI-LS folders from my 1.4.3 save where it’s working properly so that I know I’m adding the correct files to GameData, still no success. 

It probably needs to be recompiled to work in 1.5.x. You can see there's been activity on Github, so it's actively being worked. I'm sure @RoverDude will release it when he's done updating.

[Ahres]

Just now, Tyko said:

 

It probably needs to be recompiled to work in 1.5.x. You can see there's been activity on Github, so it's actively being worked. I'm sure @RoverDude will release it when he's done updating.

That’s what I thought until I thought about how it’s happened for me for all previous versions I’ve used. Plus I read in earlier posts that it’s working in 1.5.1 anyway. 

[Tyko]

Just now, Ahres said:

That’s what I thought until I thought about how it’s happened for me for all previous versions I’ve used. Plus I read in earlier posts that it’s working in 1.5.1 anyway. 

I've had the same problem you had since 1.3. Every time I've tried CKAN I've had the "doesn't show in the toolbar" problem.  It seems to work better if you download from Github and manually install. Not sure how you were installing, just sharing what's worked for me.

[Ahres]

9 minutes ago, Tyko said:

I've had the same problem you had since 1.3. Every time I've tried CKAN I've had the "doesn't show in the toolbar" problem.  It seems to work better if you download from Github and manually install. Not sure how you were installing, just sharing what's worked for me.

That’s interesting to know for those that might come looking through this that have the same problem, but I’ve never touched CKAN. I do manual installs for everything.

I could never find a difference between all the failed attempted installs and the one that finally was successful, but this time around on 1.5.1 they’re all failing. You’re the first one I’ve seen that’s mentioned having this problem too, so I’m glad it’s not just me. 

But if there’s been some new activity showing on github then I better just quiet down and wait for an official 1.5.1 version. 

[Friend Bear]

I have looked everywhere and only find answers that require scripts so I wanted to ask here...

My kerbals were lost after running out of supplies and becoming tourists. Once they respawned, they remained tourists. I even tried putting them in a craft with supplies on the launching pad and they still remain tourists.

How do I reset them to their original status? I am concerned this would happen on a trip and I could do nothing about it, even after providing supplies subsequently.

Perhaps it is not a bug but that something needs to happen in game? I couldn't find what to do and am still looking.

 

Thanks!

---------

Update>

The kerbal I put in a pod with food then recalled is now back to her normal pilot self...but the kerbal I did nothing with is still a tourist.

Seems like a bug that needs fixing because it would be unreasonable to do this with every kerbal who enters tourist mode, so please let me know if I missed something. Thank you!

Edited November 2, 2018 by Friend Bear

[CajunInABox]

I haven't been able to determine if Angel-125 is planning on supporting USI-LS in Pathfinder, but I've seen others say they've created custom configs to do just that. Where would I go to learn how to do that?

[RoverDude]

35 minutes ago, CajunInABox said:

I haven't been able to determine if Angel-125 is planning on supporting USI-LS in Pathfinder, but I've seen others say they've created custom configs to do just that. Where would I go to learn how to do that?

Which part?  The config files themselves or what specific settings to use in the configs to make sure things are balanced?

[CajunInABox]

52 minutes ago, RoverDude said:

Which part?  The config files themselves or what specific settings to use in the configs to make sure things are balanced?

Uh... I guess both? The most I've done with a config is change some numbers